Some are doubting because of the fact that Watchtower uses COs to keep a tight rein on elder bodies. But keep in mind that the rumor is not "end of the Circuit Overseer", but rather "end of the Travelling Overseer". With the advent of JW.org Watchtower doesn't need to have Overseers travelling from congregation to congregation to oversee matters. Watchtower can simply require elders to do all their bureaucratic paperwork electronically, online at JW.org, so an overseer can keep tabs on congregations' records electronically without having to physically visit the congregation and look at actual physical paperwork. The CO meeting with the elders can be done by way of a teleconference VIA internet with streaming video and cameras. The CO talks to the congregation can be replaced with a pre-recorded video talk or video presentation. Watchtower gets to maintain all their control without the expense of paying for persons to physically travel to each congregation.
Island Man
JoinedPosts by Island Man
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86
JW Rumor: End of the Traveling Overseer
by Edison Trent ina friend of mine has contacts to a family with several circuit overseers and special pioneers.
they have good connections to bethel.. he told me that the latest rumor from bethel states that the cos should be abolished in their present form.
they have also recently begun to take cos back to bethel.. over the same channel i have already heard of the car fleet program and that the dos should be abolished.. has anyone else already heard of it?
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Watchtower Study Today from August 2017 issue " Wait Patiently"
by BluesBrother intheme scripture , james 5 v 8 abbreviated to " you too, exercise patience".
(i guess we know what to expect now) .
" how long?
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Island Man
I found it ridiculous that they held up Jehovah's display of patience as being a great example that should motivate us to be patient. According to what the Bible teaches, humans have exhibited far more patience than the Bible records Jehovah as ever showing. How so? The Bible says that 1000 years to us is just as 1 day to Jehovah. So the 6000 years of human history - according to the Bible / JW chronology - is just as a mere 6 days to Jehovah! If Armageddon comes 1000 years from now, Jehovah would have had to wait, from his perspective, a mere 7 days to see his original purpose for the earth and mankind fulfilled. A mere 7 days! How much patience does it take to wait 7 days, compared to the patience that many humans exhibit by waiting years! Because of the great difference in time perception, Jehovah is no example of patience to humans. On the contrary, humans are an example of patience to Jehovah!
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J.W.'s reliance on Matthew 24:14
by The Fall Guy invirtually every j.w.
will gladly tell you that matthew 24:14 proves that only they are god's true people/religion, because they are the only people preaching the good news worldwide today.
crucially, they double-down on this lame bet by adding that their worldwide preaching proves another wtbts teaching, namely, that we are living in "the last days.
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Island Man
I always understood Jesus' - and then later Paul's words - to refer to all the nations in the then known world - not necessarily every single nation in the entire globe.
Well the Bible writers certainly don't say "the world as we know it now" or "the lands we know of so far". No. They very plainly and explicitly say: "all the nations" and "all creation under heaven". These plain, explicit statements are clearly wrong, and constitute clear evidence that those writings weren't inspired words of an all-knowing god but entirely the work of fallible, ignorant men who lacked knowledge of civilizations outside their limited Afro-Euro-asian worldview. There is no hint of knowledge, in the Bible, of the existence of North, Central and South America which was inhabited by civilizations of people during the first century. If Romans and Colossians truly were inspired by God then Colossians 1:23 and Romans 16:26 wouldn't be saying what they're saying.
But of course Christians can't bring themselves to acknowledge this evidence so they have to come up with spin to explain away the clear, explicit error, and justify their continued mental slavery to the idea that these books are inspired by God.
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Waking up to TTATT: Blessing or Curse?
by Jules Saturn inif you take the red pill, you'll have knowledge, you'll be awakened, aware of reality, you'll have freedom.. if you take the blue pill, you stay in your bubble, wearing rose colored glasses, and feel security in an illusion.. taking the red pill isn't something that's easy to do.
to accept that everything around you is an illusion built up on lies or half truths.
but hey, it might feel good to be aware and break free from this illusion.
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Island Man
Having a firm grasp on reality is always better in the long run. Truth is always superior to ignorance and ignorance is always superior to error. The JW way is error-laden. When you live a life of error, you're trying to live a life that defies reality because error is that which is discordant with reality. Reality will not bend to suit your error. Rather, your error-laden life will bend or break in the face of indomitable reality.
It is better to know and learn to cope with unpleasant reality, than to hide from reality behind comforting delusions. When you acclimatize to unpleasant reality you're on a good foundation to achieving a resilient kind of happiness - one that is used to the adversities of the real world and endures in spite of them. But when you acclimatize to pleasant delusions your happiness comes crashing down in a very painful and traumatic way when you're eventually forced to confront unpleasant reality. Many don't survive that crash mentally or even physically. That's why it's so much better to never have been living in the delusion to begin with, and that's why waking up can be so painful.
So my conclusion is this: The red pill is obviously better. But ironically, taking the red pill brings the very pain that you're seeking to avoid. You just hope that it would be less painful taking now that if reality forces it on you in the future. It's better to take the red pill now, knowingly, of your own free will than to have reality unexpectedly shove it down your throat at some later date, choking you to death in the process. Better yet, don't try to swallow the damn pill in one go. Chop it up in little pieces and mix it in with your favorite ice cream or something.
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Does Morality Exist?
by Fisherman insome people believe that stealing, lying and killing, is not moral.
some people don't.. does morality exist?
if so, prove it..
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Island Man
I think that if morality exists, it must be defined. Proving that it does exist will define it. That is what I am looking for.
Morality has no existence outside of our own definition of it. It exists because we define(d) it! It does not exist "out there" to be discovered and defined. It exists "in here" - in our minds. Morality exists in the abstract because we have defined it.
Morality exists in much the same way as the purchasing power of money exists. Money has no true value in and of itself, independent of what we all choose, collectively, to ascribe to it. The purchasing power of money is imaginary - a shared delusion, and a very useful one at that. We all agree to ascribe it with value and use it as a convenient means of trading goods and services. Morality is like that. Societies choose to ascribe preference and antipathy to certain actions based on rational and irrational reasons and they label such actions as being either moral or immoral on that basis.
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Does Morality Exist?
by Fisherman insome people believe that stealing, lying and killing, is not moral.
some people don't.. does morality exist?
if so, prove it..
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Island Man
Morality is an abstract concept. It's a classification that humans invented to group actions as being either prefered or to be avoided, based on various reasons such as superstition, culture and wellbeing. Morality is not a thing that is objectively real. It is an intangible concept/label that exists to the same degree that other abstract concepts/labels exist.
What is moral can be delineated based on irrational reasons such as blindly following ancient traditions based on superstitions, religious edicts, blind obedience to authority (The "might is right" principle and most theistic religions subscribe to) etc, or it can be delineated based on sound, rational reasons such as determining what is objectively harmful vs what is objectively beneficial to individuals and society, as a whole.
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Has Watchtower been hacked?
by FatFreek 2005 in"there are two kinds of companies in the world: those that know they've been hacked, and those that have been hacked and don't yet know it.
" robert hackett, fortune.
but how about watchtower?
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Island Man
What makes you think they've never been hacked? If they were hacked, do you think they will make that public? -
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Jehovahs witnesses that believe its "The Truth" vs JW's who know it isn't
by Christian Gutierrez inhey guys!
what do you think is the percentage of jw's believe that it is the truth and the percentage of those who think it might be some false or all false??
?.
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Island Man
I think well over 90% of JWs believe/know that the Watchtower currently teaches some falsehoods. They only have to look at the fact that their teachings have always undergone changes, to conclude that it is likely they will have more changes in the future, which would logically mean that some current teachings are in error.
The problem is that they value loyalty to the organization more than loyalty to truth, so the fact that Watchtower teaches falsehoods is brushed off by them as no big deal because "imperfect men" and "the light gets brighter" and "wait on Jehovah" and "where else can we go?". They hypocritically criticize other religions for the errors they teach, while bending over backwards to concoct all manner of ridiculous rationalizations to excuse the errors that have been taught and continue to be taught by Watchtower.
They also stoop to the ridiculous practice of measuring their errors against those of Christendom and arbitrarily judging theirs to be forgivable based on bias. They tell themselves that their errors are somehow purer than the errors of Christendom so God will turn a blind eye to their errors but punish Christendom for theirs because ... because they use the name "Jehovah", and preach from house to house, and don't believe in the immortality of the soul, and don't celebrate birthdays, and Jehovah has an especially soft spot in his heart for these particular things and as a result he will overlook all their other hypocrisies and errors and injustices on account of them. Because Jehovah plays favorites when it comes to errors, you see. He hates the popular errors that Christendom teaches but he loves the obscure, weird errors that JWs teach.
It all boils down to patriotism. JWs have been brainwashed into becoming blindly patriotic toward their organization, in much the same way that some are blindly patriotic to their country or to their soccer team or to their political party. You cannot reason with such people. Facts don't really matter to them.
I think it's possible that as much as 20% of JWs no longer believe it's the truth, but continue on for purely social and family reasons. Many subscribe to the philosophy that "even if it's not the Truth it's still the best way of life". They use this reasoning to justify continued membership in, and support of, the organization. They are willing to pretend that it's the truth and not rock the boat. They may tell themselves that even if it's not God's organization then it's the least false of all the false religions.
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What actually happened AFTER Jesus zoomed up into the clouds and disappeared?
by TerryWalstrom inwhat happened after jesus zoomed up into the sky?for a while, he was expected to return rather quickly.in the meantime, there was the “great commission” and evangelism to be tended to.. the jesus believers were meeting in people's homes.
members of that community would take turns using private homes to gather.
thus, they went house to house.. these footstep tracers of jesus (they called themselves akolouthontes "followers" or some called themselves mathetai or "learners.
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Island Man
I believe it's quite possible that the claim of Jesus' resurrection was in fact a hoax involving the stealing of his body from the tomb. That would explain why one of the gospels claims that the soldiers were paid to lie saying that his body was stolen. Maybe the soldiers didn't lie. Maybe that is, in fact, the truth and the writer is claiming that it's a lie to poison the minds of new, prospective converts so that they will disbelieve the stolen body truth when they hear it from critics of the religion. JWs do the same kind of thing today to their bible students: "People will tell you that we break up families and we're a cult. Don't believe them it's all lies by those who hate us".
It's very interesting that gospel accounts relate that Jesus' disciples had trouble recognizing him after his resurrection. Another NT book suggests that the identity/recognition of the resurrected Jesus was kept hidden from most but revealed only to a few chosen ones. Think about it: This claim would be extremely convenient for explaining why no one noticed Jesus alive after his death - because he was never actually resurrected. His disciples can simply answer that refutation by saying no one saw him because his identity was kept hidden from all but a few. In other words, this hidden identity claim serves to make the claim of Jesus' resurrection unfalsifiable - at least from the perspective of persons saying no one saw Jesus alive after his death. And here's the best part:
Resurrection hoaxing disciple: "Of course you saw Jesus. Do you remember that man you were speaking to on the road to Emmaus? That was Jesus! You didn't recognize him because his identity was miraculously kept hidden from you. But that was Jesus - you spoke to the resurrected Jesus!!"
Gullible disciple: "I did? . . . I did . . . I saw the resurrected Jesus! I SAW THE RESURRECTED JESUS!!"See how that could work? What if the bulk of the 500 witnesses whom the bible claims saw the resurrected Jesus, were persons that were duped in a manner similar to the example above, using the hidden identity claim? What if, in a desperate bid to keep the religion going after the death of the historical Jesus, a hoaxer impersonated the resurrected Jesus; and the hidden identity claim was concocted to serve as cover for the fact that he didn't resemble the Jesus that all were familiar with? When people want to believe it's not hard to deceive them.
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Will Watchtower target the inactive?
by ToesUp inif watchtower has no reason to df ones.
they have just become inactive.
do you all think wt will begin a witch hunt (df'ing) for these inactive ones?
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Island Man
Yes, I think it's possible that they will target inactive ones. But they won't use the word disfellowship. They will want to make it seem like it's all the doing of the inactive one. They will more likely say that such ones have disassociated themselves by virtue of their extended, willful inactivity. Maybe they'll institute a new policy that says an inactive one disassociates himself if he remains inactive for more than x years.
This will serve to plug the hole to leaving through fading. And they can say that they don't punish anyone for being inactive, nor do they force anyone to continue attending meetings and field service, but that they respect person's' right to choose to be inactive or to choose to disassociate by extended inactivity.
I think they will use it as a tactic to force fading JWs into returning. When the faded JW's time is coming close to the period where he will be classified as disassociated, the elders will call him and inform him that his non-attendance means his disassociation from the organization - along with all the negative implications - is imminent. They will ask him if this is what he wants or if he wants their help to be reactivated so that he can continue to have association with his JW family.