Posts by garyneal

28

Waking up your spouse

by All for show in

jw
friends

i am aware this has to be done quite carefully, but how?

while many may complain and see the hypocrisy within the kh's, maybe even with the gb, how does one bring up doctrine issues?

i surely can not tell my husband to "go look what jwfacts.com says".

garyneal

I have failed miserably at this myself so I cannot offer any advice on what to do. Maybe more what NOT to do.

I tried to reason with her on the doctrinal stuff such as baptism to the organization through their two baptismal questions, Jesus not being the direct mediator for the earthly sheep (only the 144,000). How the WT got it wrong on the 607 BCE date, the pyramids and how Pastor Russell was originally preaching 1874 as the year of Christ's invisible return. I told her about the Candice Conti case involving sexual abuse of children and how they covered it up. I've even recently pointed out the WT UN scandal when a CO was giving a talk linking the wild beast with the UN. She does what she wants, ignoring WT rules when it suits her, following WT rules when it suits her.

She only clings to the religion because she has family in it and believes it was instrumental in helping her live a clean life during her formative years. She does not realize that the same thing has been said by others of other religions but stubbornly clings to the idea that churches allow unmarried people to live together or are all about tithing. She has a VERY superficial WT view of other Christians that can easily be demolished if she ever listened to the stories of former devout/fundamentalist individuals and how they actually lived. Not to mention the fact that the WT has its own sins (as I stated in the prior paragraph) which effectively negates them from being any more moral than any other Christian church.

Bottom line, facts are powerless to the faithful.

43

Do the Governing Body believe their own teachings or know it's a lie? Are they atheists?

by BucketShopBill in

the new young blood gb member, you think he really thinks this is the truth or is he protecting his financial interest like all the older gb members who enjoy basking in glory of men?

do you think they believe in the "over-lapping generation" or was that a mistake done by barr?.

how much of the watchtower and the bible do the governing body know, ray franz jr. said he was not impressed with their bible knowledge and their lack of knowledge of the watchtower cannon.

garyneal

You can come to believe the craziest things in the world if you surround yourself solely with individuals who are never allowed to disagree with you.

like the emporer who had no clothes on

Ha, you beat me to it hoser.

43

Do the Governing Body believe their own teachings or know it's a lie? Are they atheists?

by BucketShopBill in

the new young blood gb member, you think he really thinks this is the truth or is he protecting his financial interest like all the older gb members who enjoy basking in glory of men?

do you think they believe in the "over-lapping generation" or was that a mistake done by barr?.

how much of the watchtower and the bible do the governing body know, ray franz jr. said he was not impressed with their bible knowledge and their lack of knowledge of the watchtower cannon.

garyneal

What kind of teacher is Jesus when his words and ideas can be taken in so many ways. Why would he do that when, supposedly, everything is riding on "doing it right".

That is an excellent question. I would be interested in the answer to that one myself.

43

Do the Governing Body believe their own teachings or know it's a lie? Are they atheists?

by BucketShopBill in

the new young blood gb member, you think he really thinks this is the truth or is he protecting his financial interest like all the older gb members who enjoy basking in glory of men?

do you think they believe in the "over-lapping generation" or was that a mistake done by barr?.

how much of the watchtower and the bible do the governing body know, ray franz jr. said he was not impressed with their bible knowledge and their lack of knowledge of the watchtower cannon.

garyneal

Knowing it's b.s. and arriving at not believing in God would be a huge jump. It is possible that I have overstated above- perhaps their reeducation convinces some that Jehovah is using the other 11 guys (or whatever number they are/were on) and that the single member doesn't quite feel the Holy Spirit the way the others say they do, but is still afraid to say so. In that case, the same result- he stays quiet and casts his votes and shares his opinions based on what seems best for the salvation of the organization.

Gee, for a second there I could not tell if I was reading an opinion of the GB or the Emporer's New Clothes fairy tale! To paraphrase, it sounds like no one wants to say that the emporer has no clothes Watchtower Society is not spirit directed.

I would imagine there are some among the GB that long for the old days of warm fuzzy ignorance to the reality of running a major corporation.

In other words, they've seen the man behind the curtain and pine for the days when the wizard is a wizard who will serve Jehovah is guiding the faithful slave.

To give my two cents, I suppose that if they still believe then they believe that God is helping them make their decisions. Much like leaders of a church or a small Christian group at a college (like I was a part of) they probably think that if they 'prayerfully' consider their choices (and I bet they do pray before their meeting starts) then Jehovah will work it out. Even when things mess up they probably believe that Jehovah will work it out somehow. Confirmation bias I'm sure but no different than leaders of other churches. Of course, there maybe those who secretly do not believe in either the doctrines or the Bible but they may just be going through the motions or even hoping God will reveal all things in due time though there may be some 'atheist in the pulpit' also or even some charlatans.

18

Will the kingdom hall of jehovahs witnesses signs eventually come down?

by hoser in

jw
friends

it is clear that the leaders of the jehovahs witness religion are rebranding.

so as a strategy they could have both the jw.org signs and kingdom hall signs running at the same time and then in a few years instruct congregations to remove the kingdom hall signs.

this happens all the time with commercial products when there are mergers and company takeovers.. .

garyneal

"Kingdom Hall" for a place of worship now sounds both antiquated and weird. I am sure it will fall by the wayside, to be replaced with what "cool" new name I know not, do they even need a name for it ?

Um, church?

4

JW wife likes watching the 700 club

by goingthruthemotions in

jw
friends

i have noticed lately that my wife has been watching the 700 club..i asked her if she liked it?

she said yes because it is positive.. i then agreed with her and left it there.

(note: i never hear anything positive at the meetings).

garyneal

That is interesting, I wonder what she thinks about them being part of the 'churches of Christendom?'

48

A few questions for believers

by keyser soze in

jw
friends

when confronted with all of the inconsistencies and atrocities of the bible, many believers invariably claim that they don't base their faith in christ on what's written in the bible.

so what is the basis then, if not scripture?.

and please don't tell me "the lord has revealed himself to me".

garyneal

So jgnat, do you think Jesus' teachings would have been preserved orally in the absence of scripture? I'll be honest, I think without the Bible the Jesus story might have been no more than a historical footnote. Could you honestly say you'd still be a Christian if you'd never encountered a Bible?

I don't think it was so much for the Bible that kept the Jesus story alive throughout the centuries but more of the history of the Christian church. If it had not been for Rome converting to Christianity and establishing the Roman Catholic church much of what we know and have today would not exist and the world would be much different.

8

History of the church/Christianity, etc.

by Joe Grundy in

i have learned a great deal from some of the very erudite posters on this site (thank you).. for many years i've been interested in the history of the development of christianity, not only from its earliest days but through the reformation, etc., and through to the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries when denominations, sects, cults took off in all directions like exploding fireworks.. i was aware, in broad terms, of luther, calvin and the development of protestantism from which so many denominations and sects (including jws) arose.

i was vaguely aware of the schism (1,000 years ago) between the western (catholic) and eastern (orthodox) churches and was tangentially interested as to why it happened (if the 'east' was the home of christianity, how come the 'west' disagreed with it?).

i was quite interested to read, while living in cyprus, a greek orthodox english language bible which had a large section in the back about the schism.

garyneal

The history of Christianity ( should I call it Christendom?) does not make for faith strengthening reading

Agreed but it does explain a lot in ways of why we have what we have today. I highly recommend it for anyone who really wants to learn the truth about the Christian faith.

80

Will JW.ORG actually harm the WT Society Long Term ?

by flipper in

jw
friends

my son and i were discussing this yesterday over coffee.

since the wt society in previous years virtually demonized going on the internet at all for jw's - now wt leaders are doing a complete turn around or about face probably so as to " compete " or keep up with all the anti-jw websites that are out there to give the wt society point of view.. however- it very well may backfire on them as once people start doing google searches looking for jw.org it will bring up all the other websites dealing with any jw issues and in the privacy of their own homes out of curiosity i'm sure lots of jw's are going to want to check out some of these sites to see what all the " apostate " hoopla is all about.

i wonder how many jw's will do this and will it have an effect in opening more minds to other views ?

garyneal

At the last memorial, I was carrying my tablet for entertainment. A young JW walked by me and showed me his tablet. He said, "JW.ORG!" I replied, "JWFACTS.COM!"

24

should i marry and have a child with my partner

by stevepill in

hi, iv'e been a regular observer on this site for a while and would be very grateful for input from witnessess and non-witnessess.

ti widll try keep it brief to avoid too much reading!.

background:.

garyneal

I do not recommend you marrying this person. I too am married to a JW who did not take her religion too seriously before and sometime after our marraige. Then she went running back to the bOrg after we had one child and another on the way. I will say she is more reasonable and more liberal than some of the others I read about but it was difficult for a while.

It might work out for you but why bother with such an iffy scenario? I would start setting boundaries with her now with the first one being that you two have to talk about things that concern you and set boundaries on how you will raise any kids you have together. Sadly, if she is anything like my wife, she will break boundaries later to get what she wants at your expense.