Posts by Earnest

21

Jehovah, and Watchtower Dishonesty

by Maximus in

jw
friends

here's another example of how the society uses selective quotations.

(see the thread blood, the watchtower and deceit for two other examples, carefully documented.

under the title "is it wrong to pronounce gods name?

Earnest

This subject was also discussed at http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/34547/460032/post.ashx#460032.

"(1) THE WORD 'JEHOVAH' DOES NOT ACCURATELY REPRESENT ANY FORM OF THE NAME EVER USED IN HEBREW." [emphasis mine]

Hmmm. It is probably true that 'Jehovah' is not a transliteration of the Hebrew. There is good reason to believe the first vowel was an 'a' but it is possible the name was pronounced as three syllables rather than the two in 'Yahweh'. Of course, it is even more certain that THE WORD 'LORD' DOES NOT REPRESENT ANY FORM OF THE NAME, ACCURATE OR NOT. Every translator of the Hebrew bible knows that "lord" is not a translation of God's name in any sense, it is a substitution. That is what Jews do when they read God's name in the Bible...they substitute, and they know they are doing it. At least, in the Hebrew bible the name is still printed. If one believes that they are translating the word of God it really is quite blasphemous to remove his name in thousands of places. If the Committee believes that "the word 'Jehovah' does not accurately represent any form of the Name ever used in Hebrew" and that it is "almost if not quite certain that the Name was originally pronounced 'Yahweh' ", then they should use 'Yahweh', as the Jerusalem Bible does.

I did not know this. I always thought Jehovah was an English derivative of Yahweh.

As we don't know how the Jews pronounced it, it seems quite dogmatic for the NRSV Committee to say that 'Jehovah' doesn't represent ANY form of the name EVER used in Hebrew. But the reason that God's name is translated as 'Jehovah' is that is the name the first English translators (e.g. Tyndale) used. If they had used 'Yahweh' or 'Henry' then it is unlikely 'Jehovah' would ever have been used. But that is how they translated his name and, as a result, that is his name in English.

Earnest

37

The Day "Rebellion" Happened in Bethel

by metatron in

jw
friends

years ago, during the early 70's, conditions and morale.

at bethel got pretty bad - a sex ranting knorr,.

demanding overseers, stupid policies, and brothers.

Earnest

I know, since I was sitting there at the breakfast table (1969), day after day for 2 weeks, listening to Knorr rant-and-rave about it, that there was a major shaking-out of homosexual activity at Bethel, including Gileadites (about 40 Bethelites involved, as I recall).

Sheesh! Craig...for a bright-eyed 17-year-old who had just attained his life dream of spiritual paradise this must have been a rude awakening. I have to say that my experience of the South African Bethel was similar - many sincere christians but the "spiritual paradise" was far from Eden.

Earnest

8

mass murder by a Witness

by Jerry Bergman in

jw
friends

has anyone read the book jungle gods by carl von hoffman?

it tells of a watchtower convert who decided that he needed to start armageddon on his own and ended up killing over a hundred persons before he was caught.

it is now long out of print but i found several copies using addall.com (a search engine) and on abe.com.

Earnest

Jerry,

I wouldn't describe either the Watchtower or Carl von Hoffman as historians. The Watchtower would, of course, tell their side of the account. Captain von Hoffman seems to have been an adventurer who wrote of his adventures. A brief search on the internet shows he also contributed articles to a sort of 'Boys Own' magazine called 'The American Boy' in January ('Johnny Boy' - “The true story of a pet chimpanzee...") and March ('Night Raid' - "leopard hunting with dogs"), 1936 (http://users.ev1.net/~homeville/fictionmag/t12.htm). This doesn't detract from what he wrote but does suggest the nature of his writing and intended audience. If you do know of historians who have written about Mwana Lesa I would be interested in obtaining further background information.

The growth of indigenous Watchtower (kitawala) movements in Africa in the early 20th century inclines me to accept that Mwana Lesa was just another one of these movements. The 1976 Yearbook gives some background to the development of these movements. It seems that a missionary named Joseph Booth was active in central and southern Africa at the turn of the century and was promoting the idea of equality for the Africans and "Africa for the Africans." He met with Russell in 1906 and agreed to act as a missionary for the Bible Students. The doctrine of the imminent end and a paradise earth where there would be no discrimination had a great appeal to a continent subjected to colonialism. Booth's mixture of self-rule with Watchtower literature led to the growth of movements for social change which were the antithesis of the apolitical stance of the Bible Students.

Earnest

3

WTS Taught by Humpty Dumpty

by Loris in

the wts writing staff must be proud graduates of the humpty dumpty school of liberal revisionism, so called because mr. dumpty, who appears in the works of lewis carroll, teaches that outer reality should conform to (his) inner desires.

thus mr. dumpty's much-quoted remark: "when i use a word it means just what i choose it to mean neither more nor less.

and thus, for the liberal followers of mr. d., if something ugly was done by people who are currently in power and therefore gods representatives, and if that something was done yesterday or earlier: "just lie, sucker!

Earnest

The WTS have certainly learnt a great deal from HD.

Consider his explanation of the cravat which he received as a present from the White King and Queen :

"They gave it to me," Humpty Dumpty continued thoughtfully, as he crossed one knee over the other and clasped his hands round it, "they gave it to me - for an un-birthday present."
"I beg your pardon?" Alice said with a puzzled air.
"I'm not offended," said Humpty Dumpty.
"I mean, what is an un-birthday present?"
"A present given when it isn't your birthday, of course."
Alice considered a little. "I like birthday presents best," she said at last.
"You don't know what you're talking about!" cried Humpty Dumpty. "How many days are there in a year?"
"Three hundred and sixty-five," said Alice.
"And how many birthdays have you?"
"One."
"And if you take one from three hundred and sixty-five, what remains?"
"Three hundred and sixty-four, of course."
Humpty Dumpty looked doubtful. "I'd rather see that done on paper," he said.
Alice couldn't help smiling as she took out her memorandum-book, and worked the sum for him:
365
1
364
Humpty Dumpty took the book and looked at it carefully. "That seems to be done right -" he began.
"You're holding it upside down!" Alice interrupted.
"To be sure I was!" Humpty Dumpty said gaily, as she turned it round for him. "I thought it looked a little queer. As I was saying, that seems to be done right - though I haven't time to look it over thoroughly just now - and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents - "
"Certainly," said Alice.
"And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!"

Earnest

8

mass murder by a Witness

by Jerry Bergman in

jw
friends

has anyone read the book jungle gods by carl von hoffman?

it tells of a watchtower convert who decided that he needed to start armageddon on his own and ended up killing over a hundred persons before he was caught.

it is now long out of print but i found several copies using addall.com (a search engine) and on abe.com.

Earnest

Judging from a description of Jungle Gods as "an account of the author's travels in Equatorial Africa and Rhodesia in mid 1920's, describing the Chiwahli people, witchcraft, animal tales, folk lore, native customs, etc.", I think the man referred to was Mwana Lesa, mentioned in the 1976 Yearbook, pp.95,96 :

About the time that Brother Dawson visited the Rhodesias [1925], a person called Mwana Lesa caused terror among the Africans of Northern Rhodesia. Mwana Lesa (which means "Son of God") was an African from Nyasaland; his real name was Tom Nyirenda and he came over to Northern Rhodesia by way of the Congo. Reports speak of him as an adherent of one of the indigenous "Watchtower movements" who made himself a prophet. According to the account in the Sunday Times of July 1, 1934, by Scott Lindberg, he got hold of a copy of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. From this he saw how white men in olden times tied "witches" to a ducking stool and drowned them. Apparently this made a big impression on him. Traveling from village to village, he preached and told the natives "that Africa belonged to the Africans and that the white man must be chased out."
Nyirenda then struck up a partnership with Chiwila, a headman of Lala (the southeast part of the present Copper Belt). These two made a plot for Nyirenda to wipe out Chiwila’s political enemies by labeling them "witches" and drowning them by baptism so that he could win the election for the kingship. Mr. Lindberg says: "Tom was then told the names of all Chiwila’s enemies. He called the headmen together and told them that he had been sent by God to cleanse the tribe of witchcraft, and that every man, wo
man and child must be baptised in the river.
"The superstitious natives were decoyed to a place where a swift river forced its way through a winding ravine among the hills, and there, on top of a boulder in the middle of the river, stood Tom, dressed in long white robes.
"He told the people that God had sent him to separate the sheep from the goats. He then baptised each person by immersion in the river, with the help of Chiwila’s staunch supporters, who held their enemies under the water, with their heads upstream, until they were drowned.
"The people sang hymns as they stood gazing at each lifeless victim, and all night long the forest echoed the frenzied exhortations of Mwana Lesa.
"Having drowned twenty-two natives that night, Tom decided to cross the border and settle in the Katanga Province of the Belgian Congo, where the Rhodesian authorities would not be able to get him."

In the Congo, Tom Nyirenda committed further atrocities before he was arrested by Northern Rhodesian police, tried, convicted and hanged in Broken Hill Prison Square in front of the native chiefs. These fiendish deeds were linked to the name "Watch Tower." But Mwana Lesa had no connection whatsoever with the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, or the Bible Students, as Jehovah’s witnesses were known then. To the contrary, Mr. Lindberg reported that Tom Nyirenda "had been received into the Roman Catholic Church and given absolution while in prison" before he was executed. In spite of this the enemies of God’s kingdom, the clergy of Christendom’s denominations, did their best to pin the blame for this on the genuine Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and to prejudice authorities and the public against us to try to keep the Witnesses out of the country. So, we can appreciate the mountainous obstacle that had to be overcome to establish the Kingdom work in Northern Rhodesia.

Earnest

16

Are there any beliefs you would be willing to die for ?

by Earnest in

usually our beliefs and convictions are not a choice of life and death but that can sometimes arise as it has done for many who have refused blood transfusions.

are there any beliefs that you would die for if you had to make a choice ?

earnest

Earnest

Happy birthday, mouthy. Who is Norman?

16

Are there any beliefs you would be willing to die for ?

by Earnest in

usually our beliefs and convictions are not a choice of life and death but that can sometimes arise as it has done for many who have refused blood transfusions.

are there any beliefs that you would die for if you had to make a choice ?

earnest

Earnest

There are certainly many worthy things to die for, most of them involving people in one way or another. Dr. Carlo Urbani comes to mind. He went to Hanoi to help identify what turned out to be SARS and stayed there despite the fact that he knew it was both lethal and contagious. When his wife begged him to return to Italy he said "If I can't work in such a situation what am I here [on earth] for?" He died from SARS on 29 March at the age of 46.

But in asking the question I had in mind the willingness of the early Christians to die rather than renounce what they believed or burn incense to the emperor. And, of course, such willingness to die for a cause was not limited to the Christians. Horace wrote of Romans who gave their lives in war : 'It is sweet and proper to die for one's country [and death pursues even the man who flees]'. (Odes, iii ii 13)

Is there any "principle" you might die for ?

Earnest

29

Remember the fears about the spread of AIDS? SARS is the reality

by Simon in

remember the fears everyone had when aids first hit the news?.

here was a new killer virus that didn't have a cure and people feared it could be passed on cups, on seats, by shaking hands, by coughing and sneezing and so on.. it turns out that it couldn't and while there is still no cure, the infection rate is actually relatively low.

it takes 2 years for an aids victim to infect someone else.. now we have sars, everything changes.

Earnest

Although far more people die from other diseases I think the panic about SARS is directly linked to memories of the 'flu epidemic of 1919. The fact that it is contagious and, as yet, without a vaccine gives it the potential to become a pandemic.

Hwever, the good news is that, according to a release from WHO yesterday (15 May) (http://www.who.int/csr/sars/guidelines/gatherings/en/) :

...only persons with symptoms are contagious and can transmit the disease, and close contact is required for transmission. Close contact means having cared for, lived with, or had direct contact with respiratory secretions or body fluids of a suspect or probable case of SARS.

Earnest

16

Are there any beliefs you would be willing to die for ?

by Earnest in

usually our beliefs and convictions are not a choice of life and death but that can sometimes arise as it has done for many who have refused blood transfusions.

are there any beliefs that you would die for if you had to make a choice ?

earnest

Earnest

Usually our beliefs and convictions are not a choice of life and death but that can sometimes arise as it has done for many who have refused blood transfusions. Are there any beliefs that you would die for if you had to make a choice ?

Earnest

119

If Your JW Relative Needed Blood, Would You Force It On Them?

by minimus in

jw
friends

due to the fact that most of us do not feel that it is scripturally wrong to take blood, if your relative was told that they needed a transfusion and you could see that they get it, even if it's against their wishes, would you force blood into them??

?

Earnest

You truly are a freak, and perhaps you should be proud of that, although I personally have much contempt for the conclusions you have drawn from your research. The lack of biblical support drives my view of your view.

SixofNine, thank you for your candid viewpoint but in a thread where we are talking about "exJW-but-still-actually-JW" thinking I have to say your comments above are remarkably similar to those I receive from JWs on a multitude of issues. While I agree that many JWs do not bother to consider alternative viewpoints I am in regular contact with a number who do and suggest the breed is not as rare as you seem to think.

Alan:

Do you refuse transfusions based purely on medical considerations? If so, do you consistently refuse organ transplants? Do you refuse transfusions based purely on scriptural considerations? If so, on what basis? Is it on exactly the same basis as the Watchtower teaching? Or do you have other ideas? Can you refute the arguments presented in the above sources? If so, are you willing to discuss it? If you're willing to discuss it, are you willing to discuss it in a thread of its own? That would really be interesting because you're one of the few JWs, or JW hangers-on, I've met who was capable of reasoning on matters that contradict Watchtower teaching.

I would agree that any discussion on my reasons for refusing transfusions should be on a different thread if we discussed it at all. This thread is more about ethics than doctrine and the purpose of my previous post was not to argue for the blood doctrine but to support Craig's contention that there are JWs who have "knowledgeably chosen for themselves to take this stand".

The only reason for such self-contempt on the part of someone who has been influenced by Watchtower teaching is that teaching itself. JWs are taught from infancy (spiritual or literal) that taking a transfusion is a gross violation of divine law. It becomes a purely emotional thing for most of them, much like the way sabbath keeping, circumcision, not eating blood, and many other things, became emotion-based traditions for the Jews. A Jew who was forced to eat pork might think he was raped in a sense, and might feel such self-contempt, but it would not be based on rational considerations.

I quite agree that the sense of self-contempt in the case of the Jew and of the one forced to receive a transfusion is based on emotional rather than rational considerations. And that would also be true of someone who was raped. There is no rational reason that they should lose self-respect...but it happens and they have to live with that sense of shame.

Are you certain that, having been a JW for so long, your present thinking is not just as strongly influenced by years of immersion in this emotion-laden teaching?

No, Alan, I'm not certain...and this is well worth another thread. As I accept there are other valid interpretations of the scriptures I have to ask myself why I am more convinced by the understanding I hold than the alternatives. I don't remember being taught the "blood doctrine" as a child when my grandmother had "Sunday School" for us kids. But I will never forget my father's anger (with my grandmother) when he quizzed us one day and discovered we wouldn't take blood. He asked each one of us separately and I can remember thinking of course I wouldn't take blood. That was the end of "Sunday School" but the seed was there. I also remember that I became a vegetarian to avoid eating blood until my mum discovered why and agreed to soak the blood out before cooking it. And this all happened without my ever entering a Kingdom Hall. The recent thread by joy2bfree on "Would you take blood now that you are not a JW and why?" (http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/16/51350/1.ashx) shows that there are many on this forum who no longer believe taking blood is wrong but will still only use it as a last resort. When something is so deeply ingrained how can I be sure I am being objective ? There is also another aspect. I have no wish to die and even less to serve as a WT martyr. But there is a certain seductiveness in knowing there is something I am willing to die for. With no strings. Not to please anyone. Not because I fear the consequences. Just for sticking to what is right. It is possible that in weighing two different interpretations of scripture I am seduced by the one that might require sacrifice.

Why am I willing to consider your proposal. Because I know there are other doctrines (such as not celebrating birthdays) which I positively reject (and have always rejected...as an adult anyway) and yet I still feel uneasy when I share in it. I am sure the only reason is indoctrination so how can I rule it out on much weightier matters. I am not conceding that is true in my case, only that I cannot be certain it is not.

Earnest