I have to confess as an 'outsider' that I always considered the author of 'Revelations' to be smoking something, taking something, suffering from Alzheimer's, or otherwise completely out of it.
A 'closed book' as far as I am concerned.
Joe Grundy
JoinedPosts by Joe Grundy
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61
My Wife's reaction to the Revelation Book news
by under_believer inso, i told my wife about the july km news that we'd be studying the revelation book again.
"good," she said.
"good?
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154
Shocking Announcement: Society feels Armaggedon coming this year?
by truthseeker ina rumor alert indeed, but it could be related to the distribution of kingdom news no.37, "false religions end is near.".
the following is posted from e-watchman's forum.. make of it what you will, but in light of all the rhetoric about "deliverance at hand" and "independent thinking", nothing would surprise me anymore.. http://e-jehovahs-witnesses.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1502&st=0 we posted about an announcement it was only local to our cong.
however we have found out that there is going to be an announcement sometime in september and it is supposed to be shocking.
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Joe Grundy
Abaddon:
Thanks for this.
Can I get a 'Super-Crypto-Decoder-Christian-Ring' bulb from my local supemarket, or do i need to check that I have a 'New Light' fiting installed?
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To Put My Questions In Context
by Joe Grundy ini am, as you will see, a very junior member of this forum.
i have so far explained my interest in jws in my earlier posts, and i have asked what must seem to many here some very naieve questions about jw beliefs and practices.
when i raised questions about the young children of my jw neighbours, a post or two implied that i may be a strange old man for taking an interest in children.
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Joe Grundy
Thanks for the comments, all.
Happy Dad: I don't know if this helps or not. For all of my time as a cop I was extremely cynical. Most of the time, that was proved to be the right approach. But sometimes, just sometimes, it was completely wrong. For example (and those with no 'outside' experience of life may find this hard to accept) some of my best friends when I was a young detective were prostitutes. Why? Well, they were honest (in all senses), they had no pretentions about what they did for a living, they were vulnerable (and OMG, they were abused beyond belief) but they had a sense of decency and honour that was often a lot more developed and 'loving' than you'd find in many more 'normal' societal groups.
Particularly while I was a DI i/c Fraud Squad/MLU, we had a squad saying - 'TNF'- or 'trust nobody'. And it worked fine.
But since I have retired, I have adjusted my views. Someone (I think it was Bill Bryson) said someting like - 'There are two ways to go through life. You can trust nobody, run little chance of being ripped off. Or you can trust everyone, get ripped off a few times, but have a lot more adventures'.
Me, I'm having adventures.
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Update Update
by RichieRich inwell, it's cold in alaska.. i'm on a billion dollar boat with a dial up internet connection, and a, well, boat load of asians.. god, those people photograph everything.
i took my shoes off in the gym, and i had like sixteen little asian girls looking at them.
oh, the stories i could tell..... the funniest thing is watching my grandfather communicate with the foreign staff.
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Joe Grundy
Stephanus:
In the interests of scientific research I can report the following.
For 'American' one must substitute 'Pembrokeshire'.
On the two occasions on which I can recall being sober enough to pronounce the word 'Pembrokeshire' the result of the conversation has been fornication (as I understand JW terminology), or as I would call it, 'mutual oral followed by a sahg (anagram)'.
This may be insufficient for a truly scientific survey, and I am dedicated to conducting further research.
I would stress that this is only since my divorce, so no adultery is involved.
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To Put My Questions In Context
by Joe Grundy ini am, as you will see, a very junior member of this forum.
i have so far explained my interest in jws in my earlier posts, and i have asked what must seem to many here some very naieve questions about jw beliefs and practices.
when i raised questions about the young children of my jw neighbours, a post or two implied that i may be a strange old man for taking an interest in children.
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Joe Grundy
Stephanus:
No, I don't condemn anyone for their religious beliefs. I just find it fascinating (now, but troublesome before) how some people can suppress their natural enquiring minds to accept things without carrying out the normal checks and balances most of us apply in everyday life.
For example, my Dad. He has Alzheimers' now, poor bugger, but in his prime had a superb brain. He was the youngest ever to get to his rank in the UK civil service, and was the sort of guy who would do algebra problems as a hobby. All of us kids until the disease got him recently would ask for advice - and he would always have a new and considered way of looking at things. And he was by no means immune from life's problems, though it took a lot of dragging out to get him to tell you about them.
But he had a knack - shared by a lot of people, I feel - of shutting off a part of his life to do with religious things. For example, read the NT and it becomes clear that the 'disciples of Jesus', including James, felt it necessary to send out their own missionaries to correct what Paul was teaching. Why? Was it perhaps that Paul wasn't the seamless 'apostle' continuing the teachings of Jesus as we had been led to believe?
And my Dad - and I love him to bits, he is the wisest man I have ever known - could quite happily close his mind to the discrepancies in the Bible.
I think no less of anyone for being able to close off the 'religious' side of their mind from their 'real life' one. It is what they have been conditioned to do.
Perhaps it is me who is 'out of step' because I can't do it.
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Update Update
by RichieRich inwell, it's cold in alaska.. i'm on a billion dollar boat with a dial up internet connection, and a, well, boat load of asians.. god, those people photograph everything.
i took my shoes off in the gym, and i had like sixteen little asian girls looking at them.
oh, the stories i could tell..... the funniest thing is watching my grandfather communicate with the foreign staff.
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Joe Grundy
Dear Richie
We have not corresponded before, but I feel that I may be able to offer some advice.
The correct way to approach Scandinavian or Asian ladies is as follows.
Richie: 'You look attractive. Do you have any American in you?'
Lady: 'No, I don't think so.'
Richie: 'Would you like some?'
Let me know how this approach works.
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154
Shocking Announcement: Society feels Armaggedon coming this year?
by truthseeker ina rumor alert indeed, but it could be related to the distribution of kingdom news no.37, "false religions end is near.".
the following is posted from e-watchman's forum.. make of it what you will, but in light of all the rhetoric about "deliverance at hand" and "independent thinking", nothing would surprise me anymore.. http://e-jehovahs-witnesses.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1502&st=0 we posted about an announcement it was only local to our cong.
however we have found out that there is going to be an announcement sometime in september and it is supposed to be shocking.
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Joe Grundy
With all due respect to my US friends, and my European ones, why should an armageddon or any other prophecy of an abrahamic god have anything to do with them?
If things were to end where they started, surely the Middle East would be the place (Tigres/Euphrates and all that)? If in population concentrations, why not China or India? The stalwarts of the OT, and Jesus and his followers (however you interpret them) were not really english-speaking WASPs, you know!
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To Put My Questions In Context
by Joe Grundy ini am, as you will see, a very junior member of this forum.
i have so far explained my interest in jws in my earlier posts, and i have asked what must seem to many here some very naieve questions about jw beliefs and practices.
when i raised questions about the young children of my jw neighbours, a post or two implied that i may be a strange old man for taking an interest in children.
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Joe Grundy
Thanks for the response, LT!
I don't know how widespread the 'closed' brethren is nowadays - IME they were so good at splitting off and schisms that they may be so fragmented they have disappeared up their own doctrines!
As my favourite author Garrison Keillor once said (or nearly said) 'Our church was so small only we and God knew about it'.
I take your point about microscopic examination. I have no desire to place anyone on this board in a difficult position. But as far as the organisation is concerned, one point I held to, and encouraged, when investigating white-collar crime (imagine 60 pages of close-typed documents about 'guaranteed off-shore bonds') was to ask the bad guys 'Cut the crap, what does it mean in your own words?'. Always enlightening, and sometimes enough to get a conviction.
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To Put My Questions In Context
by Joe Grundy ini am, as you will see, a very junior member of this forum.
i have so far explained my interest in jws in my earlier posts, and i have asked what must seem to many here some very naieve questions about jw beliefs and practices.
when i raised questions about the young children of my jw neighbours, a post or two implied that i may be a strange old man for taking an interest in children.
-
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Joe Grundy
I am, as you will see, a very junior member of this forum. I have so far explained my interest in JWs in my earlier posts, and I have asked what must seem to many here some very naieve questions about JW beliefs and practices. When I raised questions about the young children of my JW neighbours, a post or two implied that I may be a strange old man for taking an interest in children. Another poster confessed to being a little intimidated by the fact that I am a recently retired 30 year police officer. One queried my interest in ex JWs and whether I found them an entertainment. I have no criticsm of those viewpoints whatsoever. In the circumstances, I might wonder the same.
So, I want to explain a little about who/what I am, where I am coming from, and hope that I can continue to ask what may seem to some stupid questions. To be honest, it seems a little self-indulgent to be posting this about ME, and it doesn't come easy. But my life experiences are very different from most posters here - although I can relate in many ways.
I was raised in a non-exclusive Plymouth Brethren sect. Bible fundamentalists (in a UK rather than a US way). My paternal grandfather was a Welsh coal miner who, in the early 1900s was a bare-knuckle prize-fighter (in his spare time, which wasn't much) who became 'born again' - no doubt in one of the 'revivals' in the South Wales valleys - and with a few others built a 'Gospel Hall' (literally - it was corrugated iron) in their mining village. He was an absolute believer in the Bible as literal truth - if the Bible had said that Jonah swallowed a whale he would have believed that without a problem.
My earliest memory of him was when I was about 4 (c. 1960). He was lucky - he had survived until retirement. His much younger brother died in his late 40s of 'the dust' in about 1962. Dadn's house was hung with plaques, e.g. 'Christ is the guest at every meal' etc. He firmly believed that the Italian cafe in the village was the house of the devil because it had a snooker table.
After some pretty hard service in WWII, my father married in 1945. His first wife died in her mid 20s in 1952, leaving him with sons aged 6 and 2 (my elder 'half' brothers). He met my mother through the columns of an evangelical christian magazine ('The Christian Herald') and they soon married. My mother was also a member of the 'Brethren', and had come from a hard and poor childhood. Her mother was an unquestioning fundamentalist believer from a poor family (she entered domestic service at 13), and I can remember her telling me as a very young child of a grave in her home town of a woman whose arms had dropped off because she was knitting on a Sunday. She absolutely believed this.
My over-riding recollection of the Brethren is that they were excellent scholars of the Bible - and only the Bible - but got very caught up in the minutiae of doctrine and didn't really exercise much 'christian love'. The gospel hall was very plain - the only adornment was a painted banner saying 'God is Love', and hymns were largely unaccompanied. In the Sunday morning 'breaking of bread' service, there was no formal agenda or sermon - people would stand and pray, or read a Bible passage, or start a hymn, or say a few words - as they 'felt led'. Anyone who had accepted the 'born again' doctrine - and that they had a 'personal experience' of Jesus as saviour - was welcome to share the bread and wine.
In my early teens, seeking something a bit different, I started attending a pentecostal church. Again, please bear in mind that these may be a little different in UK than US. The doctrines were very similar, based on a 'gnostic' personal experience. Whilst they were a little more formal, it was still absolutely OK - even welcomed - if a member of the (small) congregation stood during a service, even during the pastor's address - to offer a comment or a prayer. I have never ever encountered such 'Christian Love' as I did in that small congregation (about 40 people), and it may say something for them that the first service I wandered into was a memorial service for an old dear aged 80+.
A couple of years later, geographical moves and all, I was attending a Welsh (English language) Baptist Church. (Again, probably different from a US Baptist church). Much less personal commitment than I was used to, a bit like an Anglican (Episcopalian) church without the pomp. But, as a Welshman, loved the singing! (As an aside, on my very limited visits to a KH - 3 - I told them that if they had 100 people in a Welsh chapel singing it would have blown the socks off 100 JWs).
Married young (23) and wife and I started going to an English Baptist church - living in England by now. Very small congregation (about 25) but extremely personally committed. Pastor was what I would call a 'real man of God', and much love and care exhibited to the wider community. I became very keen on studying the Bible, wanted to apply it to all aspects of life, but - the more I studied the less I could accept. Finally got to the stage where I am now - an atheist but with a deep interest in religion, especially those derived from Pauline Christianity, and how that affects so many people.
So, here I am. Although 'an outsider' as far as JWs are concerned, I can appreciate being brought up in, or believing in, a faith. As far as life in general is concerned, as a 30 year police officer, most as a detective and retiring at 'senior rank' (i.e. not senior enough to dictate policy but senior enough to catch the crap) who dealt with murder, child abuse, white collar crime etc. etc. I have seen enough of life's shitty side to prevent me sleeping sometimes - but I can still regard life with wide-eyed wonder and remark on just how 'nice' some people are. I can't get my hair cut too short because the physical scars still show!
That's my story. I hope people will accept it for what it is, and me for who I am. I hope to be able to continue asking naieve questions here and receiving interesting and thought-provoking responses. I can feel (as a human being) for many of the situations I have read here. I can offer little support from an educated point of view, because I've never been a JW. But as a person I can, and do.
Regards.
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Let's play an apostate game with the Awake! magazine!
by slimboyfat inthe most recent awake!
has a really stupid comment from a reader published in response to a story about a brother getting over a drink problem:he stated that those in the congregation "were always by my side to give me encouragement.
" but should he not have been reproved or even expelled from the christian congregation?.
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Joe Grundy
I asked a question here recently about some of the stories in the publications of the 'Poor peasant had arms chopped off but still made it to meetings' variety, and whether they were verifiable or just inventions.
The replies (and my own limited reading) suggested the latter.
So in the same vein, has anyone here ever had a comment or question published in the magazines - or are the comments and questions fabrications too?