what flipflops caused you to think?

by cheerios 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cheerios

  while posting on another thread, i thought of this. for me, it was the "we never said you couldn't go to college" flipflop in the mid 1990s. when ofc we all know that to be an utter lie.

  now that i think about it, their literature is written with future flipflopping mind. the use of subjective language, indefinites, and assumptions masquerading as fact are very subtle to the average non-thinking dub. i remember being bothered during the revelation book study that they didn't seem sure about what they were writing as so many assumptions were made. it's easy then to say: "well you lot just got it wrong - we never said that" ...

  so what flipflops got your noodle working?
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  Black Sheep

  For me it was 'Higher Powers". I was 12. I can show you on Google Earth where I was standing at the time. I suppressed it for another 40 years.
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  jwfacts

  the generation teaching.
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  blondie

  Can you think of any half-truths or outright lies the WTS has said? This one jumped out at me in a 1993 WT.

  *** w93 8/15 p. 9 Why You Need to Attend Christian Meetings ***

  Jehovah’s Witnesses have consistently shown from the Scriptures that the year 1914 marked the beginning of this world’s time of the end and that “the day of judgment and of destruction of the ungodly men” has drawn near.

  *** w93 1/15 p. 5 ‘Caught Away to Meet the Lord’—How? ***

  The Watchtower has consistently presented evidence to honesthearted students of Bible prophecy that Jesus’ presence in heavenly Kingdom power began in 1914.

  *** Thousand Year Reign--ka chap. 11 pp. 187-188 par. 7 “Here Is the Bridegroom!” ***Due to this fact, when Charles T. Russell began publishing his own religious magazine in July of 1879, he published it under the title “Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence.” He had already become familiar with Wilson’s The Emphatic Diaglott, which translated the Greek word parousia as “presence,” not “coming,” in Matthew 24:3 and elsewhere. The new magazine was heralding Christ’s invisible presence as having begun in 1874. This presence was to continue until the end of the Gentile Times in 1914, when the Gentile nations would be destroyed and the remnant of the “chaste virgin” class would be glorified with their bridegroom in heaven by death and resurrection to life in the spirit.

  *** w04 9/1 p. 15 par. 10 Beware of “the Voice of Strangers” ***

  Indeed, today as in Paul’s day, some individuals who were once part of the Christian congregation now attempt to mislead the sheep by speaking “twisted things”—half-truths and outright lies. As the apostle Peter puts it, they use “counterfeit words”—words that resemble truth but that are actually as worthless as counterfeit money.—2 Peter 2:3.
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  OnTheWayOut

  Definitely the change of "this generation" in 1995. I stayed another 10+ years, but it allowed me to consider that I would die "in this system" and plan for retirement. If I hadn't gotten out beforehand, the further changes in "this generation" would have put me out the door.
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  Nice_Dream

  The latest generation change. It raised a major red flag, and made me question why Jehovah was causing his organization to keep changing its mind. Then I realized they conveniently did away with the 1935 sealing of the anointed as the number of memorial partakers kept going up.
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  pirata

  The superior authorities. Clear, black-and-white, no room for "light getting brighter".

  Allowing blood fractions. If blood is so sacred, why are we allowed to take it in because we broke it down small enough. It still came from the same source.
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  undercover

  I guess if I had to pick one "flip-flop" it would have to be the "generation" change in the mid 90s, though there had always been doubts and questions lingering most of my life. It was that one that started to create a sense of confusion and "what if they're wrong" type thinking. It was shortly after that when I realized I had to either shit or get off the pot about my seriousness as a JW. When I started to try to get serious and wrap my brain around the more convoluted teachiings, it all fell apart.
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  paladin

  For me it was the the Generation definition changes but before that the 1975 failed prediction caused me to start doubting the WT$.
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  miseryloveselders

  I'm too young to speak on flip-flops per say. I'm in my early thirties, and haven't paid much attention to serious doctrinal questions until the past couple years. Had it not been for this forum, "This Generation" wouldn't have even been a minor blip on my radar.

  I have to say though, the more I research and the more messed up things I find in the WT's history, the position on transplants really stands out to me as spectacularly crazy. To compare it to cannibalism, is just beyond me. I find it hard to imagine that grown men actually collectively sat down together and let that hit the presses. You can't blame all of that on Freddy, or Knorr. The argument that organ transplants was equivalent to cannibalism had to have raised more than a few red flags right? To think that it got past several organizational barriers and then ended up in the very magazine that the WT is chiefly associated with speaks volumes about this supposedly being God's chosen organization. It speaks volumes on their so called "Noo Lite" when they finally reversed that position. It's mind boggling.

  Another crazy thing was the articles in the past that stated blood transfusions caused individuals to retain the negative aspects of their donors. Such as if your blood transplant came from a criminal, then its highly possible you'll turn into a criminal. My memory might be mixed up, it was either blood transfusions or organ transplants on that one. At any rate, either way its crazy, considering they're now allowing blood fractions, and allowing organ transplants. Whether I eat piece of pepperoni and cheese off of a slice of pizza, or I eat the entire slice, people would still say I had my hand in the pizza box. Yet the WT doesn't see it that way. They would ask the question, what constitutes a slice of pizza? Buncha peculiar old white dudes with a token black dude up in Bethel man. By the way, another flip flop to consider would be that the very men that Samuel Herd idolized when he was young, believed that he would become white one day.