l.s.. i hereby invite all who are worthy to join the ancient and mysterious hermetic order of bethelites.
we have been working from the shadows of bethel, sealing the watchtower teachings with the ancient knowledge of hermes trismegistus, as handed over to us from the time of joseph, the servant of yah.
you can find more info here:.
Sorry mate, can't join.
I'm already the Grand Mufti and Supa Ooperdooh of the First Feline Order of the Epistled Apostles.......
Or is it Supa Dooper Doo of the Reformed First Feline Order of the Apostled Epistles?
Its the light you see.... It keeps getting brighter, 'n' I can never remember the nomemclature.
Now lets see....Tomorrow we'll be.......
Cheers
i've met some wonderful friends here at this forum, but it's time for me to put the jw religion to rest.
it will be 15 years this october that i daed myself which in retrospect i wish i wouldn't have done as there are some former sisters who i would love to give a big hug and talk with who are in pain mentally, but i can't.
i agreed to their "rules" when i was baptized.
Thanks for your warm friendship all this time. Have one for the road
Cheers
since my copy of the book, eh hum, found its way into the garbage and i need to purchase another copy i can't reference it at the moment.. .
can someone clarify for me, in the malawi and mexico chapter(s), 1) the jws were a cultural institution in order for the society to be able to own real estate and if they were a religion, then they wouldn't own the property, or something close to that, right?
2) most importantly, were there some big real estate transactions happening in mexico during the malawi massacre where the society didn't want to do anything to rock the boat on those?
Evidently there were two separate issues involved that Ray was getting at.
1 The issue of paper forms that exempted people from certain activities. On the one hand the WTS refused to allow the Malawians to either purchase, or by bribes obtain, certain identity cards that would exempt them from political and national obligations. Reasoning that this was somehow "political" the WTS barred the Malawian R&F from doing this, resulting in the appallingly brutal treatment meted out to them by the government, which had dictated it to be compulsory to hold these cards, except on grounds approved by the government
At the same time,male Mexican followers of the WTS were permitted to either buy, or bribe their way into obtaining a medical exemption from military service. In this regard Franz published a letter from the GB dated 6 Sept 1969, saying, to the effect, that the matter was left up to the conscience of the resident members. By the clever use of semantics, which the WTS is renowned for, the word "bribes" was avoided, with the amusing euphemism, "financial transactions" employed, as if by this stratagem dishonesty was being sanctioned by divine fiat.
This grotesque double standard, which resulted in such misery, was never either, acknowledged or even apologized for, by the WTS leadership. In fact this exposure brought their permanent bitterness to wards Ray.
2 The second issue concerns Mexico in particular. Because of a long history of what it perceives as Church exploitation, particularly on the part of the Roman Catholic Church which at one time held, tax free, large tracts of land, a law was passed forbidding any Religion from holding property. All religious property must be leased from the government, which is what most honest Religions do in Mexico. However Jehoover's organization is so "honest" that it refuses to do this. They have institutionalized themselves as a "cultural" organization, under the name of "La Torre del Vigia" Being a "cultural organization, they do not worship jehover in Mexico. No prayers are permitted at the meetings and no songs sung. But then of course the pseudo-intellectual mumbo jumbo that is characteristic of WT "cultural" meetings worldwide hardly makes a difference.
To the WTS the main thing is that they own property in the country, and as anyone who has invested in bricks and mortar knows, this investment can only increase in value, and profit [See Pgs 130-133 COC the 1985 ed]
It is pertinent to point out another brazenly dishonest tactic that the WTS uses to induct its missionaries into many Latin American countries, and which is evidence of another double standard. This is not mentioned in COC, but is given prominence by Ray in his second book ISOCF.
As we all know, several Mexicans, in the hope of a better life have crossed the USA border as "illegals" and have continued to stay on in America. Now when these become baptized followers of the WTS, the males are cautioned that considering their circumstances, they are not permitted to become either elders or MSs in the local congregations, because, the Leadership "reasons"- they are "living a lie". If they wish to have positions of authority in the movement they must give up their jobs, homes, and in may cases, their business and return to Mexico. In this way, apparently, the "lie" is propitiated.
However the WTS itself refuses to pursue this lofty standard. They have found that several Latin American countries do not, for reasons best known to themselves allow US missionaries into the country, unless the work includes some charitable work, like the building of schools, or hospitals, etc, which other religions comply with. Not of course jehhoovers honest to goodness organization. What they do is this:
They contact a local follower of the movement, who "agrees" to "employ" the missionaries concerned. So they come into the country, not as religious missionaries but workers on a "work permit" The original participant in this scheme need not ever meet the missionaries, but they get in contact with the national branch HQ, who assign them a territory to preach. Throughout this charade the missionaries give the impression that their religious activity is merely a part time activity, their non existent "work" being their mainstay. That this is also "living a lie" seems to escape the mindset of the WTS Leadership.
Sometimes missionaries enter the designated country on six month "tourist" visas, on the expiry of which they exit the country from frontier town for the requisite two days, then reenter to stay for another six months. Franz recounts that many have in this way lived in their target countries for several decades.[Pgs 282-284 ISOCF]
Ultimately it is financial greed an expediency that dictate the values of this supposedly "holy" organization, and not godly conduct. This exposes them as charlatans and morally bankrupt failures.
Hope this helps
Cheers
this morning an older gentleman knocked on our door to give us the leaflet invite to the d.c. which is being held locally this year.
my husband answered because i was still in my oh-so-sexy stretched out hot pink pajamas.
neither of us recognized him, but i knew the name because my parents talk about him sometimes (friends.
If Rover went to the DC, having accepted the invite, he would probably be more intelligent than all the speakers combined. It would only bore him silly. Tell him to give it a miss.
Cheers
the wbt$ certainly puts themselves as mediator between god and mankind..very unchristian.....in many cases the wbt$ would have us ignore the words of jesus and have us rely on them,for any meaning the bible may have..as in the case of the september 15th 1968 watchtower artical "why are you looking foreward to 1975??
?..the writer tells us "this is no time to be toying with the words of jesus!
"..the end is very near..this was on a thread by another poster a few days ago.....we all know that armageddon did not arrive as predicted by the wbt$ in 1975..but..to work up the 1975 frenzy,jw`s were told to ignore the words of jesus.....is telling people to ignore the words of jesus,anti-christ behavior?.....outlaw
I believe that the WT Leadership have systematically and with demonic cunning expunged all meaningful application to Christ both, in their liturgy as well as their writings. Christ has become merely and adjunct to faith rather than the application of it.
One expresses Christian verities in the form of recognizing the role that Christ plays in the application of this faith. Interestingly, Christ Himself laid down the protocols of worship. When one honours the Son, one honours the Father. It is not the other way around. If one honours the Father, no expression of Scripture permits this to apply automatically to the Son. When one worships the Father alone, one is alone in one's worship. So when True Christians praise and glorify the Son, they are aware that this applies to the Father as well in equal portion. This is something that the WTS has failed to understand. It is somehow conceived that the centrality of Christ that is accorded by True Christians somehow diminishes the place of the Father in worship. This is simply not so. The honour that is required to be applied to the Father is done through the establishment of the place of the Son. The NT does not sanction the bestowal of any honour to the Father without first considering the Son. One does not honour the Son to the exclusion of the Father.
But even here, the place of the Father has been expunged. It is assumed, without any convincing proof, that the use of the mantra like repetition of the word "jehovah" somehow ensures the identity of the Father. The supposed link between jehovah and the Father, is tenuous, at best. In reality, the Father has Himself been reduced to an adjunct, displaced by this someone evidently called "jehovah"
The WTS gives the impression that the name has an ancient pedigree, going back to the dawn of man, and relevant even today. That the name was relevant only in a tribal connotation of a people confined to a sliver of land in the Middle East, and discarded when the message of the Bible went out to the wider world with the attachment of a Grander Name on which salvation was to be attenuated, is casually ignored by the WT Leadership. The impression is established that the 1C AD Christians used this "name" extensively, and indeed the discarding of it ushered in a Great Apostasy in the 2C AD. Somehow, the existence of an unknown remnant of faithful ones who carried the Flame down through the corridors of history till the time of Russell, has begun to take on mythic proportions and is clung to, more in fantasy than reality by today's R&F.
In fact there is simply no proof that this was ever so. There is no evidence whatever that apostolic Christianity and afterward ever attached any importance to the pronunciation of the Sacred Name. It is a misplaced belief of those who put their trust in unscrupulous men who exploit this notion. In fact the records of the early Christians are extensive and detailed and no such evidence of Sacred Name usage is available. In fact we even have a piece of literature written in about 90AD 1Clement, which details the practical aspects of 1C AD Christian worship at about the time John was writing his words. And no mention is ever made of any reference to the importance of the name "jehovah" in the primitive Christian community. When 1C AD Christians evangelized the world of their day the name they bore, with pride and devotion to the point of death, was Jesus. Indeed there were Hebraic structured Christians in those early years, and their existence is recorded, but their concern was with the ritualization of Judaism, in the recognition of such festivals as Passover, and the Sabbath, not in any fascination with the Name. The Jewish name for God was as alien to them as were pagan rites. They bore no resemblance to the artificially created religion of today which we call Watchtower-ism.
In fact attention to the Sacred Name is purely a modern phenomenon. By the start of the nineteen twenties at least three men began a "restoration" of the Sacred Name in regard to prayer and worship, Andrew Dugger, Clarence Dodd, and Squire Traina, who in 1922, started a group called the Assembly of Jehovah, which advocated the use of the name. He published pamphlets to this effect. He was not in any way connected with the WTS. In fact the group he identified with was the Church of God.
By 1935, when the then WT president Rutherford, expressed his interest in this name, we know of at least three groups who were already into their second decade of this belief having been given prominence. In one of those few moments of sobriety that Rutherford effected, he admitted coming across the name Jehovah. Of course he does not tell us where, he came across this, but quite likely it was one of Traina's pamphlets. Somehow it struck a cord in the deepest recesses of Rutherford's psyche, and, claiming a divine revelation while reading Isa 43:10, invented the identity that marks the current WTS, "Jehovah's Witnesses". That Rutherford was violating even the most basic principles of bible interpretation is totally ignored. With far greater financial resources than that of these Sacred Name groups, Rutherford began his relentless propagandizing of his new found belief. In this he somehow suggested a sense of originality to his claims.
Improvising his theology as he went along, Rutherford invented the most fantasmagorical applications of the word "jehovah". Evidently the message of the hour was neither the redemption that is in Christ, or even the Primacy of the Father, but the "vindication" of this name, jehovah, an issue unknown to Christ, or even in a modern context, Rutherford's mentor, CT Russell. Even the Eden incident was invested with the determinative of this name. The gospel to be preached was not the one that Paul preached, that Christ died for our sins and rose again,[1 Cor 15:1] and which was nominative of apostolic Christianity, but that of something called "jehovah's kingdom"
This undiluted humbug, entrenched in the minds of the R&F, has been successfully induced only by the constant and mesmerizing effect of WT literature, the reading and application of which is skillfully inculcated as incumbent on the R&F. The invocation of the name jehovah is somehow considered of sacramental benefit, as if its very usage ensures religious distinction.
In this respect, the WT Leadership have invented a completely new religion, courtesy of a drunken lout and bigot of the first water, which, with its tenuous beliefs and impermanent doctrines, brings dishonour not only to the Son, but the Father as well.
Cheers
then jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying: the scribes and the pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them.
(mat.23:1-3 nasb).
i've been wondering a lot about what these verses.
It is possible that Christ was distinguishing between authority and practice. In the previous chapter He had just confronted the Pharisees and exposed much of their hypocrisy and lack of faith. Their purely intellectual approach to matters of spiritual concern made them singularly inappropriate as mentors to a people seeking value based on such spirituality.
The crowds had heard this exchange, and now in Chp 23, Jesus turns to them and warns them about the things that needed to be avoided. The authority of the Pharisees was not a matter of concern to Him, since He was neither Anarchist or impractical Rebel. The Seat of Moses was both a reality and a metaphor. A recent archaeological find at a site called Chorazin [mentioned in the NT] has unearthed almost an entire 1C synagogue. You can clearly see benches crafted into the side of the structure placed their for dignitaries, while the general assembly may have sat on mats or carpets. From that position of authority the attenuated speaker would expound on "Moses" or the Torah, hence the development of the metaphor "speaking from Moses' seat"
Many of these Pharisees saw themselves as the Good Guys. They perceived themselves as holding the line against radicals, and liberals, like the despised Sadducees, and all manner of anti-Torah misfits. This was not the matter of concern to Christ.
What they taught, and what they practiced, accouterments that developed from their teaching, was indeed a concern. When they spoke on the Law they were fulfilling a function. Thus Jesus said: "All they tell you [which is from the Torah, expounded from the Seat of Moses, is good, so] observe it". However their own teachings, which were an unnecessary addition to the Torah, and which constituted burdens to their hearers, were products of themselves and did not constitute righteousness. These practices were what Christ condemned.
Cheers
recently, i obtained photocopies of issues of herald of the morning for the year 1878 and 1879. the issues i have for 1878 are from june to december.
i think there were some issues issued earlier that year but i've been unable to verify that or obtain any copies.
for those who do not know, the herald of the morning was the magazine c.t.
Great stuff. Thanks again. I am awaiting the next volume. Keep up the good work and take care.
Between you and Atlantis, our Chief Archival Overseer, I ask: "How the hell can we lose?"
Cheers
don't worry you can tell us here- no one knows your true identity.
i can make vodka out of water.
and wine out of water, though vodka out of water is a little more in demand in certain circles.
I can walk down the street any time I want and turn into a bank.
And just to show I'm super powerful, I can even turn into a bar, or even a barbershop.
Cheers
i'm not talking about the stuff you hear at the kingdom hall, i'm talking about the "experiences" you were told of by people you knew.
the big one for me was demons.
so many people i know had experiences with them.
Not only demonic intervention, but angelic as well, has passed into the mindset of WT mythology. Several tales, spiced by embellishments, were making the rounds in WT congregations back in the 70s when I was in.
I recall this particular incident, concerning a dear old thing, who was friend of a friend, of a friend of the narrator, and who was on the door-to-door service, when the door she eventually called on had this rather grim and grizzly man who, disheveled in appearance, had hidden his right hand behind him. He had evidently just killed his wife, and was departing when he answered the door. His initial impulse was to lash out with his knife and silence any potential witness [if you pardon the pun] to his dastardly deed. But he was thwarted because he swore he saw, standing beside this dear old thing, a personage of such shining demeanor and gait, that he collapsed and confessed. The elders were quickly summoned and the grateful police acknowledged the sterling job rendered by said dear old thing. I am not sure how the story ended, but variations saw the copper either converted to the WT cause, or the murderer himself, while in incarceration, becoming one.
Cheers
i had 'reached out' to be an elder for a decade before i finally understood the reasons why i was not, nor would i ever be one.. each visit of the co, my name was on the list of discussion.
i know this because i was told by both co's and local elders.
the vote was always close, sometimes i missed the cut due to 'low hours' on the part of my wife or daughter, othertimes due to some variation in the way the wts was looking at particular 'requirements'.
Great stuff, AK-J, but believe you me, you missed out on nothing by not being an elder in the WT system. I had the misfortune to be one for ten years, and it was the single feature that eventually led to my being disillusioned. As long as I was among the faceless R&F, I actually enjoyed being one of the "gang". But becoming an elder opened my eyes in ways no other action would have.
The role of the elder within the WT Imperium is a curious one. Despite the posturing about like attenuated peacocks that many elders effect, and despite the sprouting of suitably obtuse phrases, evidently done to impress the impressionable, the role of the WT elder is no more than that of being theological eunuchs.Incapable of even the most basic of individual enterprise, unschooled in the rigours of biblical ideology and debate, and totally ignorant of the disciplines required for competence in such research, their only function is that of being castrated mouthpieces echoing, with varying degrees of fanaticism, the interminable stream of directives emanating from WT HQ. No thinking is required, because these directives are not designed for thinking out or meditating on, they are simply to be obeyed. The WT does not give its coteries enough information to think, it simply gives them enough to be obeyed.
In this respect, the WTS resembles not so much a religion, as it does an instrument of power. A power that is exercised from a centralized point of Absolute Authority, and delegated, through articulated links of command, to willing acolytes all along the power structure. The trick in being a successful elder is not intelligence, for this is a potential threat to the Centralized Authority, since they have none,but the trick in in giving credence to the Unspoken Rule. This Centralized Authority is to be regarded as both, Unquestioned and Unquestionable. They are elitist, secretive, and self perpetuating, which means that no one within the orbit of this power structure has any influence on who or how this Centralized Authority is constructed.
To parse a couplet born of equally dictatorial systems, "When the GB tells you to jump, you don't ask "why" you ask "how high" "
One of the stratagems employed by this Centralized Authority to ensure their survival at the top, is assessing the subservience of the potential elder. In this respect, you obviously did not understand the abject inferiority of your position. You did not abase yourself, kiss the ring, or tug the forelock. Most dangerous of all, you were literate enough to use your mind.
But the brutal truth is that it is better to be free and theologically virile on the outside, than to be a eunuch in the house of patent evil.
Cheers
