today i was at work and a jw slipped a watchtower and awake in the mail slot.in the awake there is an article titled "is there an unforgivable sin?
" here is a paragraph that caught my eye.. some people who were once faithful christians have purposely drawn away from god,perhaps because of bitterness,pride, or greed, and are now "apostate fighters" against god's spirit.they willfully oppose what the spirit is clearly accomplishing.
have these induividuals committed the unforgiveable sin?
jgnat:
Wouldn't it be a hoot to author some "ambiguously apostate" articles that find their way into the mags? The dim bulbs could scratch their noodles trying to discern whether they were, indeed, receiving new light and the sharper ones would laugh their arses off "discerning" there'd obviously been a coup on Mt. Zion.
AMNESIAN
today i was at work and a jw slipped a watchtower and awake in the mail slot.in the awake there is an article titled "is there an unforgivable sin?
" here is a paragraph that caught my eye.. some people who were once faithful christians have purposely drawn away from god,perhaps because of bitterness,pride, or greed, and are now "apostate fighters" against god's spirit.they willfully oppose what the spirit is clearly accomplishing.
have these induividuals committed the unforgiveable sin?
Edit:
Shutterbug, this "QFR" was just my facetious sarcasm at play. Even while a loyal JW I always deeply resented the Society's force feeding us our "conscientious" decisions/judgements all the while craftily conveying the impression, through tricky wording, that Jehovah, and not we as individuals nor the organization , was doing the judging. The very appearance of any subject matter in a WT publication invariably assures that they already have an organizational position they're not merely suggesting but are ramming down the throats of JWs who'd better adopt the very same or else.
AMNESIAN
today i was at work and a jw slipped a watchtower and awake in the mail slot.in the awake there is an article titled "is there an unforgivable sin?
" here is a paragraph that caught my eye.. some people who were once faithful christians have purposely drawn away from god,perhaps because of bitterness,pride, or greed, and are now "apostate fighters" against god's spirit.they willfully oppose what the spirit is clearly accomplishing.
have these induividuals committed the unforgiveable sin?
I realize I'm not the brightest light on the planet, but the above statement has me really racking the old pea sized brain trying to understand the meaning. I have a little different slant on this than amnesian.
will quickly recognize the intended message behind ‘Jehovah is the final judge’ theocratic codetalk and loyally conduct themselves accordingly toward these individuals." --- EditorSeems to me if someone claims Jehovah is the final Judge, then they are apostate and should be shunned. Someone please tell me where I'm going wrong. Bug
Shutterbug, this "QFR" was just my facetious sarcasm at play. Even while a loyal JW I always deeply resented the Society's force feeding us our "conscientious" decisions/judgements all the while craftily conveying the impression, through tricky wording, that Jehovah, and not we, was doing the judging. The very appearance of any subject matter in a WT publication invariably assures that they already have an organizational position they're not merely suggesting but are ramming down the throats of JWs who'd better adopt the very same or else.
HTH
AMNESIAN
today i was at work and a jw slipped a watchtower and awake in the mail slot.in the awake there is an article titled "is there an unforgivable sin?
" here is a paragraph that caught my eye.. some people who were once faithful christians have purposely drawn away from god,perhaps because of bitterness,pride, or greed, and are now "apostate fighters" against god's spirit.they willfully oppose what the spirit is clearly accomplishing.
have these induividuals committed the unforgiveable sin?
Have these individuals committed the unforgiveable sin? Jehovah is the final Judge.-Romans 14:12
Question from Readers: Are we to understand, then, that judging of these individuals is to be left to Jehovah alone and that true Christians should refrain from presumptuously usurping such a serious undertaking from our heavenly father by making our own judgments? "Longtime readers of this journal will recognize that genuine, open-ended questions to which you are permitted and encouraged to arrive at your own conscientious conclusions would never find their way onto its pages. Thus, as with any 'question' posed here, the only appropriate 'answer', as deemed by the faithful and discreet slave, is clearly communicated by virtue of the ‘question’s’ very appearance. Spiritually mature ones, as a result of their regular meeting attendance, meaningful field service participation and diligent study of Bible-based publications, will quickly recognize the intended message behind ‘Jehovah is the final judge’ theocratic codetalk and loyally conduct themselves accordingly toward these individuals." --- Editor ------- AMNESIAN
gidday to all you "apostates"....or should i say "truth-seekers" on j-w.com .
i have been "lurking" on this board for about 3 months and i finally feel ready to say something about the situation that i am in right now.
it's rather tenuous because i was recently baptised <1yr ago.
Hoodwinked:
There is no fellowship in this ORG. At least for the new ones on the outside looking in. If one's not in a clique, or one's not related to everyone else, good luck to ya! They say that we are all brothers in the faith but try cracking some of the fleshly-family "cliques", or just regular old "buddy-buddy" cliques that are abundant. No chance bucko! Outsiders not welcome! The fake smiles and greetings took a while for me to catch on to but eventually I realised that it was all just a show to make themselves feel good inside. Some were sincere but for the most part not many were. Very few even congratulated me on my baptism. That set off some warning signs to me but I thought, "ahh what the heck..were not perfect, some people are shy and so on".
If you don't mind my asking, what do you think made these behaviors so obvious to you within a mere nine months of your baptism when, presumably, your association with JWs prior to baptism surely exceeded 9 months yet still apparently convinced you of the truthfulness of their claims to be Jesus' only true disciples?
Was the un-Christian treatment your family suffered in the particular instance you reference such a sudden, unexpected and extreme occurrence that arose in total after your baptism that it caused you to virtually overnight so thoroughly reject all that you'd thought you'd learned about JWs that persuaded you to get baptized in the first place?
Are you no longer attending meetings or turning in time? Are you being shepherded by any of the elders? (Forgive me if your posts already supply this information; under the board's new structure I have difficulty navigating between the reply screen and the thread's posts and so cannot easily refresh myself as to exactly what's been said to which I'm attempting reply).
Take no offense at my inquiries. It's just that in my experience newly-baptized ones are so blindingly "aglow with the spirit" that it is virtually impossible for one to snap out of the trance in so incredibly brief a period of time---and, most astonishingly, to the point of then trying to enlighten believing family---irrespective the damaging events in evidence. Unless one is reared in the religion and gets baptized as merely the rite of passage it is for many youth---without its representing much in the way of a "symbol of one's dedication" (and, from what you said, I didn't get that as your situation)--- enlightenment the depths of which you describe above takes years of intimate association in the JW culture, enduring the ravages of the cognitive dissonance imposed until one implodes from the weight.
Yours is a rare thing to encounter on JWD: a unique experience. Are you quite certain your months of lurking here did not persuade you to interpret behaviors and actions on the part of those in your congregation very differently (read: negatively) from how you willingly viewed those exact same behaviors and actions a few short months ago?
Regardless how you came to be where you are today, welcome to this place and best of everything to you and your family.
AMNESIAN
i just wanted to say hi.
this is my first message.
i have been df for about 14 years.
Love the moniker.
B I G W E L C O M E .
AMNESIAN
knockin' on doors when nobody's home, processing ten of thousands of hours that u know are fake, refusing to embrace modern-technology to further the work just adds up to the most ineffective public relations campaign of the 21st century---yep, you guessed it the house-to-house work.........
Quite right you are, BM, if the purpose of the hth work continued to be proselytizing. I submit, however, that, unbeknownst to the clueless herd [going through the motions of] carrying it out, making a disciple today is, arguably, merely the occasional and extremely rare serendipitous by-product of what the true purpose of the hth work has necessarily evolved into.
While field service's original---and effective---purpose for decades was that of making converts, its primary function in the late 20th/21st century would appear to serve a wholly different, but equally as, if not more, critical an aim: to keep JWs obligated and occupied on a numbing treadmill of busy-ness (which includes attending meetings that almost literally rehearse the identical rosary-like mantra of "spiritual food" meeting after assembly after convention after meeting after...; "studying" and distributing 4 issues of magazines every month with articles that almost literally for years and years has recited the identical chants issue after issue after issue...) who, left to their own devices, gifted with guilt-free "extra" time on their hands every week suddenly not booked by the WTS, might have their manic pace slowed sufficiently to find themselves contemplating that which they had never previously dared---an especially horrifying and unthinkable prospect for the Society in its present floundering state.
Just a thought.
AMNESIAN
(E-mail address appearing in profile is presently fubar; please do not attempt contacting)
here is the url to the hlc letter the society sent to the boe.
i edited a few lines to preserve identity.. http://www.strike9.com/file.aspx/path=/doinmypart/fullsize/hlc+letter.pdf.
here is the url to the society talk outline dealing with the yearly no blood topic.. http://www.strike9.com/file.aspx/path=/doinmypart/fullsize/noblood_mtg.pdf.
Appreciate your diligence, doin.
One thing. I notice the letterhead is Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. and not Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses as I thought had come to be customary since the re-org.
I thought the WBTS letterhead was no longer used. Anyone know how it is determined under what letterhead BOE and other correspondence is sent?
AMNESIAN
so much of the watchtower is written in "code".
so much of the circuit and district overseers comments are spoken in "code".
for example, you are not told directly that you shouldn't read any other publication but the society's, but you are asked, "how could anyone spiritual ever have the time to keep up with their bible-based reading of all the spiritual food that we must take in, and still have time to read "worldly" books?
The very fact that these "men" consider rape as anything at all to do with sexual relations is ignorant and evil beyond even what I have come to expect of them. The arrogant presumption it takes to feel qualified to spew forth on such a life-altering trauma in view of their utter lack of information and understanding is confounding, to say the least.
I am sickened to learn that JW women are going to be confused and guilted anew regarding this violent crime as a result of this upcoming material. All cloaked in ostensibly comforting language.
In response to a current thread's query ...
"Are you ashamed to admit you were a JW?"
Extremely. I will be 'til my dying day.
AMNESIAN
can anyone give any details on what to expect next in barbara anderson's case?.
i just read about the questioning of how a woman got into a researcher position at bethel.
i have a few questions on this myself, based on the level of involvement i've heard claimed.
wasasister:
I still performed these jobs, but my MS husband had to sign the forms - despite the fact that he could barely add two and two. No one questioned his abilities; his only qualification for putting his name at the bottom was a penis (such that it was.)
Just when I get the monitor wiped off from that one ...
You do know my expression was only figurative. I would only speak of the anti-typical penis....
I hope this is the last time I have to clean this thing, in this thread anyway.
AMNESIAN
