the summer assembly was hot and sticky, it was long on rules and stingy on deep scriptures.
the speaker warned us about the online discussions of greek and hebrew, which are running ahead of the organization.
did you know there are brothers who are trying to check the accuracy of the new world translation?
E-watchman - considered apostate. He's a splinter group, headed by himself, and had a decent following. Most now consider him a wack-job.
Ray Franz - dead. The books are Crisis of Conscience and In Search of Christian Freedom. Critical of the Org, but still believed in the Bible and quite a few core doctrines (Jehovah only God, no hellfire)
the summer assembly was hot and sticky, it was long on rules and stingy on deep scriptures.
the speaker warned us about the online discussions of greek and hebrew, which are running ahead of the organization.
did you know there are brothers who are trying to check the accuracy of the new world translation?
Thirdwitness
Tears of Oberon
Google the names.
hello, i am (almost) new here, and in the beginning i didn't really think that i would ever post something here.
but then.... yesterday i had a little experience, nothing important , people who haven't been in the organisation have probably a hard time to understand why it's even worth talking (writing) about.
but i though if there are people who can relate to it, they are here, and if not this post will just disappear in the internet and no harm was done.. i was walking my friends' dogs in the evening sun, not thinking about anything.
A sense of worthlessness always plagued me in the org. It was never enough. They always want more, they want to suck you dry. You aren't free to be yourself, you must become part of the collective.
i've been lurking on the forum for over a year now.
i'm not an ex jw but have some weird connections to the group none the less.. i was raised in the worldwide church of god.
a lot in common with jws.
Cog, care to share an experience? Did you guys also have to go preaching? I am so curious as to your upbringing.
for the first time in ages though, i actually re-evaluated my position on god/wt.. i had attended a few funerals in the spring and had also reignited some friendships with people from the hall.
but actually, i just keep going round in circles in my mind.
i cannot back an organisation with such a flawed past and one that endorses such policies as shunning & blood.
It's strange to think that you accumulate all this experience and maybe a little wisdom and it just goes away.
I feel that way too, but I also realize the sun is going to die, and there is nothing I can do about it. Do what you can while you can.
for the first time in ages though, i actually re-evaluated my position on god/wt.. i had attended a few funerals in the spring and had also reignited some friendships with people from the hall.
but actually, i just keep going round in circles in my mind.
i cannot back an organisation with such a flawed past and one that endorses such policies as shunning & blood.
So you might want to consider more data and see if your position is tenable.
Cofty, not everyone cares to investigate. The point is, it is the person you are, not what you believe, that matters. For me, it comes down to that.
for the first time in ages though, i actually re-evaluated my position on god/wt.. i had attended a few funerals in the spring and had also reignited some friendships with people from the hall.
but actually, i just keep going round in circles in my mind.
i cannot back an organisation with such a flawed past and one that endorses such policies as shunning & blood.
If you believe in god, so what? If you don't believe in god, so what?
article found here.. .
those who grow up in an atheist household are least likely to maintain their beliefs about religion as adults, according to a study by georgetown university's center for applied research in the apostolate (cara).only about 30 percent of those who grow up in an atheist household remain atheists as adults.
this "retention rate" was the lowest among the 20 separate categories in the study.. there were 1,387 atheists (weighted) in the survey.
We need more data first.
i'm doing some research for a new blog article on the governing body.
it's in a question-and-answer or "faq" format, and attempts to give simple but well-founded answers to most questions that people could conceivably ask about the governing body.. one thing i noticed when looking at the history of the governing body is that we seem to be in the middle of a lengthy "dry spell" when it comes to making new appointments.. gerrit losch is currently the longest-serving member having been appointed in 1994. however, his appointment came at the end of a 17 year period in which no appointments were made.
this contrasts notably with the remarkable six-year period between 1971 and 1977 when 15 members were added.. since losch's appointment, 4 members were added in 1999 (herd, lett, pierce and splane) and 2 more recently in 2005 (morris and jackson).. the seven year spell since the last appointments were made has seen the deaths of barber, barr, jaracz, shroeder and sydlik - cutting the number of governing body members almost in half.
I think a more important question is, are they the one solely in charge of making important decisions, be they doctrinal or organizational? Let's be realistic, they have to have some sort of influence. Or can they really be running the whole show? I've heard it suggested here that they are merely puppets, and that there is someone else running the show. In that case, new appointments wouldn't matter much, would they?
since there seem to be a number of threads in this spirit, i'd like to ask how others became atheists.
for myself, i learned some things that made me understand the bible wasn't true.
i looked deeper, and it became even more unlikely.
Prayer does not change the equation in any way.
I disagree. Prayer, I believe, certainly doesn't get answered by god, but it might motivate a person to act a certain way. It depends. Prayer might help a person meditate, and thus change the equation. It's just not by injecting the supernatural or the divine.
