I'm a pretty bold old dude! Recently, after washing my hands in a Men's Room, I wash drying my hands under a hot air blower and the the instructions clearly read, "DO NOT RUB HANDS TOGETHER, JUST MASSAGE GENTLY". Well, I rubbed mine together!
MYOHNSEPH
JoinedPosts by MYOHNSEPH
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Are You All Talk?
by Guest 77 inyes, how bold are you.
i sense that some like to throw their weight around on forums of this nature.
in person, what are you like?
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Are JW's Satans children?
by sleepy inare jw's satans children?.
i was just wondering how ex-jw born agains and members of other religions view jw's and their time as one.do they believe , like jw's do of other religions, that satan is behind the movment?.
do you feel that in your time as a witness you were under satans control?.
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MYOHNSEPH
It would be great to have a SATAN to blame for all the deceit and manipulation in the world! However, I personally think thats a cop-out. Just as I think its a cop-out to excuse shunning of basically good people, or some other ridiculous practice, just because it was directed by some hypothetical FAITHFUL AND DISCREET SLAVE. Weve all been given a brain, folks. Some may work a little better than others, but if you dig down deep enough, most everyones got enough common sense to sort out real truth, if thats really what theyre looking for.
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Loyalty to the truth
by happy man in.
at bokstudy yesterday , we talk of the diffrent things gb say, and who we must stand to this.. i tell that they are only peopel and have make some misstaks, as we can se , fore exampel in the proclaimers book, well the study leader say, we must shoe loyality to the gb, even iif it later show upp to bee wrong, it is very importat that we follow what they say.. this is a ver difficult area, ofcourse in our religion we can not have 6 million diffretn wuies, but if we follow evry word very carefull, are we then not follow man?.
what about if they say something who take your life, and later change this, who is responsibel, or even worse our kidds, who are resposibel if they die on such polyci, like the transplantaision prohibition, we have fore some time, are we fore exampel personaly responsibel fore our akts, when the day is here, or can we say, we only follow what the gb say.. this is a very tricky qestion who i think about a lot
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MYOHNSEPH
Ive often heard or read comments regarding loyalty to Jehovahs organization and, sometimes in the same context, keeping our integrity. It strikes me that these words are often used as if they were interchangeable, but they are quite different. Loyalty has to do with faithfulness or allegiance to a person, government, organization or other entity. However, that entity may, or may not, be morally upright and just and worthy of a Christians loyalty. History is filled with accounts of loyalty, from Christian martyrs to the cohorts of Hitler. Loyalty to both just and unjust entities or causes is quite common. Integrity, on the other hand, is a little harder to find. Integrity has more to do with the quality or state of being of sound moral principle; uprightness, honesty, and sincerity and being unimpaired in such. The fact is, integrity will not be compromised by misplaced loyalty. A person of integrity will be loyal to truth, but not necessarily to the truth. Integrity will not allow one to accept that which is obviously contrary to truth, decency or common sense, just because it bears the label of someone or something to which we may have tried to lay claim to ones loyalty. To compromise ones Christian integrity through misplaced loyalty, to anyone or anything, is inexcusable.
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Ozzie's Weekend Poll #20
by ozziepost inwell, here we are with the twentieth of our weekend polls!
doesn't time fly when you're having fun!
this weekend's poll is a serious topic and invites us to exercise our dub trained minds to solve a problem in helping us to reach to those who want to honestly look at their situation within the organisation.
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MYOHNSEPH
All nine are in the mix, but I think no. 1 is the champ. A great number of JWs are simply in denial. It's almost like someone in an abusive relationship who just keeps trying to rationalize the abuse, all the while excusing and enabling the abuser. They refuse to believe things are as bad as they are. They refuse to look beyond where they are because they're afraid of losing what they want to believe they have and then end up with nothing.
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Probably a dumb question.
by els ini've been lurking around reading pretty much all of the posts for probably a month.
i just registered and set up a profile which has a brief synopsis of my life.
well the first thing i want to ask is, what does dub stand for?
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MYOHNSEPH
This thing about allowing someone of thirteen or younger to get baptized always bothered me, even when I was an elder. The question that always came to my mind was, what if a couple of these same kids came and asked to get married in the Kingdom Hall? I've never know an elder who would have encouraged or condoned someone entering into marriage at thirteen or younger, but wouldn't blink an eye at the same child taking, what is said to be, the most important step of their life. At least there are acceptable ways to get out of a bad marriage. But once you're dunked, you're sunk!
And by the way, I'm new here too and I'm still working on some of the lingo too!
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Elders vs. Clergy? Lacking
by patio34 insince i'm not a religious person anymore, this is not a thread advocating clergy people.
but simply a comparison between most clergy and jw elders.
usually jws have made it a positive that elders are not like clergy.
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MYOHNSEPH
They didn't call us Elders back then, but I was appointed a "Bible Study Servant" in 1960 at age seventeen. What were my qualifications? Well, I was baptized and wore pants! And I was one of only three active male members of the congregation. That helped a lot. Me and a buddy, who was eighteen at the time, had moved there to "serve where the need was great". He got to be "Assistant Congregation Servant", a little higher position than me, because he had had a bible study with someone one time and I hadn't. But it was great! We got to be on judicial commitees and everything!
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Selective Compassion
by MYOHNSEPH ini dont know how many of you have listened to the audio of mike spence interviewing j.r. brown on the societys policies related to child molesters, but its worth a listen.
i was particularly fascinated with browns comments about allowing someone, who may have previously been convicted of child molestation, to later hold a position of responsibility in the congregation.
as an example of how this might happen, he presented a hypothetical case in which a boy of sixteen has sex with a girl of fourteen, with her consent.
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MYOHNSEPH
I dont know how many of you have listened to the audio of Mike Spence interviewing J.R. Brown on the Societys policies related to child molesters, but its worth a listen. I was particularly fascinated with Browns comments about allowing someone, who may have previously been convicted of child molestation, to later hold a position of responsibility in the congregation. As an example of how this might happen, he presented a hypothetical case in which a boy of sixteen has sex with a girl of fourteen, with her consent. Brown says that in some states the girl would be considered a child and the boy an adult and, hence, the boy could be convicted as a child molester. Three years later, in this hypothetical case, this same boy and girl get married, to each other. Twenty years later they are still married, have several children and are leading a clean and moral life as JWs. Brown poses the question: Should this man, twenty-three years after his sexual involvement with a minor, be considered a predatory pedophile? He makes a reasonable argument that this man should not, at this time, be viewed as such and that the door shouldnt be closed too tightly here, with regard to his being considered for a position of responsibility in the congregation. What a sensible and compassionate view of the situation!
I cant help but wonder though, suppose this same couple had been disfellowshipped for their act of fornication. Suppose they did eventually get married, have children and twenty years later were still happily married, living clean moral lives, BUT, they had never seen the need to try to get reinstated in the congregation and no longer even considered themselves as JWs. Do you think the Society would take such a sensible and compassionate view of this situation? I think not! As has been recently reinforced in Our Kingdom Ministry, this man and woman would still be viewed as unclean, outcasts, undeserving of so much as a simple greeting from anyone in the congregation, including family members! In this case, the door is closed pretty tightly!
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FREEDOM
by UnDisfellowshipped inmatthew 20:27: and whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your servant; .
matthew 20:28: even as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.. mark 10:42: but having called them near, jesus said to them, you know that those seeming to rule the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.
but through love serve one another.. galatians 5:14: for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: "you shall love your neighbor as yourself.".
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MYOHNSEPH
What a marvelous banquet for thought! Thank you! While reflecting on these scrumptious morsels, three things in particular impressed me.
- How perfect, how complete each scripture is. There is nothing at all dark and mysterious, nothing of any hidden meaning, which needs to be interpreted or construed so that it can be properly understood. Any of us, with even meager intelligence and common sense, can understand the clear and simple message of Christian love and freedom.
- It amazes me that a group of men, who have spent their lives examining, dissecting and analyzing the Holy Scriptures, could have completely missed the point! The real truth of Jesus teaching is so clear and so beautiful, its hard to imagine anyone misunderstanding, or worse, deliberately misconstruing its meaning.
- Lastly, my conscience was pricked a bit. When I think about the choice years of my life being dedicated to an induced delusion, I tend to feel very bitter toward those who created and continue to perpetuate that delusion. But I am reminded that such bitterness is in direct conflict with, and only hinders me from embracing fully and completely, the freedom and love, so perfectly articulated in these scriptures. ..love the ones hostile to you, and do good,.be merciful, even as your Father also is merciful.
Thanks again!
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When "called a brother"?
by metatron inwhen is a witness no longer "called a brother"?
logically, they would not be disfellowshipped.. if a person is df'd and makes clear that they no longer wish to be considered a witness by anyone, how are they.
"called a brother"?
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MYOHNSEPH
For the purposes of shunning, the answer is "never, never, ever"! My daughter was disfellowshipped about fifteen years ago, at age eighteen, because she was living out of wedlock with a young man, a non-JW. In time she married the young man. Today they have been married for almost thirteen years, have two beautiful children and just about anyone who knows them would tell you that she and her husband live a clean and upright life. However, she has never had the desire to re-associate herself with the Witnesses. She and her husband both believe in God and Christ and teach their children to do so, but neither are inclined to attach themselves to any organized religion. But the quality of her life and character today means absolutely nothing to the WTS. If she happens to see an old acquaintance from the Kingdom Hall on the street, she will not get so much as a "Hi". Until she comes crawling back and begs to be forgiven and reinstated, she's still just this wicked little disfellowshipped kid, and will likely remain such until she dies.
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Religious Tolerance & Hypocrisy
by MYOHNSEPH inin looking over the wts website this morning, i was drawn to an article entitled, the edict of nantes a charter for tolerance?
it deals with the edict signed by king henry iv, of france , in 1598, which afforded an unprecedented degree of religious tolerance and freedom of religion for protestants of that time.
while questioning the motive behind the edict, the article seems to extol the virtues and rightness of religious tolerance.
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MYOHNSEPH
In looking over the WTs website this morning, I was drawn to an article entitled, The Edict of Nantes A Charter for Tolerance? It deals with the edict signed by King Henry IV, of France , in 1598, which afforded an unprecedented degree of religious tolerance and freedom of religion for Protestants of that time. While questioning the motive behind the edict, the article seems to extol the virtues and rightness of religious tolerance. One would be led to think the author believed that the freedom to decide for oneself what he or she believes and how to worship his or her God was the right of every human being. Learning to live together in peace and without prejudice was indeed a vital lesson to be learned 400 years ago. But the lesson is still relevant today.
I couldnt help but wonder if the author caught even the most fleeting glimpse of the hypocrisy of what he had written. For an organization which is unwilling to tolerate any individual expression of thought or conscience, which does not strictly conform to its own arbitrarily established, and ever changing, perception of the truth, and which willingly and regularly tears apart and destroys precious relationships in expression of that intolerance, to pretend to support and promote religious freedom, seems to me to be the height of arrogance and hypocrisy! The author concludes by saying, Indeed, the Edict of Nantes can best be commemorated by making sure that real freedom of worship is protected for all!