by cyrus 69 Replies latest jw friends
no one person had the authority to effect change so the majority ruled.
Make that a super majority. 51 percent on a vote was not good enough, it had to be two thirds. Thousands of JW's went to jail instead of doing non-military service because of a few votes. More than half of the GB thought non-military service was OK.
Ray Franz did go on TV and tell his story..I saw it...OUTLAW
Dear Cyrus,
It really is a good book! I just talked with a old friend who has left the Borg who has just recently found this forum. He has a very old friend from years ago who worked with Franz in Bethel and left about the same time. He has read the book, and reassured my friend that this book is accurate and very truthful as to what takes place and took place. Not at all the book the Society wants you to believe it is. It is NOT a book of bashing. Just written in a respectful, matter of fact way. I really appreciated that myself, in reading the book. I had no desire to read a book that was written of a persons embelishments and twisted feelings, nor would I even read such a book. As I am sure you are finding, this book truely sheds a different light on what really takes place at Bethel, and how life altering decisions are really made.
Sincerely,
Lady Liberty
Terry:
Ray Franz real crisis of conscience was when he failed to speak up and speak out directly one on one so that everybody would be clear where he was coming from. That he did not do this tells me he wasn't consciously aware of even why himself until it was too late to decide.
I feel the writing department is trying to get the message out to the R&F through the magazines...but in such a way that the GB will not suspect. . Have you noticed how the story lines in the mags are making the GB look like crazy old men. Anyone in the org with any sense at all can put two and two together and say to themsleves..."Is this what the bible teaches?" For instance, the 144,000 are sending messages from heaven to the GB? Who writes that stuff?
But I think that is what a crisis of conscience is all about, really; a sudden, sharp realization that forces reexamination of allegiances.
Now THAT is a clear and concise statement. It is also the reason why it is very difficult if not impossible to get a JW to act on the real "truth" when you put it right in front of them. Hopefully all these small tidbits of the Orwellian world they live in will one day gel into their very own crisis of conscience, but they have to find the path themselves. It is very hard for most. I can still remember the day the I realized I was going to die, and that the JW's did not have the truth.
Perhaps, since you identify so closely with the man, it chafes that you were ever in a pitiable position. I can only guess. In any case, woven among your vivisecting comments comprising your various diatribes on the thread are all the reasons I am proud of Ray Franz. I am so sorry you can't see cause to feel the same way.
Funny how you can so clearly analyze me, but; by the same measure bristle at my analysis of Franz.
My reading of COC took me through the history of the Witness group, the errors taught by the Witness group, the unethical dealings of the Witness group leaders, and then Ray's huge fight to not get disfellowshipped.
It might just have been the order that the book was laid out, but it seemed to me that if Ray had made the observations and discoveries in the order he wrote about them, and if his accounts of the trials and witch hunts in Bethel were true, I had to wonder a lot why he'd fight to stay a member of the group. I've never had that answered in a way I could understand.
The fight to stay a part of that which he condemned was apparently very important to Ray due to the reprints of the letters and correspondence documentation. This was after he was fired from his job, lost his home, lost his income, was living on charity, and doing hard manual labor.
Maybe I just don't understand not being really pissed about being skinned and tanned. As the book weaves and turns, it looks to me like the Society is somehow being protected . . . . or revered. Maybe I wanted a more particular book and less abstract. There's so much not told. Maybe Ray's just protecting people and not the Society. From here, it looks to me like he's protecting the Society.
Maybe his writing is still a work in progress. I've appreciated all he's written as a ex-Witness. If his experience had happened to me, nobody would read my book.
I decided early on in reading the COC book that I'd have to forgive Ray in order to benefit from his work. He was a member of the committee that made and enforced the rules that killed my wife. As I read, I revisited that forgiveness topic a few times.
Terry: Funny how you can so clearly analyze me...
Ah, but ... and this point is key ... you are present here to offer any response you like. I am not slandering you, I am discussing my analysis with you. The fact that you had nothing more direct to offer by way of response is not at all lost on me.
I bristle not at your factual analysis of Franz, since your factual analysis included many statements that Franz concurs with in the book under discussion on this thread. I bristled at your imagined analysis.
I bristle at your offering of alternate outcomes that can never be known, per force the very reality you cleverly cling to only when the winds prevail in that direction. In any other circumstance, imagination seems to suit you just fine—judging by what you have written on this thread.
As it is, the way reality exists currently, Franz was weak, of poor character, pitiable, recognized the fact, and altered himself. Except to the degree that he wrote a book and appeared on TV to inform others against his former idiocy, how does that differ so greatly from yourself?
In other words, Terry, Great Expositor of the Virtue of Reality, do you in fact practice what you preach, or are your comments on this thread proof that you are still succumbing to weakening of character due to living a lie?
Maybe you simply strive for reality, and falling short of the mark feel the need to preach everyone else into its acceptance. Again, I can only guess. Unless, of course, you take advantage of the opportunity to respond.
Why analyze Franz at all - true a basic understanding of where he comes from is needed. But if the facts and and evidence to support such facts are there - what matters that it was written by Franz [with his admitted imperfection and biased leanings at times] or dropped by a little bird in the barnyard?
Many authors rule on this very forum - yet the identity of the author and his/her credentials is of no concern to the validity of the argumentation. When I read CoC I had not met [or analyzed the phyche of] Raymond Franz. That is still true. Yet his glaring revelations of fact, and the mountains of evidence, both then and since unearthed, have been the tools by which I broke the chains of conceptual prison.
Until it can be proven that he indeed lied en masse regarding the matters he reveals, and until the mountains of evidence can be shown to be fabricated nonsense, why not accept the facts? I do so with concise arguments by lesser persons than he - Leoleia, AlanF, and others. Yet I know not even the actual identity of these. Good argumentation and factual presentation is not attached to authorship, but in identification of the ability to obtain the facts - which has not been ever disputed.
Jeff
I bristled at your imagined analysis.
How silly!
I bristle at your offering of alternate outcomes that can never be known
Gosh, opinions are dangerous things, clearly!
As it is, the way reality exists currently, Franz was weak, of poor character, pitiable, recognized the fact, and altered himself. Except to the degree that he wrote a book and appeared on TV to inform others against his former idiocy, how does that differ so greatly from yourself?
Consequently, how better qualified can I possibly be to express such an opinion?
In other words, Terry, Great Expositor of the Virtue of Reality, do you in fact practice what you preach, or are your comments on this thread proof that you are still succumbing to weakening of character due to living a lie?
Huh? Seems I did say something or else you wouldn't have your knickers in such a wad.
Maybe you simply strive for reality, and falling short of the mark feel the need to preach everyone else into its acceptance. Again, I can only guess. Unless, of course, you take advantage of the opportunity to respond.
I'm afraid I barely understand what you are driving at. Sigh.
