Posts by greendawn

65

Left the WT but why the loss of your faith in God?

by Luo bou to in

jw
friends

sure the wt deceived you with its claim to be god's channel but why for so many is there a subsequent loss of faith in god ?

it puzzles me and makes me wonder why they were jw's in the first place..

greendawn

I think a lot of JWs suffered so much emotional oppression at the hands of the JW god image that they were put off for life from believing in any god. The JW god is indeed terrible, unloving, severe, exacting, unforgiving and vindictive just like the god of the old testament and very much unlike the god of the new testament through Christ. All they want now is to lead lives that are uncomplicated and unmolested by strange god images.

I continue to believe in God, the Christian God and not the jehovite god of the JWs.

70

How long were you a member of Jehovahs Witnesses?

by Quirky1 in

jw
friends

me, about 7 years...

greendawn

Baptised in 1979

Active for one year 1979 - 1980

Inactive for seven years 1980 - 1987

Disassociated in April 1987.

26

motivations for creating the "Jonadabs"

by drew sagan in

i know that shortly after rutherford dismissed the idea that the new covenant was only for the jews (as taught by russell) he eventually began to formulate his new doctrines of how he felt it did apply to people.

but i'm a little lost as to why exactly he chose to create this doctrine.. what were some of the deeper motiviations rutherford had in creating this doctrine?

i flipped through pentons book but he really doesn't get into it.

greendawn

Perhaps this is not what they had in mind when they formulated this doctrine but it does help with controlling the R&F because the "non anointed" can not claim any kind of authority within this organisation due to their inferior status which keeps them quiet. And since after a while most dubs are not "anointed" that's a big advantage for the ruling elite. They only have to deal with a tiny fraction of their members who are numerically insignificant and thus easy to control and they basically told them to shut up, obey orders and not rock the boat.

In other words this doctrine may be a political control move.

14

Why no earthly hope for those in 1st Century and onward???

by oompa in

thinking about this paradise thingy lately, possibly due to a@g's video.

just because wt figures out there is both a earthly hope in addition to a heavenly hope around 1936 i guess, how did they come up with the idea that all christians prior to that date were all heavenly?

there was no big date prophesied like 1914 regarding 1936, so how did they decide the number 144k were sealed then, and that everyone from then on will be stuck on earth?.

greendawn

If we divide 144 000 by the 1970 years that the church existed we come up with the figure of 71 per year. If that figure is literal the church could only afford 71 elite per year of existence. It is obviously an erroneous figure, given the hundreds of millions of christians that have lived during that time. Even if out of all them only one per hundred were genuine that gives a figure in the millions.

The 144 000 are described as male, virginal, Jews and the WTS admits that this is symbolic. So why isn't their number also symbolic? It doesn't sound natural to say their descriptives are symbolic but not their number.

And as you say why would the pre JW christians either attain the standard of the heaven-called or fail and get stricken off the book of life while the JWs are given an easier option albeit of a lesser glory but still much better than being dead. This doesn't fit reason and it's enough to prove this doctrine to be spurious.

Also in all my time with the JWs I never understood what the so called JW annointed (and above all the GB) were doing that was so much better than what the non anointed were doing so that they should deserve a much higher reward.

47

Is DISFELLOWSHIPPING being phased out?

by african GB Member in

jw
friends

i have an elder friend who is 'open-minded', so to say...he tells me what gets discussed at elder meetings, even though he does'nt give too much detail.. he says that they were instructed by the society not to hurry df'ing publishers, that they should try to reproof (1 timothy 3: 16,17) a sinner,,..that they should be a little considerate bearingf in mind that we are living in critical times of the end.. .

personally i know a few publishers(baptized or not) who now have children out of wedlock, and they were just "marked" or had privileges taken away..... the reason given is: "they realised that they have sinned, and they are fully repented, they gave enough evidence to jc that they want to be known as jw's".

now my question is : are they slowly doing away with the df'ing doctrine?.

greendawn

No because for them to maintain authority they need to have the means to punish and DFing is that means. Their ideology is so weak that if the R&F start to freely criticise it with impunity this organisation will quickly fall apart or be forced to change in ways the leadership doesn' want.

20

Were there any Elders in your congregation that seemed to dislike you?

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

there is an elder in my congregation who i feel dislikes me because i'm inactive and doesn't know what to do with me.

he seems to go on his business as soon as i walk in.

a couple of times as i was talking with a member of the congregation, he rudely interrupted my conversation and took the person by the shoulder and walked away as if his conversation was more important.. once i was talking to my mom( who is very sick and has many ailments but still makes it to some meetings)and this self-righteous elder walks right in our conversation and makes a rude comment about me in front of my mom.. this was the actual coversation we had to show you how self-righteous he is:.

greendawn

My experience with them is that the more ambitious ones will dislike you if you are spiritually very strong because they see you as a possible impediment to their ambitions of promoting their close relatives or friends to eldership especially if they are clearly inferior spiritually, personality or education wise. It's all down to self interest, jealousy and infernal behaviour.

They don't want you to threaten the office they have assigned to a relative. In that congo there were a lot of such local politics and which elder would be the most influential.

38

Paradise Won't Be "Instant"

by cameo-d in

i have heard that "paradise" will be achieved gradually; that it will take all of the thousand years to reach that state of perfection.. .

now, while you may be convinced that it will take all that time to bring the earth back to it's pristine state....suppose it applies to humans as well?.

imagine this scenerio: wounds and broken bones heal slowly and gradually; your bags and sags are still there, but since you have seen results of other people, you hang on that the promise will be for you, too.

greendawn

The JW concept of a paradise earth is pure mythology and despite what they claim it has no biblical basis at all certainly not in the New Testament where all Christians are destined for heaven and there is no talk of life on earth as a destination for anyone that is a believer. This myth came to being after Rutherford brought out the absurd, unbiblical and cultic other sheep doctrine which separates believers into first and second class categories.

It's OK to talk about this myth by way of amusement but never take it seriously.

18

WHO WAS WATCHTOWER BEST LEADER?

by badboy in

jw
friends

russell?.

greendawn

Russell was the best of them because though he dabbled into occultism he was otherwise reasonable, he was not an absolutist dictator, had no disfellowshipping policy to speak of, no anti blood transfusion policy and no sharp division between us JWs (Bible Students) and the rest of the world.

When Rutherford took over things went downhill fast and when Knorr and Franz took over (remember Knorr was somewhat dumb on religious issues and focused on the business side of the WTS while Franz was running everything else) things became much worse so that with them the WTS was transformed to what it was not under Russell: a satanic cult, a very evil religion that turns its followers into dysfunctional human beings alienated from society and unable to absorb any information that doesn't fit in with their JW programming.

A rather harmless but misguided religion ended up as an insidious cult, highly toxic to all those embracing it. Put simply the WTS despite its facade of love and goodwill towards mankind, exists to serve its own interests its own profitability even at the detriment of those of its members.

The subsequent JW leaders just kept up the legacy they found from their predecessors.

20

torrent file: Watchtower Library 2008 - English

by possible-san in

watchtower library 2008 - english .

iso file, 376mb .

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4760337/watchtower_library_2008__iso.

greendawn

Downloading torrents is easy, as mentioned above you need to first download a torrent client, u torrent being by far the most popular out there. Then you go to a torrent search engine like BT junkie, pirate bay or isohunt, search for torrents find them and download. After downloading it's a good idea to scan them with an antivirus before opening them.

Most should be ready to use but some are in a rar format in which case they must be unrared with e.g winrar.

I use firefox as browser, usually bt junkie as torrent search engine and u torrent as torrent client, nero to burn on DVD when so desired. Can't go wrong.

13

The importance of Rutherford...

by drew sagan in

i was doing some thinking about watchtower eschatology and something interesting popped into my head.

throughout the watchtowers revelation book we read of elaborate stories and interpreatations all putting the watchtowers history into the pages of the bible.

some of these include:.

greendawn

I agree that the spirit, the soul, of the JWs derives mainly from Rutherford and not from Russell. Russell wanted decentralised power with each congregation choosing its leaders and running its affairs. Rutherford centralised all power into his hands moving the JWs from substantial democracy under Russell to a rigid dictatorship. And as mentioned above he removed all emphasis from developping love and a christian character to preaching as the main by far worthwhile activity. Attitutes that continue to this day. Your life may be morally exemplary and faultless but if you don't preach the WTS message you are nothing to them.

His successors made things even worse by initiating total intolerence to any criticism of their idology and actions, ie total dictatorship, the disfellowshipping policy even for a range of ridiculously trivial issues such as attending birthday parties or wearing a crucifix, and the blood ban that needlessly terrorised and killed thousands of JWs who were made to expect an appalling eternal damnation if they took blood to survive disease or accident, a fear potent enough to make them bend the mighty instinct of survival for themselves or hapless children under their care which though often unbaptised and underage they insisted that they should be subjected to the JW blood ban rule.

All these finally made for a wayward, man serving, unloving organisation without a trace of christian love, spirit or orientation that basically wanted serfs to promote its prosperity and finances without any cost to the corporation. Such are the subtle nuances of religious intricacy and deception.

In my view Franz was the most bitter, relentless, insidious and destructive of all JW leaders whereas Rutherford was more of an exploitative happy go lucky clown who claimed to be the only god appointed religious leader in the world when his personality and lifestyle were obviously quite at odds with such a dignified office. He would send out the JWs to preach in an intentionally and needlessly provocative way so that they would often get beaten up and abused while he was enjoying a life of opulence and ease, with plenty of alcohol, luxury accomodation, cars, and trips.

To all these scoundrels the R&F are stupid dumb animals to be manipulated and exploited for their own profit.