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According to Genesis 1-3, God creates a paradise and many different kinds of awesome life and everything is perfect. What a great God He is. Then everything is corrupted because of one single act of two humans (one who was deceived and the other who followed suit). All mankind has now become evil and worthy of death and is therefore in need of redemption. Now there are wars, murders, rapes, natural disasters, genocides, dreadful diseases and disorders of mind and body, hatred, lusts, etc. - SO MUCH pain and suffering century after century which God knew would happen because of Adam and Eve's disobedience. Why was such a cruel and severe punishment so necessary? All of this is explained away by saying “a loving God gave Adam and Eve free will,” so everything is their fault – not God’s. I now call that statement into question because God was GOD and so much GREATER than them: - God was incapable of doing evil, but Adam and Eve were created capable of doing evil. - God had foreknowledge of all that would happen if sin entered the world, but Adam and Eve were only told of “their death.” Who was in a greater and more powerful position to have the responsibility of the whole world placed on their shoulders – God or Adam and Eve? Yet God placed it on humans. I used to think this was how highly God thought of the perfect man He created, and they just went and blew it. Now, I’m thinking they were doomed from the beginning to fail.

After leaving twi, it was necessary to unlearn the lies we were taught in order to become healthier. I think it is true for leaving Christianity as well - it happens when one sees the problems with what the Bible teaches. Is it only a matter of how one looks at things? The following is from the beginning of the video above about the slave mentality of Christianity. It shows a different way of seeing God than what I’ve believed for so long. INDIVIDUAL ASPECT - Fear of Death: God offers a bargain system, not a free gift but a trade in order to save us from eternal death (or hell) which He decided was the apt penalty for all of us because of Adam's sin. Our end of the bargain is to make Jesus Christ our lord and master. PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT (6:15 in the video) - 5 LINEAR CHARACTERISTICS OF SLAVE MENTALITY (lowering oneself to bring about the desires/needs of someone greater at a great expense to oneself) i. Obedience: based on being told the Master/God knows what is right; disobedience = personal harm ii. Submissiveness: lowering oneself; believing we're worthless - we who are “wretched” according to our Master/God are “saved” so we can glorify how great our Master/God is iii. Dependence: relying on our Master's/God's authority to supply our personal needs, validation, direction or sustenance which reinforces our worthlessness, wretchedness and incompetence to live our lives without Him iv. Fatalism: The Master's/God’s way is the only way; any other way is bad, therefore we resign ourselves to submission and dependence on the Master/God v. Fear of autonomy: fear of freedom, personal responsibility or unknown outcomes (e.g., Israelites wanting to return to slavery in Egypt rather than face the reality of their hardships in the wilderness) A A believing Christian will obviously not see things this way, but for one who is beginning to doubt the truth of the Bible, the above becomes eye-opening.

“….all the social advantages there are in being in a cult.” What could ever be said to someone who beleeeves this? It is daunting to even imagine the level of delusion required, yet, I see it and read about it every day. Very, very sad.

https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/s/toPjST02Yg This thread talks about all the social advantages there are in being in a cult. Many “friends” easily accessible. This person talks about the JW app where they are connected to 500 people and are “friends” with 100 of them. Another insightful comment describes that as “forced connections with people whose real personalities are hidden under a facade”. I think many people trade their souls and morals for this fake connection. I certainly lost about 100 percent of those fake connections when I decided that the path of lifetime service to prop up “WOW” TM and self inflated nincompoops was not the best for my family. How many people disagree with the tenets of TWI but are too afraid to leave because of their “friends”???? Heres a tip. They are not your friends. They are less your friends than the neighbors on your street for the most part and than your average person in a community. Those ties aren’t worth the sacrifice. The juice is not worth the squeeze IMO.

The error of four crucified is not explained by fundamentalism. It's surprising that this actual error was invented by a man as educated as Bullinger. That he would point to an 18th century cemetery in France as supporting evidence is even more surprising for such a man, until you find out he was a fervent flat earther. Then, it's, "Ohhhhhh..." It's surprising that a scholar as proficient in languages as Bullinger would fail so profoundly to understand how translation works and why word for word literal translations of idiomatic expressions like ἐντεῦθεν καὶ ἐντεῦθεν are ineffectual. The word "one" wasn't added in the way it is suggested. It is not a corrupt interpolation motivated by some nefarious agenda. Translators add words sometimes so an expression in the source language will make sense in the target language. This is not a radical idea. That Bullinger pretended not to understand ἐντεῦθεν is an adverb modifying the verb crucified and answering the question "Where?" is beyond astonishing. It does not modify "two." That Bullinger defecates on all that he should know about Greek and English is suspect. Who now has the nefarious agenda? Why would he invent such deception? Four crucified is so blatantly inaccurate and irresponsible that, for me, it calls into question everything Bullinger wrote. I'm not saying Bullinger was wrong about everything, just that everything he wrote deserves scrutiny.

Here is another example of victor contradicting himself. There are hundreds of examples of this kind of error laced throughly throughout "his writings" and recorded sermons. Either he was a liar or just stupid, or both. Either way, he hoped no one would notice or question the dead rabbits pulled from his hat. If one digs beneath the glowing, seductive, superficial word salad of his "teachings," one can find out. Now, this effort will require a sharp and sturdy tool to penetrate the thick, petrified crust of bullshonta. An infant's fingernail should suffice. I want to know what the text says. I have no doctrinal agenda. (For a doctrinal perspective, go to WordWolf's excellent discussion of Genesis 1 he started in the Doctrinal forum.) As far as I can tell, there is no adverb then in Genesis 1:2. There is no textual evidence supporting victor's bloody rabbit. None. NONE. To say there should be is to tip one's hand to using an eisegetical process of "private interpretation" - a method victor CONSTANTLY railed against! To your point, like the serpent, victor added words to the text ALL THE TIME. As you know, he also deleted words, even entire paragraphs - "Cross it out!" Indeed, there are inauthentic, interpolated words and verses that made it into the Bible, but only those that didn't fit victor's glove were crossed out. And he crossed out added words because he didn't understand how translations work, as in John 19:18. victor also frequently changed the meaning of words. Partly because he didn't understand how language works and partly as a means to force fit his voodoo into his bloody glove. Further into Genesis at chapter 2 verse 2, he changes the meaning of the Hebrew verb shabbath. He says it means SIT, not REST, and not that it should mean SIT, but that it actually means SIT, because God doesn't need to REST. A complete invention! Total bullshonta! A blatant lie from the mouth of a liar! Shabbath means to cease, to desist, to rest (from labor), to stop working. Period. It never, ever, EVER means to sit.

Something I learned after leaving TWI is that fundamentalists who cling to the non-negotiable notion that the gospels should not contradict each other (which comes from the belief in inerrancy) will come up with ludicrous interpretations like four crucified. They disregard the fact that each gospel stands on its own. And in case you don't know, each gospel was written loooong after the events it describes. And the gospels were written long after Paul wrote his letters, too. Sometimes I wonder how people woud view the N.T. if the order of the books were put in order of when they were written. That would result in the gospels coming AFTER Paul's epistles. If you're super interested in this topic, check out Fundamentalism by James Barr. And excellent books on the history of the N.T. texts are available by Bart Ehrman. They are easy to read, too!

Speaking with my pastor... with a real doctorate. I told him I had trouble enjoying reading the Bible, so therefore I read books about the Bible, i.e. Smith Wiggles worth etc.... He investigated me. It was THIS he found so destructive Wierwille argues that the Bible as a whole is not relevant to all people of all times. Every word of Scripture is equally inspired by God, he says, but different books were addressed to different audiences. The Old Testament and the Four Gospels are for the Jews and Gentiles; the rest of the New Testament is for the "Church of God" of "born-again believers." Next, the fear of the "Jesus spirit" and not understanding Jesus. Thus, taking away our conversational fellowship with him. Then, the misleading our focus... Such as we read Romans and we focused on Jesus being the creation and people worshiping the created more than the creator - even though all the verses around it condemned the behaviors going on in TWI. Then, VP had us focus on the GRACE administration - because all his sins could be forgiven as he twisted that up in his favor. So VP, took away the Bible, the savior, and had us focus on GRACE - this ladies and gentlemen - was a false prophet. For to loose intimacy with God always leads to sexual sin. Then, the erroneous teaching to NOT SAY THINGS OUT LOUD or the devil will hear it! The Bible does NOT teach that, as a matter of fact, the POWER of God is unleashed in SPEAKING - from Let there be light to the LOUD voice you hear in Revelations... So, we had our Bible taken, our Jesus minimized, our focus redirected, our speaking the word/prayer power diminished, GRACE to sin exhaled - and we wonder why (for some) it is hard to read the Bible? WE WERE LIED TO STOLEN FROM DECEIVED