Posts by Eyes Open

6

THE LAST ONE! WATCHTOWER COMMENTS HOSTS LEOLAIA

by V in

yes that right folks, after this one, no more full-text comments from v. our little video factory is running at full steam again and this is where i will be focusing my energy.. to finish with flourish, our visiting speaker leolaia has produced an intensive dissection of this study with an eisegetical and historical razor blade shiny-sharp.

"christ's presence--what does it mean to you?".

the april 14-20 study is jehovah's witnesses' big "new-light" of 2008, though we will find that the bulb is actually a vintage filament burning on borrowed time.

Eyes Open

Thanks V and Leolaia.

Where can one see scans of the article please?

44

A revelation for me: the revelation of Revelation

by Eyes Open in

i was reading the thread about revelation, and some research i did on the beginning of chapter 10 of the apocalyptic book came to mind, so i thought i'd share it here in case anyone's interested.. as an ignorant jehovah's witness, i had no idea of the real literary structure of the book.

the watchtower society makes out the mighty angel in 10:1 who stands on the sea and earth is jesus christ, and that the contents of the little scroll he hands john is a prophecy to be fulfilled after 1914. to grasp the simple truth that the strong angel in 10:1 is the angel alluded to in 1:1, and that the little scroll is actually the scroll which has been progressively unsealed in 6:1 to 8:1, was very satisfying.

it describes the revelation being given to john, which contains the main content of the prophetic work!.

Eyes Open

Hi Rapunzel.

See biblegateway.com .

New International Version

Ezekiel 4

Siege of Jerusalem Symbolized

1 "Now, son of man, take a clay tablet, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. 2 Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. 3 Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.

4 "Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the house of Israel upon yourself. [ a ] You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. 5 I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the house of Israel.

6 "After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the house of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year. 7 Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophesy against her. 8 I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your siege.

9 "Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. 10 Weigh out twenty shekels [ b ] of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. 11 Also measure out a sixth of a hin [ c ] of water and drink it at set times. 12 Eat the food as you would a barley cake; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel." 13 The LORD said, "In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them."

14 Then I said, "Not so, Sovereign LORD! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No unclean meat has ever entered my mouth."

15 "Very well," he said, "I will let you bake your bread over cow manure instead of human excrement."

16 He then said to me: "Son of man, I will cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair, 17 for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of [ d ] their sin.

21

Sometimes it is the little things that make the day hard.

by wings in

jw
friends

my mom's memory (mental clarity) has been slipping every day.

for the last three days she has insisted that we go and see dad (he passed away 2 months ago).

she wants to bring him his shoes or something (can't tell).

Eyes Open

Know someone else who was in a similar situation. Must be very tough.

Thinking of you.

10

Freeing Minds Im energized!!! :)

by tooktheredpill in

guys: .

im posting this, because i need to share my experience with all of you.

i think it is very important to never loose hope, and never give up, even if youre still inside the borg, like me!!.

Eyes Open

Wow. Good job. :)

11

A Watchtower Metaphor if I may?

by AK - Jeff in

in an effort to soften my discussions with a jw who used to be close to me, i have developed a metaphor - one that does not mention religion at all.

of course we both know to what it refers - but it is my clear belief that jw's can't discuss reality straight up.

a man is convinced early in his life that he should run, and that the best running can be achieved when he runs for, and associates with, only the running corp. so, at the tender age of 4, he begins to associate as a junior runner.

Eyes Open

Nicely done. A little too close to the bone to get them to actually read it, though?

One correction I spotted:

The man only wanted to save his friends, but they did not want *to be* saved.

65

Could it happen here?

by BurnTheShips in

jw
friends

this thread, and others like it, got me thinking that, if this board is representative of society, there is definitely an anti-theist wind blowing in western nations, much more so in europe than here in the united states.

could it happen here as it happened there?.

from edward j. derwinski "religious persecution in the soviet union - transcript".

Eyes Open

Hi Burn. That's not the case. I'm an atheist, but I will not rule out the possibility there is a God. I merely have no specific belief in one myself.
Wouldn't that be more of a nontheist position? Or perhaps agnostic?
Burn

I define myself as a weak atheist.

65

Could it happen here?

by BurnTheShips in

jw
friends

this thread, and others like it, got me thinking that, if this board is representative of society, there is definitely an anti-theist wind blowing in western nations, much more so in europe than here in the united states.

could it happen here as it happened there?.

from edward j. derwinski "religious persecution in the soviet union - transcript".

Eyes Open

BurnTheShips: All atheists affirm that no God or gods exist. They reject theism. That idea ties every atheist together, if they do not hold this idea, they are not atheist.

Hi Burn. That's not the case. I'm an atheist, but I will not rule out the possibility there is a God. I merely have no specific belief in one myself.

33

INPUT NEEDED ON JW BELIEFS

by Mary in

i'm at the beginning of putting a package together regarding the wts and i'd like your opinion on which topics i should include.

basically, this would be a package for those who have family or friends in the borg, but who you think might listen to reason if it was presented in the right fashion.

it's not going to be a huge package, because i don't want to overwhelm anyone, but i want the information to be precise enough that it would stop and make them think.. so far, i'm thinking that i'd like to touch on the following:.

Eyes Open

TLN put together a couple of potentially very easily-seen lines of reasoning using only the bible and WT material.

22

Anyone else ever do this

by superman in

jw
friends

i remember how much emphasis the org used to put on studying your publications, and how looking at other peoples books during the meeting was like seeing a lazar show with bright, hot, multicolored, florescent highlighted pages.

but i never personally enjoyed studying (even when i was more hardcore in it) so since i used to have privileges/responsibilities one of the requirements was to study for all the meetings, so before the meetings i would take a hot yellow and florescent blue marker and quickly just start marking up my books so that it looked like it was studied.

sometimes to look even more spiritual i would take a pen and start writing random crap in the margins, even scribble lines so from far away it looked likes cursive.

Eyes Open

I didn't. I wasn't interested in getting privileges so if I hadn't prepared my books were unmarked.

What I did do (when I did prepare) was to see how straight I could make my underlining without the use of a ruler. It became a little game that I would play with myself, and I suppose it eased the boredom. I experimented with ways of holding the pen and drawing speeds, and if I were to end up with a wavy line I'd be disappointed and try again so that I ended up with a thick line which meant that I had to make the other lines in that paragraph the same thickness...

Christ. I'm glad to be out.

4

Preaching "Prophets"-by request!

by Atlantis in

preaching prophets by request!

request from researcher: could you please scan for me page 253 of the 1952 watchtower where it says that jws are the preaching prophets of the twentieth century?

****************************************************** my comments: thank you for your request!

Eyes Open

Jolly good - thanks.