had our ca recently.. others have posted on the program contents in other posts here, so i won't do that here.. but i was struck by something over the 2 days of mindless repetition and out-of-context scriptural quotations: the number of times "satan" was referenced.
he was easily the 2nd-most referenced bible character, after jehovah of course, but far outpacing jesus, paul, david, etc.. "don't view porn, because you'll make satan happy..." "satan wants you to fail..." "satan is doing everything in his power to destroy your family..." "satan has succeeded in causing some brothers to give up..." "satan.....satan....satan....satan!!!".
virtually every talk included something about how satan is just waiting to do something perfectly revolting, to us personally.. i imagine this topic is covered at virtually every assembly, but this time for some odd reason, it really struck me.. what do you suppose the effect of all these "satan is going to get you!
If you miss too many meetings, you get weak and are a prime target for Satan.
In effect they are right, except the misattribution: the truth is if you miss too many meetings, the mind control techniques get weaker on you, and you might begin to actually think. And we all know that thinking is Satan's work right?
ex jw boy meets ex jw girl....good thing or bad thing?.
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I hope you brought a chaperone...
is it alowed to watch / read harry potter movies (books) in your area?.
in my country (eastern europe) it is viewed mostly as "unexemplary" , although many kids have harry potter dvds at home, but nobody talks about it .... at circuit assembly one speaker warned, that "some might be tempted to watch a movie, with a little witch .... (of course it is very dangerous and we must stay away!!!)".
when i started my departure several months ago, i made sure my son has all movies on dvd and i openly talk about it with dubs who visit our home - how nice the movies are - ... nobody so far dared to react.... albert .
I live in Eastern Europe too (Romania). As far as I remember Harry Potter was never said directly as forbidden, yet it was the common consensus. It was a strange development to my family really. I bought the first books, and started reading it with my wife. She absolutely enjoyed it, couldn't wait to hear more, and looked forward to getting the 5. book (it was still not out then). Then at the 6. book he was somewhat reluctant, like "oh, I don't know, ok, let's read it". Then at the 7. she was completely against - no way, they're demonic, they promote wizardry, etc. But "could you tell me how it ends?" "No dear, you have to read it for yourself". After half a year she sort of had a nervous breakdown, and wanted to throw out the Harry Potter books, because it was clear that our house is full of demons because of the books.
This change was much due to pressure from our congregation members. Although it was never mentioned from the platform, I heard several casual comments that how "demonic" it is.
I had a similar experience with the "Da Vinci Code". At one casual meeting one regular pioneer went on and on about the book - she saw some documentary or something. I was sort of hiding at that time, so didn't come out front and ask her is she read it. Obviously she didn't. If she did then she would either discovered it was only a work of fiction (don't care what Dan Brown says), and/or knew the story is against the Catholic church, so everyone who read/saw it would listen to the "good news" better.
i used to look at the old stuff as info that the witnesses were progressively understanding.
i didn't hold it against the witnesses if they changed understandings because after all the 'light was getting brighter and brighter".. as time went on, it did start effecting me.
there were too many things i'd let slide by when i was younger that i just couldn't ignore any longer.
How about if the 'changing doctrine' including going back to an old/previous position, and calling it "new light"?
Thanks for the list, nice to have it layed out like that. However I still hold my oppinion that I don't care if they even go back to a previous interpretation as long as they don't force it down on me. Example: 15 years ago I thought Jehovah's Witnesses was a cult. Then after a while I thought they have the Truth. Then again now I returned to my original view that it's a cult. See, I'm only one person and I'm so undecided No wonder a society comprised of many individuals over more than a century can't settle down on one interpretation. And I say fine, go ahead and change whatever you like as long as I'm not forced to follow your guesswork as the ultimate Truth coming from God. I think I'd like a sort of two sets of teachings, one the cold hard truths that noone can challenge as not being Bible based, and one set of teachings that are constantly being analized and shown the results of the analization to me to decide whether that seems Bible based or not.
i used to look at the old stuff as info that the witnesses were progressively understanding.
i didn't hold it against the witnesses if they changed understandings because after all the 'light was getting brighter and brighter".. as time went on, it did start effecting me.
there were too many things i'd let slide by when i was younger that i just couldn't ignore any longer.
The doctrine changing is still not a big issue for me per se. I would be much more bothered if they realized that one of their teachings was against the Bible yet they continued teaching it.
What is an issue though is that "current light" is pushed on people as the ultimate Truth™ although it's clear that it will change, and trying to cover up past mistakes (they must feel that the long history of mistakes is sort of against the "spirit directed" theory). I'd like them to simply drop the crap about "spirit directed", come forward and say: "Listen brothers, we're simple Bible students, like any of you. These are the things we think the Bible says, if you think different well, it's not our place to judge your convictions."
The Bible is 100% clear on many things (say don't steal, don't kill), those could be the basis of disfellowshipment (but not shunning!), the rest is up to anyone's conscience, read the GB's arguments and decide for yourself if it rings true. Then when you stand before God you could be judged by your own conscience, not by following mindlessly some blind leaders.
do you remember how you once answered questions like; "do you really believe that god will destroy everyone but jehovah's witnesses"?
if you were like me you'd have looked your questioner in the eye and, in all honesty, said "no".
if necessary i'd have gone on to explain that "jehovah offers everyone the opportunity to live forever, our preaching work is an attempt to give all nations .
Nice one. As we know it there are preconceived answers to most of the questions right from the GB, so that takes the thinking part and any responsability away from the JW. We need questions that force them to actually think out an answer instead of spitting out the well-rehearsed ones from the Reasoning book or other literature.
if a witness brought up the example of lazarus, how jesus said he was "asleep" (which really meant dead)....and then he resurrected him and more people than ever had faith in jesus.. as part of the argument that most don't go to heaven when they die, suppose a jw said "most people believe we go live it up in heaven when we die.
but wouldn't that be cruel on god's part to let lazarus' soul come to heaven and then have jesus bring him back to the crummy earth?
how would you respond to that?.
So let's think about what happened to Lazarus according to JW: he was on his deathbed sick, slowly drifting away, as if in sleep. Then he suddenly wakes up wrapped in strange bands in a cave, and Jesus is there, leading him out to a cheerful crowd, with no feeling of sickness. If that is what actually happened, one would think his first words would be something like: wtf? where am I? Yet the Bible doesn't say that either. WT literature shows pictures of him happy to be alive, like he actually knew what happened to him - but how could he have known, if the past days were totally non existent to him?
What my point is that Lazarus not saying anything in the Bible doesn't prove anything. As PS said, Lazarus didn't speak at all, for all we know he could have been mute
i'm wondering what the stats are on re-activated jw's staying in or leaving the second time around.
i left twice for a couple of months the first time and a year the second time, but finally left for good the third time.. i just found out that my neighbors are jw's but have been out for a while.
the jw's in our area just came by and re-activated them.
My wife showed me the other day some experiences (from WT literature of course, where else?) that some reinstated persons said that how happy they are to be with Jehovah's people again, and how caring and loving arrangement from God is the disfellowshipping. I just don't know what to say - the GB could contrive an argument to kill your own child, and most of these brain washed people would think it's a loving arrangement
At the same time our congregation has about 10 or more DFd person, none of them ever came back, or misses the congregation. But I guess they are just "weak"...
i was thinking about some stupid non-sensical answers i have heard over the years.
"we all know the blue whale is the biggest fish"
"we were on the ministry and met a coloured couple.
wha happened that wasn't actually "stupid answer" I'd much prefer for them to come in the open and say right from the beginning to everyone what they honestly think. Then people would know the organization for what it really is before it's too late.
is the attention directed toward the accomplishments of the organization really a form of idolatry, as some contend, or is it simply following jesus' admonition to "let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your father in heaven"?.
I think Jesus spoke about letting your acts speak for themselves instead of praising yourself. I don't see the WT self praise as idolatry, rather vanity. I would be content if the WT would only present the facts in the magazines, letting people draw their conclusions, then I could be informed of the "light" that is on the other side of the world too - but this would mean a sincere unbiased presentation of facts, without drawing the conclusions right there in the article instead of letting me sum up the story. It would also mean not covering up their mistakes (see the UN deal) to make that light shinier than it is.
Consider this: how many times does someone in the Bible praise himself shamelessly? I thought of this passage, see Paul's words, he praises himself to show a point to his readers, but talks of that same boasting as 'foolishness' and that he's 'out of his mind':
What anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about. [...] Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. 2Cor 11:21-23 (NIV)
