What authority have the GB got left to them?

by Half banana 33 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Half banana

  ( JW Governing body members are invited to respond)

  However professional and glossy their PR makeover is, as seen on JW TV and the JW org logo... the bottom line is that 19th century religious adventist claims are no longer sexy.

  To outsiders the JW org now has all the allure of a donkey wearing lipstick.

  No makeover will hide the raw cult speech for promoting themselves as “guardians of the doctrines”. First, truth does not need guardians and second, who wants crazy mega-death doomsday doctrines in the first place?

  We’ve listed the prevailing popular perceptions before:

  Money grabbing,

  Family destroying,

  Unpatriotic

  Bible literalists

  Discouragers of education

  On top of these damning features they have been exposed in the press as harbouring paedophiles and heartlessly not caring for the victims in their midst. Two-faced in their stance condemning the UN then secretly joining that organisation. Having two values for the lives of members in different countries, namely the scandals in Mexico and Malawi etc.

  Yet the membership steadily increased towards the end of the last century.

  It seems to me this was in large part due to the benign and friendly manner of people like us (when deluded!) who welcomed the new converts to our international social club for the gullible. The growth now is reduced and the increase is only from the JW children anxious to please their brain-washed parents and critically from among those who don’t have the internet.

  I hope the internet and its transparent information is the death of Watchtower propaganda.

  The GB is suffering a credibility crisis. In 136 years they have never said anything amounting to evidence of being singled out as the exclusive channel which God is using. Significantly they used to seduce the punters with the promise that those who saw their magic year 1914 (like Fred Franz did) would also see the end of the “wicked system of things.” Result: As usual; an unmitigated failure!

  This was the climax in their history of making false claims........ Why don’t the majority leave?

  Is there anything left which they can point to claim divine favour or authority?

  (...no insult to donkeys was intended in writing this)
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  slimboyfat

  The answer would probably be along the lines: who else has proclaimed Jehovah's name around the world? Who else teaches who Jesus really is, the Son of God, and how he gave himself as a ransom for mankind? Who else tells people the message that Jehovah plans to restore the earth to a paradise for obedient mankind? Who else tells the truth about what happens when you die? Who else has love among themselves and will not take arms up against each other if they happen to live on opposite sides of borders? Other groups may have some of these truths or be so small they have splintered from the truth. Only JWs proclaim all these truths around the world. It is on the basis of having identified these core truths that the GB can be said to be being used by Jehovah to lead his people in these last days.
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  pbrow

  Your post is an affront to lipstick wearing donkey lovers everywhere!!!

  Allahu Akbar!!!!

  Slimboy... last days???!!! How do you know we are in the last days?? You say "last days" almost like you KNOW that we are in fact, in them. How do you come to this seemingly certain conclusion?

  pbrow
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  Half banana

  But their total failure in the prophecy department makes these cosy claims null and void. Such failure is dramatic evidence of not having God's guidance or blessing.

  ...and you call your list "truths"?
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  LV101

  Good points, Half Ban and Slim, but science, history, archeology, evidence, etc., is spreading (atheism/agnosticism) and that is quite an education for we the people.

  As far as love/not taking up arms among members and not going to war is one great selling point and my fav. That along with hope of reuniting with dead, loved, ones is huge but isn't that the hope of Christianity. The cult has competition in that arena. They do preach much on the resurrection hope and who wouldn't buy into that.

  The masses can't leave and give up their fantasies and join the ranks of logical mankind working toward a better life for all in the here and now.
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  Finkelstein

  The only authority the GB leaders of the WTS have acquired is the authority they built up around themselves and they did so by precipitous fraudulent deceit and lying.
  

  The Gospel of the WTS was a commercialized corrupt fraud in the vein of false prophesy, which ironically Jesus himself warned that there would be.
  
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  Vidiot

  Half banana - "What authority have the GB got left to them?"

  About as much as this guy...

  
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  Half banana

  Pbrow--- lol!

  Donkeys asside, with the WTBTS having failed totally on their principal claim and raison d'etre of being Gods watchmen what legitimacy have they got left?

  Isn’t the failure alone the reason for disqualification?
• 

  Acts5v29

  Good morning slimboyfat

  The answer would probably be along the lines: who else has proclaimed Jehovah's name around the world? Who else teaches who Jesus really is, the Son of God, and how he gave himself as a ransom for mankind? Who else tells people the message that Jehovah plans to restore the earth to a paradise for obedient mankind? Who else tells the truth about what happens when you die? Who else has love among themselves and will not take arms up against each other if they happen to live on opposite sides of borders? Other groups may have some of these truths or be so small they have splintered from the truth. Only JWs proclaim all these truths around the world. It is on the basis of having identified these core truths that the GB can be said to be being used by Jehovah to lead his people in these last days.

  
  

  A problem with this list is that it is a selective list of what the watchtower does, and then treats it as a touchstone for others. We have already spoken on another thread "Praying for the death..." which shows the kind of spirit they have resorted to - and I have shown form the scriptures that the fear-inducing centuries-long preaching of imminent Armageddon cannot possibly be true - yet you still do it. Given these things, exactly how can you claim to be being led by God?

  
  

  There is a better way... let yourself be led by God, and leave behind those things which are so clearly at the opposite end of the spectrum.
  
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  Driving Force

  who else has proclaimed Jehovah's name around the world?

  You are right only JW's, but wait a minute wasn't the name "Jehovah" first used in 1270 by Raymundus Martini in his book "Puegeo Fidei". At least that is what the Watchtower book "Aid to bible understanding" from 1970 says about the name.

  So, a made up name, there are lots of discussions on this.

  So using a made-up-name for God is certainly nothing to boast about.