Posts by TerryWalstrom

a religious debate outside Starbucks. This was months ago. Since then, as unlikely as it may seem, the J-Dub and I have become fast friends! He is 20 and our discussions have been fruitful. He's done a tremendous amount of independent research about everything I've told him, and he's wide awake.

But, he isn't the only one discovering things. My eyes are being opened too--about the impact of present-day pressures on young J-Dubs to let go of all ambition in their lives!

My young witness friend is, of course, torn by his delicate status of being under age in an all Jehovah's Witness family. He wants to go to college, but he's being hard-pressed to Pioneer. He's 'going-along-to-get-along' for now, however much it is disturbing him internally.

In the course of learning the truth about the Truth, this young witness is having probing discussions with his contemporaries inside the organization. He's inquiring about what ambitions the young witnesses have for themselves.

When he told me a good J-Dub friend of his said, "I swear, all I want out of life is to be able to clean toilets in Bethel for the rest of my life," I just about fainted! He was upset by this as well.

The Watchtower Organization is running roughshod over the future by destroying the prospect for young witnesses of learning or improving in any way outside of indoctrination.

What could be a more insidious signal to the destructive force of Jehovah's witnesses than the erosion of self-improvement in its young people?

These kids are going to be ignorant, poor, and very dependent on the GB to guide their every step in the shabby, unfulfilling lives they have ahead of them. It's really going to be tough.

I personally find this hateful, poisonous, and misanthropic. . . and sad.

12

To Kill A Mockingbird and Prequel

by Socrateswannabe in

jw
friends

are you a fan of harper lee's "to kill a mockingbird"?

i read the book as a child and have read it many times since.

miss lee obviously wrote the book to entertain us, and she accomplished that.

TerryWalstrom

Not to worry. I don't know that these literary critics actually serve the literary community by not taking in to account many potential readers may be discouraged by the animadversions.

After all, the number of readers has diminished to the point Book Stores are becoming an endangered species.

I worked for a company called HALF PRICE BOOKS for almost six years and you wouldn't believe how the impact of digital availability has dealt a virtual deathblow to brick and mortar sales.

Margaret Mitchell wrote only one book, GONE WITH THE WIND and I think this sort of scarcity enlarges the reader base through a sense of exclusivity, specialness and such.

Getting people to read actual Literature is more and more difficult.

5

WHEN IN ROME DO AS THE ROMANS DO

by TerryWalstrom in

romans were pagans.. why wouldn't pagan romans use a pagan cross to execute jesus?.

should pagans have spared jesus a pagan means of execution?.

hell no!.

TerryWalstrom

ROMANS were PAGANS.

Why wouldn't Pagan Romans use a pagan CROSS to execute Jesus?

Should Pagans have spared Jesus a Pagan means of execution?

HELL NO!

So why doesn't anybody ever point this fundamental oversight out to Jehovah's Witnesses?

11

LEFTOVERS and STOLEN LIGHT (An historical look at Watchtower laziness and misadventure)

by TerryWalstrom in

should the chosen mouthpiece (gb) be a voice or merely an imitative echo?.

is new light original (because it is coming direct from jehovah) or is it leftover from the minds of men?.

watchtower magazine failed to release new light first, before any other religious person or body.

TerryWalstrom

http://pastorrussell.blogspot.com/2009/04/sign-of-cross.html

Saturday, April 18, 2009

The Sign of the Cross

The Two Babylons
Alexander Hislop

http://pastorrussell.blogspot.com/2008/09/cross-or-stake-stauros.html

17

WATCHTOWER AND BULLSHIT VIEWS ON SCIENCE (THE WATCHTOWER JUNE 2015)

by TerryWalstrom in

the watchtower june 2015 (bullshit).

the latest watchtower (online at j-dub dot argh!

) features a hilarious article.

TerryWalstrom

I have come to believe the ellipsis . . . was invented by divine providence so as to allow J-Dubs to teach

their timeless 'Truth.'

EXCEPT!! Read the following definition for the telltale sentence which rips the Watchtower's usage apart.

Ellipsis (plural ellipses; from the Ancient Greek: ἔλλειψις, élleipsis, "omission" or "falling short") is a series of dots that usually indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning.

22

Hitchhiking robot embarking on coast-to-coast tour across US

by TerryWalstrom in

hitchhiking robot embarking on coast-to-coast tour across u.s.. .

did you hear that, honey?

i dont have time for tv!

TerryWalstrom

The inventors have said they wanted to make this HitchBOT as 'friendly' and accessible as possible.

I think even the voice sounds like a Jim Henson character :)

11

LEFTOVERS and STOLEN LIGHT (An historical look at Watchtower laziness and misadventure)

by TerryWalstrom in

should the chosen mouthpiece (gb) be a voice or merely an imitative echo?.

is new light original (because it is coming direct from jehovah) or is it leftover from the minds of men?.

watchtower magazine failed to release new light first, before any other religious person or body.

TerryWalstrom

The WTS often referenced The Two Babylons and even published and distributed it! The same is true of The Emphatic Diaglott.

You'd think the GB would be aware of the contents so as to know the source of its arguments.

And they did, indeed know.

But, to suddenly pretend to receive a FLASH of light--as though no other origin existed--is deliberate fraud, imho.

12

To Kill A Mockingbird and Prequel

by Socrateswannabe in

jw
friends

are you a fan of harper lee's "to kill a mockingbird"?

i read the book as a child and have read it many times since.

miss lee obviously wrote the book to entertain us, and she accomplished that.

TerryWalstrom

I loved it. Beautifully written.

This book is closer to the 'truth' about her own father. In TKAM, Atticus was patterned after her sister, not her dad.

This book is placed AFTER the events of TKAM. It's not really a prequel.
The politically correct crowd have tried to torpedo this novel and I think that is a terrible shame.

Judge this book by its own merits. It's impossible to have an opinion about a book you haven't read.

11

LEFTOVERS and STOLEN LIGHT (An historical look at Watchtower laziness and misadventure)

by TerryWalstrom in

should the chosen mouthpiece (gb) be a voice or merely an imitative echo?.

is new light original (because it is coming direct from jehovah) or is it leftover from the minds of men?.

watchtower magazine failed to release new light first, before any other religious person or body.

TerryWalstrom

Should the chosen mouthpiece (GB) be a Voice or merely an imitative Echo?

Is New Light original (because it is coming direct from Jehovah) or is it leftover from the minds of men?

Watchtower Magazine failed to release New Light FIRST, before any other religious person or body. How can that be?

May 15th, 1995, Watchtower magazine carried a two-part study article recounting instances in the history of the Society when "New Light" flashed before them as the mouthpiece of God.

The Subject of Christmas celebrations and the new understanding of its pagan origins was revealed:

“Shortly thereafter, a flash of light caused the Bible Students to stop celebrating Christmas. Before that time Christmas had always been celebrated by the Bible Students worldwide, and its celebration at Brooklyn headquarters was a very festive occasion. But then it was discerned that the observance of December 25 was actually pagan and was chosen by apostate Christendom to make it easier to convert pagans.”

“Shortly thereafter” is in reference to the year 1926. This New Light must have come first through

this select body of True Believers, right? Wrong!

Alexander Hislop had published his peculiar book, The Two Babylons, a whopping 75 years prior to the time the Bible Students suddenly flashed on the truth about Christmas, in which Hislop painstakingly sought to build an argument about the Babylonish character of Christmas.

Three quarters of a century delay? How embarassing!

What else did this 1995 Watchtower article identify as New Light channeled through Jehovah's specially "selected channel"?

“For many years the Bible Students made the cross prominent as a symbol of Christianity. They even had a “cross-and-crown” pin… For decades this symbol also appeared on the cover of the Watch Tower magazine. The book Riches, published by the Society in 1936, made clear that Jesus Christ was executed, not on a cross, but on an upright pole, or stake.”

Yet, in 1858 Alexander Hislop used the same reasoning and examples to put forward the same conclusions as the "New Light" of 1936 in the Watchtower. Why fail to credit Hislop's jump start on this conclusion? Why claim it as their special revelation?

The plot thickens, however!

Even in their own errors about the "meaning" of scriptures the Watchtower fails to be first in releasing and understanding either New Light or its later revised "correction"!

“A bright flash of light was seen in 1962 in connection with Romans 13:1…The early Bible Students understood that “the higher powers” mentioned there referred to worldly authorities. They took this scripture to mean that if a Christian was drafted in wartime, he would be obligated to put on a uniform, shoulder a gun, and go to the front, to the trenches. It was felt that since a Christian could not kill a fellow human, he would be compelled to fire his gun into the air if worst came to worst. The Watchtower of November 15 and of December 1, 1962, shed clear light on the subject…”

This 1962 flash of light corrected--not the Bible Students understanding--but, the wacky false New Light by Watchtower Society's President J.F.Rutherford!

Commenting on Romans 13:1 in the July 1st, 1931, Watchtower, Rutherford said:

“Until quite recently God’s people understood…that this scripture has reference to worldly ruling powers. Those who have withdrawn from the Society still hold this wrongful view. Now, however, the faithful remnant clearly see that this scripture has no reference to any part of Satan’s organization but does apply exclusively to God’s arrangement in his organization for his own people. Those who refuse to see this truth and who oppose the statement of The Watch Tower concerning it have seized upon such as an excuse and have dropped out and have gone into the dark.”

Wow! A double whammy of error and never the first to get it right!

Let's review another instance of real foot-dragging coming to a flash of New Light.

Until 1973 Bethel did not prohibit smokers from becoming baptized Jehovah’s Witnesses.

That changed with a flash of light. Watchtower’s new light classified casual smokers in the same category as practicing fornicators, greedy persons, idolaters, revilers, drunkards and extortioners, which were the sorts of persons the inspired apostle said, should be removed from the congregation.

The Mormon leader Brigham Young, however, beat Jehovah's Anointed channel to this New Light in 1833's Words of Wisdom revealed by the Lord Himself!

Add to this the fact the Pastor Russell merely adopted 2nd Adventist's peculiar theories that Jesus

had already returned invisibly and Pyramidologist's crackpot ideas about the Great Pyramid revealing 1914 as the Armageddon of the bible!

Should we feel embarassed that the Faithful and Discreet Slave do NOT give Jehovah's domestics "food at the proper time" because they only serve LEFTOVERS?