you know how our minds often get all "fuzzy" and confused when we are put on the spot and asked to come up with points?
we often tend to lose focus and go off on tangents?.
im trying to compile a basic list of bullet points for the most obvious and clear problems / doctrines / history of witnesses that can blow the org out of the water.. it is more for the purpose of getting my own thoughts clear rather than using it to talk to witnesses (as that doesn't really work).
How about;
Regarding doctrinal changes, just do a search on this site, or better still, go to http://www.jwfacts.com/ and search there, you will find dozens of examples.
this is going around the kingdom halls now, i thought it was a hoax but are not all the end time dates produced by the organization some hoax or con?
the reason why the end did not come in 1975 was the watchtower society had not put eve's creation in their equation.
i was told when we had a "meet and greet" if "we knew the date of eve's creation we would know the year jehovah was going to destroy the earth.. it's been 40 years since 1975, can you believe it's been 40 years since "stay alive till 1975!"?
sometimes small children can see through stupid.. .
len miller.
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stuckinarut2 you are referring to;
“A new light of truth can never contradict a former truth. “New light” never extinguishes older “light,” but adds to it”. (WT, Feb. 1881, page 3).
And in December on page 8 an open letter was published that said, “The old light is not extinguished when new light comes, but every added ray increases the glory.” To which Russel said “Words fitly spoken-they command our attention and respect”.
sometimes small children can see through stupid.. .
len miller.
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Up till 2012 the FDS was selected, not in 1919, but at Pentecost in the 1st century, as it was the 144k. In 1919 Jehovah decided that only the anointed Watchtower followers fulfilled that role, so the FDS was made up of only JWs. But this is something I’m not clear about.
or
Surely it must be the latter because there wasn’t a Governing Body (as such) in 1919, it didn’t really come into existence until the 1970s. And who was the FDS between Pentecost and 1919 as there was certainly no GB for most of the last two thousand years?
I find it quite interesting that in 1981 the Watchtower (the official mouthpiece of the FDS remember) described as “objectors” those espousing the idea that only the “leading ones” of the 144k should be regarded as the FDS. (WT March 1, 1981, pages 24-25). Looks like the "Objectors" have taken over the asylum.
in the latest watchtower (july 15, 2014, page 14, paragraph 10) it says; today, jehovahs people are not often confronted with apostasy within the congregation.
still, when exposed to unscriptural teachings, regardless of the source, we must decisively reject them.. so, not often, but occasionally jws are exposed to apostasy within the congregation, and they are instructed to decisively reject it.
as we all know, the vast majority of the apostasy they are exposed to comes from the governing body.. i am meeting up soon with an old friend from the 1970s who i havent seen for decades, who is still an active jw, and who would really like to hear what i think about things.
I finally met up with my old friend the other week, and we spent a good couple of hours discussing old times and the state of things today. I won’t bore you with the details but when it came to the subject of unscriptural teachings I kept it to four points – the overlapping generation, the baptising of children, the new baptism question and the GBs demand for total obedience (although many other subjects came up as well).
His position is somewhat unusual, and certainly not one that would have GB approval, for he doesn’t fully agree with any of the above, and as the ‘new light’ about the FDS includes the idea that Christ will not appoint the FDS over all his belongings until he comes for judgement at the Great Tribulation, it is possible that he won’t appoint the GB because they may not ultimately be found faithful and discreet.
He believes that many Witnesses fall away because they do not confront the difficult questions now, so if they get hit by them, they are taken off-guard, unprepared, and hence easily stumbled. Great, I thought, I have quite a lot of difficult questions lined up, which I will carefully prepare for future meetings.
The root of his continued presence as a Witness is the question that if this isn’t the Truth, then who has it? Where else is there to go? I believe a great part of it is also a lifetime of friends and all his family are Witnesses. It will be interesting to see how he defends the FDS against the ‘false prophet’ charge, which I plan to address with him next time.
i don't mean you advised them and they changed their lives around, kind of saving a life.. i mean right before your eyes, right now, you had to do something to save a person or they would be dead.. how did it make you feel?
did it have any affect on you?.
forty years ago i was working on a construction site and a back-hoe had loosened a large boulder.
When I was 20, I saved two lives. It was during the International Assemblies in 1973. I had volunteered as a night guard at Twickenham (west of London) so didn’t get to hear much of the sessions as I was half asleep. So, as was common in those days (still is for all I know), you went to a second assembly to sit back and ‘enjoy’ the fine spiritual food. I went to Dublin, which turned out to be ironic because you could hardly hear a thing at the RDS. They had strung up speakers to virtually every pillar in the place and it sounded like a large train station with a dozen tannoys, all slightly out of sinc with each other.
Anyway, I joined a tour to the Wicklow mountains and we stopped at some picturesque spot to view the scenery. The tour guide warned us to be careful when going down this slope to get a better view of the gorge as the gradient drops rapidly, and under no circumstance should you run as you wouldn’t be able to stop and would quickly loose control.
The area was quite wooded with a path heading downwards. I started down it and the edge of the precipice must have been about 50-60 yards away, so I started a little trot, which soon became a run and I soon realised I was losing control, I couldn’t stop, so I learnt backwards and skidded down the rapidly increasing gradient – dust and stones were flying everywhere. After about 20-30 feet I came to a halt and thought, ‘wow, that guy wasn’t kidding’.
I looked back to be faced with a young lad about 12-13, eyes bulging, a look of terror on his face, hurtling toward me and ready to topple. I braced myself, leaned forward and did a rugby tackle around his waist as he ploughed into me, and we slid another 20-30 feet down the slope in another cloud of dust and stones. No sooner had we stooped there was a second kid, travelling even faster, with the same look of terror, but who also happed to be much bigger than his mate. I did the same tackle and we must has slid about 40-50 feet this time. We probably finished about 10 yards or so from the precipice, and I am convinced that if I hadn’t stopped them neither would have survived – the drop must have been a couple of hundred feet onto rocks and boulders.
They never said thanks, and I never saw them again (they must have been on a different coach to me). I have often wondered what became of them. Did they have a good and fulfilled life? Did they ever tell anyone about it? I didn’t, not even at the time, and nobody else saw it. But I didn’t feel heroic or anything. I guess I felt a bit disappointed that I couldn’t boast about it, but I knew the lads knew, and I also knew Jehovah had seen it and would reward me somehow, especially if I kept humbly quiet. On reflection, it was probably my fault in the first place, for starting to run. I guess they were just following me.
when rutherford assumed the presidency of the watchtower society he instituted series of sweeping changes to the teachings and practices of the bible students.
some of these changes were at complete odds with what had been taught previously.
a key example was the elevation of the watchtower society as "god's visible organization on earth".
Just as it has proved impossible for the WTS to predict correctly what God will do, I think it’s pretty much impossible for us to predict what the GB will do. Predicting the actions of deranged and deluded people is no easy task. I can’t see them ditching the name Jehovah’s Witness for JW, in spite of the KFC analogy. And I don’t think they’ll abandon The Watchtower either, although they may remove it from public distribution in favour of a new, glossy alternative with a title not associated with Jehovah’s Witnesses.
And I think they are worried about numbers, they always use them to support their claim for Jehovah’s blessing and direction on their activities, and I can’t see them abandoning that lightly, even if most of them are sitting on the fence.
Where I see changes more likely is in the consolidation of their role as the FDS, as they are paranoid about apostasy and need tighter control on the R&F thinking processes. As part of the 144,000, who will rule in heaven, it would not be such a big step for them to declare that they have now, while still on earth, been enthroned with Kingdom power. They are the Princes that will stand up in the last days. Their rock-start status will be enhanced and their demand for unquestioning loyalty will thus be cemented, and while this may lead to an exodus of the less indoctrinated, I doubt it will be anything like three quarters of them.
you'd think they could point to something right?
obviously we're the one true religion".. i can't fathom how anyone of any intelligence would be willing to join up with this org after doing even rudimentary research.. for years they have taught that it's wrong to seek advanced education or to plan for a "worldly" future by trusting in this system of things and then this past sunday the watchtower article rips on people for not planning for the future in regard to their elderly relatives.
maybe if they hadn't been teaching for 100 yr's that the end was "just around the corner" and telling us we'd better believe that fact...or else, we would have planned better for a future that you said without reservation would not even occur.. what mind blowing prediction can they point to that would convince someone "oh yeah..these guys have it right"...?.
End of the gentile times and the subsequent fulfillment of isa 2
As a matter of fact, the WTS did NOT predict the End of the Gentile Times. That was first(?) done by English Adventist John Aquilla Brown in 1823, before Russell was even born, who caluclated they would run from 604 BCE to 1917 CE. Recalculating they would end in 1914 was done by Second Adventist Barbour. The WTS had nothing to do with the origin of any of it. Jehovah 'revealed' it all to the Adventist movement first.
i ran across this recently.
so, i guess its my new favorite quote.
"the difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment' is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was 'involved' - the pig was 'committed'.
"I could agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong".
shower room.
office.
games room.
Marked
