Do you have any evidence that the GB had bad intent?
by AlainAlam 84 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Vidiot
A good rule of thumb to remember...
...every decision... every decision...
...is made with the ultimate goal of reinforcing the fiction that the WTS is "God's Exclusive Earthly Organization"...
...because by their own ideology and reasoning, if a religion is not "God's Exclusive Earthly Organization", its very existence is illegitimate...
...i.e. "false".
Without that underlying premise, there is virtually no significant incentive to even BE a Jehovah's Witness.
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DesirousOfChange
"What about the overlapping generations nonsense? Do you think the GB themselves believe this is really what Jesus was talking about?"
I think this was a Bandaid fix. It was quite obvious to everyone that THE 1914 Generation was dead. They had milked that for years. Someone "of age" in 1914. Someone old enough to recall 1914. And, finally anyone born before 1914. But by 2010 they were damn near all dead and still no Armageddon in sight. So they had to "fix" it.
Someone pulled this "overlapping" thing out of their ass and when they had no better explanation they all (or at least 2/3 of them) jumped on board hoping the Big A would come right away and solve the dilemma. But that didn't happen, so...........the BS continues. Several of them will die (much to their relief, since they really think they're going to heaven) and get them off the hook of having to conjure up another "fix". More Koolaid please.
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Finkelstein
Doesn't every organization or single person who says they have god's spiritual power uniquely to themselves and have his backing and direction, creating a situation where humanity will inevitably be damaged in one way or another ?
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NewLight
Hello AlainAlam! Great thread -and congratulations for the way you handled the “attacks” you received.
I can understand you and relate to you. I’m also “on the way out”, but have my doubts as to whether the JW leadership are deceiving people on purpose, or they are good people with good intentions but just wrong in their beliefs.
One thought is that, maybe, we are good people and tend to think that others are well meaning too. We have difficulty in believing that JW leaders could be misleading people intentionally.
Another thought is that at the end it doesn’t really matter: as you said, since all religions are false, this should not matter regarding one’s decision to leave the org.
My general feeling, however, is that although the rank-and-file JWs are generally good people, those at higher positions are not so sincere.
My main accusation against them is that they don’t tolerate any dispute of their teachings. That they force family members not to talk to each other, just because someone came to understand that they are wrong at what they teach. This, I think, shows lack of sincerity and true love.
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cha ching
Dear AA & NewLight,
When I first left, oddly enough, even though I knew it wasn't 'the truth' (607 was false, and that meant 1914 was false, and that meant the GB were not "chosen" when they said they were) I still had this desire to find out "Do the GB know what they are doing?" I too wanted to know if they were "evil", and to me that meant misleading me for their own gain.
It may be because of our upbringing... never wanting to accuse anyone falsely. Right?
We were always taught to "tell the truth" "don't be a liar like Satan, the ruler of this world" so much so, that I couldn't lie about anything, and wondered "How can the WT say that brothers under persecution/ banned from preaching (like Germany, Russia in the 40's) can deceive/lie about whether they were hiding literature when crossing the border, then have the WT brag about it as if "Jehovah was protecting them".... Yay, bros, lie some more. Oh yeah, "theocratic warfare".... that was their caveat. Still, I wanted "to be fair" and "give the GB a chance."
So, I investigated.... I am glad to see that you are both doing so. The farther you go down the rabbit hole, the more you will see, the more you will realize that the 'organization' is not so pure and innocent.
20/20 is a "Dateline" show in the United States, which had Barbara Anderson in it. She worked in WT headquarters writing & researching articles. It was a major breakthrough in the revealing of how WT hides child sex abuse. Here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJq1XtJNzA8
How do I know 607 is a lie? The two WT's of 2011 (which I anxiously awaited... I had called headquarters and asked them about this "overlapping generation" I had heard about at the convention, and the 'brother' there said "our brothers work so hard, they are going to print some articles".... So, me? I wanted to be fair, give them a chance... even tho I was upset. I had been told, since I was a child (born in the 50's) that 'I should not go to college, pursue higher education because by the time I had completed it, Armageddon would be here, and my time would be wasted away.' I was told I should save peoples lives, not be selfish and seek my own wealth or health or future.
So, when the two articles came out, I examined them in detail. I was amazed that they included references. Real references. Book titles, page numbers, authors, EVERY thing. Usually, the WT does NOT give you the details, just vague references, right?
I studied them, cut them up, highlighted them just as on a police investigation board. You've seen them, right? lines connecting clues? The WT has the habit of starting a subject in a paragraph, then saying "we'll discuss that later", then uses all kinds of distractions, illustrations, and by the time you are done you forgot what they were going to prove in more detail.
In the article they had a quote about the actual business tablets found in Babylon. Made by people who lived during the 70 years of Babylon's rule. These people were meticulous record keepers. Businessmen. They would keep track of their daily earnings/ sellings. They recorded the names of the kings, what year of their reign and something astronomical (where Venus was? the Moon? can't remember) Sooo.... There are real actual records, Why do they talk about a 'rock' with inscriptions 200 years later with a crack in it? they say, 'we can't see where it's cracked, what it says, what it means.... but it coulllllllld say this, it coulllllld say that' ...
I found my quote from the magazine I posted 5 months ago. The WT admits, if you go by these tablets, 587 is when it fell. No need for discussion. No need for other rocks. They know it was 587, they need 607. Number shuffelling...
How did this help me see that they know what they are doing? In one of those red books from the early 1900's I read how they knew the 'Finished Mystery' (the old one) was inspired. They counted the steps from one factory (where it was written or started) to the other factory, where it was printed, and related it to a weird scripture (ezekiel? or a small book near there) that had 1,246 in it (or some crazy number)
Here is their conclusion: If you count the steps from here to there and you minus the steps from when the roadway/ train was moved.... you get 1, 246!!! That proves it is from Godd!
This is not an exact quote... it's 3 a.m., so I am not getting up to find it... but you get the point.
I cried. When I saw how easy it was for them to shuffle numbers in the Finished Mystery, I realized that is what they continually do. When Eve was created (how many years from Adam) kept changing, 1914 was suppose to be Armageddon, then became the great tribulation, then more and more dates in the early 1900's were updated, said to have significance "the end" "tribulation" etc, etc, 1975, "none of these people will die before Armageddon" we are promised....
It is too sad. They do know it. They are numerologists, magicians who hide their true identity. Do the research, do the math.
Here is a post I made about 4 months ago about 607.
What DO WT publications say? (in very, very tiny print, hoping you don't notice)
In it's infamous Oct & Nov 2011 WT articles page 24 (after explaining on page 23 that business tablets from the Babylonian era "were dated to the day, the month and the year of the reigning king.") column two underneath the 3rd paragraph
"Business tablets exist for all the years traditionally attributed to the Neo-Babylonian kings. When the years that these kings ruled are totalled, and a calculation is made back from the last Neo-Babylonian king, Nabonidus, the date reached for the destruction of Jerusalem is 587 BCE"
Bam!
We don't need to look at cracked stones written 200 years later, ask stupid questions of "what if".... We have documents for alllllll the years during Babylon's reign.
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cha ching
The BEST part about it is.... WT has written it... WT admits it....
No need to debate anything else about 607, such as
*When did the 70 weeks of years begin? Nope, we have the tablets.
* Should we use the 360 or 365 days in a year to figure the 2,520 years? Hey, you've got the tablets.
*No need to debate the "day for a year" because Jerusalem was destroyed in 587. The WT admits.
*Was the "7 times" talking about Nebuchadnezzar or a future date?
No need to debate, no need to consider. That's what the WT takes it's pride in doing.... Distraction, distraction, distraction. It loves debates because they bend the brain. Nope.... 587 is the date.... admitted by WT, confirmed by actual data from that time period.
Simple... and WT hates simple.
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Vidiot
Before I'd started my fade, I'd realized that...
a) ...one of the first major blunders the old WT theologians (and I use that term very loosely) made was making assumptions based on previously held bias, whilst expecting forthcoming evidence to corroborate said assumptions, and...
b) ...ignoring or dismissing any subsequent conflicting evidence because they'd already allowed their theological narrative structure to become too dependent on said assumptions.
This phenomenon held true with everything from historical chronology, to predictions of current events, to evolutionary science.
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AllTimeJeff
Hi there. This piqued my interest so I thought I’d deposit an opinion you can flush. ;)
Does it matter if they’re cynical or delusional? Not to me. In my years out, I’ve bumped into the problem of belief. I’ve learned we can trick ourselves into believing anything that makes us feel good and purposeful. It doesn’t matter to us if our beliefs may or may not hurt others
If you read CoC I think you’ll see that some are cynical. Even Knorr wasn’t sure if 1914.
I was at Gilead a long time ago and met the then existing GB. I can only provide my anecdotal opinion that most of the GB believes their own bullshit about being “chosen leaders”, and it is highly likely that they know a lot of their prophecies are false. As a result, they are in CYA mode. They also are likely consumed with paying off the sexual abuse survivors which threatens their very financial existence.
I don’t give over-zealous idiot leaders who are suffering through a decades long case of delusions of grandeur any breaks or credit for sincerity.
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Finkelstein
Good point Jeff to add to that the top leaders of the WTS weren't delusional about their perceived awareness of power and money they held in their hands and the control they had over people, that energized them even more to sustain and extend what they had, which included lying and bullshitting to the body of members . ie.1975
Much of the personal stature and identity of these men were composed of self glorification, the most righteous among men, god's own chosen ones