witnesses think they are all in step word for word, action for action.
please give any examples you have, to the contrary.
Shunning (or not) of DFed family members varies from cong. to cong. and/or family to family.
I remember beards being a problem (if you grew one) in some congs, but not so much in others. Some people even grew beards during the summer every year, and shave it off come fall.
In some countries it seems the men have to wear suit and tie in field ministry - in other countries it's much more casual.
-Well - it ain't much, but you said "any examples". :-)
david and the kingdom of damascus.
the city of damascus is at least 4000 years old.
it is recorded as being conquered by pharaoh tutmosis in the 15th century bc and it became the capital of an aramean kingdom from the 11th century bc.
Thanks 5go - a lot to take in, and right now I'm exhausted from stuff I have done today (yes! on a Sunday! I will be stoned to death), so my eyes and brain can't follow.
I'll try to read it with better concentration soon.
so i am not going to meetings, but am a fader.
the wife and i get invited to a wedding.
by friends from years back.
From what I remember from when I was active, people get 'riled up' by the meetings and conventions, as in they are reminded of all the things they're supposed to believe. But once they come home, they kinda shed these ideas the instant they shed those dressed up clothes and get into their favorite jeans and T-shirt. It seems they know what the WBTS demands of them, but that they kind of look at it like the Mosaic law; too rigid and hard to follow 100% - to do so would mean you'd be perfect. And so people generally are pretty relaxed about the more 'ridiculous' teachings. Except the new members, which are often over zealous. But those who have been in for a long time or are born on the inside, have a much more relaxed attitude, I think. Of course, not when it comes to core doctrines, but when it comes to the more obscure things.
Many are 'waiting on Jehovah' to fix things, since his earthly organization is run by imperfect men.
i would really appreciate it if someone could post high quality scans of the qfrs (i think it was) from wt of january and may this year.
what i'm after is the one about resurrection (to heaven) of some of the 24 elders and how they are working with the gb on earth today (if i remember correctly).
and the one from may, where they changed the 144000 / 1935 doctrine (if i remember that correctly).. thanks in advance..
Fantastic!
You seem to be the go-to-guy when it comes to scans. Thank you very much (I hope they will be of use to others as well, of course).
My mom used to 'feed' me the latest Watchtower/Awake! whenever I payed them a visit after I had started fading, but she suddenly stopped.
So now I have to "resort" to this.
i would really appreciate it if someone could post high quality scans of the qfrs (i think it was) from wt of january and may this year.
what i'm after is the one about resurrection (to heaven) of some of the 24 elders and how they are working with the gb on earth today (if i remember correctly).
and the one from may, where they changed the 144000 / 1935 doctrine (if i remember that correctly).. thanks in advance..
Thanks. Sorry about being so vague in my first post, but I've done some more Googling, and foun out which exact articles I was after:
The first is "When Does The Calling Of Christians Of Heavenly Hope Cese?", Questions from readers, May 1st 2007
The other one is the January 1, 2007 Watchtowerstudy article "The First Resurrection---Now Under Way". The page where paragraph 11 is. The article was discussed in this thread, however no scans there, just a re-cap.
Thanks again in advance.
i would really appreciate it if someone could post high quality scans of the qfrs (i think it was) from wt of january and may this year.
what i'm after is the one about resurrection (to heaven) of some of the 24 elders and how they are working with the gb on earth today (if i remember correctly).
and the one from may, where they changed the 144000 / 1935 doctrine (if i remember that correctly).. thanks in advance..
I would really appreciate it if someone could post high quality scans of the QFRs (I think it was) from WT of January and May this year. What I'm after is the one about resurrection (to heaven) of some of the 24 elders and how they are working with the GB on earth today (if I remember correctly). And the one from May, where they changed the 144000 / 1935 doctrine (if I remember that correctly).
Thanks in advance.
i can't remember where i read this, but it struck a chord with me a while back and i saved it.
as we struggle individually with our belief in god, the story of jacob wrestling with the man or angel sheds an interesting light on the subject:.
"the fact that jacob wrestled with the man all night with neither gaining an advantage over the other suggests that the man was his equal in size, strength, and endurance.
[never mind - I found the answer to my question]
clearly, the internet and sites like this one helped get me out.
once i started continuously reading how the organization and watchtower writings were bogus, i couldn't help but get out!
.
I think I would still have been fading like I am now, but I wouldn't have had such clear reasons why.
An elder would most likely have been successful in bringing me back by quoting scripture and the like, guilting me into coming back.
There are a whole lot of things I've learned about the big issues in life in literally only the last couple of years, and with no internet I doubt I'd have learned what I know now. Unless perhaps I had gone to the library and borrowed some books instead.
I did not fade/quit because of internal JW scandals (I knew little to nothing about those), or because of bad things people in the congregation did. It started because I had questions I couldn't get answers for (unless I would settle for "Jehovah will reveal it in due time", "Trust Jehovah", "You'll have eternity to figure that out" etc.) and I couldn't in good conscience go out and teach people things I myself didn't believe in. It was all downhill from there. - Or things were looking up, depending on how you see it. ;-)
somebody is always insisting they have an invisible and mysterious source of divine information and selling it like hotcakes and syrup.
but, why are you still buying?
when will you ever learn that this is a scam among many scams.
The Bible- (and other religious writings) writers needed a person in the story that was part God, part human. So what do you do then? You have a human woman give birth, but you substitute the human father with God. Since God created everything, including life, it wasn't a stretch to believe - even thousands of years ago (maybe especially thousands of years ago) - that God could plant an embryo with all the right "ingredients" inside a woman, so that she could give birth to this half-God. I really don't see the problem here, or why this should be so special.
Watching television has also always been possible, you just needed the right equipment. However, when the Bible speaks of people having visions, I doubt they were watching CNN.
gen 3:22 and jehovah god went on to say: here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad, and now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take [fruit] also from the tree of life and eat and live to time indefinite, nwt
He created them to Live on it forever. Read that verse, it tells us that if they did not eat from the tree ( obeying God ) they would have continued to live. It is right there!
OK, I'll bite (but only because no one else has replied - I don't really care about this).
I think we're starting to go in circles pretty fast here if we go down this path ('everyone' here has agreed with the above (quoted) statement at some point, since we've all been JWs, and some still are. So this is nothing new)
So. Had they not eaten of the fruit of Knowledge, they'd have lived forever, as per the scripture you quoted. Yes, it's logical. However - if they were created to live forever from the start, then what was the purpose of the Tree of life? Remembering that God said to remove Adam and Eve before they could eat from it, or they would live forever, even in sin. In other words; the Tree of life would give eternal life. That's what the Tree of life does. But if they were already created to live forever from the start, then the Tree of life would have no function.
It seems therefore, that one of two things must have been true:
Either they would have been given permission from God to eat from the Tree of life and live forever after a period of time in which they had been tempted and had resisted temptation (but they were never told not to eat from that tree, so they wouldn't need a later permission, so this doesn't really work).
Or they had been eating of the fruit of the Tree of life pretty much every day, and would have to continue doing so in order to live forever. After they sinned, they were cut off from it.
But neither of those two I think is in accordance with JW teachings.
