(could someone kindly format this for me into paragraphs where I have put a [ as I use Mozilla Firefox). Probably already been threads about these, but major puke alert with the first and third study articles in the Dec 15th 2006. The Society are really ramping up the doomsday rhetoric with these.
[The first study article is entitled "The Great Day of Jehovah is Near". The third study article is "Cause Justice to be done". (A study article on prayer is sandwiched in-between.) The Society really beat the URGENCY drum in the first study article. Paragraph 12 is particularly obnoxious where it reads in part: "Jesus warned that even some of his followers would lose their sense of urgency.....In contrast, the faithful and discreet slave class loyally keeps its sense of urgency. The slave class has kept on the watch and proved itself ready. Jesus has appointed it "over all his belongings" here on the earth. - Matthew 24: 42-47". Yes, the Governing Body and their colleagues literally feel they are being loyal to God and doing the right thing by perpetually proclaiming the end is nigh! They see no credibility problem at all with their embarrassing history of failed predictions and prophecies, nor do they see any conflict at all with having been 'appointed' by Jesus as the divine channel of communication for Jehovah and the definition of a false prophet of Jehovah at Dueteronmy 18: 20-22!!
[Paragraph 9 is worded curiously. It says: "Because of "their wish," these ridiculers prefer to ignore that Jehovah has intervened in mankind's affairs in the past. Both Jesus Christ and the apostle Peter refer to two such EVENTS [emphasis mine] - "the days of Noah" and "the days of Lot." (Luke 17: 26-30; 2 Peter 2:5-9) Before the Flood, people took no note of the warning Noah gave. Likewise, prior to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the eyes of his sons-in-law, Lot "seemed like a man who was joking." - Genesis 19:14."
[It seems careless that they use the word 'events' to describe 'the days of Noah' and 'the days of Lot'. The Society's official line is that the 'days' here are not 'events' per se but are periods of time prior to the final destructive event. These preliminary periods of time and the accompanying bad conditions are said to be paralleled with Jesus supposed presence (parousia) since 1914. So the Society appears to have been quite sloppy in describing these 'days' in Luke 17 as 'events' as it conflicts with their own parousia teaching. The truth is of course that Jesus hasn't been present at all since 1914 and his parousia cannot have already started. It is quite clear that Jesus is comparing his arrival/coming with the destructive EVENTS of Noah's and Lot's time, ie, the destruction itself, not the 'days' preceding the final event. Jesus' presence only starts after his coming, just as the flood wasn't present until it started raining.
[The final paragraph is also high on the barf factor. It reads: "How appropriate, then, is the yeartext that has been selected for the 2007 calendar year: "The great day of Jehovah is near." God's people are convinced that "it is near, and there is a hurrying of it very much." (Zeph 1..) "It will not be late." (Habakkuk 2..) So as we await that day, may we be ever alert to the time in which we live, realizing that the final fulfillment of these prophecies is near at hand!"
[Yes, GODS PEOPLE (in reality, the Governing Body) are CONVINCED the end is NEAR AT HAND! They have been unashamedly announcing this for 120 years, yet no reasons are given for why we should especially believe them now!!
[The third study article mentions a few times how some have grown tired, have lost their sense of urgency and are no longer 'serving Jehovah' (meaning 'no longer with the organisation'). Paragraph one candidly states: "Granted, many of these faithful ones thought that by now Armageddon would have come and gone." DARN RIGHT and who is to blame for getting their expectations so high all the time!!! These statements by the Society seem to be coming out more in recent years and highlights the real existence of this problem in the organisation and shows that the Society are concerned about it. Unfortunately, the solution to the increasing sense of tiredness and disappointment at the length of time taken for Armageddon to arrive? = 'prayer, patience, and perserverance' (perservering in the Society's programme of works). The Society never admits to any blame for the thousands it stumbles from Christian faith; it is only interested in putting heavy loads on their back and beating it's fellow slaves to do more and more.
[The article really holds out the big carrot. It plays on JW's desire for 'justice to be done' by Jesus returning to slaughter the human race (except JW's of course). The article thus exposes the perverse JW craving for their divine doomsday to arrive. This is the real reason JW's remain so attached to the organisation. The JW motivating force is FEAR and DREAD not love and hope. This is exemplified by the last sentence of the final paragraph: "Yes, despite the injustices that Satan's world presently inflicts upon us, we firmly believe that God shall "cause justice to be done for his chosen ones" ". JW's really believe that God owes it to them to massacre billions of 'worldlings' and persons in 'false religions' for all the imagined injustices personally done to them. The whole planet revolves around the JW organisation and God is going to bring a holocaust to this planet for collectively saying, "No thanks, I'm not interested" on a Saturday morning!
yaddayadda
JoinedPosts by yaddayadda
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15
High propaganda Dec 15th WT study articles - the end is nigh!!
by yaddayadda in(could someone kindly format this for me into paragraphs where i have put a [ as i use mozilla firefox).
probably already been threads about these, but major puke alert with the first and third study articles in the dec 15th 2006. the society are really ramping up the doomsday rhetoric with these.
[the first study article is entitled "the great day of jehovah is near".
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yaddayadda
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THE BACK PEDDLING HAS ALREADY BEGUN......
by Mary inas i mentioned before in another thread, my dub aunt, along with several other witnesses, told me that they were specifically told that the governing body let it be known that tract work would trigger the beginning of the end by infuriating the other religions and somehow causing the governments to "turn on babylon the great".
this was supposed to start before the end of this year.
one thing i mentioned is that they were smart enough this time, not to put anything down in writing, but simply let it get around by "word of mouth".
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yaddayadda
But wasn't there an almost identical special tract campaign 10 years ago? I can vaguely it, but can't remember the tract itself. I'd love to see a scan to compare it to this years one.
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yaddayadda
The only really fatal mistake would be if they ever changed any of their core doctrines to be more in line with orthodox Christendom, ie, if they decided to accept the trinity, or stated that the human soul is immortal after all, or that all Christians go to heaven. Their unorthodox central doctrines are the real glue that hold JW's together and spellbound to the GB. If the GB ever changed any of those it would be catastrophic, and the same thing would happen to the organisation as happened to Herbert Armstrong's religion after he died.
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Jehovahs Witnesses and Ecclesiastical Authority
by concerned elder ini have research the subject throughly and would be willing to share with those who have an interest.. concerned elder.
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yaddayadda
Thanks. I'm looking forward to reading your research. Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with the concept and existence of a GB per se. The issue is about the degree of control and authority they exert, particularly if that authority is claimed to have divine backing. It's amazing how JW's have swallowed the idea that the GB is a modern-day parallel to the first century body in Jerusalem. To most persons the flaw in such a notion is quite obvious, but for those who are brainwashed and indoctrinated over many years into accepting such an idea its not until they analyse it methodically that the differences become glaringly apparent.
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Astonishing Publisher Peak in Britain for August 2006
by slimboyfat inwell i just got the new kingdom ministry for december and it has the publisher peak for august: 129,482!.
that is quite an amazing total when you compare it to the trend of recent years:.
2006 - 129,482. i wish i could produce a graph, but you get the picture - there has been a dramatic increase in the publisher peak number this year compared with the recent downward trend after the 1995 "generation" change and subsequent stagnation.
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yaddayadda
I'd say the somewhat surprising increase is due to the special tract campaign about false religions end being near, the scary Years text for 2006 and the focus in Convention talks about the nearness of the end. The rank and file are psychologically being played like a fiddle. JW's will always respond to this kind of psychological manipulation because their religion is not focused on Jesus Christ and he is not their rock; it is their hope that the end of this world will come very soon and only they will survive into the big lotto paradise earth that their faith is built upon. Growth is proportionate exactly to that hope (see 1975), or in other words, statistical growth is commensurate to how much the WT can ramp up expectations that the end is near. This trend will likely increase right up to 2014.
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How the Society can almost drop 1914 and STILL retain their authority
by yaddayadda inthey can have the best of both worlds.
it would be quite easy, with a bit of imagination, for them to simply adopt an interpretation of scripture similar to the seventh day adventists belief about 1843. the sda's teach that since 1843 jesus has been engaged in an 'investigative judgment' upon christendom, having entered into the 'inner sanctuary' of heaven (or something to that effect) on that date to receive special authority to do that.
jesus since then has used the sda's as his favoured group of christians.
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yaddayadda
I agree Steven but I think you've missed my point a bit. They don't need to drop 1914, just slide a lot of prophecy attached to it up into the future.
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How the Society can almost drop 1914 and STILL retain their authority
by yaddayadda inthey can have the best of both worlds.
it would be quite easy, with a bit of imagination, for them to simply adopt an interpretation of scripture similar to the seventh day adventists belief about 1843. the sda's teach that since 1843 jesus has been engaged in an 'investigative judgment' upon christendom, having entered into the 'inner sanctuary' of heaven (or something to that effect) on that date to receive special authority to do that.
jesus since then has used the sda's as his favoured group of christians.
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yaddayadda
All they have to do is slide forward in time some of the fulfilments that they currently attach to 1914, while still retaining the date and some of the significance attached to it. For example: Slide the start of the kingdom reign to the start of the great tribulation so it ties up with the start of the 1,000 year reign better. Slide Satan's ousting to the future also and make the 'short period of time' when the devil has great anger as being fulfilled during the GT (this would probably be the hardest to explain away. Rev 12 would pose big problems to reinterpret for the Society since it has applied the 'composite sign' as being caused by the Devil's ousting shortly after 1914, and Revelation links the coming of the kingdom into power with Satan's ousting.) But retain everything else, ie, keep the 1914 chronology (just like the SDA's have kept Miller's old 1843 chronology) and re-engineer the parousia to be nothing more than an 'inspection' period starting from 1914 (when Jesus 'turned his attention' to the earth again, as the Society is fond of saying), keep the separation of the wheat from the weeds as starting around 1918/19, (interestingly, the separation of the sheep from the goats was simply slid forward from 1918/19 to the great tribulation around the mid 1990's!), keep the spiritual release from Babylon the Great around 1918/19, keep the resurrection of the anointed to 1918/19, keep the composite sign of Jesus 'inspecton presence (parousia)' from 1914 (but creates problem re order of events in Revelation 12, as mentioned above). All the rest could easily be slid forward to apply during the Great Tribulation. This could actually give the Society more credibility in the eyes of the rank and file, as it is quite plain to see that God's kingdom hasn't been ruling since 1914 whatsoever and more and more JW's must be starting to wake up to this possibility. As each year goes by more and more, especially older ones, must be puzzling over the absurdity of how Jesus could be 'reigning' for nearly 100 years but not yet have 'come'. JW's would rejoice that now they have solved the enigma of why the Kingdom starting ruling in 1914 but nothing has changed on planet earth (the answer being: it never was reigning at all from 1914), yet the powermongers at Columbia Heights get to retain their exclusive channel status via a diluted version of 1914. I would bet that this is exactly how the Society will spin it, but not before the numerical 'growth' and statistics finally go into a terminal nose-dive, likely shortly after 2014. There will be no major doctrinal changes until that happens!!
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I called my old KH today!!
by moshe inyes, i did and talked for over one hour to a 19 year old lifer dub.
i asked him if he had put a tract in my door implying that my religion was false.
i told him that i was jewish.-oops!
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yaddayadda
That is an interesting point about orthodox jews thinking blood transfusions are ok. Can you please direct me to a website where I could find out more about that. Re your points about the flood, they are easily overcome by most conservative Christians.
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What was your final straw that broke your back in terms of doctrine?
by ukescott inas ex-mormon, my exposure to a different version of the first vision story which was quite different from the offical first vision was my beginning way out of mormonism.
what about you ex-jw's?
what, in terms of wt doctrine, made you realize that the wt is a fraud?.
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yaddayadda
Not so much any doctrine but the gross hypocrisy and lying by the Watchtower leaders, after I discovered and thoroughly researched how they got into bed with the UN for 10 years. I realised then that there is no way Jehovah is using the Watchtower entity as his channel for feeding spiritual food.
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Loving your religion as a way of life as much as a belief system
by Qcmbr inbefore i start this isn't a preach about the lds church!
i'm sitting here at work having been called in and thus missing sunday meetings and i feel an ache to be at church.
i sat musing on this and the thought came to me that i actually love my membership of my faith, i enjoy the people (for the most part), i am fulfilled by the lifestyle, i am disappointed when we don't 'win' (in statistical battles etc.. :) and i am generally satisfied by the doctrine and apologetics (i don't feel painted into too many untenable positions and i have more than satisfactory explanations for many of life's 'unanswerables').
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yaddayadda
If you get a lot of satisfaction from staying in your church then stay. It can be a great framework for a vibrant social life, a community of like-minded people. If you don't experience any severe cognitive dissonance between your personal beliefs and what you keep hearing at your church, then it can't be that unhealthy to stay. Some people would rather be right than happy, and happiness is found in relationships, not dry words, doctrines, and creeds. Good on you.