Posts by Listener

81

Do you believe Jehovah's Witnesses' Governing Body is the "faithful slave"?

by Marvin Shilmer in

this question is known to be posed by jws to other jws as an acid test of loyalty.

i'm not the first to notice what i'm about to point out and comment accordingly, but today i felt compelled to add a short article on my blog highlighting the new language that governing body member geoffrey jackson supplies as a response.

a person who honestly hesitates to respond with a robust "yes!

Listener

I wonder whether today they still claim that they are God's spokesperson? He did not answer that question. Although he said it would be presumptious of us to claim that we were the only ones he did not factually say that they were making this claim in the first place.

I could not find any reference to the claim that they are God's spokespersons in the online library. In these publications regarding God's spokesperson they refer only to biblical persons who were selected by God to speak on his behalf and as such they were 'inspired'. They may have dropped this idea many years ago without clarifying the change to the r&f because it serves to their benefit.

He qualified his answer by saying that they were only trying to fulfill a specific role being that of FDS, which is not the same as being God's spokesperson.

Even then when speaking about the FDS, he did not make the claim that the Governing Body was appointed by Jesus as the FDS, only that they were acting in the role. I wonder if this is because the GB members believe that as an individual he cannot make such a bold claim and it is only the FDS itself that can make the claim because it exists outside of each of the members.

So in answering the question it appears that he was constrained because of his position as a GB member and what we see written in the publications is different because it is the FDS speaking and not the GB members.

I'm probably not making much sense but when it comes to exploring the workings of the organization it is a very difficult task.

81

Do you believe Jehovah's Witnesses' Governing Body is the "faithful slave"?

by Marvin Shilmer in

this question is known to be posed by jws to other jws as an acid test of loyalty.

i'm not the first to notice what i'm about to point out and comment accordingly, but today i felt compelled to add a short article on my blog highlighting the new language that governing body member geoffrey jackson supplies as a response.

a person who honestly hesitates to respond with a robust "yes!

Listener

No further speculation should be required and it would be a presumptuous question for the elders to ask. It would be like asking whether you believed Geoffrey Jackson has been anointed and has a heavenly hope to become a King and Priest. Would loyalty to God's organization be dependant on answering yes to that question? I'm sure that some elders would know that it does not. or is it more truthful to say that only God can answer that regardless of what I or you or Geoffrey Jackson believe.

39

So I was enjoying a business trip in down town Bangkok...............Next thing BANG!!!

by cantleave in

jw
friends

so last night i was having a wonderful meal in a very nice restaurant when we heard what we thought was a loud clap of thunder.................. it was a bomb.

yards from my hotel.

thankfully i made a few decision that meant i wasn't in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Listener

We've visited Thailand 4 times in recent years, unfortunately we are always a little apprehensive. On one visit to Krabi the country was suddenly under Marshall law and subject to a nightime lockdown. We chose to cancel one of our trips due to the unrest.

It's a beautiful place and I agree about the people. What strikes me most is how happy they are even though they survive on such little income and how much they look after those even poorer than themselves.

Hubby and I think overall it is the best cuisine in the World and even the street market restaurants have tastier food than most five star restaurants.

Thailand is considered to be one of the most dangerous countries for Australian Tourists. We personally make it a practice not to walk the streets at night. Even traveling long distances in a mini bus is not recommended.

Bangkok is unpredictable and not the place I would want to be but I guess you cantleave at the moment ;)

Keep safe.

84

The Kingdom Halls are empty

by punkofnice in

my jw spies tell me that the kingdom halls are empty compared to how they used to be, since i left 5 years ago.

not saying they're empty because of me though.. is that what you are hearing?.

Listener

I've noticed on the JW org video's when they show meetings there are a lot of plenty seats. Since this is staged it would appear that this is the norm.

The latest Awake magazine talks about people leaving religions. It quotes Revelation saying that the waters around Babylon The Great would dry up, representing people turning away from religion and this was now happening.

18

best ex JW sites

by cobweb in

jw
friends

i used to visit this site about ten years ago.

i haven't come her in a long time.

i have just recently started talking to a family member who is leaving the jws and i wanted to know what are the best sites available these days for finding out all the topics of information - failed prophecy, 1975, rutherford's drinking, russells tombstone - you know all of that kind of stuff.. back in the day there used to be a site run by a norwegian i think called kent.

Listener

Watchtower Examination is a great YouTube channel where he discusses doctrines and the manipulation of the organization.

17

Using Governing Body Member Jackson Testimony To The Royal Commission, For A Defense Before A Judicial Committee Meeting

by Brokeback Watchtower in

i think that a person that is called before a judicial committee can use a recording of the trial and force the elder to view it because of jackson's statement to the commission and get off.

i think mr jackson has said enough about people who wish to leave the witnesses as not being harassed, hunted down, or spied upon and such to get the elder off your back and give them a "good witness".. also to be highlighted is the fact that jackson has stated under oath that the governing body is willing to reexamine doctrine and policy in order to conform to the law,.

i think many statements by gb jackson to the commission can be used by some one clever and thus escape the label of apostate and be unhindered to a large extent of speaking to others.. .

Listener

The transcript will be long as the session went for 3 hours. There will be a link to it on the the Australian Royal Commission's official website probably next week.

579

Won't get fooled again ...Moon Landing.

by The Rebel in

jw
friends

so i was fooled by the witnesses.

what can i learn from that?

not to accept things at face value but to seek out opinion and different view points.. hence my question " do you believe man landed on the moon?.

Listener

You asked a couple of good questions Rebel and I was going to ask you if you had been swayed from your opinion?

I have learnt a few new things from this thread and it encouraged me to go and do a little more research myself. I wanted to look at video's of the other moon landings but found the NASA website very difficult to use. I wondered also whether they had lost the footage of these other landings and whether they had been examined closely by more knowledgeable persons as to their authenticity.

My husband and I were both young when we watched the moon landing. We saw it as an incredible achievement and were in awe of the USA being able to accomplish this.

Many years later and neither of us believe that this first moon landing by man is real. To be specific, what we saw as children on Television was not real. They had so much to gain by faking it. Naturally that in itself doesn't make it fake. Whether men walked on the moon in 1969 or since then we wouldn't know either way.

We are not scientists and even if we were we would still need to have worked or have knowledge of this specialized field. I say this because it means that there are not a great deal of people who would be qualified enough to say whether the moon landing in 1969 was possible and whether the USA had the capability to do so at the time. This makes researching the issue extremely difficult because there are too many people, including scientists who have too much to say and it is nearly impossible to determine how credible their opinions are.

It is amazing how NASA managed to have the event televised around the World onto our Television with very little problems. For years after it was very difficult to transmit live from overseas, it wasn't a common event and rarely went smoothly.

It's an interesting topic Rebel. It doesn't surprise me at all that many people believe that what they saw on the TV was real.

It was enlightening to see the public reaction to the claim that Iraq was hiding a large amount of weapons of mass destruction. It wasn't worth the angst in trying to tell others that we were being lied to but to see them agreeing to send people over there to fight a war was shocking. Unfortunately the propaganda machine is much more powerful than a few doubters.

20

GB's Attitude Toward Suffering of "Foreign" Brothers

by compound complex in

regarding alternative service.

ray franz received letters from branch committee members that displayed thoughtfulness and breadth of viewpoint that were in sharp contrast to the rigidity and narrowness of several members of the governing body:.

what was the effect of all this?

Listener

Thanks CC.

Earlier in the thread is a discussion about whether changes should be made from the top down or be allowed from the bottom up.

Jackson made to comments that relate to this unfortunately the transcript isn't up so I can't be exact. The first being that a lot of information and ideas about procedures come from the Branch's and also the GB helpers. In many instances the GB simply read the proposals and give their approval. In a contradiction he said that scriptural changes were the domain of the GB only.

Jackson also made the claim that if they (the GB) were not acting in accordance with scripture then all JWs would know. He failed to explain how this would then be addressed.

Now we have a third player as established by the Royal Commission. Through the RC the Government has been able to highlight inadequacies in their policies and amazingly enough were able to highlight scriptures in support of change, particularly on a social evolution level., as well as demonstrating moral obligations.

Jackson supported this approach and indicated there would be change. He has undermined their authority on a theocratic level as being from the top down.

17

Using Governing Body Member Jackson Testimony To The Royal Commission, For A Defense Before A Judicial Committee Meeting

by Brokeback Watchtower in

i think that a person that is called before a judicial committee can use a recording of the trial and force the elder to view it because of jackson's statement to the commission and get off.

i think mr jackson has said enough about people who wish to leave the witnesses as not being harassed, hunted down, or spied upon and such to get the elder off your back and give them a "good witness".. also to be highlighted is the fact that jackson has stated under oath that the governing body is willing to reexamine doctrine and policy in order to conform to the law,.

i think many statements by gb jackson to the commission can be used by some one clever and thus escape the label of apostate and be unhindered to a large extent of speaking to others.. .