just heard from a friend that a nearby body of elders in their congregation have decided that anybody who is on facebook will not be able to have privleges in their congregation.. hilarious!.
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-mf31-.
What irony.
Witnesses are encouraged to seek out strangers in bus stations, on planes, in grocery stores, doctors offices, and develop conversations with them. We are then encouraged to trade contact information so we can follow up on the conversation.
However, If you do this online with a "social network" you are unwise, and not very spiritual and probably will be destroyed at Armageddon.. Go figure.
Jehovah's Witnesses are part of the "Antisocial network"
hypothetical scenario.
you are a city manager in a major metropolitan city with a population of 3,000,000.. .
if the governing body was truly convinced themselves of the impending disaster and the fact that the end is imminent would they not focus their efforts in spreading the message through effective means such as telephone, television, internet, social networks etc?
Bump,
Just to encourage any lurkers in view of "increased activity" planned for April.
SIAM
i can't believe the amount of new posters this board is getting.
it seems as if every day there are at least 2 to 3.. if you are a new poster, what made you decide to stop lurking and start posting?
how many of us are there that have joined in the last year?.
@ wobble good point. JWN's service year hasn't ended yet. LOL
@jam great work. I notice that many that are recently posting are appointed men. Do you think some of this is attributed to the KM school recently? It seems as if all of the Elders and servants who have commented on the school all got the same impression.
I share many of your feelings that it is nice to know that you are not alone in thinking that there is something wrong with the teachings and practices of the organization. I think that there is a great crowd (pardon the pun) of us that are all coming to the realization at the same time. If you are lurking please join. This is the only place that you can question your beliefs without being marked or disfellowshipped. It is a clear sign to me that there is something seriously wrong with an organization when people have to remain anonymous to question their leaders and beliefs.
SIAM
i can't believe the amount of new posters this board is getting.
it seems as if every day there are at least 2 to 3.. if you are a new poster, what made you decide to stop lurking and start posting?
how many of us are there that have joined in the last year?.
Welcome,
I can't believe the amount of new posters this board is getting. It seems as if every day there are at least 2 to 3.
If you are a new poster, what made you decide to stop lurking and start posting? How many of us are there that have joined in the last year?
SIAM
this question has been the bane of many fade attempts.
once the question is asked there is no return... because if you answer no the hammer comes down hard.. i have not been asked it yet, but i am sure it is to come.. i think a lot about the question because i know how important it is to the witnesses.
without a "channel of communication from god" they are nothing but a bunch of nuts in their own minds.
I would say..
"I really don't know. I am troubled because it seems to make sense that God's spirit directed visible organization would have clarity in teachings and doctrines and not vacillate between one teaching to another. I have a hard time accepting that if Jehovah's hand was on the shoulder of the FDS that he would guide them in circles such has recently been done with the change in meaning of Matt. 24:34.
Brothers, you know the Proverb that says that expectation postponed makes the heart sick. I was told by the FDS in 1969 (have article with me) to face the fact that I would never grow old in this system of things or fulfill any career. I am sick at heart. Was this promise inspired from Jehovah or was it from men? If it was from men and not directed by God, isn't it concievable that what we read now is not directed by God?"
The brothers would respond.... "Brother Siam would you be able to meet with three of us on Tuesday night?"
congregational polity is a system of church governence where each congregation is ecclesiastically autonomous.
many protestant churches are organized this way and one of its advantages is that it protects the parent organization(s) from legal actions originating at the congregational level.
one of it's disadvantages is that a minister in one congregation does not hold that same status in other congregations.
Definitely hierarchical. All appointments for Elders, Servants, DO, CO's, Missionaries come from the headquarters. All publications come from one location. If you move as an elder the new congregations BOE will write the branch and as that you be reappointed in their cong.
The GB acts as a collective Pope, the DO's are Cardinals, the CO's are Bishops, and the Elders are Priests.
SIAM
radical circumstances push people into extreme frames of mind.. it seems to me that, for some time now, the governing body of jehovah's witnesses has been surrounded by increasingly more difficult circumstances and hardships.
they have cut magazines, literature, sold off real estate, dumped long term bethelites, dumped paid subscriptions, railed against facebook, condemned college attendance, and begun to sell off branch offices.. a moderate, reasonable viewpoint of these changes is easy to come up with: the rank and file are broke, burned-out and dispirited.
furthermore, the increasing depth of these changes would push any reasonable person to conclude that the organization is in quiet decline - far from any realization of heavenly intervention.. the above would logically push a reasonable person towards the conclusion that the 130 year doomsaying history of the watchtower society is a pious fraud at best.
Metatron,
I think that is a good point that the middle/ moderate ground is rapidly shrinking. With every day that passes, stronger evidence emerges that the foundation of all of their beliefs is eroding.
Many people will say that the spiritual viewpoint is to view each day as being closer to Armageddon. The reality is each day that passes without the end coming is proof that the claims that we are in the end times and the end is imminent is bunk. Many of us are realizing that this is so and it must scare the GB that they no longer have the same grip on the publishers as they once did.
I cannot imagine that the GB Members do not have a measure of cognitive dissonance themselves. Most of them grew up with the same empty promises. They must feel that they have an obligation to ensure that the organization that was built by their spiritual fathers does not collapse. The problem is that to do so they have to perpetuate a lie.
SIAM
i hadn't noticed this before but the governing body is actually saying that they only are the faithful & discreet slave.. watchtower 2009 6/15 para 18 .
similarly, today a limited number of anointed men have the responsibility of representing the slave class.
they make up the governing body of jehovahs witnesses.
I have had some limited success showing the Insight on the scriptures article to some. The article's first few sentences come right out and say that it is an illustration that Jesus used. Of course later on in the article they do some scriptural contortions and come to the conclusion that it is a prophetic class.
Not a prophecy, but an illustration! In the words of the Society themselves.
SIAM
here they go.... 1) let say that you were a sincere believer of the watchtower, and fallowed the gbs direction because you truly believed that they were guided by the holy spirit.
what information or action would have made you doubt the validity & authority of the governing body?
2) what type of information would have made you reconsider your position as an executioner of the gb rules & regulations?
I couldn't sell something I wouldn't buy. So I quit also.
There were a lot of reasons, Child molestation coverups, the changing teachings, 1914/607, the enforced idolization of the collective GB, the secrecy of the new elder book, the harsh stance on education etc.
I feel that I have to be able to live with myself and I determined that I was not going to be an organizational puppet.
BTW stuck in are we related? Lol
SIAM
while it is true that the "proclaimers" book is not always as open and honest about the society's history as it claims to be, it is open and honest enough to bring into question the society claim to being god's organization.
it's a matter of (1) knowing what to look for, (2) where to find it and then, (3) to be able get the sense of what it means.. take for example the extremely important matter of the second coming of christ.... on the top of page 47 the book truthfully explains how president charles russell came to believe that jesus returned invisibly in 1874 to begin his second coming ("invisible presence").
and then a careful reading of the footnote on page 133 shows that the date of jesus' return was not changed to 1914 until 1943.. it is likely that even if some witnesses notice that fact, they do not get the sense of what it means.
Don's reasoning is brilliant. The proclaimers book is amazing. On pg 135?? there is a photo of a tract with a headline that says something to the effect "the end of the world in 1914" That is what they were teaching. It can also help someone to see that everything that Russell taught was cobbled together from other sources. Despite what Witnesses are taught to believe nothing Russell taught was original.
