The term 'apostate' - how do you feel about it? (page 3)

plmkrzy

How would you explain the word "apostasy" being used in this Bible?
Stolen out of a motel room? It looked rather un-used anyway

Jeremiah 2:19 Your wickedness will chasten you, and your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord youre God; the fear of me is not in you, says the Lord god of hosts. 20 "For long ago you broke your yoke and burst your bonds; and you said, 'I will not serve'.

This tells me that the word "apostate" and it's meaning greatly depends on exactly what it is in reference too.

When the WBTS calls someone "apostate" they are insinuating a rejection of God. Even though the reality of it is they are accusing one of rejecting the WTBTS. Their basis for that is the claim that one cannot exist without the other.

This is crap and for this reason I do not appreciate being called apostate. Not in a serious sense.

plum

edited to add

By feeling good about the WTBTS calling me "apostate" To Me is to agree with the WTBTS that they are the only channel to God. I do not agree with that so I do not want to be called apostate.

It would be like lying down for the GB and allowing them to kick you. Or admitting that they are right. I don't think thats funny.

If anyone on the board wants to call me "apostate" Then I find that funny. I don't take it seriously.

plum

Edited by - plmkrzy on 29 August 2002 6:54:58

onacruse

I am what I am, whatever terms others may apply to me. Apostate, heretic, defector...I am all of these, and yet none of these. They all can be taken in a bad sense, or a good one. I choose the good sense.

Craig

Scully

Words can be very powerful tools. The word apostate in the mind of the average JW immediately causes them to conjure up the image of the worst kind of person imaginable, someone who has rejected God, The Truth (tm) , and everything that is good.

When we joke about being apostates, we are making light of the JW slant on the word. When we use it in a flippant way, or even wear the term as a kind of badge of honour among ex-JWs, we cause the word to lose the power it once had over us.

It still bothers me when a JW uses the word, mainly because I see how it causes an automatic response to put their brain on auto-pilot and spout Theocratic Drivel (tm) and other canned answers from the WTS. I feel sad for people when a single word causes them to shut off mentally to the possibilities of life.

Love, Scully

ballistic

Scully, you said, The word apostate in the mind of the average JW immediately causes them to conjure up the image of the worst kind of person imaginable, someone who has rejected God, The Truth(tm), and everything that is good.

When I was in the truth, I felt that it went further than this. I imagined the "apostates" were an organised force for evil out to get the Witnesses and controlled by Satan. Is this just a perception on the part of some Witnesses, or is there some basis in the literature for this more extreme view.

And further to this, if this view does indeed prevail as it did in my mind, would it not explain the societey's paranoia of the 'net' because in many ways it does (hyper) link many 'apostates' together creating a synergy and 'organisation'?