I don't see a gulf at all in my congregation. Some Witnesses might be wary of some particular elder because of his attitude or hypocrisy, but there are plenty of "beloved" elders too who seem kind and are adored by the R&F. Unfortunately, as Phizzy said, they are all company men, and when push comes to shove, they will uphold the Society's harmful policies like disfellowshipping, and not feel badly about it (in most cases).
Apognophos
JoinedPosts by Apognophos
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18
Is there now a HUGE gulf between most R&F and the Elders ?
by Phizzy inthis was a question that sprang to my mind as i watched raypub's (eric's) j.c video.
can't wait for the rest of it by the way !.
it was so obvious that all those on that j.c, like i would think 99.9% of elders , put loyalty to the gb/wt before jehovah, jesus the bible or truth.. they are simply company men through and through.. the average r&f jw seems to me to believe they are serving god, and that comes higher on their list than the wt, you can see this by the way they pick and choose which of the myriad rules they obey.
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FB message from a "true" friend
by losingit ini thought i would share this fb message from someone who considers himself to be a "true" friend of mine.
after learning from my former husband tha i am disfellowshipped, he writes the following: .
fb true friend: "xxxxx with tears in my eyes i will be deleting you but i want you as my sister again.
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Apognophos
Awake! 6/8/2003 made this comment: "AMONG the greatest gifts parents can give to their children are unconditional love and a set of values that the parents live by and do not just lecture about."
A reader responded to this in the 2/8/04 issue:
I was surprised by the statement in the opening paragraph of the second article of the series “What Has Happened to Values?” (June 8, 2003) It stated: “Among the greatest gifts parents can give to their children are unconditional love and a set of values that the parents live by.” When children and adults act as if they are entitled to one another’s love, values will always decline. --K. B., United States
“Awake!” responds: The phrase “unconditional love” was used to suggest that parents should not imply that their love for their children is fragile or tenuous—that it might be withdrawn at any moment because of some failing on the child’s part or that the child is obliged to earn parental love by doing everything just right.—Ephesians 6:4; Colossians 3:21.
Wow. I believe what the Watchtower did here is called "stepping in a big ol' pile of doody". It's not even the stepping in it that's the nastiest part, it's having to deal with the clean-up afterward. In this case, their attempt to justify the phrase "unconditional love" actually makes it worse.
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The Organic ROBOTS of JEHOVAHVILLE
by Terry inthe watchtower society started out as a loose nit and totally independant agglomeration of customers who.
bought books and magazines.
what they did with them was their own business.
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Apognophos
"We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."
The Borg are a well-known fictional race of aliens in Star Trek, however they are not "a" race, but rather individuals from thousands of races that have been assimilated into the Borg Collective, their previous memories and personalities being suppressed.
The purpose of the Borg is to achieve perfection by combining all knowledge and distinctiveness into their "species".
The Borg are not, in fact, led by a Queen, as casual viewers of the movie Star Trek: First Contact might believe. Indeed, the idea of a single person ordering around the Collective goes against the very definition of the Borg as a hive mind. They have no leader, but are led by general group consensus, and the Queen speaks for them.
The Collective has a wide sphere of influence in the galaxy, and completely controls their followers to the point of removing their sense of initiative, with the effect that a Borg drone will ignore anything that it is not told to pay attention to, such as a Starfleet officer walking up to it with a phaser.
Borg drones can be "de-assimilated" by removing their central cybernetic control implant and giving them time and counseling to recover their memories and personality from their life before assimilation. Removing the rest of the implants is often medically impossible or difficult, but removing some can help the former drone recover a sense of "humanness" (or whatever race they hail from).
The Collective have a weakness in that they are slow to adapt since they need to share information across a large network before comparing opinions.
While the similarity is not 100%, there are a few common points, eh? Unfortunately the Borg are not something that can be wiped out as such, only partially destroyed and set back before adapting with their remaining drones. As such, they are less a group and more of a "technological virus". The Witness organization represents something like a "mind virus", as they fill various sorts of needs for various sorts of people, and even long after those people have left, there are still more people who have the same need(s) and can fall victim to assimilation.
It would be nice if the Borg had a simple on/off switch like Data the android, but being organic, they run off of the energy of their mortal body just like we do. I wish I knew how to at least disable their central command implant, or cut them off from communication with the organizational command structure!
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The rise and rise of Paul Gillies?
by JWB inthe rise and rise of paul gillies?.
here are a view details about the 57-year-old paul stuart gillies.. .
2011: appointed as a director of international bible students association (ibsa) on 2 november having resigned as a director of watch tower bible and tract society of britain on the same day.
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Apognophos
FWIW, he did conduct himself well in a situation where most people would be sweating bullets. The image of the dead woman is on a screen while he's talking. That either takes a lot of practice, a lot of sincerity, or a sociopathic personality. Possibly two out of three. But he's definitely GB material.
I'm surprised that he didn't mention that 'Yes, these kids lost their mother, but God resurrects his faithful servants so they'll actually have her for an eternity now'. He only briefly mentioned the resurrection hope in a way that didn't really convey this point. Perhaps he knows from experience that to bring up the resurrection hope might seem glib or in poor taste, or else he doesn't want to imply that she'll be resurrected when we know that 'probably we may be concealed from God's anger'. Or perhaps he simply believes that giving up one's life is what we're supposed to do even in the absence of a reward from God, so the resurrection is just so much undeserved kindness and isn't relevant to the motivations of a Witness.
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Lurkers/faders in the US - a heads up on next week's service meeting (Warwick HQ project to be discussed)
by cedars inhi folks.
atlantis has very kindly let me see a copy of the aug 21, 2013 letter to all bodies of elders in the united states.. they are being instructed to re-organize the service meeting for the week commencing september 2nd (next week) to include a special recruitment talk to attract skilled volunteer workers for the new warwick hq.. an interesting feature of the letter is its comparison of the project with nehemiah's rebuilding of the walls of jerusalem.
considering the relocation of hq is financially motivated more than anything, the analogy is more than a little bewildering.. here is a scan of the opening comments of the two-page outline, to be given in the next local needs item.... .
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Apognophos
I was surprised by how much time the brother in our Hall devoted to the introduction likening the new HQ to the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. I wondered how many JWs were buying into this analogy considering that it's completely bonkers.... A more appropriate scripture for a simile would be Jesus' parable of the rich man and the storehouses.
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Inspection in 1914 under celestial war ?
by trackregister99 inrecently, the wt says that jesus inspection of spiritual temple begin in 1914.. but, the same wt says that 2 month before appointment of jesus as king, satan begin the opposition, reflected with the begin of 1st world war.
then, when jesus was king, what time was jesus for inspect if he is warring with satan?.
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Apognophos
Heh, hadn't thought about that. Jesus is obviously a great multi-tasker. Also, don't forget that when he wars with Satan, he's called Michael the archangel. If you didn't know better, you'd think they were two different people!
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Why did we failed to see the rather obvious signs?
by greendawn inwhen we decided to accept the jws something drew us to them perhaps the belief that they had the truth and they could provide a refuge from the so called armageddon.
or it could be the need to belong somewhere or to associate with (ostensibly) spiritual people as was the case with me.
but why (unlike many other interested persons) did we miss the many rather obvious signs that there was something fundmentally wrong with this organisation so as to save ourselves a lot of trouble in the future when deciding to leave it?
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Apognophos
Santa is technically a little more real than Jehovah, if you think about it. At least someone gives presents to you as "Santa". They're physically real whether you believe in the presents, or Santa, or not. Whereas praying to Jehovah does diddly-squat except in your own mind, and any good thing that happens and gets attributed to him is actually just random happenstance with no intent behind it.
This is a good thread; I had attempted to ask the same question in a thread of my own several months ago, which didn't go as well, but we came up with many of the same answers. There's clearly no one reason why people are drawn to the religion, but it's a reflection of our own personality (a need to feel special, something I felt myself; a place to belong; fearfulness about the world; etc.), as well as perhaps some naivety at the time of contact with the JWs. Of course it's a bit different for us born-ins, but it's largely the same deal.
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"You knew what the consequences were when YOU decided to leave The Truth. This is YOUR decision and the outcome is YOUR responsibility."
by nicolaou inhow many of us have had to deal with a version of that retort?!
it's hurtful and i suspect - for some - that's partly because of the nagging feeling that our families may have a point.. but do they?.
i was 15 when i got baptised, is it reasonable that as the 50 year old man i'll be on my next birthday i continue to be held to a decision i made as a schoolboy?.
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Apognophos
I still think AnnOMaly's YouTube clip on page 2 summed up the entire issue perfectly.
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Kidnaper of 3 Cleveland women - his mom a JW
by Gayle inhttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/castro-brothers-spend-night-jail-article-1.1338131#ixzz2sjzrxozd.
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Apognophos
Isn't the ratio of Witnesses to non-Witnesses in the US higher than 1:200 (like 1:170)? If you factor in non-Witness or ex-Witness relatives, the odds may be that one in 40 crimes has a Witness connection. I fail to see what the purpose of this topic is. Since there's no obvious connection that's surfaced between this guy and a congregation, it's safe to say that he has more in commmon with the people on this forum than with the religion as an active member.
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Apognophos
The JWs tend to believe that the earliest of the early Christians were just as the Witnesses are today, that is, the JWs believe they are modeled after the original Christians. So naturally they expect that those Christians will be in paradise (keep in mind, though, that being in paradise is not the same as "being saved" in other religions; the "unrighteous" are also supposed to be resurrected so they can be tested at the end of the Thousand Years with everyone else).
The dividing line for Witnesses is somewhere in the 3rd or 4th century, definitely by the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325, since that's when "apostate" teachings were officially mixed into Christendom's doctrines. By that time, as far as JWs are concerned, Christians were no longer Christians.