Jehovah
...mentioned 14 times in a 25 word prayer...
system of things comes to mind.
what does that mean to anyone not a jw?.
how long have you been in the truth?
Jehovah
...mentioned 14 times in a 25 word prayer...
all my jw life i was reminded constantly about the importance of not bringing reproach on jehovah's name.
decisions on whether or not to disfellowship an individual often turned, not on the seriousness of the sin, but on whether the incident was public knowledge and had resulted in bad publicity for the congregation.
i recall a middle-aged lady being reported to the elders for shoplifting a sweet worth less than £1- and the elders' insistence that a judicial committee must be formed because the store manager and staff knew that she was a jw (i successfully argued that all she needed was support for her dreadful family life, but that's another story).
When the organization is hated because of organizational policies and practices, that's categorized as persecution by the world rather than as bringing reproach on the name of Jehovah.
Massive double standard...
I believe Walter Martin used to refer to those bags as "a portable ammunition dump of Watchtower theology."
.
just wanted to put this out there for any lurkers.. as someone that grew up during the 70s and 80s, we were promised that we would be in the first picture long ago.
if you are still on the fence, please let this sink in for a while..
Can you imagine what the GB meeting must have been like when someone first proposed the overlapping generations idea?
for a long time, i thought pimi (physically in, mentally in) jws were unique in their inability to simply type and read the latest "google" news results about "jehovah's witnesses " or "watchtower".
however, it appears it is not uncommon for a large portion of the population purposefully to avoid facts...on purpose!
"why do people avoid facts that could help them?.
Vanderhoven7,
I can't count how many times I've heard JWs say they don't need to examine their religion because they've already thoroughly investigated it and know that it's the truth.
When I've asked them to give me details of the investigation they did, the conversation ends quickly.
I think it was Don Cameron who said that if JWs had truly investigated the history of their organization they would never have joined.
i guess it's the covid-19 thing.
but very little news from a couple of people i know well there.
they can't leave the "compound" or much of anything else.
Maybe they are all in their Armageddon bunkers.
i'm a born and raised witness.
i was an elder for almost 20 years.
almost the same in fulltime service.
The less you explain to the elders, the better.
If you have to offer explains for decreased activity, cite unnamed personal issues you are working through.
If they offer help, thank them and tell them that you will call on them if you reach a point where you think that would be helpful to you.
here are some questions to ask visiting jws to help them realize their faith is not in the bible, but in men.. questions about how you view the bible.. 1. do you view the bible as the inspired word of god?
(ii tim.3:16).
2. do you believe the bible is written for everyone?
If Jehovah has always had a visible organization, what was his organization from the death of the apostle John until Charles Taze Russell?
And if there was such an organization, why didn't Russell join it?
Since he didn't, doesn't that mean Jehovah had two true organizations at the same time?
If not, which organization would be the right one -- the older one or the one that got started in the late 1800s?
i'm reading babylon the great has fallen, god's kingdom rules, published 1963. this was studied years ago when i was about 10-12 years old.
i wanted to just read some of the beliefs from decades ago.
my wife wants to know why i'm reading this book.
I once had an elder denounce old WT literature I was showing him as garbage and apostate literature.
I asked, "When do WT publications stop being the truth and turn into garbage and apostate literature?"
He stormed out of my living room.
i never had much faith in whatever resurrection was.
what appealed to me about jw doctrines was the rejection of the "it's a mystery" defense of the indefensible.
when i would ask how going into non existence could be reversed when all the atomic parts of who we are had been scattered for thousands of years, the answer was "jehovah can do anything".
The WT view of "spirit" is that it's an impersonal, animating force, sort of like electricity.
In their view, spirit brings life to all living creatures -- angels, humans, dogs, cats, etc.
Spirit present = life
Spirit absent = death
But in WT teaching, a spirit has no personality or memories.