peacefulpete

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Posts by peacefulpete

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  17

  The length of a public talk

  by Farmer Jim1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  does anyone ever wonder the good they could have done instead of giving a public talk for 45 or 30 minutes?

  i remember giving my first public talk aged 18 and even then i was thinking ' this is just me making up half truths trying to blind people with jw propaganda'.

  fast forward 15 years to when i gave my final public talk and i was so close to seeding the 30 minutes with ideas that could possibly wake people up but i never had the guts.. in that 30 minutes i could have done so much real good for a person instead of spreading this awful religions dogma.

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  peacefulpete

  I was the PO and only guy in a foreign assignment. I often gave the entire meetings. At the end I had enough doubts to prevent my actually delivering a part but asked the congregation to pray for help. I was in a weird place. Years later I spoke with someone from that KH and they said they didn't remember that, and that they never could understand my accent anyway. lol
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  35

  Former Elders Please - Disbeliever recently married to a JW

  by doasthouwilt in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i recently married my best friend of 32 years.

  she is a life-long jw and once an active pioneer, i am a 'worldly' person through-and-through, always will be.

  we married because it was the only way we could find a way of staying together while giving her a path back to her religion ultimately, which she does not want to (or cannot) let go of.

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  peacefulpete

  doasthouwilt......No I just walked away. I made no conscious effort to influence my wife or anyone else, it was a tough couple years. At a point I thought the right thing to do was let her be free and we separated. She found her own path out when she found the advice and sympathies offered to her to be insulting and empty. She finally asked me to share what I knew and it took very little to convince her she was correct in her conclusions. A determined witch hunter elder moved into the area and demanded we be disfellowshipped 'in absentia' years later. I'm sure it had something to do with our past positions in the church that made us someone to be made examples of. That's the condensed version. We had no desire to avenge or destroy the church, we saw it for what it was, a church like so many others. And we understood the pointlessness of forcing loved ones to chose between us or the religion. We knew we would lose. We had shunned many ourselves and we knew the score. So if you are asking what to expect, who knows, I've seen everything.
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  35

  Former Elders Please - Disbeliever recently married to a JW

  by doasthouwilt in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i recently married my best friend of 32 years.

  she is a life-long jw and once an active pioneer, i am a 'worldly' person through-and-through, always will be.

  we married because it was the only way we could find a way of staying together while giving her a path back to her religion ultimately, which she does not want to (or cannot) let go of.

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  peacefulpete

  Your comments bring back some very uncomfortable memories of when I left the church before my wife. I wish you the best friend. Some do make it work. Glad she is not a purist and you are not a button pusher.
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  4

  Extraordinary CLAIMS require extraordinary EVIDENCE

  by BoogerMan in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  some of christianity's denominations/tribes/clans claim that god almighty/christ jesus personally selected their leadership/clergy to represent heaven on earth.. question for jw's: what scriptural or divine proof convinced/convinces you that it was the org/governing body?.

  self-proclaimed statements from literature does not qualify as proof..

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  peacefulpete

  Ask a JW (or any similar) if they ever wonder how other people can be devoutly loyal to their church but still be wrong. (of course they believe them to be wrong)

  They will likely say they were "lied to, deceived" because they haven't really deeply considered what makes a person devoutly loyal to a religion. Instead of getting mired in a debate about doctrine with them ask :

  Might culture and family have had an influence?

  Might it be a sense of community, commonality even affections members of the church have for each other?

  Might it be the religion gives them a sense of certainty in a changing world?

  Might it offer comfort in times of grief?

  Then ask if those are also true of their religion, does it offer certainty and comfort? does it have a warm familiarity from years of memories with family and friends? Do you feel a part of the community of worshipers?

  So might what you believe to be true of others be true for you?
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  35

  Former Elders Please - Disbeliever recently married to a JW

  by doasthouwilt in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i recently married my best friend of 32 years.

  she is a life-long jw and once an active pioneer, i am a 'worldly' person through-and-through, always will be.

  we married because it was the only way we could find a way of staying together while giving her a path back to her religion ultimately, which she does not want to (or cannot) let go of.

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  peacefulpete

  No two ways about it, it will complicate your relationship. Be a good husband and your behavior will belie the narrative about "worldly" men. She must already recognize this but it may take a while to fully penetrate. It may never. In fact I've seen cases where the JW pursues the church activity as a penance. Do you wish to participate in the holidays with your family? Do you want to share religious and political opinions or discuss science? Movies and TV? I wonder what your dates were like if topics like this were openly discussed.
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  15

  Future

  by punkofnice in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i wonder what this earth will really be like in 500 years from now?.

  what are your thoughts?.

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  peacefulpete

  Don't you watch Star Trek?

  I envision a more homogenous world, the zeitgeist of this century is one of cultural exchange and adoption. McDonalds in China and Panda Wok in Montana. (K-pop, that's something to ponder). Information is instantaneous (factual or not). Environmental and political necessity will increase migration. This sharing cannot be suppressed.

  There will be pockets of terrible suffering and probably another nuclear light show or two. But people will adapt and memenically evolve into a single society administered by local authorities.

  Oh, and about half the animal species will be gone but we will have tackled safe clean energy production.
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  21

  The Great Tribulation

  by Fisherman in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  will the great tribulation hurt individuals more than what job, jesus, roman punishment, naz&i germany, hiroshima, jail, capital punishment, disease, pain, terror, horror, soldier in the battlefield or some terrible pain people experience this very moment?

  how worse can pain and suffering get.

  it is very common.

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  peacefulpete

  You mean your version of what Jesus said.

  He is as free to reword, revise or imagine words of Jesus as the next guy. It's a Christian tradition.
  
  
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  21

  The Great Tribulation

  by Fisherman in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  will the great tribulation hurt individuals more than what job, jesus, roman punishment, naz&i germany, hiroshima, jail, capital punishment, disease, pain, terror, horror, soldier in the battlefield or some terrible pain people experience this very moment?

  how worse can pain and suffering get.

  it is very common.

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  peacefulpete

  'tribulation' (thlipseōs) is a word used in a number (45) of texts in the NT meaning 'hardship' and often used to mean 'persecution' of Christians. (eg. Acts 11:19, 2Cor1:8) Revelation was written at a time of persecution and expectation was for this to increase and culminate in all Christians being killed and going to heaven.

  As an aside, the "the" as in "the great persecution".is just grammatically called for as this sentence follows a colorful description of that persecution. Much like the 'the' in Rev 1:9 is grammatically called for.

  "I, John, your brother and partner in 'the tribulation' and the kingdom"

  Yes the writer anticipated this persecution to come to a final head, so in that way the persecution anticipated in Rev 7 was greater than previous persecution.
  
  

  Well, It didn't happen, in fact in time the Christians became the persecutors. And here we are 2000 years later with some here still trying to shoehorn it into JW chiliast doctrine.
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  7

  Children being used as guinea pigs in New York

  by ignored_one in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  new york's hiv experiment by jamie doran .

  reporter/producer, guinea pig kids .

  hiv positive children and their loved ones have few rights if they choose to battle with social work authorities in new york city.

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  peacefulpete

  Perhaps a more balanced approach to this difficult topic.

  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aids-drugs-tested-on-foster-kids/
  
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  14

  2013 New World Translation

  by Jerome56 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  on their website in the video "organizational accomplishments" watchtower devotes this segment to praising the superiority of the new world translation.

  about half way through, david splane relates the reason for a change in wording from the old 1984 nwt reference bible to the 2013 revised nwt.

  he said this was because of the recent discovery of an older manuscript that contained the greek word for overseer that was unavailable when the reference bible was being compiled.

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  peacefulpete

  XBEHERE...was that letter discussed somewhere?