Posts by Terry

29

Diddling, adjusting, changing Doctrines? Why not leave it alone?

by Terry in

i have kept on asking myself why the jw's put targets on themselves by constant diddling with their own doctrines?

why not leave it alone?.

mainstream christianity has fixed teachings.

Terry

I appreciate your thoughts, Joe, and your POV.

The psychology of Religion is even more fascinating than the plotting.

I think human psychology is as responsive to pressure in an evolutionary sense as the species adaptations as a whole.

Belief is a survival mechanism. Humans can survive in impossible situations if there is some HOPE things will improve. The nature of HOPE is pragmatic: "Everything will probably turn out okay, but it might not--so, I'll keep a positive attitude to improve the chances."

On the other hand, the red-headed, freckled face step-brother of HOPE is FAITH.

Faith is neurotic belief things will turn out great no matter what facts may mitigate against that outcome. Faith is narrow and deaf. In the face of contradictory evidence, Faith is obstinate and blind.

Perhaps this works only because of the community social support involved in rituals and recitation of creeds and the insistence on orthodoxy. In other words, the Crazy are pronouncing themselves "blessed" whether they are, in fact, in a terrible situation or not.

I remember as a child seeing the movie QUO VADIS. There is a scene where Emperor Nero (Peter Ustinov) is examining the corpses of Christians in the coliseum.

He exclaims with surprise at the faces of the sacrificial victims.

"They're smiling--why are they all smiling?" He screams.

28

PAINTING THEMSELVES INTO A CORNER or WHY was the "GENERATION" teaching started in the 1st place?

by Terry in

setting the scene.

pastor russell died in 1916. those who had 'followed' him were known pejoratively as russellites.

you could call it a 'cult of personality' if you wanted to sneer.

Terry

Thank you. Every once and awhile I get the same feeling we all get

when we see boxes on the top shelf of the closet. The urge to reach up and hoist them off those dusty shelves and lift the lid comes over us.

Of course, it's always stuff we've seen before, but as we age our perspective on same-old-thing changes and a fresh sense of how it all fits into the bigger puzzle seems more nearly possible.

Each time I tread these waters I learn something.

________

The transitions in Russell's life fascinate me. Why? Because he seems like a person who never had any fun. Such a serious face without a smile to be found! I'd guess it was the loss of his doting mother when he was so young. I don't have a feeling for his dad's personality at all.

Was he all business? Was he a fun companion? Did he just go along with anything his son wanted to do? It is all fuzzy how a young man ended up convincing his father to sell the business and invest in End of the World speculation!

Here's another puzzle.

Who was C.T. Russell's best friend? I don't know--do you?

Did he and his friend play jokes on each other? Did they ever get drunk?

Was he always a Nerd? How did he manage to talk a beautiful woman such as Maria into a loveless marriage?

Was it really only a business venture with security for her and a platform for her writing? Did they ever cross the line into passion?

I think--I mean, I guess perhaps these two were really uptight and closed off to carnal expressions. Either that or the marriage was a false pretense on the part of Charlie. Perhaps he will always remain an enigma.

__________

With Joe Rutherford, I think I have a really strong idea of what kind of man he was. His father was a stone cold, hard-nosed farmer. Joe had to work very very hard from the time he was a small boy. But this kid had a burning ambition to be much more than a clone. He wanted to become a lawyer and he put everything he had into achieving that goal. Working, going to school and long hours spent studying demonstrate a driven Type A personality.

This man was cunning and strategic and it paid off for him.
He strikes me as the sort of person a Mob boss would love to hire to handle accounts.

He was ruthless, too. If you got in the way of The Judge, you paid the price. Plotting out his life story is like looking at Bugsy Malone or Al Capone. It seems the only thing that could stop the man was rectal cancer. Just imagine the pain and agony connected to a long slow death of that nature! I almost feel sorry for him as a human being.

I said, "Almost."

29

Diddling, adjusting, changing Doctrines? Why not leave it alone?

by Terry in

i have kept on asking myself why the jw's put targets on themselves by constant diddling with their own doctrines?

why not leave it alone?.

mainstream christianity has fixed teachings.

Terry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zO_Cyho90Y

The first 3 minutes only.

28

PAINTING THEMSELVES INTO A CORNER or WHY was the "GENERATION" teaching started in the 1st place?

by Terry in

setting the scene.

pastor russell died in 1916. those who had 'followed' him were known pejoratively as russellites.

you could call it a 'cult of personality' if you wanted to sneer.

Terry

Zeb: Spiritual guidance? feed the hungry, house the poor, shelter the orphans; do unto each other as ye would have them do unto you....................... and stop forever the practise of making fool predictions!

________________

The form of worship that is pure and undefiled. . .

So foreign to JW mindset.

They have no heart for human beings only invisible rulers and locksetp marching to rules.

29

Diddling, adjusting, changing Doctrines? Why not leave it alone?

by Terry in

i have kept on asking myself why the jw's put targets on themselves by constant diddling with their own doctrines?

why not leave it alone?.

mainstream christianity has fixed teachings.

Terry

"Only those who are truly loyal will remain."
_____________

What is fascinating about that comment is this.

Take two events, 1925 and 1975. Members who left were

looked upon as culled from the herd. This meant those who remained were more devout (i.e. deeper cognitive dissonance.)

The net result of 1975 was an increase rather than a decrease in numbers of hardcore members.

These "shake-ups" are Evolutionary events.
The strong survive and the weak perish.

I sincerely doubt there is a conscious effort just to "mess with" members by changing, altering, modifying, adjusting present "truth".

It's more a question (I think) of piss poor planning and irrational thinking than a diabolical strategm.

29

Diddling, adjusting, changing Doctrines? Why not leave it alone?

by Terry in

i have kept on asking myself why the jw's put targets on themselves by constant diddling with their own doctrines?

why not leave it alone?.

mainstream christianity has fixed teachings.

Terry

I think that you're thinking too narrowly here - and too recently.

_________
The context of my comments are under the specific heading of the Topic and not an academic dissertation on the MYTH of what constitutes a monolithic religion.
________

In my view, there is no such thing as Christianity. That is too general a term. But, most of us speak (for convenience sake) as though there is.
Judaism was sectarian. Christianity even in the first 4 centuries was sectarian. Islam is sectarian. That is certainly historically true.

What makes Jehovah's Witnesses so weirdly individual is the fluidity of its absolute authority in a narrow strip of time (roughly 100+ years.)
(There has been no schism resulting in a Reform Church of JW's etc. as you will see in the Mormon church and other sects. Therefore, all the upheavals in teaching remain under one roof, so to speak.)

The fixation on predicted dates and events is weird because it easily falsifies the premise of God's direction.

Any hack politician knows better than to make definite statements that do not contain plausible deniability later:)

JW's shoot from the hip and pretend the other guy drew first.

29

Diddling, adjusting, changing Doctrines? Why not leave it alone?

by Terry in

i have kept on asking myself why the jw's put targets on themselves by constant diddling with their own doctrines?

why not leave it alone?.

mainstream christianity has fixed teachings.

Terry

I'm not sure what the target of your point is, Joe.

IF it is this: ** (see below)
I'll save us the spelunking in the abyss of calculus as to what constitutes FIXED teachings.
I'm making a comparative evaluation and not an absolute statement.

JW's change their teachings far more often than, say, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics GENERALLY SPEAKING.

I'm suggesting there is a far greater level of academic confidence in those above named denominations as to what Christianity (for then) requires of their members.

The GB members in the Society are human Mood Rings rather than scholars. Whim and whimsy litter the history of changes to beliefs and practices.

One glaring example is Romans 13: 1,2.

Russell's view was that Superior Authorities had the right to require Christians to join the Army and go out onto the battlefield, but he advised that the Christian in uniform "fire over the heads" of the enemy.

Rutherford changed the historic definition of Superior Authorities entirely and summarily to Jehovah God and Jesus Christ. As a result, the Governments were stripped of the right to send Christians into uniform or the battlefield. This cataclysmic overhaul remained in effect until about 1963 when it was--just as summarily--flipped back to the traditional interpretation of Russell's day once again.

However, under Knorr, a secret policy went into effect requiring JW boys to refuse their legally provided Alternate Service. Not because of the Rutherfordesque flip of Romans 13: 1,2--but rather because THEY SAID (the GB) it was a violation of "Christian Neutrality")

This sort of morphology is common to cults and far less common in Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc. "Mainstream" churches.

This is the point I was striving to make. I hope this suffices to clarify.

**______________________
"Mainstream Christianity has FIXED teachings."

I don't think so. The various christian sects and divisions have (as I understand it) a near 2000 year history of being at variance about their teachings and of changing, refining and adapting their teachings.

31

"Ones"

by Joe Grundy in

(i never was a dub).. this is something which has intrigued me for a while.

i don't know whether it's dub-speak, or us-speak.. it's the use of the word 'ones' as in 'interested ones', 'worldly ones', 'disfellowshipped ones' and so on and so on.. in the 'normal world' we would probably use the word 'people'.. thoughts?.

Terry

I might be way out on a limb here, but here goes anyway. . .

I think the leaders of the Watchtower have depersonalized the human being by substituting their o.s. (operating system) and displacing individuality, conscience, curiosity, and intellect.

Consequently, there are no PERSONS in membership.

The Society runs off stats and stats of any and all kinds are only NUMBERS.

So, the short of it is this. JW's are numbers (ones) and not people.

An EX_JW is able finally to say this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0LaT6qVRpg

29

Diddling, adjusting, changing Doctrines? Why not leave it alone?

by Terry in

i have kept on asking myself why the jw's put targets on themselves by constant diddling with their own doctrines?

why not leave it alone?.

mainstream christianity has fixed teachings.

Terry

"As you might expect of utterances of an Almighty Deity, no changes are necessary!"

The fact that changes have been made might lead one to question the existence of an almighty deity and the nature of such utterances - in relation to all religions.

_____________

Religion, in my way of thinking, is like the MARVEL universe. You have a certain set of parameters which all the characters must align with in order to fit the scheme.
(an Almighty Deity, rather than The Almighty Deity.)

For me to speak of Christianity, I have to--from time to time--accept the rules of their mindset in order to be authentic to their logic scheme inside that context (rather than outside the mythos as an external nay-saying critic.)

JW's theology fits inside the CHRISTIAN mythos as Don Quixote inside the romantic fiction universe. They are seemingly idiots with good intentions tilting at windmills for the honor of Dulcinea (Jehovah's honor).

29

Diddling, adjusting, changing Doctrines? Why not leave it alone?

by Terry in

i have kept on asking myself why the jw's put targets on themselves by constant diddling with their own doctrines?

why not leave it alone?.

mainstream christianity has fixed teachings.

Terry

"Mainstream Christianity has FIXED teachings."

I don't think so. The various christian sects and divisions have (as I understand it) a near 2000 year history of being at variance about their teachings and of changing, refining and adapting their teachings.

And what do you include as 'mainstream'?

___________________

Mainstream = not cult

Cults, by reason of their non-orthodoxy, run into problems requiring adjustment.

The Mormons had to have a convenient "Revelation" to allow blacks into the Priesthood, for example.
JW's run into foreign governments accusing them of this and that and the policy changes to avoid conflict.

Catholic Doctrine has remained pretty constant. The changes which have come as a result of Science (apology to Galileo, acceptance of Evolution) and scholarly discovery (acknowledging certain Saints didn't exist) have not shaken core beliefs of Salvation or Magisterium.

Jehovah's Witnesses and the World Wide Church of God, are examples of extreme makeovers. Internal dysfunction forces external modification.

When the taxing of literature came up--the policy changed to "free literature" and probably started a snowball down a mountain somewhere leading eventually to today's ATM's in the Kingdom Hall :)

The Roman Catholic Church remained the same for about a millennium and a half before the Protestant Reformation force them into their own housekeeping.

The Protestant rethink led to denominations perforce of its openness to God's Divine guidance. Sola Scriptura (the man of God, one Bible, Holy Spirit) was a theory which got disproved very quickly! Apparently God "led" 40,000 different truth-oriented directions!

Denominations are like city-states with a larger landscape. Everybody claims to be Christian without each atom, proton, electron being the same configuration on their chart of elements. (To strain a bad analogy).