by mindfield 18 Replies latest jw friends
Some extra info....
3/8/93 Resistance during a rape/molestation now a conscience issue
5/1/96 Alternative service now a conscience issue
11/1/99 Voting now a conscience issue
6/15/00 Most blood forms as medical treatment now a conscience issue
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Dungbeetle...so much dung, so little time...
{{{{dungbeetle}}}}
Thanks so much! I will look into those. Have the CD up to 1997 so I'll be able to get a few of those.
BW
"The important thing is to not stop questioning" Albert Einstein
A third factor to consider is that those who have a part in voting a person into office may become responsible for what he does.
Would someone care to rip this little gem apart?
Like the people who elected Gary Condit REALLY knew he was an adulterous man. [8>] What the hell is this line of reasoning?
Lisa
Circuit Overseers were told to tell JWs in the U.S. that the permission to vote only applied in some other nations. For example in S Africa it is law that all citizens have the right to go and vote. If the Watchtower Society had denied that right it would have had to pay taxes and become subject to other possible penalties. Even at that JWs who do vote may still be covertly, “unofficially” subjected to sanctions, and any doing so in the U.S. would be disfellowshipped or "expelled" meaning harassed/retrained. In short, the WTS is deceptive.
Sooo....it is up to their consciences, but they can still be DF'd for it??
Hi New Person,
A question: jsut what's to prevent a JW who voites in the U.S. from thrusting the WT article under the nose of the elders who object to his conduct, adding that ``Where do you come off telling me to disregard what the FDS has printed as spiritual food?"
What happens then?
Hi Fed-up,
The "question from readers" about voting was absent in the french's watchtower of 1999. But three months before, a letter was read at all the french's congregation explaining the same as this article.
Bye
Charles
Nothing has really changed here. It is still wrong to vote, and it is still wrong to take sides politically.
The most significant aspect of the arfticle is that the Society has apparently gotten so many reports of brothers even willing to lay down their lives before they enter a polling booth that the Witnesses are looking bad. So this article gives the brothers the opportunity to make a slight compromise -- if their conscience allows it. This isn't much different from the other adjustments made by the slave class, including the allowance of more blood-derived treatments and the allowance of alternative military service.
The Society has been realizing that it is not really in their best interests for JWs to look totally fanatical, especially about something as emotional in some lands as participation in democratic elections.
Nothin' new; for years, Witnesses in venezuela, Colombia etc. have been voting, as it is mandatory; they put in a blank vote, and that's that. Being in a voting house or whatever you call it and registring as having been there, has been going on for years, man.
