it is widely known that the roman army was the disgusting thing in the 1st century.
examine the statements below: 1. the dt was within the 1st century governing body in jerusalem.
take a look at the picture of apostles and elders in the "insight" book.
Welcome Ish Elon.
What unky punky said in his first post.
For many of us it takes a lot of courage to make our first post on a site like this, heart pounding, palms sweating and more as we battle cognitive dissonance and the enemies of transformation and wakening.
Ish, hopefully you are able to get through the rough patches, stick around, and share your evolving journey with those that have gone before.
Humour and humility can go a long way...
i hear people saying it is not the same religion that i knew.
what is the major difference?.
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JWs will believe anything the GB (Sanhedrin) tell them.
Of course only until the penny drops that these "fine upstanding" persons are nothing of the sort, but instead malicious purveyors of apostate clericalism and magisterium.
it seems in some countries brothers subject to military call-up can accept non military service instead but in others as in korea they regularly go to jail.. are they offered alternative service in korea ?.
in the book "i wept by the rivers of babylon" by terry walstrom, the author gives clear insights into the ever changing wts opinions on this matter at least in the us.. can anyone enlighten me.. please?.
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At one point (around 1984 I believe) the Watchtower Organisation accepted alternative service provided it was under a criminal conviction.
I have found it useful to assign opposing views expressed in the Watchtower publications to opposing factions.
i just got a job teaching in a school run by moderate muslims.
the students are muslim and do their prayers at school and have daily quran lessons.
my job is to teach art, english literacy and literature, and history.
Congratulations Julia, I'm sure you'll have a blast, and be surprised just how moderate and normal most people can be despite religion.
does the bible have a central theme?.
there seems to be a general consensus throughout christian religions that there is a consistent theme throughout the bible.
the seeming evidence of a theme coming from a collection of books written by over 40 different authors over a period of 1500 years is what givse credence to the claim that the bible is an inspired literary work.
Personally I have found the central message (or theme) of scripture to be the legal custody battle, over us the children, fought by means of controlling religion versus the liberating gospel message of grace.
| Religion | Gospel OT/NT | Main Book/s |
| Death | Salvation | Psalms/Acts/Romans |
| Enmity | Atonement/Reconciliation | Leviticus/Rom/2Cor |
| Bondage | Deliverance/Liberation | Exodus/Galatians |
| Decay | Restoration | Isaiah/Ezekiel/Hosea |
when my son became baptized as a witness at age nine, it worried me that he could now get a no blood card.
i wanted to make sure if blood transfusions were really as disgusting to "jehovah" as i was taught.
i already found out some things about my beliefs that were not true, so it wasn't hard for me to be questionable about this.. i first looked in the reasoning book under blood as to why we don't accept transfusions.
Ray Franz, in speaking about the blood doctrine I believe, pointed out how apostate "legalism" leads to a "morass of inconsistencies".
Now it is OK to take parts of donated blood, but not OK to donate blood?!
Ultimately we are all called to obey "the truth" of "the Good News", and to disobey religion/ists.
Did Jesus lead people to, or away from, the elders and Governing Body (Matt 23 esp v15)?
Great question.
What The Searcher said - spot on I believe.
Lead how?
Who lead?
Lead where?
a genuine question really.. do they actually make desicions or are they simple sock puppets for the lawyers?.
are they just a front (like the queen is in the uk), with little or no desicion making input?.
do they just give talks and make appearances?.
CTR described the outcome quite well:
"The endeavor to compel all men to think alike on all subjects, culminated in the great apostasy and the development of the great papal system, and thereby the gospel, the one faith that Paul and the other apostles set forth, was lost - buried under the mass of uninspired decrees of popes and councils. The unity of the early church, based upon the simple gospel and bound only by love, gave place to the bondage of the church of Rome ... Each new reform movement (like Protestantism) has made the failure of attempting to make a creed just large enough for its prime movers ." --WT, Sep. 1893, p. 1572
