hi all, i left the wts in the late `80s, i`ve not really given them a thought, until one sleepless night recently i was trawling the `tinterweb, and came across various videos on youtube.
anyway`s, the reasons i left were many and varied, and one day i`ll sit down and relate them, but two things have always stuck in my mind, once i was asked "if someone could convince you that without a doubt "the truth" was wrong, would you believe them?
", to which i answered "of course i would", - that was me marked.
it wasn't 'mans' help that I needed but to strengthen my relationship with Jehovah in order for me to 'get better', and that I needed to pray and study more
I'm a bit offtopic here, but it's so annoying that this advice is practically the only one they'll ever give. And if it fails (like in my case), they say that it was your fault, your weren't doing your best . Just like those "miracle healers" the JWs like to scorn: their method is perfect, the fault is in you.
south park did an episode a few years ago where the director of hell was welcoming in new "sinners".
if you have time, it is hilarious to watch, especially when the jw speaks up.
all of the youtube clips were taken down for copyright issues, but you can see it here http://allsp.com/ by clicking on season 4 and scroll down to the episode titled "probably".
South Park episodes are fully available directly from the source - http://www.southparkstudios.com. The part you're refering to is here: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/152270
got some info from the annual meeting.. unofficially, the 'generation' is now categorized as 2 groups.
the first is 'the 1914 group' and the second is the younger anointed 'contemporaries' who 'actually work for a period of time with those anointed ones'.. the 'generation' is now 'the lifespan of those who actually saw the beginning of the sign and then the lifespan of those who worked with those who saw the beginning of the sign'.. here we go again....
stuckinlimbo, you answered to your own confusion the WTS is walking a fine line between instilling urgency and not giving specific end-years (they fried themselves more than enough with that one). So they juggle with the generation, they can't keep an open generation that can last for indefinite time.
BTW I'm wondering whether someone from the higher-ups in Bethel is monitoring such threads, and gauges the possible response from the JW community to an official change. Because then we're doing counter productive work here. Am I a bit paranoid?
branches 118. .
lands reporting 236. .
total congregations 105298. .
Thanks for the report, I was most interrested in the number of partakers. Yep folks, one more year with almost 900 increase. Since the "dwindling" number of partakers proves the big A is drawing ever closer (see for example w00 1/15, para 18), we can all lay back and relax, Armageddon just got delayed.
i remember the good old days when jwzone, greatcrowd, purelanguagenetwork, sister soup, and witnessworld were around.
there were quite a few of us that managed to gain membership to those boards and tried to "witness" and would copy/paste over here..
The Watchtower pushed more and more against using the Internet except the watchtower.org site. As I see in the forums, Facebook gets strongly discouraged by name even. The good dubs got the message, so I doubt there are many such forums left.
The ubiquitousness of the Internet, and the ease with which one can get incriminating info on the Society would probably make them press against the net even more, maybe even to the point where it would be banned as the tool of evil. I can't wait for that to happen It might be harder for some to leave, but it would be an eye opener for many, more so for the ones who are not in yet.
hi all, i left the wts in the late `80s, i`ve not really given them a thought, until one sleepless night recently i was trawling the `tinterweb, and came across various videos on youtube.
anyway`s, the reasons i left were many and varied, and one day i`ll sit down and relate them, but two things have always stuck in my mind, once i was asked "if someone could convince you that without a doubt "the truth" was wrong, would you believe them?
", to which i answered "of course i would", - that was me marked.
I was hosck when I found out when they did rebuilding work after a disaster they ask people for their insurance cheques.
I found out about this practice from this site a while ago. While I see them capable of doing such disgusting thing, the question is, is there an outside proof of this? Or maybe an eyewitness?
I feel the same, that it's a hypocrisy accepting charity when you give absolutely nothing, but in regard to charity the JWs favourite quote is Gal 6:10 (do good ... especially to those who belong to the family of believers NIV). This practice however makes that quote irrelevant: JWs don't do charity absolutely at all, even to the ones "in faith", what they do is a paid service, they rebuild the house and give food in exchange for the insurance money, just like any other profit oriented company would do it.
i'm under the impression that the restrictions the wtbts imposes on witnesses to interact with non-jw's ultimately means that a non-jw might find he or she can't really help a faithful witness.
even if the witness in in real, serious need, or in the common events of every day life.
you can't ask your witness neighbor to come over to your house and interact normally.
Isolation is one of the tools of thought control. If one would follow the 'spiritual advice' to the letter, indeed he might find himself in just that situation. Fortunately most of them still use some discernement not to cut off themselves completely, reasoning that the neighbour could be 'won over'.
my wife told me that at the last meeting, the elders announced that youngsters going to the skateboarding park were no longer to have any privileges in the congregation.
this is to prevent jw youngs to be rounded up if a drug raid was made at the skateboarding park.. also because of individuals requesting that they be friends on facebook that contain bad pictures, that anyone with a facebook account will automatically have their privileges removed.. sounds like the pharasees protecting the people by adding additional traditions upon them.. .
Facebook is not so popular in this part of the world, but still my wife said that an elder advised youngsters about social networking sites. He said that if you have a profile on a site like that, usually there's a zone to write about your hobbies, what you do, etc., so a wise 'christian' would use that space to talk about his 'sacred service'. Seems people here are rather secretive about that in public.
http://failblog.org/2009/12/21/wish-granted-cody/.
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Lol, this sounds like a WT Bible's Viewpoint article title.
the nov 1st, 2009 page 20. .
in summary, it's not needed to understand or compare the ancient hebrew and greek to our translations.
it can be "a very difficult task", "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing", i suppose so, if finding the mistakes in the nwt.
Perry gere's the original thread discussing this article, with links to scans: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/182081/1/Do-You-Need-to-Learn-Hebrew-and-Greek-WT-11-01-09. It was regarding understanding the Bible.
"a little knowledge is a dangerous thing"
From this one thing comes to my mind: take lots of knowledge! Fixed.
