NikL

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Posts by NikL

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  40

  Another recorded Judicial Meeting...

  by NikL in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've listened to quite a few but for some reason, this one has me really angry.. my heart goes out to the young family dealing with this bull shite.. give a listen.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifkpiqigq9c.

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  NikL

  I've listened to quite a few but for some reason, this one has me really angry.

  My heart goes out to the young family dealing with this Bull Shite.

  Give a listen...

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFKpIqIgQ9c
  
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  8

  No prayer at public meetings?

  by NikL in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was doing some research on another topic and i came across this from the march 1950 watchtower.... absence of prayer at public meetings!november 17, 1949dear brother:answering your query of the 9th instant regarding the absence of prayer in opening and closing our public meetings:it is certain that the public does not come to our public lectures in our kingdom hall or elsewhere to hear us pray, but do come to hear the advertised subject spoken upon by the speaker announced as competent to handle it.

  our exemplar jesus held many public lectures, but there is no record that he opened or closed any of them with prayer.

  there is no bible record that he opened up the sermon on the mount with prayer, or those open-air lectures after which he fed the multitude, first the 5,000 and then the 4,000. but there is a record that when he thus fed the multitudes he did offer prayer of thanksgiving to god before breaking the bread and fish and distributing the pieces to the hungry crowds.

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  NikL

  Even the depth of writing has changed.

  The above quoted articles are clearly intended for intelligent adults who have more than basic reading comprehension.

  Today's stuff? Written for 8-year-olds - and then there are the "simplified" editions!

  I keep hearing about the dumbing down of America.

  That is for people who are outside the Org. who as a whole are encouraged to get educated.

  Imagine what it's like within the Org where education is looked down upon.

  The people in the writing department are products of this environment and the resulting simplistic articles are the result.
  
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  8

  No prayer at public meetings?

  by NikL in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was doing some research on another topic and i came across this from the march 1950 watchtower.... absence of prayer at public meetings!november 17, 1949dear brother:answering your query of the 9th instant regarding the absence of prayer in opening and closing our public meetings:it is certain that the public does not come to our public lectures in our kingdom hall or elsewhere to hear us pray, but do come to hear the advertised subject spoken upon by the speaker announced as competent to handle it.

  our exemplar jesus held many public lectures, but there is no record that he opened or closed any of them with prayer.

  there is no bible record that he opened up the sermon on the mount with prayer, or those open-air lectures after which he fed the multitude, first the 5,000 and then the 4,000. but there is a record that when he thus fed the multitudes he did offer prayer of thanksgiving to god before breaking the bread and fish and distributing the pieces to the hungry crowds.

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  NikL

  I was doing some research on another topic and I came across this from the March 1950 Watchtower...

  ABSENCE OF PRAYER AT PUBLIC MEETINGS!
  November 17, 1949
  Dear Brother:
  Answering your query of the 9th instant regarding the absence of prayer in opening and closing our public meetings:
  It is certain that the public does not come to our public lectures in our Kingdom Hall or elsewhere to hear us pray, but do come to hear the advertised subject spoken upon by the speaker announced as competent to handle it. Our Exemplar Jesus held many public lectures, but there is no record that he opened or closed any of them with prayer. There is no Bible record that he opened up the sermon on the mount with prayer, or those open-air lectures after which he fed the multitude, first the 5,000 and then the 4,000. But there is a record that when he thus fed the multitudes he did offer prayer of thanksgiving to God before breaking the bread and fish and distributing the pieces to the hungry crowds. And these lectures, mind you, were public gatherings of practically all Jews who already believed in Jehovah God. But in our case today we advertise our public lectures as open to all peoples, whether nominally Catholic, Protestant, Jew, skeptic, atheist, or of the many pagan religions. Surely those of the public who are not of the Christian faith do not turn out to our meetings in order to join with us in prayer to our God, but solely to hear the speech which is the drawing feature. So we give them that and do not think to impose upon them by attaching something else to the lecture which might offend or stumble them before they hear the speech they came for. The apostle Paul, at 1 Corinthians, chapter 14, says Christians should offer prayer at their own meetings in a language to be understood in order that the hearers might be able to say Amen! at its close. But we should not expect any non-Christian public to join in any prayer if offered at a public meeting and then say Amen! with us at the close. Our brethren are offering public lectures in many pagan lands, and if it would be imposing upon the pagan public to offer our prayers before we let them hear our public message, then the same rule ought to apply even in Christendom. Because the message is for the public to tune in on, prayer is likewise not offered over the Society’s radio station WBBR. But this does not mean prayer is never offered in behalf of all such public meetings. It is, privately, by those promoting and supporting the public lecture campaign. That suffices.
  Yours faithfully in serving The Theocracy,
  WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY
  
  

  The next letter in the same issue...

  ATTENDING FUNERALS AND MARRIAGES—WHERE?
  November 17, 1949
  Dear Brother:
  Your card of the 10th instant refers to our letter in the November 15 issue of The Watchtower on “Weddings and Funerals” and asks whether you are to understand thereby that we “advocate the friends’ attending weddings and funerals when officiated by religious clergy or in their buildings”.
  Why, certainly we do not “advocate” it, and the letter in the above Watchtower that answered the inquirer was not commenting on attending weddings and funerals at religious buildings where the clergy hold forth. Our letter mentioned sending out our own representatives to serve at such functions.
  However, whether a brother or sister is free to attend such a function under clergy management and in their establishment is another question. Certainly a marriage performed by a religious clergyman is just as valid with the law of the land as one performed by any of our brothers who applies for and gets a license. And when any of our brethren do not have any of our own brothers to perform but go to a municipal building and have the ceremony performed by a justice of the peace or some other duly constituted public official, they do not ask first whether that official is a Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or other kind of religionist. The main thing is, Does he represent the law of the land and is he empowered to give legal authority and recognition to the marriage? All other matters are incidental and unimportant and without bearing.
  A father or mother, who for reasons beyond their control feel obliged to go to a religious building to see their child married or buried, goes there to see the marriage or the funeral and for no religious reason, if they are in the truth. It is the same as in the apostle’s day in the case of a man who went into an idol’s temple for something to eat. He goes in there to get a meal, but not to worship. (1 Corinthians 8:7-10, American Standard Version) Some other brother’s conscience would not be strong enough to permit him to do this, and his weak conscience would take offense if he saw his Christian brother in such a place for just a meal. So while we do not “advocate” it, we are not within our province to criticize or condemn, but will let God judge our brother who according to his conscience may feel obligated to attend functions under clergy officiation.
  Faithfully yours in Theocratic service,
  WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY
  
  

  I just thought it was interesting to see how MUCH things have changed.
  
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  37

  Was it just me or was something different about the memorial last night?

  by kpop in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this was the first memorial that i declined to do any work for the memorial.

  i was assigned as a parking attendant after getting downgraded from doing the sound and had no intention of doing either task but i had to attend for my family and continuation of my fade.

  i sat there last night listening to the talk and couldn't help but shake my head as my brain attempted to process the bs.

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  NikL

  Yeah kind of different here as well.

  We have a two hall setup and the speaker was in the other hall while we watched it on TV. He didn't give the attendants a chance to pass the bread around in our hall before he started on the wine bit so the attendants were tripping over themselves to keep up. We must have had a bigger crowd than upstairs.

  I also noticed nobody looked up bible scriptures. Hell, we didn't even bring them. Figured I would use our phones if we needed to.

  Best crowd in a long time though. We were packed in like sardines and it was really warm. I was drowsing hardcore by the end of the talk. really boring and statements made that just had no scriptural backing.

  All in all I am glad it's over for another year and I pray to God that he'll forgive me for not having the courage to stand up and refuse to go with my JW wife.
  
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  51

  To those taking a stand and not attending the Memorial tonight

  by doubtfull1799 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i salute you.

  many of you, like me, are probably under enormous emotional pressure, whether from a lingering false sense of guilt from your indoctrination, whether from "invitations," and assumptions that you'll naturally be coming, or whether from outright emotional blackmail, even begging and pleading.

  i am thinking of you whoever you are, all of you, even though i don't know you in person.

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  NikL

  Tip a hat to those that don't attend.

  Say a prayer for those of us that will (including myself.)
  
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  1

  This weeks Congregation Bible Study

  by NikL in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  another week of a "bible study" wherein the bible isn't studied.. the continuing whitewashing re-imagining of the societies history brings us to a study of things that have been discovered to be bad due to the ever increasing light shone upon the bible students.. this week we considered the cross and how the bible students used it for many years before discovering it's pagan roots and unacceptability in pure worship.. nothing new here.what got me was the end of the study where they used one of the parables of jesus and applied it in a weird way.. i was going to give my observations on it but tadua over at borean pickets did it nicely.... the god’s kingdom rules portion this week is chapter 10 para 12-19 pp.103-107.

  the theme: ‘the king refines his people spiritually’.

  this week’s portion deals with how the organization treated the cross.. like the issue of christmas, it took from the 1870’s to 1928, nearly 60 years for it to become clear the cross had no place in pure worship.

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  NikL

  Another week of a "bible study" wherein the bible isn't studied.

  The continuing whitewashing re-imagining of the societies history brings us to a study of things that have been discovered to be bad due to the ever increasing light shone upon the bible students.

  This week we considered the cross and how the bible students used it for many years before discovering it's pagan roots and unacceptability in pure worship.

  Nothing new here.

  What got me was the end of the study where they used one of the parables of Jesus and applied it in a weird way.

  I was going to give my observations on it but Tadua over at borean pickets did it nicely...

  The God’s Kingdom Rules portion this week is Chapter 10 para 12-19 pp.103-107

  The Theme: ‘The King Refines his People Spiritually’

  This week’s portion deals with how the organization treated the Cross.

  Like the issue of Christmas, it took from the 1870’s to 1928, nearly 60 years for it to become clear the cross had no place in pure worship. Yet in recent weeks, the claim was made that Christ inspected his people and accepted them as cleansed in 1919, some 9 years previously. The claim just does not hold water. It is another case of spiritual food not at the proper time, with all its implications for the Governing Body as a claimed faithful and discreet slave.

  Talking about the Cross (including the use of the Crown and Cross pins) paragraph 14 states “We came to recognize that what we once cherished as symbolic or representative of the death of our Lord and of our Christian devotion was really a pagan symbol”. Have things changed? Not really, in the last few years, the icon JW.org has been promoted heavily. For many Kingdom Halls, the JW.org logo is the most prominent feature on the building’s sign. Casual passersby can be forgiven for thinking the Kingdom Hall is some corporate building or conference hall rather than a place of worship. In addition, while witnessing we are encouraged to point the public to JW.org for the answers instead of directly to the Bible. Do we see a pattern? Cross and Crown pin, Watchtower pin, JW.org pin. The desire to be identified by symbols instead of actions. We should be clearly identifiable by our Bible based conduct, not a piece of jewelry or a corporate style logo.

  In paragraph 17 and 18, the kr book briefly examines Matthew 13:47-50. Once again a claim is made that some invisible work has been going on without any proof.

  Matthew 13:48 states the “[fishermen] hauled it [the catch] up onto the beach, and sitting down, they collected the fine ones into vessels, but the unsuitable they threw away.”

  “Unsuitable” is the translation from the Greek word sapros which means “rotten, useless, corrupt, depraved, overripe, overdone, unfit for use”. Bear this definition in mind as you read the following section to see that the original Greek word has a much stronger meaning than the NWT choice of “unsuitable”.

  So the fishermen [angels] are harvesting, not crops but fish.

  When are they separated? Immediately.

  Does the following sound a bit far fetched? Is there any opportunity for the unsuitable fish to wiggle into the sea, swim off, metamorphose in to fine fish, and come and jump back into the net on the beach ready to be put into the vessels with the rest of the fine fish? Or are they thrown away, discarded as rotten, useless?

  In Verse 49 Jesus gives the explanation as “in the conclusion of the system of things [Greek – the consummation of the age] the angels will go out and separate the wicked from among the righteous and will cast them into the fiery furnace. There is where their weeping and the gnashing of their teeth will be”.

  Is there any opportunity here for the wicked to say to the angels, “Wait a minute, I want go off to become righteous, then you can re-separate me, and not cast me into the furnace.”? No, there and then they are thrown into the symbolic fiery furnace—destruction, just like the weeds that are burned.

  Now contrast the scripture verses you have just read with the explanation in paragraph 18: “Throwing away “the unsuitable” [note: It should be “the rotten fish”]. Throughout the last days [note: It should be the consummation or completion of the age, not a long time period], Christ and the angels have been separating ‘the wicked from among the righteous’”.

  The footnote reads in part: “The separating of the fine fish from the unsuitable fish is not the same as the separating of the sheep from the goats.

  Why not? No explanation is given or referred to as to why the different interpretation.

  “The separating or final judgment, of the sheep and the goats takes place during the coming great tribulation. Until then, those who are like unsuitable fish may return to Jehovah and be gathered into containerlike congregations.” It also references Malachi 3:7 “‘Return to me, and I will return to you,’ Jehovah of armies has said. And you have said: ‘In what way shall we return?’” – par. 18

  According to this, the way to return is: the rotten fish dying on the beach in the rubbish heap have a chance to wiggle into the sea, swim off, metamorphose into fine fish, return, and jump back into the net on the beach ready to be put into the vessels with the rest of the fine fish.

  Is this not a perversion of the words of our Lord? A fine, instructional parable is being subverted to support the needs of the Organization.

  Amen.
  
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  58

  Just a quick Poll...Do you think the GB is sincere?

  by NikL in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've been thinking about this the past few days and curious what the honest consensus is here just for fun.. show of hands,.

  is the governing body.... a: completely sincere.

  they really do believe what they teach.. b: somewhat sincere.

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  NikL

  I've been thinking about this the past few days and curious what the honest consensus is here just for fun.

  Show of hands,

  Is the Governing Body...

  A: Completely Sincere. They really do believe what they teach.

  B: Somewhat Sincere. They may have started out sincere but got jaded by power and money etc.

  C: Completely insincere. They know they are teaching falsehoods and they either don't care or maybe that is their plan as per some of the conspiracy buffs among us.

  D: Other...Please elaborate
  
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  10

  WT about elder positions

  by Gorbatchov in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  yesterday, visited the hall for family reasons.. wt was about elder positions, educate younger brothers, delegate your work etc.

  the usual story about the body of elders, give younger people a change and don't get atached to your position.

  what was evident: 90 percent of the answers came from the sisters.. the elders looked like the house cat just eaten tweety.. never heared so much theory and knowing it will be fully ignored.. why make it a 45 minute issue for every tom, dick and harry?.

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  NikL

  Yeah, it was a really weird study. As most are these days.

  I was thinking about it during the study, that there used to be fairly deep if not accurate studies. At least they were targeted at the congregants at large.
  

  These days the studies are pigeon holed to certain groups much of the time.

  A while back they had a study targeted to those missionaries in foreign lands with heir children. How much more of a specialized audience can you get?
  
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  6

  Why is the memorial Sometimes not on the Night of the passover?

  by NikL in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  do the jaydubs follow a different calendar?.

  sometimes it is not in line with the jewish celebration and it should be no?.

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  NikL

  Do the JayDubs follow a different calendar?

  Sometimes it is not in line with the Jewish celebration and it should be no?
  
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  13

  Russian Earthquake Forces Putin to Reconsider – Won’t Ban Jehovah’s Witnesses

  by ILoveTTATT2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ap – april 1st, 2017. russian earthquake forces putin to reconsider – won’t ban jehovah’s witnesses.

  in a stunning reversal of events, vladimir putin had an emergency meeting with all un members and made a proposition unbanning jehovah’s witnesses worldwide.. after the devastating 6.9 earthquake in eastern russia, and after receiving nearly one metric ton of letters from jehovah’s witnesses worldwide, putin changed his mind and decided not only to not ban jehovah’s witnesses in russia, but proposed to the un to remove all restrictions from jehovah’s witnesses worldwide.. surprisingly, jehovah’s witnesses were not pleased.. david a. ssholian, the spokesman for jehovah’s witnesses, said that “this reversal is a disaster for jehovah’s witnesses worldwide.

  we just can’t be unbanned everywhere, that would be a severe blow for our faith.”

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  NikL

  Bravo!

  Very funny indeed. Almost Onion-ish.

  I think people outside the English speaking world might not be familiar with the concept of April Fools though.