continue on wt july 2013...a question to all...so, the congregation gets fed spiritual food by the fds (past & now), right?
the great tribulation and beyond.. but the article says, the fds will not come until after the un will attack christendom, jehovah will cut short the attack on false religion; god's people will be saved, then...jesus will judge people of all nations as sheep or goats, then.....jesus will appoint the faithful slave over "all his belongings ....so, have the fds been appointed as of yet & if not who has been given the congregation the spiritual food upto now...i'm confused...no i'm not..i do understand...i think a bunch of guys been feeding us.... i spoke to one of the sisters & she said, that jesus will appoint the slaves & give them additional duties...uh ?
the floor is open...will welcome all thoughts..... legacy.
it's not quite sawing off the same branch you're sitting on to the same degree
I hear what you're saying. On paper, this is a coup, an epic power play. In reality, though, the coup exists on paper only. The bulk of the "anointed" never had any real power. The privileges they enjoyed were having witnesses at the local level view them with a special reverence.
It's not as if non-GB anointed are going to form their own splinter groups and take rank-and-file witnesses with them.
about me, i am being raised in a jw family.
all of my family expect for one aunt, who had left but not disfellowedshiped thankly, are in jw.
my father is an elder and so is my grandfather.
I will give you a region: Northeastern US
How interesting. I grew up in a Spanish congregation in the South, an environment that is more socially conservative than the Northeast, where gay marriage was born.
Rumors of homosexuality were used as a weapon in my area. Certain gossipy sisters would spread rumors about young unmarried men if they weren't sufficiently deferntial to their cliques. Just about every young man who was disfellowshipped was later rumored to be gay.
Hopefully the attitude you experience in your area will begin to catch on elsewhere.
continue on wt july 2013...a question to all...so, the congregation gets fed spiritual food by the fds (past & now), right?
the great tribulation and beyond.. but the article says, the fds will not come until after the un will attack christendom, jehovah will cut short the attack on false religion; god's people will be saved, then...jesus will judge people of all nations as sheep or goats, then.....jesus will appoint the faithful slave over "all his belongings ....so, have the fds been appointed as of yet & if not who has been given the congregation the spiritual food upto now...i'm confused...no i'm not..i do understand...i think a bunch of guys been feeding us.... i spoke to one of the sisters & she said, that jesus will appoint the slaves & give them additional duties...uh ?
the floor is open...will welcome all thoughts..... legacy.
I still want to know how 8 members of the FDS can suddenly start teaching something new (i.e. That they alone are the FDS) without it being apostasy.
One can argue that all doctrinal changes have been apostasy since all of them have been decided exclusively by the governing body (at least since that body came into existence in more or less its current form).
continue on wt july 2013...a question to all...so, the congregation gets fed spiritual food by the fds (past & now), right?
the great tribulation and beyond.. but the article says, the fds will not come until after the un will attack christendom, jehovah will cut short the attack on false religion; god's people will be saved, then...jesus will judge people of all nations as sheep or goats, then.....jesus will appoint the faithful slave over "all his belongings ....so, have the fds been appointed as of yet & if not who has been given the congregation the spiritual food upto now...i'm confused...no i'm not..i do understand...i think a bunch of guys been feeding us.... i spoke to one of the sisters & she said, that jesus will appoint the slaves & give them additional duties...uh ?
the floor is open...will welcome all thoughts..... legacy.
Makes me wonder whether we'll end up with 2 phases of Christ's return in the near future. One date for the beginning of his invisible reign in 1914 and some later date for the official beginning of the end times.
Russell originally taught something along these lines. If memory serves, Russell had different dates for Satan being cast from heaven, Christ's invisible return and the start of the end times, which Rutherford later consolidated into one sole date: 1914.
continue on wt july 2013...a question to all...so, the congregation gets fed spiritual food by the fds (past & now), right?
the great tribulation and beyond.. but the article says, the fds will not come until after the un will attack christendom, jehovah will cut short the attack on false religion; god's people will be saved, then...jesus will judge people of all nations as sheep or goats, then.....jesus will appoint the faithful slave over "all his belongings ....so, have the fds been appointed as of yet & if not who has been given the congregation the spiritual food upto now...i'm confused...no i'm not..i do understand...i think a bunch of guys been feeding us.... i spoke to one of the sisters & she said, that jesus will appoint the slaves & give them additional duties...uh ?
the floor is open...will welcome all thoughts..... legacy.
about me, i am being raised in a jw family.
all of my family expect for one aunt, who had left but not disfellowedshiped thankly, are in jw.
my father is an elder and so is my grandfather.
Most of the time, the congregation at large rallies around them to offer support and to keep them busy and free from temptation.
Seriously? Where, may I ask, do you live? Granted, I've been inactive going on 10 years now, but as far back as the early aughts, even rumors of homosexual tendencies were enough to ostracize named servants. At a kingdom hall build an elder prayed that we see the day when all homosexuals are destroyed and nobody batted an eyelash. Never once did I hear of any JW who'd come out as a NPG.
I suppose it's possible things have progressed quite a bit in the past 10 years, but it's difficult for me to phathom. A gay person, even an NPG, was slightly above an apostate in the view of most of the JWs I knew.
the things they take from you:.
first they take your childhoodthen they take your familyfinally they take your memorieswe all know that you limit your social interactions so you have few school friends who are not jws.
they openly promote this in their magazines and it's repeated at meetings throughout your formative years.
I was raised a JW but my parents were inactive. Unfortunately, I became heavily involved when i was 15. My complete disillusionment began when I was 23, but I wasn't completely out of it until I was 26.
As a result, I feel like I've been, and continue to be, 10 years behind in my emotional development. Even though I'm in my mid 30s I feel like I'm in my mid 20s emotionally. When I first left I thought female coworkers wanted to have sex with me if they invited me to lunch. I had no idea what dating was like in the real world.
I will forever be stunted in my development as a human being since I spent my youth living in a fantasy world that did nothing to prepare me for the real world. There's no fixing that. There are permanent effects to having been a part of this religion.
i was thinking about the next scenario:.
the united states (and western world) are losing influence compared to china, india and other new economy's.. with this decline of influence, the watchtower society, a true american religion and it's subsidiary's corporations are losing profits and losing it's base in much country's under china / india / indonesia / brazil influence.
what i see is that the watchtower society is selling it's main assets: landmark buildings in optimal condition.
their CEO Marsha Evans made just under $652,000 .
The GB could certainly draw a salary, and a rather comfortable one at that, and not run afoul of the law. I didn’t mean to imply that they can’t reap financial reward from their position. Some non-profit CEO salaries can rival private-sector CEO salaries. Money is a fantastic motivator. Power is even a greater one. Personally, I don't think the GB is motivated by money. The kind of power they enjoy in their world is rare, almost unique.
The point I was trying to make is that the GB cannot simply liquidate the religion's assets and convert it to their own personal use. Not without becoming some of the most highly sought after criminals in the world. The religion's wealth has been accumulating tax-free for over a century. Uncle Sam is not going to be okay with them simply absconding with the corporation's assets. Also, non-profits can be wound up, but there are very complicated rules that would require that any remaining assets be put to public use. The type of "GB will run off with the money" scenarios need to factor in the incredible crime it would be for them to do so.
i was thinking about the next scenario:.
the united states (and western world) are losing influence compared to china, india and other new economy's.. with this decline of influence, the watchtower society, a true american religion and it's subsidiary's corporations are losing profits and losing it's base in much country's under china / india / indonesia / brazil influence.
what i see is that the watchtower society is selling it's main assets: landmark buildings in optimal condition.
How does the fact that no governing body member sits on the boards of directors of the legal entities (and therefore have no legal control of the money) fit into this scenario? Would the current boards just hand over the money because the FDS said so? Also, these entities are registered as not-for-profits. Fleecing these companies as you describe would result in jail time (think Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker).
i'm typically not a fan of jw criticism from a christian point of view (the jws are silly, but everything i believe in is truth), but i think this video does a solid job of putting into historical context the religious influences behind the jehovah's witnesses.
.
it's pretty eye-opening for those who have not yet researched the origins of the religious movement and who, much as i did, once belived the doctrines originated from the "great minds" of past watchtower society presidents.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_c-pdt0sse.
Does every century have its millenarian groups?
I'm certainly no expert on this subject, but Christians began speculating about Christ's return since right after his death (Lord, are your restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time Acts 1:6). The masses didn't have access to the Bible during the Middle Ages, which probably prevented millenarian movements to some degree as the Bible was whatever your priest told you it was.
An interesting thing is that Isaac Newton used his considerable genius to postulate the end of the world in 2060 through his studies of the Bible.
It gets complicated because "Millenarianism" is a more generic term that applies regardless of religion and can be applied to social/political movements. "Millennialism" is a Christian form of Millenarianism and "Millerism" is a subset that describes William Miller's ideas and those of his followers.
Wikipedia actually has entries that describe these movements in great detail.