Just received Crisis of Conscience!! (page 8)

Joker10

No, thank you. The book is not important to me.

core

The book is not important to me.

joker10 - no, no book is important - what is important is how we use our free minds to discern from what we read, hear, see or experience.

Some here do make Ray into a virtual "Saint" (I have nothing but respect for him but do not personally count him as beatified) and that means they treat his books as "sacred" = they are not sacred but neither are they poisonous. My experience and dealings tell me that Ray Franz is a humble man making no special claims to inspiration or absolute truth.

Use your own experiences etc to decide about your place in the WT - why waste your life doing what others tell you? Don't take everything said by the WT as Gospel nor everything said here on this board as essential either. Prove to yourself what you choose to believe. DO whatever you do for the right reasons.

acsot

Joker: you fit your name well, it's a joke to say that the book is not important to you yet you had to read this thread and jump in with your comments.

Now back to what is important, CoC: I avoided the chapter on "double standards" for awhile 'cause I didn't want to get too upset. Well, I went back to and read it and gawd almighty, what f&&king hypocrites the GB are and were! One standard for Mexico, and then the exact same situation was being faced in the Dominican Republic and the GB decides that no, those brothers should suffer !!?? Why, because the WTS didn't own any buildings in the D.R.? And then at the same time to callously decide the fate of the brothers in Malawi! Even though the GB didn't get their majority vote on the issue surely they could have seen that differing viewpoints should have stopped them from issuing their idiotic and cruel decree to the Malawian brothers. It certainly could not have been Jehovah's spirit guiding their decisions since they couldn't come up with a unanimous decision!

I wish now that there was a god who could mete out a just punishment to those a&&holes.

Now I'm at the part where the witchhunt was on at Bethel. People being interrogated, without even being told why beforehand. No Bible principles involved in anything the GB does! It blew me away when I read how most of the GB don't even do that much Bible study. Amd they had the audacity to say: "We are not here to discuss your Bible questions"! And yet they take upon themselves the title of "God's channel of communication" on earth, when they can't decide among themselves upon matters of Bible principles. What total jerks.

The hypocrisy is sickening. The GB can have differing viewpoints from each other, then they insist that the rank and file not follow their own consciences but heed to whatever issue some members of the GB were able to force upon the others.

It's amazing, the more personal Bible study different ones engaged in, the more they saw how far away from the "truth" the GB was acting. And of course, that was the ultimate danger, people having their own personal relationship with Jehovah without the permission of the high and mighty GB!

What I can't believe is how kind Ray Franz is in dealing with those bastards; I sure wouldn't have compassion towards such mean-spirited hypocrites. Although I don't consider myself "Christian", Ray seems to embody what the spirit of true Christianity is all about.

blondie

acsot, come on, tell us how you really feel!

I had already made my mind up when I finally was brave enough to send away to Commentary Press (which I learned about lurking on JWD). I had to hide it from my husband who was still going. Man, I was so hopping mad but I had no one to share it with.

The card issue had come up with a Bible student 10 years ago but I was afraid to look into it because it was "apostate" material.

In the end I stopped going because of the WTS own unloving actions but this certainly backed it up. I hope each one of the ones that made that decision and never backed down dies in agony in their own sh*t.

Blondie

Earnest

I would probably also thought of CoC as "apostate literature" and not bothered with it had I not read the article in Time magazine of February 22, 1982 which reported the disfellowshipping of Ray Franz and said "Franz was seen in a restaurant eating a meal with his benefactor Gregerson [who was disassociated]. That single sighting provided the technical infraction for which Franz was finally disfellowshipped by the Gadsden leaders two months ago." I found this very difficult to believe but happened to be working in Bethel (South Africa) at the time and this was soon corroborated by brothers with contacts in the States.

So I read the book and corresponded with Ray Franz about some of what he wrote. I am still a JW in many respects, although my beliefs are not entirely orthodox, and can recommend both the book and the man without hesitation. I was less impressed with In Search of Christian Freedom which I would not particularly recommend but I find it very useful as a reference book to trace the development of various doctrines. But to anyone with an interest in Jehovah's Witnesses I can only say of Crisis of Conscience : read it, read it, read it.

mouthy

I think another book to recommend would be "Combatting Mind Control" shows how we were deceived also.

acsot

Thanks Mouthy, for the recommendation.

Will Power

Steven Hassam's other book, "Releasing the Bonds" is very good as well.

There are 10 myths about cults put to death - like...

"he's too intelligent....he'll figure it out sooner or later", and

"I have the right to believe whatever I want! ....But do you have the right to question any of those beliefs" the right to choose is only an illusion.

just to name 2.

Will P

Satans little helper

This is a really interesting thread and I wish I had read it before posting my "Why?" thread. I have completely rejected Xtianity as a myth and the bible as a tool of oppression, anyway that's a side issue and I won't hijack the thread ...... yet!

I've just started reading CoC and got through the first two chapters last night. Nothing I have read is particularly shocking so far as I saw plenty of hypocracy growing up as an elder's son. I'm not sure what to think of the book yet but one thing I did notice is that in the second chapter there is a section which deals with the numbers of baptisms over recent years and average publisher numbers. My only negative comment so far is that these numbers don't add up.

For instance,

X= No of publishers in 1998

Y= No of baptisms in 1999

Z= No of publishers in 1999

N= No of witnesses falling away

Chapter 2 presents the numbers thus: X+Y-Z=N

No. Sorry that's not the case.

Each year a large number of the people are baptised who were already counted as publishers the previous year - those that had been studying for over a year and also those that have grown up as witnesses.

Have I missed something? I am trying to be as open minded as possible reading the book and not just accept everything at face value as I would when I was a dub and reading the WTBTS literature.

Just received Crisis of Conscience!!

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