I think Outlaw is absolutely right. It's all about obedience and becoming a floor mat.
Posts by dgp
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48Nov.15th WT - WT Society Wants & Needs Elders- Not very High Standards
by flipper inas many of us realize- times are hard for the wt society getting men to " reach out " for an elders or ministerial servants position as young men aged ( 18-35 ) are opting out of doing that due to the pressure they are under from the wt society leaders and just that it takes up too much valuable time where men could be earning a living and helping their own families instead of a thankless magazine printing corporation.
in the article " train others to reach out " in this issue it has lots of strange, controlling, yet perplexing statements which i'm sure will confuse jw men who are considering " reaching out ".
in fact, i think this article will discourage more than encourage them from doing so.. on pg.
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48
Nov.15th WT - WT Society Wants & Needs Elders- Not very High Standards
by flipper inas many of us realize- times are hard for the wt society getting men to " reach out " for an elders or ministerial servants position as young men aged ( 18-35 ) are opting out of doing that due to the pressure they are under from the wt society leaders and just that it takes up too much valuable time where men could be earning a living and helping their own families instead of a thankless magazine printing corporation.
in the article " train others to reach out " in this issue it has lots of strange, controlling, yet perplexing statements which i'm sure will confuse jw men who are considering " reaching out ".
in fact, i think this article will discourage more than encourage them from doing so.. on pg.
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18
What is the best book about JWs (written by non JWs, of course), in your opinion?
by Chemical Emotions ini've never read any, so i'd like to know everyone's opinion..
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dgp
I take due note of the titles and the value of some of the books mentioned here (such as Crisis of Conscience, for example) but I would also like to highlight that the original post was about books written by non-JW's. While Ray Franz or James Penton were technically "non-JW's" by the time they wrote their books, I understand both were born-ins and prominent witnesses. That does not detract in the least from the value of their contributions, which, at least in Ray's case, I deem priceless, but those are not the books a non-witness would consider "written by non-witnesses".
I would understand "books written by non-JW's" to mean "books written by people who were never witnesses and approach the religion from outside". Someone who has to understand everything, who doesn't think and has never thought that the Watchtower has the truth. I wonder if there are many books that would fit those criteria. If anyone knows of any, please let me know.
Harold Bloom, in his "American Religion" (http://www.amazon.com/American-Religion-Harold-Bloom/dp/0978721004/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317664405&sr=1-2) has a chapter on Jehovah's witnesses. But I happened to read a very bad translation of that book, so I'm not sure it's a good one. It does say, however, that no bible book is more important for Jehovah's witnesses than the Revelation.
Let me be very clear about one point: I do believe we the worldlies would learn a lot if we studied the Jehovah's witnesses. I am consistently considered odd and perhaps stupid because, in my group of worldlies, no one would entertain such an idea. In the opinion of all my friends and relatives, I'm kind of odd and crazy because I read books about the Watchtower, post here, and tell people what I have learned. Everyone thinks my time and money could be used in other pursuits.
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22
Proof that the Governing Body is directed by God..
by The Quiet One in..is there any?
bear in mind what jesus himself said: john 15:24 new international version (niv) 24 if i had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin.
as it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my father..
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dgp
You can find proof that the Governing Body is directed by God in the fact that their decisions are made by a majority of two thirds. It seems that one GOD (YHWH) speaks to all his representatives on earth and tells them different things. Oh, and YHWH is such a funny guy: he doesn's speak his mind at once, he recants, he re-establishes what he had removed before...
Do you need any more proof than that?
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65
The Supreme Law of the Land
by Farkel infolks, i almost feel silly creating this thread, but i think i must do it based upon comments by folks who think the various governments in the usa can make any legally enforceable laws they want.. they cannot!.
in the usa we have a republic.
we do not have a democracy.
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dgp
Please stay on topic, folks. This is not a race to see who's the smartest, or (shudder) the most educated. The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the land and should be given the respect it deserves. THAT is my topic. If you agree, say so. If you don't, then also say so. Little governments are constantly passing laws that violate not only the Bill of Rights, but just about everything else in the Constitution, and somebodies need to say, "I'm mad as hell, and I can't take it anymore."
Yeah. As Facebook would have it, I like this .
Botch,
Any people that controlled the land area that is now the United States was almost destined to become a great and wealthy power in the world with the kind of technology developed over the last 300 years. The US land mass is one of the greatest on the planet for economic development. Nothing in Latin America comes close, not even Brazil.
Not to take away anything from the political and cultural foundations of the country which allowed the natural wealth to be used efficiently and to the greatest extent, but in terms of navigable rivers, arable land near those rivers, ports, distance from aggressor nations, and so on, the US is hard to top.
My short comment is "no".First, you guys started out as meagre 13 colonies. There was not a government that initially controlled that mass of land or those resources. That came to happen little by little. Haiti was then the most prosperous colony in the American continent. When the US were only thirteen colonies, and Boston, for example, no more than a village, Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, already had an university. The same is true of Lima, in Peru. Most independent observers of what the United States were at the time wouldn't have thought it would achieve what it achieved ("and so it came to pass", as in the Book of Mormon). Alexis de Tocqueville and the Count of Aranda DID see that, did understand why that would happen, but most other men of their time dismissed their opinions. The Count of Aranda suggested that the King of Spain gave autonomy to its possessions in the American continent and made them real political entities that would be able to contain the new nation. The King did not pay attention.
This would seem like staying off-topic, (pace, Farkel) but I think it needs to be said to add a little outside perspective. Please bear with me.
Immigrants do not go to poor lands where they have no opportunities. People left their lands for the United States because they did find opportunities there. Immigrants also moved in large numbers to Brazil (particularly the south of it), Mexico, Cuba, Uruguay and Argentina. But, why didn't they prosper as much in those lands? Why didn't they move there in such numbers? Why was it that Argentina, a nation that was way more developed than either Canada or Australia in the 1920's, is now in its sorry state? Lest we forget, Argentina became white because of the large number of European immigrants. No one today finds a trace of the "pardos and morenos" (mixed-races and coloureds) that fought for their independence.The reason people moved to the US, in my humble opinion, is that they found a different legal environment in the United States, one where they could prosper. I think a lot of that had to do with American laws and the American way of life. There was also a way to prosper here if you used your mind and worked your ass. That was not true in the rest of the continent. Why is it that an American of Mexican descent who is in the space program said, when interviewed, that he would have stayed in his tomato field if he hadn't moved to the US?
You could argue (pace, polite Canadians) that Canada isn't as strong or as powerful as the US because of its weather. But, why is it that, in recent times, Canada being a nicer country to live in, one where health care, for example, is free, immigrants still go to the United States over Canada?
Why is is that emigrating to Russia isn't exactly in the minds of many people, but people do want to move to Norway?
Why is is that the Jews who moved to Argentina, after the war, are just not as prosperous as their close relatives who moved to the US? Was it invariably the lazy and dumb brother who moved south?
BACK TO THE MAIN TOPIC, I'm sure that many a group who finds it difficult to make amendments to the American constitution will try a less noticeable way to achieve the same end. They will find a way to make it look like they respect the letter of the constitution, but will betray its spirit. I think those changes could be made for the better, or for the worse, but you guys should keep an eye on all, however, because the way the constitution is amended should be important as well.This also makes me think that, from outside, we should have an interest on how these things happen in the United States. If you guys were not a democracy, we would all fare much worse. Many of us see the US as a land where no antidemocratic thing can happen. It's time we realize that's not the case.
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82
I just can't do this anymore
by Awen indear friends:.
for years now after my exit from the wtbts i have searched for god.
as i have previously mentioned in other threads i looked into many other religions, including druidry, zen and tibetan buddhism (not really a religion), asatru, native american shamanism, kemetic orthodoxy, gnosticism and pandeism.
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65
The Supreme Law of the Land
by Farkel infolks, i almost feel silly creating this thread, but i think i must do it based upon comments by folks who think the various governments in the usa can make any legally enforceable laws they want.. they cannot!.
in the usa we have a republic.
we do not have a democracy.
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dgp
Farkel:
de Tocqueville was a very young (French) man when he wrote his famous "Democracy in America" in what, the 1830's?
Politically incorrect Latin Americans read Alexis de Tocqueville as well, for several reasons. One is that he foresaw that the United States, small and poor and even backwards at the time, would one day be way above Latin America (incidentally, this was also noticed by the Count of Aranda, but that is a different story). One of the reasons for such preeminence was democracy and a way of living that fostered people's freedom and gave them an opportunity to prosper for and by themselves. The kind of things that you can lose if you're not vigilant.
The only worry we should have is if some law is passed that violates the powers given by the Constitution and no one does anything about it. If that happens enough times, the Constitution is just a piece of paper, and our Liberties are lost.
Yep. We know a thing or two about this.
I mention de Tocqueville only because I am in agreement with you about the point I just copied. I know you're right, and many others would agree. We do not usually stand up for what American founding fathers would call "inalienable rights". You see the results in evil clowns such as Chávez or evil evil evil such as Castro.
Journey-on said it better than I:
Amen, Brother Farkel! But just like hundreds of so-called Christian religions take the same book, the Bible, and interpret it according to what they think it says, the Constitution is played with by lawyers, activist judges, AND policymakers. THE PEOPLE have to stay vigilant.
Ever heard about "The Road to Serfdom", by Friedrich von Hayek?
http://www.amazon.com/Road-Serfdom-Documents---Definitive-Collected/dp/0226320553/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317413897&sr=8-1 -
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Iran plans to send ships close to US waters
by Iamallcool inhttp://news.yahoo.com/iran-plans-send-ships-close-us-waters-report-175624866.html .
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65
The Supreme Law of the Land
by Farkel infolks, i almost feel silly creating this thread, but i think i must do it based upon comments by folks who think the various governments in the usa can make any legally enforceable laws they want.. they cannot!.
in the usa we have a republic.
we do not have a democracy.
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dgp
Coming from a region of the world where constitutions are almost as numerous as the descendants of Jacob, to Farkel's excellent remark I may only add that one of the great virtues of America is the fact that Americans do react to violations of the democratic spirit. It is when citizens fail to stand up to abuses that even the best constitution is useless.
I think it was Alexis de Tocqueville who said that for evil to be done the times must lend themselves to the committal of that evil. Americans do not lend themselves much to antidemocratic stuff. It has always been one of your great virtues, and I hope that is how it will always be.