Posts by TonusOH

39

I've done it: Christmas Lights Outside

by StephaneLaliberte in

lets see if that causes a problem.

i've been inactive for a very long time now (like 10+ years), so, i don't expect to hear anything from it, but my parents are worried i'll get df.

lets see what happens.

TonusOH

I'm not sure I see the problem with following the world, in this context. Paul may present it as a dichotomy, as an all-or-nothing choice, but it doesn't have to be that. Not being bound to a religion, I can pick and choose what I want to do or not do. Each of those decisions could be described as 'following' something. We're social animals, after all; belonging to a group is built into us.

I chose not to follow an organization that is too controlling and has policies that I find unsafe and unhealthy. If that means I am following the world, then following the world doesn't seem like such a bad option.

10

Would You Get A Cease and Desist Letter From the WT if You...

by NotFormer in

jw
friends

...put a christmas wreath that featured the jw.org logo on your door?

🤔.

TonusOH

I'm not sure there's anything they can do, if you are doing that on your personal property. If it got enough media attention, they might make a public statement clarifying their view on Christmas (which might be the most worthwhile thing to come from such an action). But I don't see how it would be a copyright issue. And defamation would be a very steep hill for the organization to climb, at least in the USA.

6

Suing the Borg

by JohnR1975 in

what would be the best way to start suing the borg?.

what kind of evidence would you need for this elf is still physically in?.

here is someone suing them https://youtu.be/wr2dpxm7cc0.

TonusOH

What is the basis of the lawsuit? An individual filing a civil suit would need to demonstrate that there was harm done, and --at least in the USA-- courts are wary of protecting religious freedom. A case that seems open-and-shut can run into a wall very quickly, here.

19

Who Directs the Activitie$ and Doctrines of the Hovering Body?

by Sea Breeze in

jehovah’s witnesses boast that theirs is a “spirit-directed organization”.. see w88 3/1 pp.

10-17 (my life in jehovah’s spirit-directed organization).

they believe that their deceased founder, charles taze russell (who faced legal action by his wife for inappropriate behavior in his maids bedroom), is directing the modern-day work of jehovah’s witnesses.. after the founder, c t russell died, it was stated that he was still directing the work from heaven.. "though pastor russell has passed beyond the veil, he is still managing every feature of the harvest work.

TonusOH

Talk about a gradual progression! They went from saying that Russell was definitively guiding things from heaven, to suggesting that some body of heavenly elders was doing the job, to not being inspired at all.

I thought the path of the righteous was like the light of the dawn, growing stronger in understanding over time? The WTS appears to be going backwards.

26

JULY 15TH STUDY EDITION :"If ever that evil slave..." page 24

by raymond frantz in

box on page 24 of the july 15th titled :"if ever the evil slave....".

jesus has placed the weightiest of responsibilities on the faithful and discreet slave-namely,overseeing the domestics and giving out spiritual food atthe proper time.

jesus knew that those with greater responsibility have greater accountability.

TonusOH

The WTS explanation is (was?) that the master arrived in 1919 and named the leadership of the WTS as the F&DS.

This was the group of men responsible for providing spiritual food in the critical last days.

...and almost nothing that they taught over the next 10-30 years is condsidered "truth" by JWs today.

11

P Diddy list of names

by liam in

no wonder the left was furious when elon musk bought twitter.. someone leaked some of the names of the epstein files before they went public.

the complete list is still pending.

doesn't matter if it's the governing body, celebrities, politicians, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, the royal family, and more, are just ordinary humans who lust for sexual ..............!!!!!.

TonusOH

What does the "P Diddy list" contain? Names of people who were at his parties? Are the lists specific? Which is to say, are they useful aside from driving gossip?

It appears that Combs is going to spend the rest of his life in prison. Even if he doesn't, he's facing so many lawsuits that the attorney fees alone will probably bankrupt him. With nothing to lose, will he name names? Either for leniency or out of spite? Will he "hang himself" while closely guarded?

13

Unchangeable wisdom from the "slave" of yesteryear! 😀

by BoogerMan in

brethern, and cistern, today's lesson from the golden calf is one of profound importance - never to be forgotten!.

w56 6/15 p. 360 - "we usually believe what we want to believe, and one thing we like to believe is that we do our own thinking.

they plant the thought and nourish it, but do it so subtly that we think it is our own.

TonusOH

Vidiot: Any lawyer cross-examining a GB member these days would fucking eviscerate them.

One need only look back to the Australian Royal Commission when they questioned Geoffrey Jackson.

13

Unchangeable wisdom from the "slave" of yesteryear! 😀

by BoogerMan in

brethern, and cistern, today's lesson from the golden calf is one of profound importance - never to be forgotten!.

w56 6/15 p. 360 - "we usually believe what we want to believe, and one thing we like to believe is that we do our own thinking.

they plant the thought and nourish it, but do it so subtly that we think it is our own.

TonusOH

More from the Walsh trial, the cross-examination of Fred Franz:

Q: Yesterday's errors cease to be published do they?
A: Yes, we correct ourselves.
Q: But not always expressly?
A: We correct ourselves as it becomes cue to make a correction, and if anything is under study we make no statement of it until we are certain.
Q: But may one not assume that Judge Rutherford did not publish until he also was certain?
A: He published only when he was convinced, and he withheld publication until he was convinced that he was correct.
Q: So that what is published as the truth today by the Society may have to be admitted to be wrong in a few years?
A: We have to wait and see.
Q: And in the meantime the body of Jehovah's Witnesses have been following error?
A: They have been following misconstructions on the Scriptures.
Q: Error?
A: Well, error.
[...]
Q: And that Judge Rutherford took the view that man came upon this earth in 4025 BC?
A: 4124 BC.
Q: What is the present view?
A: One hundred years have been taken off.
Q: What was Pastor Russell's view?
A: Pastor Russell had an extra one hundred years in there.
Q: So that that date has been altered three times, has it?
A: The date has been corrected.
Q: But once the date was published by the Society all Jehovah's Witnesses were bound to accept it as Scripturally true?
A: Yes.
Q: And liable to be disfellowshipped if they demurred to the date?
A: If they caused trouble over it, because the Scriptures say that if anyone is a disturber inside the congregation he is hindering the growth of the congregation and its activities and should be disfellowshipped.
Q: Even though he perchance were supporting the date now taken by the Society, when the Society was publishing a wrong date?
A: One who may have a difference of understanding like that will wait upon Jehovah God to see if he is correct, and he will abide by what is published for the time being.
Q: But if he so awaits and understands he is correct what is he to do?
A: He gets a blessing because of his submission and waiting upon Jehovah and not leaving it to his own understanding.
[...]
Q: BethSarim was, was it not, a mansion in San Diego kept for the second coming of some of the Prophets?
A: Kept for the resurrected Prophets.
Q: Namely who?
A: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Moses, and so on... Daniel.
Q: Was that in the days of Judge Rutherford or Pastor Russell?
A: No, that was in the days of Judge Rutherford.
Q: Were the whole body of Witnesses instructed to accept that the mansion was being kept for this purpose?
A: Yes.
Q: What has come of the mansion?
A: It has been sold.
Q: Why?
A: Because it was there, and the Prophets had not yet come back to occupy it, to make use of it, and the Society had no use for it at the time, it was in charge of a caretaker, and it was causing expense, and our understanding of Scriptures opened up more, and more concerning of the Princes, which will include those Prophets, and so the property was sold as serving no present purpose.
Q: Am I right that it was at one time forecast that in 1925 Abraham and other Prophets would come back to earth?
A: They were expected to come back approximately then.
Q: But they did not come?
A: No.
Q: It was published, was it not, to the body of Jehovah's Witnesses that that was to be expected in 1925?
A: Yes.
Q: But that was wrong?
A: Yes, and Judge Rutherford admitted it to the Headquarters.
[...]
Q: I understood the position to be - do please correct me if I am wrong - that a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses must accept as a true Scripture and interpretation what is given in the books I referred you to?
A: But he does not compulsorily do so, he is given his Christian right of examining the Scriptures to confirm that this is Scripturally sustained.
Q: And if he finds that the Scripture is not sustained by the books, or vice-versa, what does he do?
A: The Scripture is there in support of the statement, that is why it is put there.
Q: What does a man do if he finds a disharmony between the Scripture and those books?
A: You will have to produce me a man who does find that, then I can answer, or he will answer.
Q: Did you imply that the individual member has the right of reading the books and the Bible and forming his own view as to the proper interpretation of Holy Writ?
A: He comes--
Q: Would you say yes or no, and then qualify?
A: No. Do you want me to qualify now?
Q: Yes, if you wish?
A: The Scripture is there given in support of the statement, and therefore the individual when he looks up the Scripture and thereby verifies the statement, then he comes to the Scriptural view of the matter, Scriptural understanding as it is written in Acts, the seventeenth chapter and the eleventh verse, that the Bereans were more noble than those of Thessalonica in that they received the Word with all readiness, and they searched the Scripture to see whether those things were so, and we instruct to follow that noble course of the Bereans in searching the Scripture to see whether these things were so.
Q: A witness has no alternative, has he, to accept as authoritative and to be obeyed instructions issued in the "Watchtower" or the "Informant" or "Awake"?
A: He must accept those.

13

Unchangeable wisdom from the "slave" of yesteryear! 😀

by BoogerMan in

brethern, and cistern, today's lesson from the golden calf is one of profound importance - never to be forgotten!.

w56 6/15 p. 360 - "we usually believe what we want to believe, and one thing we like to believe is that we do our own thinking.

they plant the thought and nourish it, but do it so subtly that we think it is our own.

TonusOH

The cross-examination is just brutal. Franz definitely understood the implications of perjuring himself...

Q: I may assume, may I, that you, yourself, have anxiously and carefully studied the whole literature of your movement from the beginning?
A: Yes.
Q: Am I right that you put what is described as the end of the time of the Gentiles in October, 1914?
A: Yes.
Q: Is it not the case that Pastor Russell put that date in 1874?
A: No.
Q: What date did he fix?
A: The end of the time of the Gentiles he fixed as 1914.
Q: Did he not fix 1874 as some other crucial date?
A: 1874 used to be understood as the date of Jesus' Second Coming spiritually.
Q: Do you say, used to be understood?
A: That is right.
Q: That was issued as a fact which was to be accepted by all who were Jehovah's Witnesses?
A: Yes.
Q: That is no longer now accepted, is it?
A: No.
[...]
Q: So that I am correct, I am just anxious to canvas the position; it became the bounden duty of the Witnesses to accept this miscalculation?
A: Yes.
Q: In what form was the miscalculation corrected?
A: When we reached the date 1914 and the world developments went forward, then we say that we had not understood some of the prophecies correctly. Therefore, we saw that there was a need for a review of our beliefs respecting how the prophecies would be fulfilled.
[...]
Q: I thought, correct me if I am wrong, that you had agreed that between the matter being considered by the editorial committee and finally by the Presidend it was a matter of consideration by the Board of Directors, am I right in that?
A: The Board of Directors read the publications and they conform to them.
Q: Do you mean they must accept the editorial committee's interpretation?
A: That is true. There is to be no disharmony among the members of the Board of Directors both as members of the Board and also as Christians.
Q: Do you mean by disharmony that there can never be any difference of view as to interpretation?
A: If there is not an understanding that is in accord then there is the discussion in order to arrive at agreement.
[...]
Q: Are [Russell's Studies in the Scriptures] still issued as authoritative by the Society?
A: No.
Q: Why not?
A: Because we have advanced in the greater life, and there have been corrections in our understandings of the Scriptures.
Q: In other words again some of those pronouncements of Pastor Russell as to interpretation of the Scriptures were in error?
A: Yes.
[...]
Q: And [Rutherford] took the view, did he not, that Satan is the God of this world?
A: Certainly.
Q: And that the British Empire was the sent of this beastly organization?
A: I heard him say that very thing in the Royal Albert Hall in 1926.
Q: Does the Society still take that view?
A: No.
Q: So that once again Judge Rutherford preached error?
A: He didn't preach the full round-about truth of the matter.
Q: In that particular, not putting too fine a point upon it, he was in error?
A: He was in error.

20

I need to vent sorry!

by KerryKing in

i couldn't get back to sleep last night, something my father said a few weeks ago popped into my head.. we were talking about obtaining citizenship, he doesn't need it, but was contemplating what benefits it could get him now he's a pensioner.. background : i've been disfellowhipped for 15 years, i was born in, he is an elder, very much pimi, he was also born in.. i said to him how citizenship would be difficult for him as it would require him to swear allegiance to the state?.

oh he said, thats just a crowd of people together in a big room for the swearing in event, it would be easy to just mumble or say nothing, nobody would know.. this has quietly been eating away in my mind, why did it bother me?.

last night it hit me, when i was in my first year of school, age 5, i came out of school one day with a balloon with two little pencils attached, a gift from a classmate who's birthday it was, every child got one.

TonusOH

Remember how the GB treated brothers in Malawi versus brothers in Mexico: On the one hand, even an insignificant act was seen as too political to allow, a view that led to the most horrific suffering of JWs in Malawi. On the other hand, convenience was far more important than integrity, allowing brothers in Mexico the option of paying illegal bribes to government officials instead of refusing military service.

Asking the rank-and-file to maintain their integrity to the very last is dishonorable, when the organization asking this is willing to put aside its integrity and honor for the sake of convenience.