I had loads of visits - several elders (including the one that studied with me and was my best man at my wedding) a CO and a DO, plus a number of the brothers I had pioneered with, and a letter from a sister who regarded me as an adopted son as I came in the 'Truth' as a young single brother with no other family, except a sister who lived miles away. And as I moved twice in five years after I left, I also had visits from an elder from each of the congregations whose area I had moved into. I found it very tedious, but I have to say I do believe the motives of all of them were genuine, but this was back in the late 1970s and early 1980s and things were very different back then, especially in the UK.
Ultimate Axiom
JoinedPosts by Ultimate Axiom
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How many in the cong visited you when you started fading
by joe134cd ini'm just curious speaking from a person who has stopped going to meetings.
i have heard reports from inactive ones (or from ones who the elders suspect of going to the dark side) of having so many visits from elders (cong members) that it got to the point of harassment.
surprisingly i have to say from personal experience and from numerous others that i have spoken to that the exact opposite has been the case.
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is there any biblical event that has a universally accepted date on which it occurred?
by jeremiah18:5-10 ini'm intrigued by the whole "bible chronology" topic, but have never really dug into it because to put any of it together you need a historically reliable starting point.
this wasn't a problem as a practicing jw because you just assumed their dates were right.
i would like for someone to give me one event described in the bible that is universally established and accepted historically that i can use as a reliable starting point.
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Ultimate Axiom
It could be worse Phizzy, Rutherford used to refer to it as “present-truth chronology” and said, “It is … in accordance with the soundest laws known to science - that we affirm that, Scripturally, scientifically, and historically, present-truth chronology is correct beyond a doubt.” (Watchtower, June 15, 1922, page 187). Now that really would be annoying if it wasn’t so funny.
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Watchtower Society copyright activity
by Ultimate Axiom ini have heard that the watchtower society occasionally takes action under copyright law to either close down a website, or get it to remove the offending material.. some websites (like jwfacts.com, quotes-watchtower.co.uk, and even in some threads here) include a host of images taken from watchtower publications that depict (among other things) armageddon.
are these websites infringing watchtower society copyright by displaying their images?.
if yes, has the watchtower society attempted to have these sites either closed down or the images removed?.
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Ultimate Axiom
notsurewheretogo – this was this case I had in mind – the letter I believe was to the BOE regarding how to deal with child molesters.
Londo111 – that’s an interesting item on wkipedia, but it makes me wonder why the Society took no action (as far as I know) to prevent the publishers of Ray Franz’s books from reproducing their internal letters in full, but did against JWsurvey.org.
Bangalore – thanks for that link – I clearly should have done a search on this website before starting this thread, that one just about covers it all.
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Watchtower Society copyright activity
by Ultimate Axiom ini have heard that the watchtower society occasionally takes action under copyright law to either close down a website, or get it to remove the offending material.. some websites (like jwfacts.com, quotes-watchtower.co.uk, and even in some threads here) include a host of images taken from watchtower publications that depict (among other things) armageddon.
are these websites infringing watchtower society copyright by displaying their images?.
if yes, has the watchtower society attempted to have these sites either closed down or the images removed?.
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Ultimate Axiom
I have heard that the Watchtower Society occasionally takes action under copyright law to either close down a website, or get it to remove the offending material.
Some websites (like jwfacts.com, quotes-watchtower.co.uk, and even in some threads here) include a host of images taken from Watchtower publications that depict (among other things) Armageddon. Are these websites infringing Watchtower Society copyright by displaying their images?
If yes, has the Watchtower Society attempted to have these sites either closed down or the images removed?
If no, would using these images in a book (with the appropriate source reference) be OK? Curious, that’s all.
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Build it and they will come
by Pete Zahut in"build it and they will come".
i said, " in a world filled with crappy fast food restaurants that should never have made it, movies and tv shows that are terrible yet make millions, celebrities who are famous for doing nothing and butt ugly crappy cars that were built and sold by the millions; if you put "it" out there and are consistant about it, people will eventually find you.
no matter how bad mcdonalds food is for you and (tastes) there will always be a line of people out the door.
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Ultimate Axiom
There are more than seven million atheists in world - surely they can't all be wrong?
Of course they can say the believers!
What is clearly wrong is the idea that because millions of people swallow something it must be true. I find it quite depressing that millions of people swallow such fallacious logic as this.
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Watchtower DOGMA, the rejection of the Christian foundation
by Separation of Powers inthe word dogma is defined as "a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.".
i began comparative religious studies several years ago, in fact, i am currently attending school with the desire to acquire my degree in this discipline.
while studying the buddhist belief system, i realized how similar the jw's were in their evolution to every other religion.
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Ultimate Axiom
Quite agree SOP - and In Search of Christian Freedom, Ray Franz provides a powerful record of how this happend to the Watchtower Society.
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Prayers that God answers. Any examples?
by punkofnice inwhen i believed in god i tried not to pray for anything selfish.. after a while i began to think that a lot of things i was asking my imaginary friend in the sky for were selfish for some reason.. i do not ever remember a single thing i prayed for ever being answered.
if there was the appearance of an answer it was because i did mental gymnastics to make it fit the delusion that god had actually answered me.
there was never an obvious message/answer from god.
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Ultimate Axiom
I don’t quite understand this idea that Jesus is God’s revelation of Truth to the world when he answers just as many prayers of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and all the other religions just as much as he answers the prayers of Christians. He obviously doesn’t care what religion you are, so why send Jesus at all? And if he does care what religion you are, why does he answer the prayers of people from every religion?
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Awake October 8 1972 False Alarm About "Peace and Security"
by scotoma inthe watchtower study yesterday made it clear that the cry of peace and security has not occurred yet.. what they don't mention is their false alarm that they falsely pointed to events in 1972 as the cry of peace and security.
that was 42 years ago.. they did this with a special awake in october of 1972. they devoted the full issue to the subject.
it rivals the infamous "is it later than you think" special awake of october 8 1968 in its grandiose predictions.. the october 8 issue of awake 1972 is must reading in view of the latest discussion of peace and security.. here are a few exerpts with the grandiose statements in red.
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Ultimate Axiom
A book "True Peace and Security - From What Source?" came out in 1973, which gave us all added proof that Armageddon was coming in the mid-1970s.
But these are by no means the only times this cry has been sounded. During WWII there were countless predictions that when the war ended, there would be a cry of 'peace and security', which would be immediately followed by Armageddon.
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The Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University Cult
by cofty inas an apocalyptic cult the brahma kumaris have some similarities to the watchtower.. they believe that all humans will die during an imminent and desirable end of the world they called destruction, in order that 900,000 faithful brahma kumari followers will inherit a heaven on earth before 2036.. to outsiders, bks refer to this event as a transformation and adherents are led to believe that a heavenly royal status can be achieved after it by donating money, free labor and unquestioning mental submission to the brahma kumari leadership, who will rule the world as emperors and empresses.
the brahma kumaris leadership has sought to cover up or deny child sex abuses at its headquarters, multiple suicides of followers at centers, financial corruption and abuses, immigration abuses, the persecution of minor or breakaway groups and the breaking up of families.. with echos of russell's divine plan of the ages, time, according to the brahma kumaris, is limited to a single, identically repeating, 5,000 year period called, the cycle in which human beings procreated by the power of mind for the first 2,500 years, and will do again from 2036, and the dinosaur period existed at the time of ancient greece.
likewise, in another 2,500 years into the future, brahma kumaris world spiritual university leaders teach that abraham, buddha, christ and mohammed will all be reborn again in order to start to teach, after having re-learnt their religion under them at this time.. the bkwsu leadership continues to financially benefit from their position by encouraging their adherents to a total mental, physical and financial surrender to their god.
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Ultimate Axiom
In the summer of 1970, myself and another young publisher knocked on the door of a group of these people in north west London. We spent a couple of hours batting back and forth our differing ideas of impending Armageddon. It was great fun, and I think I still have their chart somewhere – must dig it out and see if any of it has changed. Never met another one since – didn’t realise they were still going. Oh, yes, they were definitely bat shit crazy, but I guess that was their view of me too.
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Can a JW be accused of apostasy for just quoting scriptures?
by Island Man infor example, let's say an awake jw wanted to share ttatt about the true meaning of john 10:16, so he just posts on his facebook wall a couple passages of scripture with no commentary whatsoever - like this:.
"in answer he said: i was not sent forth to any but to the lost sheep of the house of israel.
- matthew 15:24.
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Ultimate Axiom
It’s worth remembering that the purge of 1980 was because those guys started reading the bible on its own. And they were not disfellowshipped for apostasy against the bible, but for apostasy against the Watchtower.
And you would just as surely be disfellowshipped for posting a string of Watchtower passages as well, especially if those passages exposed past errors.