According to the Bible, many of the Jewish patriarchs and the Jewish/Israelite kings lived in luxury and the OT Bible often portrays such as being an indication of being immensely blessed by Jehovah God (Yahweh Elohim/the LORD). If living in luxury as a Christian with one's religion paying the money for such is wrong (and it might be wrong) then many of the teachings (ascribed to God) of the OT Bible are also wrong.
Disillusioned JW
JoinedPosts by Disillusioned JW
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156
Remembering Rutherford
by Sea Breeze inhe seems to me to be the angriest and most ill-tempered of all the wt presidents, especially after his stint in prison and failed prophecies.. “regarding his misguided statements as to what we could expect in 1925, he [rutherford] once confessed to us at bethel, “i made an ass of myself.”” watchtower 1984 oct 1 p.24.
rutherford died at beth sarim on january 8, 1942, at the age of 72.
[220] cause of death was...carcinoma of the rectum..."[21] .
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Disillusioned JW
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PIMO elder
by Reservations ini’m reservations, pimo elder.
i’m in no position to leave the organisation, maybe some people will see that as weak or whatever, but we have to all go down our own path in life.. i would like to be able to wake people up in my congregation, how do you think best to do this?
any ideas?.
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Disillusioned JW
Reservations, not all of the active believing JWs (at least some of those with some doubts) are happy about being active in the religion (and not all of them are close minded to dissenting views), even if they don't appear to be unhappy. I know because I was one of them. I thus believe it is important to somehow find a way to help such ones. I wish someone had helped me (prior to age 25) to see the truth about the JW religion and about the Bible not being the word of a god, for such would have freed me 10+ years earlier (from mental bondage and from servitude to the WT). I intend to make a much more detailed post about this later (I am in the process of writing a draft of it). -
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Is the door to door preaching work not the primary focus anymore?
by pistolpete ina few months back, one of my uncles who was an elder, asked the co, why jehovah would allow the door to door preaching work, to come to an abrupt end.
this was when my uncle was starting to have serious doubts about the organization.. the co told him to be patient, and hang in there, because the governing body was on top of things and in time would explain what is happening regarding the preaching work.. my uncle asked; “what do you mean?”.
co said; “focus on the wt study articles in the coming months” .
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Disillusioned JW
I've checked multiple translations and none of those say they are "large women"! The NWT (at Psalms 68:11) says "The women proclaiming the good news are a large army." It is there army that is said to be large, not the individual women.
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2021-Powerful By Faith-Talk Transcripts!
by Atlantis in2021--powerful by faith, talk transcripts.. https://www.filemail.com/d/bpludvmsuqmaqdz.
https://we.tl/t-qbpywfpzyd.
atlantis!.
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Disillusioned JW
One can watch the official videos of apparently the entire convention at https://www.jw.org/en/library/videos/#en/categories/JWB2021Convention . I admit that I find the videos to be very impressive - far more interesting than my experiences in the 1990s attending WT/JW conventions. If such had been produced back in the 1990s and if the current minimalist requirements for field service time existed back then and if one could have listened to Kingdom Hall meetings at home back then, then I might would have continued in the WT religion for years more than I did. The JWs today have it so easy (and with far fewer pages of the WT and AW to read per year) and in a format that is more captivating. In watching one video (which might not have been a convention video) with one governing body member speaking, I became halfway persuaded by what he was saying. It actually seemed logical, if one accepts certain presuppositions - wow! [It is located at https://www.jw.org/en/library/videos/#en/mediaitems/VODPgmEvtMorningWorship/pub-jwb-080_7_VIDEO .] If it wasn't what I have already learned I might would been fully convinced by what he said - scary.
Interestingly in one of the convention videos a theological/scholarly book (with photos of pages of the Greek Septuagint containing the name YHWH) is shown being pulled out of a bookcase in which the books to the right and left of it are Rutherford's books. I wonder why did they did that? Are they implying that Rutherford's books are of equal caliber to the other book? Do they think that JWs won't recognize the other books as being by Rutherford? Perhaps some of the people seeing the video will be interested in reading Rutherford's books. Also in the video (in a different scene), there is what appears to be a re-enactment of the work of creating the 1950-1960 NWT in the late 1940s and in that scene there is a opened thick green covered book which seems to be the 1963 compilation (Students Edition) of the 6 volumes of the NWT. If so, that is anachronistic to have a book edition from 1963 in a scene set in the late 1940s.
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PIMO elder
by Reservations ini’m reservations, pimo elder.
i’m in no position to leave the organisation, maybe some people will see that as weak or whatever, but we have to all go down our own path in life.. i would like to be able to wake people up in my congregation, how do you think best to do this?
any ideas?.
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Disillusioned JW
The first post (currently the only one) at https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/6236429431603200/what-jws-dont-know-they-believe might be helpful in helping people to 'wake up' from the WT/JW religion.
I remember that the WT or Awake once had an article which said that human babies who were born still born never were breathers and thus, according the biblical definition of "soul" never were a soul (and/or never a "living soul") and thus won't be resurrected. When I read that I was stunned. [Telling JWs about that WT teaching might help 'wake' some people.] Furthermore I was stunned because I then immediately drew the conclusion that if such is so, then from a biblical standpoint aborting a human baby (even a late term human fetus) from inside the womb could not be considered as murder or even the killing of a human. Yet, the WT religion says that the intentional aborting of human babies in the womb is murder.
Interestingly many people who say that abortions are not immoral or wrong say that is because the babies were never alive (so they say) because they never had been born as air breathers.
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Disillusioned JW
waton, who do you think Jesus Christ (whether he was a real being or only a literary character) meant by the term "faithful and discreet slave"? The biblical passage about the "faithful and discreet slave" has long appeared very vague to me, even during my last several years as a ministerial servant. I came to conclude (after consulting various commentaries of the churches, after ceasing to attend JW meetings) that it most likely meant those faithfully serving as ministers/preachers teaching within individual congregations of Christianity, but I was even uncertain of that possibility.
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Disillusioned JW
Isn't the claim of saying "I am he" about claiming to be the Messiah/Christ, not "the faithful and discreet slave"? Note that a parallel verse is Matthew 24:5 where it says "I am the Christ". It is an interesting thought though that the "I am here" reference could be referring to claiming to be someone else, instead of claiming to be Christ. Also the reference of "The time is at hand" is an interesting one, especially in the context of falsely claiming to come in the name of Christ (if one thinks of it coming with the claim of being a representative of Christ) and of leading ones astray.
But Bart Ehrman (and some atheist scholars/authors) said that when the gospel of Luke was written Christians were wondering why Christ hadn't returned yet, and thus the Gospel was written to give the impression that Christ had said a lot of time would go by before Christ returns. The gospel of Luke is also the one about the man of noble birth going to a far away land to obtain a kingdom and then, after considerable time has gone by, returning as king. (See Luke 19:11-15.)
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2021-Powerful By Faith-Talk Transcripts!
by Atlantis in2021--powerful by faith, talk transcripts.. https://www.filemail.com/d/bpludvmsuqmaqdz.
https://we.tl/t-qbpywfpzyd.
atlantis!.
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Disillusioned JW
What is(are) the file format(s) of the transcripts? I am hesitant to start a download of them without knowing that.
My mom said a major announcement was made on the last day of the convention, near the end of the convention. What announcement was that?
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I Wonder How They Had the Cheek To Print this ?
by BluesBrother inawake!
5/22 pp.
"let no man deceive you with empty words.
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Disillusioned JW
I was somewhat mistaken when I wrote "Hitching does however appear to believe "psychic evolution" in the sense of appearing to claim that psychic powers in humans have evolved [see my post on page 2 of this topic thread]. Regarding that see his The Mysterious World: An Atlas of the Unexplained book." Instead of what I said above he says evolution might have caused humans to loose much psychic ability. In the "chapter" called "Neanderthal inheritance", on page 43 (of the "First American Edition", published in 1979 by "Holt, Rinehart and Winston") he says the following.
"Today, the human race may be built from the genes of both Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon Man. ... In which case, what characteristics have we inherited? Just as the explosive increase in brain size was one of the first main indications of the uniqueness of man, from now on the way the brain is organized provides the main clue. In Neanderthal Man that part called the cerebellum is more prominent; it lies at the back of the head, and seems to deal mostly with our unconscious, instinctive reactions. During our evolution it has steadily been pushed back and down until today it is largely buried by the cerebrum, including the high frontal lobes that are a feature of Cro-Magnon Man, and us; it is here we seem to be able to sort out unlikely combinations of ideas (the basis of intelligence).
When the two dominant strands of instinct and intelligence were mated, perhaps something was lost as well as gained. Many people believe that telepathy was commonplace to Neanderthals, as it has been until recently among Australian aboriginals and some North American Indians; it has even been suggested that the Neanderthal jaw was not capable of speech, in which case telepathy would have been essential."
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I Wonder How They Had the Cheek To Print this ?
by BluesBrother inawake!
5/22 pp.
"let no man deceive you with empty words.
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Disillusioned JW
At https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/120077/watchtower-evolution-fraud a quote is made saying that Alan F. said 'Hitching also implied that his book had been endorsed by Richard Dawkins, but upon inquiry Dawkins stated: "I know nothing at all about Francis Hitching. If you are uncovering the fact that he is a charlatan, good for you. His book, _The Neck of the Giraffe,_is one of the silliest and most ignorant I have read for years." ' But, where did Hitching supposedly imply that his book had been endorsed by Richard Dawkins? Until I see where Hitching supposedly made that implication I will disbelieve it. I borrowed from my local public library (through InterLibrary Loan) two different editions (the ones published by "Ticknor & Fields" and by "Meridian": "New American Library") of The Neck of the Giraffe and despite my thorough checking, I don't see any implication therein of Richard Dawkins having had endorsed The Neck Of Giraffe. In the "Acknowledgements" page of both of those editions there is no mention of the name "Richard Dawkins" though there is mention of "... at Harvard, Professor Jay Gould... ". Regarding the scientists whom Hitching acknowledges, Hitching says "... I hasten to disassociate them from any of the mistaken opinions or errors of fact that, in spite of their help, may still have crept into the text, for they surely are mine."
In the "Introduction" of the book Hitching does say that "Thus you will find Darwinism being dismissed as empty rhetoric; and the status of biology likened to the dark ages of pre-Newtonian physics. On the other hand you will will come across one of the world's most eminent evolutionary biologists saying that attacks against Darwin's theory are invariably either based on ignorance or politically motivated." But, in the Introduction he does not name who that most eminent evolutionary biologist is. The only mentions I see of Richard Dawkins in the book is in reference to a quote by Dawkins (from his book called The Selfish Gene) saying "the fundamental unit of selection .. is the gene, the unit of heredity."