a little to late, and amazing re: annulments.
i apologize to all of you who responded to my 'craving for attention' post for not responding on time.
i was to sick and it's kind of late now to give all the responses.. you certainly gave me the courage to even post again and i already know it's ok if i don't get responses, i'm healed, (you help).. i started to compose a line to each of you, but just know that i love you and i appreciate what you did to me: get confident on the forum and post and practice.. to amazing, willy_think responded to your questions about the annulments and she did a good job.
Yadira: I hope everything went well with the visit of your daughter. I am glad you got a chance to read my words to you, they came from my heart.
To all: Spanish is a beautiful language and I try to use it every chance I get. Everyone should learn it. Paz y felicidad a todos!
boy, i don't even have to try to find this stuff.
i just pick threads at random and dig up gems.. http://www.purelanguage.net/forums/showthread.php?s=b76d30d2c7f38d3e0ba58ebd7bf62985&threadid=1352.
here are some of the highlights:.
Logical:
Christ was betrayed, which is why he was persecuted.Yes he was betrayed, but he was persecuted because of his teachings. The same happens with Witnesses.
Today JW's are relatively free from persecution. They have it easy.That's very easy to say in the year 2002 in good old US of A. Was it easy for the hundreds of Witnesses that were tarred and feathered during the 20th century? Was it easy for the Witnesses that were persecuted in Germany, USSR, Cuba, Argentina, Paraguay, China, Greece, Ruwanda, Malawi, and others... Don't minimize the suffering of my dear brothers and sisters.
How can you compare the WT that have hurt so many people needlessly, turning away people and condemning them to death; to Christ, who was quite the opposite, showing love, compassion, mercy etc to people?This is only your opinion and does not prove anything. I happen to think and have experienced the love, compassion and mercy of Jehovah's Witnesses.
i've read over the past months that jws are not wealthy.
however, i wonder if those that are wealthy, are they in a high position like elders, ms, co, do, bethelites?.
since i know of one here at work who does have yearly travel vacations to locales like las vegas, europe and the caribean.
I was including Mexico and Brazil as "Third-world countries". Are they? Anyhow I think they consider themselves as such. Between those two there are about 1 million publishers. My comment about the elders being mostly poor and CO without cars applies to these two countries also.
i do wonder if the average witless has been beat down with so much.
propaganda that they hate themselves.
willing to blame themselves for anything - and react fanatically.
Staphanus: Yes.
emailed to me by doinmypart:.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/tmp/boe20020318.pdf.
posted on a separate thread so the topic is more related.
Simon:
One question. If the file was a pdf, how did you get the text out of it? Is there an OCR feature with Acrobat? I have some pdfs that I need to manipulate (highlight lines) and it won't work with a pdf that was scanned in.
emailed to me by doinmypart:.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/tmp/boe20020318.pdf.
posted on a separate thread so the topic is more related.
silentlambs: What do you propose as to how to handle it? Instead of pointing to the problem, let's start finding solutions.
TheStar: The change is that they are clearly training elders on how to handle these matters correctly.
emailed to me by doinmypart:.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/tmp/boe20020318.pdf.
posted on a separate thread so the topic is more related.
TheStar: I think this is a very positive change to our previous stand on this issue. I don't know why a parent would not turn an abuser in, but at least it's up to them. Some states require that even if the parent does not want to press charges, if the clergy knows they have to turn the abuser in. This is should be the norm in every state (I'm speaking of the US).
i do wonder if the average witless has been beat down with so much.
propaganda that they hate themselves.
willing to blame themselves for anything - and react fanatically.
The elders that were involved in my judicial committee were very loving with me. I had a very challenging attitude toward them. I believe they did not want to disfellowship me, but I gave them no choice, I never showed any repentance. At that time I really was not repentant, as I was so involved in sin that I did not care anymore about anyone else but myself. After some time, I started to feel depressed about my spiritual condition. I had degraded myself to a very low level by constantly sinning against Jehovah. I am now trying to make changes in myself and constantly ask Jehovah for his help.
I feel bad for those that were mistreated by elders. At one time I was attending a congregation that only had one elder (they had two and one suddenly moved to another state). When that elder was left alone in the congregation, he was a nightmare. He hurt me very much with strong words, it lasted six months and then the C.O. and D.O. paid a visit to the congregation and removed him. I felt relief when this happened. After that, three new elders moved in and they were very loving and cared for the flock nicely.
i've read over the past months that jws are not wealthy.
however, i wonder if those that are wealthy, are they in a high position like elders, ms, co, do, bethelites?.
since i know of one here at work who does have yearly travel vacations to locales like las vegas, europe and the caribean.
I think to be balanced we should mention that things can be very different in third-world countries. Traveling overseers usually do not have cars, maybe a bicycle. Elders are usually poor as are the rest of publishers.
Now going back to witnesses in the U.S., I agree with the things that have been seen by some of you in the congregations, of course it does vary from congregation to congregation. I don’t think special favors are given to those that are wealthy as in special privileges in most congregations. In the circuit that I used to be part of, most of the elders that took the lead in assemblies had common jobs. I don’t see anything wrong if a wealthy brother progresses in the congregation if he Biblically qualifies for that privilege.
dont overstate matters.
the situation in oregon is a terrible tragedy.
the watchtowers policy on shunning likely contributed to the tragedy, it may have even been a primary factor but there are any number of other factors that could have contributed as well - too many to even mention!.
.
