so we have only been fading for the past few months but already made up our minds that we are completely out.
we never managed to make any friends in our cong but we befriended our neighbours.. so our neighbour invited us to her b-day party in a few weeks time.
she knows that we are/were witnesses and that we are fading.. i don't see a b-day celebration as being wrong anymore.
to my knowledge, participating in birthday parties, even though strongly discouraged, is not a df offense, unlike Christmas.
It does not in itself constitute partaking in practices of other religions.
Of course, if it becomes known, elders will inquire, and always can pull the "loose conduct" or similar card.
one of the things i certainly noticed as a jw, and even during the time i was in bethel, was the complexities of reporting "truth.".
beginning with an observation on a personal level, i consider myself an honest person.
but something happened along the way, beginning when i pioneered.
factfinder:
I think i understand your frustration. To me, reading how dishonest some "witnesses" were regarding FS was also shocking. My experience is and was, that most take it very seroius, even too serious. I was engaged in many discussions, as how and when we should begin counting time. it was not taken lightly by most of them, rather restrictive. According to my experience, faking was and is very little in the org on the pub-level. That knocking on doors, were nobody is at home, is wasting time, is another story.
You are also right, when you state, not knowing the person behind the posts here on jwn. Some may indeed for several reasons have an agenda to attack, sometimes unbased, everything the WTS does. Therefore, I do not give too much weight to personal experiences here without any proof.
However, I still learn a lot about the "truth", by simply following the reasoning of very knowledgeable persons here, by being shown the contradictions and fallacies in the literature of the society, by getting to know another viewpoint on certain bible passages, which often make much more sense then the societies awkward interpretations.
The facts will speak for themselves, once you are granted to see them, no matter if the person posting here has an agenda or not.
just my 2 cents,
inbetween
i know there's plenty.. one that comes to mind is the blood doctrine.
whole blood is bad, blood fractions may be ok but not all.....wtf?
?.
no sure, if it ever was officially mentioned, but here, buying something used, like antique store or now internet, always raises suspicion, because the original owner might have done witchcraft or something like that. So the demons somehow need a physical thing to enter into the house of Christians.
They supposed to be so powerful, but in order to trouble you, they need some painting, old shoe or whatever you buy used, in order to disturb your house ??
And JW are not superstitious ????
there is a new writing department in wt land.. us.. think about it, the watchtower/jehovah's witnesses are a reactive 'religion', not a proactive one.. that means of course that they react and modify doctrine, rules and direction in response to what ever may be effecting them.
probably the last time they were proactive was the 40s and 50s but these days its all about preservation rather than growth.. i am sure that the actual writing department have eyes and ears out in 'aposta land'.
after all, who discuss and disect the books, magazines and letters more than we do?
sad, but in manyc ases this works.
Imagine a Pub is out in service, meets someone who is "briefed" ny a froum like this, and asks questions about 607/587 issue.
The pub, probably never heard, that basically almost all historians refer to 587 BCE, is puzzled, maybe does some research (only on the CD-rom of course) and either tries to change the subject, brings an experienced brother (elder) or even shrinks back from making a retun visit.
Suddenly those articles appear, the pub quickly reads them (at best) and thinks, how wonderful timely spiritual food the FDS provided again. He brings it to the interested one. If he does still not believe it, well how can this be, the FDS said it so crystall clear, he must be of wicked heart, and will see the truth at big A. The faith of the pub is strengthened, his conscience clean, because he tried everything.
The majority of pubs will glance over the artiucles, shrug off and think, ok whatever...
Only thoes of the conscious class now they real truth, but they are lost anyway in the eyes of the writing dep...
i openly challenge any annointed ones to use the holy spirit to come find this ms still considered in good standing in my congregation, and remove me for waking up to your bs and cultish ways.
i no longer believe in your doctrine, history, or the claim you are guided by holy spirit.
prove me wrong and come get me!!.
its actually a win/win situation for the GB, because if you do not come out, well then, they never notice, and they cant be proven wrong, and if you come out and eventually fade, da, or quit any other way, they will say: See big J. finally cleansed his people.
They twist it they way they want to....
has anyone heard about this?
we received an email from an old friend who is still an elder and doesn't know what we are up to.
"a change, they are no longer training missionaries and sending them into foreign fields.
interesting, because lately they push the "serve where the need is great" thing.
By this, they have pubs moving to other areas without needing to train them in Gilead.
Much cheaper I guess...
apologies if already discussed - the second cos talk discusses 4 "important" areas where jws need to consider the biblical principles involved.. answers on a postcode ( clue - one word - 2 letters - 1st letter is "n" ).
should a true christian?:.
(1) use a social networking website.
nothing like this from our CO, although he is definatly company man and rather hard-core.
I think the 2nd talk is thier won making, no outline from society.
In the elder+ms meeting he mentioned facebook, but said, we should not demonize it, rather learn how to handle it (private setting etc)
which was not such a bad advice actually.
Of course, the education stuff gets mentioned a lot lately, makes we want to scream, really...such a blatant hypocrisy...
it used to for me, and now it doesn't.. i'm not sure how i was able to accept that argument now that i don't, but perhaps it was connected with my increasing compassion for people and their personal suffering as i've grown older.. now it seems like a sick excuse.
more like a bar-bet with satan and all of creation suffers.. i read paul's words and he has no rejoiner except to say in effect "sucks to be a vessel of wrath...glad i'm not one, but who are you to complain anyway, huh?
who's bigger, smarter and more powerful than you, you, you complaining vessel of wrath, you.
the U.S. is a WTS spin or even nonsense.
The issue raised was simply: If A+E eat from the fruit, they never die and be like God.
Answer: They died, never were like God, question answered, case closed.
next step, independent from any U.S. according to the bible, was how God tried to fix the broken, foretelling the messiah, who died for our sins...
and then 2000 years pass, and nothing else happens .....
there are only two possible reasons: 1) the whole thing is a human fabrication from tales and myths long ago... or
2) the cursed apostate Christians were right after all, and good people go to heaven, while the earth is just left for itself....
lately I´m getting more and more used to 1)....
comments.
comments.
comments.
have to say, at least the article sticked close to the bible, little WTS spin on it, of course, boring, cause we have little to complain about ;-)
http://kristenfrihet.se/vtsvar/vtsvar1.pdf.
(thanks to augustin for bringing this to our attention in another thread.
).
wow,
ok arguing for words, wheter "for" or "at" babylon, okay is one thing, but the issue, that shows how dishonest and deceptive the authors of the WTS really are, is their misqouting of scholars. Taking sentences out of context totally against the intent of the writer, is really not honorable for a religion, that claims to possess the one and only truth.
its actually quite disgusting....
