Posts by Saintbertholdt

194

For the Supporters of Those Who Love Jehovah

by lovesjehovah in

jw
friends

i am jehovah's witness, despite some of the questionable teachings, crimes, and other outlandish behaviors of specific people affiliated with the religion.

i know that my relationship with jehovah is not influenced by any outside factors.

i do not condone any crime.

Saintbertholdt

Hi lovesjehovah,

Let me say you have quite a bit of courage. You are trying to promote something at a venue with a group of people who do not share your sentiment, and the reasons for this are quite simple:

1. Most of the people on this forum who have left the organization have experienced the Watchtower policy of shunning. They have lost friends and they have lost family and will probably never get to see or to communicate with them again. This makes many of US very upset.

2. Most of the witnesses who are still active on this forum feel the pressure to conform and cannot leave the organization for the above mentioned reason. As one rather well known lawyer (in ex-jehovah's witness circles anyway) has stated, I paraphrase: Many Jehovah's Witnesses are being held "hostage" within the Watchtower religion because of the shunning policy.

Perhaps a forum better suited to your point of view of: "Here we have a venue to discuss what we love about Jehovah." would be jwtalk. On that forum you will be among fellow believers who wholeheartedly share your sentiments.

Anyway if you can stand the heat in this kitchen, WELCOME and I hope to hear lots and lots from you.

Now to answer your question: What do we/I love about Jehovah?

1. Well he's decisive.

2. He's powerful.

3. Historically He certainly knows how to kill and His plan to murder 7 Billion people is grand indeed.

4. He created some fascinating living creatures including some very impressive bacteria and viruses.

Greetings

73

Everybody loves Raymond

by Saintbertholdt in

a while ago the user vinman started a forum thread called: "ray franz was an idiot".

the reaction to it was quite negative but i have to admit that the title of that thread was intriguing to me.

by nature i am an iconoclast.

Saintbertholdt

Hi there Las Malvinas son Argentinas,

You are absolutely correct. I had actually looked up the quotation in Crisis of Conscience, but as these things happen, in a very bad case of confirmation bias I replaced Chitty with Greenlees. I can only say that I did not do it on purpose. In my desire to 'get' something on Franz I actually mixed up the two individuals. I only realized what I had done when you made your post.

In my defense the original post was just meant to stir up some polemic regarding Franz.

I mean how do blacken someone who was by all accounts a good man with a good conscience?

Its a damn difficult task. And after all my efforts Franz still comes out smelling like a rose.

21

Hey, this is me... I'm the guy on the left! =)

by Divergent in

jw
friends

(picture taken from the wt study some weeks back).

all these years, i've always dreaded waking up early for field service.

i'm a night owl & love to sleep late, so it was excruciating for me to have to wake up early in the mornings & go door knocking.

Saintbertholdt

LOL @ Saintbertholdt! Livin' the good life, eh?

La dolce vita :) Doesn't help my financial solvency though and my creditors do not approve of my alternative lifestyle.

21

Hey, this is me... I'm the guy on the left! =)

by Divergent in

jw
friends

(picture taken from the wt study some weeks back).

all these years, i've always dreaded waking up early for field service.

i'm a night owl & love to sleep late, so it was excruciating for me to have to wake up early in the mornings & go door knocking.

Saintbertholdt

This is me. I take up all eight tiles:

63

Why does the Watchtower leadership slap its own defenders in the face?

by slimboyfat in

take the case of rolf furuli.

i don't think there has been a specific thread on the hebrew verbs u-turn in the nwt, and how the society has responded to the work of perhaps their brightest and ablest defender in their history.

so here goes.. rolf furuli has defended jws on multiple fronts in many different settings, on issues ranging from chronology, mental health, doctrines, bible translation and the blood issue.

Saintbertholdt

So don't expect a word of thanks for your efforts to defend the NWT professor Furuli, or even a mention in the literature. You may have spent decades of your life, and the bulk of you academic endeavour defending the NWT's handling of Hebrew verbs, but we've decided the critics were right after all, it was clumsy and we've changed it. So long and thanks for all the fish.

Yeah Jehoober will sort out the body count in the end and make everything peachy. Dr. Furuli will receive his full reward in the new system.

In the meantime he can have his tombstone made: Here lies Rolf Johan Furuli, defender of verbs and dates.

31

heart troubles

by zeb in

jw
friends

dear all,.

my health took a beating over the years with stress from various sources, not a little from the wt; and dangerous areas of work involving fumes and so on.

the arc also took its toll and i have had recently a heart attack.

Saintbertholdt

I salute you and good health to you.

13

What is the Latest JW Teaching on the Last Days and 1914

by Distracted in

i was just wondering what the witnesses are saying now about the last days and how they know armageddon is real close, etc.

what is the latest teaching about 1914?

Saintbertholdt

They still believe 1914 is the end of the gentile times according to their interpretation of Daniel 4. However the generation doctrine that within the lifetime of the 1914 generation Armageddon would occur has been modified.

The generation is now defined thusly: Anointed brother X was of the 1914 generation. Anointed brother Y was born decades later but knew brother X.

So the generation is now: Brother X's lifetime until he came to know brother Y + Brother Y's lifetime after he came to know brother X. Now some time in the far distant future brother Y's generation is going to be close to its natural maximum lifespan and then they'll have to introduce brother Z. But that's the problem for the another Governing Body and the current Governing Body hope that they'll all be dead by then.

See: 2010, the April 15th Watchtower

Also: http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/generation.php

10

Why does the Watchtower and Jehovah's Witnesses use the Bible?

by WireRider in

the watchtower, post russell, and the jehovah's witnesses hate the jews and the catholics.

they are not allowed to even set foot in the churches of the bible.

they endlessly rail against how wrong they are - but they are all based on their book??.

Saintbertholdt

Hi again Wirerider,

You wrote: I do respectively disagree. In the mid 1900's Christianity from some small place in the middle east didn't have time to be corrupted.

I think you are misinterpreting what I meant. Russell believed that Christianity had been corrupted very early in Christian history. Here is a 1911 quote from the Church Record Card which Russell introduced:

"...I love all who love God and are seeking His ways, but I abominate the creeds of the 'dark ages,' which did so much to misrepresent the Divine Character and Plan and which so seriously enslaved so many of God’s people in the chains of ignorance and superstition."

Russell believed that most Christian denominations had elements of "truth" that survived over the centuries which needed to be distilled into the original form of Christianity. For example, from the book Pastor Russell's Sermon's: "I believe more emphatically than do most Presbyterians that the Church is an especially elect class, and is now being gathered out of the world to be God’s agents in the ultimate blessing of all the non-elect. I believe with Baptists that only the Elect, the immersed, will constitute the Kingdom of God, although I deny their claim that baptism in water is the real immersion. I hold, with the Apostle, that it is baptism into Christ’s death. Similarly I hold to the great Catholic doctrine that there is only one true Church, founded by the Lord Jesus Christ through His Apostles, nearly nineteen centuries ago."

So this idea that the "truth" needed to be filtered continued on with Rutherford during the 1920s with the abandonment of traditional Christian practices such as Christmas (which was now deemed pagan) and so on.

Which now comes full circle to your question of: "Then why use (pervert) their book?"'

My reasoning is pretty straight forward: When a religion develops over time that feels that it is sifting out the original spirit, sentiment and dogma of "original" Christianity, it would only be a matter of time before that religion would re-evaluate the efforts of past Christian translators and therefore "a Jehovah's Witness version of the Bible [would] logically follow" as a result. Which it did, although later than might have been expected, although factors such as the organizations size and a world war need to be considered as possible contributing factors to the delay.

10

Why does the Watchtower and Jehovah's Witnesses use the Bible?

by WireRider in

the watchtower, post russell, and the jehovah's witnesses hate the jews and the catholics.

they are not allowed to even set foot in the churches of the bible.

they endlessly rail against how wrong they are - but they are all based on their book??.

Saintbertholdt

Hi there Wirerider, you wrote:
...Jehovah's Witnesses hate the Jews and the Catholics.

Well they just adopted an old protestant sentiment.

Then why use (pervert) their book?

Because its very difficult to gain credibility with a brand new holy book and anyone who claims to be directly inspired by God or to have special knowledge is quickly challenged to prove it, which as yet nobody can. So its easier to use an existing book to base your theology on and to claim to be the only one correctly interpreting it.

In the case of the Watchtower, Rutherford just evolved Russell's belief that Christianity had essentially been corrupted (this idea originated during the protestant reformation) and it was the Bible Student's task to distill the "truth" from the lies. Therefore sooner or later (later in this particular case) a Jehovah's Witness version of the Bible had to logically follow.

... Rutherford was a teen age girl groupie of Hitler

Rutherford attempted a compromise with Hitler between 1933 - 1935 and used questionable language to attempt to find a neutral space for the Bible Students to exist. After no compromise was to be found, he was exceptionally anti-Nazi.

...many still suffer from the adoption of the Nazi youth program brainwashing by Rutherford.

I'm not aware of the Watchtower ever adopting any Hitler youth methodology's as the Bible Students had even been persecuted under the Weimar Republic which severely escalated during the Nazi era from 1933 onward.

Do you perhaps have more information on this adoption of "Nazi youth" techniques?

2

jwlies.com

by Saintbertholdt in

every now and again when i'm on the forum among the many wonderful advertisements that gets thrown up on the page by google adsense, i sometimes get the following:.

1. now if i was still a jehovah's witness and i saw the website name: jwlies.com, the symbol of the christian dove and the bullet points 'jehovah's witnesses, you are being deceived', the '100% undeniable proof' and the 'no apostate materials', i would have to say that i would have to have been on the verge of writing my disassociation letter and then relieving myself on the podium during the watchtower study before i would even consider clicking on that link.. 2. now suppose that a devout jw had a temporary bout of periodic limb movement disorder and accidentally clicked on the add.

this is what they would get on the first page:.

Saintbertholdt

Hi there all,

Every now and again when I'm on the forum among the many wonderful advertisements that gets thrown up on the page by Google Adsense, I sometimes get the following:

1. Now if I was still a Jehovah's Witness and I saw the website name: jwlies.com, the symbol of the Christian dove and the bullet points 'Jehovah's Witnesses, You are Being Deceived', the '100% Undeniable Proof' and the 'No Apostate Materials', I would have to say that I would have to have been on the verge of writing my disassociation letter and then relieving myself on the podium during the Watchtower study before I would even consider clicking on that link.

2. Now suppose that a devout JW had a temporary bout of Periodic Limb Movement Disorder and accidentally clicked on the add. This is what they would get on the first page:

Well all I can say is that whoever's idea it was to establish this site and who are currently still paying for the Google ads, they certainly are attempting the direct and HARD SELL!

Would you ever have clicked on an add like this, even when you were having doubts?