Your bus is waiting Maze
Religious Reform
by Maze 216 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Band on the Run
Jehovah's Witnesses don't need reform. They need to be abolished by deprogamming. As I suggested earlier, actual reading of the Bible is more than sufficient.
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nugget
One thing is to actually give the congregation the protection it deserves. The society should have a zero tolerance for any form of sexual abuse. At present the congregations are havens for wrongdoers since present rules protect predators and the focus is on preventingbad publicity rather than protecting the innocent.
Anyone accused should be reported to the police immediately they have the facilities to investigate this. The victim should be referred to specialists. The accused should be told they are not to attend meetings until the investigation is complete and they are forbidden to go on the service.
Anyone with a history of sex abuse against children should not be permitted to go on the service. The congregation should be advised if such a person is to attend the meetings and parents should be told to take appropriate action to ensure that their children are not left alone with that person. This would mean that paedophiles are not attracted to the organisation since they cannot hide behind a veneer of spirituality.
That would just be for a start there is so much wrong I fear that we are beyond reform.
Maze you don't care about what is wrong with the organisation you haven't really answered any of the criticisms. It is very sad that you are so deep in cult mentality that you cannot be objective or even truthful with yourself.
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PSacramento
JW reform can start from the first chapoter of ACTS:
The Promise of the Holy Spirit
The Ascension of Jesus
6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” 9 When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Just from there the JW's can learn that Christians are to be witnesses of Christ AND that it is no ones business but God's, to know when the end or anything liek that, will come.
They would also learn that Christ will return as He left and by that, NOT invisibily in 1914.
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Crisis of Conscience
ARRGH! Blank post! Frikkin' IE 9!
Any-who-ays, what I wanted to do is post a logical and coherent answer to Maze's subject. So here it goes.......
AWW! Forget it! LOL
CoC
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Hoffnung
Reform? Let us talk about Judicial Comites. Judicial comites and their procedural rules are problematic, to say the least.
The biblical standard of judicial matters would at least be public one. Judges in the israel of old made decisions in the city gates, open to the scrunity for everybody. So tell me Maze, why are judicial comites behind closed doors? Which bible verse prohibits there to be any witness of the judicial process? Please answer.
Maze, speak with any honesthearted elder about cleanness in the organization, and you will get confirmed that it is a fairy tale. Just ask an elder how many Judicial Comite cases your local congregation had in the last 5 years. You will be amazed. And remember, each and every judicial comite is about a disfellowshipping offense, a major sin. Jehovah's treasured earthly organization is full of adulterers, fornicators and alike, and because of the judicial comite system keeping everything secret, the rank and file bros & sis don't know who and how numerous they are. Most probably you have no idea either. The service dept. in bethel knows though. They have more than 20.000 pedophiles in their system. clean congregation? you're joking man... I have seen it my own eyes.
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Band on the Run
Witnesses may have read the Bible in Pastor Russell's days. Jumping from one verse printed out of context to another JW chosen verse is not reading the Bible. Indeed, most Witnesses lack the capacity to truly read the Bible. Consecutive verses are important.
I believe Jesus said that the devil can quote scripture for his own purpose. If it was not Jesus, it was Shakespeare. It is a large collection of writings from a wide time expanse. It was not presented as a Bible as we know it until about three hundred years after Jesus' death and resurrection. It did not have Jesus' sayings in red print. There were no maps.
I challenge you to read any Bible book continuously, in normal reading order. To do so and ask yourself what do I think of this, what point is the author making, does it apply to life today is to stop being part of a cult. Nowhere has it ever been published that the WTBTS is God's agent and people must obey.
Reading is forbidden in many countries. Slaves were forbidden to learn to read. One need no outside knowledge to debunk the Witnesses. Reading the Bible the way normal people read anything is sufficient. The Witnesses believe they have Bible knowledge and with rare exception, they are seriously deluded. A high school student casually reading the Bible knows more.
Besides Bible literacy being elusive, the total JW culture is sick. This is not apparent from reading doctrine or JW lit. It amazed me to read posts here. I was ashamed of my thoughts concerning the Witnesses for the longest time. I wanted to people please my family. It pulled me apart. The cult aspect is ever present. When I arrived not long ago I was actually surprised to see how may felt the non love and animosity I experience with the Witnesses. Even when I was so young and clueless as to believe the teachings, the atmosphere was poisonous for me.
I am now Episcoplian. Many times I sit in church and realize how far I have come. I cry for joy. One must be a Witness for a short time to understand. Words are inadequate to convey the feeling. Christ is Risen. Christ will Come Again. Alleulia.
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palmtree67
Alice to me:
Maybe someday, you'll get it through your thick skull and learn to buzz off...
Ummmmm.....as you've pointed out many times, anyone can post here on any thread.
Now, stop your whining, and answer the criticisms here that YOU ASKED FOR.
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Maze
Maze - you have NEVER explained why all those scriptures you quote refer to the Watchtower organisation. You say it is Gods organisation but have NEVER proved it.
Jehovah's Witnesses conform to God's Word to give some evidence they are an organization approved by God and they display the fruits of God's spirit.
By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves." John 13:35
As for direct evidence, Jehovah provides evidence of his existence on an individual basis to those that are righteously inclined by means of his holy spirit. We're not out to prove anything to those that are hard-hearted practicers of sin and have rejected Jehovah.
You have never answered the question as to what unique teaching they had in before 1919, that are still taught today, would have made Jesus choose them.
It wasn't a unique teaching they had before 1919 that made Jesus choose them. The faithful and discreet slave through various trials and errors came to an accurate knowledge of truth and loyally submitted themselves to do God's will.
You have never answered what teaching and prediction can be proved correct in nearly 130 years.
The Biblical worldview as taught by Jehovah Organization isolates 6000 years of human history and reveals a perfect historical canon that substantiates the fact that God's Kingdom as a visible earthly organization ended before the foretold Messiah appeared in the first century C.E. and was reinstated after the end of the Age of Enlightenment in 1804. Jehovah's Organization has fulfilled Bible prophecy.
You have never reconciled that they thought the last days started in 1799, that Jesus had already returned to Kingdom power in the 1870's and that the final destruction would come in 1914 / 1915 (depending on how year zero was calculated).
What other conclusion could they have come to given the criteria that was evident to Charles Taze Russell and the early Bible students.
Critics of Jehovah's Witnesses will often zero in on the early development of the organization for any flaws without taking into consideration the environment that surrounded Charles Taze Russell and his contemporaries. There wasn't the kind of guidance as explained in Acts 8:26-31. Their vision of the future was clarified after 1925.
You have never explained why so many lost their lives due to policies that were just plain wrong.
Their policies were not wrong and there's not so many that have lost their lives. Those that have died while demonstrating loyalty to Jehovah will be resurrected. A blood transfusion is at most, a temporary fix to a much more serious problem: mortality and the illnesses and accidents that cut life short. Jehovah holds out an everlasting solution.
You have never expalined how the light keeps switching on and off.
There's have been some meticulous details that have changed over time but core Bible teachings the Watchtower Society has consistently taught over the decades never change.
You have never explained why if God is a God of truth the Watchtower society that is calls it'self the Truth, has been found to lie and decieve on so many occasion (including those above).
They haven't been found to be a lie even with your warped and distorted viewpoints.
How the fuck can call that God's organisation.
With your profane tongue you'll never understand. Clean up your mouth and correct your other malfunctions first, then come back and try and reason.
Let a rotten saying not proceed out of your mouth, but whatever saying is good for building up as the need may be, that it may impart what is favorable to the hearers. Ephesians 4:29
