Comments You Will Not Hear at the 8-31-03 WT Study

by blondie 25 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  jgnat

  Three cheers for "independent bible study". We have some thinking people here.
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  Maverick

  Thanks Blondies for preparing our weekly spiritual enema! The bottom line is that what the J-dud Masters are exhorting all these tired, down trotted, brain-dead people to preach has nothing to do with what Jesus was talking about! This book publishing company is not unlike the yellow journalism of old. Sell those publications! Push those books! Count time! Show me in the Bible where Jesus said anything like this and I'll repent, J-dud style! Maverick
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  blondie

  Hi, jgnat, the sad thing is that most JWs don't know how to do independent study of anything. A certain brother went back to school because of his job and found it hard going. He was so used to the question at the bottom of the page prompting the answer in the paragraph. He would read and look for the question to tell him what the answer should be.

  The days of small groups studying the Bible without the aid of WTS publications died out in the early days of Russell. Now it will get you DF'd.

  Maverick, place publications and count time is what it is all about. I wonder who Jesus turned in his time to?

  Blondie
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  Undecided

  If he is putting it off, it doesn't give more time to repent after 100 years because the ones given time to repent are dead. A new batch of people are here then and if he is just waiting for more people to be born it doesn't make sense to me, as it just makes more people to wait to repent and he will just have to wait more and more as the population just increases.( 2 Peter 3:9)

  Ken P.

  PS: Besides that he has set a day and hour to execute all those evil humans who don't understand what he wants from them.
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  Pistoff

  Wow, blondie; these reviews get better each week. I have to sit through it tomorrow; I will try to come up with my reactions, and will also relay some of the idiotic comments, you can always count on a few of those, usually from the same commenters. Keep up the scholarly critique!! It makes my week. P
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  blondie

  Ken, this is such a good observation.

  If he is putting it off, it doesn't give more time to repent after 100 years because the ones given time to repent are dead. A new batch of people are here then and if he is just waiting for more people to be born it doesn't make sense to me, as it just makes more people to wait to repent and he will just have to wait more and more as the population just increases.( 2 Peter 3:9)

  What chance really did the people who died at the end of the WTS "judgment periods" have compared to the rest of humankind? I cannot believe that 6 billion people are going to die based on the limited, half-hearted preaching of JWs. If God can judge Ananias and Sapphira on the spot and kill them, why bother preaching. Let God look into hearts.

  Pistoff,

  Wow, blondie; these reviews get better each week.

  Well, not everyone agrees, but thanks. The topic usually determines how "inspired" I get. But I did this every week for about 3 years before I stopped going. Actually, I did a version of it for the last 13 years but it got more intense and detailed as time went on. In the end, I only "hang them by their own words."

  Blondie
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  BluesBrother

  I was not going to add any thing to the excellent comments that I knew were on the thread already , since we did not attend this week - but the subject is close to my heart, being the one single most important reason why I stopped "Preaching the Good News".

  How should we view people? , as candidates for slaughter unless they commit themselves to the WTS .....That in my book is so morally wrong it is sick.

  No matter how much good people may do, or how much they may love God and Jesus, they all get the same end as the most wicked of men ..... Mother Theresa or Saddam Hussain , their corpses would lie together on the Plain of Megiddo .....if this bull*****t were true.

  I note the use of Genesis chapt 18 where Abraham is pleading with God on behalf of the Sodomites, and is assured that he would not destroy the city for the sake of ten righteous men . This passage helped me to see through the WT teaching . They teach that God will slaugther the rest of us to preserve perhaps one in a thousand , but it is clear that God is just not like that! No , it does not ring true . Some things are just obviously wrong .

  As you have noted, the article descends into a "Do more" exhortation , playing on the readers guilt trip (bloodguilt?)

  I note the reference to "Monetary donations" p.17... Contrast this with Charles Taze Russell's original teaching in WT August 1879 as quoted in "Proclaimers" Book p 340

  " Zions Watch Tower has we believe Jehovah for its backer and while this is the case it will never beg nor petition men for support.When He who says "All the gold and silver of the mountain are mine" fails to provide the necessay funds, we will understand it to be time to suspend the publication"

  The sad thing is that I followed this for so long, even conducted studies like this and quietly prided myself for what I believed were motivating public talks. What a waste!!
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  blondie

  The sad thing is that I followed this for so long, even conducted studies like this and quietly prided myself for what I believed were motivating public talks. What a waste!!

  I felt much the same way, Bluesbrother. But no longer. Yes, imagine that God said he would not kill everyone because of 10. But why kill anyone? When had any "preaching" been done? What about the women and children? Why them and not Hitler who was responsible for the deaths of millions?

  Here's to your complete escape, mental as well as physical.

  Blondie
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  JCanon

  I felt much the same way, Bluesbrother. But no longer. Yes, imagine that God said he would not kill everyone because of 10. But why kill anyone? When had any "preaching" been done? What about the women and children? Why them and not Hitler who was responsible for the deaths of millions?

  It's a little complex, but basically, some things are done on a small scale first and then it will spread out to affect everyone. Just as the nation of Israel produced the first Messiah, but it had to be eventually through one tribe, Judah. They would be the first preached to, then the nations. For those who respond they get an opportunity for getting into the "Bride Class", that's the basic main focus. But even that God has made it so that he can select whom he wants to. The preaching among Christendom, therefore, is primarily as a "witness" in a small setting. All but the "wicked" will get life, and all things on Judgment Day will be evened out. Hitler will come back and know there is a God, etc. Judgment Day is the great equilizer day.

  JCanon
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  Pistoff

  JC:

  Just as the nation of Israel produced the first Messiah, but it had to be eventually through one tribe, Judah.

  Try a different med, JC; this takes first prize for being even more obtuse and arbitrary a metaphor than the WT even uses.

  At my hall today, the talk was about submitting to God's rulership. The speaker, a mediocre one at best, rambled initially about the poor state of the world today: wars, AIDS, famines, and even brought out the old reliable, 2 Tim 3:1-5.

  One glaring error, one the wife gave me a dirty look for when I pointed it out to her, was the reference to the increase in earthquakes since 1914. This was a staple of every witness presentation through the years, but of course, statistics and facts have gotten in the way so that even the WT has acknowledged:

  OLD:

  it-1 670 Earthquake ***
  Jesus foretold earthquakes in significant number and intensity as a feature of the sign of his presence. (Mt 24:3, 7, 8; Lu 21:11) Since 1914 C.E., there has been an increase in the number of earthquakes, resulting in much distress. With data obtained from the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, supplemented by a number of standard reference works, a tabulation was made in 1984 that included only earthquakes that measured 7.5 or more on the Richter scale, or that resulted in destruction of five million dollars (U.S.) or more in property, or that caused 100 or more deaths. It was calculated that there had been 856 of such earthquakes during the 2,000 years before 1914. The same tabulation showed that in just 69 years following 1914 there were 605 of such quakes. These statistics are a means of indicating the extent of suffering from earthquakes during this period of history.

  NEW:

  3/22/02 Awake:

  BEFORE his death, Jesus foretold events and situations that would give evidence that this world had entered "the conclusion of the System or things.” That period, he said, would be marked by such things as' pestilences, food shortages, and large-scale warfare. He also mentioned "great earthquakes"
  that would occur "in one place after another." (Matthew 24:3,7; Luke 21:10, 11) Was Jesus referring to our day?
  Many say no. They assert that the number of earthquakes has not substantially increased in recent decades. In fact, the U.S. National Earthquake Information Center reports that earthquakes of 7.0 magnitude' and greater remained "fairly constant" throughout the 20th century." *
  
  Note, though, that the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy does' not require an increase in the number or power of earthquakes. All Jesus said was that there would be great earthquakes in one-place' after another. Furthermore, he stated that these events would mark the "beginning of pangs of distress." (Matthew 24:8) Distress is measured; not by the number of earthquakes or how they rate on' the Richter scale, but by the effect that they have upon people.

  (Problem is, we have all touted the official line from Jehovah (though his faithful slave, remember) that it WAS a GREAT increase in earthquakes. Oh well.........new light has flashed up!!)
  *Some say that any reports of ~an increase in the number of earthquakes are simply due to advances in technology, which enable more seismic events to be detected.

  So, one check mark for not updating his talk.

  He then asserted that chronology surrounding events since 1914 was another part of the evidence that we are living in the last days, hehe. If only the rest of the listeners knew how bogus that chronology is...he made the assertion along the way that the only way for us to submit to God's rulership is to be a part of his organization, you had to know that was coming; he stated that people are streaming to his org, a statement that nearly made me chuckle out loud; I looked around the hall, and noticed not one new person in the last 2 years that had come in through the preaching work, and I could count almost a dozen young people that had been kicked out, drifted out or walked out. Streaming, indeed; streaming OUT.

  He began to wrap up by giving 5 ways to show we are submissive to God's rulership:

  1. Knowledge of God, his son and their will for us...........so far so good

  Publicly demonstrate our choice by water baptism, ohoh; in the bible I find baptism to be that of repentance, and in the name of Father Son and Holy spirit; WT baptism asks if we acknowledge that we are sinners, in need of forgiveness, but then skips mention of Father and son and instead asks us if we understand that baptism means being associated with God's spirit directed organization. What happened to mention of father, son and holy spirit?? Where in the bible do I find "God's spirit directed organization" in connection with the cleansing water of baptism??

  2. Stick close to that organization and to God; just one of today's links (God=FDS=elders) MEETING ATTENDANCE, big shock here....

  3. Follow direction of the slave..........it just keeps getting worse here..........

  4. Preaching work. Even though no one wants to talk to us, the whole civilized world has seen that we tolerate child abusers, even though the WT does not want us to discuss this at the door if someone brings it up, even though the householder may wonder if we are one of the abusers that is still allowed to go to their door, even though they already believe in God, even though they understand that the body of christ involves all christians and we don't...........do I need to go on?

  One of the benefits of submitting to his rulership was extolled this way: thank goodness we are not like the worldly person we see at the gas station who says to the clerk: "Give me a couple packs of smokes, and the rest in lottery tickets". Yes he said, worldly life is filthy and difficult. I wondered to myself about the publisher who spends $15 to buy the new tie, $30 for gas for saturday rural service, $5 for magazines, $10 for coffee break for his family and talks to no one all morning because no one in their right mind would open the door to a possible child molester in a cheap suit. Give me the smokes and the lottery tickets any day; at least I can quit them without losing my family.

  He finished by reminding us that we are SO CLOSE to the new system, and if we choose his rulership we can enjoy life in a perfect new world, he did well the first time by using system instead of world, but true to his 5 year behind the times form, finished by reverting to the phrase new world, quietly abandoned a few years ago by the blessed ones in brooklyn.

  So much for the encouraging talk; he at least had the grace to get off the platform within his 45 minutes.

  Intermission song: a seldom used, double flatted stinker that covers and octave and one half, in a key unsingable by most, and all at my hall.

  ON to our spiritual treat for the week!! Jehovah speaks to us again through the slave:

  I found this article to be filled with the trademark of the WT in the modern day: the unsupported assertion and it's telltale signs, the words CLEARLY, and APPARENTLY.

  On the paragraph regarding Sodom, the word clearly is used to show that the city deserved to be destroyed. (I wonder, by those standards, if Bethel deserves to be destroyed because there have been homosexuals at Bethel?? Have they forgotten about Chitty and Greenlees?) I already knew that the children were destroyed, according to the account by the desire of Jehovah (more on this later). But what about the women??? Why did they have to die?

  DUNDERHEAD COMMENT NUMBER 1: Snooty sister, whose son is a big shot in Bethel (!!) refers to "that thing" on the MTV music awards, compares it to Sodom and says that even the "media" (the satan controlled ones, I wonder??) knows that MTV has gone so far with what it shows, that it could get no worse. Wow; I would think that if they stooped to showing news about abuse in the WT, that would be even further for MTV, eh?

  Unsupported assertion number 2: "Abraham knew that Jehovah would not destroy the righteous together with the wicked." If that is true, why did he have to argue with God to get him to consider that there might be righteous in the city? Were the children rapists too? OR: is this just the bible writers' view of how God might look at Sodom, and in fact God killed em all just to make a point, out of anger? (Remember, this is a bible writer's view of what was going on)

  Unsupported assertion number 3: "As Jehovah's friend, Abraham apparently knew and shared His viewpoint". How do they know this? If this is true, why did Abraham argue with God? The WT "apparently" feels the need to manage all possible conflicts by making constant assertions about what people thought in the OT; it squashes all attempts to parse out what might reallly have gone on back then, in order to make it look like all things were understable. This story makes it clear that some things are not understable, i.e., God destroying the good with the bad.

  Unsupported assertion number 4: "Jonah 3:10 says the "the true God felt regret over the calamity that he has spoken of causing to them, and he did not cause it." Jehovah "felt regret" in the sense that he altered his dealings with the Ninevites because they changed their ways." This "apparently" was revealed to the WT writers, because I understand that scripture to say that God felt regret at the idea that he wanted to destroy them, but again the WT must manage conflicts; in this case the scripture elsewhere says that God DOES NOT FEEL REGRETS. So, in order to quash individual thought and appreciation for the real nature of scripture, they help us to realize the when he says regret, he doesn't really mean regret. Thanks.

  Unsupported assertion number 5: "The divine standards did not change." This is actually a diversion; they state that standards did not change in order to avoid the conflict set up by the question of regrets.

  Unsupported assertion number 6: "It is evident that the prophet adjusted his view of the repentant Ninevites. We draw this conclusion from the fact that Jehovah used him to record this inspired account." Where is the evidence for this?? Solomon was not a worshipper when he died yet his words remain a staple for the WT to quote again and again. Solomon did NOT adjust his view late in life.

  Unwittingly true comment: sister states: "We are slaves, and God feeds us by means of the FDS." Agreed; we are slaves, and slaves of men.

  For anyone in [the] Lord that was called when a slave is the Lord’s freedman; likewise he that was called when a freeman is a slave of Christ. 23

  YOU were bought with a price; stop becoming slaves of men

  All in all, it was a trying morning. I was able to recover this afternoon, with a good meal and time to veg out in the easy chair.

  Blondie, how do you do it? I hate it even more when I analyze it!