Posts by peacefulpete

10

What is spiritual warfare.

by Hellothere in

what is spiritual warfare to you?

i experienced a situation that i could clearly say was spiritual warfare.

but that was something i could only see years laters.

peacefulpete

The expression 'Spiritual Warfare' is an oxymoron. Spirituality should foster our better natures and produce love and peace.

Superstition produces fear, dogmatism and cult identity are divisive and judgmental.

16

COVID 19 - DISSOCIATION LETTER

by gavindlt in

dear friends,.

i think you all know me as a person who has always strived, despite my imperfections to only ever wanting to be and remain in the “truth”.

it is in fact what i so desperately want for my son ashton and my baby girl honey bee, to be lovers of truth and grow up to be a loyal servants of jehovah god and his son, jesus christ.

peacefulpete

No doubt you are going through a difficult period of adjustment, a new awareness. We wish you happiness on your path of discovery.

My 2 cents....Take your leave in peace. File the letter and take another look at it in a few years. Perspective changes.

32

Scriptures That Bothered You as a JW Kid.

by Sea Breeze in

my big one was: .

rev.

20: 5 "but the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.

peacefulpete

Ecclesiastes 11:1 says, “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days”

The more I thought about it the less sense it made.

16

Romans 6:7 - What Does It Really Mean?

by Honesty in

the convoluted jw interpretation of romans 6:7 just does not make any kind of sense at all.

after careful consideration of the scriptutre within its context i have to ask myself why i never noticed the inconsistency in the various wt publications.

i would really love to hear from some of the more outspoken jw apologists who frequent this board because they have proven that they can think for themselves and may have recieved some new light on the subject that they'll be willing to share with the rest of us.

peacefulpete

that our old man was crucified with [him], that the body of the sin may be made powerless, for our no longer serving the sin;
7 for he who hath died hath been set free from the sin.
we who died to the sin -- how shall we still live in it?
4 for sin over you shall not have mastery.
3 are ye ignorant that we, as many as were baptized to Christ Jesus, to his death were baptized?
4 we were buried together, then, with him through the baptism to the death,
17 and thanks to God, that ye were servants of the sin, and -- were obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which ye were delivered up;
18 and having been freed from the sin, ye became servants to the righteousness.

The writer of Romans 6 (likely Paul), is here using the fact that a literal slave was "freed" by means of death, to argue that since a Christian baptism was (in part) a death and burial, they were freed from the mastery of Sin.

This is clear by the expression that as Christians they were already 'set free from Sin' at their baptism.

As was discussed on another thread, this passage is being misunderstood by the WT. This led to the similarly erroneous conclusion that the resurrected dead are not judged by what they did in their previous life.

18

Who really is the faithful and discreet NATHEER SALIH ??

by Calebs Airplane in

we know he was faithful to frederick franz (or frederick franz was faithful to him).. we know he was discreet because so little is known about him today.

for example, we know that he was in the writing department (even though he never professed to being a jw), that wore expensive jewelry and that he was frederick franz spokesman (or did i get that backwards?)....

also, much has been said about salihs strange hebrew-to-english bible translations (supposedly used by frederick franz when writing certain wt articles) and several illuminati and/or freemason conspiracy theories have been analyzed, yet this guy has managed to slip under the radar almost completely unnoticed by all jws and will probably be completely forgotten in just a few years.. so, who really is the faithful and discreet natheer salih?

peacefulpete

I spent quite a few hours with F.Franz in the small Bethel sauna. Yes, I sat with him, and a couple others, and generally just listened to him ramble as he was wont to do as his mind was failing. He always had a young nurse guy to assist him. There was no mysterious Jewish bodyguard. BTW I wasn't supposed to be in the sauna, but had discovered it by accident and assumed I was welcome. lol. Noone ever told me otherwise. I did stop when I got a cold stare one time.

13

For JW lurkers - After Hamburg.................

by BoogerMan in

.......do you still believe the organization's false teaching that romans 6:7 refer to a person's literal death?.

watchtower may 15th 1982, pp.

8,9 - "the bible explains that at death a person is set free or released from any sins he committed.".

peacefulpete

Paul is using an illustration that has confused readers since he wrote it. but the context seems to make clear that "death" is used as a metaphor for baptism. A key concept is that in Roman era slave's debt ends with his death. Describing sin as a slaveholder (v. 6), Paul states: "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who has died has been freed from sin" (Romans 6:6-7).

The most confusing line is "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (v. 23). Slaveowners did pay their slaves a meager subsistence wage. Sin, as a cruel master. however only offered death as a wage.

To interpret Romans 6 as suggesting sins are erased at death is to negate the purpose/s of the Christ sacrifice. Mind you there were very many opinions regarding the latter, but Paul never elsewhere suggested that at death a person's sins were erased.

Confusing, even in context, but the surrounding text does make clear he was referring to baptism as death.

40

Why believe in a god?

by menrov in

if you consider that the god they believe in:.

- cannot be seen or heard and is only known in books written by writers we do not know nor do we have the original writings- does not listen to prayers from believers for security, safety, health, survival, protection, rescue, food etc- promises things that have not come true though had plenty of time to act on the promises- does not provide what you need to live- let's you suffer, struggle, work etc equal to non-believers, treated equally.

........ how does a believer look at his/her parents if they hide themselves, do not provide for you (shelter, food etc), make promises but never live up to these, does not provide what you need to live, treats you like anyone else but not as their child?

peacefulpete

Hard to watch you two do this. Kaleb, I respect your experience and insights. Cofty, you as well. I've gotten into tangles with people here without intending to offend. It happens. I think Kaleb was just emphasizing that the need to conform was part of our pasts. We all agree. Cofty is passionate about the injury religion has done in people's lives. We get that too.

38

“Lazarus, come out!”

by Fisherman in

many people here have expressed faith in evolution and in other theories—but in all honesty, do you have any hope whatsoever in your heart or in the back of your mind ?

truthfully..

peacefulpete

What you call obvious is not.

Awareness is present in all life forms with senses. Self-awareness is present in animals with social group needs. It seems clear the skill is an evolved one. Seeing yourself in others or seeing others in yourself. What separates us from other animals is a matter of degree and refinement of that skill, not a miraculous insertion of divinity.

This skill is a brain process. Those with frontal lobe damage for example often have diminished self awareness/consciousness.

40

Why believe in a god?

by menrov in

if you consider that the god they believe in:.

- cannot be seen or heard and is only known in books written by writers we do not know nor do we have the original writings- does not listen to prayers from believers for security, safety, health, survival, protection, rescue, food etc- promises things that have not come true though had plenty of time to act on the promises- does not provide what you need to live- let's you suffer, struggle, work etc equal to non-believers, treated equally.

........ how does a believer look at his/her parents if they hide themselves, do not provide for you (shelter, food etc), make promises but never live up to these, does not provide what you need to live, treats you like anyone else but not as their child?

peacefulpete

You haven't given money to them have you?

The supposed 'study' involved 24 people who self identified as deaf or blind who were 'recruited' by the miracle ministry being tested. No controls, not even a sound booth but hearing tests were done in noisy crowd. Two were un-retested (supposedly because of time constraints). In the end some had worse results after, some self reported as better but tested with no improvement. some tested better.

Regarding the blindness tests the same left-right symbol chart was shown before and minutes after. 3 or 4 out of 11 tested with improvement. Excuse was made to dismiss the unsatisfying results, as being the fact that healers charged more for 'successful' healings. It does admit that suggestion and hypnosis have also resulted in similar 'improvements.' This was perhaps the poorest excuse for a scientific study I have ever read. It seems clear the sham was done in partnership with the preachers for featuring on their webpage or by complete amateurs.

The primary author (McClymond) of the "study" is a Christian author, The next (Williams) is the author of a single other article, also suggesting the power of religious belief, that's all we know about her. Brown is a Pentecostal alternative medicine advocate. Mory is the leader of the Next Door ministries (if you call, the opening phone message is how to donate), The paper has never been 'cited' by authors apart from the authors themselves.

38

“Lazarus, come out!”

by Fisherman in

many people here have expressed faith in evolution and in other theories—but in all honesty, do you have any hope whatsoever in your heart or in the back of your mind ?

truthfully..

peacefulpete

Disillusioned JW.....The article stresses the fact that distantly related non-Homo primates use percussive tools (hammer stones) that produce flakes that at times might appear to be intentionally produced. This complicates the hypothesis that similar flakes associated with the earliest hominid sites were used as tools. What this means is that we need to seek corroborating evidence such as scraped bone, or flakes that clearly demonstrate intentional production, for greater confidence we are identifying tool making not just the incidental result of tool use.

Some non-Homo primates (and some other animals) have shown an aptitude for tool use, even production in some cases. This is the challenge of identifying behavior from simple artifacts.

Interestingly, an orangutan has been observed utilizing a sharp stone flake as a cutting tool it did not create. It seems plausible that the percussive tool use led to the intentional flake production, once the flakes were recognized as useful. This slight advancement might have been repeated countless times among primates. This emphasizes that homo evolution was not marked by huge leaps of skill and intelligence and that we need be cautious in assuming a behavior associated with stone flakes, especially so near the point of divergence from non-Homo ancestors.