Tag: #jehovah #exjw

Know Those That Knock On Your Door

Orlando RodriguezLeave a comment
Click here to buy book on amazon!

It is very important to know those who knock on your door.  During a 2015 Jehovah’s Witness broadcast, a streamed TV show that promotes Witness propaganda, Anthony Morris III, a member of the Governing Body  of Jehovah’s Witnesses and a supposed anointed Christian who will be among the 144,000 people who will be the only individuals resurrected into heaven, had this to say about higher education.  “Has the Governing Body changed its position regarding the pursuit of higher secular education?  No.  We feel that all of the cautions that we have addressed in the past are still valid.  However, our goal now is the focus on and intensify our promotion of the pursuit of divine education.  If parents and young ones are motivated to avidly pursue divine education, the quest for higher secular education becomes less and less of an issue.  The cost of obtaining university training is not our primary concern.  It is the potential for spiritual harm that has moved us to provide the cautions we have shared in the past.  All too often, our young people have met with spiritual disaster, especially after leaving home and living on a university campus.  So, parents and children?  You need to have a goal and you need to have a plan.  If you are missing either one, Satan will provide it for you.  Young people.  Ask yourself.  Why am I considering additional education?  Is it because I am pursuing a specific skill or trade to support my service to Jehovah or have I been pressured by the system into believing that higher education will somehow make me a more respected person or lead me to a better life?  If we are in continued association with those who do not believe the same, it can erode our thinking and convictions.  Some have felt that spending time with non-believers in a university setting is no different than working secularly with those who do not share our beliefs.  It is one thing to work on a job with others and quite another matter to immerse oneself in an institution of learning!  We are to be careful that this system does not mold or shape our thinking.  Higher education can easily influence thinking and attitudes.  When we make a decision, we must realistically also accept the consequences.  If we should be that careful about our association inside the congregation, the application is even more appropriate when it comes to institutions of secular learning!  I have long said, the better the university the greater the danger.  The most intelligent and eloquent professors will be trying to reshape the thinking of your child.  One mom I recalled, asked me to try and help her son who was attending a prestigious named university in Rhode Island.  After visiting him, I later had to inform her that her son now believed in evolution.  She refused to believe it until he finally told her himself.  How sad.  Ultimately the parents must decide how much education a child needs to succeed in life.  But does that mean that any decision that a parent makes in a child’s education is fine with Jehovah?  Here Jehovah guarantees that one day, every person on earth will be a true worshiper of him.  Will you be there?  Will your son or daughter be among those alive at that time?  Do your personal decisions matter?  Yes.  So then, each of us will render an account for himself to God.  Yes, we all will have to answer to Jehovah for the decisions we make today.  May we all decide to play it safe before our God?  Think of all of the opportunities there are now to enjoy divine education; congregation meetings, family worship, assemblies and conventions, the JW.org website and the station you are watching right now.   In addition to providing divine education, what secular skills will we be promoting?  Skills that will be useful to Gods organization now and after Armageddon.  For example, we need construction skills around the world right now!  And think about this.  We will not need doctors and lawyers after Armageddon, but we will need carpenters and plumbers and similar construction trades!  It requires faith to decline higher education and have the confidence that our material needs will be cared for by training in other fields of employment.”

Growing Up Jehovah’s Witness

Orlando Rodriguez5 Comments

Letter to Myself,

I have heard that you have decided to disassociate yourself from the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses.  I can sympathize with your feelings and understand the hurt you are currently coping with since I myself am a disfellowshipped brother from the same congregation.  I was indoctrinated into the religion since birth so I am cognizant of the internal pathos the splitting of families may actualize.  I say that this action separates loved ones because that is the intended purpose of shunning.  If not, this weapon would have no teeth.  The sharpness of its actions would have no barbed effect.  Smooth intentions lead to gentle outcomes, and that is not the outcome that is intended.  The harshness of this compulsory engagement is required to turn people back towards the “truth.”  However, what if this religion is not the truth?  Are you willing to stake your future life in a faith that you cannot without certainty declare as true? 

How can you avoid the pain of shunning from others?  Tertullian once said that “The pleasure of those who injure you lies in your pain. Therefore, they will suffer if you take away their pleasure by not feeling pain.” 

Shun them first, and you will have severed the connection you have with the congregation, a group of people who only have their self-interests in mind or maybe care for you but are in the same situation that you are.  They may doubt as well, but their bonds with their families are stronger than their will to be set free.  Losing your loved ones can be difficult but owning the one life you have is eternally more valuable, satisfying and a much more successful way of living. 

Do not listen to the members of the congregation.  They are masters of portents and smooth speech.  They are sly speakers that only are able to deploy false rhetoric to keep you captive in the Jehovah’s Witness cult.  You never know who the wolves are until they show you their teeth and by that time, it is too late.

The Powerless God

Orlando RodriguezLeave a comment

Imagine you live in a world where disease, abuse, and death do not exist, a utopia that harkens to the Elysian fields of Greek mythology.  The dead are alive, the diseased are cured, and the lame are healed.  Now return to reality and truly try to understand the quasi-dystopic world we currently live in, depending on your region. 

Here are some of the facts,  all taken from various online sources.  Nearly 700,000 children are abused in the U.S annually.  About four out of five abusers are the victims’ parents. 

With regards to diseases; About 610,000 people die of heart disease in the United States every year; that’s 1 in every four deaths.  There were approximately 36.9 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS in 2017.  A disease that has no cure and is considered a death sentence. 

With regards to terrorism, between 2006 and now, terrorist attacks occur at an average of 11,281 instances a year! 

This is only a skimming, a mere handful of the issues that afflict this world we live in.  With all of this misery that is bestowed upon humanity, what has God done to alleviate the matter?  Does he just sit there in heaven with indifference and watch us as we experience calamity after calamity?  Does he see all that we experience?  Is he aware of the deplorable circumstances we face daily? 

Isaiah 46:4 says – I am your God and will take care of you until you are old and your hair is gray. I made you and will care for you; I will give you help and rescue you.

If this is the case, where is this care from God?  Where is his rescue?  Are all of the atrocities above only committed by non-believers or immoral people?  What is God waiting for? 

Revelation 21:4 says – ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

So it looks like he will only care for you in the future but will ignore the death and suffering for now.  Also please keep in mind that while he waits for his assigned time to do away with this worlds horrors, he is watching us. 

So he sees everything that is occurring, every rape, all child molestation, everyone who is diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and every terrorist incident but does nothing?  Is this torture moral? 

I would now like to try a thought experiment with you. I want you to picture your child, boy or girl, vividly in your mind. If you do not have any children, I want you to create one, girl or boy. This generated child should be approximately between 5 – 13 years of age. You should feel true connectedness with this real or fictitious child. If this person where to be affected negatively in any way and you could watch this instance actually occur, you would surely empathize with this individual. I now want you to close your eyes and watch as this child is molested. You can’t even bring yourself to trying to create this simulation! Now, understand that for every 8 minutes, a victim of sexual assault is a child. If God can see everything but does nothing, in this instance is God truly the measuring stick of morality that we all should ascribe to?   Proverbs 15:3 says – The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.

The God that is described is The Powerless God.  He is a God that watches every negative action and fails to intervene, even though he is purported to have the power to do so.  Or maybe, maybe, this God does NOT exist, and that is why he fails to act.  This makes much more sense.  How could a moral being stand idly by and watch his creation live through such chaos?  In my estimation, God does not exist, since he refuses to intervene in the most critical of moments. 

I describe how I have come to the understanding that God does not exist in great detail in my new book, The True Nature Of Human Nature, which comes out in February 2019.  Available in Amazon.  Check it out!

The Abortion Hitman

Orlando RodriguezLeave a comment

Hitman

Who here has played the game Hitman?  It is a third person game where you control a genetically enhanced assassin who is contracted to eliminate targets.  A hitman is a person who eradicates people who have been marked by others for death.  When thinking about this profession, who here thinks about abortion?  Not many I am sure but apparently, the Pope thinks about this.   According to the CNN website, “He asked if it was right “to do away with a human life to solve a problem,” adding: “Is it right to hire a hitman to solve a problem? One cannot do this, it is not right to do away with a human being, albeit small, to solve a problem.”

Does the elimination of a 4-week old embryo constitute murder?  The question should be phrased as “is a 4-week old embryo human and should, therefore, have the same protections as human beings?  Should law dictate what women can do with their bodies?  Should we not let the scientist formulate when a fetus becomes a human since they are the most qualified?  When do you think an embryo turns into a true human?  Please comment below!