Posts by Drearyweather

12

Watchtower And Taxes

by Bangalore in

*** w94 11/15 pp.

"in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.

" so said 18th-century american statesman and inventor benjamin franklin.

Drearyweather

Those at Bethel (and the COs) don't work secularly for their food and housing. Instead they live off others' incomes, people who pay taxes. According to the Bible counsel, everyone at Bethel and the COs are "bad association"!
Paul said that anyone able-bodied who wants to live off others' incomes should be marked and not associated with. According to the Bible counsel, everyone at Bethel and the COs are "bad association"!

Not sure if you have worked at Bethel, but in my 1 year at Bethel, I was not "living-off" other people's incomes!

I worked my ass off in the printery, worked double shifts during summer convention releases, did endless days as the night guard, got up at 3 am in the mornings for kitchen duty, and traveled to and fro 7 miles to my assigned congregation meetings. When you say housing, I shared a small room with 2 other boys, with no privacy, and ate out of a pre-decided menu. The allowance that I received barely covered my travel expenses and my mother had to send money to me every now and then.

The publishers needed regular magazines, and I was there printing it for them. It was a simple business arrangement. It was not a place where we endlessly sat meditating or praying. It was not a conclave where we shut ourselves off, but every evening went with congregation members to return visits, BIble studies, and shepherding calls.

We walked on thin ice and saw dozens of Bethelites get reproved and sent off for laxing off the rigorous schedule.

When I left Bethel, I didn't have any savings. While working voluntarily, I slogged as a laborer and certainly didn't consider myself as "living off" the publisher's money, and out of all, the words of Paul didn't apply to me.

36

Treatment of Those Trying For Reinstatement

by Vanderhoven7 in

what happens when a jehovah’s witness who has been disfellowshipped returns to attending the meetings again?.

mark jones writes:.

if it's the same congregation that they previously attended then, yes, the congregation will remember who they are and so continue to treat them as dead or invisible.. one of the identifying marks a cult is that it uses shame and humiliation to control members, to keep them from leaving and manipulating those who escaped into coming back.. a disfellowshipped person is never allowed to quietly leave with dignity.

Drearyweather

Diogensister,

Agreed.

However, not having a central mandate for treating ex-members is a real danger. Because it gives liberty to individual units to impose their own rules.

The Catholic Church didn't have a clear rule on contributions, due to which the local pastor pestered the flock to tithe. In fact, apart from passing the contribution plate, he sent a weekly envelope to our home and even sent one of his assistants to gather the money from individual members.

It reached such an extent that four families in a year joined the JW's as they saw that no one forced them to contribute money to the kingdom hall.

In many developing and under-developing countries, people became JW's in throngs because of their notorious ex-religious communities, their unending money extortion, black-magic mired ceremonies, caste discrimination, etc. JW's were a welcome change for them and hence for them the "truth literally set them free". Shunning was the least of their woes.

In fact, of my cousins stated that he was happy that with the right bag of tricks, you can save yourself from getting disfellowshipped, and there are easy ways to escape the JW's without the threat of being hunted down.

I know because my family was one of them.

36

Treatment of Those Trying For Reinstatement

by Vanderhoven7 in

what happens when a jehovah’s witness who has been disfellowshipped returns to attending the meetings again?.

mark jones writes:.

if it's the same congregation that they previously attended then, yes, the congregation will remember who they are and so continue to treat them as dead or invisible.. one of the identifying marks a cult is that it uses shame and humiliation to control members, to keep them from leaving and manipulating those who escaped into coming back.. a disfellowshipped person is never allowed to quietly leave with dignity.

Drearyweather

30 years ago when my parents left the Roman Catholic Church, our names were announced in the pulpit. The next few years were filled with constant ridicule by Church members. In my school, the priest called me up during the assembly and forcefully pulled my hair to and fro announcing before all children that I am now going to hell with my parents. Till now, our names are read out by that priest during his sermons as a reminder of leaving the Church.

My wife, an adult, when she left her community to get baptized as a JW, got whipped by her parents. No one from her community talks to her, in fact, they conducted a series of religious rituals to cleanse their homes and hurled expletives against her and do it till this day.

There are whackier ways in which communities treat their members and JW's are not an exception. In fact, they are less crazier than many other groups out there.

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

Drearyweather

DW: Millions of babies every year are killed before they are born. Is God responsible for that too?
Cofty: No ... and?Is your defence of god something like, 'humans do bad stuff too'

Sorry Cofty, maybe I didn't phrase the question right.

Shouldn't God be responsible for abortions too? Doesn't the idea of God allowing bad things to happen by other humans make him responsible for them, going by the concept of willful inaction?

Sorry if I am not able to express my view clearly. These are my questions (with an assumption that a xian God does exist):

At what point does God stop being responsible for evil?

Even if he is not responsible for some evils solely attributable to humans, wouldn't people hold him ultimately responsible for all evil?

What kind of an ideal world should exist to make the idea of a Christian God believable? As an analogy, we have a world where everyone is hard-wired only to make good choices, i.e. no free will. Or we have a world where free will exists, but God interferes whenever someone makes a bad choice.

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

Drearyweather

Millions of babies every year are killed before they are born. Is God responsible for that too?

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

Drearyweather

nicolaou

I was was that person, I would have definitely saved the child.

But lets continue the analogy.

What if, because of the negligent parents, I see the child running into traffic the next day? or contracting an illness because the child picked up something on the road and ate it, while the parents were busy and distracted?

Should I be merely saving the child, what say, for the next 18 years of his life?

When you say that God should act, how do you think he should? Should he miraculously stop people from getting hurt or falling ill? or maybe just miraculously save just innocent babies while their ignorant parents remain lethargic and the ruling governments remain corrupt?

26

It's official: JW celeb Nicolas King publicly out

by neat blue dog in

after years of speculation, jw movie star & chorus member nicolas king, who ironically starred as the bad guy espousing homosexuality in a jw movie, has coupled up with his performing partner and also performed in a church for pride month.. .

.

Drearyweather

Reminds of King Solomon

36

My defense speech before the judicial committee

by Disfellowshipped-Brother in

dear brothers!.

we have gathered here because, according to your claims, i have apostatized, and as elders, it is your duty to maintain the purity of the flock.

it seems now that someone has contaminated it, apparently.

Drearyweather

Disfellowshipped-Brother

I was curious to know about what evidence did the elders have regarding you being an apostate. A judicial committee is formed only when the accusation/wrongdoing is established by two or more witnesses.

So what did they have against you? Were you talking to others in the congregation and they blabbered to the elders?

Also, at what age did you get baptized? Were you aware that promoting ideas contrary to WT publications leads to sure-shot disfellowshipping, no matter what you say in your defense?

Apologies if you have already addressed these in your posts.

137

I find it interesting that after the cult people still hold on to religion....

by BeaverEater in

jw
friends

im not an atheist, makes no mathematical sense, nor does the buy(more) bull(shit) god make any logical sense... maybe a deist on my best day, in the end you cannot get something from nothing, paradox if you ask me... but in reality i just dont care.

while in, and moving out of the cult, its like a roller coaster, emotionally, yet, for me, over time, i just take it one day at a time, and if appeasing some special deity is required, well i guess i failed.

lol.

Drearyweather

I just don't understand why some leave and embrace other wacky shit, or remain in the umbrella belief system of Christianity etc.

It's like asking why a person still marries after going through a bad divorce. People leave a cult but don't necessary abandon the belief system. And nowadays everything is labeled as a "çult".

Religions work differently for different people. Some people find solace in it and are not concerned about the science behind it. In the end, you do what makes you happy and you are not obliged to explain or defend your religious stand to anyone.

33

Does the Governing Body already know that Jehovah (the name) came from Babylon the Great?

by Chevelle in

i'll start by stating the obvious... according to the watchtower, the catholic church is a huge part of babylon the great which is led by satan and his demons.

raymundus martini, a catholic monk (who "represents" babylon the great to some extent), woke up one day in the 13th century and decided to alter yhwh so it can be easily pronounced.

hence the spanish-ish version of yhwh was created... jehova... (sounds something like this in spanish: heh-o-va).

Drearyweather

According to the Watchtower, the Catholic Church is a huge part of Babylon the Great which is led by Satan and his demons. Raymundus Martini, a Catholic Monk (who "represents" Babylon the Great to some extent), woke up one day in the 13th Century and decided to alter YHWH so it can be easily pronounced. Hence the SPANISH-ish version of YHWH was created... Jehova... (sounds something like this in Spanish: Heh-O-Va)

Chevelle,

Isn't that true for every other name that appears in the Bible? All the Hebrew names of the Bible were latinsed during the middle ages by Catholic churches or other groups where Y was being replaced by J. Yeshua, became Iesus and then became Jesu / Jesus during the use of the King James Bible in 1611 and thereafter.

All the names in the Bible that are now used are not the original pronunciations, but the English language versions of those. Not sure why Jehovah should be treated differently. Biblical names evolved and were latinised during the time when Catholics were a majority and that why the Latinised names have come from them.