Concerned JW wrote:
in this closed forum there is no way for Jehovah's witnesses to defend themselves
It's not a closed forum.
InterestedOne
JoinedPosts by InterestedOne
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160
I'm new here..... Studying with the Witnesses
by PenelopePaige inhi- i just wanted to say that i have been checking the website out for a few weeks and have read some horror stories and some sad ones.
but i have been studying with witnessess for about six months and can't help but feel that they're completely sincere and maybe even, the true religion.
i love the watchtower and awake and to me, none of that seems crazy.
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InterestedOne
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160
I'm new here..... Studying with the Witnesses
by PenelopePaige inhi- i just wanted to say that i have been checking the website out for a few weeks and have read some horror stories and some sad ones.
but i have been studying with witnessess for about six months and can't help but feel that they're completely sincere and maybe even, the true religion.
i love the watchtower and awake and to me, none of that seems crazy.
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InterestedOne
Penelope - Thanks for sharing more info about your situation. In your previous post, you wrote:
they actually listened and gave a very plausible explanation.
Forgive me for pressing, but can you articulate 1. what exactly their explanation was, and 2. why it was plausible?
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160
I'm new here..... Studying with the Witnesses
by PenelopePaige inhi- i just wanted to say that i have been checking the website out for a few weeks and have read some horror stories and some sad ones.
but i have been studying with witnessess for about six months and can't help but feel that they're completely sincere and maybe even, the true religion.
i love the watchtower and awake and to me, none of that seems crazy.
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InterestedOne
Penelope wrote:
I don't believe that what they said was necesarily more intelligent
I didn't mean to suggest that what they said was more intelligent. Rather, I wanted to get the answer out in the open, and I was using the word "intelligent" to indicate mutual respect, that is to say we are all intelligent people here and capable of examining the answer they have provided you to see if it is reasonable.
And the JW's explained that Satan comes as a being of light to trick and deceive, which makes sense to me.
Is there a reason why you would conclude that the particular being of light you encountered was Satan?
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160
I'm new here..... Studying with the Witnesses
by PenelopePaige inhi- i just wanted to say that i have been checking the website out for a few weeks and have read some horror stories and some sad ones.
but i have been studying with witnessess for about six months and can't help but feel that they're completely sincere and maybe even, the true religion.
i love the watchtower and awake and to me, none of that seems crazy.
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InterestedOne
Penelope wrote:
like I said, the JW's have been the only ones to seem to understand and have an answer that makes sense.
Can you articulate what that answer is and see how it stands up to examination by other intelligent people here?
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160
I'm new here..... Studying with the Witnesses
by PenelopePaige inhi- i just wanted to say that i have been checking the website out for a few weeks and have read some horror stories and some sad ones.
but i have been studying with witnessess for about six months and can't help but feel that they're completely sincere and maybe even, the true religion.
i love the watchtower and awake and to me, none of that seems crazy.
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InterestedOne
Penelope wrote:
And when the JW's came along, they actually had some answers for me! Which made me think they understood much better.
Keep in mind that although a person may present you with answers, they do not necessarily understand the phenomenon any better. If you experience a phenomenon you are not able to explain, I don't see anything wrong with seeking explanations. At the same time, watch out for people who provide made-up answers that are not solidly rooted in logic and evidence. If you are not able to arrive at a solid explanation, I think it is ok to temporarily refer to it as an "unexplained phenomenon." It is important to have some method of determining fact from fiction.
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160
I'm new here..... Studying with the Witnesses
by PenelopePaige inhi- i just wanted to say that i have been checking the website out for a few weeks and have read some horror stories and some sad ones.
but i have been studying with witnessess for about six months and can't help but feel that they're completely sincere and maybe even, the true religion.
i love the watchtower and awake and to me, none of that seems crazy.
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InterestedOne
Penelope wrote:
... maybe even, the true religion. I love the Watchtower and Awake and to me, none of that seems crazy.
I spent a year studying with the JW's because I had a friend who is one, and I wanted to learn more about her beliefs. As I looked carefully at the literature, I felt that it lacked good scholarship. If you are reading the "public" version of the Watchtower, you might want to know that they have their own JW-only publications that they do not readily share with the public. If you ask a JW if you may have these to take home and study carefully, they may hesitate and tell you you're "not ready." That's what they told me anyway. Some of these are:
Magazines: 1. The Watchtower "study" edition (actually they might be ok now with letting you have this since they make it available at www.jw.org), 2. Our Kingdom Ministry
Books: 1. Organized To Do Jehovah's Will, 2. Benefit From Theocratic Ministry School Education (studied at the mid week meeting), 3. Shepherd The Flock Of God (They do not allow women and non-elders to read this book) (This replaced the previous elders' handbook called Pay Attention To Yourselves And All The Flock).
One thing that bothered me about them not allowing women to read the elders' book is that this means a woman could become baptized into the organization and not be fully aware of the elders' procedures. Maybe some people would not be interested in boring procedures, but the fact that a woman is -restricted- from reading this book if she happens to be interested bothers me.
There is a lot of good information online about cults, propaganda, critical thinking, etc. For JW-specific info, I agree that freeminds and jwfacts are excellent.
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Elders who conduct judicial comittees are creepy & perverted
by jambon1 inwhy can't people in jw congregations see just how utterly creepy this whole arrangement is?.
a girl about 20 years old commits an indescretion of a sexual nature.
three middle aged/old men 'interview' her in a room.
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InterestedOne
No way! "Testing" a sister? OMG. As an outsider, just when I think I've heard it all... I hear something more unbelievable like that. Is this common?
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Refuting Franz's Crisis of Conscience
by irondork ini'm about halfway through crisis of conscience.
some pretty extraordinary stuff in there.. wondering, aside from telling people not to read "apostate material", has there been any official denial or refutation of the books contents by the watchtower society, official or otherwise?.
side note: franz is a wonderful writer, if a bit repetitive in places.
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InterestedOne
designs - yes that would be the right thing.
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Elders' Manual - Prior to "Flock" Book
by StandFirm inthe watch tower publications index under "watch tower publications" under the "books" subheading mentions the following elders' manuals prior to the 1991 "flock" book.
1960: kingdom ministry school course.
1972: kingdom ministry school course (revised).
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InterestedOne
If Jehovah's organization specified that the brochures must be surrendered to headquarters, that means anyone who retained them and would provide them on the internet would be violating Jehovah's counsel. How can StandFirm have a clean conscience before Jehovah if he is requesting that someone violate Jehovah's counsel? StandFirm, can you please help me to understand why you would request that someone violate Jehovah's counsel by providing brochures that were supposed to be turned in?
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The two witness rule on child abuse still makes my blood boil
by life is to short intoday while i was working i remembered a wt on there having to be two witness to a person who comes forward later in life saying he had been molested as a chld and i was thinking no it really could not have been to blatant like i remembered it.
sadly i did find it and no i remembered it right.
it to me is sick!
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InterestedOne
Although there are many threads on this topic, FWIW, here is one that, while not specifically about those who come forward later in life, I thought brought out some valuable points related to the WT and child abuse: