jws have a unique interpretation of the seven kings of revelation.
they of course refer to roman rulers, but the wt believe they represent certain 'world powers'.. the problem with these world powers is how arbitrary they are, not to mention the fact that none of them truly were world powers, in fact none of them even covered the entirety of europe, and the anglo-american world power isn't even a distinct entity.. then there are all of the world powers that are left out for convenience, many of which were far bigger.
the mongolian empire and the ottoman empire were both bigger than half of the chosen world powers, such as medo-persia.. has anyone ever taken this topic up with jws?
Similar to Sir82, the world powers only count those that directly affected the Israelites, with 3 being named in Daniel. Rome and the "Anglo-American" world powers went on to affect Christians. There is a vast missing gap from Zenobia to Britain. JW's don't seem to care about the 2,000 year gap from Jesus to Russell, which they dismiss as the virgins sleeping.
I have some information touching on this at https://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/blog/daniel-prophecy-history.php
in recent weeks, a grizzled old man, obviously harmless, has been engaging with a nice lady as she regularly stands by her cart displaying watchtower material.. on monday, she eagerly wanted to know what this old man thought of the book she gave him, "what does the bible really teach?".
when this old man posed some questions, she was very keen for him to write them down.. she also promised to provide facts that earthquakes proved we are living in the last days.. anyway, to make a short story longer, the old man drafted questions and observations on the topics that were covered.. would you please criticise the stuff that this old man has drafted for his next encounter.
any help, anything at all, is most keenly looked for.
Are you planning to give her that document in all its colourful glory? Quite impressive.
Have you asked her what specifically convinced her it is the truth? You can frame it that every religious person thinks their religion is the one, what is it about JWs that convinces her. The reason I ask is because you document questions both the Bible and JW doctrine. Is it the Bible or Watchtower that you could more easily undermine?
the next time a jw brings up a natural disaster or severe weather event as proof of the last days, and they preface it by reciting a fact they heard on the news like, (just for the sake of example) 'it's the worst earthquake in 70 years' or 'the worst plague in 200' years', (you get the picture), then simply reply: "oh, so that means that ____ years ago there was one that was worse, right?".
i did this twice.
both times got the same response:.
That is a good point to make.
Media reports are generally poorly presented. Often a headline will be that “... rates are going up” without referencing the timeframe. Also it is significant if it is a reference to a number or percentage.
By most measures, things have improved significantly over the last few centuries.
my husband was baptized at the recent 2018 convention in south africa ....... he was very annoyed that his non-believing wife did not attend the baptism....... but i think he received pressure from his jw father & elders as to why his wife was not attending ....... anyway ..... it's really water off my back .
i wanted to know what privileges you get as a baptized jw man , as i saw a message from one of the elders at his cong , congratulating him on his baptism and to earning more privileges ..... what are these privileges the elder is speaking about ,,,,, .
i don't feel like asking my husband as it just lands up in a stupid fight ..... or a long winded explanation ..... thanks .
Privilege is used to make people feel better about being forced to do hours a week of unpaid, menial labour. As a man he can work his way up to some new titles too
He is now in line to be a servant - Ministerial Servant.
Then he can progress to being an Elder or Shepherd of the Flock. These Shepherds get to spend many hours a week working for free, preparing talks and listing to people’s problems.
The top role is to be the Slave class, which is a total misnomer, as they are anything but slaves, they are the ones that get to Lord it over everyone else.
former governing body assistant howie tran has shared his bethel vow of poverty contract.
it reads rather culty.
i think clause number 9 is particularly worrying...to adhere to, not the bible alone, but also the watchtower literature and the governing body.
I worked when I was at bethel, doing a few income tax returns and accounting. Earnt a couple of thousand dollars. I asked for permission from a Branch Committee member, who gave me verbal permission, provided it didn’t interfere with my Bethel work and congregation duties.
the financial times had an article with the above question.
the author asked various people to answer the question.. https://www.ft.com/content/169705e4-b4dd-11e8-b3ef-799c8613f4a1.
while i was not interviewed, if i was asked this question i would say that i wish i had known in 1975, when i was 18, that i was raised in a cult and that the continued focus on armageddon over my lifetime was a cruel joke.
Somewhat the opposite to this question, but I used to think that if I was still a JW at 75 and looked back on my life, would I be proud of who I was. I realised I’d be ashamed that I never had the strength to leave. That is what made me realise I should leave and face the loss of family, rather than get old and face my own shame of staying.
the september broadcast opens up with a story of 80 yr old brother geoff who gave up been in a band all them years ago.
fast forward to 2018 and we have a world renown tennis player and jw as far as we’re told.. so where some are encouraged to leave the world and it’s futile pursuits of fame and fortune, others are not.
or even punished for their behaviour on court or for been photographed with their country’s flag where others have been executed for refusing to salute flags.
A brother I knew turned down a career with an Australian basketball team (I know, not quite US standard) as he was studying and got baptised instead.
Prince, particularly in later years, acted in a manner at his concerts that few JWs would get away with.
As far as I’m aware, Serena was never baptised, so little can be done to stop her giving glory to Jehovah for her wins. Publicity nevertheless that helps JWs become known
I agree that the situation of Prince in particular makes mockery of experiences of brothers that felt compelled to give up fame based careers for their Watchtower beliefs.
i did my own extensive research as i was getting out, and by exploring actual changes and mentions of core doctrine, i learned how it came about that the gb teach that only they know the truth and only they get holy spirit.
i was checking if jwfacts had it, and although they mention many older articles, it seems they didn't realize they taught there was no holy spirit.
this was a real big eye opener for me, so thought i'd share it, and curious if any of you knew about this yourselves????.
i had two episodes of visiting exjw websites:one time around 2007 when i just googled "jehovah´s witnesses" and dared to look at those sites.
i was scared and i promised myself i would never come back to them.
however, that one didn´t really count.the moment that woke me up was this:i got to know that whitney heichel was a jw and murdered by another jw, because i overheard that conversation in a kingdom hall.i looked up the news and in one of the news comments, there was one where an exjw was complaining that they were hijacking her funeral and they were really trying to downplay the fact that her murderer was a jw... and then it said "visit jwfacts.com"... which i did.and the rest... is history.what exactly got you onto an apostate website when you woke up?
I forgot to add that a bit of the story behind http://quotes.watchtower.ca. That was a very influential site, as it just contained Watchtower quotes with almost no commentary. In such simple fashion, it showed some of the shocking teachings of the past, and the changes over time. Watchtower took the owner to court over copyright, that the quotes were intended to make them look stupid and hence defame the organization, and because he could not legally use the domain watchtower. They were unlikely to win on copyright or defamation, but probably could have made him hand over the domain. The owner was unable to pay to defend himself, and unwilling to take the risk of being sued, so shut down the site. Immediately a number of people created copies of the site and loaded them at new urls. It was a good lesson to Watchtower that they are unable to keep information about them off the internet, and chasing individuals made them look bad, similar to what happened to Scientology.
Many users on this forum said how http://quotes.watchtower.ca. was the first site to help them, as they found it less intimidating to just read Watchtower quotes, instead of any additional apostate commentary. As a result, I used the site and the quotes contained there as the basis for a new section of jwfacts devoted just to Watchtower quotes at https://jwfacts.com/watchtower/quotes/quotes.php, and have built on that over the years. It has turned out to be useful for both JWs in the first stage of leaving and also people and groups researching the religion.
i had two episodes of visiting exjw websites:one time around 2007 when i just googled "jehovah´s witnesses" and dared to look at those sites.
i was scared and i promised myself i would never come back to them.
however, that one didn´t really count.the moment that woke me up was this:i got to know that whitney heichel was a jw and murdered by another jw, because i overheard that conversation in a kingdom hall.i looked up the news and in one of the news comments, there was one where an exjw was complaining that they were hijacking her funeral and they were really trying to downplay the fact that her murderer was a jw... and then it said "visit jwfacts.com"... which i did.and the rest... is history.what exactly got you onto an apostate website when you woke up?
The first one I remember visting was members.aol.com/beyondjw It blew my mind that there was someone having the same doubts that I was, and had worked through it and came out the other end. I sent him an email telling Timothy how overwhelmed I was and grateful. As the site no longer exists I have republished some of the articles at https://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/blog/beyondjw-timothy-campbell.php
This led to other sites, such as
