'I have great freeness of speech toward you.' 🤐 But remember, Saint Paul never wrote that at Bethel.😉

by was a new boy 8 Replies latest jw experiences

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  was a new boy

  'I have great freeness of speech toward you.'
  

  2 Corinthians 7:4

  I had snuck into Bethel with absolute perfect timing, had been taught that Armageddon was likely coming either in 1974 or 1975, probably in Sept. or Oct.
  

  N H Knorr invited me by letter, asking me to show up Monday August 12, or was it the 19th?

  
  

  How did that ever happen? Four or five years earlier, I had come to the conclusion that Bethelites were the strangest people on the planet!

  
  

  I didn't have freeness of speech in my congregation, in the Great Appalachian Valley, north of FL. courtesy of direct orders from the Elder body six months before arriving at Bethel.

  
  

  Certainly there'd be freeness of speech at 'the House of God'.

  
  

  During the summer, it's vacation, assembly time, so it was open seating till Sept. September started assigned seating, I sat next to the table head, across from his wife.

  
  

  First Bethel Lesson:

  After a couple days, the Bethel Elder tells me before breakfast, with just the three of us there, that they'll be leaving Bethel shortly.

  picture of Me asking, "Why are you leaving?"

  
  

  
  

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wi8Fv0AJA4
  
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  was a new boy

  A whole lotta hemming and hawing. The only approved answer is, 'wife is pregnant'. He couldn't say, 'We woke up'. He couldn't tell me the reason. The silence was intense. Bethel Elders didn't have freeness of speech!

  It's a Big lie, Jehovah's Witnesses -
  'OVER six million people in 235 lands enjoy what the Bible calls “freeness of speech.”

  
  

  https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/w20060515/Do-You-Have-Freeness-of-Speech/

  
  
  
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  Diogenesister

  Fantastic post new boy and probably the most basic problem about this religion there is.
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  was a new boy

  Correction -

  
  

  picture of Me asking, "Why are you leaving?"

  is wrong. Should be:
  

  
  

  picture of a brother like Me, 49 years ago, (full-blown naïve and ultra gullible) asking, "Why are you leaving?"

  
  
• 

  Longlivetherenegades

  Freeness of speech that get shutdown once you go against their GODS or called speech made by people that are mentally unstable, diseased or arrogant
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  dropoffyourkeylee

  The WT has their own WT-speak, and to them 'freeness of speech' means the the glib recitation of the party line. It is NOT freedom of speech in the sense to verbalize what's on your mind; what you really think.

  It is ironic that the WT used the US First Amendment right of freedom of speech to defend themselves in numerous lawsuits in the last century. In fact the JW cases helped define US laws and the application of the first amendment and their cases are studied in law schools. But within their own religion they don't apply freedom of speech in the same way. Say the wrong thing and you are penalized.
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  Journeyman

  The WT has their own WT-speak, and to them 'freeness of speech' means the the glib recitation of the party line. It is NOT freedom of speech in the sense to verbalize what's on your mind; what you really think.

  When you think how outspoken ones like Paul, James and even Jesus himself were to speak out about things they saw that were not right, you can imagine if they were in a JW congregation today the elders would have them in the back room in an instant for causing 'divisions'!
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  was a new boy

  to them 'freeness of speech' means the the glib recitation of the party line.

  I'd miss breakfast every so often, but would hate to miss Ray Franz's comments, as he was basically the only GB member that didn't sound like he was reading something out of the Watchtower.

  He actually could think and speak outside the box.
  
  
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  Biahi

  And, that’s why he was silenced!