Ah. My old thread on BeDuhn's book again. The gift that keeps on giving...
--sd-7
i have just seen in the flesh , or paper , the new nwt .
my witness friends were delighted with it showing me all the new features like the glossary of terms and explanations of the hows and whys .
i did ask about actual content , acting daft not letting on that i knew anything about it .
Ah. My old thread on BeDuhn's book again. The gift that keeps on giving...
--sd-7
among the inane fb comments i've come across about the agm, this one stood out as more inane than the most enthusiastic jw slobbering:.
"before we start taking about what happened at the agm we must be absolutely certain that all the meetings are over.
make sure that we are obedient in the small things ago that we will be obedient in the big things.
I believe there is some contention about that section. I believe some early church fathers believed that it originally belonged in the text and was edited out to remove the implication that Jesus tolerated adultery. The ones that asserted this believed it belonged in the NT though.
--Ah. Very good, then.
--sd-7
most of us here on jwn, while we can get a bit narky at times, can put forth intelligent arguments and sound observations.
sure we can get bogged down with our opinions, but generally we back up our opinions with examples and evidence, and if someone has a different opinion with examples and evidence, we accept that without recriminations.
that's what adults do.. so my question is, why in the last week or so, have a couple of posters claiming to be jws come onto this forum and berated, spewed hate and judgement, and in some cases verbally attacked members personally?
But...in line with the OP, this is just the common response when one's cherished beliefs are challenged. Whether JWs have a rational defense to offer or not is irrelevant; the point is, this is a belief system that affects every aspect of their lives. For someone to suggest that it is in error might even be frightening to ponder, especially for those who use the religion as a moral crutch or who have a great deal of investment in it as far as time, money, emotion and energy. I was the same way when confronted with challenges to my beliefs years ago. Nothing new about it.
--sd-7
most of us here on jwn, while we can get a bit narky at times, can put forth intelligent arguments and sound observations.
sure we can get bogged down with our opinions, but generally we back up our opinions with examples and evidence, and if someone has a different opinion with examples and evidence, we accept that without recriminations.
that's what adults do.. so my question is, why in the last week or so, have a couple of posters claiming to be jws come onto this forum and berated, spewed hate and judgement, and in some cases verbally attacked members personally?
“What is involved in avoiding false teachers? … We also refuse to … add our comments to their blogs.”—(The Watchtower, July 15, 2011 p. 16.)
Huh. So this was just an idle suggestion, then? That position is doubly untenable, as there are two major factors involved: (1) the expulsion of an ex-JW from the religion requires them to be shunned, and (2) their direct opposition to/disagreement with the JW teachings means they must be avoided like the plague.
By all means, look up the quote yourself. You said:
As far as it being wrong for me to post here because the Slave said so, show me where? If you do have such material, where these commandments?
I have just shown you. July 15, 2011 Watchtower, page 16. If you believe this is merely a suggestion or optional, then based on the Watchtower's own wods, I have to conclude you are either not one of Jehovah's Witnesses or that you are a disloyal one. There are certain things that are suggestions--like maybe wearing a suit while giving a talk rather than a sportcoat and slacks. Not the end of the world if you ignore it. But this is definitely not in the same category by any stretch of the imagination.
--sd-7
most of us here on jwn, while we can get a bit narky at times, can put forth intelligent arguments and sound observations.
sure we can get bogged down with our opinions, but generally we back up our opinions with examples and evidence, and if someone has a different opinion with examples and evidence, we accept that without recriminations.
that's what adults do.. so my question is, why in the last week or so, have a couple of posters claiming to be jws come onto this forum and berated, spewed hate and judgement, and in some cases verbally attacked members personally?
It does sound a bit hard to believe that a JW worried about a private message from an ex-JW, yet paradoxically ignoring the strong warning from the Watchtower about not posting on the Internet blogs of those who are 'apostate' is actually a JW. What, you're going to fall in love with the archenemy? I seriously doubt it. Finding the exact quote of what the WT has said as far as Internet communication with apostates is very easy indeed. Shall I? Hmm. I think I shall, for what it's worth.
--sd-7
i want to thank jehovah's witnesses new world bible translation committee for changing the words, "mentally diseased" as found in the 1984 edition of the nwt, to "obsessed with arguments," as found in 1 timothy 6:4 in the 2013 revised nwt.. on february 6, 2012, david splane, the overseer of the watchtower's writing department received an open letter from me which i posted below especially for new posters.
the topic of my letter was in response to the writing department's statement that ..."apostates are mentally diseased" in their july 15, 2011 watchtower.
the 1984 edition of the new world translation reads:.
A welcome change indeed, though it will not improve JW tolerance of anyone else's beliefs nor will it change their attitude towards dissenters.
--sd-7
among the inane fb comments i've come across about the agm, this one stood out as more inane than the most enthusiastic jw slobbering:.
"before we start taking about what happened at the agm we must be absolutely certain that all the meetings are over.
make sure that we are obedient in the small things ago that we will be obedient in the big things.
Of course that no longer includes Jesus' admonition, “Let the one of YOU that is sinless be the first to throw a stone at her,” because THAT'S NOT IN THE nNWT!
It was never part of the oldest manuscripts to begin with, and to my knowledge was never quoted in any WT literature probably for that reason. It's a nice story, but somebody made it up.
Epic is the word you use to describe sitting in a building with no windows staring at a large video monitor for 3 hrs.
Yeah, but more so if I'm watching a Peter Jackson film, like 'King Kong' or 'Return of the King'. Those were pretty epic, for 3 hours.
So...if the organization does not claim to be perfect, then why is even a minor disagreement with their doctrine tantamount to insulting God? You can't have it both ways. If you're imperfect, that means at some point, you have to make a mistake or teach something incorrectly. Which they do, but by employing their own doublethink version of Magisterium, in fact let's just coin a term there, Doublethink Magisterium, they make it impossible to disagree, much less call them out on an erroneous teaching.
Doesn't seem to make sense to continue engaging someone who accuses you of slander for recounting what they just studied in the magazine they claim to believe in word-for-word. But I get why you do. Problem is, more often than not, it takes something more than reason to wake people up. "Sometimes the mind has to discover things for itself."
--sd-7
i see the wts has now removed the reference to jesus' rendering punishment of death by sword, when the master returns and finds the evil servant abusing the other slaves; they've sanitized the reading of matt 24:51 as this:.
51 "and he will punish him with the greatest severity and will assign him his place with the hypocrites.
there is where his weeping and the gnashing of his teeth will be.".
--sd-7
so who here wants to run an experiment?
if you still attend the meetings, are you willing to cling to the "old" new world translation?.
keep using it in front of all of the rest of the cultists.
"You don't fear the Old World Translation, you welcome it. Your punishment must be more severe." "Torture?" "Yes. But not of your body. Of your soul."
--sd-7
the new bible is up at jw.org!.
I'm actually rather pleased with some of the stuff in this New NWT. It's kind of a blend of what a lot of other Bibles already had--footnotes/alternate renderings (and the Reference Bible had that already, but it was rather large)--with the same old JW Bible. Some of their renderings of certain verses definitely appear to have improved, though they have maintained most of the doctrinal bias. It's actually pretty--I like the gray color and the font and while I see that much of the extra stuff is recruitment-related, it's still shiny.
Of course that's in no way relevant to the truth content of the material contained therein, but it's nice, I'll admit that. I guess all the rumors were true after all, huh, about a new Bible. I suppose a project that big couldn't possibly be conducted in total secrecy. As a drama queen/door mat/lost soul searching for meaning in life after being in a cult, this sort of thing could get me interested again in reading an ancient text about a divine being who is soon to murder me without so much as a phone call.
I, too, noticed the appendix about their use of the name Jehovah. The logic remains the same, I see. But without any original copies of any of the books of the NT, how can it be assumed that the divine name was ever there? The tradition of not pronouncing it was already in place long before the time of the first-century Christians. Are we to assume based on a couple of verses in the Gospel about Jesus 'making God's name known' that they broke with that tradition? If so, why do the Gospels contain no controversy about this man who was using the name of Jehovah over and over in his teaching despite the long-standing tradition of not doing so? Oh, right, because Jesus refers to God as 'the Father'. Huh. Kind of throws you for a loop, there.
But it's a lot like a Blu-ray Disc with special features and deleted scenes, except the deleted scenes have already been deleted and there's a note telling you somebody added the scenes to the movie later by mistake. Or whatever.
I look forward to downloading the .pdf version since I'm too disloyal to Jehovah and his organization to obtain a paper copy of the New New World Translation on my own. Hey, New New World Translation? It's like Futurama or something. "Not Sure If Old New World Translation Is Now Called Old World Translation Now, Or If 2013 New World Translation Should Be Called New New World Translation".
--sd-7