"JWs believe baptism is essential for the anointed. Not necessarily for the great crowd,....."
Interesting... Why is that? Biblically speaking, what is the point of being baptised but not annointed in the Spirit of God?
wearewatchingyouman
JoinedPosts by wearewatchingyouman
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Is JW Baptism the Only Valid Baptism?
by Cold Steel inwhat is the watchtower bible and tract societys view on baptism?
is it absolutely essential that one be baptized to gain eternal life in gods kingdom?.
and can they tell you who you can and cant baptize?.
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Planting Seeds--Plants Do Not Grow Overnight
by blondie ini see some post here that want family and friends to see ttatt immediately.. i'm a gardener, a serious one.
we make sure we put in an area that gets sun, check the soil each year, put in compost and other amendments, make sure we plant seeds compatible with the ones next to them, plant far enough apart, proper amount of water.
everything can be perfect but when i go out the day after planting...nothing has broken through yet.
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wearewatchingyouman
Great advice Blondie.
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Faith.
by wearewatchingyouman inso, i usually describe myself as an agnostic theist with fideist tendencies.
what this boils down to is that, for me, faith and reason are independent of eachother.
i believe in god even though it makes no rational sense to me.
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wearewatchingyouman
"All I know is that as long as you harbor a belief in anything without there being any reason or proof, you're potentially at-risk for being fooled by someone (even yourself)."
Very good fodder for meditation there Adam!
Thanks everybody for contributing. Many valid points raised. I really appreciate your heartfelt responses to this very odd hypothetical scenario. Keep on rockin' in the free world!
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=( Sad... waking up my mom is going to be next to impossible
by ILoveTTATT inmy mom showed me how ferocious a mind-controlled person may be.. i started talking to her about the septuagint... i don't know at what point the conversation went wrong but she just got angry and said, "well, i trust that jehovah has kept the bible intact... i want to end this conversation"... and i said, "mom, you haven't even let me finish.
"i don't want to continue this conversation!
stop the car".
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wearewatchingyouman
I had a similar exchange with my grandmother last weekend in regards to "all scriptures are inspired by God." yet many of the scriptures this is applied to didn't even exist when Paul wrote that letter. Though it didn't escalate to the point your exchange did.Some people are just so afraid to look at things objectively. They're so indoctrinated that if one thread is pulled it could unravel the whole garment for them. That's just too scary of a situation for some to face when they've built their whole life around being ignorant. Personally, I've really tried to adopt the live and let live policy with my family. When the time is right they'll seek you out and ask questions. It's a hard reality to face, I understand, but trying to force the issue will just cause the walls between you to be built higher in my experience. Sorry for the hurt i know these situations cause.
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Did you suffer humiliating childhood experiences as a JW?
by yadda yadda 2 inin john cedar's (jwsurvey.org) latest excellent article on his blog about a us teacher that got reprimanded for trying to force a jw boy to salute the american flag, he relates a similar childhood experience where he was terribly humiliated at school in view of his classmates.. this reminded me of a similar humiliating experience i suffered at school, when i was 11 years old.
during our school's end of year 'prom night' (not actually called that in the country i live) which was in the style of a disco night, my unbalanced jw mother came to pick me up early and stormed right into the hall and grabbed my arm and pulled me out in front of all my friends right in the middle of the dancing.
on the way out she gave the teachers a lecture about the music being far too loud and how unwholesome the whole thing was for children of my age.
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wearewatchingyouman
I had a teacher who privately told me I was going to burn in hell for my beliefs one time. 3rd or 4th grade. I can't remember a teacher publicly humiliating me. Peers plenty of times, but I think every kid has that happen a few times regardless of whether or not it's based on religion.
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Some more weird ones
by Hortensia ina friend, former jw like me, wants me to ask you a question.
she remembers as a child that her jw parents believed that satan could come up through any perfectly round hole and cause you to sin.
for instance, if her father built a fire ring at the beach, he purposely put a corner on it so satan couldn't catch them.
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wearewatchingyouman
I prefer gold plated shotguns. Two birds, one stone. Yeah, never heard of that superstition before. The closest I remember to a superstition was, "Don't meditate. It opens the mind to be filled with demons."
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wearewatchingyouman
So this is what they meant by "separating the sheep from the goats"......
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Faith.
by wearewatchingyouman inso, i usually describe myself as an agnostic theist with fideist tendencies.
what this boils down to is that, for me, faith and reason are independent of eachother.
i believe in god even though it makes no rational sense to me.
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wearewatchingyouman
Credulity? Dude, if it was a matter of credulity I think I would have been a Witness a long, long time ago. I am anything but "too willing to believe that something is real or true." No one or no thing is deceiving me of anything. Even if this hypothetical scenario was a real one.
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Faith.
by wearewatchingyouman inso, i usually describe myself as an agnostic theist with fideist tendencies.
what this boils down to is that, for me, faith and reason are independent of eachother.
i believe in god even though it makes no rational sense to me.
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wearewatchingyouman
Yes Lisa Rose. I understand that I'd have to answer the baptism questions. I haven't looked at them in the last few years, but last I checked there weren't really any that couldn't be answered purely on faith. I'm not really interested in any other religions as that would leave me in far worse standing with my family than I am now. My family on my mom's side has a "theocratic history" dating to 1905-1910(Not sure of the exact date), and my dad's side goes back to the 50's. Basically, 75% of my family are Witnesses. 20% are DF'd. 5% are like me and were smart enough to never make a commitment... lol.
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WT gearing up to dump Russell and come clean on early history?
by Comatose inwe've discussed this on lots of threads, but i've noticed a few things lately.
they seem to be talking about the early days on a very regular basis, almost constantly.
the change to fds happens and this involved a dive into early history and a few knocks on russell.
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wearewatchingyouman
Thanks Blondie!