Bible does not have Divine authority. Even in the late antiquity when Christianity became dominant, it became clear in Eastern Roman Empire and later in Catholic Europe, that Bible cannot be used as source for laws, or moral codex. Various Christian kingdoms had to compromise their beliefs with reality when it comes to laws and they had to pick something more qualified like Roman laws over antiquated, impractical, Mosaic laws of the OT. If we take away issues of slavery, wrong Earth's history, abuse of children, wife, etc., it cannot be taken as authority. Bible shows what long gone civilization thought about Divine order and they tried to interpret it such way.
Posts by kaik
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75Having Faith in the Bible
by william draper ini know many on here have lost faith in the bible , is it possible that is because ones do not have the right perspective regarding it .
we have usually been taught by bad teachers , or ignorant .
i believe if we take an honest look at the bible , we will see that it gives us the best answers to crucial matters , it gives us some amount of bearings ( understanding ) , which without having such knowledge we would all be more like walking zombies in amanner of speaking , we would be lacking hope in something better , for surely something better is to come , how can we be sure , .
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All you men here, who does the house cleaning?
by James Mixon indo you help or is this a woman job?
have you change your ways since.
leaving the borg.
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kaik
I am working on my Master's, so I have little time for everything, doing full time job and the study. My hobbies are gone, and so is my gym. At least the second half is understanding and supportive that I cannot do everything around the house as I used to do. This is my first free weekend with light study after three months of hell with homeworks. -
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My JW family - hypocrites or confused?
by Faithful Witness ini haven't posted here in awhile, and have really been focusing more on my own life.
i haven't been keeping up with jw updates or issues, as it was really getting exhausting, and taking too much of my attention away from my priorities.
(i was never a jw.
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kaik
My mom feels that she was deceived by the organization and she cling into the publications that were valid 40 years ago. She does not recognize the WT as the one she entered in 70's when big A was about to happen. I know she is confused, she wants to believe that she serves God, but she feels that the WT and her KH is not the right place for it anymore. She was told that generation of 1914 will see the end, while watching everyone of them to die. She is 80, and leaving WT would end her social life, plus my sibling, in-laws, and cousins and extensive family would shun her.
My sibling is confused as well, goes back and forth with extreme views on anything WT say is true and everyone else is wrong including my mom. My mom has to hide all the old WT she had accumulated and some of them are back from the late 1960's. She had them bounded and she likes to read them through, but my sibling insist that it is apostate material and should be discarded. I told my mom to turn the material to local university library for research, so I hope she does. My sibling has period of extreme activity in WT and than she will suddenly withdrew and than return year later. We had not talked too much after my walkout in 1994 and we grew apart for next 15 years. My nieces and nephews do not know me as I was never mentioned. Lately I am back in the picture after series of personal crises my sibling had until I was the only one who could financially backed them from failed marriage. So the communication is better, but the 15 years been lost and I cannot ever get them back.
Sometimes I think back to my childhood back in the early 70's when my JW aunt started to study with my parents and introduced them into the cult. I wonder how my life would be different if my parents had refused to study with my aunt that summer. This cult just destroyed the family. My grandparents were together for 66 years and other 55. My parents always wanted to have long marriage like this but it failed apart after my father refused to get baptized (he said he see BS through it) and left us without ever divorcing to live with his mom where he died under her care.
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All you men here, who does the house cleaning?
by James Mixon indo you help or is this a woman job?
have you change your ways since.
leaving the borg.
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kaik
We do everything equally. I do not like doing laundry and I was never good in folding them. Plus I had share of destroying them by washing them improperly. My mom and granny used to do phenomenal job on it. However, I do all the outside job on the backyard, planting, mulching, painting, laying pavements, washing windows, polishing floors. I generally do not like three dirty things.. kitchen, floor, and tables. I don't have any garbage around the house inside or outside. Items are either utilized or destroyed/thrown away. My attic is empty as well.
When it comes to cooking, I am good cook, but I must be in mood. My grandmother used to be a cook for baroness, and she taught me a lot as I used to live with her on and off bases when my parents split up and my dad moved to her back. When I was kid, my father did all the cooking, and my mom did the baking. However, with crazy schedules and unpredictable work hours, it is sometimes easier to just go out.
The best way to keep house clean is dedicate one day to do thorough cleaning from morning to evening and maintain it clean.
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Is This a JW on The TV show called Horders?
by greenhornet inhttp://www.aetv.com/hoarders/video/stacey-roi.
this is the link.
however it may not work because i am logged in on my account.
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kaik
Thanks God that nobody in my family was hoarder, and I do not know JWs who were except one lady who collected cats, but she was living in small cottage in the woods. Hoarding is a mental disorder, which can be also dangerous if it posses health and fire risk to the area. In my hometown there were two deadly incidents, when one woman was hoarding so much trash at her house that it caught fire and nobody could save mother with child living above her as the fire spread out very quickly. The woman was only fined and continued to collect the trash for a while until she died. Other hoarder we had in my town were elderly couple who patrolled every dump site in the city. Once they picked up container with unknown chemical, which eventually ignited in their apartment and exploded. The fire from the house was seen through entire city and the couple barricaded themselves in the place so they cannot be evacuated by the fire squad. They had to literally to handcuffed and dragged away. Any case, entire house that was from the 19th century burned down and there was empty lot for a while. I do not know what happened to them, but they were charged with public endangerment. -
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When did Christianity Separate from Judaism?
by fulltimestudent inthis is a subject of some importance, the view of the witnesses, likely inherited from franz's influence, seems to be that early christianity developed as a separate religion to the jews.. the view of most contemporary scholars is that the separation occurred slowly, and that influential early christians (e.g.
such as paul, peter, john and james) still saw themselves as jews.. to those of us that are no longer christians (and, most ex-witnesses here, seem to gradually move to that position) this is not an important issue.. but to an organisation that claims it has "the truth," surely it should know the truth about its origins.
yet the evidence is that the modern day religion of jehovah's witnesses, does not know the "truth" concerning the origins of early christianity.
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kaik
I think we are trying to look into Judaism and Christianity of the 21st century mind and it is our guess how people who were Jews, Christians from Pagans, and Christians from the Jews felt on this topic around 100 AD. Judaism developed on theology and new books were written. Christians did the same. For centuries these two coexist, especially during the first two centuries of prosecution. By 350AD, Christianity became dominant religion in Roman empire, especially in the Greek speak territory of the future Eastern Roman Empire. The dominant influence in that era would be coming from St. Augustine (+430) who actually hoped to reconcile differences of Christianity and Judaism to fulfill Divine promises as realized in the church and written in the OT. Unlike contemporary John Chrysostom (+407) who had tremendous influence upon Christianity in this writing was utterly anti-Semitic and in his homilies he compared synagogues as place of demon worshiping. -
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When did Christianity Separate from Judaism?
by fulltimestudent inthis is a subject of some importance, the view of the witnesses, likely inherited from franz's influence, seems to be that early christianity developed as a separate religion to the jews.. the view of most contemporary scholars is that the separation occurred slowly, and that influential early christians (e.g.
such as paul, peter, john and james) still saw themselves as jews.. to those of us that are no longer christians (and, most ex-witnesses here, seem to gradually move to that position) this is not an important issue.. but to an organisation that claims it has "the truth," surely it should know the truth about its origins.
yet the evidence is that the modern day religion of jehovah's witnesses, does not know the "truth" concerning the origins of early christianity.
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kaik
Nice post Caleb. I do not think there will be universal agreement when the split between Christianity and Judaism happened, if it was gradual or sudden, or just both religions grew apart. What I had studied from various books on Early Christianity, and history in college, the split happened after Jewish War and but was before Trajan/Hadrian banishment Jews from Jerusalem (around 115-135AD). Other sources say that Council of Jamnia had been the final split between these two groups. Marcion also excluded Hebrew Bible and accepted only Paul's writing. While Christianity took over 200 years to develop into own religion and be legalized, it is possible that the religious split happened very quickly in matter of two generations. Protestantism is one of the prime examples how one group within one religion would secede and create own church and own theology. Bohemian Protestantism took 25 years to form (1415-1440) and lasted for another 200 years. However, even in the first two generations, people who went to Bohemian and Moravian churches saw themselves as a Catholic, but without Rome and Papacy. The ideological justification of the own church came in 50-75 years later around 1480's. German Reformation was also very rapid, but English took much longer to secede from the Rome. -
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What Exactly Is The JW View of Physical Discipline, Corporal Punishment?
by minimus ini believe that since it is not politically correct to spank your child, the watchtower doesn't push parents anymore in that direction.. years ago, elders would sit a parent down and tell them that they needed to discipline their kids and if needed, give them a spanking, since the bible says, they won't die if you give them a beating.. what is the watchtower's view on this subject now?.
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kaik
Beating up children is a child abuse, and should be reported to police and CPS. Additionally, what many JWs did was not one disciple spank but they beat up their kids with stick or whip. This is outright criminal and the abusers should see a day in court. The worst fared children whose got JW step-parent and they justified by Bible their hatred for children that were not theirs. -
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When did Christianity Separate from Judaism?
by fulltimestudent inthis is a subject of some importance, the view of the witnesses, likely inherited from franz's influence, seems to be that early christianity developed as a separate religion to the jews.. the view of most contemporary scholars is that the separation occurred slowly, and that influential early christians (e.g.
such as paul, peter, john and james) still saw themselves as jews.. to those of us that are no longer christians (and, most ex-witnesses here, seem to gradually move to that position) this is not an important issue.. but to an organisation that claims it has "the truth," surely it should know the truth about its origins.
yet the evidence is that the modern day religion of jehovah's witnesses, does not know the "truth" concerning the origins of early christianity.
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kaik
Christianity evolved from Judaism, but the ideological split happened in the course of two generations. Reformation was also a process that took about 40 years and it created two different branches of Christianity. Another major issue for Judaism and its identity was the Jewish war in 70AD that had a profound effect on the development of the Jewish identity. Prior that event, Jewish faith and culture was deeply integrated in the Greco-Roman culture and their faith was considered as equal. Jewish revolts in 70AD and later 115 cemented their beliefs and national identity due several factors: Jews were considered as a hostile element in Roman society, rabbis were executed through the empire, and Jewish holy books were banished.
While Christianity was also oppressed, their identity development was different from the Judaism. Certainly after 70AD the split between these two groups was permanent and irreconcilable, but for another 50 years there were Jewish Christians as can be seen from contemporary writings. Ignatius who died in 107AD pressured these Jewish Christians to give up their Jewish customs. What I have read, the split had happened between 70AD and 115AD.
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Suicide - How many do you know within the JWs
by Lady Lee inthw wts likes to play games with their statistics.
one interesting but truly tragic is the number of jwhovah's witnesses who commit suicie.. now i suspect that if a person commits suicide shortly before or after they are disfellowshipped then the elders would say that person wasn't a witness or that they had done something so terrible that they were too guilty to admit it and by their action of committing suicide they pretty much declared they were no longer a jw.. yup fancy talk to make sure any crap didn't fall on them.. so my question.. do you know of cases like this?
if so then can you answer a few more questions.. had this person been dfed or in real danger of being dfed or whatever the equivalent is if they were never baptized?.
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kaik
Suicide among JWs are common. The saddest thing is that due cult proximity of one another, they tends to go together and several people will kill themselves within short time span. My mom was a friend with one lady who was these JWs who never married and available after Armageddon. She had several suicide attempts, once she jumped under train which mauled her, but she survived. Several months later she succeeded, but she destroyed everything in her house and all her clothing. I was with that woman in Strahov assembly in 1991 and I still do not grasp why she went the way she did. Several years later, entire JW family died outside Prague by driving into the countryside, put plastic tube into the car exhaust pipe and killed themselves and their children. Exactly the same case happened 10 year later, but different congregation couple who also killed themselves the same way with two children. I wonder often if these two families knew each other.