BluesBrother

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Posts by BluesBrother

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  7

  Terminal Lucidity & the Nature of Consciousness

  by Sea Breeze in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  no, this isn't about suddenly becoming aware of how much you hate airports.

  it is about people with profound brain impairments like mental retardation, alzheimer's, stroke and dementia (often in a coma) suddenly becoming normal and lucid shortly before passing away.

  this is important because the wt teaches that consciousness is a function of the physical brain.

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  BluesBrother

  The WT seems somewhat unique among religious groups to insist that there is no consciousness after death.

  Actually some other groups teach that the soul is unconscious awaiting a future call. The modern Seventh-day Adventists for one
  
  
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  99

  Can you be a JW who does not have the GB as their leader?

  by DoubtingThomas in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am.. they are just fellow brothers, old and getting senile.... but enlightened, despite all the whining.....

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  BluesBrother

  I can certainly relate to a lot that DoubtingThomas says. Realising that the Watchtower is wrong is no reason to lose faith in God & Jesus.

  A criticism hurled at me before now is that I should respect the ones who taught me about the Scripture... but that does not mean I have to follow all the things that they have reasoned out and proved to be in error.

  Can you be a JW and not follow the GB? ... Well you can certainly witness to Jehovah if you like, but can you BE one of that Organisation known internationally as Jehovah’s Witnesses? No , as their written statements clearly show.

  Being a Dub is all about loyalty, that is not to God but loyalty to the Organisation and the GB.
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  30

  JW Broadcasting reeks of desperation

  by oldskool in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  again, i'm a decade removed from the faith.

  i'm catching up now, and can't believe what i'm seeing.. i get that jw leadership faced a dilemma.

  there is no intellectual apparatus within the faith.

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  BluesBrother

  I very much enjoyed Oldschool’s post and everything he said is born our even more so today...
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  17

  Can you get disfellowship for kissing a person of the same sex?

  by pistolpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i found this on exjwreddit.

  a pimo elder is in the middle of an event where a former co allegedly kissed a brother from another hall.. the co denied it so the other elders are frustrated because they can't have a judicial meeting.

  if true, can he be disfellowshipped?

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  BluesBrother

  I say no. Kissing is not an act of sexual immorality, not Pornea. I know you can be d/f’d for viewing extreme porn but this is different.

  in the Bible there are instances of same sex affectionate kisses.

  Certainly a man would be strongly counselled , removed from any responsibility but I can’t see grounds for d/f … until he is found to have gone further…….
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  8

  2022 Letter Requesting Child Labor for WT Property Maintenance

  by Smiles in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  was a letter read to all congregations requesting parents with children volunteer together to perform maintenance labour at wt properties?

  .

  can anyone confirm?.

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  BluesBrother

  Sisters? When I was a young boy I was asked to help the Literature servant. At the time she was a sister…. And did it very well. There were not enough brothers in our small cong.

  Youngsters at K. Hall maintenance? Pre covid the locals were told to have a maintenance weekend when they would spruce it up. A few years back fathers would bring along their boys who mucked in. Later though for “ health and safety “ the work was limited to smaller teams of capable men.

  Are they going backwards?
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  87

  From the WTBS to... CHURCHS???

  by DoubtingThomas in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  why?????

  ?.

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  BluesBrother

  I haven’t, but I can understand why one might.

  Some dubs have an visceral hatred of “ false religion “ . Others do not feel it so much. Many ex Witnesses fall out of love with the WTBT Society but still maintain a faith in God and Jesus . It follows that they seek to express that faith by looking for another religion.
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  40

  More cracks in the dam - WTS pleading for elders "in their early 20s"

  by FFGhost in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have another post here about how the wts is reeling from covid, as reflected in their abysmally catastrophic service report:.

  https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/6315842470936576/annual-service-report-yet-another-analysis-big-trouble-wts.

  here's another rupture showing.. in the latest "announcements and reminders" to elders, there is a paragraph with these sentences:.

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  BluesBrother

  I was appointed as elder in my late twenties, I felt inadequate and I was. A week later I was taking a Ministry School in the back room .My first job was to give public counsel to a man much older and I thought a better speaker than me. I just knew it was not right.

  If they are having to lower the bar for appointment age it betrays that they have a problem.
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  25

  Annual service report - yet another analysis - big trouble for the WTS

  by FFGhost in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  there's already been a couple of threads on the 2021 report with insightful comments, but i'm vain enough to want to start my own topic with some additional thoughts..... as others on the other thread noted, it's useful to compare the 2021 numbers not only to 2020 but also 2019 (the last non-pandemic report).. there are some really troubling (if you're a wt headquarters guy) news in the latest report.. 1) baptisms plummet.

  2021 - 171,393. baptisms dropped 20% in 2020, and 30% more in 2021. the total drop from 2019 to 2021 is an amazing 44%.. one could argue that without in-person assemblies and conventions you'd expect baptisms to drop.

  but....if someone really wants to get baptized, jws will find a way.

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  BluesBrother

  I am not so sure that “it has never been easier to count time” . For some maybe but I know devout believing Witnesses who cannot bring themselves to write a letter . Whenever I did it in my dub days I found it incredibly boring and the notion that I was just counting time killed any motivation. Those Witnesses, older ones , admit they have slipped into inactivity. It remains to be seen if they can be reactivated in the future.
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  16

  The Watchtowers

  by BluesBrother in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  edit .. i messed up the title, on this touchscreen tablet and now i can’t edit it !

  the title should be “ the watchtower’s (sort of) apology for 1975 ….. sorry.

  january 1st 1976, i remember that day when i heard a radio disc jockey gleefully announce that the world had not ended as jehovah’s witnesses had said it would .

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  BluesBrother

  Edit .. I messed up the title, on this touchscreen tablet and now I can’t edit it !

  The title should be “ The Watchtower’s (sort of) Apology for 1975 ….. sorry.

  January 1st 1976, I remember that day when I heard a radio disc jockey gleefully announce that the world had not ended as Jehovah’s Witnesses had said it would . Without doubt the Watchtower Society had egg on it’s face in the early part of 1976.

  As for us, we simply repeated that we had never set a definite day, but a time period and we were certain that it would come, any time now……… but weeks turned into months and months became years and even the most vocal of our number were not talking about ‘75 anymore.

  Then in 1980 the Society printed this article. The title “ Choosing The Best Way Of Life” did not betray the impact of the admission that lay within .

  Watchtower March 15 1980. Par 4 - 7

  “Those who have tried to keep God’s judgment time “close in mind” have, on more than one occasion throughout history, become overly eager for that day’s arrival, in their own minds trying to rush the arrival of the desired events……..

  In modern times such eagerness, commendable in itself, has led to attempts at setting dates for the desired liberation from the suffering and troubles that are the lot of persons throughout the earth. With the appearance of the book Life Everlasting —in Freedom of the Sons of God, and its comments as to how appropriate it would be for the millennial reign of Christ to parallel the seventh millennium of man’s existence, considerable expectation was aroused regarding the year 1975. There were statements made then, and thereafter, stressing that this was only a possibility. Unfortunately, however, along with such cautionary information, there were other statements published that implied that such realization of hopes by that year was more of a probability than a mere possibility. It is to be regretted that these latter statements apparently overshadowed the cautionary ones and contributed to a buildup of the expectation already initiated.“……..

  In its issue of July 15th 1976 The Watchtower commenting on the inadvisability of setting our sights on a certain date, stated: “If anyone has been disappointed through not following this line of thought, he should now concentrate on adjusting his viewpoint, seeing that it was not the word of God that failed or deceived him and brought disappointment, but that his own understanding was based on wrong premises.” In saying “anyone,” The Watchtower included all disappointed ones of Jehovah’s Witnesses, hence including persons having to do with the publication of the information that contributed to the buildup of hopes centred on that date…Nevertheless, there is no reason for us to be shaken in faith in God’s promises. ”

  (End of quote)

  So there we had it , in our minds the Society had apologised for leading us up the garden path . As believers what else could we do but “keep calm and carry on” , so we did…… for years and years
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  29

  We are now around 25 years past the point when Armageddon was to arrive as PROMISED!

  by nowwhat? in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  absolute worst case scenario, the last of the generation that saw the events of 1914 would have died off would be in the mid to late 1990's!

  so we were told in the 1980's!

  so now we 3/4 of another generation past that!.

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  BluesBrother

  25 years late? Come on , it was originally expected in 1914 which makes it 108 years late. There is only so long that you can keep waiting for the bus before you give up and start walking…🤔