i appreciate all my friends who stop to read what i write and post.
you help me more than you know simply by being there as a sense of 'family of friends' for me to talk to and 'share' thoughts with.i guess if i didn't have stories left to tell or people to listen, i could pack it in and join elon musk in a colony on mars.january 15, 2020. .
which world is this?_________________when the doctor pulled my screaming body out of mom all those 7 decades ago, i landed in a post-wwii world.it was--compared to today's world--an alien planet.the world i live in today has nothing in common with the world in which i grew up.there were no cell phones back then--there were black telephones with a dial-tone and an operator who placed your call.everywhere you found telephone booths!
Sometimes I think the modern world has robbed my children of a happy childhood or maybe it is just I look back at my childhood fondly. I heard it said "You know you're getting old when the future gets darker and the past gets brighter and brighter." Then again I heard that age is just a number and how we feel and think is what shows our tru eage.
In any case, happiest of birthday wishes to you Terry!
when the doctrine regarding 1935 being the close of the calling was done away with in 2007, it was not unexpected to see the number rise.
over the next few years it went from around 8,500 to 10,500. this seemed to indicate that there were a couple of thousand people that may have felt they had the calling all along, but too shy to profess it.
for the 30 year period between the mid 1978 and 2007, parktakers had barely dropped.
The Watchtower response to all of this is no different than it has been since 1935 - JW partakers are not Annointed; the PROFESS to be of the Annointed.
In general, in less you are a white haired, elderly male who lives at Bethel, most JWs will not accept you as one of the Annointed. Half of the Memorial attenders could partake of the emblems this year and the Watchtower couldn't care less.
hi everyone, i sure have been getting all kinds of replies by many on here and that's great.
i read all the post even if some don't believe in god at all.
however, i do believe and anything i say on here is from the depths of my belief and knowledge.
JohnTron72 -
I wonder if human cloning will ever come about. I have a feeling that the earth's nations will outlaw it before it can really go into full production.
On the same note, you see human cloning has a direct impact on society through a Judaeo-Christian lens. Other systems of belief an philosophy state that animals also have a consciousness that is separate from the physical body.
the co got on his hind legs for the public talk and repeated twice "tolerance promotes division".
then backed it up by saying that if one group march for some right, another group will march for the opposite.. so jws are intolerant and proud of it.
f@@@k me sideways.. may explain that the baptism tally was 0..
Religion promotes intolerance.
Spirituality promotes unity.
i have just got of the phone with a relative complaining about the convention venue.
as far as my relative is concerned wt can do no wrong, so for him to say what he did it must of been bad.
the venue where the convention was held was described to me as a “tin shed with no air conditioning”.
as an obedient little jw at age 20, i was serving time in federal prison in the late 60's, and the 40 brothers inside seagoville prison decided to stage our own assembly.i was the music servant.
(we didn't have elders back then.
)the theme of the assembly mimicked the free world assemblies being held outside.long story short:i composed (what i think and everyone else thought was) a very good song titled:following the fine shepherd as the end draws near.we rehearsed it (bros who had instruments) and the consensus revealed it was a winner._____excerpt:"jehovah god above, we owe you all our love; you are our shepherd and we follow you.though satan demands, that we must compromise; we'd sooner face death than be wrong in your eyes.now and forevermore, we fear not satan's roar;you are our shepherd and we follow you.
I always found that unless the item has the Watchtower trademark on it, the item would never be approved. This of course goes entirely against the Apostle Paul's words when he said that people would have different gifts and we were to be quiet once someone had something to say so we could listen to it. My father, who professes to be of the annointed, was disfellowshipped for sharing what he felt was new information.
Back in 1992 he was asked at his judicial committee who he believed was the Faithful and Discreet Slave. He stated, "Christ's annointed brothers still on Earth." He was then asked if he believed he was part of the FDS to which he replied, "Yes." He was told it would be announced at the next Service Meeting that he was being disfellowshipped, but not the official reason for it.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/montana/articles/2020-01-08/court-reverses-35m-verdict-against-jehovahs-witnesses.
It's not a total loss. The appellate court did not say "We are reversing this decision because there was no cover up." The court said "We overturned the decision because the current state law in Montana does not make any religious leader a mandatory reporter."
Here's the take away -
1. The abuse did occur.
2. Jehovah's Witnesses leadership chose not to report the abuse.
3. Montana doesn't make any religion report abuse.
You're even more likely to be abused as a child in Montana now than before. It's twice as dangerous to expose your children to any organized religion in Montana.
absolute certainty(the grip of belief).
in physics class the professor gathers his students together on the first day of school in the gymnasium for a stunning demonstration in what he terms "absolute certainty.
"there is also a law of conservation of energy.
That is pretty awesome, Terry!
satan peeks over the horizon in qatar :).
arbitrary borders on a map of the middle east, post wwi.. .
civilizations were uprooted.. .
There is nothing worse than a do-gooder. They are like the monkey that saved a fish from drowning by scooping the fish from the water and placing it in a tree. We believe democracy is the greatest form of government, so much so that we tell other countries they better adopt it or we will shoot them.
If we want to do some real good in the middle east, the west must completely abandon all fossil fuels and remove its military presence.
i'm 43 and a divorced mother of 2. in january 2019 i met the man i thought i could spend the rest of my life with.
we were happy and even though our relationship wasn't perfect (like all relationships) i thought we had a chance and were building a life together with our young kids.
background on me - i've been divorced since 2012 after 12 years of marriage.
God has nothing to do with this. We are free moral agents. God would violate the free will he has given your loved one by making him stay or go.
The real question is - Why now has your loved one decided to abandon you and your family?
It sounds like he suffers from what so many people suffer from, especially men, which is an over-attachment to his parents. When a grown man still allows his desire to please his parents override his own happiness in life he is bound for marital failure.
Have him read Matthew 25:38-46 out loud to you. The remind him who it was who stayed by his side during his difficult times. Then ask him who was acting Christ like and who was not. Educate him that Jehovah's Witnesses condemned shunning/disfellowshipping as an unloving, pagan practice up until 1952. Did the Holy Spirit mislead Jehovah's Witnesses for nearly 83 years? Why was something condemned in writing as a pagan practice for 83 years suddenly alright to practice. That would be like saying Christmas is wrong to celebrate for 83 years and then suddenly its alright.
Then ask him to use only the Bible and only the 4 Gospels to prove a person must be one of Jehovah's Witnesses to find favor with God or one must accept the Gospel of Christ and be baptized to find salvation? I will give you a clue - you can't prove the first, but the you can prove the latter.
Ask your loved one a hypothetical - if you parents and siblings all died at today in a car crash would you still want to go back? If he's honest with you he would say, "No." Then ask him if he is leaving you for God or for his family. In the end, we should never marry a person who puts their parents before their spouse.
