Are Witnesses really "Bible Students"?

by stuckinarut2 32 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  BluesBrother

  No.... they are less of a Bible Student now than they were in the past

  Try putting "personal research " into a WT Study answer and see the Conductor's eyes glaze over. They are now so hooked on their tablet computers, the just touch the links to see a verse by itself out of it's context, and that is it .The youth are trained to "direct attention to the website" not teach from The Bible. They are spoon-fed simple teachings in books written as for a twelve year old

  That big blue square sign on the outside of the K Hall says it all, really
• 

  FayeDunaway

  They aren't bible students. When they start actually studying the Bible they can no longer stay witnesses because witness doctrine is totally different from what is actually in the bible. Becoming a Bible student= eventually leaving the witnesses.
• 

  xjwsrock

  In line with BluesBrother, I remember a time when "extra research" was a prized bragging point of the ultra righteous during a watchtower study. Of course, 99% of that research was to be done in the aid book or similiar, but still it was a trump card.

  Now the witnesses are scared to even do research in their own literature, for fear they will stumble on old light. Lol... funny when you think about it. The paranoia of getting out of line is at an all time high.Sad on the other hand though.

  The equivalent of the "extra research" comment today is a comment on the illustration in the lesson before the conductor gets to it.

  In answer to the OP - The witnesses are not allowed to be bible students. Hell they can't even study 90% of their own literature since it's considered old light.
• 

  kairos

  In my old hall in Napa, Ca, they would always introduce the weekly Watchtower study as our "Bible study with the aid of the Watchtower".

  Of course we all know it is not a study at all.
  No questions or alternate views are ever entertained.
  In fact, have you ever been at the meeting when a non-JW ( worldly ) person would bring up something in opposition to the lesson.

  Snickering from the congregation and an invitation for the commentor to speak with them after the lesson was the norm.

  The weekly WT "lesson" is cult indoctrination plain and simple.
  It's criminal.
• 

  xjwsrock

  The weekly WT "lesson" is cult indoctrination plain and simple.
  It's criminal. - kairos

  Amen. Here is what the WT "study" is:

  We read something to you, ask you to repeat it back to us, you nod in agreement smiling appreciatively, and afterwards speak of the experience as being encouraging and a spiritual refreshment.

  The end. You are now a student.
• 

  Finkelstein

  JWs are learners or students of the WTS doctrines which are and have been notably corrupt for the most part.
  

  The corrupt unscriptural doctrines were the ones to attract attention to the literature as they were introduced to the public, but as most religions are structured, you have to accept all the doctrines and not openly oppose any or as in the game of Base Ball " Your Out ! "
  
• 

  DATA-DOG

  Are most members of Scientology students of Science? There's your answer, and it has nothing to do with "hate" as DY suggests. It's a fact. Facts are impersonal, it requires bias to assign a human emotion to a fact.

  When we don't like a fact that challenges our view, usually because it requires change or action on our part, we attack the messenger. The more heavily invested we are in a given system, the more we fight factual information that challenges our "truth."

  As an example, consider "Religious Leaders" who have opposed scientific discoveries throughout recorded history. The more heavily invested the "Religious Leaders" are in "truth", the more swift and merciless the attack against "fact." The dark of night was illuminated with the burnings of heretics and apostates, those who dared to oppose "truth."

  In light of the above, who were the haters? It takes a special kind of delusion to lable victims as perpetrators, wouldn't you agree?

  Some JWs peruse the scriptures more than others, but only the scriptures that comprise the WTBTS approved reading list. Have you noticed the distinct lack of footnotes and cross-references in the RNWT as opposed to the NWT? It's not by accident. JWs are mentally confined to a small, circuitous route of quasi-study by WTBTS propaganda.

  
  

  DD
  
  
• 

  Phizzy

  Shortly after I had left for good, I received a lovely note from a young teenage lad in the Congregation, the gist of it was that he felt that with my leaving the Cong. had lost the only one who knew anything about the Bible.

  I realise now that my understanding of it was then sorely lacking, but all the other JW's just parroted what the WT printed, they had no grasp of context or even a concept of the basic meaning of many verses.

  None of them made any real effort, lazy so and so's, JW's, as a rule.
• 

  Ringo

  Not only NO. . .but HELL NO!

  A student is one who studies something. There is no way JW's study the Bible. They study books and magazines using a few worn out, cherry picked verses to try to prove what those books and magazines say. Study the Bible. . .NEVER!
  
• 

  Ringo

  Have you noticed the distinct lack of footnotes and cross-references in the RNWT as opposed to the NWT? It's not by accident.

  So true. One of the most obvious omissions that I noticed was the cross reference in Matthew 23: 36 for "generation". It used to cross to Exodus 20: 5 which said, ". . .fathers upon sons, upon the third generation and upon the fourth generation."

  It has been deleted in their new Bible, for obvious reasons, IMO.