Actually one of my favorite childhood memories was shopping one evening downtown in the nearest city just before Christmas in the early 70's. The old large colored lights and tinsel was pretty cool. My JW family was one of the lucky ones as my P.O. Dad basically gave us a Christmas, just a week later. We never decorated of course but it was a great compromise. We were rather poor but we always got one nicer gift and a bunch of other stuff like socks and granola bars. As a result, I never had the hatred of Christmas some posters are dealing with.
peacefulpete
JoinedPosts by peacefulpete
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Some Seasonal Nostalgia
by NotFormer incan't find any references, so you'll just have to trust me on this one.
i remember, probably at least two decades ago, a small news snippet about someone was going around brooklyn heights and setting fire to christmas wreaths on people's doors.
i've always personally suspected* that it was a bored/semi-insane bethelite.
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Nobody else understands
by ElderBerry inif you once were fully pimi and truly believed jw doctrine to the core like i once did, when you come to the reality that it is not the truth at all it can be extremely devastating.. i think only other ex jws could ever understand.
i wasted my entire life i thought the real life was yet to come to wasted the best years knocking on doors.
now i’m so angry.. i can understand why so many top themselves when they realise it was all lies..
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peacefulpete
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
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Retirement
by jehovaxx inthe difference is now blatantly obvious, older ones who went against direction of the gb and planned for retirement have relatively more comfortable lives.. those who trusted and followed gb direction never got further education or training, pioneered or spent most of their lives knocking on doors for free, making just enough to get by in a part time job.. if you followed direction from the gb then you thought the end was just around the corner so no need to plan for retirement.. now these ones have indeed got old which they were given the impression they never would.
they are a burden on others.
the state has to pay for them in their old age.
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peacefulpete
He provides for them, just as he does the birds.
Here in the northwoods the species that overwinter have a 1 in 3 chance of dying from starvation and exposure.
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Forget 2012... The world will end May 21, 2011
by Elsewhere inhttp://articles.sfgate.com/2010-01-01/bay-area/17466332_1_east-bay-bay-area-first-time-camping.
biblical scholar's date for rapture: may 21, 2011theologyjanuary 01, 2010|by justin berton, chronicle staff writerformer civil engineer harold camping of oakland, who runs family radio, has studied the bible for almost 70 years.credit: lance iversen / the chronicleharold camping lets out a hearty chuckle when he considers the people who believe the world will end in 2012.. "that date has not one stitch of biblical authority," camping says from the oakland office where he runs family radio, an evangelical station that reaches listeners around the world.
"it's like a fairy tale.".
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peacefulpete
Apocalypse Later: Harold Camping vs the End of the World (2013) - Plot - IMDb
To anyone who followed this story, this will not be news. Harold altered his message after his May 21, 2021, date failed by insisting that the return of Christ was "spiritual/ invisible". He then predicted the literal return would be a few months later. When he was interviewed a year later, he had changed his tune. He then claimed to have been convinced of his dates but was wrong. He now longer made date predictions even going so far as to say it could be 100 years away. I reserve judgement regarding his sincerity. The documentary is well done and educational.
The documentary is presently free to view on Roku channel.
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Nobody else understands
by ElderBerry inif you once were fully pimi and truly believed jw doctrine to the core like i once did, when you come to the reality that it is not the truth at all it can be extremely devastating.. i think only other ex jws could ever understand.
i wasted my entire life i thought the real life was yet to come to wasted the best years knocking on doors.
now i’m so angry.. i can understand why so many top themselves when they realise it was all lies..
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If 1914 gets tossed
by Leathercrop init feels like the change in reporting of hours becomes a fundamentally bigger deal every day.
the weight and importance placed on quantity was enormous, and now it's just gone.
even tho most witnesses really didn't keep "accurate" records so to speak hehehe.... this could very well be a precursor to even bigger doctrinal changes, like 1914. damn, would would happen then?.
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peacefulpete
From a religious history standpoint, certain doctrines appear to be identifying and defining. But from the standpoint of truly invested members, loyalty trumps any changes in doctrine. We were, and millions still are, willing to sacrifice our families out of a misplaced sense of loyalty. I've said it before doctrine only matters so much. It differentiates one group from another, but the reason people embrace and remain JWs is the sense of belonging and security. It's generally only when a person begins to feel in some respect isolated from the group that rational discussions about doctrine and policy begin to matter.
So, IMO, if they can spin it as a positive and continue to reinforce the sense of group loyalty, most anything can be changed. I'm sure they could decide Yahweh is the correct name of God and it would be fine. lol
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Fancy Dancer....JTB's Death
by peacefulpete init might surprise some to find that john the baptizer's (jtb) death is described a number of ways in the traditions of the gospels, josephus and the mandeans (jewish gnostic sect that followed jtb).
first g.mark says john was reluctantly killed soon after he baptizes jesus by "herod".
this herod is described mark 6:.
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peacefulpete
yep
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Fancy Dancer....JTB's Death
by peacefulpete init might surprise some to find that john the baptizer's (jtb) death is described a number of ways in the traditions of the gospels, josephus and the mandeans (jewish gnostic sect that followed jtb).
first g.mark says john was reluctantly killed soon after he baptizes jesus by "herod".
this herod is described mark 6:.
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peacefulpete
Hey Phizzy....I have had a similar fascination with the JTB character.
About 20 years ago we used to discuss this stuff on this site. I stumbled across an original copy of "The Lost Book of the Nativity of John" by H. Schonfield, signed by him no less. Anyway, it opened a new way for reconstructing Christian origins. It was surmised by Schonfield that the nativity stories in Matt and Luke were, if not originally directed toward JTB then at least parallelled by him. Yes they ultimately were drawn from the OT but history seems to have forgotten how JTB inspired similar if not identical legends to those associated with "Jesus/Joshua".
Given the abundant evidence for a preChristian anthropomorphism of divine aspects/emanations/hypostases of God combined with popular belief that a "Joshua/Jesus" would return to defend Israel and the "Messiah son of Joseph" (one of the 4 craftsmen who was to reunify Israel) The Qumran texts, that demonstrate similar expectations, link the Essenes who many regard JTB as being from. IOW, all the ingredients are there. It might just be that we have in fact long known the historical Jesus, he was right in front of us.
Some years ago, again on this site, Leolaia remarked about how the death (by "Herod") and claims of resurrection of JTB find a larger typology in that of Jesus. More and more it appears the author of Mark was a brilliant fellow, he packaged some deeper spiritual concepts into a theatrical style narrative. The Christ was a hypostasis of God and his narrative drawn from typological usage of the OT and in more recent times JTB.
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Fancy Dancer....JTB's Death
by peacefulpete init might surprise some to find that john the baptizer's (jtb) death is described a number of ways in the traditions of the gospels, josephus and the mandeans (jewish gnostic sect that followed jtb).
first g.mark says john was reluctantly killed soon after he baptizes jesus by "herod".
this herod is described mark 6:.
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peacefulpete
A further note by way of correction. I uncritically accepted a comment on a Christian website that located the fortress Machaerus (built by King Herod the Great) as being in Galilee. In fact, it is over 100 miles south on the eastern side of the Dead Sea.
This and a number of other elements are suggestive that there is a conflation of Herods going on. John the Baptist is baptizing in Judea, gets arrested by Herod the Tetrarch of Galilee to the north/east so Jesus hears this and flees to Galilee?????
Matt 4:12When Jesus heard that John had been imprisoned, He withdrew to Galilee.
Did the Matthean author correctly believe that his source (Mark) identified Herod the Great (King Herod) in Judea not Tetrarch Antipas had JTB arrested and killed?
This would then mean the alteration the present text of Matthew was later redacted at the dancing girl scene to conform with the Josephus version that identifies Herod Antipas as his killer?
It's all very confusing.
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Fancy Dancer....JTB's Death
by peacefulpete init might surprise some to find that john the baptizer's (jtb) death is described a number of ways in the traditions of the gospels, josephus and the mandeans (jewish gnostic sect that followed jtb).
first g.mark says john was reluctantly killed soon after he baptizes jesus by "herod".
this herod is described mark 6:.
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peacefulpete
OK, back to the daughter, "Salome". I mentioned briefly above that there are textaul manuscript variants here again.
In some authoritative manuscripts, such as Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Codex Bezae, the text reads as follows: καὶ εἰσελθούσης τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτοῦ Ἡρῳδιάδος (Nestle-Aland 1979:107). This reading is printed in Nestle-Aland since the 26th edition. The word αὐτοῦ is striking here. The Holy Bible New Revised Standard Version (1989:41) prefers this reading and translates this verse as follows: ‘When his daughter Herodias came in’. This choice implies that the young girl is the daughter of Herod Antipas himself, and that her name is Herodias, just like her mother, who is (also) called Herodias. The reading with αὐτοῦ is the lectio difficilior and ‘must be adopted on the strength of its external attestation’ (Metzger 1975:90). Because according to Mark 6:24,28, Herodias is the mother of this girl, this girl must be the daughter of Antipas and Herodias. Antipas is not her paternal uncle but her father. (Wim J.C. Weren, Herodias and Salome in Mark’s story about the beheading of John the Baptist)
So we have a alternate tradition that that daughter was not Salome (the daughter of Herodias and Herod II) but rather the daughter of Antipas and Herodias whose name was also Herodias. Now we have to ask why might these variants exists.
Some have suggested the tradition that the daughter was not Antipas's daughter is due to the impossible timeline it creates.
continue later