What is the story behind this picture of Rutherford at a drinking party?? (page 2)

clarity

Check this post out from Atlantis ..."Prohibition" by Rutherford

Archive you might want!

ShirleyW

"The first time I saw that pic, I thought it was Otis from Mayberry"

HA !!

He kinda looks like WC Feilds to me !

I guess that pic was taken when they were havin' a few before they marched into the Bethel cafteria and posed for that pic with the Bethelites gathered around the Christmas tree, remember that picture that was in one of the Societys publications ?

keyser soze

This picture just supports Rutherford's claim that the spirit was directing him.

jam

Come on folks, that's a picture of W.C. Fields.

BluesBrother

I found this thread from 3 years ago

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/201313/1/Prohibition#.UyihFah_sl8

fulltimestudent

First, let me make my own drinking habits clear. (smile). I can only be described as a moderate drinker. Socially, a couple of beers is enough, and in a pub situation, my next order will include lemon squash for myself. So I am a piss-weak drinker (bigger smile), despised by the powerful Australian alcohol lobby that bribes Aussie politicians through electoral funding.

Second, what are we trying to do in this thread? Do we want to critique the Jws, via the many topics on which they are intellectually vulnerable. Or, do we want to descend to their level of thinking?

So to my point. I do not see anything wrong with the conduct of the people depicted in the photograph. It depicts some people relaxing and enjoying an alcoholic drink. Of course, as Leolaia's analysis of what we know about the conduct of Rutherford and others indicates, it's easy to use alcohol to relax to an unsafe point. On the evidence, Rutherford probably played too hard, but the photograph in the thread should not be used to demonstrate that, as the level of drinking depicted is not beyond the theoretical limits allowed in Biblical standards. That is, unless we accept the moral dictates of some wowserish American religious preachers.

I've been (in Australia) invited (with my former wife and children) to Sydney Bethel family get-togethers, there was a lot of alcohol, but given that the bethel family of that time was likely around 60-80, and given Aussie liking for beer, the quantity imbibed may not have been more than I would have made available at a similar get-together (at my home) for witnesses in my own congregation.

What is regarded as an acceptable level of alcohol consumption varies among different societies. We've heard of the witnesses' assemblies in some European countries where alcoholic beverages were available with cafeteria meals. There is no evidence that the practise turned them all into alcoholics.

Of course, some Christian cults (cult is used in its correct sense) condemn drinking alcohol (as does Islam), but there is little support in the Bible for such a ban.

On the opposite side of the question, a Macquarie University Postdoctoral scholar, Dr Jenny Cromwell, has been investigating a former Egyptian Coptic Monastery at Wadi Sarga, central Egypt (from the time when Egypt was ALL Christian, before Islam subsumed the hearts and minds of Egyptians). Her main interest was the lifestyle of the monks, including what they did, and what they ate and drank. She found that the monastery owned vineyards throughout Egypt. The quantity of wine consumed by the monks (the number of monks not mentioned) was between 10,000 and 20,000 litres annually. Some was used to pay wages of employees (payment in kind). Wine (probably weaker than today) was the main drink of people throughout the Egypt of that time.

So its easy to see that drinking alcohol has been part of human life for a long, long time. I suggest that the photograph at issue, should be seen for what it is, people enjoying themselves via the socially relaxing qualities of alcohol, which is used in even large companies to facilitate staff cohesion. (e.g. friday night drinks). Leave the condemnation to the wowserish Christian Cultists.

jam

fulltime: why we come down so hard on the JW's, they are

so hypocritical. The illegal importation of liquor from Canada

was against the law, Prohibition.

That was a federal offense when he cross the border from

Canada into the US, that's the bottom line.

OUTLAW

.

.................J.F.Rutherford......................................W.C.Fields..

....

............................................................................................................ ...OUTLAW

EndofMysteries

^ jam said. Also many stories about Rutherford not being a moderate or occassional glass of wine drinker, but a heavy drinker/drunkard. AND where do you think the money to purchase all those cases of booze came from? Did the apostle paul take in money from the early christians to buy alcohol and throw 'symposiums'?

I just had a , symposium was most likely introduced to JW terminology by Rutherford. In ancient Greece, the symposium (Greek συμπόσιον symposion, from συμπίνειν sympinein, "to drink together") was a drinking party.

Possibly his love of the drink inspired calling those presentations symposiums, as he probably through a few symposiums after the conventions.

jam

I knew that was W.C. or his brother. Good find outlaw.

What is the story behind this picture of Rutherford at a drinking party??

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