If they study the Revelation book at the Book Study again, I'm never going to go the entire time. I hated that book back when I was a Witness. In fact it was the first thing that caused me to have discrete identifiable doubts as a teenager.
under_believer
JoinedPosts by under_believer
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info on the new 192 page publication LIVE WITH JEHOVAH'S DAY IN MIND
by What-A-Coincidence ini got you truthseeker.... truthseekerre: saturday district convention notes: don't research jw's online!!!!
03-jun-06 17:35jun 4, 2006. post 918 of 918. since 28-feb-03.
master member.
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Nathan H. Knorr was a big baby
by under_believer inreading crisis of conscience by raymond franz today i came across an account of how knorr acted when franz, alone among governing body members, suggested that the monarchial system of absolute power vested in knorr and his predecessors was unscriptural, and since they had removed that arrangement from the congregations (replacing it with a body of elders arrangement) they should do the same thing at the headquarters: in each case of my doing so, however, the president took the remarks very personally, speaking at great length, his voice tense and forceful, saying that 'evidently some were not satisfied with the way he was handling his job.
' he would go into great detail as to the work he was performing and then would say 'now apparently some don't want me to handle things anymore' and that perhaps he should 'bring it all down here and turn it over to ray franz and let him handle it.
yes folks, this was the way the society's president from 1942 to 1976 acted.
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under_believer
Reading Crisis of Conscience by Raymond Franz today I came across an account of how Knorr acted when Franz, alone among Governing Body members, suggested that the monarchial system of absolute power vested in Knorr and his predecessors was unscriptural, and since they had removed that arrangement from the congregations (replacing it with a Body of Elders arrangement) they should do the same thing at the Headquarters:
In each case of my doing so, however, the president took the remarks very personally, speaking at great length, his voice tense and forceful, saying that 'evidently some were not satisfied with the way he was handling his job.' He would go into great detail as to the work he was performing and then would say 'now apparently some don't want me to handle things anymore' and that perhaps he should 'bring it all down here and turn it over to Ray Franz and let him handle it.'
Yes folks, this was the way the Society's president from 1942 to 1976 acted. Like a big baby.
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under_believer
No. I think if it were God's word there would be more obvious proof of it. There wouldn't be any doubt. It wouldn't be this tricky game where God tests people's ability to believe in things with insufficient evidence and bases their salvation on that ability, even though he supposedly created them as rational beings.
Minimus--In my opinion the ability to accept and be comfortable with not knowing all the answers is a mark of maturity. Congratulations. -
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WERE THERE ANY `YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS,MAN' moments in KH
by badboy indid something say something like that po who said`cats represent the beast' so you shouldn't stroke them'
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under_believer
Total hearsay - I heard a story one time about a brother who was a visiting speaker in a kingdom hall, and his talk was about marriage. It included much semi-graphic sexual talk. At one point he uttered the words "brothers and sisters, it's time for you all to put your legs together and just talk to each other!" Supposedly (so the story goes) the chairman actually walked up onto the stage and stood behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and escorted him off the stage in the middle of his talk. I guess it was excrutiatingly awkward for everyone there.
True story - an old school elder in our hall in the 90's tried pulling out that "sisters should ALWAYS WEAR HOSE" thing. All the pioneer sisters just shrugged at him and continued going bare legged. Nobody was dismissed. :) -
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Do you have to be "gullible" in order to be a good JW?
by JH inin french we use the word "naif", which means to believe anything that's said without proof of it being true.
i think that gullible is the english translation.. i was very gullible in my early jw years.
i guess it's not faith that one needs to be a good jw, but gullibility...
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under_believer
JH, the English word with the same root is simply a French loan word--the feminine "naïve."
I while back I posted a thread referring to recent research that people who have had hard lives are more likely to be gullible. I think the reason Witnesses are so successful among the lower classes (and I say that without a trace of classism--I myself come from a solidly blue-collar background) is because often these folks who are "sighing and crying" have been induced by their lives to be more gullible.
It's sad, really--these people are searching for answers, their lives suck, they will believe whoever comes along and promises them a rose garden, and they get snapped up by the JW's.
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Evolution and Self-Sacrifice
by IW indoes the theory of evolution supply the genetic answer to the self-sacrificing nature of many animal parents as well as that of many men and women in general?
when a man or woman risks their life to help someone in danger is their response simply a response to the natural processes at work due to evolution's effect on their dna?
if so, can this self-sacrificing gene be isolated?
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under_believer
Abbadon,
While the phenotype analogy is seductive, it is also misleading or perhaps incomplete. Technology as a phenotype has the power to completely remove evolution from the equation, if we desire it to. Putting on my science fiction hat for a moment, imagine that the human race eventually reproduces entirely via cloning--a true pure clone is genetically identical to its parent. Genetic drift, mutation, and selectional heritability are completely removed from the picture. Or if humanity moves towards a technologal singularity including post-human existance, as some theorize, it's possible that both cloning and man/machine hybrids will be common.
I realize all that is very farfetched. The point I'm trying to make is that evolution can be completely superceded via technology and that comparing it to dam-building may be underestimating its power. -
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Try to make it to your meetings!
by moomanchu in.
keep trying to get to your meetings remember the sister who walked 2 hours one way to feast at the spiritual banquet , or the bro who crossed crocodile infested waters to get to his meeting.. anyone remember any other guilt trip inducing illustrations?
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under_believer
Here's a particularly revolting one I heard a few years back.
So we're in the Congo, or some other suitably dismal African shithole. Missionary comes to a small town run by a witch doctor, or something. Convinces some young girl (like ~14 or whatever) to be a Witness. Young girl becomes a Witness and gets baptized against her father's wishes. Father decides to step up the "persecution." Tells daughter that for every meeting she goes to, he'll cut off one of her fingers. She goes to 9 meetings, gets 9 fingers cut off by her own father. Only has one finger left. Father finally gives up, eventually his daughter's forbearance and determination convince him to come into the truth!!! Now everyone is one big happy Witness family.
This one turned my stomach for obvious visceral reasons. It also beggars belief that the daughter would stick around with a psychopath that would cut off all her fingers, or that the Witnesses would want such a psychopath in their congregation.
Maybe that's just how they roll in the Congo. -
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congregations disbanded
by Fleshybirdfodder innot sure if it is the correct terminology, but i've heard of a few instances where the society had to step in and completely "delete" a congregation because of issues with incompetent elders and out of control publishers.
i've never heard specifics.
does this actually happen?
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under_believer
cognizant dissident, I have a theory that the combination of understanding Greek and being honest naturally leads to apostasy.
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Evolution and Self-Sacrifice
by IW indoes the theory of evolution supply the genetic answer to the self-sacrificing nature of many animal parents as well as that of many men and women in general?
when a man or woman risks their life to help someone in danger is their response simply a response to the natural processes at work due to evolution's effect on their dna?
if so, can this self-sacrificing gene be isolated?
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under_believer
I acknowledge that I misspoke. What I was trying to convey is that technology, intelligence, and civilization affect evolution in ways that are unprecedented in observable history or in any existing theory of natural selection. I don't think that's a controversial statement.
I'd like to add that since technology gives every indication of allowing humans to take control of their (and other species) genes, thereby superseding mutation as the primary source of spontaneous, non-selectional changes, the evolution equation really does change greatly. -
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Celebrated WT scholars? :)
by Augustin inprof lester l. grabbe on rolf furuli's "oslo chronology":.
"once again we have an amateur who wants to rewrite scholarship" (jsot 28:5 [2004], p. 42).. ...celebrated wt scholars?
--augustin --
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under_believer
A rather interesting essay that very reluctantly publically skewers Furuli, by Carl Olof Jonsson (writer of The Gentile Times Reconsidered):
http://user.tninet.se/~oof408u/fkf/english/furuli.htm
An entertaining excerpt:
Finally, in their discussions with Furuli, Åge Grønning and Jan and Wenche Kalstø were shocked at the way Furuli dragged my name through the mud and repeatedly attacked me and my motives. In a discussion with Jan and Wenche Kalstø about my Supplement to the Gentile Times Reconsidered (published 1989), Furuli claimed that I had falsified letters from authorities, that my quotations from letters I received from scholars D. J. Wiseman and C.B.F. Walker were false, and that he had received a letter from Walker that contradicted what I wrote. Because Furuli did not allow the Kalstøs to read Walker’s letter, they wrote to me and asked about these allegations. I sent the Kalstøs copies of the letters I received from Wiseman and Walker that proved that I cited them correctly. I also wrote to Walker and asked him about his letter to Furuli. He sent me a copy of that letter, which I forwarded to the Kalstøs. They could see that nothing in the letter contradicted what I had written. They were forced to conclude that Furuli had lied to them and had tried to hoodwink them, which made them very upset. (Letter from Jan & Wenche Kalstø to Jonsson, dated September 20, 1990)