looking for an article that has been published within last 1-2 yrs regarding pagan holidays and practices.. the article mentions to some effect that pagan practices that have lost it's pagan connotation were a conscience matter.
something along these lines anyway.. if there is any way i could get a scanned copy that would be great, if not and just the cd version that is just as helpful.. thx.
bsom
Between the lines translations of the articles Blondie posted:
1) GB members and other Bethel big-wigs enjoy traveling to Hawaii for District Conventions. While there, they attend luaus. So, the pagan background is irrelevant.
2) The by-far fastest growing segment, at least in raw numbers, of JWs comes from Latin American countries. Pinatas are highly popular there. Banning pinatas might have an adverse effect on recruitment efforts. Therefore you can safely ignore their pagan background.
what a privilege!!!.
so excited!!!.
praise allah!!!
Is he reasonable, or a total company drone?
I'd love to ask someone higher up, with half a brain, about the "number of truly anoited ones is dwindling" issue.
If the only way for someone to tell if someone else is anointed is to observe them partaking of the emblems, and the number of partakers is virtually unchanged over the past 15 years, on what basis does the society make its statement that "the number of truly anointed ones is dwindling"?
It's a nice little reasoning point, no reference to "apostate" material necessary, just a little question you've been pondering ever since that point was re-emphasized in the Special Assembly Day.
i`ve been out of the org for a while now and im perplexed about why there is such a lack of genuine live in the cong`s.
when you think about it, they are taught to exemplify jc, they are taught to exemplify the 'god of love'.
the brothers are constantly encouraged at ms & elder meetings to deal with the brothers 'lovingly'.
When you think about it, they are taught to exemplify JC, they are taught to exemplify the 'god of love'. The brothers are constantly encouraged at MS & elder meetings to deal with the brothers 'lovingly'.
Of course, in the next breath, they go on to give a definition of "love" that is twisted beyond recognition.
"We show love to our neighbors by avoiding all social interaction with them, and limiting our contact preaching efforts...Disfellowshipping is a loving provision, so shunning your own family is showing love....God is so loving, he wants to end poverty, sickness, injustice, etc. etc. He will do this by slaughtering 99.9% of the world's population...how fine it is show love for God by watching your child hemorrhage to death instead of allowing a blood transfusion"
With constant messages about this kind of love, is it any wonder that JWs claim to be "loving", yet act the way they do?
sunday, may 28, 2006, is the fourth anniversary from when a threshold was crossed into uncharted waters.
on may 28, 2002, the u.s. television news program, dateline, publicized to millions of viewers the facts about watchtower's deceitful child abuse policies which protect pedophiles who target and molest jws' vulnerable children.
subsequently, this subject caught the interest of media throughout the world who, through careful investigation, substantiated the allegations made on dateline.
All in attendance were told about the forthcoming Dateline program and told that the allegations were TRUE. However, they were instructed to deny the allegations, if asked.
I'm speechless.
Any idea on how many of those elders, MS, etc. who were at that meeting have since stepped down?
i have been doing some research recently on the society's most recent teachings and statements about the united nations.
as we all know, the society has made some very extreme, very negative statements about the united nations in the past, even as recently as 1999: *** dp chap.
15 p. 269 par.
In the past, it was clearly stated that the United Nations itself would be responsible for the destruction of world religion.
Just curious, did you find any quotes that unambiguously proclaim this? I agree that the language on the UN has softened somewhat, but now that I think about it, I don't recall any explicit statements to this effect. I don't have my CD handy here for a search.
Not sure how "the United Nations itself" could accomplish much of anything. What is the UN, if you don't include the nations which compose it?
or other stupid rules for women?
ours were contingent on the spirituality of the sister and, if she was married or an elder's wife, etc.
then, she got more leeway.
Aren't there stories of sisters having to kneel at the Kingdom Hall, and if the hem of their skirt/dress, didn't hit the floor, they had to go bavk home & change? I never saw this, but it sounds familiar.
i have this memory of going to a da back in the mid to late seventies -- i was about 8 years old -- and there was a special field service campaign.
seems to me that one of the assembly days was shortened and everyone was given a service kit -- some tracts in a plastic bag -- and everyone was to go out and preach for the remainder of the afternoon.
i remember going with my dad to get in line to pick up the bag of tracts and then going into the neighborhood around the stadium to witness.
Is it just me, or does the Society's old idea (take a Friday and invite people around the DC location to Sunday's talk) make about a billion times more sense than their campaign for this year (3 weeks in advance of the DC, invite people who live anywhere from 50-300 miles away form the convention site to make the 1 to 6 hour one-way trip to listen to the assembly)?
i have this memory of going to a da back in the mid to late seventies -- i was about 8 years old -- and there was a special field service campaign.
seems to me that one of the assembly days was shortened and everyone was given a service kit -- some tracts in a plastic bag -- and everyone was to go out and preach for the remainder of the afternoon.
i remember going with my dad to get in line to pick up the bag of tracts and then going into the neighborhood around the stadium to witness.
I remember!
It was in 1978. I was just a lad. We went to some neighborhood around the Pontiac Silverdome.
As I recall, I didn't much care for it.
finding jehovahs witnesses faith.
i have a question for serious participants of this forum: .
what do you deem the most reliable means for determining the various convictions held by the population of jehovahs witnesses in terms of the range of what individuals within that group consider as core tenets of their faith?.
james_woods,
Great minds think alike!
finding jehovahs witnesses faith.
i have a question for serious participants of this forum: .
what do you deem the most reliable means for determining the various convictions held by the population of jehovahs witnesses in terms of the range of what individuals within that group consider as core tenets of their faith?.
Never really thought about it before.
One way that occurs to me (if JWs were not so secretive and paranoid) would be to somehow construct a large enough population of JWs to be able to form a random sample. Then you could poll that random sample, and extrapolate results.
However, given that being paranoid and secretive and not ever daring to give your true opinion, if it happens to conflict with official doctrine, goes hand-in-glove with being a JW, that is not a realistic method.
Given the paranoia of voicing any deep concern to any "insider", and the near-manaical belief that the image one must present to "outsiders" is one of a blissful "spiritual paradise", getting straight answers to any question would be exceedingly difficult for anyone.
Perhaps if there were enough insider "secret apostates" in enough locations within the congregations, and their efforts were coordinated, enough observations could be done to summarize something. You would need to coordinate well--what information to look for, how to go about it, making sure a good cross-section of JW demographics was covered, etc.
This idea has occurred to me: If the Society were "smart" (something I don't foresee happening any time soon), they would proclaim some sort of "general amnesty day". They would encourage any and all to voice whatever fears, concerns, quibbles, whatever, on that day, with no fear of repercussions. Then, with that more or less accurate barometer of where their deepest problems are, they could go about fixing them.
But I don't think the Society really wants to know. The cynical side of me says they don't even care.
