Thank you very much for the thorough and enlightening analysis that you posted above, sWord.
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sWord
Typically ex-members get into something else -- University or music or another cause, and they need to abandon the past.
Do you really think so? What about also abandoning the idea that somewhere deep down, DM really is a good person, or has some redeeming personal characteristics?
I do not hate the JCs themselves (other than McKay) nor do I mean anybody any harm, physical or otherwise
In fact, I actually rather admire and respect the JCs for what they (ostensibly) stand for.
All Christians should want to be more like Jesus in thought, word, and deed.
I actually have learned a lot and gained much insight from studying some of the JC studies online.
It's not that I disagree with much of what they have to say with respect to obeying Jesus and his "harder sayings".
It's not that I do not like
what they have to say (because some of it is pretty profound), it's that I do not like how they
behave, that is, hypocritically.
In many respects, as a matter of fact, I think that they are right. I do not go to church very often myself, know what I'm saying?
It's just that from where I sit, It looks like they are being deceived, all of them.
All I see is that the end result of being involved with the JCs means that I eventually wind up on the street hawking DM's books. How is that "forsaking all", "trusting God" and not depending on money? The whole point of being a JC is to raise money, it seems like. DM LOVES money.
In other words, layman's terms so to say, being a Christian does not mean that one must give away all of his stuff, refuse to work for money, and hate his family, right? It's a rhetorical question; of course being a Christian does not mean those things. If these things, Jesus' harder sayings were meant to be taken literally, then how come there aren't a lot of blind Christians, or one-handed Christians, running around, you know? Well, right?
Jesus addresses each of us as individuals and never said that absolute renunciation is for everybody. Please consider the examples of the Centurion, and Zaccheus (was a we little man, and a wee little man was he...remember that children's song?)
DM has apparently never renounced squat, in any sense of the word "renounced." Everybody in the JCs must "forsake all" except for DM and his consort.
4:21 now (cough cough) What a great song:
Fortune comes a crawlin, calliope woman, spinnin that curious sense of your own.
Can you answer? yes I can. but what would be the answer to the answer man?Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2010 12:15AM by zeuszor.