cathyk, that is so cool! You're like a Witness fan like others are Elvis fans.
Yeah, except without the fried pb & banana sandwiches.
"Elvis isn't dead -- he just went home." -- Men in Black
Cathy
cathyk
JoinedPosts by cathyk
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37
Never a JW, what makes you post here?
by Mrs Smith inin some of the post i read, people say that they have never been a jw.
what makes them post on this forum?
my only guess would be because they have family or friends that are.. .
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cathyk
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What Happened to the Downloaded Info from Kents Site?
by NewLight2 ini thought that someone(s) were working on getting that info back up on the internet.
if it is up and running, where is it at?
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cathyk
There's a cool site I heard about on an NPR science program: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php. It's got a function called "The Wayback Machine," named after a Saturday morning cartoon, "Sherman and Peabody," about a boy and his dog who go back in history and help historical figures get it right. :-) If you plug in "watchtower.observer.org" in the search box, you'll get a snapshot of the site in various years, from 1998 to 2005.
Cathy
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Never a JW, what makes you post here?
by Mrs Smith inin some of the post i read, people say that they have never been a jw.
what makes them post on this forum?
my only guess would be because they have family or friends that are.. .
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cathyk
I'm just interested in the history and theology from an outsider standpoint. I don't have any family or friends who are JWs. I became interested in it during the run-up to 1975, when I was in high school. They were all over the place, knocking at our doors practically every other Saturday. I started to collect the books and magazines, etc.
I found discussion sites like this in the early days of the Internet, and found the stories of life inside the movement fascinating.
Cathy
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Book: The Inside Story of Jehovah's Witnesses, Stevenson, 1968
by betterdaze inthe inside story of jehovah's witnesses .
stevenson, william charles, 1936- .
publisher: hart pub.
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cathyk
Just following up, in case anyone's interested. The British and American editions don't seem to have any differences other than the dust jackets and the preliminary page ordering (half-title and title pages, dedication, foreword, etc.). British spelling conventions are retained in the American edition.
The British dust jacket has a tarot card with lightning striking a tower and two people falling from it (Harry Potter fans, take note: "The Lightning-Struck Tower" ). The American dust jacket (which my copy is missing, but I remember it, vaguely) is an illustration of a man handing out one of the magazines, either The Watchtower or Awake!; I can't remember which one.
Cathy
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Could I please see a :Vow"
by Doug Mason ineach member of the religious order of ordained ministers belonging to the worldwide order of special full-time servants of jehovah's witnesses has taken a vow of poverty.. i would like to see a scan (jpg, gif, etc) of the "vow" they take (personal names blackened, of course).. in the meantime, while waiting for a scan, i would like to know the wording of the vow.. the watch tower has used the presence of this religious order to claim financial benefits provided to religious bodies, particularly taxation relief (see, for example: http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/tc4708a.htm).
so this shows one purpose of "the order".. it is not clear how the orders existence will impact on the organizations evolution.
change is inevitable, with time-related issues pressing on the organization, particularly those related to 1914, 1919 and 1935.. the organization also has to address its dwindling numbers of anointed (the 144,000) and that virtually none has any impact on the teachings.
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cathyk
They used to have a different view of "vows of poverty":
*** w73 10/1 p. 607 Questions From Readers ***Nor are Scriptural vows to be compared with the so-called ‘monastic vows’ that persons in later centuries were required to make in order to gain admittance into certain religious orders of church organizations. Those vows of ‘chastity, poverty and obedience’ placed those vowing under obligation to the religious orders and served those orders as a means of exercising control over their adherents. Higher church officials could absolve persons from certain types of vows, but with some vows release could be gained only through the titular head of the church, as in the papal arrangement. These, then, are not Scriptural vows, for Scriptural vows were entirely spontaneous and personal, between the individual and God. Furthermore, under the Law, although a woman’s vow might be disallowed by her husband, or father (within a certain time after being made), in other cases no human could grant one release from a Scriptural vow.—Num. 30:3-15.
Even more interesting:
***w828/15p.15InsightontheNews***Individuals were told that they could keep on with their secular employment yet be tax free by starting their own church chartered by the Life Science Church. They could then either donate up to 50 percent of their earnings to the church and substantially reduce their taxes or take a vow of poverty and give all their earnings and property to the church. The church would then pay all expenses and the individual would be tax exempt, it was claimed. The court rejected such argument. "The ruling," said Daniel Kurtz of the state attorney general’s office, "would encourage the state to pursue other organizations and individuals seeking tax exemption under the guise of religion."
True Christians would not want to take deductions that are not allowed by their governments (as ministers or otherwise), but as Romans 13:7 counsels they will render to "him who calls for the tax, the tax." They do not use their ministry as a means for evading taxes.
As a Catholic, I found the changes in terminology ("Religious Order of Jehovah's Witnesses" [!]) highly amusing ...
Cathy
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31
Book: The Inside Story of Jehovah's Witnesses, Stevenson, 1968
by betterdaze inthe inside story of jehovah's witnesses .
stevenson, william charles, 1936- .
publisher: hart pub.
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cathyk
Cathy,
Are there any differences between the editions, apart from the title?
Slim
Sorry to be late with this, but I was out of town. I haven't really done a page by page comparison, but I would assume that American spelling would have been substituted for British spelling in the U. S. A. edition. Also the sexier title. Now I'm curious ... If I get a spare moment, I'll do a comparison. Cathy www.oldlighthousebooks.com
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Book: The Inside Story of Jehovah's Witnesses, Stevenson, 1968
by betterdaze inthe inside story of jehovah's witnesses .
stevenson, william charles, 1936- .
publisher: hart pub.
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cathyk
I've got both editions of this book, the British and American, in my personal collection. I do believe it was the first ex-JW account of Witness belief and practice that I ever read. I read it just before 1975, when things were really ramped-up. He's remarkably even-handed for an ex-JW. While his predictions for the ultimate failure of the religion due to the 1975 date were off, he still manages to provide an insight into the mindset of the time.
I wonder where he is today, if he's still around. It would be interesting to hear his take on things now.
Cathy
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Something creepy just happened here.........................
by Warlock inas some of you know, my office is a converted garage.
the day has been fairly still here, and all of a sudden the front door started shaking like someone was trying to open it, as if it was locked.
when i heard it start to shake i looked up and the door was moving as if someone was trying to get in.
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cathyk
Another possible cause: check tomorrow's newspapers and see if there was a small earthquake. That happened to us once in Virginia, too -- it lasted longer than the other booms. Very scary.
Cathy
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38
Something creepy just happened here.........................
by Warlock inas some of you know, my office is a converted garage.
the day has been fairly still here, and all of a sudden the front door started shaking like someone was trying to open it, as if it was locked.
when i heard it start to shake i looked up and the door was moving as if someone was trying to get in.
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cathyk
Do you live near a military installation? We used to live near Ft. Belvoir, and we weren't too far from Quantico (the Marine base) either. A short while after moving in, I was scared out of my wits when there was a BOOM! and the whole house shook, rattling the windows. I ran to look outside, but none of my neighbors seemed to be bothered. One later told me that one or both of the bases used to test ammo during drills. There was also the occasional sonic boom from military aircraft.
Otherwise, just keep the lights on and don't go into dark cellars.
Cathy
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cathyk
Leolaia,
the Society loves citing the editorial in the New York World as proof of the success of the 1914 prediction (a reference to this piece occurs throughout the Society's present-day literature on 1914), omitting the fact that the editorial misrepresented the actual pre-1914 claims.
I just had a JW bring this up to me recently. Is there a copy of this article online? I've done a search, but maybe haven't done it correctly. How does it misrepresent the claims?
He also mentioned how Jason BeDuhn (he didn't give me the name, but I found it easily enough) considers the Kingdom Interlinear the "best interlinear" Greek NT. My immediate unvoiced thought was, "Well, that's one in a row."
cathyk