The Society's quoting Origen on birthdays to back up their point is so damn dumb. All they're saying is: "Look, this guy read the Bible and came to the same conclusion we did." That in and of itself is invalid, since it's an empty appeal to authority and doesn't present any new evidence for the core claim.
It becomes even sillier when you realize that the Society would likely reject almost every single other one of Origen's beliefs about everything, to one degree or another. Origen believed in the Trinity; he believed demons could reconcile with and gain forgiveness from God; he believed that the faithful would rise to divinity after death and that human souls preexisted conception, among many other beliefs that would make any believing Witness shrink like a salted slug.
Their quoting of him is exactly like if George W. Bush proposed that all Americans should abstain from premarital sex; and then, when someone challenged him on it, he produced for proof a quote to the same effect from Osama bin Laden!
under_believer
JoinedPosts by under_believer
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56
Birthdays—Simple Deconstruction of the JW Rationale
by AuldSoul into deconstruct the jw rationale surrounding birthdays, a few simple guidelines should be followed.. (1): don't waste any energy trying to convince a jw that birthdays are not pagan, if they suggest that, readily agree.
whether or not the celebrations are pagan turns out to be a non-issue that distracts from the main point.. (2): stay focused on the fact that jws disfellowship people for celebrating birthdays.. (3): stress the point that there should always be clear scriptural reason for disfellowshipping someone.
ask them often throughout the discussion whether this is the case, get them to reinforce this need to themselves.. (4): remember, the first goal is deconstructing their rationale, not giving them a new rationale, not convincing them that celebrating birthdays is a good thing.. once you have these well in mind, the deconstruction can begin.. jw rationale, in brief:.
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under_believer
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19
USA is Addicted to War
by frankiespeakin inthe us government has hundreds of miltary bases in other countries, military spending is where 50% of your tax dollars go, there are huge profits to be made by big business in this.
one thing that is needed is that human consciousness of the problem, (minus the propaganda indoctrination) needs to be raised to a higher level, i see signs of this happening, but as yet it is not enough yet to make the sweeping changes that are needed so that we don't wind up inihilating the whole human race, our consciousness has not keep up with our technology of weapon making, profits and self interest put us in the dangerous path leading to nonexistance:.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2766280303360219617&q=addicted+to+war&total=113&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0.
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under_believer
No we're not. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go play Call Of Duty 3.
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Theodore Jaracz was the keynote speaker at my convention...
by under_believer inwe just had our convention at the memorial colosseum in portland, or.
good old teddyj was our keynote speaker.
i can tell you right now that the ol' boy's still alive and kicking.
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under_believer
I don't think it's scripted. It's just a good old Witness trope, the 10-minute prayer. Governing Body members have always been very likely to do these, because they are so spiritual and anointed, and very spiritual people can give long prayers because they are so close to Jehovah. /vomitvomit
Ozzie, that would actually be a huge improvement if the prayer was actually topical and a topic was mentioned before the start. The Witnesses think they're superior to "Christendom" in some many ways, but in reality they've thrown out traditions and practices that have developed organically over hundreds or thousands of years, things that got that way for a reason. -
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dogmatic statement on e-watchman
by Dr Zhivago inover on e-watchman's forum there was a discussion about the harlot riding the beast of revelation.
one poster stated that because the harlot was riding the beast it proved she was in control of the beast.
now, i grew up on a farm and we had all sorts of animals.
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under_believer
King is an atypical apostate--most ex-JW's aren't like that--but he is EXACTLY the kind of apostate the Society likes to say that all apostates are like. Leaving "the Truth" and attempting to turn away others specifically for the purpose of getting his own followers.
He is pathetic. -
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Theodore Jaracz was the keynote speaker at my convention...
by under_believer inwe just had our convention at the memorial colosseum in portland, or.
good old teddyj was our keynote speaker.
i can tell you right now that the ol' boy's still alive and kicking.
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under_believer
P-Dave, unless you want your brain to ossify, I'd recommend against it.
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Showing Concern for Posters we Haven't Heard Lately.Do You Know Some?
by flipper inmrs. flipper and i were talking about this today.
since our dear friend core 88 has been feeling downhearted, my wife and i thought who else have we not heard from lately that could use some acknowledgement to let them know we all are thinking about them?
can you folks think of some posters who might be down or need to be helped to see they are needed or cared about when we don't hear from them?
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under_believer
Didn't Justice One get disfellowshipped?
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37
Today I learned not to be afraid to be called Atheist
by Gopher ini was inspired to go by a fellow poster on the board who encouraged me to examine atheism a little more closely.
i am glad i went.. (now if anyone wants to come here and encourage me to be religious, sorry i won't respond to that on this thread.
feel free to start your own thread about the wonders of belief.).
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under_believer
Gopher, today you made me realize something about myself.
While I have not adopted the label of "atheist," 99% of religious people would consider me one if I explained my beliefs to them. I've stuck with "agnostic" thus far because I don't really farking care anymore at this point, one way or another. Is there a creator of the universe? There very well may be. If there is, does he/she/it appear to give two shits about what we're doing over here? Or even know we exist? Nope, not in the slightest.
It occurs to me that the belief that there is no God and the belief that there is no God who cares are functionally identical beliefs. So while I reserve the right to believe that the universe may have had intelligent origin, I appear to be an atheist. Though I don't FEEL like one. How is it supposed to feel, to be an atheist?
Does that make any sense? -
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30 Minute Public Talk-CONFIRMED
by stillajwexelder ini can confirm (as there seems to be some doubt) at the service meeting last night during the item about the new watchtower, a letter was read by the po.
the public talk is to be 30 minutes long.
this is to allow for more association and ministry.. lengthy negative introductions about the state of the system of things/deep last days etc are to be heavily curtailed.
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under_believer
>Perhaps the GB is finally going to adapt to the reality on the ground
>and shift the emphasis of the religion away from being an apocalyptic
>cult to a cult that focuses more on setting up a community system for
>their members with a focus on controlling their lives in order to keep
>them busy working for the religion’s best interests. We shall see how
>events unfold.
Ummm... welcome to 1980? -
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Theodore Jaracz was the keynote speaker at my convention...
by under_believer inwe just had our convention at the memorial colosseum in portland, or.
good old teddyj was our keynote speaker.
i can tell you right now that the ol' boy's still alive and kicking.
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under_believer
We just had our convention at the Memorial Colosseum in Portland, OR. Good old TeddyJ was our keynote speaker. I can tell you right now that the ol' boy's still alive and kicking. He's obviously elderly, but he has a strong speaking voice and still knows how to work the crowd, even within the restraints of the "JW Approved Assembly Delivery Style" of public speaking.
The old bloviating blowhard blandly belched banal, boring bullshit twice, though I missed his second talk entirely as I was up orbiting the place with a fractious infant. His closing prayer lasted for at least ten minutes--afterwards my wife was like "does he not get to give enough talks or something?" It is the height of arrogance and self-importance to stand up there and pray for ten minutes. It was like another talk--he covered the main points from the assembly, mentioned various scriptures, and gave warnings and corrections to the audience.
Question: Are public prayers supposed to be communication with the audience, or communication with God?
The now-infamous "D.E.A.D." comment was NOT made at my convention, so I can confirm that this was one yokel spouting his own special sauce. The anti-school rhetoric was VERY strong, stronger than I've seen it in a decade. One particularly galling interview took place with this 19-year-old girl who went against her parents' wishes for her to go to college, spurning the money that they'd saved for her out of their want--they were not a rich family but scrimped and saved enough to send their daughter to school anyways, obviously foregoing pleasures and comforts for her. She "prayed to Jehovah for a month." Then she told her parents that she wasn't going to college, she was going to pioneer instead. When her parents objected, she moved out with roommates. Jehovah has since provided employment (she didn't elaborate but one can imagine that she's a shelf stocker at a grocery store, or maybe does house cleaning.)
God that story pissed me off--this girl rejected all of her parents' careful, loving preparation and provision for her, and when they were upset about it, she just left them. This is a positive example in the Witness world--put the service of a manmade organization fulfilling a role that was never mentioned in the Bible doing work that Jesus never asked you to do, in front of your parents' love.
The drama was a 95% fictitious account of Gehazi. They wrote all this fake backstory about how he was jealous of Elisha and so on and so forth. Even though the Naaman story is supposed to be about Gehazi's greed, they somehow managed to make it about Gehazi's pride and haughtiness. It never ceases to amaze me how they just make up completely fake stuff for these dramas and present it as fact. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Anyways, to sum up, another three days of weird, controlling, boring, bland, banal, ignorant, superstitious, fearful, prejudiced, incomplete crap, delivered to people in discomfort, primarily designed to validate and preach to the choir. -
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James Penton claims big Watchtower revelations to come...
by slimboyfat inhe commented on another site:.
oh, i must mention: when barbara and rud publish, they will shake the foundations of the watchtower society, and i will have to rewrite many parts of apocalypse delayed to fit with the newly revealed information.
no one knows the dry rot that has existed in that organization as do they.
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under_believer
I will tell you one thing. If this has anything to do with Russell, Rutherford, or any early Witness history, anything before and including 1975, it will have zero effect. Many Witnesses have never even heard of these people or events. They don't care.