bubbette, then. though i was addressing everyone, I think. I can read without my glasses, even at my advanced age. If I hold the page three inches from my nose. My plastic lenses are a bit over a quarter inch thick. So you prolly hit the nail in the head or at least hit it a glancing blow.
Old Goat
JoinedPosts by Old Goat
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97
The Worst Thing About Being in your 40's
by Robdar inthe worst thing about being in your 40's is your friends start to die.
it's the first year anniversary of the passing of my friend, john kessler.
he was so tall, so blonde, so loving and so goofy.
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97
The Worst Thing About Being in your 40's
by Robdar inthe worst thing about being in your 40's is your friends start to die.
it's the first year anniversary of the passing of my friend, john kessler.
he was so tall, so blonde, so loving and so goofy.
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Old Goat
You're worried about your 40s? I don't even remember forty. I'm not sure I remember 60. Forty ain't old, bub.
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25
I've Got An Idea: Sue An Elder!
by minimus ini honestly think that if individual elders thought they personally might get sued, they would back off from talking to you or trying to hunt you down.
i know i always was nervous that i'd havv=e to hire a lawyer and pay $$$ out of my own pocket.. what do you think?
might that not discourage elders from violating your rights or harrassing you?
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Old Goat
Dear Minimus,
I do not know what your experiences have been, and I cannot address them. When one becomes a Witness one consents to certain practices and congregational procedures. After one leaves, that consent goes away.
Suing another for harassment is difficult. It is not difficult to get a no-contact order. I’m sure the press would love to print an article saying that Minimus sought a no-contact order from the County District Court (or what ever it is in your area) to prevent elders of Jehovah’s Witnesses from harassing or in anyway contacting them.
This will require you to document what they do. Keep a diary devoted exclusively to your interactions with Witness elders.
I can see it now, “According to the order issued by Judge Mary Lue Loopie, Jehovah’s Witness elders are prevented from approaching within two hundred yards of the Minimus house. The Minimus family asserts that the Witness elders acted in concert to harass and intimidate them. The elders worked to break up the Minimus family and deprive them of previous associates. Witness elders have a middle-school mentality, Minimus told the judge.”
I stopped elder visits by simply making them prove ever point they made. I was an elder for years and before that a congregation servant. I was a servant when most of them were in diapers. Heck, I was a servant before most of their parents were born. I know what they say, where their talking points come from, and what the Watchtower really says about the scriptures they commonly abuse. Hit the books.
You know what they say. Compare it to the Watchtower’s own comments. Elders commonly misstate what the Watchtower says. Politely beat them with their misstatements. Ask them, “Where is that in the Bible?” Say, “Isn’t that verse really about …. ?” Require the issue date and page number for any point they make. “Can you point me to a Watchtower that explains that?”
You have no idea how uncomfortable most elders become if they must actually do their job as they should. There’s no need to be belligerent, just insistent. Listen. Be a good listener. Just require Biblical proof. You may be surprised. There may actually be an elder who gives you real attention and works to answer your questions. Mostly, you’ll make them uncomfortable, give them a guilty conscience, and they will NOT come back.
Elders are failures as shepherds. They’re untrained and undereducated. What passes as training for elders is all organizational; there is no in-depth Biblical study. Blame this on the Governing Body and their 130 year history of anti-intellectualism.
They ask you if you think theirs is Jehovah’s organization? Your answer is: “I find the very question offensive. Where were you when I needed help? I take better care of my children than you do of the congregation. If we’re children of god and you’re shepherds, should this be so?” If they return to the question, restate your strong feelings: “You’re offensive. You have no right to question my relationship to Jehovah.” Or, you can just say, “based on my experience with you brothers and the other local elders, I’d have to say ‘no.’ Jehovah cannot possibly approve of what you do.”
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How Many Here Actually "Studied" The Publications?
by minimus inwhen i was a teenager i extensively studied nearly every publication.
i especially enjoyed looking up the root words meanings in the hebrew and greek of the bible language.
it gave me the flavor of a word and its origins.
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Old Goat
I studied them conscientiously. I remember reading the Truth book - not the one you're thinking about, but The Truth Shall Set You Free - and coming to the realization that while I believed what it said, I did not know the Bible well enough to support any of it. I started looking up all the scriptures and pawing through back issues of The Watchtower. There was no Index or CD then; you had to find the little index at the end of each year's volume and hope it let you to something.
Back then almost all the books back to some volumes of Studies in the Scriptures could be had over the literature counter. I got what I could and scrounged for the rest. I took notes. I filled notebooks with questions and quotations and thoughts. I still have some of these. Pitiful. I thought I was learning the Bible. I did learn the Bible, more in spite of the publications than because of them. I still believe the Bible, and I still read the publications though not with the unquestioning acceptance I had as a young man way back when.
Some things upset me. I remember sitting in a Kingdom Hall waiting for our turn to rehearse a convention part. I wandered down to their "library" and found a copy of Millions Now Living will Never Die. It was the first time I'd read it. I found the 1925 prediction in it. It shook me. That same year I read the Vindication books. Rutherford made a mea culpa statement in one of those volumes. It made me feel better. It's how I coped with the foolishness. Then, damn it! Fred Franz wrote Life Everlasting in the Freedom of the Sons of God. I was angry. He lived through the 1925 nonsense, knew it well. Here he was foisting on us the same idiot approach to the Bible that even Rutherford found discredited.
It took me another two decades to finally give up on Watchtowerism. Even then it was less a doctrinal issue than it was the overweening pride found among Watchtower writers who felt free to regulate the lives of believers. Unfounded statements on medical issues, divorce, and some other issues caused real hurt to brothers and sisters I knew. If a congregational elder had made false predictions, had forced his will on the brothers in place of sound Biblical judgment, had been dictatorial and saw himself as God’s voice for the last days, he would have been removed from his position and perhaps disfellowshipped. Explain to my why Franz, et. al. were immune?
As I look back, though I was very active for decades (Pioneer, Congregation Servant, Elder, Convention Administration, serving where the need is/was greater) I was on a slow and agonizing road out starting with that flash of insight back when I read the "original truth book". I resented the slavish and unquestioned devotion to Watchtower publications some had. God gave us a mind to use best we can, and, according to Paul, his voice to us in the last days is Christ's, not that of some deluded scrawny peanut-eater from Brooklyn.
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12
Dad is Nuts!
by White Dove inhe goes from hot to cold and back and forth again when he skips his meds.
he loves us one week and hates us and the whole world the next.
what makes this unbearable for us is that he acts it out, giving us the cold shoulder and blaming us for his miserable life.
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Old Goat
Dear W. Dove,
Your father has bi-polar disorder? Or something similar?
Dumping meds isn't uncommon for those who suffer with bi-polar disorder and some similar problems. Some with temporal lobe seizures do the same thing. For one thing, some of the medications are very hard on those who take them both physically and mentally. Find out what his actual diagnosis is, and read up on it. It helps to know what's going on. It doesn't lessen the hurts they can cause, but it helps to know.
I'm really sorry you're going through this. The person who put our family through similar died a few years ago. Frankly, their death was a relief, though we still loved them and do miss them as they were before they got sick.
There are often support groups for family members of patients such as your father. Check with the local help line.
My profoundest sympathies.
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30
I went to the meeting today
by doublelife inso my husband dragged me to the meeting this morning.
i brought my new bible that i bought instead of the nwt and he didn't say anything about it.
in the public talk, the speaker opened to matt.
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Old Goat
That your husband turned in a zero hour report probably is not an attempt to be controlling. He probably wants the elders to notice you. It was a poor way to accomplish that. But you might consider it as a motive. If that was his motive, as misplaced as the act may have been, the motive was loving.
I'm a really old guy, and I've been married longer than most of you have been alive. Alas, men are clueless. Our wives mystify us; functioning in life is beyond our ability; we don't notice what we should; we say things that come out differently than we intend. Okay, so not all of us are that clueless, but it's a close call.
Did you ask him why he did that? Ask him.
It's probably enough to just ask. I'm pretty sure you'd create trouble for you both if you asked what he thought the elders could DO. Elders often try to do right, but any of the former elders on this board can tell you that the training the Watchtower provides is poor. In their mind they see it as superior to college. It's not. Could be, but it's not. They address the wrong issues and focus on organizational relationships instead on personal needs. They prepare "practical" demonstrations that are not practical at all. So avoid that question, even if it seems to be an obvious one.
I'm a fence sitter. I believe many of the doctrines. I have a years-long love for those who attend Kingdom Halls. I reject the behavior of most of those in authority, and it seems to me that the higher one is in the hierarchy the less good judgment they seem to have. I have serious questions about the ecclesiastical structure the Watchtowerites have developed. I cannot find in the scriptures they cite the authority for the Episcopal structure they adopt.
I can sit in a Hall with considerable comfort. I cannot deal with "the society" with anything but considerable caution and some contempt. They hurt people. The hurt they caused isn't caused by maliciousness, or I don't believe it is. It's caused by an unquestioning view of themselves as the authoritarian voice of Jehovah. They forget that Jehovah's Word is the Christ. That it is through him that God speaks to us, and elders on any level are not an authoritative voice. They see us as obligated to listen to them and obey. Our obedience belongs to God and his Christ. You cannot substitute an authoritarian system for the basic congregationalism of the first century and not become minutely controlling and dictatorial.
Okay, so old guys can rant. Sorry about that. Just ask him why he did it. See what he says.
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30
I went to the meeting today
by doublelife inso my husband dragged me to the meeting this morning.
i brought my new bible that i bought instead of the nwt and he didn't say anything about it.
in the public talk, the speaker opened to matt.
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Old Goat
Questions drove me to what one brother so colorfully called "the teats of Babylon." I read numerous Bible commentaries. When Aid to Bible Understanding was prepared a significant amount of material was derived from Lange's Commentary. You can see this in the sparse notes found in Insight. The Insight book does not specifically identify the commentaries as part of Lange's larger work, but that's where they're found. They also used Barnes' Notes on the New Testament. I read those. I read Robertson's Word Pictures, Vincent's Word Studies, Clarke’s Commentary and other works.
The results were mixed. Even though these commentaries are Trinitarian in outlook, they said enough about the key texts that I remained a non-Trinitarian. Other basic doctrines remain in place too. What affected me the most was the realization that Watchtower "scholarship" is very shallow. What is good is borrowed from others; what is bad is often their own. This wasn't a new thought, but my reading reinforced it. I was prodded toward that conclusion by the Watchtower itself. I remember sitting through a Watchtower study back in the 1950's sometime. It was about the Cities of Refuge, and it was interesting. There was, however, one paragraph in which the writer (It was in Franz's style) found prophetic fulfillments for things found only in Josephus. Even if one accepts the Watchtower's hyper-typical approach to Old Testament events, I could not find any justification for that. Watchtower writers have cooled that approach in the last few years. I hope they continue to do so.
In 1961 (as I recall) The Watchtower ran a middling-sized article on the culture and laws of the Old Testament era, focusing on the Patriarchal Age. It was footnoted. Fine. I know how to use and read footnotes! And I was interested. So, off I toddle to the public library and the interlibrary loan desk. I sent for one of the books. It turns out that all the footnotes were derived from the one book. They simply copied out, without verifying anything, the work of this one author and presented it as their own. If I found one of my students doing that, I'd fail them. This is one step away from plagiarism. It is unethical. It is fake research.
I was irritated but shrugged these things off. I was able to shrug it off because I trusted those who were responsible for The Watchtower. I liked Knorr, even if he was less than endearing personally. I found Fred Franz to be eternally ODD and vain, but likeable, I trusted him in ways that were unwise. He lost my affection and trust in the approach to 1975. He should have resigned from the Governing Body or he should have been relegated to menial tasks and the brotherhood should have been made aware of it.
My reading took me to other areas where Watchtower scholarship appeared questionable. The New World Translation had pleased me when it was first released. (Yes, I'm old enough to remember and was at the convention in New York.) The English grammar is odd, but I accepted the explanation that the intent was to give us the flavor of the Greek text. It's an incredibly poor effort. It's a school boy effort. The comment made by Goodspeed that grammar matters is spot on. The NW is full of reflexive verbs, possessives turned into clauses and the like. If you wish to see a translation that succeeds in doing what Franz failed to do, examine Kenneth Wuest's New Testament.
I already knew that students can argue about trivialities. Witnesses are no less affected. Are any of you old enough to remember the arguments and illustrations in The Watchtower back in the 1950's over whether snakes had legs before Eve sinned? Oh, My Loving Lord! It gave me an opportunity to tweak some gullible noses back then. (That's a fun memory)
If you're going to reject Watchtowerism, do it with your eyes and mind open. Do your homework. Much of what is written on boards like this one is good and helpful, but more is not. Become a student. Develop research skills. If you have doubts about a Watchtower teaching, hit the books, and I do not mean theirs. Get your butt off to the library. See what the standard commentaries say. Ask (develop the skill to ask non-threatening questions) your friends and elders to explain. This is a pass/fail test for them and you. If they can't clearly explain the doctrine you question, write to the little boys in Brooklyn. Give them a chance. Sometimes you'll be pleasantly surprised. Sometimes you'll see them wiggle in their chair.
If those producing The Watchtower fail as Bible scholars, you should not. It's your responsibility to KNOW and not just emote.
Excuse the old-guy rant. My point is that you need to have well founded objections. If your husband can’t answer them, so much the better. Let him take your questions off to the elders, or better yet, let him do his own research.
I spent years going to other elders and saying something like, “How would you answer this question?” or “If you were to explain this point, how would you do it?” Sometimes I received insightful answers. Sometimes I got blank stares. From “The Society” I got, stop writing to us with technical questions. You should wait on Jehovah. My reply was that my questions were Biblical, not technical. My unwritten reply was “wait on Jehovah? Why? It’s not he that does not know the answer, it’s you. You mean don’t bug us with questions we cannot comfortably answer.”
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Old Goat
I'm old enough to be your daddy and almost old enough to be your grandfather. I stopped being interested in Birthdays years ago, right after I discovered there was no way to stop those reoccuring pesky-things from coming around.
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2010 got scared today! OLD AGE! Born in 1972 realized I may only live to 2050!
by Witness 007 inif i live to 80 in 2050 thats in only 40 years and if i'm lucky.....not long.
believing that a "god" will whisk me away to heaven would be very comforting....but i just can't do it.
ever think about dying of old age?.
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Old Goat
1972 ... old? I have ties that are older than you are. You aren't old yet ... Growing old isn't for the weak and faint hearted. Look'em in the eye and strke an attitude.
No more of this young wippersnapper mambipambiism. Stand up straight; hike up your pants (Make sure they're zipped. Nothing ruins a good attitude pose more than unzipped pants); spit and dare old age to come!
They don't call me Old Goat for muttin' bub.
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11
1914.....1919......Where did these dates come from?!?
by losthusband inwhilst trying to discuss the history of jwism with my family, the 1914 and 1919 dates were brought up!.
is there a definitive topic/article which discusses these dates?.
i have heard talk of pyramids, and no scriptural basis at all.
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Old Goat
The book Nelson Barbour: The Millennium's Forgotten Prophet traces the origin of the Watchtower gentile times doctrine and the date 1914 back to their origins. The 2520 year concept derives from the work of an American clergyman whose book was published in 1808. From him it went to John Aquila Brown. Isaac Wellcome connects Barbour to Brown.
The 1914 date itself went to Barbour from E. B. Elliot. Barbour adopted Elliott's 1914 calculation after first believing that Gentile Times ended in 1878. Neither date was original with Barbour. Barbour and Russell started the count of the 2520 years from 606 BC. The book points out that Samuel Davies Baldwin pointed to 607 BCE as the start point back in 1867. One of William Miller's critics also pointed to 1914.
The 1919 date was first found significant in 1930 with Rutherford's book Light, a commentary on Revelation. It is derived from his tendency to turn his life into prophetic fulfilments.