Posts by Journeyman

21

Examples of Watchtower flawed interpretation of Bible passages?

by Vanderhoven7 in

asking jehovah’s witnesses to interpret specific passages is a great way to demonstrate their interpretive abuse.

got any clear examples?.

Journeyman

The same brothers that preached anti-beard, now are all wearing beards. All because of the new mandate handed down by their leadership.

Oh God, yeah, the whole beards thing has been a farce from start to finish.

Firstly, the nonsense that having a beard was "inappropriate" or could preclude you from "privileges". Absolutely no scriptural validity to that at all.

And the best they could come up with was that resisting that "rule" was somehow an indication of not being sufficiently "obedient", which disqualified the brother because of his "attitude". Well, you could say that about any arbitrary rule you could set, like telling brothers they couldn't wear the colour blue, or no slip-on shoes, or something! Madness.

Then, after their volte-face on the subject last year, the way they had to make a big fuss about the change, "advising" how the R&F should view it, etc, showed again just how hung up they were on the subject. Likely, the recent GB members were embarrassed to even have to address it, but rather than just being honest and saying "this is silly, forget it" they had to make it out to be some great spiritual revelation!

And as Vanderhoven said, the pathetic way so many brothers then rushed to grow beards - including many elders - as if it was somehow something they suddenly wanted now that the GB had "approved" it. Pathetic.

All along I've thought the obsession with beards was ridiculous. I believe it dates back to the days of Rutherford wanting to put a clear distinction between "Russellites" and his own supporters. I remember seeing for myself a copy of one of the old publications from the 1930s showing Jesus as a clean-shaven blond bloke, like some kind of "Captain America" of the Heavens! 🤔
(Except I can't even say that now, as the new CA is black! 😅)

I would perhaps have vaguely understood if the Org's doctrine had been that brothers must wear beards, rather than that they shouldn't. That would have had at least some vaguely historical and scriptural justification. (Leviticus 19:27 and the Nethinim not shaving their beards.)

But "shunning" beards and treating brothers who chose to wear them as pariahs was just foolish and it was a completely pointless "rule" that hung over the brothers for decades. Give it a few more years and they'll probably deny it was even an issue, but that the R&F "misunderstood", or something like that!

11

Did you have a written schedule?

by karter in

jw
friends

the wts encouraged us to have one, i alway found it funny when people would desplay it where everyone could see it to show how busy they are in the lords work.. karter..

Journeyman

I missed this thread earlier - saw it and read it days ago, meant to comment, but it slipped my mind until I rediscovered it just now. (Maybe I should have put it on a schedule!)

I was never one for a schedule as such, but I did learn - from "secular" work especially once I got promotion to a team lead role, years before becoming a JW - to do some sort of scheduling or time allocation, though it's usually just jotting down a breakdown of time in a day/week eg:

Mon AM - do X
Tue PM before 5 - do Y

... and so on.
Specific enough to make sure I didn't miss the essentials, but flexible enough to adjust for the unexpected.

One thing I definitely NEVER did was set "spiritual goals". I never saw the point, especially as most of the "goals" described tended to be things like "go to Bethel" or "serve where the need is greater" and so on, which were more about serving the wants of the organisation than really growing as a person.

Meeting preparation I'd just fit in as and when, and as time went by it became easier as I knew the points and scriptures that would keep coming up and the meetings got dumbed down, to the point where I just skimmed the material before the meeting - or even an item or two ahead while at the meeting itself. I'd spend a bit more time preparing if I was the one doing the item, but they were all usually quite simplistic anyway, and I was never an elder expected to give a public talk or convention item. One of those 15 minute talks or 20 minute Q&A items from the old Kingdom Ministry was about my limit.

The things I thought really spiritually important - growing closer to God, better understanding the Bible, developing Christian "qualities" - perhaps strangely didn't seem to me to be things you could set a specific "goal" for. I saw them as continuous parts of your "journey" or way of life.

For example, it seems absurd to me to say: "This week I'm setting a goal to work on humility" - as if you're just going to train a bit then "perfect" that quality and move on to the next one. Yet that's exactly what the JW org recommends to the R&F, as if you can just neatly allocate time like that.

I do agree with StephaneLaliberte that the one skill I benefitted by from JW "training" was public speaking in front of a crowd. It came in handy in the workplace once I had to start giving presentations to groups of 100+ in an auditorium. The nerves were still there, but I knew how to control them and get on with what I had prepared, and was also better prepared to handle Q&As, ad lib or deal with distractions when the need arose.

3099

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)

by Simon in

jw
friends

uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

Journeyman

Yes, slim is right. Whenever I check his membership I always measure it against the baseline of 896 which was the peak he had back in November 2021 before he blew everything up!

If and when he reaches 300 (298, strictly speaking), he will have effectively lost two thirds of his peak support. He must be well aware of that, which is why he's been fighting to keep the number above that psychologically important baseline (and also because it would represent a new low in income - remember when he was bemoaning that he couldn't keep his "life-saving work" going if he had fewer than a certain number of followers?)

21

Examples of Watchtower flawed interpretation of Bible passages?

by Vanderhoven7 in

asking jehovah’s witnesses to interpret specific passages is a great way to demonstrate their interpretive abuse.

got any clear examples?.

Journeyman

Having said the above, let me talk about what I think the GB have definitely got wrong.

Matthew 24:45–47 is a major example for starters - perhaps the biggest - where I think the GB have overreached themselves.

Could the "slave" be illustrative of a group? Perhaps, but that does not mean it's them.

The verses say "the master" appoints the slave - not that the slave effectively appoints themself, which is what the GB has done, especially in recent years by displacing the rest of who they consider the 144,000.

Also, the slave is said to be looking after Jesus' "household", and is contrasted with a possible "evil slave" who would "beat his fellow slaves". The more the GB has been dogmatic and applied rigid rules and punishments over the years, the more they have separated themselves from that definition by default and tended to look like the latter description of an "evil slave" (which of course they themselves dismiss as not an option).

Importantly, the parable of the faithful slave has something else in common with many others from Jesus which the GB has ignored: the point in time when the "Master" appears.

In the parable of the virgins, the master/groom appears just before the wedding and goes into the feast.
In the parable of the sheep and goats, the master appears just before judgement to begin separating the two groups.
In the parable of the talents, the master appears at the end to reward each slave for how they've used the talents.

What's the common factor? That the master/groom arrives, coming from a long distance, near the end of events to render judgement/outcome.

So it's far more likely that in the FDS parable too, Jesus is talking about coming at the end of the system just before Armageddon to assess those claiming to represent him and reward faithful servants, not at some time that is now over 100 years ago! That faithful "slave", whether an individual or a group, is then appointed to feed the people after that time forward.

There are a wealth of scriptural reasons why the GB interpretation of the parable of the FDS is wrong. Another could be that it implies Jesus is going to wholly reward a single specific organisation, but the scriptures suggest that Jesus will take faithful ones from wherever he finds them, not just one single group. At Matthew 13, for example, the wheat are "scattered" among the weeds and indistinguishable until the "harvest". If the JW Org alone was the only one standing out, that would contradict those words.

21

Examples of Watchtower flawed interpretation of Bible passages?

by Vanderhoven7 in

asking jehovah’s witnesses to interpret specific passages is a great way to demonstrate their interpretive abuse.

got any clear examples?.

Journeyman

Of course, there are a number of teachings from the GB which I have my doubts about. But for me, there are also a lot of teachings from the JWs which are possible, but not dogmatically the only way of interpreting matters.

For some on here though, no JW interpretation of a scripture is ever acceptable and they "move heaven and earth" to prove everything they teach has to be wrong, probably to validate their own rejection of JWs.

A lot of Trinitarians tend to take that view too. They refuse to accept the wealth of scriptures that indicate the trinity is a wrong, coming up with increasingly far-fetched or stretched "explanations" to negate every verse that contradicts the trinity, or at least suggests that it may not be a correct understanding.

It's that kind of "counter-dogmatism" that I don't like either, any more than the GB's own dogmatic view that they themselves are right in everything.

For example, Biahi says:

My Bible, The Living Bible, has a footnote for that scripture. It says, “this scripture reflects Solomon’s discourage opinion at the time. It does not reflect God’s truth on the matter.”

What makes that quote in the LB any more valid an interpretation than the NWT using Ecclesiastes 9:5? The writers/translators of the LB have simply asserted that.

The JWs have at least developed a doctrine based on numerous scriptures regarding the dead which is internally consistent. Is it 100% absolutely correct? I don't know - I'm not God, and I've never died and been resurrected to "test" the idea. But it is no more or less valid that simply saying "yeah well, what Solomon said doesn't reflect God's truth".

Also, regarding this:

I wonder how they interpret the fact that we can grieve the Holy Spirit?

In Genesis, God says to Cain that his brother's blood is "crying out" to Him. Does that mean blood is a Person? https://biblehub.com/genesis/4-10.htm

Also, the Holy Spirit is said to be "poured out" in numerous Scriptures. Can a creature or person be "poured out" to a crowd of people? Two examples:https://biblehub.com/ezekiel/39-29.htm , https://biblehub.com/acts/10-45.htm

This article has more under the heading "Impersonal attributes of the Holy Spirit": https://www.ucg.org/learn/bible-study-aids/who-god/who-god/holy-spirit-not-person

So assuming personification from a phrase like "grieve the spirit" is, while superficially understandable, not necessarily correct. You need to read the rest of the context of how the Spirit is used, described and/or appears in heavenly vision, etc, throughout scripture. And of how God himself speaks and acts. For me, doing so makes it clear the Holy Spirit is something God uses, not a separate, independently thinking and acting entity equal to God and Jesus.

33

Do JWs see the org falling apart?

by ThomasDam21 in

i have been away from the jw cult for many years.

i don't have any family i talk to that are in it.

so i don't know if the jws as a whole are seeing the cult fall apart or if they or the majority of them are head in the sand la la la the end is neigh.

Journeyman

So yes, the question is valid

I'm not saying the question is not valid, and of course a child's question is perfectly reasonable because they (usually) want to learn and understand.

I was more perplexed by the supposed answer from the mother which, in JW terms, is completely "wrong". It's not even slightly off, as perhaps being a bit confused or missing some detail - like you say, a lot of JWs can't properly explain their own beliefs, especially in recent years. But no, it's the complete opposite of what they teach about the soul and death - as any glance at pretty much any "bible study" book they've produced in the last 50 years or more would show. It's basic "JW 101", as Americans might say - along with "what's God's name" or "who wrote the Bible".

You yourself almost kind of summed up the JW belief in the last paragraph in simple terms that could be used to explain to a child, when you said "God converts their [...]spirit into something that then goes to heaven". I would perhaps reword that as "God recreates/re-forms the person in the heavens as a spirit - with their memories, personality, etc" - to make it clearer from the JW theology perspective that strictly speaking they don't believe anything "goes up to" heaven - that humans don't have any eternal floating part of them that drifts off, and they don't take their physical body with them.

According to JW theology, what "returns to God" is the ability for a man to live again, the "breath" that He gives a human at the start of their life. In the Insight volume on Soul, it's explained as:
Eccl. 12:7: “Then the dust returns to the earth just as it happened to be and the spirit [or, life-force; Hebrew, ruʹach] itself returns to the true God who gave it.” [...] The text does not mean that at death the spirit travels all the way to the personal presence of God; rather, any prospect for the person to live again rests with God. In similar usage, we may say that, if required payments are not made by the buyer of a piece of property, the property “returns” to its owner.) (KJ, AS, RS, NE, and Dy all here render ruʹach as “spirit.” NAB reads “life breath.”)

That's also linked with Psalm 146:4 "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." (KJV) - so there is no thinking, no consciousness, that lives on separately. Only if God recreates the man - as either a spirit being in heaven or back as a material fleshly being on earth - will he live and have consciousness again.

Any JW who was even half paying attention to what they were studying should be able to answer that in brief at least, along the lines of the sentence you said, even if they can't go into detail about nephesh or ruach or whatever (which would not be necessary or meaningful to a young child anyway). But for a JW to say "a soul was inserted" that could then "go up to" heaven I just thought was... very odd.

Apologies, I'm not intending to derail this topic, but Vanderhoven did ask me to elaborate and I thought Anony Mous's comments were also worth following up on.

80

Flee to the Mountains......What Mountains?

by liam in

may 2025 study article 21 seek the city that will remain.

what i remember was, when you see the romans, flee to the mountains.

now the wt is saying that's not enough.

Journeyman

In past decades wasn’t WT teaching that the “modern fulfillment” of this fleeing to the mountains was Fleeing ,to, taking refuge in God’s Kingdom - the Mountain of Jehovah (Micah 4 :1,2)..?

Yes,, I believe that's right.

There are two types of reliance on "mountains" the WT org has mentioned. In both cases, "mountains" are claimed to be associated with earthly organisations. On the one hand, God's Kingdom - and the earthly expression of it in the form of the JW Org and its congregations - are seen by WT to be the "mountains" that "righteous ones" would flee to.

In contrast, the "worldly ones" would call upon human "mountains" to try to protect them in the end - any sort of human organisations separated and alienated from God. Obviously, those "mountains" would not provide the needed protection. They use Revelation 6:15-17 for this:
Then the kings of the earth, the high officials, the military commanders, the rich, the strong, every slave, and every free person hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And they keep saying to the mountains and to the rocks: “Fall over us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, because the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"

Isaiah 2:2 was also used to contrast these two types of mountains: "“And it must occur in the final part of the days that the mountain of the house of Jehovah will become firmly established above the top of the mountains" God's organisation supposedly represented by JW Org becomes "established above" other organisations. One WT from the 1980s I just looked up said:
"The symbolic mountain of Jehovah’s pure worship is becoming more prominent, so that meek persons can see how it contrasts with the sectarian “hills” and “mountains” of Satan’s permissive world. They “get out” of false religion and flee in growing numbers to Jehovah’s mountain of worship"

That's how I've always understood the Org to interpret these verses and the symbolism of "mountains".

It doesn't surprise me that they're "refining" this to increase emphasis on listening to and obeying the GB (to know which "mountains" to flee to), since that's the way everything is going now in their teaching.

33

Do JWs see the org falling apart?

by ThomasDam21 in

i have been away from the jw cult for many years.

i don't have any family i talk to that are in it.

so i don't know if the jws as a whole are seeing the cult fall apart or if they or the majority of them are head in the sand la la la the end is neigh.

Journeyman

The simple answer to the OP's question is that, no, no JWs who are even slightly PIMI are likely to imagine the Org falling apart. They may think it will be attacked ("persecuted") - in fact, if they're "real" JWs they should be expecting that - but they would never dream that it might be caused to break up or falter, because they believe unquestioningly that Jehovah God and Jesus Christ are 100% with the organisation.

As mentioned earlier, most are probably unaware of the looming legal cases against the Org in many countries, but even if they knew of them they would just say it's part of the anticipated attack on them by Satan's system.

However, for reasons that have been discussed before, I think that's arrogance and hubris. In fact, as time goes by I expect the Org to be caused to totter, if not collapse altogether, certainly in its current form. That's because I don't think it is "fit for purpose" nor is it properly doing God's will, and all the evidence from the past is that anyone claiming to serve God but who proves false to that has to be "disciplined" by him, and the more their falsehood is the result of arrogance, stubbornness or even blasphemy, the more severe is the discipline that God provides.

The other way of looking at it which many exJWs would say is, it's just a group of men anyway, in which case, yes, it's even more likely to just be broken up or to fall apart sooner or later. No organisation stands forever.

Vander, when I was a child, a sister at our hall died... etc

That whole account sounds very weird, since none of what you describe has been part of JW beliefs for decades, if at all. "Inserting a soul" into the body? JWs don't even believe the "soul" is something that can be "inserted" or can "fly up to heaven". And there is nothing in JW theology that is problematic about seeing a fleshly body in front of you after someone has died, not even if they're supposedly one of the 144,000. Sorry, I'm confused...

What can happen with many JWs is they simply mistakenly substitute the concept of "soul" with "spirit". By that I mean, they might talk about someone becoming a spirit being or being "raised a spirit" as Paul mentioned (as in the case of one of the anointed) but actually picture it in a similar way to what someone who believes in immortality of the soul thinks of when they talk about the "soul ascending".

It's actually very hard for us as humans to comprehend "nothingness", so holding onto some idea of a "part" that continues on and "goes out" of our body is very persuasive and can easily become ingrained, especially if the JW has had a previous upbringing of believing in an immortal soul too.

3099

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)

by Simon in

jw
friends

uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

Journeyman

This case could (and probably will) sit there until 2028 as the court will not close for failure to prosecute until 6 years from the date of the incident.

Ah, thanks for that update, Kim. I figur3ed it would be more likely years not months before any open case would be automatically closed, since most jurisdictions allow plenty of time (and even cases that are progressing can take a long time for documents and depositions to be made, etc). But there has to be a finite time, to prevent vexatious claims. Six years is very generous really.

However, the longer goes by, the more clear it is that the whole thing is dead in the water. With almost a year since any updates from the "plaintiff", and him apparently dodging being served papers by the court, the trail and the impetus have gone cold long ago. It's highly unlikely he will have the motivation, information or money required to keep going.

He's presumably just going to leave it to lie dormant then when it eventually expires, he will claim he was waiting on the court for something and the "glacially slow" Croatian system failed him. (Although SIX years is plenty of time to present a full case if there was one). Classic Lloyd move: do as little as possible then blame others for failure at the end.

21

Oral and Anal Sex flip flop? March 2025 Announcements and Reminders

by ukpimo in

just in.

a jaw dropping announcements and reminders for elders this month.

how can you serve as an elder and believe this organization is spirit directed after reading this letter?.

Journeyman

It's amazing how long they agonized over how to deal with something that could have been easily dealt with by minding their own business and staying out of the marital bedroom.

Well said.

"So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." Matthew 19:6/Mark 10:9 (NIV)

How much more intimate could two people become than "one flesh"? So of who else's business is it what sexual acts they mutually agree to engage in with each other? "No one", the verse clearly shows.

Were they 'scriptural principles' being expressed in the 1983 article or the 2025 article?

Good question. I don't know about the 1983 article - I haven't looked it up - but I would imagine it was more proscriptive back then. The recent 2025 article actually says nothing particularly helpful anyway. There's just a footnote that says:

The Bible does not provide details as to what sexual practices between a husband and a wife should be considered clean or unclean. A Christian couple must make decisions that reflect their resolve to honor Jehovah, to please each other, and to maintain a clean conscience. Generally speaking, a couple would not discuss with others this intimate aspect of their marriage.

Hardly much help to elders really. Better to just say something like "don't involve the elders in this aspect of your marriage unless there is an issue of non-consent", as there's not much "advice" they can - or should - provide in general. And of course from a secular viewpoint, if non-consensual sex acts in marriage are illegal in the country (as they are now in most advanced nations) that should be a matter for authorities trained in supporting victims of sex crime, not a bunch of unqualified "elders".

The only points I can make out that might provide the basis for advice are:

Paragraph 9: "Being sexually demeaning. Some husbands pressure their wife to engage in sexual acts that are demeaning and that make her feel unclean or unloved." That's linked to Ephesians 5 about husbands loving their wives as their own bodies, and

Paragraph 17: "He will not pressure her to engage in sexual acts that make her feel uncomfortable, that are demeaning, or that bother her conscience. He too will strive to maintain a clean conscience before Jehovah." The verse used there is Acts 24:16 about keeping a clean conscience.

It's true there is a significant strand of porn these days which focuses on degradation and humiliation, and the extreme forms of BDSM would seem to fall into that - many "worldly" authorities too are worried about the rise of those, for example with schoolkids now viewing stuff like that and thinking that's normal sexual activity. But beyond that, it doesn't really rule anything out. Certainly not "typical" oral or anal sex.