How the Governing Body Solved Another Problem

by Cameron_Don 29 Replies latest jw friends

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  Ancientofdays

  I don't know if following has been already touched.

  Because "slave" appeared in 1919, then all predictions, speculations , doctrines, before that year
  were clearly NOT "food at proper time".

  But C T Russell pointed to 1914 as "end of gentle time", starting from late XIX century, a long before 1919.
  So , where does "1914" comes from , being clearly not ascribable to "food from slave class" ?

  Why "1914" is still a valid eschatological date, if has been defined long time before "slave class" appointment ?
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  Ding

  This still doesn't solve the problem that, according to WT dogma, Jehovah has always had one visible organization on earth, but the WTS can't identify who headed that organization or where it was located or what it did from the first century until Russell got his Bible Students going in the late 1800s.

  The related problem is continuity. How can the WTS legitimately be Jehovah's true historic organization when Russell did not join any existing religious organization but instead started up an entirely new one?

  This is the same C.T. Russell who taught, "Beware of organization; it is wholly unnecessary." (Watchtower, September 15, 1895, p. 216)
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  Apognophos

  Great points in this thread. I guess the way to think of how this affects Peter and the other 1st century Christians is that they have been demoted from slave class to domestics (which seems like a meaningless distinction to be making in the scriptures in the first place; "domestics" = "domestic servants", i.e., slaves). Re: the contradiction between this and the teaching about the supposed line of true servants over the centuries, I can only assume the Society will stop saying that there was such a line.

  And I haven't seen your point brought out before, Ancientofdays, unless I missed it somewhere. It's a good question. But for a while now, Witnesses have regarded Russell as having been only half-right in his beliefs, sort of a proto-Witness, so this probably wont change anything doctrinally. The WT will simply overlook the fact that Russell was the one with the original 1914 prophecy and emphasize the fact that later GB members published the "real" explanation of 1914's significance in the decades following 1919. After all, Russell's understanding wasn't really correct compared to what is now taught in the literature.

  jwfacts: If you think the reasoning behind 1919 is confusing, then you're probably thinking about it too hard / know too much about what has been written in the past, such as the 3.5 years and days. I imagine the GB is just going to say "1919 is the date when we held those conventions where we started talking about proclaiming the good news, therefore this marks the start of the F&D slave's approval by Jesus." Note the recent mention of Cedar Point in the WT study a couple weeks ago. Younger Witnesses generally haven't known offhand what the 1919 and 1922 conventions were about, but I think more and more they are going to be reminded of them as the basis for the "legitimacy" of the new F&DS start date.
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  isaacaustin

  It makes me wonder even more so on what basis they were supposedly chosen in 1919. They not only taught things that they now say were wrong, had a recent false prophecy, but now they were also teaching that their class always existed when it didn't.
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  wha happened?

  only in this religion can such obvious holes in their doctrine be completley ignored.
• 

  Socrateswannabe

  It was less than a year ago, in the January 15, 2012 study edition of the Watchtower, that they attempted a tortured connection between the current FDS/GB and a line of worthies leading all the way back to the Jerusalem Council. The article was titled, "True Christians Respect God's Word". In addition to the older men in Jerusalem, it suggested that such divers personalities as Waldo, Wycliffe, Tyndale, Grew, Storrs, and others (notably some Catholic clergy!) were the wheat class and thus formed an unbroken continuum of the FDS through the centuries. With the new light coming from the annual meeting, these former worthies have been relegated to just plain folks-simple anointed ones who aren't really any more exalted than the great crowd.

  At the time we studied this article in March of this year, I thought it was an oversight on the part of the writing committee that, when it came to speaking of the modern-day FDS, they referred to them only as "a group of sincere Bible students" who began searching for the truth in 1870-with no mention of C.T. Russell. I conducted this study at our Hall that week-the week of the CO visit-and I added Russell's name into the discussion. For that I didn't get shot down by the CO, so I guess he was just as ignorant of the coming new light as the rest of us!
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  WTWizard

  This is what happens when you lie. You need to come up with other lies to hide your first lie. I believe there always was a "faithful and discreet slave" as long as humanity has been around. And His name is Satan. He was simply a person that meditated to the point of becoming extremely powerful, and became God-like. This Being took an interest in the human race and taught others to meditate and become super powerful, becoming Demons. These Demons worked with us humans, teaching us how to use the universe to our advantage. We were taught magick, and this allowed us to thrive in an era when technology was not even available to assist us. This is how ancient peoples had such powers.

  Then along comes the precursor of the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger. Jehovah saw mankind thriving nicely under Satan, and orchestrated a plan to enslave the whole human race. Jehovah chose a people to do this, creating a book of lies and altering history to give us Original Sin (the Original Sin manifesting itself in people seeking liberty). Satan was slandered, hell and death threats were made to obey this new arrangement, and ultimately people were forced into compliance. With the help of Jehovah and his filthy angels, Christi-SCAM-ity forced its way into nations minding their own business. Artifacts revealing the real truth were destroyed, and people had their culture trashed. Africa was trashed, as Negroes were kidnapped and sold to Caucasians in America and Europe as slaves (this is the real racism). Most of Europe was later trashed, leading to the misery and death of millions in places like Russia. Communism was forced on China. Terror in the Middle East reigns. And, now Israel is threatened nuclear war in the event that Palestine continues to want independence.

  In addition to this general problem, the witlesses are facing the same type of issues. The witlesses not only slander Satan and His Demons, but they make up these false stories. As people wake up and see blatant evidence that they are wrong, the leaders need to resort to making up new lies to hide the original lies. Additionally, they need to use more threats to force people to believe them. While the witlesses are not going to use nuclear war to enforce their lies, they ruin families and threaten other action (and may one day attempt to threaten breach of contract suits for those not living up to their dedication, citing the dedication as a legally binding contract and their not doing all they can to fulfill it as a breach of such contract). This kind of coercion, terrorism, and ongoing lying is necessary to prevent them from having to confess to their original lies and make attempts to actually fix them.
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  Muddy Waters

  Excellent points in this thread, love it. Yet the reaction of most JWs is that this new understanding of the FDS/GB makes perfect sense!!
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  DATA-DOG

  WT Wizard,

  Although different from my point of view, I do agree with your points about lying to cover lies. They can't tell the truth now, it's full steam ahead and " Leviathan " is running out of track!!

  
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  Pterist

  Who was the president of the WBTS that apparently said, words to this effect "certain Bible truths are obvious but as far as 1914 goes, I'm not too sure, since we got the whole chronology thing from the SDA" ?