by Cold Steel 39 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I've been told that JWs are discouraged from taking vacations and expected to turn them into service for the church.
JWs are 'allowed' to take vacations. But it is 'recommended' that they use their vacation time for things like preaching, or attending conventions in distant cities. They are also 'encouraged' to preach 'informally' while on vacation.
Two women who visited me a week prior brought one of those elders to my house 6 months ago. He was an engineer.
By the time we finished our meeting an hour and half later, the engineer was assuring me he would get the information I needed on 607 BC from
....the public library.
I'm still waiting.
He makes the 7th JW I've engaged in the last year who assures me that they have the truth. Mysteriously, not one of them can explain it....
Given what I've seen and heard, the restrictions may be as fuzzy as their truth.
A member who throws all these rules into the trash can and does as he wishes, reads and watches what he wishes, associates with those whom he wishes and attends meetings as he sees fit -- a member who does all these things will still be resurrected if he buys into the JW theology, correct? Since all people, male and female, will be resurrected eventually, won't their loyalty and convictions will be judged in that day? Even non-members can make good in that day, too, if they choose, and choose to support Jehovah. In other words, if I'm a member (and I'm not), and I live a decent, moral, truthful life, buy in to all of the doctrines, give my allegiance to Jehovah -- won't my resurrection be permanent? I mean, Jehovah isn't going to nail someone just for not obeying the rules is he?
Incorrect. JWs believe there is a resurrection 'of the righteous and unrighteous' who die prior to Armageddon. However, they believe that those who die at Armageddon have no chance of resurrection.
JWs are told that they need to demonstrate their faith by their works (there is no 'once saved, always saved'). 'Salvation' is not 'guarenteed' even for those who remain associated with the religion if they are purportedly not doing enough. The definition of 'enough' is left ambiguous so that members are constantly left with a feeling that they should do more.
Armageddon is constantly held up as being 'just around the corner', promoting fear to retain membership.
And last question: when an elder is selected, if he ordained to that office. And by ordained I mean, do they put hands on his head and ordain him an elder in the name of Jesus Christ? Or does he just get a certificate and letter in the mail?
JWs believe that all baptized members are 'ordained' as 'ministers' and they say there is no separate 'clergy class'*. Elders get a letter. There is no 'ceremony' (other than baptism).
*When there are court cases, 'elders' are held up as 'clergy'. Other members are then considered 'rank-and-file' members with no special position, particularly if such a member commits a crime. Elders claim 'clergy-penitent' privilege, even though elders break confidentially by provide details of confessions to other elders, including others at headquarters or other branch offices.
Can they watch Fox News or CNN? What movies are acceptable?
There is no specific list of news sources or other programmes are 'not allowed' to watch. As already stated, certain 'themes' are 'warned against'.
Can JWs visit other churches or read publications that aren’t published by the WBTS?
A member would most likely be 'counselled' for visiting a church service once. A JW who frequently attends religious services at another church may be considered to have 'disassociated', and subsequently shunned. Attending weddings and funerals at other churches is frowned upon; there would be more latitude for this if, for example, a JW wife attends a wedding at another church with her non-JW husband*.
*JWs are not meant to marry non-members, and sanctions usually apply for becoming romantically involved with a non-member even without any sexual contact. If there is sexual contact prior to marriage, the JW would most likely be disfellowshipped (shunned) but may eventually be reinstated, even if still married to the non-JW. There are no sanctions where one spouse becomes a JW and the other does not.
If you give any of the members a religious tract or article from a national news publication, it goes right in the trash.
JWs are also told that they should immediately get rid of 'apostate literature' rather than being tempted to even briefly look at it.
Oh, I get it. The JWs who died in their rooms that day of the tsunami would have been spared had they been on the ball and doing field service. It would be interesting to see how this information was substantiated. It means that the church administration would have had to tabulate all the membership deaths caused by the tsunami and had that data at hand. They also would have had to have the data regarding local membership throughout the region and the deaths, if any, there. Frankly, members on vacation who survived would be, to me, a question mark. How would the church admin people know how many people were on vacation in the area if they weren't killed (and even if they were)? How would they get the information? They probably could tabulate all the Jehovah's Witnesses throughout the entire region who were killed, and it's not likely that all of them were witnessing, nor is it likely they all escaped death. It sounds like a good JW Urban Legend, but that's still not the point, is it? At best he heard it from somewhere else. At worst, he made it up and used it as a shock effect.
An apostate is someone that was baptized as a JW, but then decided they no longer believed it. They are worse than serial killers, because unlike serial killers, they cannot be forgiven.
Really? The only unforgivable sin I know of is the sin against the Holy Spirit. You mean that if I was a baptized member, and that I became an apostate, that I would be sinning against the Holy Spirit? Hmmm. I wonder how someone could sin against the active force of God? Anyway, once I left, no matter how much I repented, I could NEVER be forgiven and return to the fold? Or does it mean that if I die as an apostate, that then it would be unforgivable?
Several of you used the term "approved." Is this an esoteric term for being approved for resurrection or simply approved by the folks at Bethel? Do the folks at Bethel say you can be unapproved for resurrection for failure to live the rules? If I were a JW, I would go to the church I wanted to go to, read and watch what I wanted to, take comparitive religion courses at my local college (or as part of my college curriculum, which might just be in Theology). Wonder what they would do if you took such a course and they found out about it? But if I were a baptized member and believed all that...crap...I can't imagine Jehovah canceling my resurrection.
And if he did, so what? Beats living in a crummy garden for the rest of eternity. I mean, think about it. Do those guys at Bethel have any concept of eternity? How would they feel living in a garden where 500 trillion years is a drop in the proverbial barrel! After 950 trillion years, will they still be digging those family reunions, looking for new musical instruments to play and hiking in the hills and mountains? Look at the pictures in the Watchtower, my friends. How does 975 trillion years of that grab you? You get up one fine, wonderful morning, just like the fine, wonderful morning the day before and the fine, wonderful day after and you what? Just what do you do in a bloody garden after, oh, the first decade? Do you think those nice drawings in the Watchtowers will have the same excitement they did when you first saw them? And, since there's no meat, those fried apricots and mushrooms have really started to grate on you! After a decade, you're willing to murder to be someplace else, and what about 500 years after that? And five hundred years after that? What about a billion years...a trillion years? When will the garden paradise get old? And 975 trillion years, as I said, is the tiniest fraction of eternity. You're not even getting started!
So you can see why being resurrected and put in a garden is more of a torture than a reward.
Given the frequent warnings in print and from the platform about the dangers of entertaining apostate thinking, I take it as a given that any JW apologist on a forum such as this must, at some level, either be 1) disturbed enough by the Watchtower to make their presence felt here or 2) trying to compensate for their own doubts by attacking those who think similarly or 3) taking the piss.
Sometimes I get the impression all 3 possibilities apply to the same poster.
A dedicated JW would not visit a site such as this let alone post on it.
Well they believe that apostacy IS sinning against the holy spirit. Now here is where it gets dodgy. ANY sin can be a sin against the holy spirit. If it is done willfully and with full knowledge --- and can't also be chalked up to human weakness. A person who has sinned against the holy spirit cannot repent because they don't WANT to repent. If you've done something, and you feel bad and want to repent, then this is proof that you have NOT sinned against the holy spirit. See? LOL So while someone may appear willful at the time, if they come to regret it, they can still be forgiven.
But what about apostasy? Well that person has awakened and seen the truth about the truth---in other words they recognize it as a cult and as untrue. Can they EVER unlearn such knowledge and repent? No. Now there might be a few people out there who jumped the gun and later decided they made a mistake, but for the majority, once they KNOW, then they aren't about to 'repent'. To JW's this appears to be a sin against the holy spirit since they won't repent and be forgiven.
HOWEVER, ONLY JEHOVAH can really know---so it is always possible the person will fall back asleep again and seek forgiveness, which would be the fruitage to prove they had not sinned against HS.
LOL
I know this sounds circular. But apostasy is their worst sin. It outranks murder, pedophilia (of course), rape, theft, torture---all of it. Because when we start sites like this, they read it as the evil slave who is now beating the other slaves. We are evil slaves. It was not enough for us to leave, but we had to talk about it---and that is beating the faithful slave.
If you commit--say---fornication but still believe, you will likely one day repent and go back. If you do ANYTHING and still believe, chances are you will try to go back. If you become 'apostate', you just aren't going back. Because you no longer believe it.
There are 'apostates' that put on a show though---they don't want to lose their families. They even hold positions of responsiblity---which blows a hole in the appointed by holy spirit theory.
NC
Being "approved" is basically an internal, legalistic phrase. It's similar to being "in good standing". If a witness is following the rules, doing enough ministry, has good meeting attendance etc. etc. then they are in an approved state. If they wanted to pioneer, do work such as RBC construction or volunteer at an assembly, become a MS or elder then they would have to be deemed to be in an approved state as a base pre-requisite.
