Old Goat

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Posts by Old Goat

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  46

  How long did you know TTATT while attending the meetings?

  by Iamallcool in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i did not know anything about ttatt while attending the meetings.. .

  ttatt=the truth about the truth..

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  Old Goat

  I have a copy, read it already. Bad grammar. Not much of a fix.
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  46

  How long did you know TTATT while attending the meetings?

  by Iamallcool in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i did not know anything about ttatt while attending the meetings.. .

  ttatt=the truth about the truth..

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  Old Goat

  It makes me sick when they try to compare themselves to the disciples of ancient times. They are not even close.

  If we read Paul's letters with an eye for it, we find all the problems that crop up in Witness congregations: Personal difficulties, vanity, a feeling of "specialness," lax behavior. The problem isn't that Witnesses are not like the early, fractured, disagreeable congregations. They are a bit too much like them. We should expect Christian brethren to be a lot like us. No? The real issue is that Watchtower heirarchy replaces scripture with personal opinion, or they express as firm doctrine ideas that have been debated within the Witness comunity for over a century. An Example is the fate of Sodom.

  By now we should know that solid arguments can be made for their salvation and for their everlasting destruction. Why not say - a humble man would - we do not know with certainty. It rests in Jesus' hands, and he will do the right thing. That they express personal opinion as divinely inspired doctrine marks them as haughty, self-appointed arbiters of all scriptural matters.

  Because the Watchtower has since Rutherford's day formulated a prophetic scheme with themselves at the center, they cannot approach the Faithful and Wise Servant doctrine with clear eyes. Jesus was not describing a prophetic appointment. He was describing the qualities of a faithful servant. Does that mean that the Christian Church doesn't have a governance structure? No. Other verses tell us it does. But Matthew twenty-four does not describe a last-days appointment of a few men to lead the body of Christ into paradise. It only describes two courses of life.

  It's time to drop the self-entitlement and really read the Bible.
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  46

  How long did you know TTATT while attending the meetings?

  by Iamallcool in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i did not know anything about ttatt while attending the meetings.. .

  ttatt=the truth about the truth..

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  Old Goat

  Is it a root beer dispencer? Absolutely. My uncle had one very similar to it. Back in the day you could buy Heirs' Root Beer Extract and make your own. It was very yeasty, very good.

  Note the hand pump on top. That's root beer. Beer would have a tap at the bottom. While there was one style of beer keg that stood upright, it had a glass liquid level on the side. You'd see it in this photo if it were there. Most kegs rest on their side. It's a matter of physics.

  Yup, root beer.

  Also, there is no evidence of drunkeness in this photo anyway. Drinking beer isn't a sin.
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  46

  How long did you know TTATT while attending the meetings?

  by Iamallcool in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i did not know anything about ttatt while attending the meetings.. .

  ttatt=the truth about the truth..

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  Old Goat

  I’m approaching 90. Many of the things that shocked people here I saw develop and change. This includes doctrinal shifts, editorial changes, apostate movements lost in the mists of time. I read everything I could get my hands on back when I was a new Witness. (In the mid to late 1940s.) I remember reading Millions Now Living will Never Die with some shock. We had a few old timers who lived through the 1925 nonsense, and they filled me in on it. What made it easier to take was a short apology from Rutherford’s pen in one of the Vindication volumes.

  I believed then and still do believe that individual Christians mature in conduct and doctrinal understanding. I’m willing to give credit to someone who corrects a mistake, no matter how silly the previous belief was.

  The number of Witnesses was small when I was new. Those in authority were consequently more approachable. I was more tolerant of human foible then. I’ve become a cranky, sometimes intolerant old man since. One of the most enduring problems for me was the behavior of those who thought themselves specially God-appointed. If one assumes a prophet’s mantle, others have reason to expect more from you than of themselves. Naming names is fruitless, mostly. Most of those I have in mind are dead. But a few stand out as self-anointed and on the creepy side. F. W. Franz would top the list. The long time head of the Service Department, an ex-Marine who never got over being one, is another. His name was Miller. The word Obtuse always crosses my mind when I recall him. Harry C. Good, a long time circuit and district overseer, was abusive to everyone. He was intolerant of age and infirmity marking reduced activity as lack of zeal.

  There was an approach to fellow believers back when that always disturbed me. When Knorr sent out the first traveling brothers as “Servants to the Brethren,” he told them to look for trouble. If you look for trouble, you will find it. Because of the difficulties that caused, that approach was pulled back, but never went away.

  Personal opinion in place of scripture was and is another issue for me. You find this in the Watchtower. But it’s most pronounced among elders. The Watchtower does not train its elders. Anti-intellectualism taints the authority structure among Watchtowerites. Kingdom Ministry School is a failure as an educational tool. It does not teach the Bible’s content. It teaches organizational structure. Watchtower elders are not taught at the feet of the apostles, but at the feet of men detached from reality and from the Bible.

  There are things that many who post here find disturbing that don’t bother me and never have bothered me. The great pyramid? Never an issue for me, for all the reasons cited in Schulz and deVienne’s A Separate Identity. (Buy it and read it!). Rutherford a drunk? Best I could ever tell is that’s a false trail. You’ll find a photo somewhere on here purporting to show him drunk. In the background is an old-fashioned root beer dispenser. Fake evidence such as that is troubling. Mantley’s letter to the Watchtower never upset me. He raved over the Society misrepresenting him. In fact, Mantley’s name didn’t belong on the book. Mantley did not write the passage in question Dana did. Dana was dead when Mantley added some revisions, but he had nothing to do with the quotation. Mantley made it up. But people here are willing to parrot that. I’d never let my students get away with that. You shouldn’t tolerate it either.

  The greatest issues for me have always been the conduct of those in authority. It’s often self-serving and abusive. Or they make decisions without having heard the evidence, or they express personal opinions that have no place in Christian discourse.

  Revising publications to hide stupid statements is unethical. The Watchtower does that. They fake footnotes or they did way back in the when, citing many references when they all came from one source. I was teaching history back in the 1960s (still crawl out of retirement to lecture on occasion.), and had that discussion with a Watchtower writer. It made no impression on him.
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  20

  Have you heard Judge Rutherford give a sermon?

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the phonograph records recorded by judge rutherford have been uploaded to the internet archives.. you can stream them and listen.. https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3a%28j.%20f.%20rutherford%29.

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  Old Goat

  I should add that while I enjoy this site, I don't know how much longer I will post here. I'm going blind slowly. Not really unexpected at my age. So with a very large screen and enlargment for sight challenged, I don't see the computer screen very clearly. If I stop showing up, know that while some of you irritate the devil out of me, I care deeply for everyone hurt by the Watchtower.

  read this book:

  http://www.lulu.com/shop/b-w-schulz/a-separate-identity-organizational-identity-among-readers-of-zions-watch-tower-1870-1887/paperback/product-21546337.html
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  20

  Have you heard Judge Rutherford give a sermon?

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the phonograph records recorded by judge rutherford have been uploaded to the internet archives.. you can stream them and listen.. https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3a%28j.%20f.%20rutherford%29.

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  Old Goat

  Rutherford died not long before I was first exposed to the Witnesses. I listened to all the old records. He had two styles of preaching. The door-step records are low-key and sound rational. The convention discurses are more dramatic. I don't know what to think about Rutherford. The authors that wrote A Separate Identity should write a Rutherford biography. I'd read it.

  There is one set of Knorr rcordings. Peace Can it Last. Even when an active Witness, I had mixed feelings about Knorr. He could be charming. I watched him take time out of a very busy, stressful schedule to talk with an older Witness. He talked to the man until he'd had his say and showed no impatience at all. On the other hand, he could be pointed, nearly abusive to others, including traveling brothers. He was dictatorial. Sometimes intollerant. Sometimes so patient that it went beyond anything one could expect. I never knew which Knorr I was dealing with. And yes, that means I'm prolly old enough to be your great grandfather.
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  30

  Who Exactly Answers Your Letter When You Write the Society?

  by millie210 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this is something i cannot find the answer to on my own.. who exactly answers your letter when you write the society?.

  i thought maybe there has been a thread on this before or maybe one of your awesome researchers would know how to answer?.

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  Old Goat

  They have a set of three-ring binders with form responsies to "freqently asked questions."

  They have low-level clerks who answer most questions.

  They don't answer all mail.

  They're consistently rude, especially if you put them on the spot.

  Their usual answer is 'no.'

  They take weeks to answer, sometimes months.

  They don't care about you or your question. They often don't read all of your letter. If they answer at all it will be the most basic of your questions. They can't handle more than one simple question at a time.

  It's a waste of time to write.
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  3

  NEED SCAN BOE letter of July 29, 1988

  by apocalypse in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  this topic has been covered, however, there is urgent need of a scan, as close to the original as possible.. does anyone have it?.

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  Old Goat

  You mean this one?

  http://www.silentlambs.org/education/WeaknessorWickedness.cfm
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  44

  JWs AND THE OCCULT!

  by ADJUSTMENTS in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pcvzpebrkxg.

  to go along with this video if you look closely at any cover of the latest wt or aw magazines you will always find (if you take your time) a pyramid or triangle in some shape or form even if it is not completely symmetrical, check it out on the jw website.

  also virtually all kingdom hall exteriors will have a pyramid or triangle shaped roof, take a look at your local hall or google kingdom halls.

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  Old Goat

  There's always a gullible moron. Probably why he became a Witness to begin with ...
• 

  Interesting Essay

  by Old Goat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  part of the continuing work of schulz and de vienne.. .

  http://truthhistory.blogspot.com/.

  i'd like to read the rest of this.

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  Old Goat

  Part of the continuing work of Schulz and de Vienne.

  http://truthhistory.blogspot.com/

  I'd like to read the rest of this. I hope they publish it on the blog when it's more complete.