I stated: "There are still people here associating Jehovah's Witnesses with the Watchtower Society when that is not the case." --------------------------- Scully replied: How is it not the case, exactly? The Watchtower Society prints the literature that Jehovah's Witnesses distribute. The Watchtower Society prints the literature that Jehovah's Witnesses use to direct their behaviour, their beliefs and their attitudes. -------------------------------------- Ok, so the Watchtower Society prints literature. I can print literature too. Big deal. But there is other ways other than literature. Literature is just something for people to read on their own time or help material. What about the spoken word. I listen to many audio of talks and those are not Watchtower literature. The literature does not direct anyone's behavior, beliefs or attitudes, especially mine. The Bible does that. The literature is just the means of the worldwide congregation overseers', i.e. the governing body, to communicate with the whole congregation of 6.5 million plus. But they do not direct anyone's behavior, beliefs or attitudes, anymore than the local elders do. And I have not had any problems with anyone directing me on such things, so where you you get that objection? ---------------------------------- Scully said: "The Watchtower Society is the corporation that collects money that Jehovah's Witnesses donate to the World Wide Education Work." -------------------------------------------- My reply: And the local congregations collect money for their local use. So what? People donate to the world wide work. I have no problem with that. So neither should anyone else. ----------------------- Skully said: When someone is baptized as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, the second statement - which the candidate must answer in the affirmative - requires that the candidate acknowledge that this act of submitting to baptism identifies them as one of Jehovah's Witnesses in association with God's spirit-directed organization . ( Watchtower , June 1, 1985, p. 30, Watchtower , January 15, 1989, p. 13) ----------------------------------------- I reply: Look in the CDROM and look up the term "Watchtower organization". It appears only once and that is a quote from an opposer. The Watchtower Society is not Jehovah's spirit directed organization. It is a printing company used by Jehovah's spirit directed organization. -------------------------------- Skully said: Just because the Watchtower Society instructs Jehovah's Witnesses to not identify themselves as representatives of the Watchtower Society, does not mean that there is not an association between them. --------------------------------------- I reply Where do you get your information from? Not reality. The WTS does not instruct that. They never instructed me and that is what counts. Do you get that point? What matters to me is what happens to me, not the WTS. Thus I am not a representative of the WTS because I am not. --------------------------------------------------- Skully said: Could you kindly elaborate what you mean when you say that it is inaccurate to claim an association between Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower Society, because the evidence, Mr. Grissom, says that the association is a very strong one. -------------------------------------------- I reply: Don't you people get it. There is much more to Jehovah's Witnesses than the literature. That is only a small part of who we are. There are talks at the meetings and assemblies, which some will say originate with the WTS, but people should evaluate them on their own. But no one seems open minded enough to do.