They fall for it again and again. Anything can happen if it's invisible!
The Watchtower leaders are confidence tricksters and their followers are idiots.
picture yourself as a member of the brooklyn bethel family on friday morning, october 2, 1914. you are seated at your usual place at the breakfast table, awaiting the arrival of brother c. t. russell.
suddenly the door to the dining room opens and brother russell appears.
he pauses for a moment, as is his custom, and greets the bethel family with a cheery “good morning, all.” but then, instead of immediately taking his place at the head of the table, he claps his hands and makes a thrilling announcement: “the gentile times have ended; their kings have had their day!” you can hardly contain your joy—you have been looking forward to this moment for a long time!
They fall for it again and again. Anything can happen if it's invisible!
The Watchtower leaders are confidence tricksters and their followers are idiots.
notice the 144000 can be counted and they all come from israel.. 9 after this i saw, and look!
a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues,*+ standing before the throne and before the lamb, dressed in white robes;+ and there were palm branches in their hands.+ .
this great crowd, no man was able to number, and they come from every nation!
Believer you are deluded and misinformed, the Bible is not inspired and heaven and paradise are simply human dreams to represent a perfect life. They are not real things and can never be.
It is better to stand with your feet on the ground and realize that since you were born, you will also die.............. and nobody even after 105 billion births has ever escaped this commonplace truth.
There is no evidence for heaven, and no chance that most of those 105 billion people will magically be brought back to life again. Why on earth should they? It would no longer be a paradise with chronic overpopulation.
Face the fact that we are mortal.
The bottom line is that you and all believers are wallowing in childish fantasies to avoid this hard reality.
many bracketed portions in the scriptures, influence of foreign myths and unscientific teachings … etc show that scriptures have been corrupted.
even when they are not corrupted, religious teachings have often no effect even on direct disciples (when jesus was teaching, his immediate disciples were thinking about who was going to be first in the organization—something that happened in all religions which led into their infighting and divisions).
at the same time there are many good people among materialists, why?
Mr or is it Ms anointed person? Whichever, I can see where you are coming from because I know where you have been.
You have been living on planet Watchtower and have had all your foundational facts and values grossly distorted by their "spiritual truths". For example you imagine that God made the Bible whereas the Bible, written by human thinking, is drawn from astrology, pre-literate sagas, pagan folk belief and borrowed stories from foreign courtly writings. The key to its success was in certain texts being sanctified as the inerrant word of God by the Roman Church in the fourth century.
The Bible evolved, there was no moment when it was pure, it was always a mongrel anthology.
If on the other hand you were able to get an education and study real things, it would soon become apparent that nothing from a spiritual source has any concrete value whatsoever in the world of science and education.
Spirits are purely the product of the human imagination. I have evidence for this. . . do you have evidence for spirits?
maybe there will be a mass exodus from jws when thinking people read feb 2017 watchtower telling them the governing body stuff up, shouldnt expect correct/ perfect information and basically make up guff as they see fit.....ya reckon?.
I think we all agree the mass exodus is postponed for the moment but;
I thought they had recently told the sheep that the FDS are yet to be chosen? Didn’t I see and hear on video one of the cult leaders saying “We like this doctrine!” Or is that now yesterday’s ‘truth’??
So they now say,
”Therefore, it [GB] can err in doctrinal matters or in organizational direction......Of course, Jesus did not tell us that his faithful slave would produce perfect spiritual food ‘Watchtower Feb 2017”
What a cop out? Well why does anyone bother to listen to them if they have not got anything special to say?
I imagine the statement they have put out to the effect that they are not inspired of God, is a legal move to be able to deny that they have enormous power over their flock. (They want to minimise their role in harbouring paedophiles and blame it on others).
Many JWs will also have written to HQ and said Look you lot got it wrong in 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, the generation of 1914 and that “overlapping generations” does not make sense etc. Their response is in Watchtower Feb 2017; they are categorically not inspired. (It was pretty obvious all along).
The trouble is that the duplicitous JW org say one thing but here’s the point; they expect the sheepy followers to believe something different to what they have said publicly, such as believing that God has still chosen only them . . . and they just follow willy-nilly, never questioning, munching away on the WT rubbish like the lamb-brained creatures they are.
this is an actual case.
a jw was recently disfellowshipped heres the reason.
he was and elder and regular pioneer at the time baprized 40 years he decides to rent a room from a women who rents rooms out to singles ,he moves in and there's another guy there also renting a room he happens to be disfellowshipped .
Which congregation, when, and what are their names?
i am agnostic.
i will count how many agnostics, atheists and christians that are reading this forum regularly.
please answer my question.
Martian
maybe there will be a mass exodus from jws when thinking people read feb 2017 watchtower telling them the governing body stuff up, shouldnt expect correct/ perfect information and basically make up guff as they see fit.....ya reckon?.
It's the true zombie Witness sentiment as you say Pale emperor:
"Its such a nice way to live your life".
If niceness is what you want in life; indeed a contrived niceness does exist in the JW cult--- as long as you praise the leadership and permanently concentrate on maintaining the pharisaical boundaries set up by them.
Something which is much better is to live in freedom outside of JW thought control, in the real world where people make their own decisions based on weighing evidence and take their own responsibility for what they do.
As delightful as a mass exodus would be the best we might hope for is that many will take their cue from the Watchtower and think, Wait a mo! why should I do what they say, they are not inspired?
But then again some people, probably because their own family didn't provide it, just hanker after the lazy comfort of "niceness".
my sister got baptized at 17 or 18 years old in 1983. she was ripe for the jw picking as she was shy, quiet, naive and with low self-esteem even though she was tall and beautiful and she attended one of the best high schools in philadelphia.. she wasn't outgoing and she only went out on a couple of dates prior to her baptism.
she worked at a day care center.
she loved children and animals.
Funch you put the case very well for the distortion of human values in the JW world.
maybe there will be a mass exodus from jws when thinking people read feb 2017 watchtower telling them the governing body stuff up, shouldnt expect correct/ perfect information and basically make up guff as they see fit.....ya reckon?.
However, the subliminal message is:- (if I may resort to London vernacular) the GB are no longer the dog's bollocks!
from their history, it is evident that jehovah's witnesses are just another doomsday cult.. cults are run by autocrats.
on purpose they are ideologically fixated and they demand that their devotees hold the same absolute certainty of belief without regard for evidence.
the suspension of critical thought is encouraged and by focussing on the objectives of the cult belief in a like minded community, it gives both a sense of direction within a sort of ‘family’ and a hope of paradise perfection.. the leaders have everything to gain by controlling their followers; all the income goes in their direction.. democracy has strictly no part in a running cult.
I was thinking that the JW org is so last century, well actually so very 19th century---and it is honour bound to continue with its primitive Bible based rhetoric.
The time is coming however when JWs will be so at odds with real normal modern life, that they will eventually come under government scrutiny as an unhealthy force in society.
As some have mentioned there are damaging things which they demand, shunning of family members, disapproving of education, not allowing children to develop naturally. JWs stifle the life spirit in young people. JWs grow up with a distorted view of the world etc.
Of course this old Bible cult is very rich and even when in terminal decline for many years it will be able to appear functioning normally because of its accumulated wealth. But the time will come when being so unaccountable and mentally and emotionally hurtful to its members they will be exposed as a cult. Financial losses will continue and it will be necessary to downsize and radically modify their approach.
It will be the GB who will have to vote as to whether they continue or disband. Or I suppose in extremis they may turn to the rank and file?
One of my closest friends remains a JW for the sake of family but he loathes the religion. He feels powerless and says that the JW org has been the bane of his life. He must be among many long suffering non-believing JWs who given the chance would vote immediately for it to be disbanded.