Hi YouKnow,
I will agree that you have some good points. I do think that people will justify what they want to for selfish reasons and choose not to do Gods will and twist scripture to achieve such goals. However, I do have some questions regarding the Society being totally inspired by God. I have a hard time believing that everything the JWs put out is directed by Holy Spirit. We live in an imperfect world. The Watchtower Society is not immune to this fact. Even within the Org. there are corrupt people. People who are living "double lives" as it is put. We just may not see it or always know about it, but it does exist. There are cases of child abuse, pedophilia, family members being shunned by family members, freindships ripped to shreds, Elders who think that they run the congregation and we should follow them, a million and one opinions flying around as to interpretation of scripture, even with the Society's take on the matter, people being judged continuously, maybe we weren't at enough meetings this month, or we did not put in enough hours of service, so therefore, are considered bad associates this month, maybe you won't get congregation priviliges because you decided to have a vasectomy or sister so-and-so can't pioneer because she had her tubes tied and maybe it wasn't for a good enough reason, I could go on and on and on. My point is, I believe that individual people may be blessed with Holy Spirit because of wholehearted belief and application of scripture in their lives. Of course, nothing is perfect or fool-proof in this system. And I am not saying that all that is required is being a "good person". I think we have to have works to accompany this. The Bible says so. But, why would God bless an entire group just because they are what THEY say they are?? What about the people within who are flat out turds? Yes, they will be judged by God, as will the rest of us. But are we going to be destroyed just because we did not belong to the right group or because of the way we led our lives??? I could be wrong, but somehow I just can't beleive that God is that shallow.
Sorry to ramble on, some of this was hard to put into words.
You're thoughts?
Thanks,
Vita