howcome the wts does not include personal testimonies in their meetings (i mean, ones that have not been edited by the writing department)?
oftentimes when i am preparing for an instructional course, i go looking for a sample completed form.
in order that my students are not led astray, i try and find the perfect sample.
Paranoia was setting in then..........can't imagine how scripted everything must be nowadays.Danny
Along with the manuscripts for convention talks there is another recent curtailment for the sisters at the ministry school. You can't have them thinking too much can you? We used to be allowed to make up a scenerio for our part. Not any more. Now we get to use a canned scene. We take the prescribed subject and make it fit the pre packaged script. Can you say zombie?
the august 1 watchtower has a cover featuring a young african -american man.
and asks "how would you like to be remembered?".
"remembered?
Never having to face death was the main draw to the org 50 years ago. Wake-up call or new light?
Not only that we were never going to even grow old. No aches and pains or the breakdown of bodily functions. We were robbed of the oportunity to prepare for the inevitable.
The other day I was thinking on these lines when I thought that people involved in the mainstream churches have a kinder belief. They believe that they will grow old and die then they hope to go to heaven. They have their whole lives to get used to the idea of growing old. It is seen as a normal part of life. JW's such as I and thousands of others have lived in denial of the prospect of aging until it is upon us. We actually do not have the skills necessary to cope with this outcome.
Is this WT a stupid attempt to introduce new light? Are they preparing the ignorant dubs for the possibility that (Oh God I can't believe I'm going to say this) the end is not SOON and they will die and should care how they are remembered? I am going to have to try to obtain a copy of this one. Time to hit the laundromats.
Loris
just another of those questions for which
answers are ever changing, as the time goes by.
so, "when would faithful anointed christians the resurrection?
I heard C.T. used to point his finger in his face and called him a little girl cuz he couldn't grow a beard
Is this where beard envy came from? If J Rutherfraud couldn't grow one nobody would be allowed to grow one?
Sorry, off topic. I just couln't help it.
Loris
i have been accused of being too similar to the jehovah's witnesses in my teaching about jesus.
please tell me it isnt true.
if you could contrast my perspective in terms of jw belief and approximate your distance from me, i would sincerely appreciate it.
Welcome to the board. Most of the persons on this board are no longer JW's. Although we aim to be tolerant of all persons no matter their religious or non-religious persuation (sp) We for the most part have experienced the extreme intolerance of JW's first hand and do not want to do that any more.
JW's believe similar to you with the exception that they do not believe that the Holy Spirit is a person. They believe that it is an impersonal force. (sort of like the force of Star Wars fame)
There are a few very long threads on this board debating the Trinity. Do a search and read them to get a feel for how diverse this group has become since leaving the controlling atmosphere of the JW's.
approximate your distance from me
I can't answer this since I don't know where you are.
Loris
i remember growing up and thinking that there was no way i would have kids ......... why ???
....... because i did not want to raise them the way i was raised, in the borg.
i went through hell, why put a defenceless child through that.
I remember a convention in the eighties, I think it was '87 or '88; there was a talk about Noah and sons and how there were no infants on board the ark. The title of the talk was "Responsible Childbearing in the Time of the End." Of course it became a study article in the Watchtower the following year.
As we sat listening to the twisted reasoning of the speaker my darling daughter began to cry. She was a few months pregnant at the time. She was thinking that she had somehow displeased Jehovah. She was so teriffied that she had condemned herself and her children to death because she had done this horrid thing. It took quite a while for her to calm down that day. But throughout her pregnancy she felt that she was a walking advertisement of sinfulness and rebellion against Jehovah.
That is one instance of their interferance into the private lives of their subjects. I am sure there are many thousands more.
What thoughtless clods those old farts are. They give no thought at all to what they spew out of the sewers of their minds.
Loris
last meeting i ever went to was a memorial, 6 years ago.
i remember it well, and it wasn't even my own hall.
it was so boring.
My last meeting was a Ministry School/Service Meeting.
I had been visited by the PO and my Book Study Conductor at my house for a four hour chat a few days earlier. The subject of the chat was my letter to the editor of Newsweek about child abuse among JW's.
I was shocked and insulted at that meeting when the "local needs" portion on the Service Meeting turned into a talk by the most prominate elder, Brother " son of anointed, personal friend to several GB members". The talk was Beware of the Snare of Apostates. I was always the quietest most unasuming person at the KH. I have always been painfully shy. Imagine my horror when I realized that the talk was being given in my honor! After the meeting I was given the most horrid ugly looks by several women I had counted as my friends. So much for confidentiality of the elders.
I have not been back. I know when I am not welcome.
Loris
the watch tower june 15, 1917. .
"j. f. rutherford, addressing an audience which crowded the academy of music yesterday afternoon, arraigned billy sunday with having appropriated to his own use pastor russell's published views on the second coming of christ.
the speaker charged the evangelist with preaching questionable theology, declaring it wholly inconsistent.
Cat1759 You may find this interesting. It is Charles Russells Studies in the Scriptures on-line
http://www.divineplan.org/studies/
The WTS has diviated way far off from what Charles Russell taught. I have not read the whole Studies in the Scriptures but what I have read is interesting in light of what we were taught as JW's. It is so way different. It just boggels the mind that the present day JW's claim that their beliefs come from this man.
Loris
"mom, dad," he began, "i think there's something wrong with this pond.
"where exactly do you live, son?
on several occasions, he almost got up and new back to the pond, thinking that to die with his family would he better than to live with strangers.
There are many on this board who share the pain of the littlest gosling. The pain of leaving the family in the sick pond is intense. There are those feelings of maybe it would be better to return to the family and die together in the sick pond. But self preservation takes over and the little goslings gain strength from the friendly geese in the big lake. Thanks Simon for being a wise and good Gander.
The sad reality is that not all of the family exhibit the good sense of the goose family. Many a gosling on this board has to face the fact that their family will choose to stay in the poison pond and will die there.
Thanks Gary for the story.
Loris
just for fun, i went back 2 years and started to read threads of aug 2001. many posters who were there then are still here today.
many also are gone and moved on.
i find that wonderful that some are still here though.
I did that when I was a lurker. I learned so much from those old posts. Like you said it was revealing how I could follow the healing process of certain ones. It was a great comfort to me to see that I would not have to stay confused and lonely. I could grow and heal from the effects of finding out the truth about the so called truth.
Loris
wow!
i longed for the day when the last of the anointed remnant was on his/her death bed and all of the witnesses awaited to be swept away into the new system.. who knew that they could just, with one stroke of "new light" change everything and do away with this hope/doctrine.
how many times did i preach it from door to door and misrepresent god and the bible!
Nosferatu are you thinking of Romans 8:16 ? "The spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are God's children."
The anointed claim that they just know that they are special children of God. It's something us ordinary mortals can not fully understand so in so many words, "Shut up and don't question us about details.'
Loris
Seems that great minds think alike Neon. we were posting at the same time.
