Posts by careful

167

Anthony Morris the III has been FOUND

by Terry in

jw
friends

note: photos can be found on the blue envelope channelhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nakezkhqbmtony and susan morris are living in lumberton, north carolina.

a real estate document on the robeson county website is filed:.

the religious order of jehovah's witnesses has provided a "life estate" for them.they can live in this townhouse until they are deceased or choose to move away and in either case the ownership becomes entirely the property of jehovah's witnesses.

careful

On a deeper level, no, but the big difference between the time of Chitty and now is that back then the GB didn't set out to make themselves media stars, front and centre of all the output to the R&F with their faces all over a TV channel and website. The image that AMIII has projected to date via his talks and appearances has not been a very endearing and sympathetic one and will have created a lot of bad feeling among many people.
It's unfortunate for AMIII that he's being the "guinea pig" for this social experiment, but this will be a first in JW org history: how the R&F, exJWs and others deal with a high profile, public eviction from the inner circle of the JW world back to 'ordinary' life.

Spot on, Journeyman! They surely have become in-house "media stars," and AM III was certainly one. In the pubs and leaked letter (thanks Atlantis!), it's the GB this and the GB that. The old GB never acted like that. The opinion they now have of themselves is massive.

On the earlier thought: do you think that the GB might just think that since they are all anointed, even though AM III is no longer one the GB, his "anointedness" will protect him from harm?

I'm appalled at many of the mistakes in the 2013 NWT done because the GB preparers (mostly Geoffrey Jackson) has/have no linguistic skills with Hebrew and Greek. At least the first editions had Freddie who had some real Greek background. Doubtless they feel their "anointedness" qualified them to revise Freddie's work.

My point is that the same thinking might be at work with AM III. Off the GB to be sure, but do they think his anointed status will protect him? His guardian angel(s) or whatever? Or maybe, as I said earlier, they are just so short-sighted.

167

Anthony Morris the III has been FOUND

by Terry in

jw
friends

note: photos can be found on the blue envelope channelhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nakezkhqbmtony and susan morris are living in lumberton, north carolina.

a real estate document on the robeson county website is filed:.

the religious order of jehovah's witnesses has provided a "life estate" for them.they can live in this townhouse until they are deceased or choose to move away and in either case the ownership becomes entirely the property of jehovah's witnesses.

careful

Journeyman,

Probably right, Vanderhoven. Especially if he starts to receive hate mail, or worse.
Again, the org really should have anticipated that placing him in such an open situation is a big risk, but unless they have plans in place that are more covert, it seems they've left him to fend for himself.
Then again, the GB don't believe they've done anything wrong and are mainly protected from the backlash from their policies so may have underestimated the potential danger. Seems crazy after what happened in Hamburg, but it could be complacency.

Does the GB ever admit they have done wrong? That is outside their realm of thinking. Also, given the current mentally limited nature of the GB membership, do you really think that they could connect the dots here? That is, do you really think they could see that what happened in Hamburg might happen to AM III? I don't. They are just too daft for that.

Perhaps you are attributing to them too much intelligence? They are stupider than normal people, don't you think? "Underestimated the potential danger" indeed!

BTW, Journeyman, I enjoy your posts, so please don't take this note as a personal attack.

33

Jehovah's Witnesses and Tattoos

by NotFormer in

i was wondering about the jw attitude towards getting tattoos.. redditors suggest that the only jws who have them would have got them before they were baptised.. jw.org gives a meally-mouthed "true christians wouldn't" response.. but no-one (that i've seen so far) answers the question i'm actually asking: is getting a tattoo after being baptised a disfellowshipping offence?.

if not disfellowshipable, how would a typical jw congregation treat someone who got a tattoo after baptism?

would they really treat it like it is a conscience issue?.

careful

Carla, thanks for the note. Hang in there.

NotFormer, I do not mean to hijack your thread, but I've kept looking for any tattoos with JWDOTorg both on google and bing. I've come up empty but I found some other interesting stuff. Perhaps I'm just ignorant or naive, but I was unaware of some of this stuff. Pretty funny, at least to me, however.

I guess this chap is not a bro. given those arm tats, but Jehovah Java might be a nice name for a Witness coffee shop, eh?

I was not aware of these other shirts. I guess you can get anything put on a tee shirt now.

These, however, really caught my eye. There must be a market for such stuff. There are plenty more. These are just a sample. You can get hats so logoed too.

Then one sees the hostility between JWs and ex-JWs.

33

Jehovah's Witnesses and Tattoos

by NotFormer in

i was wondering about the jw attitude towards getting tattoos.. redditors suggest that the only jws who have them would have got them before they were baptised.. jw.org gives a meally-mouthed "true christians wouldn't" response.. but no-one (that i've seen so far) answers the question i'm actually asking: is getting a tattoo after being baptised a disfellowshipping offence?.

if not disfellowshipable, how would a typical jw congregation treat someone who got a tattoo after baptism?

would they really treat it like it is a conscience issue?.

careful

Carla, thanks for the explanation. Nothing disrespectful on my end. I just thought it was an English error. We all do that!

I never married while "in." I had too many disagreements with the org that I kept to myself or shared with a tiny number of brothers, most of whom have since left themselves. I would never have wanted to put some poor sister in the dilemma of choosing between me and "God's organization." I could not conscientiously have done that to any sister, and I did not want to put myself through hell by marrying one and then attempting to leave. It was difficult enough to leave on my own terms alone.

Best wishes in dealing with your situation!

19

Jehovah's witness cannot perform marriages in Norway

by blondie in

jw
friends

https://cne.news/article/3409-norwegian-court-maintains-jehovah-s-witnesses-ban-on-sealing-marriage .

careful

I suspect that the org has already instituted in Norway the procedure used for decades in other lands (for example, Greece) where a non-official marriage talk is given by an elder at the KH and then the couple goes down to the right govt. agency and registers the marriage as a civil event, not a religious one.

Then, of course, the honeymoon (well, not for C.T. Russell!).

33

Jehovah's Witnesses and Tattoos

by NotFormer in

i was wondering about the jw attitude towards getting tattoos.. redditors suggest that the only jws who have them would have got them before they were baptised.. jw.org gives a meally-mouthed "true christians wouldn't" response.. but no-one (that i've seen so far) answers the question i'm actually asking: is getting a tattoo after being baptised a disfellowshipping offence?.

if not disfellowshipable, how would a typical jw congregation treat someone who got a tattoo after baptism?

would they really treat it like it is a conscience issue?.

careful

I couldn't find any JWDOTorg tats in my search.

Wouldn't it be funny if some new zealous chap just studying and with just a partial knowledge of the org's version of "truth" got a JWDOTorg tat across his forehead? Imagine how that would go over when his Bible study conductor came to the elders and said, "He wants to start attending meetings and go out in field service"! I suspect there'd be a call to the branch office for guidance on how to deal with that! It might even work its way up to the GB since all the underlings are afraid to decide anything on their own.

Journeyman: what? You mean those people with the tattoos I posted are not pioneers? I'm crushed ...

33

Jehovah's Witnesses and Tattoos

by NotFormer in

i was wondering about the jw attitude towards getting tattoos.. redditors suggest that the only jws who have them would have got them before they were baptised.. jw.org gives a meally-mouthed "true christians wouldn't" response.. but no-one (that i've seen so far) answers the question i'm actually asking: is getting a tattoo after being baptised a disfellowshipping offence?.

if not disfellowshipable, how would a typical jw congregation treat someone who got a tattoo after baptism?

would they really treat it like it is a conscience issue?.

careful

Carla, did you accidentally leave out a noun after "My jw" and before "had tatts"? Maybe "spouse" or "child"?

Here's "the official word":

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102003689

Not that I am taking a stand yea or nay on the issue, but it should be noted that plenty of respected, well-known translations have "tattoo" at Lev. 19:28 (RSV/NRSV, NAB (both eds.), NIV, JB/NJB), so it's not just a NWT rendering.

I doubt that the org wold look favorably on these, but I couldn't resist posting them!

39

Only baptised JWs will make it?

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

i think it was a john cedars video or someone else’s where the point was brought up that only baptised jws will be saved?

then one talk about kids of baptised jws hope they will make it but even them don’t know.

most jws probably think that some good people who are not baptised may make it through, but this is not official teaching?.

careful

There seems to be a core of, often past, GB members who feel that if a person is not on the ark (= in the org), then he or she is a goner. However, there are others, perhaps in the Writing Department or on the current GB, who may be more sensitive to passages like Mark 9:38-41 (= Luke 9:49-50, and compare Matt. 10:40-42) where those outside the org seem to have some degree of God's approval.

More to the point, the famous Parable of the Sheep and Goats at the end of the "signs of the last days" discourse of Jesus in Matthew's Gospel (chapters 24-25), if read in context and outside of WTS doctrine, has two groups of people, both of whom do not realize that they were in the past interacting with Christ's brothers. One group gets judged adversely for not treating them well; the other is unexpectedly rewarded for unknowingly having treated them well. How could this last group have been "aboard the ark" if they unknowingly treated Christ's brothers well? In the past Fred Franz interpreted the favored group as the other sheep/great crowd, but that on its face cannot fly, given the lack of knowledge both groups had of the identity of Christ's brothers.

I cannot and generally do not wish to keep up with the always speculative and changing interpretations of scripture that the org today puts forth, especially given the deep brainlessness of the current GB, but I seem to recall that the aforementioned interpretation of Matt. 25:31-46 has been thrown out. But it hasn't really been replaced either with any kind of interpretation that makes sense.

The upshot is that there may well be some Bethel heavies who are more in tune with scripture and who have a more lenient view of salvation for those not being in the org. But coming right out and saying that there will be people not in the org who will be saved would be very problematic for the GB controllers.

36

Did anyone really enjoy assemblies?

by SydBarrett in

jw
friends

the twickenham post made me think of this.

i have a few jw family members on facebook and being summertime, their pics of the convention have shown up in my fb feed.

along with their comments about "i wished it would never end" or "what a glorious weekend".

careful

Journeyman,

Most of the comments so far have focused more on the camaraderie of working together, meeting other bros and sisters, group singing and other more social aspects

Spot on. This should tell us much about human needs. Sorry you didn't enjoy the dramas. One aspect of them I didn't like was all the over-gesturing. I found it unrealistic and it really turned me off. I understand that Ulysses Glass was the brainchild behind those early dramas. Evidently he demanded all the over-gesturing.

I suppose too that my knowing some of the local "actors" in the dramas made it more enjoyable for me. Every year the same congregation was used to supply the "actors" for them, and I was friends with some of those bros. and sisters.

All that said, they way they were produced, with the supposed actors not really speaking their own lines, but just mouthing them according to the recording, it created a ring of phoniness to the whole process. Real actors memorize and speak their own lines. That did not occur in these Bible dramas, so it added a degree of artificiality to the entire undertaking. Part of real acting is speaking one's own lines. As you put it, it was indeed miming.

36

Did anyone really enjoy assemblies?

by SydBarrett in

jw
friends

the twickenham post made me think of this.

i have a few jw family members on facebook and being summertime, their pics of the convention have shown up in my fb feed.

along with their comments about "i wished it would never end" or "what a glorious weekend".

careful

After reading the posts so far, I have to agree. There was much to enjoy. Sadly, the talks were least memorable. I always forgot them unless there was some special reason to remember one (like Freddie Franz's meanderings). Working at food prep was highly memorable. In fact, working at any job instead of listening to the talks was memorable. It was all the more reason to volunteer. And yes, the new releases were fun as were the dramas—pre-video! For some reason I enjoyed the baptisms too. Then, as already mentioned, the socializing and catching up on various peoples lives, going out to dinner after the sessions with old friends rarely seen, meeting new bros. & sisters, all that was fun. Singing in such large groups the old Kingdom songs was moving and memorable too. The rest was pretty much forgotten.