does anyone know when the last revision to the new world translation was released?.
i seriously wonder if there are any qualified bible translators left at brooklyn or patterson.
that is assuming that there ever were any there in the first place.. there might not be anyone qualified in the watchtower organization to make any revisions at all.. the watchtower today wants lawyers, accountants and construction engineers, not people trained in biblical languages!.
Yeah I believe it was 1984. The WT ain't what it used to be (run by fanatical, prophesy-spewing, old geezers). Oh wait...they still are being run that way...
I could see them revising it yet again, but they don't necessarily have to. It already conforms to what they want to teach about it.
i am reading the presentation of the self in everyday life by erving goffman at the moment.
it sheds much light on the experience of 'performing' the role of being a jehovah's witnesses: how a witness will strictly adhere to watchtower standards when we are 'frontstage' with an audience either of peers or outsiders, and how they may relax those standards when they are 'backstage', not in a setting where their fidelity to the identity of 'jehovah's witness' is being scrutinized.. an interesting point it makes is that we can present our roles either with 'sincerity' if we believe in the performance as much as we would have the audience, or with 'cynicism' if we perform our role without believing in it, but expecting that the audience will.
but rather than being a neat spectrum from sincerity, through ambiguous sincerity, all the way to cynicism, goffman argues that a performer will tend to one extreme or the other: either believing utterly in the role he is presenting, or presenting it totally without conviction for the benefit of the audience only.
So if it is true that Jehovah's Witnesses who on an individual basis are each performing the outward signs of being a Jehovah's Witness can be divided into those who are 'presenting' with inner conviction and those who are 'performing' purely for the benefit of the audience, with little scope for anything between those two, then it makes observing the behaviour of other Witnesses all the more interesting, trying to figure out which camp the performance of each fellow believer comes under.
Ever since I've been out, I've been observing JW's just to see what side of the coin they really fall on. It gets even more interesting when you start to ask them questions about themselves or the bOrg and you get to see how they disagree with certain things yet they still fall in line with the rest of the soldiers. I've learned a lot from asking others how they came to be slaves to the WT, and it's pretty sad. Some follow along not knowing for sure what they're getting into (until it's too late and they're baptized), others like the idea of a Paradise earth that is "soon" coming. Some don't see the false prophecies for nothing. Another accepts that she will die simply because she's been D/F and feels that the WT is directed by God, therefore if you're not in, you're SOL.
i don't get this...my mum pioneered for 25 years and in the last few years she at 69 is claiming to be anionted and taking emblems.....well you should see the back stabbing!
some claim she isn't since she doesn't work at bethel or contribute to the litrature???
it becomes a big debate, is she or not?
This reminds me of something that happened about a year and half ago. (Sorry if it's off-topic a bit) At work, there was this one JW, really nice guy, who commented to me about an "anointed" sister who always fussed at the brothers working in the literature booth. She was apparently causing a fuss over not receiving enough magazines or complaining that she didn't receive whatever it was that she ordered. And even after PROVING to her that she DID receive the things she requested, she still didn't believe it. But it was at this moment that this JW I was talking to, well, his cognitive dissonance stopped working, because the next thing I know, he started saying that he doubted she was "of the anointed" because of the way she was acting. I didn't say anything to him, but I did notice his eyes just kind of glaze off into outer space. It was almost as if he was going to realize at that moment that everything he believed in was a farce... And then he brushed it off and that was the last time he mentioned it. These people in your mom's Cong. are just jealous. It's not up to them to decide who is anointed and who isn't.
did you ever notice how double standard leads jws life?.
if someone whos joining the jws gets shunned by his family/friends, thats persecution, if a jw who joins another religion (or does anything outside the rules) gets the same treatment thats loving discipline.. if they are invited to another religions ceremony they wont go, viewing their participation as sharing in false worship; yet at the same time they keep on inviting members of other faiths to share in their own celebrations (memorial) and expect them to show up and participate.. they fight worldwide, even in courts, for freedom of speech, yet they dont grant such freedom to their own members.. they encourage people to question and closely scrutinize their beliefs; but they are discouraged to do the same themselves.. they expect people to read and study their publications; yet they wont touch other faiths literature with a stick for fear of getting polluted.. other examples?.
behemot.
It's OK for you to lie, as long as it benefits the Organization or advances "theocratic agendas". But "worldly people" lie because they descend from their father, Satan, the original liar.
persons among the witnesses have been disfellowshiped for holding birthday celebrations.
the core of the watch tower argument seems to be based upon the principle of guilt by association - that because only pharaoh and herod are mentioned in scripture as celebrating birthdays, and because these were wicked men, therefore the celebration of a birthday is necessarily wicked also.
[53] this is certainly a forced conclusion.
I've personally stated to my mom that neither God nor Jesus ever made a statement that birthdays should not be celebrated. She just stared at me in confusion.
JW's are just trying to be "different", hence the reason for still not celebrating birthdays. They can accept wedding rings, baby showers, wedding cake, and even buy buildings with gargoyle's on them.. but HELL if a JW decides to celebrate his own freakin' birthday.
read dune's post 788/789.
if you can find wt article about the possibility of no gentials in "paradise", please post here.
thanks!.
They state that all who are resurrected will be "as angels are". I don't have a quote to back it up, but they have strongly stated that this. Hopefully someone else can provide a quote.
i haven't been inside a kingdom hall since 1998. back then, the change in the 1914 "generation" teaching was still sinking in and the "mood" then was one of confusion and head-scratching about what it all meant.. it is difficult for me to imagine how the "mood" now could be anything other than one of disappointment and doubt...even if it is not openly expressed.. do you think at some point there will be critical mass of doubts (and doubters) that will just start spilling out when dubs realize that others around them feel the same way?.
Gary, I used to have video footage of family members falling asleep at the conventions. It was hilarious!
The general "mood" at the meetings, at least in the spanish congregations, is that of keeping the "right" behavior so one won't get D/F. Of course, there are still occasional slips (such as a wife sleeping with a "brother" who is not her husband), but for the most part everyone is brain dead. Doctrine seems to be the last thing on most JW's these days. Gone are the days when the WT would release a new date or at least a hint that the end might be near.
It seems that they are very content being in the "one true religion" (HA!) even though they may not understand what 1914 or 1919 really mean.
The WT is doing very well in concealing most of their true doctrines (Jesus not the mediator for all, old prophecies, etc.), and I believe this accounts for the growth that they're still experiencing.
i was informed 2 days ago according to the latest watchtower or awake, that women who have lost babies invitro....might have them resurrected in the new order....i have not seen the article.. because god saw esau and issac in the womb and recognized their personalities before they were born.
nothing is promised but, because of this, lost babies due to miscarriages women might see thier lost children resurrected: but they really can't say.. what the hell?
do they ever stop trying to hold out carrots to those in the worst possible pain.
Anyone ever wonder what would happen if the WT stopped using words like "evidently", "it seems", "apparently"...?
http://www.filefactory.com/file/af192fb/n/march_15_2009_watchtower_pdf.
brzfst.
got it, thanx!
it's a powerful weapon isn't it?
death.
it was used on all of us at one stage when we were inside of that cult.
You're right! There's something to be said about people who go against the current and choose this "death". I don't think we're weak at all.
Some of us are here because we SAW things that are/were very wrong with the WT. Does it make us weak to question it? Better yet, why would God give us this intuitive ability to examine things and determine if it's good for us? If God really wanted robots, he would have created us that way. But it's in our nature to investigate things. Fear of examining things can be a powerful weapon against the weak-minded.
We are not the weak ones, they are. They, the JW's, who toil day and night to please their invisible Governing Body (most don't even know who they are or how many there are). They think that by obeying them they will have life.
