1pnt, I have a question about the group that you call "little flock," legal God chosen class," "remnant," and "144,000" that you claim is in our midst and leading this great preaching work of the Good News of God's Kingdom. How exactly are they leading? Do they all hold positions in the congregations worldwide? Do they all receive a special amount of Holy Spirit; more than an average JW publisher who is not part of this elite group? Do they all have a say in directing the work that is being done? Do they all contribute to the printed materials that are distributed worldwide? Do they all get to be part of the leadership selection process?
Franklin Massey
JoinedPosts by Franklin Massey
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LURKERS: Is JW the only true religion? Here is my personal research!
by mentallyfree31 inare jehovah's witnesses the only religion teaching the truth?.
the statement that only jehovah's witnesses are teaching the truth is an extraordinary claim.
such a claim would require extraordinary evidence.
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Waking Up From a 34 Year Slumber.
by alg1052 injuly 11, 2011 will be 34 years since i was baptised as one of jw's.
the sleeping pill i took was in the form of them providing the information that made the bible come alive with the truth and insisting that they go by the bible not adding or taking away from it.
i had negative experiences from local brothers from time to time, however i excused them as part of being imperfect.
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Franklin Massey
Welcome. You mentioned:
I still attend meetings but find myself becoming more and more detached from the congregation as they appear to be in a hypnotic condition.
You are not alone. From the moment your eyes open, it becomes more apparent how many others eyes are closed. The meetings will become more of a challenge now that your perception has become sharper.
The problem that I find myself in that I see many others face is, Where else can you go? The scriptures direct Christians to keep associating with each other (Heb10:24-25). So I guess I will stay around until I find something better or until Our Heavenly Father Jah corrects the matter. I would like to add 1 additional point to my blog. The main reason that I have not left JW's is Matt 24:14. Who is known for preaching God's kingdom wherever they can?
Why do you need to "go" to any formal location or group? Base your life on the example of Jesus. He associated with all types of people, crossing over the boundaries of race, sex, religion and culture that so many people of his day allowed to divide them. That's why people found him so refreshing. He taught a brand of broad, principle-based spirituality that people could begin to apply immediately in their lives. Each person would apply it differently and if they were working on bettering themselves spiritually, then they would have no time to pick at each other's faults and worry about what divides them. My personal feeling is that at the moment Jesus was off the scene, his message began to be corrupted. Not that a man like Paul meant any harm. It's just that once churches began to be formed, the troubles began. Arguments over doctrine, morality, eating habits, circumcision, etc. What we call "Christianity" today seems to be a far cry from what the Bible says that Jesus did in the four gospel accounts. You acknowledged it yourself when you said, "If Jesus materialized and joined a congregation, he would probably end up disfellowshipped." The point is, Jesus probably wouldn't join any church or congregation anywhere in the world today. He would try to free people from the rules and restrictions of organized religion, only to be called a heretic and persecuted all over again. Which makes me wonder, JWs speak about how they can expect to be persecuted for adhering to Jesus' message and his command to preach. Do you think its possible that persecution could come from within the organization when a person like yourself notices un-Christian actions within the Society?
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Why can't you ask questions?
by ihadnoidea ini know that some will disagree on this, and say you can ask questions.
yet, i ask you to honestly think what would happen if you openly started asking questions on jw doctrine or evolution.
likely you would be made to feel like i did below if you started asking these questions to other jws.. .
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Franklin Massey
Questions can be asked. However, where you stand in the JW organization, combined with who you ask the question of, decides the reaction you will get.
For instance, if you are a newer associate and you ask your Bible Study conductor why the blood doctrine has changed over the years, you'll likely be treated kindly and given the most recently printed info, along with the line that the Organization is so progressive and really has God's spirit in looking out for the people.
On the other end of the spectrum, let's say you are a brother who was born-in, a long-timer, in good standing, with elder or ministerial servant credentials. You ask one of your fellow "appointed men" why the Society is so wrong in its understanding and teaching of evolution. Red alert! You should know better! You're supposed to be an example to the congregation! How could you doubt the Society?!
Little children, extremely elderly ones, new members, unbelieving mates, Bible studies, poorly educated people, "spiritually weak" ones and the occasional congregation crackpot are usually allowed by the JWs to ask questions freely. The reason for this is because the JWs are so convinced that their understanding of spiritual things is far more superior than anyone elses. To them, you are just inferior in your thinking, a "spiritual babe" who is not yet ready for "solid food." It's quite condescending and arrogant.
Pioneers, born-ins, elders, servants, their wives, their children , long-timers in good standing and anyone else who the JWs think should know better are not usually free to ask questions that express any hint of doubt. These ones risk either alienating themselves as a threat to the congregation or, being downgraded to one of the lesser ranks (weak, crackpot) mentioned earlier.
This is just my observation. Would anyone like to weigh in on this analysis?
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So..... are you apostates enjoying your mansions and private jets?
by Mr. Falcon ina super-zealous elder once told me in a very grave tone, "you know, mr. falcon, when someone becomes an apostate and leaves god's organization, they usually do very well physically and materially.
" hence the reason he claims that they feel "vindicated".
now i do also remember hearing such statements in the past from other witnesses.
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Franklin Massey
OTWO, you WERE bring materialistic! Don't you know that only Circuit Overseers are allowed to have Buicks?!
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Amazing Awake Experience, Former druggie looks up JWs in the phone book and starts studying
by LostGeneration inno looking up jws on the internet first?
and uses a phone book, who even owns a phone book anymore?.
here is the an "experience" from pg 7 of the august 2011 awake.. my teenage years were a blur of alcohol,.
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Franklin Massey
I remember an assembly demonstration where a boy walked onstage with a Walkman and giant headphones, banging his head wildly. His father called out to him but the boy couldn't hear him. The dad walked over and removed the headphones and said, "Jonny, that music really has you excited. What are you listening to?" Jonny's response, "My favorite group, Rap City!" By the end of the demo, God made Jonny throw the tape away. A friend of mine from anouther circuit said that during their demo, the kid was listening to the heavy metal group "Kiss Death." Hahaha!
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July 15th WT- Don't Research " False Stories " - Inspired by Satan !
by flipper ini know the poster lost generation made a fantastic thread on this july 15th apostate article, however - i noticed some very powerful points on pg.
17 paragraphs 9 - 11 which weren't brought out that i feel needed to be touched on.
as was brought out in his thread this article told jw's to avoid apostates because they are " mentally diseased " allegedly and to avoid their web sites, not read their literature, watch t.v.
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Franklin Massey
nugget brings up a good point:
It is a clever strategy to start from the premise that everything said by those who left the organisation must be a lie. It demeans them from the start and means that JWs will always have that mental perspective whenever they come across someone who has a negative view of the society. It makes me angry when I think of all those damaged by the society who have just been labeled irrelevant.
If you have experienced the merciless treatment of the religion and come here then you already know that the society is duplicitous but this article tries to stop those who have doubts from doing anything about it instilling fear and doubt. This article demeans this forum and is slanderous and they call themselves the truth.
Some of the horrible mistakes the Society has made (changing blood doctrine, early racism, Mexico/Malawi debacle, child abuse coverups, etc.) sound, to the naive ear, too crazy to be true. For instance, I would love to tell my family about Mexico/Malawi as I feel that they should know the real story, as opposed to the story of the little boy who kept praying for "Wally" and his parents finally figured out he meant "Malawi" and "my oh my how God helped those faithful souls"...anyway...Articles like the one that this post is about make it nearly impossible to reveal any of the heavier truths about "THE TRUTH" because loyal, subjective JWs will immediately dismiss them as wild demonic fabrications. "The Governing Body would never do something like that! Jehovah wouldn't allow it! Where did you hear this?!" And just like that, you are now an apostate spreading "false stories." It doesn't matter if the story is true. It doesn't matter how sincere and respectful you are in your telling of it. All that matters is that the Watchtower told them to look out for people like you.
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So..... are you apostates enjoying your mansions and private jets?
by Mr. Falcon ina super-zealous elder once told me in a very grave tone, "you know, mr. falcon, when someone becomes an apostate and leaves god's organization, they usually do very well physically and materially.
" hence the reason he claims that they feel "vindicated".
now i do also remember hearing such statements in the past from other witnesses.
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Franklin Massey
I just saved 15% on my car insurance. Does that count?
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Amazing Awake Experience, Former druggie looks up JWs in the phone book and starts studying
by LostGeneration inno looking up jws on the internet first?
and uses a phone book, who even owns a phone book anymore?.
here is the an "experience" from pg 7 of the august 2011 awake.. my teenage years were a blur of alcohol,.
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Franklin Massey
Reminds me of this old experience: I had to give up classical music because it made me want to drink absinthe. So I called the operator and asked her to patch me through to the nearest gathering place of The Bible Students. They played a phonograph recording to me that explained how "leviathan" mentioned in Job was the steam engine and how in a perfect world, all black people would turn white, the way it was meant to be. I could see they had the truth. I swiftly dropped the classical music and absinthe. It was the first Christmas I had spent sober in years and I had God's chosen people to thank for it.
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Microevolution vs Macroevolution (NOT an evolution vs creation debate)
by pirata ini've heard the distinction between microevolution and macroevolution a lot, especially from intelligent design arguments.
microevolution being defined as changes or adaption within a species, and macroevolution being changes from one species to another.
my impression is that there really is no such meaningfule distinction between macro and micro in the modern scientific sense of evolutionary theory.
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Franklin Massey
Time. Exactly. And I think this is one of the biggest problems with Creationists like the JWs. They have been taught that life as we know it was created in a relatively short window of time as part of a smooth, well planned (read: designed), purposeful process. Compare that notion to what science has discovered to be a multi-billion year process full of choas and drastic failures.
Through the narrow time period of 7,000 years of human history, as the JWs teach, it's hard to imagine both human evolution and large scale speciation. But expand the borders of time and it becomes more reasonable.
Personally, I feel the miracle is not that life was dreamed up and created by an organized Being but rather, that we are even here given the large rate of failure that preceeded us.
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Resigned
by Franklin Massey ini finally resigned as an elder.
my conscience wouldn't allow me to continue.
i've battled for years trying to reconcile the fallacies of the wt society with my own personal beliefs.
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Franklin Massey
wasastar, your situation describes the best and most likely scenario that I can imagine right now. I want to maintain peace with the friends in the hall and my JW family. I have flirted with the idea of "going out with a bang" but concluded that it would cause more pain and irreparable damage than it would be worth. I'm not one for drama anyway. I would like to slowly and quietly drift to a low activity state where I'm not burdened by the WT Society and not considered a threat to my friends and family. Although it will still be a balancing act, it is much less a feat when compared to being an elder with an agenda.
CoC, my wife supports my decision. In fact, she is the one who first brought up my resignation as a possible solution. During one of my emotional breakdowns where I wondered how long I could maintain serving while holding so many doubts and issues, she said, "I know you feel like you would be letting people down but I hate seeing you like this...why don't you just step down?" At first I felt like that was accepting defeat. But after giving it serious consideration, I realized that this isn't a win/lose issue. It's not a game, even though I previously thought that I could "play the game." She is very reasonable with me and understands where I stand on JW related issues. That being said, her thinking now is that, despite its imperfections, the JWs are the best organized religion available. She doesn't believe that the Governing Body are divinely blessed, but she does feel that they are trying really hard to take care of the worldwide congregation to the best of their ability. She also isn't as interested in religion and spirituality as much as I am. Where I see glaring faults that I can't let rest, she sees human mistakes that might be corrected later and for now, she just lets it roll off of her back. I wish I could be that laid back about it. But as was mentioned earlier, I can't pretend to not know what I do know.
It is very much a human tendency to avoid having to admit that you were wrong. We look for excuses, reasons and scapegoats to soften the blow of that punch-to-the-gut that is finding out that you were totally wrong about something. I think we learn to avoid that feeling from a young age. Now compound the situation by adding to it that your religion may be wrong. That the way you understand God, death, purpose, morals, etc. could be wrong. It can be heartbreaking and frightening. You and the way you understand life's biggest questions could be wrong. So the mechanisms of self-soothing kick in. In JW world, these methods include, "New Light," "just wait on Jehovah," "we're dealing with imperfect people," "we'll get the complete picture in the paradise," "there must be something wrong with my understanding." It is quite possible to use these lines to bury doubts - and hide from the evidence that counters your beliefs - for your entire life. But for some, including myself, a point is reached where the real truth cannot be avoided. When you get the courage to accept the possibility of being totally wrong, the world opens itself up to you again. You spend less time defending your twisted version of truth and more time embracing the fact there there are very few absolute truths in a universe of countless possiblities. It's a liberating feeling. Unfortunately, that type of freedom of mind is not encouraged within the JW religion.
The question was posed, "Have I lost God's blessing?" If there is a God as humans conceive there to be (yet to be proven), and if that God gives specific blessings to individual humans (again, this has yet to be proven and is very subjective to the individual experience), then I would have to say that no, a seeker of truths has not lost God's blessing. What else could a personal God ask for? I would imagine that a personal God would love a devout Christian Missionary as much as a Buddhist Monk as much as a well-informed Athiest. All three are trying to grasp the unprovable and infinite world of the metaphysical. They all get in to heaven ;)