Posts by slimboyfat

14

PIMO GB members?

by Half banana in

the gb individuals are chosen not by holy spirit as we well know but by being selected for one quality only, that of implaccable loyalty to the watchtower organisation.. to be up there requires the fixation that the org is being used by god -- even though now in the small print they claim they are not divinely guided -- what a laugh, what a puzzle?.

the more i watch their antics the more implausible they seem.

their function: to persuade as many people as possible to conform to their own whacky beliefs.. most jws eventually leave the fold, only one third remain as we understand, so will any of the gb become pimo?.

slimboyfat

On the other hand I think even Raymond Franz took a long time to reject the organisation outright. After all his book is basically an account of his struggle to remain inside the organisation and his eventual expulsion. Even after he left, he still believed a lot of the doctrines, minus the chronology and shunning. So judging by his life course, it seems he really did believe it, even as he was trying to reform JWs, so it’s not a huge leap to assume that most GB members are true believers.

From what I’ve read, the most sceptical GB members may have been the likes of Swingle, Greenlees (who was chucked out) and even president Knorr.

But who really knows? People are complicated and multifarious. No doubt the GB has included the whole range from true believers to compete cynics. It’s possible that GB members even go through phases of belief and unbelief over their careers.

20

I wish all Witness men were like this ...

by vienne in

my intro essay for the new book caused all sorts of off blog controversy.

my writing partner, a retired educator and a witness, responded.

why aren't more witness men like this?

slimboyfat

What is astonishing? Rachel offered her view about recent events on her blog, and I am offering a perspective on those events that I hope will be helpful.

What we know is that JWs have complained that Rachel is too critical of Watchtower in recent posts and that they made this complaint to Bruce who is a JW and the owner of the blog. Those are the facts.

Rachel and Bruce have claimed that these comments were motivated by misogyny. We have been provided with zero evidence for this claim other than the fact that Rachel is a woman and the people complaining are men. Other explanations why they complained to Bruce (that he is the owner of the blog and a fellow JW) are not even entertained.

Instead of engaging in a psychological characterisation of the JWs who complained about the blog, wouldn’t it be more fruitful in any case for Rachel and Bruce to actually respond to the substance of the concerns?

These JWs are no doubt concerned that this history blog has veered into offeringing criticisms of Watchtower that they find unpalatable. They probably wish to pressure Bruce to remove criticisms of Watchtower and maintain support for the “truth”.

I enjoy the truth history blog and I think Bruce and Rachel have done excellent work. I have read both of their books (have you?) and most of their blog, and I look forward to the next volume.

I think their work could only be improved by a more frank and open discussion of the difficulties and complexities of a baptised JW working with a non-JW who has some critical views of Watchtower. How it works and how they settle any differences.

As someone who is very familiar with their work and has followed it for years, I think it should be useful to tell Rachel that I don’t find this “misogyny” label on any JWs who have concerns about her blog either convincing or enlightening. What Rachel does with that feedback is up to her.

20

I wish all Witness men were like this ...

by vienne in

my intro essay for the new book caused all sorts of off blog controversy.

my writing partner, a retired educator and a witness, responded.

why aren't more witness men like this?

slimboyfat

Bruce himself wrote:

Some Witnesses fear what others may write. They do not like even mild criticism.

That seems like best explanation for the complaints from JWs. And the reason they contacted Bruce is because he is a JW and he controls the blog.

If there was any good evidence of misogyny then it’s strange that neither Bruce nor Rachael have quoted a single comment to that effect. They seem to be relying on the idea that any complaint to Bruce about Rachael is in itself misogyny. But it seems rather obvious that if a JW is disturbed about comments on the blog then they are going to complain to the owner of the blog who is a fellow JW, rather than to someone who is not the owner, not a JW, and the source of the critical comments in the first place.

Gender is a red herring, and a convenient way of avoiding facing the real issue here: that a collaboration between a JW and a non-JW probably involves some compromises that will not please everyone. That they are seem presently unwilling to address this issue without weaponising gender as a diversion hardly inspires confidence.

9

The Photo-drama of Creation.

by Lost in the fog in

if anyone is interested in russell's the photo-drama of creation here's a link to the text and picture slides.

.

http://www.thestudiesinthescriptures.com/pages/english/eng%20pd/eng%20pd%2001-9/engpd%201.htm .

slimboyfat

I like the bit where it supports evolution.

20

German got his silver sword

by fastJehu in

on saturday 02-02-2019 german jws got there silver sword.

rumour has it that all of europe received the translation yesterday, because gerrit lösch visited the european branch in selters (germany).

can anyone confirm that?.

slimboyfat

Yes they had special meeting broadcast to KHs yesterday.

20

I wish all Witness men were like this ...

by vienne in

my intro essay for the new book caused all sorts of off blog controversy.

my writing partner, a retired educator and a witness, responded.

why aren't more witness men like this?

slimboyfat

The reason JWs are complaining to Bruce Schulz, who is a baptised JW, about your blog posts is because you have been somewhat critical of Watchtower. They are appealing to him as a JW to maintain orthodoxy, rather that to him as a man to silence a woman. But I guess it is easier to defend against phantom misogyny than it is to tackle head on the complicated (but interesting and important) issues involved in a baptised JW conducting such a project with non-baptised person with some critical views of Watchtower. I guess one way to deal with the tensions involved in that collaboration is to pretend they don’t exist and to label any JW who complains about the blog a misogynist, but I suggest that is not the most productive way of handling the situation.

35

Evidence of a form of telepathy, science and personal experiences.

by Bad_Wolf in

i believe in rational explanations for everything, whether they are understood yet or not.

medication used to be considered 'magic' until understood how it worked.

on the subject of telepathy, for me it's very subtle but has happened many times.

slimboyfat

The burden of proof is on those who insist that this world with its laws and conscious beings can exist without any ultimate intelligence behind it at all. If it’s really true that the world just exists without any cause beyond itself then that’s a magic trick that puts any other miracle or supernatural phenomenon well and truly in the shade.

As Rupert Sheldrake says, a materialist perspective relies on the belief: “give us one free miracle and we'll explain the rest”. The one free miracle being the appearance of the universe and the laws that govern it in the first place. That takes some faith!

35

Evidence of a form of telepathy, science and personal experiences.

by Bad_Wolf in

i believe in rational explanations for everything, whether they are understood yet or not.

medication used to be considered 'magic' until understood how it worked.

on the subject of telepathy, for me it's very subtle but has happened many times.

slimboyfat

The thing about supernatural phenomena is either they are real or they are not.

Maybe telepathy, remote viewing, prophecy and other “miracles” are possible or maybe they are not. It would be remarkable if at least some of the things we now call “supernatural” didn’t turn out to have some basis in fact. Because it would mean we already know the exact limits of what is possible in the world. This claim in itself seems pretty incredible to me.

Reductive marerialists seem to have an obsession with dimissing the reality of anything that science can’t explain. It borders on superstition. But even if we grant materialist assumptions, and agree that only material things exists and have material causes, and there is nothing supernatural. Even if we grant all that, we still need to explain the mysterious fact of existence itself. In other words, even if we grant that there is nothing supernatural in the world, the very fact that the world exists at all is “supernatural”. We can’t explain the laws of nature by a natural process. They just exist, by themselves, or by an infinite mind? Any possibility is deeply mysterious, and supernatural.

In a way it is true that there is nothing supernatural in the world, as such, because everything about the world is deeply supernatural. Not just parts of it, but its very existence, and everything about it.

27

Infiltrated Elders?

by john.prestor in

so i'm watching john cedars commentary on the annual meeting from this last october, and at one point he shows a clip of garrett loesch talking about the struggles jehovah's witnesses faced decades before in the soviet union.

he claimed that police officers, maybe the kgb, infiltrated congregations which met in secret by studying with jehovah's witnesses, getting baptized, and then working their way up to becoming elders.

ceders jokes that this shows what kind of role holy spirit actually plays within body of elders, but another interpretation came to my mind just now.

slimboyfat

JWs have long taught that elders infiltrating the organisation is a fulfilment of bible prophecy. This from the Daniel book published in the late 1990s.

8 Not all who professed to have an interest in serving God during the Cold War years had good motives. The angel had warned: “Many will certainly join themselves to them by means of smoothness.” (Daniel 11:34b) A considerable number showed an interest in the truth but were not willing to make a dedication to God. Yet others who seemed to accept the good news were really spies for the authorities. A report from one land reads: “Some of these unscrupulous characters were avowed Communists who had crept into the Lord’s organization, made a great display of zeal, and had even been appointed to high positions of service.”
9 The angel continued: “And some of those having insight will be made to stumble, in order to do a refining work because of them and to do a cleansing and to do a whitening, until the time of the end; because it is yet for the time appointed.” (Daniel 11:35) The infiltrators caused some faithful ones to fall into the hands of the authorities. Jehovah allowed such things to happen for a refining and a cleansing of his people. Just as Jesus “learned obedience from the things he suffered,” so these faithful ones learned endurance from the testing of their faith. (Hebrews 5:8; James 1:2, 3; compare Malachi 3:3.) They are thus ‘refined, cleansed, and whitened.’

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101999036

26

Remember 1992?

by Tobyjones262 in

anyone remember 1992?

i can remember i was in the cult.

times were changing at a rapid pace.

slimboyfat

I agree 1995 was the turning point for JWs. It was the autumn of that year when the Watchtower announced they were giving up of the generation prediction, and the Awake! dropped its generation purpose statement too. They have never recovered from the loss of confidence following that failure, or come up with a reasonable excuse, or a viable alternative for insisting the end must be near.