I'd be happy to tell you how I coped, but I'm not sure I remember 50 at all. It doesn't get better, it gets worse. My only problem at 40 was some butt-spread. My hair started thinning at 50. At sixty I started to hurt constantly. Now ... sometimes i remember to tie my shoes ... I can hardly wait for 80. So near, so much fun, such adventure, such aches and pains! Quit yer whinin' buster! You're a spring chicken.
Old Goat
JoinedPosts by Old Goat
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47
OMG! I am 50 this year! Why am I freaking out? Anger - how do you cope?
by hamsterbait ini was told when i hit thirty and was catastrophising, "just wait till you are 40, it just gets better.".
ha!.
i am fifty in a few weeks.
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Simply Amazing
by Old Goat ini lurk mostly.
i enjoy reading the posts.
i shake my head at some, nod with others and have endless sympathy for many posters.
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Old Goat
I lurk mostly. I enjoy reading the posts. I shake my head at some, nod with others and have endless sympathy for many posters. My interest tends toward history. If you've read my previous posts you know this. I recommended the new book on Nelson Barbour. You should read it. It's fun to see straight history as told by a Witnesses with little toleration for either Watchtower or anti-Watchtower nonsense.
I follow the author's blog. It's lain fallow for a while, but I see he's been posting his research again. (I wish he'd learn how to formant things!) His newest post consists of rough draft of material on the first Watchtower tracts. I see that he intends much more with this than he's posted thus far. What struck my interest is that he probes into the background of Russell's belief system, and he doesn't spare Russell when he's being idiotic. Of course some of us will ask, "When was he not being a bit idiotic." But we won't argue that point now.
In the current post he delves into Russell's belief that the existence of evil was essential. He traces it to an English clergyman from whom Russell borrowed with out credit or reference. While analyzing one of the early Bible Student Tracts and the influences behind it, he writes:
"Neither Russell nor Warleigh relied on Biblical proof for any of this. Instead they relied on a chain of inferences, some of them quite flawed. Warleigh’s definition of pity was especially flawed, and both Russell and he limited the scope of Adam’s perfect intellect so that they presupposed a need for experiential learning. Apparently neither of them thought Adam or Eve capable of abstract reason.
Russell liked what he read of Warleigh’s work and adapted it uncritically. Warleigh wrote: “Man was the masterpiece of all creation” This viewpoint may be more understandable in him because he was Trinitarian and saw Jesus as uncreated, a part of the ‘godhead.” Still, it is hared to forgive him this bit of nonsense in the light of the Psalm that has man a little less than angels. Russell borrowed this though wholesale, writing that man was “the masterpiece of God’s workmanship.” At least Russell had the good sense to limit that status to man’s state among earthly creatures. Even then the though implies that the rest of God’s earthly creation was only practice and not as well formed.
This is a history and not a theology text, and I will not discuss the theological merit of these ideas at length. The two most obvious problems were that Warleigh and Russell after him relied on “reason” and not scripture. They denied that their scheme made God the author of sin, but if He saw it as “necessary” so man could be taught “good,” planned for it, made it inevitable – who else was?
This belief undercut his more thought-out view of Atonement and Reconciliation, though it was scant few of his opponents that saw the flaw. Many of them shared his admiration for Warleigh. Most of this doctrine was abandoned by Jehovah’s Witnesses under J. F. Rutherford. Many Bible Students continue to believe it, though without any understanding of its roots."
In these few tame and scholarly words, this Witness writer does more to expose Russell as the theological bumbler he was than almost any of the sensationalist material that floats around on the web. I love this! Dry history? Yes, I suppose. But such gems hidden in this research!
Visit the blog. Wade through the history and look for the gems! http://truthhistory.blogspot.com/
And I recommend his book too: Nelson Barbour: The Millennium's Forgotten Prophet. (lulu.com)
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More from the June 15th WT on the Love at the meetings.
by life is to short inthis wt just keeps getting better and better, ok well the start of it was the worst the generation change but man this whole wt is really ticking me off.
i must just be in some mood right now.
it has taken me the whole week to listen to it.
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Old Goat
As my name implies, I'm old. I figure that I've attended about 17,000 meetings, including conventions and assemblies. (That's a rough guess and probably a bit low considering the years when we treaveled and attended more than more than our share of conventions.) Out of all those meetings, I probably enjoyed 500. Now that may seem like a lot of enjoyable meetings, but spread that out between the mid 1940's and now, and it ain't many, bub.
The meetings fail in many ways, but the gossip, back biting, stupidity, and idiocy just leave me cold. I was raised in a congregation that thought of itself as having "high standards." The standards were set, not by the Bible, but by the personal opinion of a bunch of old women who held the congregation servant's ear. (CompanyServant way back when.)
Love among the "brothers" is startlingly rare. Pettiness is common.
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Vintage colour WT
by 5thGeneration inanyone know where i can get a vintage colour wt like the one below?.
i kind of want one with the nice colours, crosses and masonic cross and crown.. i wanted to frame it for my office and just tell people it's part of my truthtm heritage.
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Old Goat
Watch for it on ebay. It's expensive though. Maybe you can find someone who can make a color photocopy?
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TEST YOUR INSIDE KNOWLEDGE: Watchtower Origns: a Saga begins
by Terry in[if !mso]> <mce:style><!
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Old Goat
None of the “core beliefs” attributed to Ellen G. White came from her, and Russell owes nothing to her. The beliefs listed were common to the Millerite movement, and preceded E. White’s “visions.” (She was a plagiarist, stealing freely from other Second Adventists including Horace Lorenzo Hastings.)
Russell entered Adventism on the non-sabatarian side of the clan. He was most influenced by those associated with Advent Christians, the Life and Advent Union, and various smaller sects who used the name “Church of God” or Restitutionist.
In my opinion Russell weasels out of the association by saying he owed something to Second Adventists (He mentions Stetson [Advent Christian] and Storrs [Formerly Life and Advent Union, independent at the time of their meeting]). His doctrines were borrowed from them, or he was introduced to them through Adventists. This included soul-sleep, his date system, his view of the labor/capital conflict, etc.
The Russellite date system was the creation of Nelson Barbour. (The best resource on Barbour and his associates is the book Nelson Barbour: The Millennium’s Forgotten Prophet, available at lulu.com. I can’t recommend this enough. It’s straight history, not a polemic. And it’s more damaging because it is well documented history and not speculation. The authors manage to point out the faults in previous discussion of Barbour and his time with Russell. The chapter on Russell is too brief for my taste, but apparently they intend to enlarge on it in a follow up book.)
Barbour had nothing to do with Seventh-day Adventists. After severing ties with the Advent Christian Church and then with Russell, he identified with The Church of the Blessed Hope, founded in Cleveland, Ohio, by Mark Allen. The church still exists as about two or three small congregations.
Most of Russellite and Adventist doctrine derives from others, particularly Anglicans. The prophetical frame work of both bodies as it was in the 19 th Century was derived from Mede and the Anglican Bishop Thomas Newton. Both authors were circulated and read among Adventists generally, non-Sabatarian Adventists (Second Adventists) in particular.
The basic date system that Russell borrowed from Barbour is the creation of two Anglicans, E. B. Elliott and Christopher Bowen. (Bowen’s bio. is in a footnote in Nelson Barbour: The Millennium’s Forgotten Prophet. Buy this book! You’re missing out if you do not.)
Daniel T. Taylor, a prominent Advent Christian and briefly interested in Barbour’s date setting, wrote Voice of the Church in All Ages. There are several editions; the later editions are more complete. He details where many of the Second Advent doctrines came from, especially their view of the impending millennium. They relied heavily on Anglicans, Lutherans (eg Bengal), and a few non-conformists.
To say that Russell borrowed doesn’t detract from what he tried to do. Borrowing really isn’t the point. It’s not that he borrowed but what he borrowed. The biography of Barbour I mentioned above makes this point:
“What Russell ‘got from Barbour’ is consistently overstated, the object being to discredit Russell on the basis that his doctrine wasn’t original. Russell would be horrified at the suggestion that he originated anything. He sought the ‘Old Theology,’ the Bible’s actual teachings. Even if one believes he succeeded indifferently, criticizing him for lack of originality seems silly.”
I agree with that. There is little that is original in modern (Post Reformation) theology. It’s all borrowed. So what? The issue is the quality of the borrowing. Russell, if you’ll excuse the term, sucked at choosing what to borrow.
Paradise restored, the death state, the Russellite chronology, his view of Armageddon, his no-nameism and more all came from some place else. This is true of Luther, Calvin, and pastor what’s-his-name down the street. All their doctrines are borrowed. It’s a non-issue.
The date 1914 does not come from John Nelson Darby. (Ever read Darby? He’s not the bad guy here. Dispensationalism may be a crock, but Darby was an excellent Bible student. Try reading some of what he wrote.) The 1914 date comes from several sources, but it entered Russell’s theology through Barbour who got it from E. B. Elliot, an Anglican.
Many of the details and sources of Barbourite theology are non-Adventist. Read the dang book I mentioned.
Also, while Russellites still view Russell as the “mouthpiece of God”, Witnesses do not. Witness theology underwent a drastic change in the late 1920 and early 1930’s. It owes more to Christadelphian roots than you may expect. Compare Rutherford’s Light with John Thomas’ Eureka.
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Jephthah's Daughter
by cantleave ini have read somewhere that jephthah's daughter did not really go into temple service but was a victim of ritual sacrifice.
the bible says that after weeping over her virginity that the maidens would visit her annually.
how could they visit her if she was killed?.
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Old Goat
Based on the Hebrew grammar, A. C. Hervey, author of the commentary on Judges for the Pulpit Commentary, says: ""She was to be 'Jehovah's,' an expression unnecessary if it was to be make a burn offering, and which could only mean 'dedicated to perpetual virginity or priesthood.' ... The inference is imperative. It was not death, but perpetual virginity, to which she was devoted."
Back in the 1890's Patrick Fairbairn wrote an exhaustive article on Jephthah's sacrifice and its implications. He reached the same conclusion. She was dedicated to temple service and a perpetual virgin. (Fairbairn's Standard Bible Encyclopedia).
As I check through most of the commentaries and dictionaries, this seems to be the consensus. The argument that is most persuasive to me is the grammatical one.
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A CO's diagnosis and counsel
by ldrnomo insome time back when i was an elder and expressed my concerns about the blood doctrine to another elder (in confidence) the news got back to the whole body of elders and the co who i will just call (bro.
smith) .
after speaking to me for some time and determining that i did not believe in the wt blood doctrine.
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Science Fiction recommendations
by JeffT inso i have my daughter (a 33 year old choreographer turned psych student) reading rah.
so far she's read double star and tunnel in the sky, she stayed up all night friday night finishing tunnel.
she's working on the moon is a harsh mistress now.
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Old Goat
I've been an Asimov fan since the early 1950's. I like many of the golden age of SF writers.
Ann McCaffrey is good. I like the Pern series best I think, and after that the Rowan series.
David Eddings keeps me entertained. Anything by A. C. Crispin is good. (Full disclosure: Ann's a friend. Her books are good, friendship aside.)
I discovered Rachael de Vienne by reading the truthhistory blog. She co-wrote the Nelson Barbour biography I've recommended on this board. She writes fantasy fiction too, and I fell in love with her book, Pixie Warrior. I bought the audio version from audible.com. I'd have chosen a different reader, but it was well worth it. I also bought the ebook version.
Reading her book led me to her publisher's web site, and I've read a number of their books. The quality seems quite high on average.
I enjoyed all the Artamis Fowel books. Yes, I know they're Young Adult fiction, but they're still fun.
I should plug my own books, but then I'd generate more problems for myself than I wish. If you read YA books, you may find one -- or one can hope you do. My non-Witness dad introduced me to Science Fiction and Fantasy. I have most of his books and re-read them. Between his library and mine and what my wife has added there must be four or five hundred SF and Fantasy books on our shelves.
Guess you can tell that I never paid all that much attention to Watchtower advice not to read either genre.
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How do elders step down?
by BlackSwan of Memphis incatching up on some of the posts a thought came to mind..... .
if an elder or ms wants to step down, what is the process?
can it be as simple as saying "i need to step down" without having to supply an explanation?.
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Old Goat
Dear Eyeslice,
We had a brother who had to wear a beard. His doctor told him to because of some sort of skin disorder. If he shaved he got some of the worst skin and ingrown hair problems I've ever seen. His beard was clean, neatly trimmed, and very presentable. In the environment in which we both worked (government/academic types) neatly kept beards were common. The majority of the elder body (I think I was the only dissenter) wanted him removed as a Ministerial Servant. The two elders chosen to 'explain the issue' told him to live with the skin condition or be deleted. Understand that this was a painful condition. He kept his beard, and I never blamed him for that. One of the elders said, "People will think he's a hippie!" (That dates the episode) He wore expensive suits. He was very presentable. No one would ever have seen him as a hippie. (Or is that hippy?)
I understand the need to have those on the platform look nice. I don't understand some of the other rules. We had a sister who came straight from her job as a cook to meetings. She came in her work clothes. It was that or not make the meetings. One of the elders wanted to tell her to stop. She came in the last second. She sat in the back. No one minded. We all knew what the circumstance was. That is - no one minded but an idiot elder who wanted her to wear a dress.
Then there was the great plastic coat controversy and its predecessor, the Nehru Jacket conspiracy. One of the brothers bought a black leather sports-coat style jacket. It was expensive and very presentable. He wore it on the platform a few times. No one objected. Brother "I’m pretty much clueless" went out and bought a mustard yellow plastic jacket. You know the type? Fake leather in a color not found in nature? He wore his on the stage. It was second hand and cracking and had a hole in the sleeve. I'm not picking on someone too poor to afford nice clothes. He just liked the coat. We asked him to wear something better. He exploded. The "other brother" got to wear is leather coat, then he should be able to wear this plastic abomination! The resolution? Brother A retired his leather sports coat for casual use only. Brother B still wanted to wear his plastic "thing" but didn't. Petty and stupid.
I'll leave the great Nehru Jacket conspiracy for another day.
Parking? Yes! I was in the attendant department at a convention. Across the street from the convention was a MethodistChurch. Two of our attendants, based on what a department head told them, tried to regulate parking over at the church. Moronic? Heard of the Masonic Conspiracy (don't laugh. I don't believe in it either) This was the great Moronic Conspiracy! Anyway, I walk out to where they were and find them across the street at the Church. I tell them to leave those people alone. They insist it's their job to control parking. I say, not on a public street, it's not, and not in someone else's parking lot. Anyone remember the District Servant named Dugan? Tough man, but fair. He finally had to tell the idiot in charge of parking to stop.
These things are just silly. They do not mark witnesses as perverts, anti-christs, evil sectarians or any such thing. Just as inordinately silly. They put people in positions of responsibility who are not trained, have only marginal good sense, and almost no experience. If there is blame in this silliness, it rests on a governing body that is anti-intellectual and leaves the elders untrained in areas that matter.
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How do elders step down?
by BlackSwan of Memphis incatching up on some of the posts a thought came to mind..... .
if an elder or ms wants to step down, what is the process?
can it be as simple as saying "i need to step down" without having to supply an explanation?.
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Old Goat
When I resigned, I told them I was too sick to continue. Everyone knew I was incapacitated most of the time. I'm older than dirt. What I didn't tell them was, "You all just put us through eighteen months of misery based on the mindless prattling of a mentally ill man (in and out of a mental institution) and the insistence on the part of one of you that we take all his accusations seriously. We spent the last year and a half in a witch hunt mode, from which I have not been able to awaken you. I give it up. All you accomplished was to prove the man nuts and to hurt some really faithful brothers and sisters."
Not having stated the obvious helped. The circuit overseer visited about three weeks later. They deleted me then. Unexpectedly, he wrote a letter to the Service Department or whomever, saying "Brother Old Goat is seldom seen in the ministry." (I averaged 20 hours a month, though most of it was informal witnessing because I was an am seriously ill. I was house-bound most days.) I got a six page single spaced letter from them telling me how vital service was and saying, "You can't resign. We delete you for not going out in service." I never replied.
I took decades of letters and files to my office. (I still worked part time when and as I could. We owned the business) I dumped them all in an industrial shredder designed to handle inch thick piles of paper. I mentally severed my connection with the Watchtower in my office basement. I had just started to physically deteriorate. The three years previously had been spent either in bed unable to even get to the bathroom without assistance or in a UniversityHospital. But in the opinion of the elder who had started the trouble noted above (now dieing of cancer, I might add. I have no sympathy for him.), I was "faking it." He had the ear of the Circuit Overseer.
I wasn't really surprised. I had been active since the late 1940's. I'd seen similar foolishness from the service department before. The 'brother' in charge way back when was an ex-marine who never got it out of his blood. He only heard what he wanted to hear. He and his buddy Nathan had called one of my friends out of his circuit and back to bethel to grill him over a so-called demonic experience that occurred in his circuit. It was insane. So, no, I wasn't surprised. But I was angry. I'm still angry.
If it had been secular employment, we'd have ended up in court. No employer could do what they did and come off unscathed. As it was, I shrugged my shoulders and saw it as par for the course.
The really insulting thing was subsequent elder anger that I'd resigned. And even greater anger that brothers and sisters called me with their problems in preference to going to the elders. I faithfully sent them to the elder body, and I never commented on their reluctance. But I understood it.
The Society and elder bodies seek to control your every breath. They act stupidly. I am still seen as a faithful witness. I'm not though - not in anyway that they would recognize. I spent a goodly time angry at God over the whole thing. It took me a while to recover a sense of proportion. I expected God to teach his children good sense, and was angry that he hadn't. The alternative is, they aren't his children, and he isn't responsible for that other fella's kids.
The ecclesiastical authorities among Jehovah's Witnesses make me physically ill. There is an occasional Christian among them, but not many. In my last active years I was gossiped about. I was accused of being an apostate. (Wasn't so at the time; I'm not sure it's so now. I believe the doctrines, mostly. A few I puzzle over. I don't teach contrary doctrine. I especially didn't then.) I was faking my illness. I lied on my service report. My wife and I were on the verge of divorce because she couldn't cope with my illness. You name it, someone said it. Much of this came from the mentally disturbed man I mentioned earlier and was passed around by his elder buddy. How does one defend against this? I ignored it until someone specifically asked about something. Then I dealt with it on a person by person basis.
Attending meetings was a chore. I need help dressing some days. I can't walk well, sometimes not at all. I would get sick in the middle of a meeting and have to leave. My entire family would have to drag me out to the car and get me home. It was a big chore. I stopped going. I eventually gave up trying to resolve my issues. They're not resolvable.
The elder who was the focus of everyone's problems has been deleted twice since. They keep reappointing him. He's dieing now. I'll dance on his grave. (Can you hear the enduring anger?) At the same time, I silently thank him for helping me to see what the Watchtower truly is, a power mad organization of Pharisee-like individuals who haven't a clue what real Christianity is. (Elder during meeting: "We tried love and it didn't work! Now it's time to get tough! --- Honest, that bit of conversation really happened!)
Eventually a rift developed between the "bad elder" and his primary supporter on the elder body. Mr. Bad Elder has a history of attacking other servants going back to the mid 1960's, when he was first appointed a Congregation Servant. He left a trail of "bodies" all over the region way back when. He'd contrive complaints and try to get those removed whom he felt were cutting into his power or whom he felt showed him in a bad light. He lied to do it. I remember sitting in our Kingdom Hall office/library and discussing his complaints against another elder. He insisted the man's business practices disqualified him as an elder because of something an Awake! said. I asked him to show me the article. He said he didn't remember what issue it was in, "but it's in there somewhere and we need to delete him!"
We're in the library, right? Okay. Index in hand, I go looking. I find an article. We look. He says, "Yes! That's it!" I say, "Show me where it says what you claimed." It didn't of course. Nothing of the sort was there. So he dropped it, right? No way Jose'. He was back within a week saying, "You know he lies during committee meetings?" On and on it went, until another elder and I cornered a Circuit Overseer and told him the whole story. He cooled down for a while. Later he went back to it, picking off two more elders. One simply moved to another congregation to get away, and one threw up his hands and resigned.
After I resigned, he would drive by my house once or twice a day. It was out of his way, and I do not know what he thought he would see. Another Witness family lived across the street. He enlisted the "brother" in his spy network. After a few months this brother walked across the street to tell me that he was supposed to keep track of my movements. Tell me? Does this sound like Christianity to you?
There wasn't much to see. I was mostly in bed.
My health improved for a while. I was able to resume attending, though I often had to go into the office and lay on a couch. I fixed up the Kingdom Hall library, sorting the books and filling in gaps. There was an old copy of Pastor Russell's sermons in there. The circuit overseer came and saw it. He was an obnoxious kid as far as I was concerned. He was, to say the least, uninformed. He told the elder body they needed to meet with me to discuss the apostate literature I'd put in the library. He gave them a list of books. Apparently he did not know that the Peoples Pulpit Association was the first name of the Watchtower Society of New York.
I made one of the elders go through every book in the library and verify that it was a Watchtower Publication. The only things that weren't were a couple of dictionaries and some Bible translations. Does this sound anything like Christianity to you?
Interestingly, I later found that one of the men I pioneered with back in the late 1960's and off and on into the 1970's had a similar experience, though the actual issue came from a sister looking through a box of books a non-witness had donated and that had come from his grandmother's estate. Because he was Ministry School Overseer, he was blamed for two non-Witness pamphlets found in the box. Of course, he hadn't even seen the box. It was left on the doorstep and the sisters carried it in and snooped. Are elders insane? or just stupid?
So here I am. Cut loose from a religion I spent most of my life actively supporting. I do not reject Jehovah's Witnesses. I think many of them are fine Christians. I think of every elder, every ministerial servant, all those in authority especially those in Brooklyn as suspect. I spent too many years dealing with them directly to see them any other way.
I'm trying to reassess my relationship to God and to the Witnesses. I've been re-reading back issues of The Watchtower with a more critical and thoughtful mind. Will I go back? I do not know. Does something need to change? Yes. This is not the clean organization I always hoped it was and wanted it to be. The spiritual soiling that concerns me isn't the common sins of common people. That happens, and it won't stop. Life is life. What concerns me is the self-view, the self-justification (as opposed to divine justification) of those in authority. And the crazy-butt side doctrines that have nothing to do with faith. Oh my Lord, make them go away!