of all the things that the watchtower has done wrong, what would you say is the singular most powerful thing that you could point a jw to, to crack their eyes open?
what is the singular thing that can be expressed bluntly and conclusively that might shock a jw to their senses?
if you could only carry one arrow in your quiver on your way to war with watchtower, what would it be?.
I believe that Watchtower's interest in the UN was that they were hoping to curry favor with the UN so that:
(a) They would be spared when the UN turned on religion.
(b) They would be the instrument that Jehovah would use to put his "one thought" in the mind of the UN to attack false religion.
i think that few parts of the bible can make you atheist or at least agnostic or at least kill your belief in the bible as infallible or the work of a loving god as comparing 2 samuel 24 with 1 chronicles 21. most people focus on the 1st verse, but there are at least 4 major and 1 minor contradiction in the chapter (they are parallel accounts).in the new world translation, 2 samuel 24 starts like this:.
24 and again the anger of jehovah came to be hot against israel, when one incited david against them, saying: “go, take a count of israel and judah.” .
notice that it is an impersonal "one" who incited david to do the census.
Hey, thanks for giving me a great idea for a question.
i never was a jw.
i was brought up in a fairly fundie sect (pb) and have been for many years an interested atheist.
i am an admirer of the work of bart ehrman (and recommend his blog).. from time to time, jws call at my door and invite me to partake in a 'bible study'.
Jesus and Paul didn't have last names. Back then very few people had surnames. Most people only had a first name and were distinguished from others with the same name by the use of descriptions that included things like, the name of their father, their occupation or the place they're from: examples: "Jesus of Nazareth", "Saul of Tarsus", "Joseph the carpenter", "Jesus the son of Joseph", "John the baptizer", etc.
that admission in the feb.17 ,study edition of the watchtower , " who is leading gods people today ?
" "the governing body is neither inspired, nor infallible, therefore it (they/we) can err in doctrinal matters or in organizational direction .".
have the many jehovahs witnesses past and present who have lost their lives by refusing blood transfusions due to the prohibition on blood tranfusions by jehovahs witnesses really got the sense of this statement ?.
Guys, guys, guys! Have you thought of this possibility: Some brothers in the writing committee are plotting a coup! They're plotting to overthrow the GB, and articles like these are meant to subtly condition JWs' minds for the day when the GB will be ousted. They're using careful wording to subtly and indirectly undermine the prophetic mystique that currently shrouds the GB.
for those who were never a jw, here's a fun guide to passing yourself as one:.
privilege [priv-lij] - a duty nobody would volunteer to do which is assigned to you without your say so.
such as cleaning the toilets, picking up other brats candy wrappers in the back row and being stuck on locking up duty for the 7th time in a row.. df'd [dee-eff'd] - disfellowshipped.
THE SLAVE - The actual publishers of Watchtower literature.
PUBLISHER - The actual slaves peddling Watchtower literature.
for those who were never a jw, here's a fun guide to passing yourself as one:.
privilege [priv-lij] - a duty nobody would volunteer to do which is assigned to you without your say so.
such as cleaning the toilets, picking up other brats candy wrappers in the back row and being stuck on locking up duty for the 7th time in a row.. df'd [dee-eff'd] - disfellowshipped.
NEED GREATER - A knee grater.
they wlll always have new people coming in but the majority of the congro's are getting older particularly the inner city ones were it is expensive to live.
they are struggling to get men to be elders and m.s's and this can only get worse as very few young ones stay around.
karter..
They're gonna start encouraging parents to study more with their children and provide incentives like telling them they can count field service time on such family studies and can record them as a bible study. They're also gonna start encouraging single-inclined sisters to get married and have children.
As bad as the defection rate among youth is, the success rate for creating JWs from the womb is still higher than that for creating them from the doorstep. So they'll just try to increase the JW reproduction rate and intensify the childhood indoctrination process.
for those who were never a jw, here's a fun guide to passing yourself as one:.
privilege [priv-lij] - a duty nobody would volunteer to do which is assigned to you without your say so.
such as cleaning the toilets, picking up other brats candy wrappers in the back row and being stuck on locking up duty for the 7th time in a row.. df'd [dee-eff'd] - disfellowshipped.
INDEPENDENT THINKING [pejorative] - The act of using one's own brain, unbridled by Watchtower reasoning, and arriving at conclusions that are at odds with Watchtower teachings. It matters not how valid the thoughts are and how foolish the Watchtower teaching is.
i remember a roman catholic priest acknowledging on the bbc that the outrageously anti-clerical tv comedy father ted was a humorous mocking of his church but an acceptable thing.. try mocking the jw religion to a believer and the result is so very different.. just why is it that jehovah's witnesses can never take even the faintest hint of criticism of their religion?.
Deeply ingrained religious pride. JWs have been indoctrinated with the head-swelling idea that they alone have the true religion and everyone else is in error and serving satan. They also tend to point scornfully and ridiculingly at all other religions, because of the errors they teach.
So in the JW mind, teaching truth is associated with being the true religion and accusing a religion of teaching falsehood is associated with labeling the religion as false and ridiculing it. They have been conditioned to think this way. So when you point out errors in Watchtower teachings to a JW, in his mind you're treating his religion with the same disdain that they treat other religions - you're accusing his religion of being false and you're ridiculing it.
Another important reason is that JWs are extremely patriotic - idolatrously patriotic - toward their organization. They have been indoctrinated to esteem the JW organization and it's governing body as being as essential to their salvation as faith in the bible and Jesus. To the JW faith in the organization is as important as faith in God. So they equate any criticism of the organization with blasphemy against God and see it as a threat to their spirituality.
To use a sports analogy: JWs are like fanatic supporters of a soccer team(Watchtower organization), who love and idolize the team more than the game itself(worship of God). Tell them you're not a soccer fan and they might be a little disappointed and try to convince you that it's really a great game. But tell them their team isn't all that good and get a good beating.
so as i have been waking up more and more over the past 3 years...i keep telling myself i'm fully awake and then i wake up more, but that's a different thread.
but anyway, i've noticed a lot lately that the wt does not mention jesus or christ very much in their literature and neither to jw's in their conversations.
they mainly talk about jehovah.
It's true. Jehovah's Witnesses have a purely doctrinal relationship with Jesus. They only mention him when they're discussing some doctrinal issue like refuting the trinity, or quoting Jesus' words to support some doctrine.
Outside of doctrine, Jesus isn't real to them. He is not in their hearts. Only Jehovah and the organization is in their hearts. That's why they always speak of provisions made available by the organization as coming from Jehovah and never give Jesus any credit. That's why they call themselves "servants of Jehovah" but never call themselves "servants of Jesus" even though that term is also scriptural since there are multiple NT references to Christians being slaves of Jesus Christ. That's why they speak of "Jehovah's Organization" but never speak of "Jesus' Organization".
For a group professing to be christian, they have a strangely distant relationship with Jesus - even for non-Trinitarians. When one reads the NT one sees the way the writers regularly mentions Jesus in the opening greetings of letters and in doxologies. JWs are nothing like that. They have a peculiarly strange and distant relationship with Jesus.
I believe the reason for this is that they have grown oversensitive in their self-righteous revulsion to the trinity doctrine to the point that they don't even want to give Jesus any legitimate praise or mention him too often for fear that they might be viewed as worshiping him or worst - appear remotely similar to other churches in christendom. They have been over-reached by their own hatred of christendom so that they have deviated to the opposite extreme from the Trinitarians, refusing to give Jesus adequate honor.
