BTW, goatees are not all that obtrusive, unlike a full on Russell beard. Why weren't they allowed? Is it because Satan is often depicted as having a goatee in popular imagery? š¤šø
NotFormer
JoinedPosts by NotFormer
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36
2023-12-15--Beards-BOE!
by Atlantis ingoverning body update #8. beards--see page 3 #2. page 1.--https://imgbox.com/qs27zbgh.
page 2.--https://imgbox.com/r4jz1fvm .
page 3.--https://imgbox.com/wynbxegx .
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2023-12-15--Beards-BOE!
by Atlantis ingoverning body update #8. beards--see page 3 #2. page 1.--https://imgbox.com/qs27zbgh.
page 2.--https://imgbox.com/r4jz1fvm .
page 3.--https://imgbox.com/wynbxegx .
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NotFormer
"I begged him to just be patient and serve without a goatee for just 12 months to see if if things settled down as I didn't want to lose a good brother and friend over his small beard.
"He agreed to give it 12 months.
"He rang me within a week to the old elder had rung him up and apologised profusely, saying he was wrong, he could serve with his beard.. this was around 2013 so this issue must have been bubbling up for years."
The level of micromanagement is ridiculous. I didn't realise until reading through these "beard new light" threads that the beard thing was mainly an "unwritten rule". It was so pervasive in exJW conversations that I thought that there must be a pretty comprehensive paper trail in the literature about it. The imagery certainly gave the impression; Jesus had the barest of neatly trimmed beards and a very short, conservative haircut. Heck, there's even one old image of Jesus in a WT, without a beard at all!
I suppose one less club to beat the sheep about the head with is a mercy, albeit a small one.
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Merry Christmas
by jhine inso for those amongst us who celebrate the season .
merry christmas everyone.
.. jan from tam .
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NotFormer
Happy Christmas to everyone!
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How my awakening began.
by MissDaSilva inabout a month ago i started having a clear out of old clothes, books and bric a brac etcā¦.. i donāt know what came over me but i decided to chuck out all my old jw literature because we literally have no more room.
it started with magazines, then books, ministry literature and once i started, couldnāt stop.
weird right?
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NotFormer
MissDaSilva, that's a rather sudden transition. In less than a month from your "epiphany" to engaging with people you previously presumably wouldn't be caught dead with. Impressive š
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Where is Tony?
by Athanasius inon february 22, 2023, anthony morris iii was officially removed from the governing body of jehovah's witnesses.
a few months later it was revealed that the watchtower bought him a house in lumberton, north carolina.. however, and correct me if i am wrong, since leaving the gb nobody has reported seeing tony attending jw meetings or participating in field service.
in fact nobody has reported seeing him anywhere, not even at a local liquor store.
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NotFormer
Hmm, the "two houses" makes me think of Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson. Perhaps we should start referring to Tony "Two Houses" Morris.
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JWLITE
by Teddnzo ineven elders can be part of the new jw lite brigade these days.
they donāt need to go on door to door anymore and there is no requirement for anything really.. taking meeting parts is all dead easy you could turn up on the day with zero preparation because itās all in the meeting workbook.. quarterly elders meetings are just old men having a good old natter just like old men do down the pub.. congregations could be likened to pubs or bars these days just without the drinks, those come at other times.. no need for territory maps, these almost went away with covid letter writing now they are extremely slow getting finished as those who still go door to door only do ten mins.. you could even voice your questions these days about things the gb say and then just say āwe canāt be dogmatic we just donāt knowā.
i predict they will say this about 1914 soon..
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NotFormer
"90 hours a month ? Thats lightweight..in my day it was 100 a month"
Luxury!
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What has the Spiritual Paradise of the WTS been over time
by blondie inthe first mention i find in the wts publications is 1958. although the wts says the index goes from 1930 to 1985, nothing appears before 1958 a search only found by using the phrase "spiritual paradise" not in the index.
in 2015 there was a clarification of the phrase "of course, we should not conclude that the terms āspiritual paradiseā and āspiritual templeā are the same.
the spiritual temple is godās arrangement for true worship.".
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NotFormer
'The other expression used to excuse this nonsense is : "It was our understanding at the time".................. utter Bollocks as well'
Did they ever adopt an "It is our understanding at this time" phrase, in the face of potentially fatal new doctrines? Kind of a CYA strategy. I suppose there were other phrases that meant "this looks voluntary, but woe betide if you do it/don't do it!"
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JW lose case against victims
by enoughisenough incaught this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud7uob6zck4.
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NotFormer
It's the old curse coming true: the GB has lived to see "interesting times"...
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Beards are now allowed - New Light
by Listener inlett has announced in the latest video update that jehovah has dignified the brothers by now letting them to choose for themselves whether they want to have a beard or not -.
https://www.jw.org/en/news/region/global/2023-governing-body-update-8/.
this applies worldwide and to all brothers in any position..
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NotFormer
ThomasMore - āā¦Brothers donāt fade because they want to grow a beardā¦ā
Vidiot: "Nope, they grow a beard because they want to fade."
That's a good point.š It's a cheap, low risk approach.
As an outsider, I never quite understood why, since beards were so abhorrent, that growing one didn't kind of automatically lead to disfellowshipment. Not directly, but it seems to me to be a lost opportunity. A zealous BOE could see beard growing as the tip of an iceberg and simply Star Chamber and kangaroo court the bloke until they basically have the result they want.
What is the attitude of the organisation towards frequency of disfellowshipments within a congregation? Do they like lots of them? Does too many of them concern them. Is a CO likely to start asking questions if there are too few or too many?
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Jehovah's Witnesses suing Dutch State for discrimination
by Tahoe inhttps://nltimes.nl/2023/12/11/jehovahs-witnesses-suing-dutch-state-discrimination .
the jehovahās witnesses have sued the dutch state for discrimination, the religious organization informed trouw.
they consider it discriminatory that the government investigated them, but no other religious organization, for their handling of sexual abuse cases.. utrecht university conducted the investigation involved, following publications in trouw in which sexual abuse victims within the jehovahās witnesses described what happened to them, and published the results in january 2020. utrecht university concluded that 60 percent of sexual abuse victims were very critical of how the jehovahās witnesses handled their cases, scoring the handling a 1 out of 10. many victims were traumatized by how things were handled, the researchers said.. sander dekker, then the minster for legal protection, ordered the investigation at parliamentās insistence because the jehovahās witnesses failed to arrange an investigation themselves, as the catholic church did at the time with the deetman commission.. the jehovahās witnesses cooperated in the utrecht university investigation but unsuccessfully tried to stop the publication of its results.
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NotFormer
Unfortunately, you're right. The recent changes are indeed cosmetic at best. (Although the last minute conversion one is actually pretty major in some ways) And again, you're right, some of the major sticking points (blood, shunning, two witnesses etc.) represent too much of a change; policies like those have done so much damage to lives over the years that to jettison them at any time would be unworkable. There would be such incredible legal ramifications that it would be likely that the organisation could survive.
I'd love to see a government or two go after them over the blood policy. It's not just medical "advice": they force compliance on pain of death (disfellowshipment) and enforce it (HLC). They're practicing medicine without a licence.