Where I live all political voting has been by "vote by mail" only - and that has been the case for several years. Thus, where I live JWs and faded ex-JWs living alone can vote without any other JW ever knowing, provided the person voting is cautious. However there is one caveat. Anyone can obtain a copy of the voter registration list for where I live - including political party affiliation/membership (if any), though not including who and/or what the persons cast their votes for (since the ballots are private). It does however cost money to obtain the voter list.
Disillusioned JW
JoinedPosts by Disillusioned JW
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Jehovah's Witnesses can now VOTE!
by UnDisfellowshipped injehovah's witnesses were raped and tortured by the thousands in malawi because they obeyed the watchtower society's rules, and they broke caesar's law and refused to purchase a political card in a country that only had one polictical party.
now (since 1999), jehovah's witnesses are allowed to vote in political elections!
i would love to hear everyone's comments.
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Disillusioned JW
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137
Masks Are Coming Off
by minimus ina number of states are allowing people to not wear a mask.
some think this is disastrous!
what’s your view?.
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Disillusioned JW
Anony Mous, you asked good questions to me when you said "why should people who are immune have to continue to wear masks? Don’t you believe that the vaccines work?"
In making my earlier post about masks I hadn't given thought specifically to whether ones who were fully vaccinated should wear masks. Based upon what I have read and heard on the news the various Covid-19 vaccines work to various degrees of effectiveness. Furthermore there are new strains/variants of the virus and for some of those the vaccines don't seem to provide nearly as much protection. One concern that I have is that if someone in a store or on public transportation is not wearing a mask, what proof do I and others have that the person is vaccinated and/or immune to Covid-19. Unless the person provides documentation of having been vaccinated how can any of us really know the person is vaccinated and/or immune?
It seems to me that the guidance stated at https://www.nbcnews.com/shopping/wellness/cdc-guidelines-face-masks-n1260911 is worth considering.
Regarding whether the current Covid-19 vaccines are safe, I haven't yet made up my mind on that subject. I lean towards thinking they are safe, due to the medical community saying they are safe, but in researching how they are made I notice that most of them are mRNA type of vaccines. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html says the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines cause the human body cells to make a harmless protein piece and later to display it on the surface of the cells. The article says "Our immune systems recognize that the protein doesn’t belong there and begin building an immune response and making antibodies, like what happens in natural infection against COVID-19." My worry is that the immune systems of some of those receiving the vaccine might do more than attack the Covid-19 protein pieces, namely that they might also attack all of the body cells of some people which have the protein pieces on their surfaces - causing an autoimmune disease.
The article says "mRNA vaccines have been held to the same rigorous safety and effectiveness standards [332 KB, 24 pages]external icon as all other types of vaccines in the United States. The only COVID-19 vaccines the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will make available for use in the United States (by approval or emergency use authorization) are those that meet these standards." But, I am still concerned.
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"Modern Bibles" New World Translation - Part II
by Perry inbehold, the days come, saith the lord god, that i will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the lord .
amos 8: 11. .
most of us who have been raised as jehovahs witnesses since at least the 1960s were occasionally reminded of the scholarship of fred franz and his command of eight or more languages, including the biblical languages of hebrew and greek.
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Disillusioned JW
I read online (I think it was somewhere on jehovahs-witness.com) that a non-JW critic of the NWT said the NWT was made as a revision of Rotherham's Emphasized Bible into smoother flowing contemporary English. If that is primarily the way the NWT was made, then I think that the NWT rests on a sound foundation and in a sense can be called a literal translation. That is because Rotherham's Emphasized Bible is a very literal translation of the Bible from critical texts. It even says Yahweh in the OT text instead of "the LORD" and it uses typography to distinguish when God/god is translated from Elohim, Eloah, and El. Thus using Rotherham's Emphasized Bible as a base, along with comparison with other translations and with various critical texts and with Hebrew-Aramaic-Greek lexicons, to make the NWT, could result in an excellent Bible that is worthy of being called a translation from ancient manuscripts of the Bible. Rotherham's Emphasized Bible also uses the word "presence" as a translation of "parousia" instead of "coming" and in one of the appendices of the Bible he states his reasons for doing such. Rotherham read Russell's "The Divine Plan of the Ages" and wrote a review on it. See http://www.biblestudentarchives.com/documents/RotherhamAppendix.pdf . Wikipedia says Rotherham was a "scholar and minister of the Churches of Christ".
I compared a number of verses of the OT of the NWT with that of the OT of Rotherham's Emphasized Bible and noticed that in those verses the NWT rendering does look much like an updating of the rendering of the Rotherham's Emphasized Bible into smoother flowing contemporary English. In those OT verses I examined the NWT wording was closer to that of Rotherham's Emphasized Bible than to that of the American Standard Version Bible.
It is also case that the NWT NT used some renderings from the Emphatic Diaglott's interlinear literal translation and it 'modern' English translation.
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Why So Many Young People Are Leaving The Watchtower
by Jeremy C ini have been giving a lot of thought to the young people who are leaving the watchtower organization in recent years.
last night, i was reading the thread posted by jwfacts a while back in which he provided some statistics and graphs showing the rapidly declining growth in the watchtower.
one factor that was discussed at length was the high number of young people who do not stay in the organization.
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Disillusioned JW
A big part of the reason why I ended up avoiding literature critical of the WT's teachings and of the Bible while a teen and thus getting baptized, was that I placed too much credence on the idea of being obedient to what the Bible says, including obeying one's parents and avoiding apostate teachings. Obedience in many matters is important, but obedience is over rated. If I was less obedient (to what the WT said about the Bible), while living in my parent's house I would gone to the library to study pro evolution books and pro atheism books (if I could find the latter) to see if the WT religion (and even Christianity as a whole and even the Bible) is mostly false. It is unlikely I could have found any ex-JW literature back then in the libraries or elsewhere, but I could have at least tested the claims of the Bible. I did some research back then on evolution, the concept of Bible prophecies having been fulfilled, the existence of Jesus Christ as a historical person, and the correctness of WT interpretations of the Bible, but I only used WT sources for my study (other than a few science articles that commented on evolution; and what I read in my school's biology book while in the classroom [the biology teacher said students couldn't take the biology book home]). I didn't look up the quotes the WT made from secular sources; if I had, at least on the topic of evolution, it would have made a huge difference!
I was extremely bored attending the KH meetings and going out in FS but I did those activities (including while as an adult living on my own for several years) because I thought that was required of me by Jehovah God. I thus did what I thought was my duty, though I otherwise didn't want to do it.
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Why So Many Young People Are Leaving The Watchtower
by Jeremy C ini have been giving a lot of thought to the young people who are leaving the watchtower organization in recent years.
last night, i was reading the thread posted by jwfacts a while back in which he provided some statistics and graphs showing the rapidly declining growth in the watchtower.
one factor that was discussed at length was the high number of young people who do not stay in the organization.
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Disillusioned JW
Jay Elle, I wish that when I was 10 - 13 years old that I had access to such information that your teen daughter had! When I was 13 years old there was no internet accessible to the general public - the Apple IIe computer and the IBM PC hadn't even been invented yet! [I didn't buy my first computer (it was an 8-bit computer) and modem card (for connection to other computers by telnet - there was no internet browser and world wide web back then) until the latter half of my time in college.] If I had the information readily available back then (when I was younger than age 14) that people have today I very probably would never have become baptized as a JW!
People like daughter (when you made you post 6 years ago) are what we need in the KHs today educating the other unbaptized youth in the KH so they don't ever get baptized into the JW religion!
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Can a person resign from being one of Jehovah's Witness?
by RULES & REGULATIONS incan a person resign from being one of jehovah’s witnesses?.
frequently asked questions.
a person can resign from our organization in two ways:.
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Disillusioned JW
I think there is a benefit if a person leaves the JW by disassociation rather than by disfellowshipping. That is, in the mind (the figurative "eyes") of those who never were JWs, if they now that the person voluntarily quit (such as by disassociating) instead of being involuntarily kicked out (such as by disfellowshipping), they will have more respect for that ex-JW person. Likewise I think if the ex-JW left by disassociation the ex-JW will have more influence with non-JWs if they write a pro atheism book and/or anti-JW religion book, than if they were disfellowshipped.
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"Modern Bibles" New World Translation - Part II
by Perry inbehold, the days come, saith the lord god, that i will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the lord .
amos 8: 11. .
most of us who have been raised as jehovahs witnesses since at least the 1960s were occasionally reminded of the scholarship of fred franz and his command of eight or more languages, including the biblical languages of hebrew and greek.
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Disillusioned JW
Rivergang, the modern language nature of the NWT is also what I like about that Bible. It is what I like most about it. I also appreciate that it uses a personal name in the OT in place of the expression "the LORD". Furthermore I appreciate that its NT is based upon a critical Greek text compiled primarily form the oldest extant Greek NT manuscripts.
Though there were some English Bibles in 1964 which were in modern language (for the most part), such as the RSV, they still included thee, thou, and thine in some verses. I read that the English Bible was slow to abandon archaic language due to the use of quotes from the KJV (and probably the Douay) including the archaic language in liturgical books (including prayer books) and in pronouncements in church settings.
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"Modern Bibles" New World Translation - Part II
by Perry inbehold, the days come, saith the lord god, that i will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the lord .
amos 8: 11. .
most of us who have been raised as jehovahs witnesses since at least the 1960s were occasionally reminded of the scholarship of fred franz and his command of eight or more languages, including the biblical languages of hebrew and greek.
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Disillusioned JW
Hi Bobcat. I visited those web pages but they didn't help me. The ones which claimed to have a link for PDFs of the Greber NT were ones in which the links don't work any more. Anyway, I once owned a copy of the Greber NT and thus I know how spiritualistic sounding its wording is. What I am looking for is the part of his book which includes his "Explanation". Every online source I have found which is selling his NT in English lacks his "Explanation" section, even in those copies in which the words "and Explanation" are included in the title of the book. I now wonder if maybe all of the English translations of his German translation of his NT exclude the "Explanation" section. Unfortunately I don't know German so obtaining a German edition with his "Explanation" section (if I can find one) won't help me.
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Watchtower Change On Origins from 42,000 Years to the "Day Age" Theory
by Sea Breeze indoes anyone know when and how the change took place?
is the "day age" theory still the current position of watchtower?.
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Disillusioned JW
Hi Sea Breeze. I think what you say is interesting. The WT definitely has some teachings which agree with atheism (such as no Trinity, no inherently immortal human soul, the human mind is a product of the human brain and thus when its brain dies its mind ceases, no hell in the sense of eternal torment after the human body dies, ghosts are not spirits of the dead and thus ghosts in the sense of spirits of the dead are not real, Rutherford's teaching that "religion is a snare and a racket", the universe is billions of years old, and organized non-JW religion has done much harm to humanity). As a result in some ways being raised as a JW prepared me for secularism and atheism.
But I think had I been raised in a mainstream (theologically liberal) Christian church I would have been an atheist decades sooner. I also think that if I had been raised in a neutral manner in regards to religion (instead of as a third generation JW) I would have been an atheist decades sooner. That is because since my preteen years I have loved science, independent thinking, and critical thinking (and I have a natural tendency towards free thinking), and at least by age 12 I began to have skepticism/doubts about supernaturalism - it was hard for me to believe supernaturalism was real since my entire life was (and still is) completely devoid of supernatural experiences. But, the constant indoctrination by the WT literature (including it attacks on evolution, in numerous Awake! articles from 1979 - 1981) greatly dissuaded me from reading evolutionist literature prior to my baptism and it caused me to avoid taking college introductory courses in anthropology (especially physical anthropology), geology (especially historical geology), and biology. It deeply emotionally pains me that I let the WT convince to not take such courses (including philosophy of religion, including an analysis of philosophical arguments for and against the existence of a personal God and of any other type of god and regarding miracles) at university/college.
Furthermore, both my high school physics teacher and my high school chemistry teacher made a joint statement to one of my classes saying they examined evolution and concluded it is false. If they hadn't said evolution was false I probably would have investigated it much more than I had prior to baptism and as a result I would have avoided becoming a baptized JW. In my high school biology class (which was only a one quarter course) my biology teacher told me I could not take the biology textbook home to study (saying there are not enough copies of the book for the classes if students take them home), as a result I retained little information of what I had read (in the classroom) from that book about evolution. When I was in grade school and high school there was very little mention of millions of years and of evolution in school - the only references to such I am aware of are from the high school textbook on world history (which said a little about evolution) and from the high school biology textbook (a few years ago I purchased a copy of each of those books, of the same editions I read in school). I wish that in school I had been I been exposed to the teachings of evolutionism (cosmological, chemical, and biological) as much as you had. I wish that prior to my baptism date that I had gone to the libraries and looked for and read books promoting evolution (similar to the ones I recommended to you), atheism, and critiques of the Bible and Christianity (such as done by parts I and II of Thomas Paine's book "The Age Of Reason"). From my current perspective my life would have been so much better had I done so.
I think it was a part of my inborn nature to become an atheist and nonreligious, that in a sense due to my biology (made by nature, not by a god) I was born to become an atheist (due to the way I think and due to my natural love of reason and of science). It greatly saddens me that the WT's influence on my mind blocked me for so long from becoming what I was meant to become - an atheistic philosophical/scientific naturalist. I feel that becoming a JW and remaining a believing one for 20 to 26 years, instead of becoming an atheist by the time I graduated from university, ruined much of my life. I think that my having absorbed JW teachings since very early childhood severely impaired my critical thinking skills (much of the WT literature uses subtly craftily faulty logic) for decades, and as a result made me much less successful in life (outside of the responsibilities I received in the JW congregations) than would otherwise had been the case. After I finally became an atheist, I sometimes think of myself as having become, metaphorically speaking, 'born again' as an atheist.
Though I have not read the book by Sarfati which you refer to, after I stopped attending JW meetings and before I became an atheist I purchased and read some Christian apologetic books, including McDowell's book called "The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict" and his book called "More Than a Carpenter" (in the edition which is bound with the book called "The Life of Jesus"), and Lee Strobel's book called "The Case for Christ". Years after I became an atheist and an evolutionist I purchased the book called "Scientific Creationism (General Edition), Updated and Enlarged" (Edited by Henry M. Morris) in order to challenge my conviction of evolution, as part of my effort to reevaluate my beliefs/ideas from time to time (and to remain open minded to evidence and reasoning that is new to me) to see where my current ideas might need modification. I still own the "Scientific Creationism" book.
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Jehovah's Witnesses can now VOTE!
by UnDisfellowshipped injehovah's witnesses were raped and tortured by the thousands in malawi because they obeyed the watchtower society's rules, and they broke caesar's law and refused to purchase a political card in a country that only had one polictical party.
now (since 1999), jehovah's witnesses are allowed to vote in political elections!
i would love to hear everyone's comments.
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Disillusioned JW
My impression of when I read the article about voting in the year 1999 was that the WT Society was now saying that voting is a conscious matter.
But, regarding the article about voting I remember that some time (months?) after it came out a traveling overseer in a talk to the congregation told us that the article does not mean it is OK for JWs to vote for a human in a political election. Instead, the overseer said the article was about what may be done in countries where the law requires people to go the voting polls. He said the article was saying in those situations JWs may go to the polls and even cast a ballot, but that they are not to vote for a human. I think he said they can vote for "Christ the King". He also said they can do something to their ballot (such as by marking it a certain way) to make it invalid. I thought his comments about this (representing the WT Society) went way beyond what the article itself said. To me it became an example of how the WT Society says one thing in writing that is accessible to the general public (including the governments) and something contrary to that to JWs in settings that the vast majority general public (including government officials) has(have) no exposure to. Interestingly, during at least one election after the November 1999 article I heard on TV that some ballots in my country (maybe specifically in my general locality) had write-in votes for "Christ the King".