by Sea Breeze 156 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Rutherford made an earnest effort to the retain the organization as it was after Russell had died.
Sure his endeavors were corrupt and devious but he knew that in doing so he would immerse himself in a great amount of power and money.
His personal endeavors laid the foundational groundwork for the organization in the years to follow and that included lying and corruptly deceiving people though coercion and exploitation.
An important thing to keep in mind is that both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible encourage people to pray to Yahweh/God and to ask for his guidance and insight. In addition, the New Testament says that the Holy Spirit is available as a helper and that followers of Christ should pray for Holy Spirit. As a result many devout Christians (probably many tens of millions), including people of numerous denominations and sects and those who are nondenominational (or even independent Christians), pray to God, Christ, and/or the Holy Spirit, and believe God, Christ, and/or the Holy Spiri in some way gave them ideas. It is thus natural that some of the writers at the WT would also believe and/or say that Jehovah God is leading them and in some way giving them interpretations of the Bible. Likewise numerous people of so-called pagan religions believe that some God, god, gods, spirit, spirits, and/or force is(are) giving them ideas.
That probably explains why there were so many people in Bible times (according to the Bible) who were false prophets. Namely (at least from an atheistic philosophical naturalist point of view), so many people sincerely (but incorrectly) thought they were getting ideas from the God, a god, a spirit, or spirits when instead it was their own human mind that gave them the ideas. [In other cases people were outright lying, not believing themselves were prophets.] I've talked to a number of individual Christians (of various churches/sects and those of no church/sect affiliation) who tell me that God has told (or in some other way conveyed) ideas to them. A great many people are superstitious (an atheistic point of view considers it to be superstitious) in this regard, not accepting that their own minds could get such ideas independent of some spirit being.
A lot of religious literature (and verbal instruction) encourages such superstitious thinking, by telling people that supernatural beings (sometimes a being deemed honest and benevolent and sometimes one deemed the opposite) insert thoughts into their minds. People are encouraged to engage in thinking patterns and practices which are claimed to invite a good God/god/spirit to communicate with them. Likewise people are encouraged to avoid thinking patterns and practices which are claimed to invite a bad God/god/spirit to communicate with them. Even the fictional Star Wars movies have a theme of encouraging the influence of the good side of the force and discouraging the influence of the bad side of the force.
Our brains naturally cause ideas to jump into our conscious minds randomly (or at least seemingly randomly). Sometimes I get ideas that seem to come to out of nowhere (and having no relation to what I was consciously thinking about at the time) and which also seem so brilliant to me that is hard for me, even despite being an atheist, to believe they are my own ideas. I convince myself that some part of my subconscious mind thought up the ideas (perhaps thinking about them for time) and presented the ideas to my conscious mind. I can thus see how devoutly religious people, especially ones imploring God for guidance, could be convinced they were getting ideas directly from a supernatural being (whether a good one or a bad one).
The very reason that so many men in the past and even today say they are being spirit directed from god is that it actually becomes an appealing delusion, which most of them see that it beneficial for themselves and perhaps others.
The supporting factor to that delusion is the observably amount of real power and money that these men obtain into usable practice.
This therefore makes for an appealing and valued delusion indeed.
Its good all good is it not ?
Sometimes I wonder if in addition to my regular conscious mind I have a second conscious mind - one which is much more highly intelligent and creative (and possibly even a genius) than the regular one but dormant most of the time. I want to develop my mind more, especially the seemingly other mind I might have. If I do have latent mental powers that are rarely tapped/accessed, maybe some form of meditation (and/or brain training) will help me to more frequently bring them to the fore.
After writing the above I searched the internet for this idea and I found the article located at https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/24/do-our-brains-have-extraordinary-untapped-powers .
Sometimes I wonder if in addition to my regular conscious mind I have a second conscious mind.
I think we all do but religious convictions and adherence (ignorance) puts a restraining locked door to that available capability.
Open and unrestrained thinking capability is advantageous and necessary to humanity's very survival.
Lets keep it that way !
On page 10 of this message topic thread I said "As a result I now believe that the WT, despite being registered as a nonprofit, is commercialized." But now I again say the WT is not commercialized and that I was in error for briefly giving into the idea that the WT is commercialized.
Rocketman123 was incorrect in saying that the "... WTS sold its literature to the public, such as yearly subscriptions to magazines, books, cassette tapes, dvds ..." . Likewise others were incorrect in saying similar things. Though the WT listed a monetary amount for those items and requested donations/contributions for them, they were not selling those items. That is a crucial distinction that needs to be made.
The Qualified to Be Ministers book (1955 edition) on page 354 in
paragraph 5 says "The Society is nonprofit and noncommercial ....". I came across statement about two days ago without looking for such a statement (instead I was looking for more information about the WT's history). The WT
hasn't sold literature but instead asked for donations/contributions. The donations/contributions
that were directly received for literature didn't cover the cost of
producing the literature. Furthermore people in the field could obtain the literature without making the contribution, and eventually the WT (and JWs in the field ministry) even stopping asking for contributions in association with offerings of literature. The contribution amounts, such as 75 cents for a
192-page book in 1983, were dirt cheap. It is clear to me that the WT is not about for-profit commercialism of
literature, however I have wondered why they produced so many different books, considering that the general message of so many of the books is basically the same. Maybe the main reason for so many different books is to keep the JWs excited about the religion and to keep them reading the literature, as well as attract more people to the religion (by keeping the literature exciting)
Until about two weeks ago I was convinced that technically that the WT was a not a false prophet despite making numerous failed predictions. Furthermore about a week ago I discovered that by a definition of prophecy, made by Rutherford and stated in one of the WT's own books, they are a false prophet. The book is called Life and was written by Rutherford, someone who claimed to be one of the anointed of Jehovah God, (and copyrighted in 1929 by him). On page 51, in Chapter II, the book, as transcribed at http://www.strictlygenteel.co.uk/life/life2.html , says: "Prophecy means the foretelling of events that are to transpire, before they do take place. Prophecy can be understood and properly interpreted after its fulfilment, or when in course of fulfilment." The numerous books written by Rutherford of the WT, and other publications of the WT, made numerous false predictions. As such, according the above quote the WT has made and stated its own prophecies and since many of such have failed, then the WT is a false prophet (by one of their own former definitions of a prophet).
However, in the Life book Rutherford makes claims that the predictions about 1878, 1914, 1918, and 1925 came true. See for example Chapters VI and VII of the book.
I recently revised my view about whether or not the WT sold literature. See https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5077215193595904/why-dont-practicing-jws-cant-accept-fact-that-watchtower-corporation-commercialized-false-prophet?page=4 where in two posts I state my revised view of "... maybe ... the WT was literally selling literature." As a result I once again believe that the WT was commercialized for many decades. However, in my second post on that web page I mentioned two WT books did use the phrase "a contribution" in ads in the back of those books. Later I noticed that at least two books by Rutherford use the word "contribution", "contribute", or "contributing" in two of the ads in the back of each of those books, namely in my copy of the books called Religion and Enemies.
Regarding the Life book it is Interesting that it is not included in the list of Rutherford's books that is in an ad in the 1940 book by Rutherford called Religion, even though all of his other rainbow colored hardcover series of books are. The 128-page Comfort For The Jews book is also not advertised in the Religion book, nor in Rutherford's 1937 book called Enemies. It seems to be that the Life book was a replacement for the Comfort For The Jews book.
The fact is men such as C Russell and J Rutherford created a whole slew of theological bullshit and stupidity, then from that self proclaimed themselves the chosen ones (Anointed) to build up their own personal identity of themselves as being supposedly righteous and loyal to god.
They weren't, if men say things that god has not given them to say through scripture they are false prophets (Apostates), true loyal Christians should not listen to them.
In essence they created their own power and control as being outspoken apostate sinners, people followed them to their own folly and demise.
