if your kids drew this picture at school - what would her teachers/principal say?.
another good quote from the article "we made props - swords ... ".
just remember though - god hates violence - no violent video games for jws.. .
during mostly boring WT study I get time to look (read) those extar artcilces in there, I noticed also the picture, and showed to my wife. We had a good laugh...
I more and more wonder, how this things can slip through...or like some other poster mentioned, the mags are really designed for uneducated desperate soziopaths, they accept everything as long as somebody the org) accepts them...
when i used to pioneer i would press to the side of the doorbell and act like i pressed it and then say "oh i think the bell must be broken".
yep, I confess...one time though, I ws with an overzealous dub, he pressed a few times after my fake pressing, what an a....
their claim, to cover up changed teachings, is that they are always getting closer to the truth.
how do we know that the gb is closer now than they were 50 or a hundred years ago?
how do we know that the gb hasn't been drifting away for the last 50 years?.
The point is, nobody would object to corrections of understanding in itself. Its rather a humble approach, that would even be typical for a genuine searcher of truth.
The society likes to paint themselves this way. However, reality is different, because
1) they never say , something was wrong, now its right, or that they got it wrong the first time, no the call it "refinement" and "new light". Those words are used to cover up what it really was, namely error.
2) they demand absolute obedience to current understanding, they do not allow questioning them or even making your own research. The warning against independent thinking are to be found time and again in their literatur. Disagreement, even if later on may become "new light", is punished with shunning.
3) they claim to be Gods only channel of communication. Such a high claim must stand up to closest scrutiny. Any critisizm should be easily dismissed, and evdence of Gods direction should be clear and overwhelming. The opposite is true, unfortunately.
KJW53, you also said:
I will take my chances at judgement 7 days a week with a religion that made mistakes and corrected them, i would never go to judgement with disunified religions that shove the teachings of Jesus aside and kill one another for a man made word patriotism, Millions upon millions slaughtered, not to mention all of the family lines cut off as well. Not to mention the teachers failing to warn them about the false god worship practices the world added to their holy days. We shall see who satan owns.
It is true, organized religion brought lots of pain to mankind, besides some good things as well. Whether JW are, considering their size, causing as much evil as others, is often a matter of viewpoint. You also can not excuse a thief by saying, well a murderer is much worse. What is wrong is wrong, no matter if big or little.
Also you state the premise, that religions will be judged by God. This is often used by JW. However, God will judge individuals not organizations.
the above mentioned article caught my eye for a couple of reasons .
.. it is obvious to most observers that the children of active jw's provide a potential "large army" and in spite of the attrition rate of jw youths (around 2/3's i believe), it's a resource the borg are keen to maximise.
there tactics appear to be encouraging baptism at an ever younger age.
A Christian mother writes: “Children who are baptized have more reasons to stay away from the bad things of the world."
Did they explain these reasons ? Of course not, otherwise they have to admit, that the fear of getting shunned is the "more reasons". Where is love for God ? Not strong enough in those young rotten offspring ? Apparently needs fear tactics to keep them under mothers (borgs) control...
a survey of 32 question of religious knowledge given by the.
pew forum on the religion and public life.. get this, on average, americans got 16 of 32 right.. number one group, yes, the atheists and agnostics got.
an average of (20.9), jews (20.5), mormons(20.3), protestants(16).
nirvana (also thought it was hinduism), catholics and jonathan edwards, otherwise I got 29 out of 32.
reminded me of the written reviews ;-)
3 as jesus was sitting on the mount of olives, the disciples came to him privately.
tell us, they said, when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?
4 jesus answered: watch out that no one deceives you.
even in my days as mentally fully in, I had a hard time to understand this prophecy. I ebelive, there was a watchtower in the 90`s, trying to explain the prophecies in Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13, kind of concentrating on the word "then".
Even though I liked "deep" stuff, I didnt really grasp it fully...now I know why, it just doesnt make sense. To take somethings saying it applies only to 1th century and other things saying applies to our time, and then other parts apllying to both times without any proof of this assertions is just wild speculation at best.
i swear only a fool would believe in such a ludicrous doctrine that all three are one.
ridiculous..
Since I dared to look beyond WTS explanations, I learned a lot about trinity, even understand to some degree, why it became such a popular doctrine.
However, there are still some strong objections to it, I cannot explain away:
1) the scripture in 1. Corinthians 11:3
But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, [a] and the head of Christ is God.
Headship as being higher in rank, how does this harmonize with a trinity, when all are said to be equal ?
2) free will
If the trinity are 3 persons in one god-head, fine, but what if one person exercises free will, lets say Jesus gave in to temptation of the Devil, and necomes apostate to the father, what will happen to the trinity ?
3) death of Jesus
How was the trinity affected by Jesus death ?
the may 2011 km has an article on page 2 entitled, "could you share in the ministry on sundays?
1. it was the sabbath, a day when most jews in philippi rested.
paul and his companions were visiting the city during one of their missionary tours.
Please, dont tell me, they want to push Sunday now....just leave people their day at peace !!!
anyway, interesting report about 1927, they pushed against the law, "On occasions when publishers were arrested, there were so many of them that the authorities were overwhelmed. "
This does not sound like a legal battle for religious freedom, this sounds like disobedience to superior authorities. On the other hand, today they advice, not to break the law, but to be "cautious as serpents , but innocent as doves" when preaching and state laws are involved. Example here, telephone witnessing is legally forbidden, so also the brothers are discouraged from doing it.
the "situation"a brother and sister from my parents congregation committed adultry with one another.
he was single, she was married to another brother in the same hall.
her husband divorced her.
@Viola
What I meant in my reply was simply to tell how those cases are usually handled in the org. However, i fully agree with you, that such a serious thing as adultery is most certainly a matter between the married couple. I know cases, were the meddling of the elders made situations even worse for the innocent part. Generally I would understand a kind of discipline in the spirit of 1 Corinthians, but the whole disfellowshipping arrangement of the WTS is just pathetic.
the "situation"a brother and sister from my parents congregation committed adultry with one another.
he was single, she was married to another brother in the same hall.
her husband divorced her.
Viola:
BS in between. adultery is adultery. The scheming thing only matters if the cheated on mate is considering forgiveness. Even then, that is usually how adultery takes place. yes folks get hurt but that's life. it should be " to death do us part and in sickness and health" but it is often not.
adultery may be adultery, but the process of handling it, depends largely on the repentance shown. If no initial repentance, df results. For reinstatement, once more, the measure of repentance is the decisive factor. In the case, mentioned above, genuine repentance will be questioned for a longer time as usual. Viola, let me ask you, did you handel such cases in the past ? You seem very sure of your opinion !!
