Thank you for your detailed reply! I will read over it later on today.
Posts by pirata
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62Real Jehovah's Witnesses (djeggnog, StandFirm, etc), I'm trying to understand you.
by pirata ini'm an active jehovah's witness.
i've obviously lost my faith, that's why i don't feel bad posting here anymore.
i'd probably be disfellowshipped as a division causing, teaching, apostate, faster than you can say "maher-shalal-hash-baz" (isaiah 8:1), should it be found out that i was posting here and did not repent of the things i've said and stop participating in this forum.
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62
Real Jehovah's Witnesses (djeggnog, StandFirm, etc), I'm trying to understand you.
by pirata ini'm an active jehovah's witness.
i've obviously lost my faith, that's why i don't feel bad posting here anymore.
i'd probably be disfellowshipped as a division causing, teaching, apostate, faster than you can say "maher-shalal-hash-baz" (isaiah 8:1), should it be found out that i was posting here and did not repent of the things i've said and stop participating in this forum.
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pirata
I'm an active Jehovah's Witness. I've obviously lost my faith, that's why I don't feel bad posting here anymore. I'd probably be disfellowshipped as a division causing, teaching, apostate, faster than you can say "Ma′her-shal′al-hash-baz" (Isaiah 8:1), should it be found out that I was posting here and did not repent of the things I've said and stop participating in this forum. Offline, I keep my thoughts to myself and stick to the "official teachings/understandings" in service or with my brothers and sisters.
@djeggnog, @StandFirm, @ 20571pnt428571, et al (Maze, I'm really not sure if you are a witness):
The Kingdom Ministry articles over the past 10 years make it obvious to me that the Governing Body does not want Jehovah's Witness cowboys doing research outside Watchtower Society Publications, making their own websites, engaging in debates; certainly not without their approval. At least that is how I understand it and how the brothers and sisters that have made comments about such matters understand it
Yet, you seem to be 100% believing Jehovah's Witnesses, confidence in the guidance and direction of the Organization and it's Governing Body, yet don't see a conflict with posting here or doing research outside of Watchtower Publications.
I'm not saying this to criticise, rather, I think that it is necessary for the long term growth of Jehovah's Witnesses to directly address criticisms that can be easly found online. But instead the overall direction lately, at least from my impression, is to keep people away from apostate literature, and not address the objections.
There has been NOTHING in print regarding 587 BCE for over 22 years (and the refutation was weak at best: "But if a Bible student uses those dates when calculating the fulfillment of prophecy, he will simply be confused." w89 3/15 pg.21 par.16). There has never been any refutation regarding the Watchtower's past NGO UN status (aside from the BOE letter which would require a witness to admit to an elder that they've been looking at or listening to apostate material to see it), no refutation of the Malawi/Mexico allegations made in Crisis of Conscience, etc. Refutations of these issues, which I'm sure have "saved" at least some Jehovah's Witnesses faith, have been in the form of the JW cowboys who set up their own websites or participate in online discussions as you do here.
This is compounded by the fact that those have doubts tend to hide it at first. For me it was out of fear. I wanted to make sure that my worship and faith was not misguided, but I did not want to be labelled spiritually weak by going to the Elders to ask for help with these doubts. Was that stupid reasoning? Pride? Perhaps... but with all the printed warnings against looking at "apostate" information, I felt scared to discuss any of the issues I discovered with any of the Elders for fear of being charged with being disobedient to the Faithful slave. I have had Governing Body members come to give talks in my area, and had questions I wanted to ask them (mainly in regards to allegations made by apostates, and some of our interpretations of the Bible), but was afraid to for fear of being investigated after the fact.
Did you go to the elders with any doubts or questions you may have had? Did you right to the Society? What was the response?
By being a Spiritual Cowboy (ie posting here) do you think you're simply ahead of the game (ie. running ahead of the organization)? Immune to apostate reasoning (ie. think that your spiritually will not be affected by feeding, or at least dabbling with, the table of demons)? The publications equate looking at apostate information as not obeying Jehovah and not opposing the Devil. Why doesn't that bother you? I was deathly scared to join up and post here because I felt I was doing something wrong at first
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Blondie's Comments You Will Not Hear at the 05-15-2011 WT Study (NEAR)
by blondie incomments you will not hear at the 05-15-2011 wt study (march 15, 2011, pages 12-16)(trust god/end near).
review comments will be headed by comments.
wt material from today's wt will be in black.
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pirata
Great stuff Blondie. Do you know if there are any online resourced that have the entire introduction for the Rotherham Bible?
Loaded Language in today's study:
Paragraph 1: What a contrast to Jehovah’s servants! Guided by godly wisdom, they know better than to place their trust in this world or its “nobles.”
Why was this loaded language necessary? The message of Psalms 146 is clearly to place your trust in God, not in any men:
Psalms 146 Praise Jah, YOU people! Praise Jehovah, O my soul. 2 I will praise Jehovah during my lifetime. I will make melody to my God as long as I am. 3 Do not put YOUR trust in nobles, Nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs. 4 His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; In that day his thoughts do perish. 5 Happy is the one who has the God of Jacob for his help, Whose hope is in Jehovah his God,
But the Watchtower paragraph applies the scripture as meaning not to put trust in worldly men because Jehovah's Witnesses are encouraged to put their trust in the group of men who make up the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses.
*** bt chap. 13 p. 103 par. 9 “There Had Occurred No Little Dissension” ***
When serious issues arise today, let us imitate the fine example of the believers in Antioch by trusting God’s organization and its Governing Body of anointed Christians, who represent “the faithful and discreet slave.”
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showdown at midnight with jw dad
by JunkYardDog inbastard call me up at midnight to tell how great the wt is.wtf i was sleeping.
i gave him a half hour lesson about the cross and how long it took jesus to die.
and how the torture stake would only keep you alive for about less than 30 minutes if that.
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pirata
I take it you are not on good terms with your dad?
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Who choose the elders to give talks at the Circuit Assembly and District Assembly?
by Iamallcool inhow does that work?.
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pirata
The Circuit Overseer picks him based on the following criteria:
amount of money in the envelope collected by the PO from the congo and handed to the CO at the end of his visit
average monthly hours reported by the elders... not actual hours, but hours counted going to donut shops, etc.
speaking ability, (not thinking ability)
number of brothers the elder greets as they enter the hall during the CO's visit (not the number of brothers he normally greets when the CO is not in town)
quality of restaurant CO is invited to by the elder during his visit.
whether of not the congo's finances are in order, not whether or not there are any brothers in financial troubles.
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Had the magazines left at my house today and wanted to "SCREAM" after reading this article in the May 1,2011 WT
by StoneWall inthe article that caught my eye as i was thumbing through it was on page 18 entitled "a peaceable people defend their good name".
this was all about the issues being addresssed in russia and how the j.w.
's were being oppressed/repressed.. but if you look in the box to the left under "a note to the citizens of russia", you will see that they quote the scripture in luke 12:2 "there is nothing carefully concealed that will not be revealed, and secret that will not become known.".
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pirata
What at times happens, is someone will turn their back on the Truth, make a mess out of their family life and out of bitter selfishness blame the whole thing on Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't know if you remember brotherdan, but when abandoned Jehovah's Organization he started harassing his wife who was still a Witness. I've been associated with Jehovah's Witnesses for over thirty years. I know exactly what goes on there. The lie that Jehovah's Witnesses ruin families is apostate poison.
It is very biased to say that "apostates" have turned their back on the Truth. Most "apostates" do not believe that the "Truth" is true or truthful. They have, at least for themselves, that the "Truth" is not true.
This creates an unfortunate environment where:
- JW family members think that the now "apostate" family member has abandoned God and Jesus, and place their own pride and selfishness above that of their family and the unity of the congregation.
- The no longer believing family member thinks that his JW family is under the mind control of a dangerous cult. They often try to "rescue" their family.
These opposing views are bound to cause a strain on a relationship. It's hard to find a middle ground when both sides are so convinced that they are right. It's similar when a person who wasn't a JW becomes a JW. Unfortunately I have heard (some) similar stories about families disowning the family member who has decided to become a witness.
I think they biggest beef, and reason for the view that JWs break up families is because of 1) The demonizing the of the now "apostate", and 2) the disfellowshipping arrangement which requires shunning as an issue of "loyalty" to a belief that may or may not be true (whereas the shunning of the family member is very real).
There's two sides to every story. The answers usually somewhere in the middle. The unfortunate thing is that it's ofen hard to find a middle ground when one or both sides cannot or refuse to compromise.
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How High School Helped Me Realize I Didn't Know How to Have My Own Opinion
by pirata ini used to get pretty good marks in high school, until it came to situations that required me to give my own opinion.. my social studies teacher used to get quite frustrated with me when it came to anything political.
we were asked to write paragraphs on how we feel about different issues.
i always did something like: "this side feels this way, that side feels that way, here are the pro's and con's to each side, then maybe some obscure comment that didn't really state what my stand was".
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pirata
I used to get pretty good marks in high school, until it came to situations that required me to give my own opinion.
My Social Studies teacher used to get quite frustrated with me when it came to anything political. We were asked to write paragraphs on how we feel about different issues. I always did something like: "this side feels this way, that side feels that way, here are the pro's and con's to each side, then maybe some obscure comment that didn't really state what my stand was". "Fear of man" was strong for me; I wasn't willing to write how God's Kingdom was going to come and fix everything (as I had thought for sure that would be a failing mark). So I just danced around the issue. Marks were mediocre, but I managed to avoid direct confrontation. Looking back, I think it was not so much "fear of man", but rather that my belief was not deeply my own,my beliefs were something that I had adopted as part of my heritage.
The biggest impact on me was a Science Paper we needed to do on a controversial science subject; I chose "Blood Transfusions". The first part of the report outlined the controversy, then I gave the views of those who support Blood Transfusions, and those who don't (prominently JWs). My conclusion was that I was a JW, so I have their view. One of my classmates, and Evangelical Christian, wrote his controversial topic on "Are these the last days?". I thought for sure he was going to fail because his subject really had nothing to do with Science. A week later we get back our reports and the teacher had barely passed me with 50%. The Evangelical Christian got a pretty good mark as he had argued his point as his own personal conviction. I was stunned and talked to my teacher about it. He told me that the whole purpose of the project was to form your own opinion after researching the arguments on both sides. All I had done was said, I agree with side B, and didn't even bother to state my reasons why. I was suprised why he couldn't understand "of course that's what I think because that is my religion".
That event has always nagged at me in the back of my mind. I kept pushing it aside over the years, until I eventually realized that I "believe" what I believe because that's what I HAD to believe. That's what I always "believed". I knew that as a JW you don't believe something else. The concept of having my own opinion was foreign to me. In the past few years, some of the Our Kingdom Ministry's have stressed that when a worldly person asks us why we don't celebrate X, we should say "I have made my personal decision not to celebrate X.." instead of "I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses and we don't celebrate X...". That way it appears as if the decision not to celebrate X was one's own personal opinion. But that's not the case; at least it wasn't for me.
During one class, we were asked to go to the Gym for a pep rally. I remember reading in an Awake!, Young People Ask article, that Pep Rallies were not for (true) Christians. So I told my teacher I couldn't go because I was one of Jehovah's Witnesses. She did not believe me, so she asked me what the reason was thatn Jehovah's Witnesses don't go to Pep Rallies. Embarrased, I didn't know, so I said "I don't know...". Well, she obviously wasn't too impressed, but she let me skip out. Later I went to check out the article in more detail, but I remember thinking that although I didn't really agree or full get it, I would still not go to Pep Rallies because that's what "true Christans" do.
For the longest time, I thought this discomfort with some of my beliefs was because I had not studied enough, and that I needed to make the truth my own. I studied harder and deeper (including the discouraged "worldly" sources), one thing led to another and now I'm here. Only in the past few years have I started to get an idea of what it really means to form an opinion, instead of adopting another authority's opinion. And I'd like to thank a lot of you here for helping me to fully realize that. As a side note, I hope one day I can look up that Science teacher and thank him for making me aware of the problem in the first place.
Another lesson I learned was why it's so hard to reach other JW's with information that we think will "rock their world", and how such change only comes from within. It is quite easy to dismiss contrary evidence when you have decided to let an (always presently true) authority make decisions for you. It took me decades of accumulated experience, influences, and information before I put all the pieces of the puzzle together and realized something was wrong. We can give others the puzzle pieces. But only they can put it together.
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pirata
Heaven, it seems you are the ugly white naked sad angry dude.
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pirata
BD7, welcome to the forum!
This should be interesting.
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Scandal...
by James4Tea ini posted this yesterday on a similar forum, but it was deleted despite there being nothing wrong with it.
indeed, the scandal is one that i, myself, suffered.
good afternoon from london.... .
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pirata
Jame4Tea, instead of getting all wound up, just repeat these three words:
I'm not interested
A few times and they will understand. If you carry on a conversation, they're glad to talk with you. So if you don't want to talk to them, then you have to make it clear.