How the Governing Body produces accurate knowledge

by Terry 22 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Terry

  The Governing Body is like the fella in that small town out west whom everybody agreed was "The best shot in town."

  A new guy rides into town one day. A gunslinger with a gun strapped on to his hip. He ties off his horse and walks up to the townfolk one by one.

  He asks them each and every one if this is the town with the "best shot"?

  They all nod and eye him carefully with a warning, "He's deadly accurate, fer sure."

  "Prove it!" the gunslinger demands. He's pointed toward the blacksmith shop. "Ask Daryl the blacksmith about it."

  The blacksmith says, "Come around back here and let me show you somethin'."

  The gunslinger and the blacksmith walk around behind the shop and the blacksmith points to a barn.

  "You see those white chalk circles about the size of your eyeball?"

  The gunslinger squints and walks up closer to the barn..."All these?"

  He sees hundreds of tiny chalk circles like a bullseye on a target. Dead center of each one is a bullet hole!

  His eyes keenly search for an errant shot and none can be found...

  "Hey, who did this?" he asks.

  The blacksmith shrugs, "The best shot in town, Rupert."

  Eventually, the gunslinger finds a rather small bald-headed guy sipping a beer mug full of milk staring like an owl out from behind thick glasses in the Saloon.

  "Your name Rupert?" the gunslinger asks.

  "Un-huh" says the bald man in glasses as he wipes the milk moustache off his lip with a dainty silk hanky.

  "I wanna see your shootin' skills for myself!"

  The little guy stands up and pulls back his topcoat revealing a handsome pair of pearl-handled six shooters.

  The little guy stares up at the gunslinger and snarls, "You want me to plug ya, mister?"

  The gunslinger starts sweating and forces a sheepish grin. He apologizes for interrupting and excuses himself and practically runs out of the saloon.

  Later that night the sound of Rupert's pistols going off can be heard all over town. Just like every other night.

  "He's practising again" folks whisper to each other from the safety of their beds, "as if he needed to!"

  Rupert aims carefully and cocks the hammer and squeezes the trigger. A tremendous thunder blasts forth from the muzzle of his .44. He empties

  the six booming slugs from his pistol and steps forward through the white cloud of gunsmoke.

  Walking over to the side of the blacksmith's barn he reaches into his vest and pulls out a white stick of classroom chalk.

  Carefully and slowly he draws a tiny circle around each bullet hole.....

  And that, my friends, is how the Governing Body creates their own reputation!
• 

  Ding

  Even then, the GB manages to miss and has to reframe its mistakes as failed expectations caused by zeal for Jehovah.
• 

  Terry

  They can't really miss because they are the only one's allowed to evaluate their own accuracy. God forbid anybody else should dare!
• 

  Gopher

  You get a "G" for use of illustrations. You may pass on to the next counsel point. We look forward to your next presentation!
  
  - Theocraptic Misery School Overlooker
• 

  Bobcat

  Terry:

  Your story/metaphor hits on another aspect of this: The WT rendering itself, "accurate knowledge."

  This rendering of epiginwskw/epignwsis, attempts to create the atmosphere of, 'we are right, others are wrong.' This rendering is about as 'accurate' as 'taking in knowledge' is in John 17:3. It is a plausible rendering. 'Plausible' because you can probably find a dictionary somewhere that includes the word "accurate" somewhere in its definition, and thus, as far as the WT is concerned, that is what it means.

  But the rendering of "accurate knowledge" (as well as "taking in knowledge" in Jn 17:3) is a self-serving rendering that fits in line with the story you gave above and how the WT presents itself. IMO, the way the WT renders this actually hinders JWs. It makes them content to think, I have 'accurate knowledge' in contrast with others who don't, and so, I am in the 'truth.' Whereas the word has more of the idea of 'fuller knowledge,' 'perception,' and 'participation in what is known.' If more understood the real idea behind this word group, they would better see through some of the WT's "accurate knowledge" which often uses Scriptures taken out of context.

  Take Care
• 

  Fed-up

  Terry, reading this post made me:

  1) laugh, out loud. Just the title (which seems to allude to the factory/production mentality of the WT Corporation and gets to the heart of what they "produce".

  2) think of the joke "three legged dog walked into the the bar, said to the bar keep, "i'm looking for the man that shot my paw";

  3) " They can't really miss because they are the only one's allowed to evaluate their own accuracy. God forbid anybody else should dare!" summed up what I've been trying to figure out for quite a while. Similar to your thought along the lines of 'when you try to tell me what Bible writers were thinking and feeling you're way off base' (you were more eloquent, substance sufficeint though, right?)

  4) Think: Playing poker with the GB sucks. They win because they say they won, never show their cards (not even allowed to ask to see them) and take the money and run! Oh, and you die if you don't agree. Now those are some serious stakes. Makes strip poker seem juvenile.

  Thanks man!
• 

  andrekish

  The Governing Body produces 'accurate knowledge' on a sliding scale of madnes.

  Loved the illustration....spot on. I'm not a member of the clan because I noticed this and questioned it during 'bible studies' I had with Witnesses which simply were not Bible Studies in the true sense of the word but a series of rigid paragraphs and questions that don't really explain anything nor answer any genuine questions. Very, very sadly this is still true of the WT magazine and associated literature today.

  I have to admit, though, that if there is a Creator God, and I am utterly convinced that there is from personal experience of the occult etc, we have all got to wait until the Creator reveals HimHer self to find out the truth. It really doesn't sound like the GB is being fair and honest with its clan members but we may be reading their efforts through a glass darkly.

  I hope nobody finds this next sentence offensive because it isn't meant to be: The WTBS society are as bonkers as the rest of us. They are human people who may have gone off the rails slightly and their accounts and interpretations of the prophecies may be off target but wouldn't this world be boring if we were all sane? We absolutely need nutcases because we are all nutcases in our own sweet little ways. This is an unavoidable condition in a young and immature species such as ourselves.

  So therefore, using this kind of logic, the accuracy of this knowledge being put forward is bound to be a little off target at times. I knew this to be completely true and accurate from a history of membership of the Mormon Latter Day Saints. I was a saint for a while. And what a saint I was. Gave up the ciggies and everything on the simple basis of 'in for a penny then may as well be in for a pound', (currencies may vary). In hindsight this was an insane but brilliant idea. Taught me never to do that again and I was, and still am, as mad as everyone else on this planet. The accuracy of the Mormon bible knowlegde flounders on page one. As Mormons we were told that the bible had to be true because there are several thousand wars in it. And thus the Book of Mormon had to be accurate because that had even more wars in it. This would be funny if it wasn't actually, totally, utterly true. In real life this isn't so funny because it's downright dangerous. At this point religion starts to border on sane madness, ie, the people who say it think that they are sane. They're not, none of us are. And their accurate knowledge of the bible is a bit dim to say the least.

  So here lies the crux of the matter:

  1....We are all insane in our own little ways, thus

  2....Most people who find religion become certifiably insaner, and willing to believe many things without question and in defiance of the facts.

  3....Those who think they are sane are probably not actually sane, rather insane with the odd occurrence of sanity.

  The 'accuracy' of the 'knowledge' of the scriptures as explained by the WTBS is quite possibly extremely mad in some areas.

  But their explaination of the prophesies in the books of Daniel and Revelations are pretty good. They leave the Mormons floundering 'coz the Mormons truly don't have a clue and the Witnesses truly do. And although I don't go anywhere near Kingdom Halls due to the madness being described on this site, at the end of the day the apocalypse is coming and I hope it isn't long 'coz I can't wait for all of this insanity to end.
• 

  glenster

  Daryl publishes his claims about himself and has fans carry copies to Adolf,
  who runs a restricted soup kitchen and kills violators. As the fans approach
  Adolf, Daryl shoots Adolf in the shin to stir up something exciting for the next
  issue. Adolf, enraged, kills some of the fans. Daryl's following publications
  honor the fans as dying for trying to spread the word about what he represents.

  Daryl publishes that he can see and shoot the germs near people that cause
  them to go to the hospital for the medical use of blood. Many, including kids,
  die from the cure, but thousands still travel to Daryl for it.

  Daryl, seeing that a book about Wyatt is popular, sells copies with Wyatt's
  name replaced with Daryl. It sells millions of copies.
• 

  Terry

  Whereas the word has more of the idea of 'fuller knowledge,' 'perception,' and 'participation in what is known.' If more understood the real idea behind this word group, they would better see through some of the WT's "accurate knowledge" which often uses Scriptures taken out of context.

  LIke two Nerds arguing:

  First Nerd: Pi equals 3.14

  Second Nerd: Naw, you're ignorant! Pi equals 3.141

  Along comes a Thrid Nerd..

  Third Nerd: You're both wrong! Pi equals 3.1415

  First Nerd with text book in hand: You morons, we're all wrong! Pi=3.14159265358979323846......

  And so on...

  For practical purposes this is an argument that has little application to everyday life!
• 

  Larsinger58

  Since November 10, 1992 the GB has been cast into spiritual darkness, so they can't really see any new truth. Instead many of their false teachings are now being exposed. They know they have been cast out when they see what truth they would have been given being given to others.