Posts by Half banana

37

Infighting at the top?

by JeffT in

jw
friends

we've all been trying to decipher what is going on at the top of the watchtower organization.

clearly, the game's afoot, we just don't know what game we're playing.

item: the constant harping about money and donations.

I agree Listener that something's afoot. Rank commercial strategies have replaced the older more dignified type of authoritarianism they once wielded. Are they just desperate for enormous wealth or do darker forces gnaw at the heart of the GB? Could it be a schism because of in-fighting as the OP suggests or could it be a realization infecting the body that what they teach is not supportable by Bible text?

One Eyed Joe, thanks for that info, it shows that the GB authorized this talk as a committee decision, which to my mind means they are all conscious of its content and its intended purpose which is shamelessly to keep the flock loyal. 1914 is important, it has become the test, the touchstone teaching; if you don't believe this you are not a believer at all...you are not with the GB.

How though can anyone really believe the statement “more evidence (for 1914) than for gravity”? The very broadcasting of this at assemblies only highlights its implausibility.The GB must listen to their own cant and be aware of how hollow reasoning like this actually sounds.

I see this as a symptom of the 21st century dilemma the GB has inherited: trying to keep the Watchtower cash-cow alive when it is intellectually bankrupt and clearly not divinely guided.

Apart from resigning from the body, the only alternative for an individual GB member who is awake would be to keep going and put up a pretense of believing. To remain within the GB you would need to be simply the finest of actors but I think with the cognitive discord buzzing away in the head his mind would finally snap and demand cessation or culminate with a total mental and physical breakdown.

(I'm saying this for the benefit of any GB members reading here!)

30

No more reporting time for field service!!!

by Khaleesi in

so at last i am in my next step of my fade, this month is the first month i did not turned in any hours.

i received a text from our group leader an ms & i told him i didn't have any to report, then of course it got bumped up to the elder & i text him back i have no hours to report for december.

i came to this decision when reading many posters here about the yearbook stats, i do not want & refused to contribute to this organization "boosting" numbers for their glorious purposes, after the rc in australia they do not deserve for me to give them a "production" report of what i do for god, no more.

Half banana

Well done Khaleesi! and keep determined.

Having been in a similar situation, I suggest you try not to get into a situation where you give your son's father the right to bring the boy up as a JW if at all possible. Two of my three children although adult are still JWs and the distance between us is very painful to me.

47

Did Jesus actually start a church to himself?

by TTWSYF in

with some 30,000 different christian denominations, how would one know which one was for real?

some folks think jesus did start a church, others think no.

Half banana

I admit I take a radical viewpoint but for a better critique of the NT we should, as I have suggested, be asking asking the question why was it written rather than being over precious about what it says. By asking this (better!) question I feel that we can penetrate the political and cultural impulses and events which created the stories which are contained in the Bible.

Has anyone else read JM Roberston's A Short History of Christianity? After reading Crisis of Conscience, I reckon any ex JW should read this little gem to wean him or herself off slavish regard of the subtleties of words and grammar in the NT. Instead of trying to see what the NT writers meant, Robertson sagely used sociology, then in its infancy, as a tool to evaluate the world in which the writings were made. He clearly has a significant contribution that to understand the Bible; the social context, prevailing cultural assumptions the source material, custom, and cult politics play the primary role in textural criticism... and not the meaning!

I say this because we are all too ready even as non believers to listen to the voice of the Bible writer without knowing why it was written down. Believers though are slaves to the letter.

It is a self evident fact that any human organisation needs regulating. It is also a fact of psychology and human frailty that where individuals are given or take power; there will be those who abuse it at the expense of the weakest in the group.

The Christian Jesus cult was not immune to these factors and with religion being an appeal to the heart, its course has to be interpreted in the light of competitive strands seeking dominance. That is why the matter of succession was of vital interest but especially so for the Catholic Christianity of the late third and early fourth century. (I expect to find, but will be happy to be disproved that the "Peter the rock" idea is a late interpolation). The notion of the Christ in glory of first century Jewish Christianity was scuppered by the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE and therefore a successor to the Christ (probably not yet called Jesus) had not before that time become an issue.

@ FTS the early evidence for Christianity surely finds it roots with the ascetic and messianic Jewish cults (about 200 to 150BCE?) but this does not explain the source of the Roman Christianity which includes a large dose of the older pagan god-man cults including the Dionysian and Mithraic.

The other assumption fundamental to all of Christianity is its lead character. There is an extreme paucity of questionable information supporting a historic god-man teacher who could raise the dead in the first century. There is no testable evidence for his existence and there would have been had he existed...there is only a historic silence. That god-man cults existed however is beyond doubt.

Jesus could no more start a church than can Harry Potter.

The reason a church was started in Jesus' name and was made successful, surviving even today, was due to Jewish messianic hopes fused with pagan cults by the Imperial and catholic Roman Church.

37

Infighting at the top?

by JeffT in

jw
friends

we've all been trying to decipher what is going on at the top of the watchtower organization.

clearly, the game's afoot, we just don't know what game we're playing.

item: the constant harping about money and donations.

Half banana

The finances of the WTBTS having gone off the 'gold standard' of large volume publishing has required a big reorganisation. With all the generous contributions still coming in from bequests and contributions as they are telling the faithful, why are they claiming to be so hard up? Whatever the matter is there is no doubt the GB are well and truly rattled.

There are many possibilities. Letts seems to live in a nest in cloud cuckoo land (mouth open and always expecting food). His deliberation reassuring the true believers that there is more evidence for the Kingdom having come in 1914 than there is for electricity or gravity might be a clue. His statement is fatally flawed and here is my point; that many of the GB must know it is.

If the GB are aware of the logical inconsistencies such as the 607 BCE date and the unsupportable 1919 year of divine approval, the eighty year failure of the generation who saw 1914 and the feebleness of the overlapping excuse...all demonstrate publicly that Jehovah's Witnesses are a complete failure in their preaching mission.

If there are those in control who no longer believe but maintain the charade; this will soon bleed into the whole organisation and with the present vast number of conscious ones in their midst compounded with bad publicity and money troubles... the momentum of the JW org could stall.

Let's look for dismissals and removals of GB members and others; it will be a sign of revolt and schism.

475

What is the alternative to JW?

by Formerbrother in

i mean this with all due respect, i would like to hear from genuine people who think jw have it wrong and then what is the truth?.

im not talking about silly little quibbles here and there.. is jehovah real?

the the bible is word?

Half banana

The JW religion is a deluded and defiantly blinkered community for people who need to be told what to do. JWs are always dependent on others and I think that is the reason why they ask where else can we go.

The alternative to being a JW is to be yourself and think for yourself and stop salivating like Pavlov's dogs at the mention of Jesus and paradise.

Another suggestion might be to go to JW facts and then on to university which is where truth is thrashed out and faith and beliefs are binned as irrelevant when pursuing answers to life's questions.

47

Did Jesus actually start a church to himself?

by TTWSYF in

with some 30,000 different christian denominations, how would one know which one was for real?

some folks think jesus did start a church, others think no.

Half banana

Thanks for the scholarly leads FTS.

96

Is the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses really an inferior form of Christianity?

by nicolaou in

seems to be quite a few posters recently pulling down the beliefs of jw's as not biblical or truly christian.

maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, i really don't care.. in some important ways though mainstream christians often behave better than jehovah's witnesses; most don't practice shunning or impose lethal medical prohibitions on their members.

many are far more tolerant of the lgbt community and a few even make the awkward attempt to square the fact of evolution with their faith.. please note that i'm saying some, not all.. so i suppose it's fair to say that differing forms of christianity can be better or worse for individuals, families and the wider community.

Half banana

@Paul from Cleveland, it is no more likely that there is true religion any more than it would be to find true politics.

96

Is the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses really an inferior form of Christianity?

by nicolaou in

seems to be quite a few posters recently pulling down the beliefs of jw's as not biblical or truly christian.

maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, i really don't care.. in some important ways though mainstream christians often behave better than jehovah's witnesses; most don't practice shunning or impose lethal medical prohibitions on their members.

many are far more tolerant of the lgbt community and a few even make the awkward attempt to square the fact of evolution with their faith.. please note that i'm saying some, not all.. so i suppose it's fair to say that differing forms of christianity can be better or worse for individuals, families and the wider community.

Half banana

To evaluate JWs in terms of Christianity has many difficulties because it means different things to different groups. In a way I think that JWs take all the worst aspects of primitive Christianity such as unthinking belief in supernatural revelation and they run with it. In many respects JWs do appear to maintain the credulous cult enthusiasm of the early centuries but that certainly does not make it better than others. You cannot deny that the early church was also a doomsday cult yet JWs unquestioningly borrow those same doomsday scriptures to justify their own existence. The fact is that Jesus got it wrong in the first century so how can repeating the same failed prophecy have any relevance now? This contrasts with the established churches which try and serve the welfare of the communities in which they operate and don’t worry about the fairy-tale nature of the Bible.

The essence of Christianity is the focus on the saviour figure, as it was for all the other father and son Christ cults before it, but the Jesus cult offered a new twist on the old story which claimed that the Christ figure had become blood and flesh! The written word of the legend they taught; had become a breathing man... what a story! You would have to have been illiterate and desperate to believe that in the first place, however later on, Roman Catholic propaganda sanitized the hoax and not only made it acceptable but demanded that it was holy truth.

(The Gnostics, David J, as I have read... but can’t remember where... recognised that Jesus was the same religion as the former Christ cults and appreciated the idea without partisan judgement as all of them being a positive expression of human hopefulness).

So JWs inferior? No, I don’t think so since the whole of Christianity whilst giving comfort for the downtrodden is all based ultimately on folk myth and not on testable evidential truth. In other words Christianity including JWs, proclaims what it cannot deliver, they preach a false hope.

38

Your Jehovah’s Witness Is Showing

by David_Jay in

since i just signed up and posted a few times without doing this yet, here is my story..

i think that i became a jehovahs witness because of my immaturity.

i had some quirky personality traits, and i joined finding that i fit in because, as i said to myself: these people get me.

Half banana

David Jay, in my best JW grammar; you done good bro!

475

What is the alternative to JW?

by Formerbrother in

i mean this with all due respect, i would like to hear from genuine people who think jw have it wrong and then what is the truth?.

im not talking about silly little quibbles here and there.. is jehovah real?

the the bible is word?

Half banana

Former brother, I’m glad you are hanging in here. What you don’t recognise as a witness is that you have lived, often for a lifetime, with your mind skewed towards interpreting everything in the black and white JW manner. Real life is not like this. Real life questions are not answered with such simplistic reasoning. It never could just be God or Satan could it? This is transparent 'cult talk' to create fear and obedience.

However I sense you are beginning to see the difference since you are asking which is the best religion.

There is a pattern of change which takes place in the mind of someone who has once been under the authoritarian control of Watchtower thinking. Nearly everyone on this site has experienced it. The penny drops; the JW religion is just another money grabbing business (or some such realisation). After a short while the usual thing is to cling onto the things we have cherished such as the paradise hope or the emotional security felt from believing in God. As time goes on we challenge all of our fundamentals, something never permitted in JW land, and often question the Bible’s truthfulness... for example if Adam did not live how could Jesus buy back the life Adam lost? If Adam was a myth, there is no need for a saviour, this sinks the need for salvation.

Inevitably we begin to realise how much more complex and fulfilling life is when we unlearn cult dogma and see evidence for what is true rather than hanging loyally onto unfounded “beliefs” promoted by the Watchtower org or other earnest religions. The unlearning take a surprisingly long time since we have been well and truly programmed... but in time we get both our independent identity back (we are not Watchtower drones) and we are able to think freely for ourselves.

I hope this gives a little insight into the process which will be going on...and may I say that the JW idea that there is such a thing as a ”true religion” is yet just another piece of cult talk.