by blondie 28 Replies latest jw friends
Comment from a sister: is it freedom if you're constantly told how to think, act, and dress? (Referring to the 'peer pressure' that one may experience in the world).
I couldn't believe my ears. Did she hear what she was saying? If there's any place where people are told how to do things, it's in the org. And peer pressure is far greater in the org than outside of it, in my experience. There's a constant fear of thinking what the others will think of oneself. That's not freedom.
IMO the paragraph that proved to be the real winner in this WT study lesson is par #5. In part it says:
‘The perfect law has no need for a long list of sanctions, or penalties for it is founded on love and is engraved on minds and hearts, not on tablets of stone.’
Whoever wrote this article is unaware of the 2010 142 page 'Shepherd The Flock of God’ elders’ manual dealing mainly with how to handle judicial matters ranging from adultery to apostasy to how to deal with those who have sex with a donkey (beastiality) to dictating how to perform a wedding.
WT much like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day have an obsession with do’s and don’ts and a long list of sanctions and penalties if rank and file fail to comply!
Blondie,
Did Eve (assuming she was real) know she was talking to a rebellious angel, named Satan and Devil? How could a perfect human be fooled into believing a talking snake, would you an imperfect human as the WTS defines us.?
What's the purpose exactly behind comments like these? Are you an atheist?
Some scholars have looked at this account differently, mostly due to how the Seraphim have been described in Isaiah. Please check out this reference (I think you'll find it interesting):
http://www.michaelsheiser.com/nachashnotes.pdf
http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/nachashnotes.pdf
When looked at in this light, a lot of things start to make a lot more sense, including further reasons why, perhaps, Jesus is paralleled with the copper serpent who is "lifted up" in the Old Testament. (See John 3)
Best regards,
Jack
The meeting last Sunday was absolute torture, the WT overseer had to drag the answers from the audience.
There was however quite a lot of agreement that playing JENGA is a good way to spend an evening! Then they wonder why youngsters are leaving in their droves.
George
"What is the original Greek word; why is the WTS so bashful? Not even a reference to a Bible Greek lexicon."
Blondie: It appears the WT, despite having published The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures and Benjamin Wilson's Emphatic Diaglott, recently began a push to keep JWs away from the orginal Biblical as one component of its "simplification" (read dumbing down" campaign. It seems to be a newly enforced policyof theirs never to identify the Greek or Hebrew words directly in print.
Right, Room 215, I saw that. But then I feel it undercuts their statement and any real scholar would see this as unprofessional. It is possible to look up the scripture in a non-jw concordance like Strongs and get to the word...probably discouraging lazy jws but at the same time making them go to the "knowledgeable" jws they know of.
Blondie, as always, a thoughtful and incisive analysis.
I agree with JW GoneBad about the point of the STFOG. But this is just typical JW/WT doublespeak. They know they have this tome of WT Rules and Regulations. They just write this propaganda for the R&F and "make believe" that they don't.
There's a great quote I saw on Marvin Shilmer's site where a SCOTUS judge said something to the effect that JWs have an elaborate set of rules and regulations. Here it is:
Notice what one US Supreme Court Justice said regarding Jehovah's Witnesses and their rules:
"The Witnesses … have developed an elaborate set of rules governing membership." - US Supreme Court, Paul v WTBTS of NY, Inc.
Imagine that, a US Supreme Court Justice thinks the WT rules are "elaborate"! You know if a US Supreme Court justice thinks the rules are elaborate they really must be!!!
Let's review: It's a cult!
The countless inconsistencies in these Watchtower articles are blamed finally on "human imperfecdtion" which could easily be remedied by having the information screened by a group of intelligent reviewers that aren't all sitting on the same floor in a building in brooklyn.
What is the supreme editorial board in heaven doing that they let this stuff get printed and distributed.
Thanks Blondie x
All those rules are supposed to make you free? I remember all the problems Godly "freedom(??)" imposed. Having to do field circus all the time, boasting sessions all the time, hang-ups with the holidays and every normal activity, and so on is supposed to make you free? Compared to Satanic "tyranny(??), where the only sin is stupidity.
Under Satan's "tyranny(??)", I make my own decisions. Stupidity is the only sin, so I don't need a bunch of petty rules for every little situation. Instead, I make my own decisions based on my own research. I make my own rules, based on what is best for myself in my current situation--and, if the situation changes, the rules change. I don't need long lists of rules made by groups of men from far away--only stupid people need others to do their own thinking (and I am using "unwillingness to do one's own thinking" as my definition of "stupidity").
