Posts by Old Goat

this week is the "special week", co is back.. he phone called me this morning asking to meet together.. i replied "i don't refuse people who want talking to me, but my condition is that you must be alone, and we meet in public space.".

he agreed and we will meet tomorrow in a cafe.. .

this week he already met with my wife in the kh, and he told her "i believe your housband is apostate !!

Old Goat

Why meet with him at all? You're not obligated to. Do you really have something to discuss with him? I'd politely decline. You realize this is a Witch Hunt, right? Why step into that trap?

"On second thought, I don't see a meeting with you as essential to my well being. If I feel the need of a shepherding visit, I'll call you. Thanks."

18

Charles Taze Russell

by thedog1 in

jw
friends

i think i read somewhere, here or maybe on another forum, that somebody claimed that c.t.

russell stood on the brooklyn bridge with some others, all in white robes, in 1878, waiting for the rapture.

any truth in that?.

Old Goat

The toga was real, the reason you give for it is not. He died of a condition that makes the skin tender to touch. If you read Menta Sturgeon's original comments, you will see it was an issue of pain, not of some silly robe. Russell did not believe that one could make his own white robe. He believed a spirit bodies doctrine and saw the white robes of revelation as symbolic.

You've detached the event from its setting. Don't swallow things like that. There is enough that is "real" to point to. When we 'apostates' point to something like this that is wrong, well known to be false, then we destroy our message.

Part of the cure is to inform yourself. Read Penton's books. Read both of Schulz and de Vienne's books. And before you make a claim or believe someone else's claim, check it out. All the old Watch Towers are online these days. Go look. I like this board (and some of the people who post here) but its 89 percent stupid and 11 percent informed.

18

Charles Taze Russell

by thedog1 in

jw
friends

i think i read somewhere, here or maybe on another forum, that somebody claimed that c.t.

russell stood on the brooklyn bridge with some others, all in white robes, in 1878, waiting for the rapture.

any truth in that?.

Old Goat

I think it remarkable that those who've posted on this topic know so little about their former religion that they're willing to swallow this. (See history book comments above). Russell did and believed his share of "fruitcake" things. This isn't one of them. Are you so angry that you can leave reason at the door and believe something a newspaper man invented 100 years ago because he was bored and had no news.

We detract from our real complaints by swallowing this stuff and then making unfounded, rude comments. If you have a case against the wtchtower (there is an endless list of things to complain about that actually are valid) make it.

Comments like these don't help us. They frame us as the type of person the Watchtower says we are. Stop it.

18

Charles Taze Russell

by thedog1 in

jw
friends

i think i read somewhere, here or maybe on another forum, that somebody claimed that c.t.

russell stood on the brooklyn bridge with some others, all in white robes, in 1878, waiting for the rapture.

any truth in that?.

Old Goat

From Schulz and de Vienne: A Separate Identity (for sale at lulu.com):

A. H. Macmillan’s Claims

A. H. Macmillan reported that “Pittsburgh newspapers” said Russell “was on the Sixth Street bridge dressed in a white robe on the night of the Memorial of Christ’s death, expecting to be taken to heaven.” We could not find the original of this newspaper report, though we do not doubt its existence. The fact of the report is interesting, but the conclusions many have drawn from it are distorted. The report, no matter who printed it, was long removed from the events of 1878. Macmillan’s association dates from 1900. The newspaper article could be no older than that and is probably dated later, perhaps after 1906. As Macmillan has it, Russell’s reaction was to laugh “heartily” and say:

I was in bed that night between 10:30 and 11:00 P.M. However, some of the more radical ones might have been there, but I was not. Neither did I expect to be taken to heaven at that time, for I felt there was much work to be done preaching the Kingdom message to the peoples of the earth before the church would be taken away.

One should dispose of the ascension-robe claim first. It was an old, often-repeated calumny. Though there isn’t a verifiable instance, everyone with clearly defined end-of-the age expectations was subject to it. It is especially out of place when applied to Russell. He expected a change to a spirit body, making any self-made ascension robe irrelevant. He understood the “white robes” of Revelation 6:11 to be symbolic, not literal. That he or any of the Pittsburgh believers dressed in robes is a newspaper reporter’s lie. The story delights Russell’s enemies who discount his denial, and others simply repeat it, believing it to be accurate because it saw print.

If Macmillan reports Russell’s belief that “there was much work to be done” and that he didn’t “expect to be taken to heaven at that time” with any sort of accuracy, then we must presume his doubts to have arisen in the last weeks before April 1878. Any time prior to the spring of 1878, we find Russell and Barbour believing with equal fervor that translation impended. It is apparent that he believed and preached that translation was due. Taken as a whole, this seems a very unreliable report. But we come away from it noting two things: There was among the Pittsburgh brethren a “more radical” party; they were somewhat fragmented.

We see Macmillan’s claim that Russell did not expect translation and that he saw a vast field of work ahead as wrong. Russell wrote that “since 1878 (and never before that) we have felt at liberty to call God’s children out of the nominal churches to a position … where they would be free to serve Him fully.” This clearly dates his vision of a vast work to after the disappointment.

Their blog is here:

http://truthhistory.blogspot.com/

60

I had a funny feeling he was a Witness... and now I need help.

by noontide in

jw
friends

im in a bit of a bind and im not quite sure what (if anything) i can do about it.

i was recently hired as a business consultant for a rather large company.

the company that hired me mentioned that they are concerned about a certain department and the way its being run, as this department affects every other department in the company.

Old Goat

Identify his behavior without connecting them to his religion. For instance: Others in the department see him as distant and unapproachable. He is preceived as judgmental in ways that do not connect to his area os supervision.

61

Embarrassed by Aggressive Apostates

by ShempLives in

jw
friends

xjw protests & videos.

.. i am disturbed by some of the more aggressive apostates posting videos on youtube,like "a jw memorial to remember" where a drunk man goes to a memorial and downs the whole glass of wine as a sort of protest.

this video and others like it received positive comments from aawa members.

Old Goat

Bad behavior proves to Witnesses that they're right and the bad actor is exactly the fool they think he is. Come to think of it, it proves the same thing to me. Most of the bad actors are people who got caught doing things Witnesses reject. They came to doctrinal or ethical or historical disagreement after the fact. Their outrage is seldom genuine. It's a form of self-justification.

I've seen most of the youtube vids. Some are good. Most are really poor, telling far more about the person that made them than about the Watchtower organization. And most of what the videos tell about them is very negative.

18

What role (witting or unwitting) did HAYDEN C. COVINGTON play in the Watchtower DF policy flip-flop?

by Terry in

what if i told you three presidents of the watch tower corporation at one time held the following to be true?.

excommunication (shunning/disfellowship) is used by false religion to stifle honest inquiry.. ironic?

well, duh!.

Old Goat

Such an interesting topic. There was a prior disfellowshipping arrangement. It was seldom used because it was, if anything, even worse then the post 1953 procedure. The original method of addressing “deportment” issues was a public trial before the congregation. When I was a new Witness, some congregations were still doing this. The small congregation with which I associated briefly in 1949 tried a man for homosexuality and pederasty, exposing his faults to the entire congregation.

However, by that time a different procedure was in place. It was poorly defined. Organization Instructions (first published in 1939, if I recall correctly.) Said that the responsible brothers were to speak privately with those not behaving as a Christian should. If the “mature ones or elders should decide what shall be done with such person.”

They did not call it disfellowshpping. But the effect was the same. If they servants wrote to the Society, they were to furnish the accused brother with a copy of the letter.

Post-war behavior standards were lax. In the same period, the Watchtower put more emphasis on behavior. The 1950s modifications were meant to increase diligence and to diminish the role of the service department. Poor behavior on the part of appointed servants was part of this. As an example, the Company Servant at Salinas, California, ran off with a fifteen year old girl.

36

1914 to 2014--Has Jesus been ruling for a 100 years?

by Londo111 in

dearest jw,.

likely you are reading this because you are wondering that very thing: did jesus become king in october 1914?

will october 2014 mark 100 years of kingdom rule?.

Old Goat

My personal opinion is based on the title of Knorr's 1966 talk, What Has God's Kingdom Been Doing Since 1914? Can you name ONE thing? Jesus gave signs the fulfilment of which whould be obvious, including astronomical signs. I'm still waiting to see them.