Hey, cool! That was my 400th post! Happy 400th, baby!!!
Posts by sd-7
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32"Do not become unevenly yoked"--weird comment at meeting
by sd-7 ini heard a really bizarre comment at one of the recent meetings.
someone, in quoting this scripture, of course went with the usual doctrine of not marrying/dating someone who is not a jw.
but one woman took it even further, by saying that this applied even to people inside the congregation who 'weren't spiritual enough' or didn't have some magnificent spiritual goals in life.
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32
"Do not become unevenly yoked"--weird comment at meeting
by sd-7 ini heard a really bizarre comment at one of the recent meetings.
someone, in quoting this scripture, of course went with the usual doctrine of not marrying/dating someone who is not a jw.
but one woman took it even further, by saying that this applied even to people inside the congregation who 'weren't spiritual enough' or didn't have some magnificent spiritual goals in life.
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sd-7
I heard a really bizarre comment at one of the recent meetings. Someone, in quoting this scripture, of course went with the usual doctrine of not marrying/dating someone who is not a JW. But one woman took it even further, by saying that this applied even to people INSIDE the congregation who 'weren't spiritual enough' or didn't have some magnificent spiritual goals in life. But the scripture says UNBELIEVERS, so how can you apply it to BELIEVERS because they don't happen to want to pioneer or something?
Of course. Like everything else, it applies "in principle". Using that logic, you really could justify anything. Just another example of why I see no need to just go along with this religion.
--Christopher
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12
Straw man in last week's WT
by sd-7 ini couldn't help noticing the wt study article this weekend, which was about cultivating love that never fails.
the correct spelling of it should have been cultivate, by the way.. the straw man of the love that the world shows was presented first--that people in the world know only romantic love, love of money, love of themselves, and love of pleasures.
this was contrasted with the 'love' that jws show, which consists of obedience to god's commandments.
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sd-7
Well, in order to understand this, one has to reconcile the two scriptures that come into play--John 3:16 and 1 John 2:15-17. Clearly, God loved the world. But John tells Christians, "Do not be loving the world." Obviously, the two phrases must be using the term "world" in a different sense, or else this is a glaring contradiction.
The world in John 3:16 is clearly not just 'redeemable mankind', because no one can decide who is redeemable and who is not but God. That's a JW judgment not unlike the old 'sheep and goats' belief that got discarded. The world is ALL of mankind, hence the term. Clearly, 1 John 2:15-17 can't be referring to the same 'world'. I would guess that John there is referring to the material world, hence his use of the terms "the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes and the showy display of one's means of life". He's not referring to the people, who are ALL redeemable until such time as God himself judges them otherwise.
The flaw comes in here when the WT makes little distinction between the people in the world and an obsession with material things of the world. Now they don't generally use that scripture when discussing people/association. But in this case, on some subtle level, they're not drawing a distinction.
Of course, they would also point to James 4:4, "Friendship with the world is enmity with God". Of course, the context points to problems with envy and desiring things that belong to others, so again, this is not necessarily to the people in the world either, assuming context rules over WT doctrine.
So...I think perhaps you folks have just enlightened me on this issue, just by getting me to think about the relevant scriptures. I'm open to other thoughts, of course. Thanks.
--Christopher
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12
Feel the Love?
by AK - Jeff inwe must hate in the truest sense, which is to regard with extreme and active aversion, to consider as loathsome, odious, filthy, to detest.
surely any haters of god are not fit to live on his beautiful earth.
- the watchtower, october 1st, 1952, pp.
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sd-7
I would ask if that was taken out of context, but it would be hard to justify asking something that stupid. There were many pretty outrageous things being said in the 50s in the Watchtower. One would not have to look hard to see a clearly extremist religion if one just read the 50s Watchtower articles.
Jesus told us to love our enemies. The Watchtower tells us to hate our enemies. Who should we believe? This is an issue that came up in my recent committee. I explained to the elders that they would kill me for my 'sins' if the Governing Body told them to, despite the fact that it would be contrary to scripture. "Didn't they [the Society] also say that when in doubt, go with the scriptures?" they replied.
This quote is an example of why such reasoning on the part of the elders is simply lacking real basis. While the same words might not be used again amongst people who (presumably) are better informed in our time, the sentiment is still most certainly there.
Yes, I feel the love. Love for the Governing Body, and hate for anyone who sees the man behind the curtain.
--Christopher
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sd-7
Come on, Sylvia--there's always going to be one. The token black dude is a common feature these days. I've been there, sort of. Actually, in school, I was like, the second-tier token black guy, because I wasn't particularly sociable. But why not? It's the easiest thing to do, to put one black person out there and say the oft-repeated unspoken reality: "See? We like black people too!"
Of course, not knowing any of the Governing Body members personally, I can't speak for their views on race. But clearly, if the statistics I read are correct, black people generally aren't getting the uh, management positions in the organization. In my entire life, 20+ years that I can remember, I've only seen one black district overseer. Anyone at that level and above tends to be white. Is that wrong in itself? Well, given that the organization is really not all that different from the sharecropping system, it probably makes sense.
It would be easy to cloak prejudice behind any organizational procedure or doctrine (as they did with segregation--it was more important to obey the law of man for the sake of maintaining the meetings than to show Christian love and sit with a brother brother). But I don't know. It gets to be a difficult subject to fairly discuss. I'll leave it to smarter men to figure out. Oh, right, shouldn't do that anymore...
Obviously, Herd doesn't realize what's going on any more than anyone else on the inside does. Just another victim of victims. Just like all of us.
--Christopher
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23
Do you hold any ''responsibility'' for the believing the WTS?
by RULES & REGULATIONS injehovah's witnesses are the only people that will inherit life on paradise earth.
only jehovah's witnesses have the ''truth''.
the wts is the only ''channel' 'to jehovah.
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sd-7
Absolutely, I bear responsibility for believing them. Granted, I was not permitted to believe anything else, having been raised in this religion. But the difference between pulling the trigger because you were ordered to do so and pulling the trigger because you wanted to, on your own, is irrelevant. We were still a party to it. The trigger was still pulled. We may have recruited others, or shunned people we once cared about, or watched as our children or the children of others died for one medical reason or another.
But the reason why our responsibility is far less is because we reached a point where conscience proved more important to us than following orders. We took a stand, and lived with the consequences. For that, we can at least find some solace for whatever part we may have had in it.
Also, the fact that we were not the ones GIVING the orders--unless you were an elder or maybe a parent or recruited someone--tends to help us gain a little solace. That may seem contradictory to what I just said earlier, but it's true. We didn't make the rules. We just lived by them or enforced them. That does make us partially responsible, but not entirely so.
--Christopher
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17
Watchtower Says Other Sheep Will Be God's Sons Only At End of 1,000 Yr. Reign
by minimus inbut.....it's ok to still refer to jehovah as "our father" although those of the other sheep cannot be his "sons".
i'm confused.
how can you have a father but still (at this time) not be considered the father's child?.
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sd-7
The "other sheep" are second-class citizens in a way that the Gentiles never were. The "other sheep" are described as not being sons of God, not part of the body of Christ, not in the new covenant, and friends with Christ only by extension, while simultaneously being accepted as God's 'friends' instead of his sons, which contradicts being friends with Christ by extension.
Jesus said that he had "other sheep" who were "not of this fold". He did not say those of "this fold" were going to heaven and those of the "other sheep" would be on earth. To say that he meant that is to read into his words something beyond what was said. He just said there were other sheep. What fold was he talking about? Well, his audience consisted of Jews, so I would think "this fold" would be the Jews, not merely people with a heavenly hope.
And I would think that Paul, or somebody, would have laid out this earthly hope more specifically in one of their letters, since it is unlikely, assuming JW theology is right, that EVERYONE in the congregations then was going to heaven. The Christian population was probably more than 144,000--at least if we believe The Finished Mystery--in the 1st century. So why no extensive discussion of said earthly hope?
This theology of 'till Armageddon + 1,000 years more = children of God reminds me of the sharecropping system that followed U.S. slavery. Yeah, you were free, but you still had these uh, "debts" to pay. The faithful and discreet slavemasters, indeed.
--Christopher
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38
Borg court: 3rd session & verdict
by sd-7 inso...the third and final session was pretty straightforward.
they basically asked some more questions about the first woman, before i got back with the woman who became my wife.
then they asked what seemed like nothing more than a customer survey of "how are we doin'?
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sd-7
I'll do the best I can. Am trying to talk to wife right now--she is dismissing me as the 'spiritual head'. What a horrible cult we've suffered through, all of us. But I may be able to salvage things, once I learn to look beyond my own pain.
--Christopher
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42
Borg court: 2nd session
by sd-7 injudicial committee, round 2. i have to give it to the elders on this one.
they fought well, albeit with unrefined technique.
pure strength of authority apparently seems to make up for a lack of sufficient evidence, just as the 300-pound fellow who believed you were checking out his girlfriend can beat the tar out of you even though you were merely looking at the clock behind her on the wall.
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sd-7
Thank you, Mad Sweeney. Yeah, I did. Look for the 3rd session & verdict. It's out here.
--Christopher
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12
Straw man in last week's WT
by sd-7 ini couldn't help noticing the wt study article this weekend, which was about cultivating love that never fails.
the correct spelling of it should have been cultivate, by the way.. the straw man of the love that the world shows was presented first--that people in the world know only romantic love, love of money, love of themselves, and love of pleasures.
this was contrasted with the 'love' that jws show, which consists of obedience to god's commandments.
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sd-7
I couldn't help noticing the WT study article this weekend, which was about cultivating love that never fails. The correct spelling of it should have been CULTivate, by the way.
The straw man of the love that the world shows was presented first--that people in the world know only romantic love, love of money, love of themselves, and love of pleasures. This was contrasted with the 'love' that JWs show, which consists of obedience to God's commandments. Frankly, obedience to commands can easily be done without genuine love being involved. Case in point, the JWs. But how can anyone suggest that they alone, above all others, know about real love? Don't these people have non-JW relatives who love them a great deal? I know I do.
Of course, I'm not one of 'them' anymore anyway, so it's a moot point. But honestly, it felt like they just mailed it in on that article. It was just filler to plug the yeartext for 2010.
I was just reading about all the different propaganda techniques, and the 'straw man' seems to be a WT favorite. How many straw men can you find in the introductions to study articles? 50? 50,000? I wonder.
--Christopher