Witnesses instructed not to harbor private ideas

by cyberguy 33 Replies latest jw friends

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  siegswife

  (At least I cant remember it being put quite so specifically before - tell me if I'm wrong).

  You're wrong. JW's have never been allowed to think for themselves. It's always been frowned upon and leads to apostacy. When I left, I told the elders what I had discovered from the Bible regarding false teachings. At that time it was regarding the identity of Abaddon and the celebration of birthdays. The first thing they asked me was if I'd been reading other literature. I told them no, that I had only been reading the Bible. They told me that it was dangerous to do that on my own. I don't think they believed me anyway. This was 16 years ago.
  The funny thing is that their own Bible testifies to the fact that Job's children celebrated birthdays, even though they specifically denied it at the time. There are some Bibles that call the celebration that Job's kids had birthdays, which is why they included a denial of that in their teachings. Now I think that they skip over the question about what is in Job and say that birthdays are only mentioned in 2 places and it was unbelievers that held them. Not so. Compare in the NWT Job 1:4 Job 3:1 Ecclesiates 7:1,2
• 

  siegswife

  Here's an example of the backward thinking that JW's aren't supposed to question. From the Sept.1, 2001 Watchtower. True Worship Unites People p.5 subheading Worldwide Unity in Our Time
  "A remarkable prophesy in the Bible book of Zephaniah speaks of the coming together of people of diverse backgrounds. It states: 'The I (Jehovah God) shall give to peoples the change to the pure language, in order for them all to call on the name of Jehovah, in order to serve him shoulder to shoulder.' Zephaniah 3:9 What a beautiful picture this is of changed people serving God in unity!
  When was this to happen? Zephaniah 3:8 says: "'Keep yourselves in expectation of me,' is the utterance of Jehovah, 'till the day of my rising up to the booty, for my judicial decision is to gather nations, for me to collect together kingdoms, in order to pour out upon them my denunciations, all my burning anger; for by the fire of my zeal all the earth will be devoured.'" Yes, during the time that Jehovah is gathering the nations but BEFORE (my caps) he pours out upon them his burning anger, he gives to the meek ones a pure language. That time is now, for the gathering of all the nations to the war of the great day of God the Almighty at Armegeddon is already under way. -Revelation 16:14, 16

  ***Now am I crazy, or does Zephaniah 8 actually come BEFORE Zephaniah 9 and not the other way around? The denunciation comes BEFORE the pure language if you read it forward and not backward. At the very least, it comes at the same time.
• 

  GentlyFeral

  fRED hALL said:

  And the King of the North is Canada.

  Man, I'd pay to see that!

  Gently Feral

  "There were cockroaches of course,
  but very clean cockroaches."
  -- Julia Vinograd
• 

  cyberguy

  Hi "siegswife!"

  I found your reference in the Sept. 15, 2001 Watchtower, and did a little research in the Keil-Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament. Similar to your comment, this commentary concludes that the change to a pure language (literally a pure lip) occurs after the "day" of God's "rising up" mentioned in verse 8.

  Thank you for that informative comment!
• 

  Abaddon

  siegswife;

  "the identity of Abaddon"

  It's meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

  I do agree that dubs are discouraged from independant thought...

  Keep on rocking in the free world...
• 

  wokeup

  Alarm bells went off in my head as well when I read this article. The 2nd paragraph makes the statement,"We recognize maturity in a person when we see discernment,insight,wisdom and so on." How can a mature person manifest this when he is 'encouraged' not to voice or harbor his conclusions? This is truly classic mind control technique. This reminds me of the previous weeks' study article on pg.9 par.8 where generalizations such as "they often,many feel and some" is concluded as 'all standards' in paragraph 10. another classic persuasion technique not discernable to most loyal dubs.
• 

  LittleToe

  Hey Seigswife,

  Nice point:
  ***Now am I crazy, or does Zephaniah 8 actually come BEFORE Zephaniah 9 and not the other way around? The denunciation comes BEFORE the pure language if you read it forward and not backward. At the very least, it comes at the same time.

  I hadn't noticed this - thank you for bringing it to our attention.
  It just shows the danger of reading verses in isolation, and then dancing a tango amongst them.

  LT
• 

  AMOS

  No Fred, the King of the North represents the ishmaelites and the sons of Isaac is the King of the South and Babylon the Great is the great commercial systems of the world. I do hope you are not harbouring private thoughts there about the King of the North being Canada. You must wait until the light gets brighter.
• 

  AMOS

  The direction from the Roman Catholic church not allowing the people to read the Bible was that the common people could not possibly understand it and they may come to some false conclusion (called the truth) and hence they were not allowed to do it without direction and oversight from the church. Is there an echo somewhere.????
• 

  BobsGirl

  This is a great thread ... A brilliant reminder of why I left the borg.

  BobsGirl

  "May the work of your hands be a sign of gratitude and reverence to the human condition." - Mahatma Gandhi