Posts by Syme

28

how do you feel about the use of the name Jehovah now?

by enoughisenough in

for those who still believe in god and the bible, how do you feel/think about the name jehovah now?

i am one who never wanted to bring reproach on god's name.

i will admit using the word jehovah now makes me feel rather icky...like i am promoting a lie of sorts.

Syme

My opinion is this: the name Jehovah is one of the hundreds of possible combinations for the Tetragrammaton. But even if it was the 'correct' one, Jesus opened up our view of God into what we now know as the Holy Trinity. Sticking to the Name so exclusively after Christ is basically heresy, as it implicitly (or explicitly in the case of JWs) denies the Trinitarian God by focusing solely on the Father. In any case, the Name was exclusively used (or not so much) by the Jews before Christ. It was never used by Christ or the apostles, despite what the JWs claim. Lastly, the obsession of JWs with using it in every second sentence, even if we leave aside the Trinity, is a gross violation of the Third Commandment.

That being said, I don't consider it a 'verboten' name. I sometimes still utter it in my prayers. I do however think it is misguided to focus exclusively on it.

46

New light: the GB are infallible

by AEnEm in

amazing new light in the latest morning worship by gary breaux.

the gb "never lie or deceive us.

we can have absolute trust in the governing body".. he then makes a very helpful point, so as to avoid being deceived and avoid lies.

Syme

They'll never explicitly claim to be infallible, but they just teach the sheep to obey to them as if they were infallible, including when they flip-flop doctrine.

To paraphrase Orwell, the Org has the ability to perpetuate belief in its infallibility while learning from its mistakes.

13

JW's in the Hot Seat in Czech Republic

by Sea Breeze in

looks like things are heating up in the czech republic over the horrifying practice of shunning children that ask the "wrong" questions.

kids now days have access to all of the watchtower's lies, manipulations, unnecessary deaths, flip flops, rejection of jesus as mediator etc, etc.

i predict this issue of shunning children will continue to threaten free government money that the wt receives.

Syme

On the one hand, they have to do something about the sh*tstorm of lawsuits which has gained unprecedented momentum in recent years. On the other hand, if they ditch shunning completely they will collapse.

The important thing is they keep shunning apostates. From personal experience, and I'm sure you've known the same, it doesn't really matter if one who is DF'd for smoking or fornication, but otherwise continues to believe in JWs, is shunned or not; they can ditch the shunning there with little cost. They will even advertise it to throw courts off their trail. But if they ditch shunning for apostates.. well. The "matter of conscience" trick will work for non-dogmatic DFings, but for apostates they have to keep a tight ship. That's where the legal battles must target to.

27

Quality of jw.org translation?

by Wonderment in

someone asked the following question to an artificial intelligence (ai) website:.

how does the most translated website ensure accuracy of translations?.

answer: .

Syme

This refers to the translation of their own material, not the Bible, for which AI will have a different opinion, I suspect, as the NWT is generally considered not good translation.

No one ever accused the Org of not having a big enough translation team or being lazy with translation.

As regards to translation of jw website and magazines, when the source material is garbage, the meticulous translation will be meticulous translation of garbage, not a big deal.

The problem with NWT is not the laziness of the translators, but the dishonesty which led to deliberate changes in the text to fit the JW sectarian dogma. Which, if one believes that the Bible is the word of God, is not just dishonest but Satanic, really.

As for Fred Franz, he is vastly over-respected as a Biblical 'scholar', even among former jws. It is actually funny to even compare him to actual scholars from the 2,000 year old Christian history.

55

If JW is not the truth, then what is the true religion?

by TxNVSue2023 in

even though i'm disfellowshiped ( & i belive wrongfully so).

i still belive this is the truth.

i have been d'f for about 8 months now and working on reinstatement.

Syme

Dear brother,

Jesus was very specific when we told his disciples that he would be with them ALL days until the end of times. This discards any "Great Apostasy" theory. Combine this with the fact that just as the 12 apostles were ordained by the Holy Spirit, similarly the episcopes were ordained by the Apostles and thus by the Holy Spirit, and this was to continue (As Paul instructs Timothy, who was ordained by him, to ordain other episcopes in turn.) Thus, you must find which Church has a continuous existence from 33 AD to 2023 AD, and at the same time continues the apostolic succession, uninterrupted.

282

How Will They End 1914 Teaching?

by EmptyInside in

i'm sure this has been discussed, but 1914 has to go away.

instead of, the overlapping generation teaching, they should have just ditched 1914. .

they should have done that a long time ago with 1975. it's the last of the teachings in the charles taze russell era.. i'm thinking they just will stop talking about it, and it will be out of the mind of the rank and file loyal witnesses .

Syme

If they ditch 1914, they'll have to ditch the Gentile Times prophecy, and the Last Days in general, but JWs without eschatology have no reason to exist. An alternative would be to just move End of Gentile Times to another date. They could for example accept the historical consensus about the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC; that would give them 20 years of breathing time, and pass the hot potato to the next generation of GB; this sounds cynical enough for the GB to adopt. The problem, though, would be that every WT magazine has constantly fired against the historical date of 587 BC in favor of their baseless 607 BC. Changing that would be a huge flip-flop, but it wouldn't be news.

34

Elders are no longer teachers

by eyeslice in

jw
friends

back in the day when i was a young witness lad, you very much got the impression that at least the training as theocratic teachers was good.. even the bible reading back then had a short introduction and conclusion.

you had to research and prepare your own ministry school talks and then perhaps you would graduate to a half of a 55 minute public talk.

then later if you were a book study conductor, you got to decide which scriptures to read and highlight.

Syme

The elders' only remaining role, teaching having been effectively abolished and preaching having been reduced to giving out business cards and standing still next to carts, is to keep sending the cash flow (mainly this), and deal with anyone that is not a complete automaton.

23

2022 WTS Numbers

by blondie in

jw
friends

2022 grand totals.

branches of jehovah’s witnesses: 86. .

number of lands reporting: 239. .

Syme

The number of baptized continues collapsing: good
The partakers still going up despite the best efforts of the GB: good, makes them look ridiculous
The annual growth is consistently below 1% since 2019: good
The pioneers continue to go up: neutral. It means those that remain are more prone to talibanization. Who cares.
Memorial attendance down. With the exception of the first year of the pandemic (2020), it hasn't been that low since 2013.

All in all, it hasn't been a bad year! More blessings to come!

30

Did it ever become unbearable to attend another Kingdom Hall meeting?

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

it's becoming unbearable for me to attend another meeting.

i dread coming to the weekly sunday public talk and watchtower study.

the talks are ''repeats'' of a ''repeat.

Syme

For me, it became reeeeally unbearable when I heard a talk about the Flood, having read about evolution, and the arguments made were so stupid.. that I just couldn't take it anymore.

26

How many preaching hours are real

by Hellothere in

how much of the preaching hours in yearly report you think are real?

they always have high numbers preaching hours.

probably increase every decade.

Syme

Let me tell you a story:

A young pioneer couple was travelling by car to go to their place of vacation.

Every hour or so they passed a toll booth station.

They gave the unfortunate toll booth worker a leaflet or something.

They counted the whole trip as preaching. 6 or 7 hours.

They talked about it like it was something really smart that they had come up with, and something to be proud of.