by Ding 5 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Those of us with a Watchtower background probably see the Memorial as normal.
At least, we're used to it.
We can forget how weird it seems to an outsider.
It's like inviting a group out to dinner, having meals placed on the table, and then explaining to them why no one present should be partaking of any of it because it's really intended for someone else.
it's really intended for someone else. D
It is really an act of worship to that "someone else", because the meal offered is said to the symbol for the sacrifice only for that absent elite group, and
the audience is asked to sacrifice their right to the ransom symbols too. so,
rather than making it a uniting community meal, wt turns it into a dual sacrifice to the true worthies, because
any local partakers are surely not of that lofty class, the overlapping anointed generation.
In all honesty, even when I was a true blue witness i was weirded out by the the whole procedure. The passing of the bread and wine by men all dressed in black suits was so bizarre.
The passing of the bread and wine by men all dressed in black suits was so bizarre.
Not to mention that they all feel one MUST touch the glass and plate or it doesn't count.
I told a PIMI friend that IF it happened that I showed up for the big event that when it came time to pass the wine and crackers that I would take time to put on surgical gloves first. They had a fit about that, claiming that I would be showing disrespect for the memorial, what it stood for, and for any of the "anointed" who may be present. I told them I just wanted to show the same respect for health that THEY were showing by demanding that everyone mask up, use hand sanitizer, and distance from each other because I didn't know where they had put their hands or if they had washed them.
An outsider might view it as "Temptation Night" at the Jehovah Witness church. All the members are offered wine and all refuse it (except for a few who give into "temptation."
In contrast many years ago when I visited a nearby Reform Judaism synagogue on a Sabbath day (merely to see what it was like), during the service the Rabbi urged me (a non-Jewish stranger to him), to partake of the bread of wine. Since I was already an atheistic Secular Humanist by then, I refused to do so (because I didn't want to give the impression of participating in worship).
At another time when I was already an atheistic Secular Humanist, I was attending a service of a nearby congregation of Humanistic Judaism. During part of the service the bread and small paper (or plastic) cups of wine (which had secular humanistic meanings in the service) were passed around to everyone present (including to young children), including to me, and I partook of them. Each person received their own bread and their own small cup of wine (unless they didn't want the wine; I think there was an option for water instead of wine).
During the service emblems were passed around at multiple times, each serving received had a somewhat different meaning (I think each pertained to a different blessing and a season of the year or each month of the year, but I don't recall for certain). But I didn't like drinking the wine because I could feel the alcohol effecting me adversely (I could feel it starting to intoxicate me) from the multiple small (possibly one ounce) servings of wine, thus at some point I stopped accepting more servings of wine (which was permissible to do).
By the way, years ago I stopped fully identifying as a Humanist (since I don't agree with all of the precepts of Humanism), though I still identify as an atheist. I now prefer to identify as a scientific/philosophical (or even metaphysical) naturalist instead of as a Humanist.
