Posts by cattails

4

Watchtower defining irony

by Marvin Shilmer in

jw
friends

watchtower defining irony .

today i added a new article to my blog.

watchtower once introduced an article about a particular world famous object that according to watchtower has its origin in false religion.

cattails

Well... they just changed their minds.

They're just so.... so... so....... fickle.

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i think i might return to the WTS

by dm6 in

man im so drained right now and tired i cant say a whole lot.. but you know, i was thinking about going back to them and just to see a bit more about it all.. i dont know to be very honest with you if its thr right thing to do or not on a personal level.. .

i guess i need to mull things over.. .

any suggestions from previous jw's would be awesome for me.

cattails

Darren,

I feel they do teach some truth. But they, the Watchtower Society, will always use the truth as a hook to reel you in. Then they'll try to convince you, otherwise called "studying the Bible", to do what they teach and what do they exactly teach in most Study edition Watchtowers? To follow men. To follow the Governing Body and their lackeys, that is the District and Circuit overseers and the elders in every local congregation.

Would you allow God to tell you what to do? If it was written in the Bible that you had to do this or that?

Well, you may not want any person telling you what to do, but the studies are actually not Bible studies, they are Watchtower publication studies designed to influence your decisions based on scriptures they quote or reference out of the New World Translation with it's biased translation. They'll try to convince you that to do different from what they teach is to go against the Bible and against God.

So if you really have a love for God or the Bible, then read the Bible. Try to get a version that has a lot of notes like the Quest Bible, or the Holman study version, or use http://biblos.com and read it for yourself, don't just take what they say at face value, they are sincere people, many of them, but they are victims of mind control who have been trained to try anything to reel you in. So if you believe in God then try to get closer to Him through his Word and pray for Holy Spirit to help you understand. You don' need anyone to tell you what the Bible says if you are a Bible reader, right?

BTW I found Ray Franz's books, especially In Search of Christian Freedom to be a breath of fresh air compared to the stuffy study editions of the Watchtower. You can get a PDF online version of that book very cheap at http://www.commentarypress.com

18

just save every other seat!!!

by oompa in

jw
friends

i was just reading a funny thread posted by fallen_princess about stupid jw directives and something about seat saving came up....it reminded me of how i foiled the crime of seat saving at conventions....i would just save every other seat and it usually worked saving every third seat....i mean who walks in and picks a seat where you have to sit next to sombody else??

?...............i loved breaking rules i guess..................oompa.

cattails

BotR: Pregnant women with small children were begging for seats.

JnfB: I call BS on this! I know there's the rush in the morning, and the seat saving thing is a joke, - but Sorry -just trying to keep it real. I've been to conventions worldwide and the highlighted statement is just pure exaggeration.

Actually... Well I wasn't pregnant but at several conventions because of a District Overseer called Bartell, the upper sections of the civic center were cordoned off, and attendants stationed there at the stairs telling people they were to look for seats in the lower areas.

I saw several families, and I mean several, told to split up and sit a kid or two with mom here and the dad and another kid or two there. A young brother, with a family, totally refused out loud saying I know you're going to open up this area when it's almost time for the music because there's not going to be enough seats only in the lower area. The attendant told him: Well you'll just have to wait here and see what the direction from the brothers is.

I also overheard one young attendant complaining to the attendant overseer that there was no way he was going to split up families and refused to not allow people to sit on the upper areas. The head attendant overseer had been told this young brother was not doing his job. The young brother said loud enough for everyone else around to hear: Well, if the Society paid for the whole auditorium why can't we use the whole auditorium? and... Why? Would Jesus split up families when he taught the crowds, there's so much room... why can't we use it? The head honcho whispered something near his ear and they both left. I didn't see that young (nice looking brother btw) again for the rest of the 3 days.

The WTS likes to make up rules, but the DO's have a lot to say too, and each one has their own ideas. The next DO, a Brother Cook, did away with the whole cordoning off certain sections. Which goes to show you that some of these rules are just man-made and don't really make much sense, except in the twisted reasonings of company men who've never had children and don't know how hard it is on families to make these three day long mandatory indoctrination seminars.

75

Elder body removed Watchtower letter

by Marvin Shilmer in

jw
friends

elder body removed watchtower letter.

an elder body was removed last year in california.

most folks have never seen a watchtower letter breaking this news.

cattails

In New England they foiled a CO's attempt to merge and sell a congregation's KH in a very interesting way according to a sister there when I stayed with her last year...

This is what took place in North Central Massachusets when CO Scott Henry went on a consolidation spree around the Mass Circuit, one congregation, North Adams was to be merged and their KH sold, they'd been holding on and knew the CO's assignment was going to end in a few months, just about everyone in the KH didn't want to merge as it would mean a long trek to the newer KH of the neighboring congregation, the plans progressed and the building was put on the market, unfortunately, when the hall wasn't in use it seems that several bathroom fixtures were stuck, running non-stop, at the same time and flushed and flowed continuously and the septic tank couldn't keep up, so... The property couldn't be sold under such conditions. The local brothers rented a couple of portapotties and went back to having meetings there. (It was actually fun, although smelly, to wait outside in line and chit-chat with other sisters in the long potty line on Sundays. After CO Henry moved on the plans were scrapped and the building remodeled with local help. Apparently, the whipper-snapper of a CO's attitude stunk more than the soggy lawn of the property. He's now in Maine from what I hear, and had been recalled to Patterson for more training after his foiled attempt to get this one last congregation merged and KH sold. I'm not sure of all the details and if there's someone here who is from Mass. maybe they know more, but it sure could serve as a lesson to any Elder Body on how to foil an impetuous CO's schemes.

82

Watching the Leadership Crumble

by Damn The Watchtower in

jw
friends

i watch the watchtower leaders crumble, slowly crumble.

one nonsensical move after the other.

you have no idea how this makes me feel.

cattails

They're just guys who never lived and worked in the real world. What kind of respect have they earned?

No respect! It's more of a fear of them in their powerful positions!

But, I think you're leaving out the female element. A lot of older sisters I see are the true pillars of their congregation, they put in amazing time in service and can tell you stories of how things were in the olden days. They are the wives, the mothers and the ones who give a lot of private counsel, always letting their opinion be known, even to MS's and elders. They see some younger elders as unqualified and ignorant and in need of a talking to.

The younger generation sisters, except for some true devoted ideologically-loyal and younger pioneers much like I USED to be, pretty much just go along with things and want to enjoy the company/associating in service, going here going there and spending time together.

I also agree with Moshe in that the vast majority of Witnesses eat up the slop being fed by the GB like it is some really good spiritual meat in due season. At a hospitality get together not long ago several people brought dishes to share and one elder-sister had made this meatball in sauce dish that tasted just gross, I was going to say something to the sister I was with and before I said anything several people started saying how good and tasty the meatballs were. For X's sake they were store bought meatballs, they were in some sauce that had mild salsa and duck sauce thrown in with stewed tomatoes out of a can and hardly cooked all through. And there's this young elder who gave the talk raving about the great meatballs and how good they were. The thing was gross! Anyway, on the ride back home the sister says, "Did you like the meantballs?" And I spoke my mind. She agreed and said it was the grossest thing she'd ever tasted. Well, it's the same thing with the slop the GB is dishing out. Privately a lot of Witnesses realize it doesn't taste good, but in front of a lot of other Witnesses they don't dare say anything negative because they know there'll be back room meetings to re-adjust attitudes quickly following any transgression of the tongue.

Is the GB crumbling? Well what I'm seeing is more and more elders mentioning the F&DS, and the GB and how grateful we are for them, and laying it on really thick during prayers and inserting it during comments too. People you'd think would be more "conscious" but their tongues in public may not really tell what's going on inside their heads.

There will always be people who want things laid out for them... To be told what to do and when to do it. It takes less time worrying and thinking, yes thinking and using your brain, it's hard for people to accept the responsibility of thinking for themselves, because they are afraid of consequences, I know I was like that for quite a while. So by putting their trust in others who tell them what to do they don't have to worry about much. They're just following orders. And we know where that mentality can lead.

--CATTAILS of the "Conscious Class"

23

THE HEBREW LANGUAGE

by lepavoux in

jw
friends

in english we read from left to right, but in hebrew they read from right to left.. now the tetragrammaton yhwh (yahweh) we read god's name in the english from left to right,but is this correct?

should we not be reading the name from right to left?

if we did this the pronunciation would it not be in the opposite direction?

cattails

Hi Lepavoux,

I tend to agree with Oppostate about the pronunciation of God's name. I looked up Jehovah and Yahweh in online encyclopedias and then tried online translation engines.

If you use some online translator like http://translate.google.com and enter in English "Jehovah" and then "Yahweh" you get the same translation into arabic you'll get YHWH in their alphabet.

The Arabic characters showed like "?" (question marks) when I copied and pasted them here, but I encourage you to try it by yourself and go to an online translator too. The arabic for Yahweh and for Judah are almos identical except for the D in

The main name muslims give to God is "Allah". It's etymology is most likely from "Al illah" meaning "THE God". And it's related to Hebrew "El/Elah".

But since Classical Arabic only has three vowels "A" as in "fat", "I" as in "fit", and "U" almost like in "flute". Of course the same words in Hebrew and Arabic are going to sound a bit different. The word peace for example is "salaam" in Arabic and "shalom" in Hebrew.

Both Arabic and Aramaic/Chaldee have a preference for the sound "a" more so than does Hebrew anyway, an example is Hebrew "shem" for name is "shema" in Aramaic.

But sticking to the Hebrew pattern like the previous poster said, it's really simple to see YHWH in the pronunciation of Judah's name in Hebrew Yeh-hoo-DAH for YHWDH. Take out the D and you're left with the four letters for the name of God in Hebrew YHWH and as would be pronounced: "Yeh-hoo-WAH".

14

Greg Stafford Takes a Break

by leavingwt in

jw
friends

via a thread at the channel c forum, i've learned that greg stafford of elihu books has stopped writing.

at this time, i must leave off from doing any more writing or translation work.

this means my examiner.com writings, my tweets, my blogs, everything.

cattails

I liked reading Greg's blogs and chat. He comes across as a very sincere believer in Christ and Jah (which he prefers since it is more reasonably accounted for in both the Heb. and Greek scriptures).

I wish him peace and success in his desire to concentrate on his family. Although, I hope he will once again be active online exposing the WT's company men for the evil slave they have become.

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