Hello... I've been away from here for awhile, and probably will not be getting very involved here again, but some things have got me wondering lately. I don't know if You Know's still around, but, if so, I have a couple of questions.
You Know: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember your saying that you'd read Ray Franz' book "Crisis of Conscience." I'm not going to debate the propriety of your doing so, as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, but I'm very interested in what you think of his reasoning on various points. For example, the Witness assertion that Jesus inspected those claiming to be his followers in 1918 and found the "Bible Students" (as they were then known) to be those most closely in tune with God's purpose and truth. Franz goes into considerable detail showing the actual situation could not have been so... How do you feel about that? In view of the early emphasis on all kinds of prophecy dates that invariably did not come to pass, did the Watchtower organization truly pass muster with the son of God? Along a similar vein, Franz points out that God's servants in the Bible never gained His approval by putting forth doctrines that were false... Yet the Watchtower has demonstrably done so over and over again, at times returning to an old position (as with the "superior authorities") and calling it "new light." I can't help but ask, after reading the overwhelming evidence compiled in this book, as well as "In Search of Christian Freedom" (which I'm currently reading), can you still view the Watchtower as God's one true organization? If you can provide convincing reason for believing so, I'll go back in a heartbeat. I mean that. But after reading what I have over the past couple of months, I find it hard to believe that I ever put faith in that organization, or that anyone does... Much less, that some have for many decades of their lives. Can you give a reason why discarding an old position, and then returning to the very same position, can be considered "tacking into the wind"? "New light"? "Progressive understanding"?
Respectfully, Mike aka spidermonkey