the wbts has published many of these, where money is found and returned to the owner .with a reason,because i am a jw.in this issue,there is a big picture of nelma:a woman from chuzeiro do sul,brazil.she apparently found $1000.00 in the pockets of some trousers that were donated because of a flood.nelma returned the money to the businesswoman who had donated the clothing.this lady was overjoyed to receive the money,because she had set aside her payroll for her employees in a trouser pocket.. should they(gb/fds) be idolizing these honest people?.
note:no man should be idolized.christians should guard against idolatry.it means giving such a one a measure of worshipful devotion.but god explicitly stated that he does not tolerate such a thing.however,they (gb/fds) lack proper perspective,of knowledge and understanding of honest people helping people.it is as if by exalting a fellow human creature they are lifting themselves up also.. now here is an example from the world.. this is from a wordly newspaper.yes i know the wts says these are half truths.i will not quote the whole article.
"i am contacting your newspaper in the hope that i may be able to puplicly thank the good samaritans who helped me when my truck broke down on the highway just......on date.in my distress,i regrettably failed to get the name of this kind young man from...who went home to get a vehicle that could tow my vehicle back to the city.and than to top it off,drove me to get a room for the night.my thanks are also extended to the hotel owner to drove me to my truck.he gives more praise.......thank you for the opportunity to express my gratitude to all who assisted me to return home safely".
By a 3-1 ratio, this experiment showed that people will return a lost wallet: http://nwitimes.com/articles/2007/01/17/features/lifestyles/6726d3d3b0eb92d08625725f007e3e9f.txt
The JWs don't hold a monopoly on moral, honest behavior; actually, based on so many of the experiences I've read here, I'd say just the opposite!
and introduce myself.
i was raised in "the truth", and for the longest time it was all i knew.
i spent my childhood going through all the things that other witness children went through; not celebrating holidays, not standing up and reciting the pledge of allegiance, not going to school events, or associating with "worldly" children much.
Welcome to the board, SL.
I wasn't born in the truth, I came in voluntarily (eek!) Well, that's over and done with, thank goddess! Anyway, one of the things I was always entirely skeptical of was the "annointed" and all that "abba, father" stuff. According to JW doctrine, it's absolutely true, anyone can claim they are of the annointed. And who are we to judge? In fact, according to JW doctrine, we are NOT to be judges of each other. So all this crap involving Elders and Judicial Committees is such that - so much crap.
Anyway, back to the annointed. The doctrine is a double-edged sword dangling over the head of the old buzzards on the GB in New York. On the one hand, they WANT the freedom to be able to appoint/annoint anyone they want (yes men, every last one of them) to the GB, and it doesn't make any difference that they were born well after the class of the annointed supposedly closed for good in 1935. By the way, anyone born in 1935 would today be at least 71 years old. On the other hand, since the doctrine IS so wide open, ANYONE, and I do mean anyone, can claim that they are annointed. And so they have. That's why we have not seen a steady decrease in the numbers of annointed over the years, although statistics say that we should see a steady decline. Instead, in some years, we've actually seen INCREASES in the number of annointed. Now, according to JW doctrine, the only way an annointed one can be replaced is if he (or she) falls into gross unrepentant sin (or something like that); then, and only then, is a replacement designated by Jehovah's Holy Spirit. What I'm not clear on, and it seems that no one is clear on, is whether this annointed-now-sinner has to die in order to be replaced with a new annointed, or if he or she only has to be an unrepentant sinner for a certain amount of time, say six months (buy now, pay later).
That's a sideline, though. The important point is that, according to the JW doctrine, there must be a LOT of unrepentant sinning annointed ones out there, judging by the amount of increase of new annointed we are seeing in the yearly statistics. So, you are absolutely 100% right in questioning this JW doctrine. It's got a hole through it as large as the hole one finds in old-fashioned "ring-baloney" (sometimes called "ringed-baloney", hence the old saying, you're full of baloney i.e., your story has such a big hole in it, you can drive a TRUCK through it, ha ha ha!)
So, that's the thought process I went through, and through subsequent lurking and reading here, discovered that lots of other people "discovered" the same home truths. One other important thing, people are here for lots of different reasons, or maybe no reason at all, they just enjoy it. But in our own ways, we're all on journeys to either enlarge what truth we already know, or to discover our own truth for ourselves. And none of that truth has anything to do with "The Truth" as sold by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
has anyone called bethel to confirm that this is an official proclamation?.
a few 1000 phone calls might get some attention... probably cause warning talks on getting your information thru emails instead of publications ... i know some of you here do call bethel on occasion..just wondering if anyone has called to ask about this latest stuff..
Whoever the people are who is running this thing, they should be recruited by the U.S. Government to run the disinformation campaign in Iraq. They're REAL pros!
it's good to train a child when they're young to have diverse ideas, opinions and understandings.
it is the total opposite of what the wtbts wants from their children.
they want their children to be taught that only the wtbts is correct and everything they utter, even if total bs, is not to be questioned.. in the last four to five years i have read so much on history, prehistory, geology, religion blah de blah de blah, and in that reading i have also been non stop telling my husband and children every thing i have read and every diverse theory i have come across, so that in effect, they also have become widely read on the subject.. my youngest child goes to a church of england school, even though we are non religious and i have put that down clearly on her information form.
Lovely Lil, you couldn't be more right. I spent my formative years reading all the science fiction that I could get my hands on. My parents didn't care, they didn't even know I was reading books :) As I grew up I spread my wings into metaphysical subjects and then supernatural, etc. subjects. I read several Jane Roberts books - anyone ever read her? Carlos Castenado (sp?) was a big read during the college years. Guess what - I became a Witness (baptized) in 1996 DESPITE all this.
What one reads isn't as important to begin with but that one is reading, it's that one is informing one's mind, and the more one reads, the more one informs his or her mind. (Yes, I know there are people who will disagree). I don't remember exactly when I first heard about the Harry Potter books, but being one of those types of persons who says "I will NEVAH do what is popular and it seems at the time that all I was hearing about was "Harry Potter this and Harry Potter that" - well, suffice to say that I did buy the first Harry Potter book when it was on sale at the local book store a few years ago, and the rest is history. I loved it, and I fell in love with the world of Harry Potter and his friends. I don't give a hoot about the sorcery, the relationships are the thing. Harry Potter is a classic "coming of age" story, and in that, it is timeless. J.K. Rowling has done us all a favor writing this series of books, designed to appeal to today's "ear".
a stay at home dad posted on craig's list that he was looking for platonic email correspondance with a lady, someone to talk about life with, insights into relationships, a reason to turn on the computer in the morning et cetera....... my fiance occasionally finds herself seeking relationships with select people online and getting into soulful conversations with them.
she feels that people can be their truest selves in these moments.
to share the quirks of life with random fellow americans is somehow thrilling to her.
Well, for goodness sake! If the internet is just filled with predators looking to pounce, than what are we all here, heh?
I've never read such a lot of bunk if my life. The internet is still filed with real people with real needs, looking for friends and kindred spirits.
Else, this place would not exist.
So if your lady wants to have a friendship with someone on line, it's not of your fricking business as far as I'm concerned. Let her alone. If you can't handle that, then you should not be engaged to the lady.
boy was it tuff.
a nice, sweet mature couple, in their mid 60's, were catholic, from scotland/ireland...been jws for about 12 years so i could still do circles around them... i was very pleasant with them, as i think they approached me with pleasantness,,,not craziness.
about 2 min.
They'll be back. Be kind - I know you will. And Orbison, since when does being in one's mid-50's mean that one can no longer be "hot" - hell, I'm just beginning my GOOD years at 55. Rock On, Baby Boomers, Rock On...
warning: the wtbts is becoming more cultish as evidenced in this mp3.
listener take heed.
turn on all your cult warning alarms on.. .
Okay, spank me for not reading through to the end of the thread, these same thoughts may have already been posted. First the speaker says that the Governing Body, who has taken on the entire role of the Faithful and Discreet Slave (is this new light? What happened to the other 8,000 plus annointed still out there?) - says that Matthew 24.14 has been fulfilled. Then a few sentences later the speaker says Matthew 24.14 is being fulfilled. Well, the scripture can't have been fulfilled if it's still in the process of being fulfilled. It's one or the other. Duh! Of course, the Governing Body thinks everyone except them is a f'ing idiot, so maybe that was intentional, just their way of laughing up their butts at the rank and file who suck it all in, no matter what kind of garbage it is.
The bottom line is, the GB isn't going to tell the JWs that the preaching work has been completed. Not if they are in their right minds. No way, no how. That is the way the WTBTS makes it's money - by getting the rank and file to cough up money every month for the WTBTS's useless magazines (certainly not from "sales" of the magazines to the general public). If the preaching work is finished, there would be no more need for the rank and file to buy magazines every month because there would be no need for the rank and file to be out there trying to get rid of those magazines.
If the preaching work was finished, where would the $$$ come from to keep supporting the GB and all of the remaining ones at Bethel and the select ones at the Branch Offices around the world? From nowhere, unless Jehovah decides to rain down $$$ from heaven. So, this speaker obviously misspoke the first time around when he said Matthew 24.14 has been fulfilled, and was covering his tracks in the subsequent course of the talk when he said it was in the course of being filfilled (nothing new there).
But imagine for a moment that you in the audience at the annual meeting (or whenever this talk was given), hearing this. Oh thrill! You are one of the privileged few to hear an "off script" talk from a high-up mucky-muck. Therefore, this MUST be the real scoop. Can you keep the secret to yourself? Well, of course not. You're going to go home and tell mom and Maude and Mabel and Fred, and the clerk at the grocery store too. Hmmmm, I can't help but feel this is going to come back and bite the WTBTS right in the financial butt, where it hurts the most. WHAT A STUPID THING TO DO - TO LET THIS MAN GIVE THIS KIND OF TALK. Once the rank and file get wind of the fact that the GB thinks that Matthew 24.14 has already been fulfilled, what do you think will happen? They are not ALL idiots - we were all there once, and we are not idiots. What will be the motivation for the rank and file to continue banging on doors every weekend if the preaching work has already been accomplished? If the Big A is right around the corner, what's the point of preaching anymore? In another recent thread here, I understand that in another one of these talks the speaker indicated that you should get your affairs in order. Yeah, right, what affairs? Get your life insurance paid up? Make our your wills and health care powers of attorney? But for the faithful, what need would they have to do anything to "get their affairs in order" - won't the Big J take care of all of them once the Big A is over and done?
Thanks to L. and to S. for posting their transcripts. There must be some really stupid people running things these days at the WTBTS - watch for the highly paid law firms to start bailing out (not that such things are ever made public, but there are always signs). And welcome to mac n cheese.
reasons, not excuses -- even valid ones (like, "i was ignorant, depressed, fooled").. yours in the sense that you can still own (to) them -- even though you now know the "answer" was wrong.. this obviously applies to those who became jws -- hence mostly not born-in, although some of the latter might admit to having chosen the jw way for themselves at a certain stage of their childhood or teenage years.. this question is triggered by a previous conversation with purplesofa on another thread:.
i think most of us that came in and not born in were searching.
our hearts were pure in our search.
To quote Sarek: "It seemed like a good idea at the time".
please advise me - can i be spied upon.. i share broadband access with another computer in my home.
the other computer is the main access wireless provider for broadband.
can the other computer be set up in such a way that the apostate sites i visit are noted by the computer user.. hope i'm just being paranoid.. thanks.
Wouldn't the problem be solved by you using a password on your own computer? Unless anyone else knows or can guess the password, they would not be able to access your computer. I have a set-up on my home computer where more than one person can use this one computer, but if a user's access is password protected and someone logging on to another's "account" does not know the password, they can't access the user's account, files, etc.
for those of us who mumble through auld lang syne here are the words.... anglicized translation:.
for auld lang syne.. chorus .
and well tak a cup o kindness yet,.
Happy New Year, everyone. May the Barley Goddess sprinkle her blessings on you thoughout the new year. My sweetie and I sang "Auld Lang Syne" at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life' that was on network television on Christmas Eve - only the first chorus. I've never heard the other choruses!
