Posts by AllTimeJeff

11

Need Info About CONVENTION CONTRIBUTIONS

by V in

i am looking for someone to comment on the way distrcit convention budgets are calculated, including the inevitable "deficit" that is based on a prearranged dontation to the "worldwide work.".

this information will be shown in an upcoming watchtower comments video, so i need accuracy, documents, links, anything you can provide.. thank you!.

AllTimeJeff

I worked in the accounts dept for the CA's. Some of you may be aware that the DC and CA way of accounts are very similar but also have distinct differences.

23

Why make prophecies cryptic?

by LtCmd.Lore in

ok, this thread is not about whether or not the bible prophecies are valid.

i just want to know why god would inspire a prophecy about a giant tree, bowls of anger, seven headed animals, the moon turning to blood, the sun going dark, the sea turning to blood, everything else turning to blood multiple times.. counting things in days when he actually means years, using 'times' which don't meen anything.

symbolizing rulers with trees, horns and mountains.

AllTimeJeff

I don't wish to reduce the good news, but the believing in Jesus as the Son of God and having love for your fellow man seems to be plainly obvious. They are not hidden behind symbolism, and they are what it says is required for salvation. See 1 John or John 21.

I don't disagree with you here as to what the bible says is necesarry for salvation. (in the NT anyway) Unfortunately, there are many excellent and logical arguements that deserve a more fair hearing then what they typically receive. While reasonable thiests such as yourself layinglow are kind and good, the fact is that the same book where John 3:16 is found also has scary visions found throughout Revelation of Jesus as a scary judging king. It is hard to maintain an argument where part of your holy book contains information about how to attain salvation through mere belief, whereas in the Pauline letters or Revelation Jesus is portrayed differently. Reasonable people ask "Which is it?"

Any Christian religion that teaches Jesus attracts by "love" only to ultimately destroy those who don't believe in the end contradict themselves. Ultimately, it IS a "believe or die" proposition. The matter of when Christ chooses to pull the plug on your life or how he will do it is irrelevant to the fact that according to the bible, he will destroy you if you don't believe.

Therefore, I don't see God as offering salvation through a cartoon or other literary device but showing it plainly to all and allowing greater understanding for those who seek deeper things from his spirit through understanding of prophetic symbolism.

This statement backs up my point I believe. Should god hide anything through visions or literary devices that are at the interpretive mercy of man, and not the "god" who supposedly inspired the visions? You wrote it, you explain it. We hold our workers and family members to a higher standard. Being cryptic is the mark of a stuffy, self righteous person. Unless you are "god". It also has to be conceded that even if you or others don't believe god is offering salvation through the understanding of these visions doesn't mean that countless millions of people do, whether they believe that individually or if they belong to the many churches that do maintain this. There are many millions of Christians who believe precisely this. JW's are among them.

It sure would be a lot easier if "god" weren't so cryptic. What is gained? Nothing by this crypticness.

Btw Laying Low, I want to apologize to you if my response offends. I really mean that. In fact, I while being agnostic still have a great "spiritual" hunger if you will. I know that spirituality, ethics, being a good person and the like can result from religion, but it doesn't have to, and there are perhaps better ways. In any event, I only meant to address your thoughts and not you personally. I hope you are well.

28

WT Comments (2/25 RESPONDING) FEATURING AK-JEFF

by V in

correction: this article was originally attributed to another visiting speaker (alltimejeff) in error..

AllTimeJeff

12) Classifying and judging other people appears to be a human tendency. Yet, Jehovah sees people as individuals. He sees the potential of each one. (Read 1 Samuel 16.7.) In our ministry, we should strive to do the same. Many experiences show the good that results from having a positive view of all to whom we preach.

This is a tendency of the WTBTS. All special full time servants, whether they be CO's, DO's, Missionaries, etc have a PQR filled out on them, or a Personal Qualifications Report. All of your talents (I mean qualifications) are indeed judged, and you are treated accordingly, even among those in the rarified air of the JW caste system. Jehovah may view you as special, but unfortuantely, you are going to have to wait till after Armageddon to see or experience it. Your potential matters little to the suits on the GB. Trust me.

Q13, 14) (a) Why did a pioneer react negatively to a woman she met in the ministry? (b) What can we learn from this experience?

13) Sandra, a pioneer sister, was engaged in the house-to-house ministry on an island in the Caribbean when she met Ruth, who was deeply involved in carnival celebrations. Ruth had twice been crowned national carnival queen. She showed an unusual interest in what Sandra was saying, so a Bible study was arranged. Sandra recalls: "As I walked into her living room, I was greeted by a large photo of Ruth in full carnival regalia, as well as trophies that she had won. I wrongly assumed that someone who was so popular and so involved in carnival festivities could not have an interest in the truth. So I stopped calling on her."

14) Some time later, Ruth appeared at the Kingdom Hall, and when the meeting was over, she asked Sandra, "Why have you stopped coming to study with me?" Sandra apologized and arranged to resume the study. Ruth made rapid progress, took down her carnival pictures, began engaging in all congregation activities, and dedicated her life to Jehovah. Of course, Sandra came to recognize that her initial reaction was wrong.

This is an interesting attempt to guilt you to not feel awkward at offering cult ideas to people who have really cool lives. I am not suggesting that "Ruth" wasn't looking for something better then a life lived in carnival clothing. (gawd the writers of these articles are so juvenile in their mentality.) Do you remeber having to preach in "rich" neighborhoods, finding that succesful doctor or investment banker relaxing in their house, and you having to tell them you are better off then they? You never really believed that! I sure didn't. It was A W K W A R D! It's not wrong to prejudge your gut feeling. You aren't judging others as unworthy of the good news. You are in essence judging yourself that their life IS better then yours. That is what the GB is saying here. They know that is what your brain really thinks, that you are worse off. So they spin it and reverse it. "Now now. Don't feel sorry for these poor succesful people who work hard for their things. Remember, they are going to die and you will live forever. Trust us."

23

Why make prophecies cryptic?

by LtCmd.Lore in

ok, this thread is not about whether or not the bible prophecies are valid.

i just want to know why god would inspire a prophecy about a giant tree, bowls of anger, seven headed animals, the moon turning to blood, the sun going dark, the sea turning to blood, everything else turning to blood multiple times.. counting things in days when he actually means years, using 'times' which don't meen anything.

symbolizing rulers with trees, horns and mountains.

AllTimeJeff

This goes back to something I profoundly disagree with in general about religion as it is often taught. (and certainly how I was raised to believe). The vague "symbols" in Revelation, Ezekiel and other "prophetic" books are frequently (mis)used by religous leaders. By their very nature, cryptic statements and visions with scary creatures that supposedly mean something divine can be twisted in the hands of a determined "prophet" to mean whatever the hell they want it to mean. Gilead is a 5 month inodctrination course that totally demonstrates just one religious groups attempt to take a book that is serveral thousand years old and claim it was written only for them. How else could JW's or any other group get away with this if it weren't for the myriad of cryptic statements and other celestial cartoon creatures?

This so called approach to interpret god trivializes what is essentially the most important thing religion offers: your eternal salvation. Why would any just god (or for that matter, any just religion) choose to hide your salvation behind cartoons? If it is essential that you understand god in a certain way, yet god chosses to hide behind symbolism, how important does that make your salvation to god?

If I were to try to give you life saving information in the form of a mime, you would rightly be incensed and view me as one who really didn't care about you. If I tried to tell you that you could save your life if you could somehow interpret some literary form I produced, wouldn't you want me to just tell straight out? Why can't "god" do something similar? We have higher standards for our regular every day dealings with our fellow man and women then we do for "god".

This isn't a "gods ways are higher then mans" premise. This is an outdated superstitous mindset that continues to prey on the weakminded and ill educated. Such superstitious ideas MUST hide behind the cryptic and gray area words that are found in the bible. Under the threat of your eternal life, which no one in this life has ever been able to verify, "god" demands your worship. He demands your loyalty. But he chooses what are essentially cartoons to communicate these things? Foolish. And it is foolish to believe it if you do.

28

WT Comments (2/25 RESPONDING) FEATURING AK-JEFF

by V in

correction: this article was originally attributed to another visiting speaker (alltimejeff) in error..

AllTimeJeff

Poor V. I know he must be so busy that he gave me credit for this write up. I submitted one on missionary life that will be ready in a few weeks. AK Jeff, if this is yours, great article!

7

?? Need info on Governing Body ??

by V in

i need confirmation of current gb members and if they are now based out of patterson.

thank you for your help!

AllTimeJeff

Splane, Herd, and recently Jackson, all were at Patterson in the Service Dept before their appointment to the GB. Patterson is not the world headquarters. It is essentially a satellite office for the GB.

Personally, I don't think their administrative structure makes sense lately, except that the slow retreat out of Brooklyn seems to be the ultimate goal. There have been rumors for many years that Walkill, Patterson or both will be expanded with the headquarters staff moved from Brooklyn. I think that is the ultimate goal.

147

Getting the forum back on track

by Simon in

recently we seem to have had a few different dramas and subsequent fallout on the fourm which i feel has detracted from its purpose.

with this in mind we have decided that we need to bring the forum back on track and as such we will be clamping down on a lot of the aggressive / insulting posts which have begun to become the norm for a few people.

we will also be clamping down on the paranoid assusation type of comments against newbies, if someone joins the fourm and you do not believe everything they post - so what, why do we need to hound them away with shouts of troll and fake etc, just ignore them if you dont beleive them.

AllTimeJeff

Hi there. My two cents.

A few weeks ago, Lady Lee and I had a discussion on the subject of sexuality on this board and how to monitor those conversations properly. I argued for a more liberal approach, although defintely not for obscenity or frivolity. I appreciated Lady Lee's point of view and still respect it. The topic was then locked, which I understood. I had my say. I wasn't looking to be a jerk, and I also understood that as a moderated board, not everything goes. Thats cool.

Since then, I have had a chance to read many posts here. I would like to comment on some of them, but it seems that on many threads it just gets silly. The "Friends" section in particular does get a little "weird".

This is the internet today. "Flamers" everywhere, and frankly, it isn't going to stop. Thats why this or any board has moderators. Good ones let opinions fly and free speech, which I am all for. Good judgement is required because I for one don't want to worry about "crossing any lines." Of course, I am not looking to flame anyone either. Flamers need to be tracked and banned. There are actually internet forums that are totally dedicated to insulting others and pissing off complete strangers. Why not go there?

Imagine this for a moment: One poster gets mad at another. Evidentally, being without employment or a life, they devote several hours of their day, several days a week to insulting this person and letting them know from the privacy of their studio apt, (dressed only in 10 year old BVD's that are very well airated) that they are jerks. Thats right, wholesale value judgements simply because someone posted something disagreeable or perhaps disagreed with them. They continue to flame, making sure that they somehow pay the $10/mth for their dial up so they can continue to flame ON A JW FORUM!

This is exactly what the phrase "Get a life" was designed for.

I don't really have a dog in this fight, other then to say that I totally agree with Simon and the moderators in this. I don't think singularity of thought should be the point of this forum. But there are a lot of people looking to leave the borg, and if they come here and see Ringling brothers, that isn't going to help. Insulting people should be banned. Flamers should be banned. Disagreements should absolutely be allowed, even with the moderators on occasion, but at least bring a reason. Don't just disagree then insult and not have any proof, evidence, reasoning or an arguement. Sure every now and then someone will cross a line. But it should be the exception, not the rule.

If you can only argue at a 4 year olds level, go to the Fraggle Rock Flamers Board. This board has helped many and should continue to do so without bone heads chasing out those who need help. Even if arguements have been rehashed several times over a period of several years, do you know what that means? You have been on this board way too long and need to get a hobby. If its old to you, believe me, it is very new to someone else. You could stick around and offer whatever support you can. This may mean that you admit to yourself that this board isn't about you. If you can do that, you might actually help someone. Cool thought huh?

24

Dr. Ehrman's "Problem" Verse

by hmike in

some of you know about dr. bart ehrman.

for those who don't, dr. ehrman is a professor of religious studies at the university of north carolina, chapel hill, and has written several books including misquoting jesus: the story behind who changed the bible and why, in which he includes some biographical material.

in this book, ehrman recounts how he became a christian through a youth ministry while in high school, and he claimed to have had a genuine "born again" experience (although he doesn't give any details of what that experience was for him).

AllTimeJeff

hmike,

Good to hear from you. I doubt that you or I are going to persuade each other to abandon our beliefs, but it is always good for others to read of a respectful debate on the subject.

Right off the bat, I would encourage anyone to read Ehrmans book "Misquoting Jesus" for themselves. I just want to make the statement that it appears that one big aim of yours hmike is to create doubt on the conculsions reached. What I read from your posts are a lot of "what if" suppositions. What if's have limited value, save for one point you make that I will address. It is interesting that while you and I likely don't have a great deal of time to explore "what if's", scholars like Ehrman make "what if's" on scrolls and translations their life's work. I also like the fact that Ehrman has been on both sides of the issue, as a believer and now as one who doesn't believe that the bible is inspired of god. It offers I think a more pragmatic perspective that is beneficial.

Most of the books eventually included in the canon were generally accepted among churches by something like AD 200. These books seemed to have survived on their own merits with churches and their leaders, while others which were not included had limited acceptance.

This is certainly not true at all. There was no cannon to speak of for another couple of hundred years after AD 200, which is why I said "centuries." For that matter, there wasn't a church or single entity that assumed the responsibility. It isn't a matter of the fact that many of these letters weren't in circulation. We know they were. And we know that they were being copied and used by sects of Christians with various agendas. I find it compelling that you mention (albeit briefly) that other letters were in fact around. That is something that can't be ignored can it? The fact that they had "limited acceptance" means what? That "god" foreordained that these letters be ignored? Doesn't this seem a convoluted way for almighty god to work? The fact is there is no evidence at all of the divine care of any of the letters that church fathers from the 4th century on claimed as cannonical. THEY (the church fathers) certainly claim they were, but god is nowhere to be seen in the compliation of these letters of the NT.

About the books of the canon being decided as the result of a power struggle with the victors getting to choose: while we like to respect everyone's point of view, what if clear direction is needed and choices have to be made as to a course of action that some will like and others will not? Sometimes, "might makes right," but sometimes "right makes might." If there is a God, why wouldn't he empower those who succeeded?

I will let this statement stand on it's own for others to make their own conclusions. It certainly doesn't present a counter argument at all about the established fact that there was a power struggle among MANY sects of Christianity, nor the fact that the early church councils were at odds over which books to include or exclude in the cannon. This is also an example that I point to in that you seem to be trying to discredit some conclusions in Ehrmans book. "What if clear direction is needed and choices have to be made as to a course of action that some will like and other will not?" I sense that you are trying to be respectful, which I appreciate, as I am trying to be respectful to. The fact is though that the choices on what books were included were 100% man made. No evidence at all that god directed this process exists. The fact that several sects along with several councils over a period of several hundred years were involved in the final decision means what? If you weren't told that the bible is "holy", would an unbiased examination (which Ehrman in fact engages in) reveal anyone seeing "gods hand" in that mess?

When I said "Is it possible...?" I wanted to suggest other possibilities. I'm suggesting that how we evaluate these texts now, and what we expect of them, is different now in recent history than in ancient times. These texts were written by people to people in a different time and culture than ours. Is it fair to apply OUR standards to their works?

I agree with you here to a point in principle, although it appears to me your motive in this is again to create doubt in the conclusions Ehrman makes. We should always look at other possibilities when they have merit. But the fact is that ancient standards as regards medicine, science, technology, etc, all need to be judged by what they knew then. Admittedly, that isn't a lot of knowledge compared with where we are today.Why would we apply a different standard to thiestic problems? We know far more then these people did. It is impossible to know what they were thinking 100%, although many did put their thoughts and opinions when making decisions on the cannonicity of certain books. But that in itself doesn't mean we can't examine these using fair standards. As long as the standards are fair and do take into account the thinking of the times, then I think we can get a pretty good idea of what they writers meant. To suggest we can only use the standards of the past to judge the past assumes that such is possible. It is just as open to interpretation and misunderstanding as the bible has proven to be.

Putting that aside, it isn't the interpretive problems of Greek to English, but of the conclusions of the NT itself, that god in fact exists that we need to examine. Are the claims of the bible backed up with evidence? I can excuse people from the first century right into the beginning of the 20th century for believing in god. But lets look at the facts. Who has shown himself, made himself plain? Or who allowed sects and councils of religious holy men to argue for hundreds of years about what should actually be considered "the word of god?" The facts are clear that "god" certainly allowed men to write all the letters and make all the decisions. Man dominates the scene; god is nowhere to be found.

There is no question that there were changes. The question is, what do we do with that? Do we have to conclude that this is evidence that God doesn't exist and automatically throw him out of the picture? Well, it depends on what we expect of God.

I appreciate your honesty here friend. The answer isn't necesarilly "no". But it doesn't depend on what we expect of god, it depends on what the evidence shows.

If we demand that God verbally dictated the words as one would to a scribe, and that he would actively prevent any and all tampering through history, then we would have a problem. But is that what we see?

Yes. You don't have to believe this, but after your admission about their being changes, you talk about what "we" demand of god. God supposedly gave us this brain, what are we to use it for? Do you think god would censure us for using it and pointing out what is in evidence? What "we see"?

When we second-guess about why God didn't do a better job, we can end up asking questions like, "Why did God even rely on men and writing? Why didn't he just leave angels around to tell us?"
Apparently, Dr. Ehrman had to take an "all-or-nothing" approach. The rigid training he had in his early years of study couldn't accomodate challanges. Perhaps he carried with him the impression that any modification to the rigid position was a compromise with the world, and compromise equaled apostasy, so he had nowhere to go. I would really like to know the conversations he would have had with his admired mentor, Dr. Metzger, who held to the reliability of the Bible (but not necessarily inerrancy).

I will leave it up to the reader, but this is a confused attempt to me at a defense of why god supposedly did what he did. The funny thing is that the bible contains not one verse of direction by god as to the compilation, care, and distribution of the bible. It is true that scrolls are mentioned in the NT, but that is all they are, scrolls, letters that were known to be in existence. Nothing more. It is the invention of men that got us the cannonical bible of today.

I also disagree with your charecterization of Ehrmans "all or nothing approach", insofar as Metzger, while himself a thiest, doesn't substantially disagree with any of Ehrmans conclusions. I wonder why.....

Edited for poor grammer and clarity... Wow, I had a bad day typing. Sorry folks.

33

Brant Jones Letters to and From the Watchtower- 2005-06

by uninformed in

thanks to scully, i have figured out where to put these letters so all that would like to access them and read them can do so.--just click on the link below.. don't expect a lot from the letters, as i am a brick mason and not the brightest bulb on the (new) christmas tree.. in my correspondence with the wt, i exerted all my effort to keep the discussion on just the un, even though i did have misgivings on other matters.

i thought if i was able to keep the discussion on just the un that it would prove to be more difficult for them to disfellowship me, as it was their conduct that i was opposing, conduct that violated their own teachings.. it worked to some extent, as they had to trump up charges on us that we started our own religion because we had the memorial celebration in 2006 with our family rather than at the kingdumb hall.

it was a real pleasure to be disfellowshipped for their sin.

AllTimeJeff

My compliments to you sir. I didn't have the opportunity to make the borgs UN involovement an issue with them as I left, although I certainly mentioned it in my resignation letter. They get a ton of these, you have to know that. I even got my dad to write a letter about the UN, although I never found out what became of that.

You gave your entire life to them. Unfortunately it doesn't surprise me in the least their self righteous and hypocritical response. You were never as important to them as the cover up. Your letters were perfect, I for one could never have improved on them. I am sure they will help many.

24

Dr. Ehrman's "Problem" Verse

by hmike in

some of you know about dr. bart ehrman.

for those who don't, dr. ehrman is a professor of religious studies at the university of north carolina, chapel hill, and has written several books including misquoting jesus: the story behind who changed the bible and why, in which he includes some biographical material.

in this book, ehrman recounts how he became a christian through a youth ministry while in high school, and he claimed to have had a genuine "born again" experience (although he doesn't give any details of what that experience was for him).

AllTimeJeff

I for one enjoy topics of this sort. They go beyond the typical "JW v Other Religions and their merits" and focus on some difficulties all religions have that are based on the bible.

Misquoting Jesus is one of my favorite books, because their isn't imo an agenda that Ehrman has. One of the real success of this book imo is how it explains what is involved in "textual criticism". We ex JW's know that this phrase was a dirty word because it directly contradicted the GB's claim that every single verse of the bible is correct and right. This also means that every weird and contradictory verse must be dealt with, explained (often re-explained) and in the end, help up and defended. Obviously with JW's we know there is an agenda with no intellectual honesty at all, and no room for disagreement or doubt.

Having said that, I would like to address a couple of questions raised in this thread by hmike

Now a question about changes: why was this, or any other discrepancy for that matter, allowed to stand if scribes were so diligent to make corrections? Why were any discrepancies allowed to stand for us to account for? Why wasn't everything cleaned up? Also, if these discrepancies had been seen by the early churches and the ecclesiastical councils as a problem the way modern readers do, wouldn't they have been even more selective in what they accepted?

I might have to reread the book again, but if memory serves, Ehrman makes the point that these books themselves were floating around for centruies. Often, Christian groups with their own take on Jesus (such as the Gnostics) took the scrolls in circulation and used them to prop up their own unique Christian tradition and teachings. The Gnostics obviously lost. It seemed to me that Ehrmans point was that the early churches and councils weren't selective at all and used the now canonical books not for religious reasons but for political consolidation of power. Discrepencies were allowed to stand because the purity of the text as they had it wasn't their number one priority, or even number two. It was all about their power while quashing dissident view of other Christian and pagan sects.

Is it possible that early readers of the texts did not see these differences as problems the way we do? Is it possible that later scholars have applied standards to the texts that are not appropriate? Are we requiring more of the texts than they require of themselves?

Is it possible is always an interesting question, but it isn't always a very pragmatic point of view. First of all, their were serious disagreements for hundreds of years after Jesus and his apostles died among the breakaway sects. That in itself hints at if not outrightly points to them noting problems in translation and especially interpretation. As for the standards of scholars today, they have no agenda. Do you think they should keep silent if they note that Mark got the wrong source text for his gospel? That isn't a "standard". Thats just factual evidence. As far as what we should require of the texts, we should require for the burden these "holy" books put on man that they be accurate and factual, and free of myth, legend and superstition. That seems fair to me.

I think the issues should be examined, but his conclusions are not automatic: that because God did not protect the texts from copyists introducing changes, we do not have the original words, therefore we cannot know what the "inspired" words to us were, which doesn't really matter because if God didn't take care of protecting the texts, he doesn't exist, so the Bible is totally man-made anyway.

I disagree with you here friend. The conclusions as the accuracy of these texts are in legitmate question, and rightfully so. I can't help but note the thiestic slant to your framing of this question. Certainly we have complete evidence that god (if he exists) didn't protect these scrolls. So the only thiestic argument left is to suggest that they still represent gods thoughts. But as Ehrman presents through evidence and facts, there is 100% evidence that men with religious and political agendas were 100% responsible for what was in the now canonical bible and 0% evidence that god did much of anything in making sure the "bible" was written and inspired for us today. There is way to much in the way of mental gymnastics to do to come to that conclusion.

JW's themselves make me laugh as I have left. They ABHOR pagan, weedlike Christians, but can't explain or get past the fact that in their view, Jehovah used these pagan evil men to somehow get the bible right where he wanted it. Surely this is contradictory, but it is convenient only to explain what is needed, and leave the rest under the rug. Most religions do this to one extent or the other.