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re-posting this for reference.. #1 protein functional redundancy comparing the sequences of amino acids in ubiquitous proteins confirms the relationship between all living things..
#2 dna functional redundancy comparison of the dna that codes for the amino acids of ubiquitous proteins predicts the tree of life with an astonishing degree of accuracy..
#3 ervs endogenous retroviruses that infected our ancestors are found in the same place of the genome of our closest primate cousins..
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hi rwc,.
i'm sure you're a very nice person and i don't want to get into an argument but rather a civil debate.
i just wanted to point out that as ex-jws many of us are a little obsessed with truth (not to be confused with "the truth" tm) and that after being burned by the watchtower society and hating ourselves for being so stupid to have fallen for its bs we have now become highly skeptical of the bible as well.
Memories, 21 years ago posting using a WEBTV. Great discussions.
any comments on the 04/2022 question from readers on divorce and remarriage.. "if a christian divorces his wife without scriptural grounds and then marries another person, how does the congregation view the previous marriage and the new marriage?".
why does that even matter how the congregation views anything?
they should be minding their own business.. if people move to a different area, the congregation wouldn't even know about.. (if a guy remarries a woman with the same first name, she would end up with the same name and no one would know).
Just curious, the 4/22question from readers, did it change the position on divorced remarriages?
Back in the late 90's they had an article that said that men who had divorced without "grounds" could never be used as an elder. Even after the 'innocent' wife remarried. As HE was still "scripturally" married. I discussed/debated this with the branch overseer at the time. His reply was the usual, "be patient" and it will be worked out if need be.
It was of particular interest as a circuit "heavy" had just left his wife and remarried another. He was Dfd then little over a year later was not only reinstated but back giving parts at the assembly. It raised eyebrows but he was a charismatic and wealthy guy.
Can someone pick up this topic to answer those questions? Was this 4/22 QFR a reversal of this? Blondie?
my big one was: .
rev.
20: 5 "but the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.
It's hard to beat the vengeful hate expressed in Psalm 137:9
Blessed is the one who grabs your little children and smashes them against a rock.
Picture singing that one at church.
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.
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.
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.
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.
my big one was: .
rev.
20: 5 "but the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
.......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.".
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.