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Dedalus
dedalus
JoinedPosts by dedalus
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22
What have you read that helped you?
by yesidid inmy journey out began with this and other ''eyeopening" internet sites [thank you simon].
i have since read ray franz's two books and greg stafford's "dissertations".
although i am very grateful to have found out that my years of questions had a solid base and i now see the wts for what it is, i have decided i need more positives in my life.
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34
Do You Feel That You Were Brainwashed Into Becoming A JW?
by minimus inmany comments are made that jw's are actually brainwashed.
do you think this is true?
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dedalus
Alan is exactly right about the semantics of "cult" and "brainwashing." The denotations of these words pretty much do the job of describing Witnesses, but their connotations don't always -- and so these words are understandably too distracting to be productive, at least in any discussion with Witnesses. Of course, the phrase "discussion with Witnesses" is sort of an oxymoron, at least if the word "discussion" means anything.
Anyway, I guess my parents tried to brainwash me (read: "inculcate the troof in me"), but it didn't work.
Dedalus
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17
Hey Happy Easter folks!!! Will you be celebrating?
by ISP inwill you be celebrating?
do you go for the chocolate eggs!?
i gotta to work out where to hide some for the kids!.
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dedalus
ROTFLMAO @ Demar!
Dedalus
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Jesus - The GREAT DEBATER
by proplog2 inthe watchtower tries to portray jesus as a person who avoided arguments.. why would they do this?
there are two reasons.
one reason is to keep.
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dedalus
It is obvious that YOU just want to be contrary.
Ya think?
Dedalus
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90
Know what makes me terribly sad about some on these forums?
by Derrick ini find something very distressing not to mention terribly sad about some of you people (and to those who are not one of these people i kindly ask to please don't fly into some "i'm so insulted!
" snit as if i'm wrongfully referring to you).
to those people i'm referring to i say: you rightfully hope for the british and u.s. military to destroy that saddam monster and its minions of mass-murdering/worshippers throughout iraq.
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dedalus
Incidentally, aren't we both a wee bit guilty of avoiding touchy issues in our replies? Didn't you surgically bypass any of my comments about the existence of God and the Bible's message itself (apart from the JW interpretation) in my last post?
I (still) don't have time to reply to all you've written, and I said as much in my last reply -- so I'm not "surgically bypassing" anything. (I especially don't have time since you want to broaden the discussion from the simple fact of a single religion's doctrine to the existence of the Almighty Himself). I did want to tie up the matter of God killing everybody not in his Organization, so we could move onto other things, but you still want to say it's not that simple, so we'll have to wait.
I want to answer you in a way that will be productive and mutually interesting. And I just don't have the time to do that at the moment.
Incidentally, I'm going away tomorrow and may not be back on the board until the weekend.
Be assured that I will reply later, though, because I'm invested in this discussion.
I appreciate your long and thoughtful responses and look forward to taking this all up again. I hope you'll be around to continue things when I return from vacation.
Dedalus
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16
Jesus - The GREAT DEBATER
by proplog2 inthe watchtower tries to portray jesus as a person who avoided arguments.. why would they do this?
there are two reasons.
one reason is to keep.
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dedalus
The point, Room 215, was that Jesus was a lousy debater and teacher. Dedalus
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Jesus - The GREAT DEBATER
by proplog2 inthe watchtower tries to portray jesus as a person who avoided arguments.. why would they do this?
there are two reasons.
one reason is to keep.
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dedalus
Jesus wasn't a great debater. Example:
Jesus to crowd: "If you want eternal blessings, you have to drink my blood and eat my flesh."
Crowd to Jesus: "Ewwww, gross. See you later, wacko."
Apostles to Jesus: "Dude, that was pretty whacked. What's wrong with you?"
Jesus to apostles: "That wasn't what I meant. I meant something else. Ha ha ha!"
Seriously, Jesus mostly spoke using analogies or "illustrations" that were ambiguous and elusive. He never gave a straight answer! People didn't understand what the hell he was talking about, and that's probably why they were left speechless. And in the centuries following his death, people have slaughtered each other disagreeing about his "simple" message.
Dedalus, who likes to remember the time Jesus cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season -- ha ha ha! Stupid Jesus.
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The "immediate future": another typical WTS catch phrase still used
by onacruse instinkypantz sent me a couple of quotes from "the past" that brought back a lot of memories, including this one (bold added):.
*** awake!
october 8 1966 pp.19-20 ***.
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dedalus
The "immediate future" is very nearly an oxymoron that means "the present."
Dedalus
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90
Know what makes me terribly sad about some on these forums?
by Derrick ini find something very distressing not to mention terribly sad about some of you people (and to those who are not one of these people i kindly ask to please don't fly into some "i'm so insulted!
" snit as if i'm wrongfully referring to you).
to those people i'm referring to i say: you rightfully hope for the british and u.s. military to destroy that saddam monster and its minions of mass-murdering/worshippers throughout iraq.
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dedalus
I just want to remind you, Derrick, that you originally made this statement:
You are simply WRONG that the official teaching of JWs is that only JWs will survive Armageddon.
Now you are admitting that the Witnesses do teach that this, for whatever misguided reasons:
... it [the teaching that all non-witnesses will be destroyed at Armageddon] stands and remains JW doctrine ... but I can give breadth on WHY and insight into the (misguided) BASIS for the present GB's and Writing Dept.'s teachings
Whatever breadth you can provide for the reason the Organization teaches this doctrine of genocide is besides the point (for now). Before these latest reponses, you had made an assertion, and in your own roundabout way you've now demonstrated that you know (and knew?) that assertion to be incorrect. In short, you've admitted you were wrong, at least in some technical sense that, while not important to you (you're a "big picture" guy) is very important to me (and, I'd argue, to the "big picture," too).
You opened about a dozen other cans of theological worms while doing this, and I'll reply to those later, when I have time, because I remain interested in this dicussion and your thoughts. Before moving on, though, I just want to establish that this part of the debate is closed. The Organization teaches that only Jehovah's Witnesses will survive Armageddon. All others will die. You and I, Derrick, agree that this much is true, and since we do, I hope you will avoid in the future misleading statements like the one quoted above.
Again, I'll respond to the rest of your reply later.
More and more warm fuzzies,
Dedalus
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17
Hey Happy Easter folks!!! Will you be celebrating?
by ISP inwill you be celebrating?
do you go for the chocolate eggs!?
i gotta to work out where to hide some for the kids!.
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dedalus
Egg hunt (which should be fun for my daughter, and for me to watch), and then to some obligatory family dinner I'd give anything to miss. Sigh. Sorry, but for me Easter is a bummer of a holiday.
Dedalus