'in order to extend mercy, the committee must be convinced that the wrongdoer has a changed heart condition and that he has a zeal to right the wrong and is absolutely determined to avoid it in the future.'.
shepherd the flock page 91. i remember this is one of the first things that concerned me as an elder because it seemed to sound like a person is guilty until proven innocent rather than 'love believes all things', especially given the word 'convinced' appears in bold.. then in a training video one elder said something like 'unless we are convinced of repentance the shepherd the flock book says we must disfellowship'.
that was the begining of the end for me as i thought surely true christians would reason the other way round and show mercy wherever possible.. any thoughts?.
Very good point. The unavoidable implication seems to be that what matters is how convincing the person is rather than how sorry they are. And elders are considered to be the perfect judge.
Plus it's clear from the "err on the side of DFing" tone of the comments that they would consider it a greater tragedy for someone who wasn't really repentant to be spared than for someone who was was really rentant to be DFed.
i would love to know the stats of how many hours were spent, standing by a cart, or sitting at a local town fair with jw table tent set up, compared to the number of bible studies started that led to baptism since the inception of the carts.
anyone have any idea?
if i had to guess i would say thousands of hours pent standing by a cart, and maybe less then 5 that actually got baptized.
jwleaks it seems that's the training JWs a.ready get for how to behave at carts anyway, they don't need any apostates to tell them that's how to do it.
i would love to know the stats of how many hours were spent, standing by a cart, or sitting at a local town fair with jw table tent set up, compared to the number of bible studies started that led to baptism since the inception of the carts.
anyone have any idea?
if i had to guess i would say thousands of hours pent standing by a cart, and maybe less then 5 that actually got baptized.
JW Witness carts cause thousands to start studying... their shoe laces until they've walked right past the religious fanatics without making eye contact.
all religions under critical examination has been recognized inherently as formative lies devised to appeal to human emotions and as a means to cultivate power and control for a select propagating few.
knowledge acquired through scientific inquiry and evaluation has proven that all religious adherence was mostly drawn out human ignorance targeted toward the emotions and consciousness of people.
here we are in the 21 century and people like the jws are still adhering to the lies of christianity and how this religion developed over time.
I meant to simply summarise the first post.
But before Viv tells me, I've completely misrepresented the post, because I'm a total liar and I don't know the definition of twenty different words, including the word "the", can I just say, at this point, from him, it's taken as read. So he needn't bother.
if he get pass this, america deserve him...... conversation 10 years ago..
I actually found it quite shocking to see excerpts from this debate. What is happening to America? How can you let this happen? And to see some Republicans including women defending Trump in the last few days. There is something deeply wrong.
The worst part was where Trump said he'd put Clinton in jail if he won. Is this how America does its politics now?
I think Clinton might have been better off not turning up to this so-called debate.
watchtower january 2017 - par.
15 - "we live in exciting times.
the earthly part of jehovah’s organization is growing in many ways, but growth necessitates change.".
It's a bit premature to call decline yet.
As far as I'm aware the latest figures still show increases in publishers, pioneers, congregations, and probably some other figures.
Where they have stalled is memorial attendance in recent years, and branch numbers are in decline.
Maybe publisher numbers will start decreasing in the next couple of years. That would be real decline. But then they might not publish the numbers if that happens.
all religions under critical examination has been recognized inherently as formative lies devised to appeal to human emotions and as a means to cultivate power and control for a select propagating few.
knowledge acquired through scientific inquiry and evaluation has proven that all religious adherence was mostly drawn out human ignorance targeted toward the emotions and consciousness of people.
here we are in the 21 century and people like the jws are still adhering to the lies of christianity and how this religion developed over time.
Religious beliefs of billions over thousands of years have been nothing but lies.
It's all control and manipulation.
Science has disproved religious claims.
Good grief, do you really believe all this?
You have more faith than I do!
i remember that we were always encouraged to let everyone at work know that you were one of jw's and therefore would not participate in any of their functions, parties etc.. this i outrightly refused to do.
my reasoning was that i was employed and paid to do a job and therefore my religious beliefs were a personal matter and therefore had nothing to do with my work.
secondly i had to work with these people.
I didn't mange to read the Bible every day.
Which reminds be of a joke,
A successful comedian says younger comedians on their way up approach him and ask his secret of success. He tells them it's two hours of Bible reading every day. He explains that it doesn't stop them completely but it slows them down.
laughing my a-off watching the comedian lewis black and he mention what carson said, and i thought surely old ben didn't say that.
i b- damn, he said it.
black said " he said this in front of a lot of people and i'am surprise no one came up to him and said ben, you must come with us now"... .
What's this guy all about? Does he say amateurs should perform brain surgery too instead of professional surgeons?
counterfactual histories (where historians or journalists imagine how it would have turned out if history had taken a different path at a crucial moment) have become really popular in recent years.
they have also gained greater academic credibility, having previously been dismissed as frivolous or analytically irrelevant by serious minded historians.
now even senior academic historians, such as richard evans, extol the virtues of counterfactual history as a way of exploring cause and effect, and distinguishing long term trends from serendipitous contingencies.
Well that's certainly the view of some historians, like Richard Evans. But Niall Ferguson and an increasing number of serious historians see merit in exploring counterfactuals.
Many of the arguments against counterfactuals are really arguments against bad counterfactuals. That is counterfactuals that are badly informed about real history, or counterfactuals that allow for too many simultaneous divergences from real history to the point where anything can happen. Focused and well informed counterfactuals can illuminate the causes and mechanisms in real history.
https://newrepublic.com/article/119357/altered-pasts-reviewed-cass-r-sunstein
I came across this interesting example from a prominent historian of Christianity - what if Arianism had won? (Maybe, one thing, there would have been no JWs)
