I would posit that a Being (no matter how wonderful) would not be "god" if there weren't inferiors (rather than equals).
Logically, if everybody is equal, they can't worship each other nor would there be cause.
The glitch is in the "why". Why would a wonderful Being create inferiors?
God cannot be "god" without worshipers.
Essentially as simple as that.
Extending mercy to inferiors sets aside the necessity of casting final judgment upon them. If you destroy your audience - why put on the play?
A wonderfully written and superbly acted play without an audience is mere self-indulgence.
That's not an attempt at profundity, I assure you :)
Posts by Terry
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25Ask yourself why you don't DESERVE "kindness" (A look a the Watchtower's struggle against "Grace."
by Terry ingraceyou won’t find any in the new world translation!no no no.you only find “undeserved kindness.”(ask yourself why you don't deserve kindness.
?isn’t kindness basic decency?
?if you are one of jehovah’s witnesses you have a reason.jehovah’s witnesses are never on firm standing with their god.
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Terry
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25
Ask yourself why you don't DESERVE "kindness" (A look a the Watchtower's struggle against "Grace."
by Terry ingraceyou won’t find any in the new world translation!no no no.you only find “undeserved kindness.”(ask yourself why you don't deserve kindness.
?isn’t kindness basic decency?
?if you are one of jehovah’s witnesses you have a reason.jehovah’s witnesses are never on firm standing with their god.
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Terry
GRACE
You won’t find any in the New World Translation!
No no no.
You only find “undeserved kindness.”
(Ask yourself why you don't DESERVE kindness.) ???
Isn’t kindness basic decency??
If you are one of Jehovah’s Witnesses you have a reason.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are never on firm standing with their god.
The “gift” they offer to appease Jehovah is constant service, meeting attendance, counting the hours on a never-ending treadmill - because- He is a “what have you done for me lately?” kind of deity.
Contrarily, the “gift” Jehovah gives His Witnesses violates perfect standards.
(A closer look)
God has the highest standards of “quality control” and that standard is perfection.
For Jehovah’s Witnesses righteousness and salvation are a quality control problem.
You aren’t perfect so you don’t deserve to be shown kindness … especially from Jehovah.
How odd!
This is a Master and slave arrangement where pity tests high standards for justification as to why any kindness at all should be shown.
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(Practical vs Irrational)
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Many (if not most) people say they hate their job - but - they go and do it anyway.
Better than starving, right?
We do what we must do in exchange for what we can’t live without.
Call it a “hard bargain.” To do otherwise is impractical.
The Boss doesn’t have to like you either - but - he has to pay you.
If you don’t please the Boss - he can fire you.
You can sue for wages if he doesn’t pay - but - you can’t sue if he doesn’t like you.
That would be irrational.
For Jehovah’s Witnesses, God has the right to destroy us for our imperfection and He is determined to do so - unless - a hard bargain is struck.
Consequently, a JW is a slave under bondage.
The Slave master is Jehovah. The JW follows orders unquestioning and without independent thought.
“Yassuh Boss!”
To expect kindness from such an arrangement is out of the question!
But as “normal” as this might seem to a Witness - it is way out of step with mainstream Christianity.
Distinctions and differences abound between the Watchtower view of God’s loving kindness and the distortion of motives.
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JEHOVAH IS a SELF-CONFLICTED God
Monstrous parents would starve a special-needs child for not performing
to high standards. Allowances and consideration is basic decency.
Parental love is fundamental to fair treatment.
Unstable people in dysfunctional families are wildly inconsistent, however.
A child would soon learn fear and unpredictability because basic ‘cause and effect’ doesn’t follow reasonable expectations.
Jehovah’s Witnesses live in a dysfunctional family.
Rank and file members in local Kingdom Halls see themselves as special-needs miscreants undeserving and worthless.
Having “inherited” sin - only eternal servitude and unquestioning toil keeps them alive.
They speak of Jehovah as a God of love - but it is at odds with basic decency.If Jehovah God says you don't DESERVE something and yet gives it to you anyway...who is conflicted here?? God is conflicted.
Who is breaking their own moral code? God.
Who is violating what justice is all about? God.
Why - because it is willy-nilly, ad hoc, arbitrary, capricious, and whimsical.
At least - the Watchtower version is all the above.The Watchtower teaching of "undeserved kindness", emphasizes the "undeserved" concept of salvation. (Being saved from God’s anger and punishment.)
Jehovah - kindness is undeserved even though Witnesses struggle mightily to satisfy the long list of tasks, activities, service schedules the Watchtower lays on them.
Jehovah's Witnesses have to earn while they learn, go door to door, attend all meetings, read all the Society's publications and never doubt the Governing Body's teachings.
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So, WHY DO WATCHTOWER TEACHINGS differ from mainstream Christianity?
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For over 100 years, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been wildly erratic about what they teach and believe and the results of the chaotic confusion are like broken auto parts from a junk car the owner struggles to keep running.
What was “Truth” along the highway is just junk (Old Light) and spare parts.
This chaos and confusion begins with a distortion of Old Testament Judaism.In Judaism; only the person you sin against can forgive you!
If you steal from Moshe; only Moshe (the injured party) can forgive you. Or,choose not.
You cannot cut Moshe out of the picture and go over his head, so to speak, and get your invisible buddy in the sky, God, to forgive ON BEHALF of Moshe.
No, according to Judaism, the wronged party holds the key to your forgiveness and your obligation is to him.
The law of the Talon was a law of Justice because of the balance between the injury and the restoring of the injured party to equity. Fairness was key.
There was a system of fines, service and payback that would compensate a victim fairly. JEWISH LAW was PRACTICAL. It was worked out by Moses by constantly having to deal with day-to-day conflicts, arguments, injustices (perceived or real) over and over again. These arbitrations had to be practical to maintain peace.
At the conclusion of the ‘Old Testament’ the world was dramatically changing because Alexander the Great had conquered the world and brought Greek philosophy, law, language, and administration to Jewish society.
New Testament (Judaism)In Christianity where every denomination gets informed by Holy Spirit, grace is all over the place, but, suffice to say:
GRACE intrudes into Judaism and destroys the practicality of the Law.
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Jehovah’s Witnesses can’t deal with the supernatural identity of what the Watchtower terms (lower case) holy spirit.
Christianity terms (upper case) Holy Spirit.
Watchtower says “active force” and impersonal.
Christianity says “3rd person of the Trinity”.
(Discussion follows of Christian grace and how it operates)You can steal, fornicate, lie, cheat and commit mayhem and then turn to God and be forgiven by displaying a penitent heart. Even so late as on your deathbed in many cases. Yet, the people who you took from, injured, belittled, wronged and destroyed have no say in this transaction! The victims suffer the wrongs and God makes it even-steven on the scale of justice!
(Sinning against an “active force” is problematic for J.W.’s)
But, by way of contrast: the unforgivable sin in Judaism makes perfect sense.
In Judaism murder is the unforgivable sin. Why? Because the injured party NO LONGER EXISTS in order to forgive you!____
ANALOGYGo into your garage workshop and construct a chair, then, stand back and say "That is GOOD!”
Next, invite your son or daughter to try it out and the chair breaks-----whose fault was it?
If it is the chair's fault for breaking--should you punish / forgive the chair?
That would be preposterous and silly.
But in Israel, in the O.T. once a year the sins of the people were simply pronounced over a stupid goat and it was sent out into the wilderness.
Why?
The builder of the chair is at fault. But - are you going to blame GOD??
No - so a ritual is created to blame-shift to the goat.In the Old Testament, YHWH’s forgiveness is a ritual reminder : we are in no position to BLAME GOD for our broken chair (even though He created the chair).
Jehovah saves face by granting forgiveness and accepting the stupid blame-shift and the goat as a sacrifice.In the New Testament, you also find the notion that what men forgive is forgiven, and what they don't is not (e.g. John 20:23).
It is a compromise, of sorts. Don’t blame God for being a “special needs” human and he won’t blame you for being broken.
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Fast-Forward to Modern day JW’sSo, why is it JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES do not DESERVE (from God) KINDNESS?
CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:
Jerusalem, near the Pool of Siloam:John 9
Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind
1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him,
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”IMPORTANT:
The disciples ask this question because it reflected rabbinic theology.
The rabbis wrongly extrapolated the general principle that sickness is a result of human rebellion against God (the Fall) to a rigid **casuistic **system which attributed each and every sickness to specific sins. In congenital cases like this one, some rabbis argued that the cause was pre-natal sin by the fetus; others argued that the cause was the mother's sin while pregnant.
(** Casuistry is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and jurisprudence.)Using a bewildering misunderstanding of Jewish Law, the Watchtower has concocted the following:
The only sin Jehovah can forgive is a sin AGAINST HIMself.
Adam sinned directly against GOD. By proxy Jesus could act the part (ritually) of dying FOR that sin of ADAM and Jehovah could prove he forgives all Adam’s offspring i.e. anointed) by demonstrably raising Jesus from the dead.
Non-anointed are saved - not by Jesus - but by association with the “anointed”, i.e. Governing Body of the Watchtower.
Let that sink in
NO “there” thereThe sin Jehovah forgives with Jesus' death is the “broken chair” sin of ADAM and not every sin all humans throughout history have committed.
Most of THOSE sins were by humans against other humans.
The “broken chair” sin : man refuses to accuse God for being broken
And God, in turn, overlooks their brokenness.
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WTF???
“Forgive us our sins,as we forgive those who sin against us.”
Superstitious humanity was under the false impression that all their misery was passed down generation by generation inescapably.
A man blind by birth was thought to be punished for the sins of his mother and father.
The concept of how traits were inherited was a conglomeration of bad guesses and wrong ideas.
What a pregnant woman (or animal) SAW could actually MARK that baby and change their appearance or condition according to these superstitious people.
Jesus' prayer reflects these ideas. “Forgive us as we forgive.”
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Jews had their notions of forgiveness and YHWH’s love.
Catholic Christians had their notions.
Martin Luther had “grace” notions.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have their teachings.
AS AN EX-JW - I have come to terms with superstitions and the whole idea
There is any “TRUTH” as a teaching in the Bible.
Your mileage, of course, may vary. -
16
Hellooooo! 6 years since i posted
by Aussie Oz inso... it has been six years since my last post.
i wonder who still remembers me?
a lot has changed and then again, a lot has not.... i'm still out of course as are my children who are doing very well.
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Terry
Welcome back to the flock, Aussie Oz.
Long time no see. What's up? -
28
I am now 73 and the road has been filled with wonders
by Terry ini appreciate all my friends who stop to read what i write and post.
you help me more than you know simply by being there as a sense of 'family of friends' for me to talk to and 'share' thoughts with.i guess if i didn't have stories left to tell or people to listen, i could pack it in and join elon musk in a colony on mars.january 15, 2020. .
which world is this?_________________when the doctor pulled my screaming body out of mom all those 7 decades ago, i landed in a post-wwii world.it was--compared to today's world--an alien planet.the world i live in today has nothing in common with the world in which i grew up.there were no cell phones back then--there were black telephones with a dial-tone and an operator who placed your call.everywhere you found telephone booths!
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Terry
I began life observing; really no part of what was going on.
I was shuffled into a deck and dealt into a game where others handled me and played me.
Finding myself in the pile of discards, I became that disappearing card in a magic trick.
Now I'm part of nobody's deck or game. At all.
I shall end life observing, really no part of what is going on.
Context is everything.
What are the constants in life and which are the variables?
If you can hold on to those - you won't lose yourself.
The current generation of people has very little "self" because individuality
has been dissolved into a cult, a tribe, partisan madness.
Moral 'high-horse' is a pathetic excuse for self.
I'm glad I'm on the way out, frankly.
I miss sanity, as little as there ever was :) -
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Movie Review 1917
by Terry inmovie review"1917".
i so seldom seek to sit inside an actual movie theater anymore.however ...some films are absolutely tailored for it.life of pigravityavatar3 examples of movies which do not translate to your home viewing...at all.good, bad, or indifferent - some films are visual and immersive.. here is a sacred pronouncement:movies are a visual medium.in the hands of an orson welles (i.e.
citizen kane) they are a radio play+visual storytelling medium._____.
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Terry
MOVIE REVIEW
"1917"I so seldom seek to sit inside an actual movie theater anymore.
However ...
Some films are absolutely tailored for it.
LIFE OF PI
GRAVITY
AVATAR
3 examples of movies which do NOT translate to your home viewing...at all.
Good, bad, or indifferent - some films are VISUAL and IMMERSIVE.Here is a sacred pronouncement:
Movies are a VISUAL medium.
In the hands of an Orson Welles (i.e. Citizen Kane) they are a radio play+visual storytelling medium.
_____Spectacle, per se, is boring...mostly. To me.
CGI spectacle is like an angry mob.
Noise. Chaos. Overindulgence.Rare exceptions do exist, but only as exceptions.
LORD OF THE RINGS set the standard in modern times
and so so many imitations have ruined movie going for me.
("Super hero", he whispered.)Perfection in a film is only achieved when the blend and balance of a Master's vision and consummate control of elements is wrought...and miraculously achieved.
1917
This is a perfect film
It is based in part on an account told to Mendes by his paternal grandfather, Alfred Mendes, and chronicles the story of two young British soldiers during World War I who are given a mission to deliver a message. This warns of an ambush during a skirmish, soon after the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line during Operation Alberich in 1917.
Go see it.
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I'm not going to sit here and spoon feed you.
If you once loved movies and seldom go anymore -
get off yer butt and GO SEE IT.The cinematography is a MIRACLE!
The music score is exactly and precisely subliminal to the point
it must be adrenal secretion in your pulse. This is not a Hollywood war movie.Thomas Newman was born to create music for this film.
He is the anti-thesis of Hanz Zimmer.
His score is the bloodstream of this film and not the fists.Put CHRISTOPHER NOLAN waaaaaay over THERE out of my eyesight, please. Let me have my SAM MENDES.
Go see 1917.
You'll help me save my breath.Kubrick's PATHS of GLORY
Mendes' 1917
Milestone's ALL'S QUIET on the WESTERN FRONT
Terrence Malick's THE THIN RED LINEare four masterpieces of wartime cinema.
Go see it.
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28
I am now 73 and the road has been filled with wonders
by Terry ini appreciate all my friends who stop to read what i write and post.
you help me more than you know simply by being there as a sense of 'family of friends' for me to talk to and 'share' thoughts with.i guess if i didn't have stories left to tell or people to listen, i could pack it in and join elon musk in a colony on mars.january 15, 2020. .
which world is this?_________________when the doctor pulled my screaming body out of mom all those 7 decades ago, i landed in a post-wwii world.it was--compared to today's world--an alien planet.the world i live in today has nothing in common with the world in which i grew up.there were no cell phones back then--there were black telephones with a dial-tone and an operator who placed your call.everywhere you found telephone booths!
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Terry
Thank you all for your personal shares and comments on this thread.
I want to ask something.
Have you ever noticed this?
You'll watch an old movie - one your remember was a favorite from long ago - and when you sit
and listen and view it today - you CRINGE? Something has changed inside of YOU which makes
viewing uncomfortable.
This happens to me all the time.
WE CHANGE.
Nothing remains the same but the impression we are till ourselves.
But - I believe who ever we "are" never remains constant unless - UNLESS we remain in a cult where
nothing is permitted to individualize and an echo chamber of "I agree" bounces and reverberates constantly like a tolling bell.
WHO ARE WE after 73 years compared with the age of eighteen or thirty?
I personally, after four marriages and seven kids, I look back and think I recognize myself and I am constantly mistaken.
My kid's memories of events differ from my own.
The only constant in the universe is change. Is it better to change or be the same?
Depends on whether you reach "perfection" early or not :) -
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I am now 73 and the road has been filled with wonders
by Terry ini appreciate all my friends who stop to read what i write and post.
you help me more than you know simply by being there as a sense of 'family of friends' for me to talk to and 'share' thoughts with.i guess if i didn't have stories left to tell or people to listen, i could pack it in and join elon musk in a colony on mars.january 15, 2020. .
which world is this?_________________when the doctor pulled my screaming body out of mom all those 7 decades ago, i landed in a post-wwii world.it was--compared to today's world--an alien planet.the world i live in today has nothing in common with the world in which i grew up.there were no cell phones back then--there were black telephones with a dial-tone and an operator who placed your call.everywhere you found telephone booths!
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Terry
A big THANK YOU to one and all...
I had no idea so many old fossils inhabited this discussion forum.
I appreciate your POV on things. -
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I am now 73 and the road has been filled with wonders
by Terry ini appreciate all my friends who stop to read what i write and post.
you help me more than you know simply by being there as a sense of 'family of friends' for me to talk to and 'share' thoughts with.i guess if i didn't have stories left to tell or people to listen, i could pack it in and join elon musk in a colony on mars.january 15, 2020. .
which world is this?_________________when the doctor pulled my screaming body out of mom all those 7 decades ago, i landed in a post-wwii world.it was--compared to today's world--an alien planet.the world i live in today has nothing in common with the world in which i grew up.there were no cell phones back then--there were black telephones with a dial-tone and an operator who placed your call.everywhere you found telephone booths!
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Terry
I appreciate all my friends who stop to read what I write and post.
You help me more than you know simply by BEING THERE as a sense of 'family of friends' for me to talk to and 'share' thoughts with.
I guess if I didn't have stories left to tell or people to listen, I could pack it in and join Elon Musk in a colony on Mars.January 15, 2020WHICH WORLD is this?
_________________
When the doctor pulled my screaming body out of mom all those 7 decades ago, I landed in a post-WWII world.
It was--compared to today's world--an alien planet.
The world I live in today has nothing in common with the world in which I grew up.
There were no cell phones back then--there were black telephones with a dial-tone and an Operator who placed your call.
Everywhere you found telephone booths! A call was a nickle.
Where did all those telephone booths go?
I dunno.
Where did my whole world go?
I dunno.
TV sets were huge boxes with tubes and small screens. Images were black and white.
It was an idiot box. It still is.
A "computer" was a Science fiction trope and in reality, consisted of vast rooms full of blinking lights and hardware.
Men wore hats, women wore stockings with a black seam down the back.
Everybody smoked cigarettes. Everywhere!
There was "easy listening" music filled with lush melody.
Movies were vivid storybooks filled with comedy, song and dance, and noir.
Only sailors, convicts, and primitive tribal communities had tattoos.
Kids said, "Yes Sir" and "No, Ma'am".
And so on...
I've lived in several worlds on different planets--not literally, but essentially for all the extraordinary dissonances, customs, attitudes, and ethos. (Good word "ethos", look it up.)
Today--what world is this?
Have I lost the thread?
Who knows their next door neighbor anymore?
Who spends time sitting on the front porch in the evening in a swing, sipping ice tea and waving at the folks across the street?
Who reads actual Literature?
Who buys paintings or objet d'art?
Who knows the classical music repertoire?
Who is conversant with dates, names, movements in human history with any certainty?
I was there when TV arrived and the first commercial jingles were created.
I lived in the radio soap opera era.
I was there when Bebop lived side by side with West Coast jazz and the Big Bands faded as Rock n' Roll was born.
I lived among Beatniks, Folk singers, Doo-Wops, Hippies, and the birth of the Long Play record and the death of the 78 shellac platters.
The year I was born, the transistor was invented. (1947).
I was 7 years old when the first transistor radios were sold (1954).
The very first satellite went into orbit when I was 15 years old. (1962)
I was 18 years old as 8 Track tapes were all the rage.(1965)
I was 22 years old when man first walked on the moon. (1969)
I was 32 years old when the Sony Walkman revolutionized portable music. And it was just a cassette player!
By 1975, the first mass marketing of Video Tape Recorders was sold at about a thousand dollars each.
The personal computer was barely a dream in the future!
So what? What point am I making?
If you aren't 70 then:
I'm from a different world than YOU are!
My ways are not your ways.
My thoughts and feelings and ideas and opinions are just plain weird to you because you haven't lived my lifetime.
I've seen people become famous, fade, and pass into obscurity.
I've heard fearful predictions for the future which turned out to be absolute hogwash.
I've seen the rise of horrible political leaders who later fell.
I lived through a great many wars and spent time in Federal Prison, a religious cult, four marriages, and produced 7 children.
I've been Nerd, a religious fanatic, an artist, a composer, a writer, husband, father, best friend, and generally a pain in the ass.
BUT I'M STILL HERE.
It isn't MY world--it is your world.
I AM A LIVING TIME MACHINE.
When I speak--you are getting a message from another era. -
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A Song to Jehovah's Praise - rejected!
by Terry inas an obedient little jw at age 20, i was serving time in federal prison in the late 60's, and the 40 brothers inside seagoville prison decided to stage our own assembly.i was the music servant.
(we didn't have elders back then.
)the theme of the assembly mimicked the free world assemblies being held outside.long story short:i composed (what i think and everyone else thought was) a very good song titled:following the fine shepherd as the end draws near.we rehearsed it (bros who had instruments) and the consensus revealed it was a winner._____excerpt:"jehovah god above, we owe you all our love; you are our shepherd and we follow you.though satan demands, that we must compromise; we'd sooner face death than be wrong in your eyes.now and forevermore, we fear not satan's roar;you are our shepherd and we follow you.
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Terry
The song was a symptom.
It was the real world nudging me.
Well, I don't have regrets about the song not being used per se because it wasn't authentic or that
the effort was wasted. I'm annoyed by the memory of the nasty little man in a position of power
who used his position to bully me and hang a lie on the reason for it.
Those of the Ex-JW community who have dealt with double-dealing Elders are at first shocked
and saddened by being treated unfairly. It eventually fests, of course.
You can't win against Elders whether they're straight OR crooked.
The system is rigged merely to CONTROL you.
Seeing all my illusions of the "only true religion" crumble was like watching a home burn to the ground.
You don't just lose the house - it's everything inside as well as the emotional connection of "home."
Being an Ex-JW is becoming a non-entity with a soiled reputation.
People who were supposed to be friends for life suddenly turn on you without a conversation.
Group think. -
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A Jehovah's Witness matter clearly not understood by a great many members (concerning imprisonment)
by Terry induring the vietnam war (1955 - 1975) young men reaching the age of 18 were required by law to register for the draft within 30 days of that birthday.jehovah's witnesses included.most jw's did not (perhaps never did) understand the situation faced by young brothers in the congregation.the general "understanding" among the rank and file went something like this.1.
jw's serve jehovah as ruler rather than men.
2. we believe "thou shalt not kill."3.
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Terry
The ultimate "price" of being a Jehovah's Witness in good standing is the evaporation
of opportunity.
Meaning what?
When you are young and have your life ahead of you, so many opportunities are there for
education, friends, career, financial stability and building the actual future (rather than the make-believe).
Watchtower religion is Bernie Madoff taking all that and "investing"on your behalf.
All those friends aren't friends.
All those promises are illusory fluff.
I'd love to at least look back and think I was brave but instead I'm like like the guys who fought to take a hill
which was later given back to the enemy by politicians.
I was a sucker and a dupe. Nothing heroic at all.
Seeing 20 years as a stupid investment hurts.
Being a useful idiot is not much of a legacy.
