@redredrose:
Dj maybe I wasn't clear or maybe you misunderstood but I have no doubts!
Ok.
The org is a sham and I've wasted many years and time and money and what did I get for it? The feeling that I was never doing enough, never good enough, never spiritual enough to matter.
Well, hold on. I'm a part of the organization you're castigating here, an organization of which wanted to be a part until now, and I've never felt that you weren't doing enough, were never good enough, or never spiritual enough to matter. I don't even know you, so why should I be painted with the same brush with which you seem to be painting certain elders in your local congregation? Why should all of the other congregations in the entire association of brothers in the world, including the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses, all be painted with this same brush? What did we do to you? What money did you spend? I never saw any of it. What did I ever withhold from you? I'm totally innocent of doing anything to you. We're providing spiritual help to so many people in the world? Why would you claim that Jehovah's organization is a sham?
My family has been abused by several bodies of elders, made to feel like troublemakers because we were not afraid to speak up.
But I haven't been one of those that sat on any of the bodies of elders to which you refer that have abused you or your family, have I? I'm here in Southern California. Are you here? Have we met? Have I ever told you personally that I felt that you were a troublemaker, that you're unworthy of the time and energies that God spent cleaning you up, cutting off the pride of the Philistine, moving the bloodstained things from your mouth, the disgusting things from your teeth, and making you a sheik, so to speak? (Zechariah 9:6, 7) Have I ever criticized any of your family members for their willingness to speak up? Someone cleaned me up removed the bloodstained things from my mouth and the disgusting things from my teeth, so that now I'm a sheik, as it were. No, I haven't.
I have no doubt many Witnesses are sincere and try to do what is right and I have compassion for them. Because really : shit flows downhill. The rot starts at the top....
You're right to say this because I'm sincere, so what "shit" do you mean? I don't know about "the top," but I'm up there and there is nothing rotten up here. Nothing is flowing downhill from where I sit. You have a beef with one or more elders, so what prevents you from speaking to another elder at another congregation, either in your circuit or out of it?
However, I am conscious now and have no intention of going back to sleep. I am ready to live my 'real life' and that is why I must let loved ones know that I am not coming back.
You're conscious of what? That you've been wronged by someone? That your family has been "abused by several bodies of elders"? Is all of this about you or about your family? Why not to take my advice and talk to another elder because you do anything that you may live to regret later?
Oh, and did I [mention] I have no doubts?
You're asking me whether you mentioned having doubts, but do you really have no doubts? It is clear to me that you are expressing doubt as to whether it is true that "the gift God gives is everlasting life," that "the promised thing that [God] himself promised us [is] the life everlasting." (Romans 6:23; 1 John 2:25) That the "hope of the everlasting life which God, who cannot lie, promised" isn't a real hope. (Titus 1:2) Is this true, @redredrose? Can you really say that you are not in doubt about this hope?
@redredrose wrote:
I don't want to be drawn into an argument that would leave me wide open for charges of [apostasy]....
@djeggnog wrote:
... unless you were to believe this doctrine to be true and teach others to this effect, you would not be guilty of apostasy. It is not uncommon that from time to time doubts will come into one's mind that we cannot resolve on our own, but if we do not soon find someone that can help us to resolve these doubts, cynicism if often the result, and so once we begin to suspect there to be something sinister, even deceptive, about the things that we are being taught, very often we might find ourselves sneering at those teachings and at those attempting to beguile us, fool us. Or, we might begin to feel sorry for those trying to teach us things that we no longer believe to be true because we realize that, while they may be sincere, they are sincerely wrong.
@DesirousOfChange wrote:
I'm afraid that is NOT true. You do NOT have to teach it. You only have to BELIEVE contrary to the teachings of the F&DS.
What you say here is just JWN speak. In Jehovah's organization, there are no policemen, least of all "thought" policemen, which is the implication of your post. No human being, I'm afraid, has the ability to read another's mind.
I never know what my wife is thinking until she should actually tell me what's on her mind, unless she should throw contextual daggers at me with her eyes, at which times I become amazingly clairvoyant, like when I "remember" at such a moment that I didn't pick up her clothes from the cleaners as I was expected to do that very evening (of course, it didn't help my case for her to have come home only to see the cleaners' ticket exactly where it was the night before, unmoved!), or like when I "remember" at such a moment that I was expected to stop at the supermarket on my way home to pick up a gallon of milk for our coffee, two green peppers and six Russet potatoes (I just eat what she cooks and never wonder what goes into her actually making what culinary delights she serves up!), for I never lock the front door when I have to go back out to my car to get the clothes I didn't pick up or the grocery bags I was never given. It is at those times when I remember that she loves herself and me, and believes, unlike many of the folks here on JWN, that Jesus, who has life in himself, has the power to flick the proverbial switch that retards the process involved in cell replacement that takes place in our bodies as we get older, and totally reverse it, thus making endless life possible, for us and for all mankind. But I digress.
Apostasy occurs when someone has an accurate knowledge of the truth -- it could be about anything at all that the Bible teaches -- and yet that person having an accurate of the truth teaches contrary to what he or she knows to be true. For example, the Bible teaches that eight people survived aboard an ark after the global deluge, but Muslims believe there were only seven survivors. Now were this Muslim to become one of Jehovah's Witnesses, he or she would have to abandon his or her former beliefs to embrace Bible truth that there were eight survivors.
There are adherents of Islam -- Muslims -- who are taught from their holy book, the Holy Qur-ãn, that only seven people survived the global deluge, saying that because one of Noah's [Arabic _Nuh's_] son's, 'Kan'an' or 'Yam,' thought he could find refuge from the flood waters in one of the highest mountains, and for disobeying Allah, he was immediately disowned by Allah as being Nuh's son, and drowned, pbuh ("Praise Be Unto Him"). Even some Muslims believe that Noah's wife also drowned (Sura 66:10), which would then make the number of survivors to six, pbuh, but who's counting? Has anyone ever read the Qur-ãn? There are loads of contradictions in this book. But I digress again.
In referring to Noah [Nuh], it states (at Sura 11:38, 40, 42, 43, "The Holy Prophet"), "And he began to make the ark.... Carry in it two of all things, a pair, and your own family.... And it moved on with them amid waves like mountains; and Nuh called out to his son, and he was aloof: O my son! embark with us and be not with the unbelievers. He said: I will betake myself for refuge to a mountain that shall protect me from the water. Nuh said: There is no protector today from Allah's punishment but He Who has mercy; and a wave intervened between them, so he was of the drowned." However, Scripture indicates (at 1 Peter 3:20, pbuh <g>) that all three of Noah's sons survived the Flood, none of them drowned in those flood waters, "eight souls were saved," and not seven.
If this former Muslim should believe that the Qur-ãn to be correct, that's ok. Jehovah's Witnesses have no "thought" police, no one that is able to read anyone's mind. But there is a difference between believing someone to be true and teaching accordingly. Have you ever read these words before?
Whoever, therefore, breaks one of these least commandments and teaches mankind to that effect, he will be called 'least' in relation to the kingdom of the heavens. As for anyone who does them and teaches them, this one will be called 'great' in relation to the kingdom of the heavens.
These were Jesus' words at Matthew 5:19, and he here is talking about someone that breaks one of God's commands and teaches others to this effect, but what if you haven't done anything yet, but were thinking about breaking one of God's commands, like arrange a liaison with a sister that is sweet on you, and wants you to know what your wife isn't able to give you, so that you begin to look at this sister "so as to have a passion for her." Jesus describes this as someone who "has already committed adultery with [the woman] in his heart." (Matthew 5:28) This scenario is a prelude to adultery, but what it isn't is apostasy.
But if this former Muslim, who is now one of Jehovah's Witnesses, should teach someone that it is controversial to say that there were eight survivors of the global deluge, for some say that there may only have been seven or six survivors, then this would be a case of apostasy, where someone believes a false doctrine and goes on to teach someone else to the effect. A brother that reads Playboy magazine "just for the articles" isn't guilty of apostasy either; neither is he guilty of adultery. But if his sexual desire should become fertile so that he goes as far as to arrange a circumstance in which he might commit a serious sin and his desire does give birth to sin, only then would he be guilty of adultery. (James 1:15)
Likewise, this brother doesn't become guilty of apostasy until he begins to teach others to this effect. Now you may have your own opinions, but I've just humored you here by giving you mine. The difference between your opinion and mine, @DesirousOfChange, is that you can actually count the number of times when I do not speak the truth. Just so you know, I've humored you here, not so much because I wanted to do it, but with the hope that I might speak to@redredrose and to the lurkers of this thread. Enough said.
@djeggog
