Posts by AWAKE&WATCHING

an answer to the question: what is enlightenment?immanuel kantenlightenment is mans emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.immaturity is the inability to use ones understanding without guidance from another.

this immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another.

sapere aude!1 have courage to use your own understanding!

AWAKE&WATCHING

One age cannot bind itself, and thus conspire, to place a succeeding one in a condition whereby it would be impossible for the later age to expand its knowledge (particularly where it is so very important), to rid itself of errors,and generally to increase its enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature, whose essential destiny lies precisely in such progress; subsequent generations are thus completely justified in dismissing such agreements as unauthorized and criminal. The criterion of everything that can be agreed upon as a law by a people lies in this question: Can a people impose such a law on itself? Now it might be possible, in anticipation of a better state of affairs, to introduce a provisional order for a specific, short time, all the while giving all citizens, especially clergy, in their role as scholars, the freedom to comment publicly, i.e., in writing, on the present institution’s shortcomings. The provisional order might last until insight into the nature of these matters had become so widespread and obvious that the combined (if not unanimous) voices of the populace could propose to the crown that it take under its protection those congregations that, in accord with their newly gained insight, had organized themselves under altered religious institutions, but without interfering with those wishing to allow matters to remain as before. However, it is absolutely forbidden that they unite into a religious organization that nobody may for the duration of a man’s lifetime publicly question, for so doing would deny, render fruitless, and make detrimental to succeeding generations an era in man’s progress toward improvement. A man may put off enlightenment with regard to what he ought to know, though only for a short time and for his own person; but to renounce it for himself, or, even more, for subsequent generations, is to violate and trample man’s divine rights underfoot. And what a people may not decree for itself may still less be imposed on it by a monarch, for his lawgiving authority rests on his unification of the people’s collective will in his own. If he only sees to it that all genuine or purported improvement is consonant with civil order, he can allow his subjects to do what they find necessary to their spiritual well-being, which is not his affair. However, he must prevent anyone from forcibly interfering with another’s working as best he can to determine and promote his well-being. It detracts from his own majesty when he interferes in these matters, since the writings in which his subjects attempt to clarify their insights lend value to his conception of governance. This holds whether he acts from his own highest insight—whereby he calls upon himself the reproach, “ Caesar non est supra grammaticos. ”2 — as well as, indeed even more, when he despoils his highest authority by supporting the spiritual despotism of some tyrants in his state over his other subjects.

Excellent post BTS. I appreciate it.

43

Once You Had Doubts, How Long Before You Got On The Internet?

by minimus in

jw
friends

the watchtower society keeps telling everyone to stay away from the evil internet.

they claim that once you surf the internet, even if it's done innocently, it's the beginning of the end.

were you personally affected in your faith because you turned on the computer?

AWAKE&WATCHING

Immediately, and I never went to another meeting.

The evil internet is my new god.

11

Variety reviews Danish film, Worlds Apart- Suggests "Ripe for US Remake"

by AndersonsInfo in

jw
friends

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_review&reviewid=ve1117936066&categoryid=31 posted: mon., feb. 4, 2008, 11:16pm pt.

worlds apartto verdener .

with: rosalinde mynster, pilou asbaek, jens jorn spottag, sarah boberg, anders w. berthelsen.. .

AWAKE&WATCHING

Thanks Barbara!

13

Have you ever heard JW's comments about you since you left the org?

by jambon1 in

jw
friends

since you left, have you ever overheard or heard through the 'grapevine', what the local jw's say about you?

AWAKE&WATCHING

Quick background. I was in the Marysville congregation about 10 years then disassociated for about 11 years. One year after I was reinstated I got married and moved to Delaware for almost 5 years. Quit going to meetings last May, left my husband in August and moved back to Marysville, no one from the congregation knows where I live but they know I am back.

My ex-hairdresser is the pioneer daughter of my ex-best friend. She repeatedly tries to pump information from her clients that know me, including my daughter's friends. Right before Christmas she gave my sister-in-law the third-degree about how into celebrating Christmas I am.

I've also heard that the elders and my ex-best friend have come to the conclusion that I only left "the lie" because I was s o distraught about my marital problems. This is the same friend that I spoke to for about 5 hours once and 2 hours another time about the U.N., pedophiles, Malawi, blood, and the infallible/yet humans who make mistakes FDS.

These people are clueless. I almost called them up and gave them my new address so they could drive by and see my Christmas tree in the window.

Whatever.