as part of my objective analysis of four month's worth of watchtower study editions from july to october 2011, i found the following gem from a question from readers, on page 22 of the august 15 magazine.
the question under discussion was "how are we to understand the figures in the annual service report?
", and it goes on to provide an idiot's guide to what the figures mean, including the following.... "memorial partakers.
From my experience with ones who more recently began "partaking of the emblems", mental illness is all to common amongst them.
I should know, I was married to one such person.
(Bi Polar Disorder, and another condition that medical science has only been able to identify now, some 25 years after the event).
If that is a commentary on the calibre of WTS leadership, no wonder most JWs are so messed up!
Bill.
whatever else you may think about jehovah's witnesses, what they think about their own "trained christian conscience" is an absolute.. the governing body feeds them what they should think and say and do; they obey.. conversely, what they must not think and say or do must be obeyed absolutely as well.
agreed?.
by internalizing these instructions, directions and taboos all jehovah's witnesses become tuned in to the collective authority of jehovah's "arrangement.".
Further to their many, various utterances about conscience:
- During the mid-1970s, there was a series of Watchtower articles about this very subject. Also, it would seem that at the same time the elders heard a lot about conscience - and its proper role in things - while attending the Kingdom Ministry School. I even heard it said by one brother on his return from the Kingdom Ministry School that the then Branch Overseer was going to "have to alter his approach."
- Indeed, the whole thrust suddenly became to the effect that the WTS's publications, talks from the platform, counsel from the elders, everything in fact, was no longer about telling a person what to do, but "making suggestions."
(I can even recall one Circuit Overseer reprimanding a brother for asking him a question "that your conscience should answer for you.")
Some congregations then took this "new light" at face value, and removed most man made rules and regulations. Aroundabout this time, I was in a congregation that allowed its Ministerial Servants to sport beards; and (horror of horrors!), the sisters were permitted to wear pants suits.
It goes without saying that this situation did not last very long!
By the early 1980s, pointed remarks were being made at District Conventions - and quoting some obscure "fashion consultant" - that pants suits were "inappropriate for wearing to church." Also at that same DC, a directive came out beforehand regarding the attendants that "no beards allowed."
A memorable quote from one of our congregation's elders sometime after that was to the effect that "The Society does make suggestions to us, but expects us to carry these out."
In other words, the previous situation in which everybody was free to do as they were told had been totally restored!
Bill.
.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110103/ap_on_re/us_rel_apocalypse_soon.
Harold Camping evidently uses a different calendar to everyone else;
- one in which May comes sometime after August!
Bill.
this study edition is an absolute attack on kids going to higher education, and you all are getting too cosy at home with your sky tv and the internet, get out on the doors you idle dogs.. oh and if you have a good job already you could not be putting the kingdum first !.
here is some of the crap in the mag, and the article temporary residents in a wicked world.. 10. .
in view of the imminent end of the present system of things, as jehovahs servants.
How many generations of JWs have they preached this same nonsense to now - time they changed the bloody record! (the needle has got itself stuck in this one).
Has anyone else ever noticed, though, that the JW families who remain with "The Truth" throughout the generations are usually the same ones that give lip service only to this sort of "counsel" from the WTS?
i.e. the parents usually have a profitable and well established family business (not necessarily a janitorial one, either!), the family is never ever "short of a quid", their children do attend college; and throughout it all, their father remains an elder in the congregation.
By contrast, the ones that take to heart the official line of the WTS typically get themselves badly hurt, then - but, unfortunately, only then - recognize it for the BS that it is; finally throwing it back in the WTS's face. The only trouble being that by then it is very difficult, if not impossible, to reverse the damage done by swallowing the WTS's line.
Bill.
in this article, carl olof jonsson examines the attempts by some who are trying to shorten the chronology and move the reigns of its kings forward in time by hundreds of years.. http://www.jwstudies.com/can_the_neo-babylonian_chronology_be_reduced__part_1__carl_olof_jonsson.pdf.
doug.
Doug,
Thanks for the link.
It would appear that the Neo-Babylonian era was a very well documented period in ancient history. Also, the fact that they wrote on clay tablets - rather than on paper - has ensured the survival of much of this documentation.
Bill.
questions from jwn readers.
1914 is a date that many people question.
this is equal to 3.5 lunar years of 360 days.
Talk about quote-mining, numerology - and a vivid imagination! Nobody but a dyed-in-the-wool JW would be impressed.
Bill.
i have been giving a lot of thought to the young people who are leaving the watchtower organization in recent years.
last night, i was reading the thread posted by jwfacts a while back in which he provided some statistics and graphs showing the rapidly declining growth in the watchtower.
one factor that was discussed at length was the high number of young people who do not stay in the organization.
In other words, their 130 year old "The Sky is Falling" gig is eventually going to send them to extinction:
-and it might well be a toss-up as to which will contribute the most to that,
i.e. interest by the community in the JW charade drying up , or haemorrhaging to death by loss of those already in (particularly the young).
Roll on the day!
Bill.
the awake about music was left behind and ended up at the break station... and one of the girls working was reading it and burst out laughing..... are these people serious listen what it says.... after listening to heavy metal music i abused alcohol and started using drugs......... they can't really believe that?
she asked laughing.......
Don't knock it!
After all, reading those things for four years gives one the equivalent of a college degree!
(A Bachelor of Stupidity, anyway).
Bill.
my mother told me of 2 young guys that have been appointed elders.. i could'nt belive it these guys have zero life experance and both their wifes walked out on them after a few years of marrage.. another one cooked his brain on drugs and his talks are painfull to listen to....all over the place and stumbles through them.. .
is it due to alot of young ones (60 to 70%) leaving and the pool to pick from is getting smaller so lowering the bar is the only way???
?.
Jeremy C,
You are quite correct, the whole JW thing is about Salvation by Report Card.
In their skewed way of prioritising matters, the main (or even only?) measure of a person's "spirituality" is that numeral appearing in the "Total Hours" column of the Monthly Report form. Never mind that this figure can just as easily be a bogus one (by the admission of many who post here on this Discussion Board).
So, yes, it is marvellous what an impressive total of monthly hours will achieve:
- conversely, any brother with low Field Service Hours has the proverbial "Snow flake's chance on a hot shovel" of ever making Elder or Ministerial Servant.
Further proof, if it were needed, that the WTS is just a book publishing company hiding behind the facade of religious virtue.
Bill.
When the JWs make remarks like that, they are using weasel talk in order to try and worm their way in. If events were to progress from there and a member of the public agree to accept the offer of a "free home bible study", they would soon find that all bibles are not necessarily the same.
I well remember what happened when my parents agreed to a "free home bible study" with the JWs. The pioneer brother conducting the study handed out New World Translations to everyone involved, saying that he was "tired of hearing the King James Version always being quoted." My mother was not impressed, being quite proud of her KJV bible - which had originally belonged to her grandfather.
Bill.
