i met my jw wife about 5 years ago.
she da'd shortly after we met and like most people i thought it was terribly strange and wrong that her family shunned her.
for the first two years of our marriage my wife would call her parents on a fairly regular basis.
That was one of the funniest things i have read about shunning.
I am a bit worried about being d'd, as the elders are in a bit of a fluster about me at the moment. I called an old friend who was d'd several years ago. She said being shunned could actually be far better for me, it would help me move on. Reading your thread makes me think she may be right.
could the watchtower and the jehovah's witnesses survive the discarding of their 1914 doctrine?
the doctrine that in 1914 the end of the gentile times took place, jesus took up rule in heaven.
for some reason the jws think the outbreak of world war i in 1914 is proof their prophetic calculations were correct.
You make me laugh Scholar. I have a friend like you in my congregation. A complete tosser, but oh so amusing. You should be a lawyer, facts are irrelevant, it is all about defending your client at any cost.
many people would say they are a cult, what are your reasons for thinking they are a cult?.
a created a thread a while ago on an idea of what a cult is http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/96309/1.ashx.
do you think it is the jehovah's witnesses as a whole a cult?
Rick Ross uses the term 'high control group', possibly more accurate and less offensive.
One aspect of a cult is to have a head. Originally it was Russell, then Rutherford, now it is the Governing Body. GB may not be a man, but shares the same power and blind adoration.
Interestingly the Watchtower once refered to the Catholic Church as a cult. If the Watchtower can sling mud, they should expect to have some slung back.
there was a statement in a 1997 awake that i see people quoting on the internet that is trying to imply 4.9% of jws are divorced compared to half of worldly people.
i have found some statistics that prove that this is quite a deception.
awake 1997 september 8 p.11 a people taught to love.
A couple of you made a good point the stats are also skewed because of disfellowshipping members that are engaged in wrongdoing. Many that do get divorced are subsequently d'd for fornication.
It is like saying 0% of JWs smoke. Thats because they are d'd if they do become smokers. A look at how many children raised as witnesses end up smoking is a more interesting statistic, but virtually impossible to find out.
there was a statement in a 1997 awake that i see people quoting on the internet that is trying to imply 4.9% of jws are divorced compared to half of worldly people.
i have found some statistics that prove that this is quite a deception.
awake 1997 september 8 p.11 a people taught to love.
The only national rate that i could find is from the US from a phone survey of 55000 people.
The divorce rate for US adults was 9% in 1990 and JW's was slightly higher at 11%.
The divorce rate for US adults was 9% in 2001 and JW's was slightly lower at 6%.
I dont know why the stats changed so much for JW's, it may have been slightly inaccurate due to being a small sample size of JW's, or maybe all the divorced ones got sick of celibacy and took off.
The Aus stats are more accurate because they are poll stats of the whole population, and count anyone who has ever been divorced. It was only 5.5%, lower than the US because it includes children.
this is what my dad told me .
i mentioned how i didn't want to attend a congregation where people were claiming to do good works in the name of god and knowing that they were doing opposite.
he says " well, when the last days come.. when ever that is... jehovah saves groups not individuals" well what we're in the wrong group dad?
How does the scripture go "this means everlasting life, belonging to the WTS" John 17:3
Or that other one " whoever believes in the WTS may have eternal life." John 3:14-15
The WTS is the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. John 11:25-26
My sheep hear the WTS voice, and I know them, and they follow the WTS; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. John 10:27-28
thanks old soul and others so much.. as a newbie i have so much to tell, but right now i must tell of my current situation.
i am a "family head" and have a wife and son.
i gradually realized the truth about the truth when my son kept asking really good questions i couldn't answer.
I admire you for the stand you are taking.
I would suggest that you need to have faith in you son. If he asked questions that you could not answer it shows he is a thinker and will not be swayed to easily.
You just need to be there for him to make sure things do not get out of control and to monitor his behaviour. Different organisations have put out many sensible booklets on how to talk to your kid about drugs and how to notice signs if there could be a problem.
Don't forget that many Witness kids do drugs. My pioneer partner was smoking and dealing marijuana while he was still pioneering ( I didnt even know until after he was disfellowshipped) and another JW i grew up with became addicted to Cocaine and ended up committing suicide. Fear of Jehovah does not stop people doing drugs, it has to come from proper education and family support.
there was a statement in a 1997 awake that i see people quoting on the internet that is trying to imply 4.9% of jws are divorced compared to half of worldly people.
i have found some statistics that prove that this is quite a deception.
awake 1997 september 8 p.11 a people taught to love.
There was a statement in a 1997 Awake that i see people quoting on the internet that is trying to imply 4.9% of JWs are divorced compared to half of worldly people. I have found some statistics that prove that this is quite a deception.
Awake 1997 September 8 p.11 A People Taught to Love
“That hate can be replaced with love is illustrated by a survey taken in 1994 of 145,958 of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany. … By applying unselfish love in their marriages, Jehovah’s Witnesses achieve stable relationships. In some countries one marriage out of every two or three ends in divorce. But the above-mentioned survey indicated that presently only 4.9 percent of the Witnesses are divorced or separated from their mates. Not to be forgotten, however, is that a goodly number of these were divorced before they became Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
This is a deceptive use of statistics, and is trying to make a comparison of totally different statistics. 50% of people are not divorced. For example, In Australia only 5.5% of "worldly" people are divorced, quite similar to the 4.9% of German Witnesses.
I have an explaination of the why the statistics are deceptive at http://jwfacts.com/index_files/Page381.htm for anyone that is interested in tedious figures. For those who hate figures take my word for it, this is another case of the Watchtower using simple statements that are taken by the average JW as fact, which are in reality a gross distortion of the truth.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/20/90830/1.ashx
hi, im new to this site.
i use to believe in jw and i guess i always did but just lost faith and left it for a long time.
I used to be 100% convinced JW's were the only true religion, because I studied the Watchtower endlessly. It was not until I compared it to what other religions believe that I could see the dishonesty and inaccuracies. It is important that people in other religions are just as sincere about finding truth as JW's, and so have a good scriptural reasons for what they believe.
JW's know Watchtower doctrine very well, unfortunately Watchtower doctrine is quite simple and where it deviates from mainstream Christianity is usually wrong.
A simple look at the history shows why. Russell had no great religious knowledge, yet started a new religion by pasting together the bits he liked from other religions, something he admited to himself. When Russell died Rutherford discarded many of Russells teachings, calling many Satanic and introduced his own. This shows that Holy Spirit did not direct the religion, it was just the ideas of untrained men.
In general JW's are well intentioned, but it can be a dangerous religion. Extreme reliance on rules, the hypocritical stand on blood, and the extremely damaging using of disfellowshipping makes being a JW potentially damaging to a person in the long term.
I have posted some of the changes and some of the inaccuracies that i found with a little bit of research at www.jwfacts.com
i am sure that most of you here are familiar with psalms 83:18. .
so, whats the skinny?
what is the christian god's name?
That is a simplistic answer based around JWs trying to make the bible fit their doctrine. As has been clearly stressed, there is ample evidence that Jesus did not use YHWH. So making the the fathers name known does not mean telling everyone how to say Jehovah.
To make Gods name known meant to make people aware of who God is. Very similar in meaning to the Witness phrase 'what sort of name are you making with God'? Here it does not mean 'does god know your name?' but rather 'what sort of person does God know you to be.?'
