i have some family and friends still in the organization.
i don't actively seek updates - my lovely contacts provide me with them unsolicited.
so far the updates have been reliable and confirmed sooner or later by subsequent developments.
I don't see it happening either (nor have I heard anything to that effect), for many of the aformentioned reasons.
And like Blondie, I vividly recall from the days of my youth the 15 minute intermission between the Public Talk and WT Study, 5 (or more) day Conventions, three-day circuit assemblies (Friday night and then Sat and Sun), complete with full meals cooked on site, and other features that, to a JW today, would seem like a tremendous burden - which is exactly what it was.
for fu@$ sake.
6000 years of it and still figuring out this universal sovereignty.
gimme a break.
Incidents like this tornado and its consequences are, frankly, easier explained by atheism. Taking God out of the equation makes such devastation and loss easier to understand, namely, that we live on a planet that is not always so nice to live on, and that powerful natural forces can do us in at any time.
No need to ponder 'why didn't God intervene' and 'why does he allow...?' and so on and and on, if there is simply no God.
in the jeremiah book this week there was this example used to bash further education.... .
12 a brother now serving at world headquarters was 15 when he was offered a scholarship to a university.
to his teachers dismay, he did not accept that offer, preferring a career as a pioneer.
Good point DOC.
These examples, just as biblical examples such as Paul, are in the minority, and yet constantly trumpeted as examples to imitate. How many first-century Christians did what Paul did? And now many modern-day JWs do what Jackson did and end up living the pampered life of a GB member, or, for that matter, accomplish anything noteworthy?
and why did you choose it?
if you have a avatar, what is it and why did you pick it?.
ok ill start.
Speaking of avatars, it's too bad this board doesn't have a Control Panel which would allow easy changes.
It used to when it was JWD.
During Google searches on jw-related topics, this site often comes up first. People then see these stupid-looking gravitars. It's a poor first impression for what is otherwise a very good place for searching jws and others to get some answers.
This is the only web board I know that has no way of altering it other than via another site, and even then you have to use the e-mail associated with your account here - an e-mail address I stopped using long ago and no longer can recall.
I know this board was closed and then re-emerged with this technically inferior version for cost and maintenance reasons, but I'd like to at least have a Control Panel.
page 8 of the latest wt (insider version) has a whole page dedicated to the question whether it is appropriate to sit next to a disfellowshipped child at meetings.. not sure how to paste this in, but check jw.org.
perhaps someone can do this for me.. horrible, no words really on how pharisee like their cult grip and control has become!.
first of all, without any shame they are talking about disfellowshipped minors.
ADCM Shirly wrote "If a JWs faith can be shaken so easily and they can be "stumbled" at the slightest thing, or will abandon the religion if they do a little research or critical thinking, it really shows how utterly weak the religion is."
Exactly. These people can't think for themselves. They don't know how to weigh their own "principles" and form them into a reasonable course of action or decision. They must be told everything.
I can just picture Jehovah's Little Judges in congregations, making a fuss of some kid sitting with his parents.
And this is yet another byproduct of an overly strict interpretation of scripture. The Pharisees had the same problem. Once you start regulating every behavior, questions arise, and the splitting of hairs (or the straining out of gnats) ensues.
well have they?
given that 'we are all imperfect and fall down many times' one would expect them to have made at least some mistakes since rutherford founded the jw religion.
as christians are supposed to be humble, including those who 'would be great among you', should we not have seen evidence of this over such a long time period?.
Designer Stubble, that's a great quote - and it could actually be used, virtually verbatim, to construct an apology by the Watchtower Society, since it covers most of what's wrong with the Witness religion, which also refers to others as "so-called Christians" and has clouded the gospel message with its own predictions and works-oriented approach.
my wife passed away 2 years ago we had been married over 30 years, i have since remarried and my new wife is younger than 3 of my children from my first marriage.
i just wondering if there are any more like me out there.
i stay in excellent shape for my age, work out almost daily eat good and have absolutely no medical problems or at least none i can do anything about, bad knees, but my vitals are excellent, and i am known as the teenage because of them when i have my yearly medical checkup.. so was wondering if there are others out there like me, and what some may think about it, just for the record i am extremely happy once again, and we have a 18 month boy who delights me, have a whole new outlook on fatherhood and child raising.
Funny, I know several really nice women who are markedly younger than me, and I too hit the gym and stay in good shape for a guy my age.
And yet, I'd just feel funny dating someone who was young enough to be my daughter.
However, that feeling is strictly personal, and I'm not saying it's off-putting or wrong for anyone else. It just feels odd to me.
Also, for me, the age of children she may have would be a factor. Several of the women I alluded to above have kids who are quite young. I wouldn't want to go back to that. I feel like I did all that and that I really don't want to raise kids anymore.
But again, that's personal, and I think it's fine if an older spouse wants to take on the responsibility of younger kids again.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/castro-brothers-spend-night-jail-article-1.1338131#ixzz2sjzrxozd.
In the words of George Costanza "This thing is like an onion. The more layers you peel, the more it stinks".
This story will likely verify that observation.
well the book they use to conduct bible studies is already showing its age, and just like the changes they made to the live forever book they are doing it to the bible teach book as well.
here is something i found on the kool aid site jw talk .
net:.
Bear in mind that these drawings are not depicting Armageddon. They're depicting conditions on Earth, all of which we've seen in various news accounts and films. We've all seen footage of starving people, for example. And photos of bombed-out cities especially from WWII are readily available.
These aren't the gruesome images based on the Society's expectations regarding Armageddon that we have seen in many publications, although I'd surmise that they could swap them in for Armageddon pictures quite easily, with destruction raining from above being the only real difference.
mine is rutherford.
the bible student movement of russell was badly splintered after the usurpation and was destined to fade away like the other russellite movements.
then judge joe decides to rebrand with 'jehovah's witnesses' and concieves of many different schemes designed to put his people into danger and gaining publicity for a sect that no one really thought about any more.
Reslight's comments do highlight a big reason why I personally don't hold Russell as responsible as Rutherford and subsequent WT leaders - there was freedom to disagree, and the Bible Students didn't claim to be organized "Theocratically", a notion which originated with Rutherford.
Without Rutherford, I think the entire history changes most significantly than it would have by subtracting Knorr or Franz or any other leader. In other words, by subtraction, removing Rutherford from the equation would have, in my theoretical scenario anyway, changed the organization the most because it would not have become so autocratic.
So yes, Russell started the whole thing, and the noose of 1914 is still attached, but I don't think that he in any way envisaged what we've seen from this religion since his passing.
