AlanF

Anna said:
That's true of a surprising large fraction of seemingly righteous JWs.
     
You just proved 4Jah2me's point. A long time ago a prominent elder explained to me that negative suggestions from the Society are not merely suggestions, but commands from God not to do something. That's what language like "they would be working against the holy spirit" means. Where have you been?

The hypocrisy and doublethink are just breathtaking!

You're asking questions impossible for JWs to answer without exposing the contradictions inherent in their worship of the Governing Body, i.e., their equating its words with God's words. They get to the heart of whether JW elders are actually appointed by holy spirit, or merely in the self-deceiving sense that the Pope is appointed by holy spirit.

TrueTomHarley engages in his usual gross, transparent hypocrisy. Having posted a very long 'article' to which I responded in part, he said:
This is not only gross hypocrisy, but a fine example of Orwellian doublethink.
Below are a couple of excerpts from an article I wrote around 1992: "Thinking Ability and the Watchtower Society": https://critiquesonthewatchtower.org/old-articles/2006/02/thinking-ability-and-watchtower.html
First excerpt::
https://critiquesonthewatchtower.org/old-articles/2006/02/thinking-ability-and-watchtower.html#geo
<<
George Orwell's View
An excellent description of the tyranny of authority carried to an extreme, and of the mental gyrations required of its subjects, was given by George Orwell in his 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (Remember "Big Brother is watching you"?). He described a totalitarian society called Ingsoc (from 'English Socialism') in which a supreme state had imposed a kind of theocracy on the populace -- in effect, had created a "Kingdom of Heaven on earth." The novel was intended as a serious warning about what could happen if certain totalitarian trends that Orwell saw developing during and shortly after World War II were allowed free rein. The supreme group at the head of the state was the Party. In order to insure that everyone thought along Party lines, the Party carefully altered facts to suit its present situation, and rigorously trained people to go along with it. Orwell wrote:
    Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth. [Part 3, Ch. II; p. 252 hardcover; p. 205 paperback]
In order to ensure that whatever the Party held to be truth was rigorously followed, a thought process called doublethink was enforced. Doublethink, as Orwell conceives it in Nineteen Eighty-Four, "is a vast system of mental cheating":
    Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies -- all this is indispensably necessary. [Part 2, Ch. IX; p. 215-6 hardcover; p. 176-7 paperback]
>>
Second excerpt:
https://critiquesonthewatchtower.org/old-articles/2006/02/thinking-ability-and-watchtower.html#geo
<<
In practice, whenever clear errors in organizational teachings or policies are pointed out to Witnesses, they will either refuse to acknowledge them or deny their importance. They deny it even to themselves, to avoid an intolerable internal conflict between what they know deep down to be the truth and what they have been taught. The denial is automatic and almost unconscious, because they have been trained this way from their earliest experience with the Watchtower Society. The process is strongly reminiscent of another kind of mental gymnastic George Orwell described in Nineteen Eighty-Four:
    A Party member is required to have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts. Many of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him are never plainly stated, and could not be stated without laying bare the contradictions inherent in Ingsoc. If he is a person naturally orthodox (in Newspeak a goodthinker), he will in all circumstances know, without taking thought, what is the true belief or the desirable emotion. But in any case an elaborate mental training, undergone in childhood and grouping itself round the Newspeak words crimestop, blackwhite, and doublethink, makes him unwilling and unable to think too deeply on any subject whatever.
    .... The first and simplest stage in the discipline, which can be taught even to young children, is called, in Newspeak, crimestop. Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity. But stupidity is not enough. On the contrary, orthodoxy in the full sense demands a control over one's own mental processes as complete as that of a contortionist over his body. [Part 2, Ch. IX; pp. 212-13 hardcover; pp. 174-5 paperback]
>>
Naturally, TrueTomHarley and a few others, applying doublethink and crimestop, will pretend not to understand this material.

Srecko Sostar said:
That's right, and is according to standard English word usage. "Jehovah's Witnesses" is a proper noun, a name. "Jehovah's witnesses" is a generic group claiming to be witnesses for Jehovah, which of course, any group can do.
Exactly!
This is completely lost on braindead JWs who think they're serving Jehovah rather than the Watchtower Society.

Wow! TrueTomHarley, aka Vic Vomidog, here quotes himself several times, after mistakenly taking me to task for quoting myself. Of course, he had simply misread my post.
A process like that has been going on a lot longer. Until some time in the 1960s DF'ings were announced with something like "so and so has been disfellowshipped for fornication". At some point, I don't remember exactly when, that was changed to "for conduct unbecoming a Christian". At least one lawsuit was brought for libel or whatever, resulting in simply "has been disfellowshipped", to avoid liability for defamation.
But that's exactly what it is. Such conduct is precisely what pegs the JWs as a "high control group". I.e., a cult.
It is rarely necessary. It is also more than a bit arbitrary. I've seen cases where one judicial committee decided to disfellowship, and upon appeal another reversed it. Occasionally the Society itself is called in to resolve the matter.
In theory, yes. In practice, it's often simply a punishment visited upon someone by corrupt elders, or even corrupt Watchtower officials.
The "well-being of the congregation" is entirely subjective. Many JWs have quit and disappeared into the woodwork, only to find years later that some corrupt elder from his old congregation--even a decade later--has tracked him down and initiated DF'ing action. Something like this happened with my wife, so don't tell it doesn't happen.
It can't. But the Society is completely hypocritical about this. It has a specific policy that if someone quietly becomes inactive, elders should leave him alone. This is usually the case, but not always. There is always the chance that corrupt elders will actively pursue the person and try to DF him. Such a person has no chance that an appeal will reverse the DF'ing. And often his relationship with still-JW relatives is permanently ruined.
To be consistent, the Society would have to have a policy where someone simply leaving the cult would be officially designated as "no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses" and shunned accordingly. But that is even more cultish than the present policy is, and the Society knows it. A policy of "you cannot leave without dire consequences" would result in massive lawsuits, being a Mafiaesque policy.
Those scriptures are grossly misapplied. 1 Corinthians 5:11 has Paul telling people to avoid mixing in company with "anyone called a brother" who violates certain moral standards. But if someone leaves the cult and fails to do the various normal JW activities, JWs no longer view him as a brother, and so, following the Bible's words, such a person should logically no longer be subject to congregational ostracism.
Nonsense. It is the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, through its various subsidiary corporations, that directs congregation members. If this Society changed its corporate policies on DF'ing and all manner of other things, all congregations would follow--on pain of DF'ing for "ignoring Lordship" or something like that.
Ah, a better statement of "the Watchtower Society's words are the same as God's words" can hardly be found. As the May 1, 1957 Watchtower said (p.274):
<< If we are to walk in the light of truth we must recognize not only Jehovah God as our Father but his organization as our mother. >>
That's all pretense. Every JW knows, on some level, that even if he can demonstrate from the Bible that some Watchtower teaching or policy is unscriptural, he must follow the Watchtower Society, on pain of disfellowshipping. The Society's direct violation of Jesus' commands in Luke 21:7-8 proves it.
As I told a Watchtower official 20 years ago, if the Society cleaned up its act with regard to three things--blood, child abuse and disfellowshippiing--almost all opposition would dry up. There's virtually no chance of that, and opposition will continue.
That would be a good thing, especially in view of the Society's policy of encouraging very young people to join the JW cult. A young person baptized at 10 years of age should not be held to adult standards of conduct, nor be disfellowshipped--not for any reason. Such a young person had no real understanding, on an adult level, of what baptism means--an explicit and apparently legally binding joining of the JW cult.
Totally and self-servingly wrong. The gross brainwashing characteristic of JWs means that they only think they're obeying God rather than men. But the fact that when the Watchtower Society tells them to believe something the opposite of what they had believed, or to act in an opposite manner, proves that it is the Society, not the Bible, that controls their minds.
Yes, we're having coffee together.
Some do, some do. So what?
[ Irrelevant ramblings deleted ]
My experience was quite the opposite. By age 24, in 1975, I was not the least interested in being a "servant" of any kind. Nevertheless, I was appointed as a Ministerial Servant. How? One Thursday evening, during the Service Meeting, and without ever having told me, the Presiding Overseer announced, "Alan has been appointed ..." I was quite angry but held my peace, and began duties as the Accounts Servant. I swallowed my resentment.
But I was painfully aware that, contrary to Watchtower teaching, I had NOT been appointed by holy spirit. In fact, it was that breach of my free will that helped me understand the Society's deception on "appointment by holy spirit". I saw plenty of exceptions to that rule.
So as usual, TTH/Vic, you don't know what you're talking about. You're much like what God did in the Bible story of "Balaam's Ass".

Arauna completely missed the boat again:
Arauna had claimed that mutations in humans over a long period of time would have resulted in their extinction by now. Therefore humans must have existed for a short time, presumably the 6,000 years allowed by the Watchtower Society. I gave the above comment as part of a proof that her reasoning was unsound.
Rather than dealing with my entire disproof, Arauna sidestepped all of it with the irrelevancies below, most of which I've chopped out since they have nothing to do with our discussion.
So once again, Arauna, if your reasoning is correct--that humans that originated 4-6 million years ago would have gone extinct by now due to excessive accumulation of mutations--how do you explain the fact that the cat sub-family that has existed for some 5 million years still exists?

Obviously you can't answer any of my challenges. You're dishonest to the core and too incompetent to say anything about science.

Anna said:
Yes, I'm 68 years young. I would have thought you could figure that out from comments like, "I dun gradjiated 6th grade in 1963".
Apparently so.

TrueTomHarley said:
Ooh, TTH is obviously jealous of my knowledge.
My "likes" are approximately like saying I like certain comments about witch-doctoring and astrology and Velikovskyism and all manner of goofy, nonsensical belief systems. For example I very much like what a JW-critical author said some 50 years ago:
<< A long acquaintance with the literature of the Witnesses leads one to the conclusion that they live in the intellectual ‘twilight zone.’ That is, most of their members, even their leaders, are not well educated and not very intelligent. Whenever their literature strays onto the fields of philosophy, academic theology, science or any severe mental discipline their ideas at best mirror popular misconceptions, at worst they are completely nonsensical. >>
Posters like TrueTomHarley and Arauna prove these sentiments in most every post.
Detriment? LOL! Kind of like skipping eating dog poop would be to my detriment.

Arauna said:
Good point. The JW religion indeed has a goodly component of mysticism as well as superstition.
     
I've answered all your challenges. You're just too stupid and dishonest to deal with the answers.
And of course, we again see that good old Orwellian doublethink and crimestop in action.
YOU spoke of mutations, not me. I said that natural selection weeds out the bad mutations, which you completely ignored.
You're so ignorant that you don't even know that natural selection weeding out bad mutations is the basis for some of the Society's arguments against evolution, because it results in the stablility of species over long periods.
You keep ignoring my challenge to explain the fact that big cats have been around for 5 million years. You ignore it because of Orwellian crimestop.
Um, the number is about 2 million.
I see that innumeracy characterizes you, too.
LOL! Try dealing with the big cats.

Bugger off, Tom.

Mr. Alan:
I am greatly savoring your exchange with Arauna. Truly, her grasp of science is dismally weak. I also appreciate the razor-sharp wit you display engaging one who is plainly not in your league.
What are your thoughts about the future of Darwinian evolution? Do you feel that your personality represents its pinnacle, or may we look forward to reaching even greater heights? 
Thank you, sir, for your work.
 

Quote "Their time for ruling and being together  is not now  " 
Says who ? (  @Arauna we can all play your silly game) 
Your GB are ruling right now, 8 mainly American men, with American thoughts and personalities. 
Whereas God through Christ has anointed people from ALL the Earth. 
But your GB domineer them. Will God and Christ allow that to continue ? I think not. 
Why anoint them if they are not allowed to make full use of it ?  Why not just chose faithful people from amongst the dead. 
Can you imagine the disciples receiving Holy Spirit then being told to go home and keep quiet about it. Being told not to teach others. Being told not to gather together. 
 
 

Says who? 
The ones who are now spearheading the organization are training others all the time - elders, servants etc.  Their time for ruling and being together  is not now ... but in future.... then they will all be together under christ and their administration will bring mankind back to the original purpose of God.  The promises of being together under christ lies in future. 
The original congregations were mostly anointed but the great crowd now makes up the largest part of the congregations.... and the obligation to meet together and encourage each other is as much the great crowd's obligation as the anointed.
So we must read in it hidden messages?   Sounds more like mysticism to me...... or evolution.  Seeing something where it does not exist. 
You expect answers when you have no intention or capability to answer my challenges.

Many manuscripts have been discovered in the desert where, after thousands of years, they are still perfectly preserved. Reflecting upon this, I decided to go down to the desert myself and give it a shot. Sure enough, after a bit of poking I found a manuscript. 
I brushed off the sand, flicked away the gecko turds, and sent it off to the scholars at the Whitepebble Biblical Research Institute. They went gaga over it. The manuscript sheds new light on events long thought to be beyond dispute, and most scholars find it a tough sell. Nonetheless, they are hard-up there for manuscripts at the moment, and the obnoxicus superiorticus is now housed in the AlanF wing of that venerable institution, where the foundation has been jacked up to accommodate the extra weight:
And at about the sixth hour, he looked down upon his tormentors and said, “You people are so stupid! It amazes me that your tiny brains can generate the power to move your feet. I’m bored with you pitiful attempts to cause me pain. The hypocrisy and doublethink on display are just breathtaking!” And many other things like these he said.
At about the ninth hour, soldiers approached to break his legs in order to hasten death. They did so. He said to them: “As I predicted, no reasonable answer here. As usual you've ignored at least 90% of my arguments and comments. I ask again: What are the names of the scriptural accounts you've read? Lack of an answer will tell me either that you don't read such, or you're embarrassed to name them. You have once again punted on most everything with which I challenged. Such transparent hypocrites! You demand an answer from me that, with a little online research, you can find the answer to yourself. Yet you refuse to answer my unique challenges and questions to you. You are a bunch of liars. I posed my challenge to disprove my logic that the one that is to come you posted your Intelligent Jewish claptrap. I posed my challenge this past Tuesday, but you posted your silly question only yesterday. You yourself are quite selective in your worship of Mommy Torah. Obviously you can't answer any of my challenges. You're dishonest to the core and too incompetent to say anything about science. Since you're too lazy to do your own research, I've done some for you. For example.....”
At about the 20th hour, one of the centurions said to his companion, “Oh, for crying out loud!”
Unfortunately, the complete text of the remarks runs quite long, and I had to leave some of the manuscript there in the desert because I couldn’t afford the freight. Possibly on another expedition I will fetch it, or ask @Arauna, who knows the African desert like the back of her hand, to fetch it for me.
 
 
 

A couple of points here :-
1. In times past the whole of the anointed here on earth were classed as the F&DS 
Then the GB in their selfish 'wisdom' decided that ONLY THEY are the F&DS.
So who is exalting themselves above others here? Who is separating themselves from the Body of Christ ?  Who are the ones that are trying to domineer ?  
2. For the Anointed to contact each other does not mean literally gathering in one place. Or do you live so much in the past.  We have internet, we have mobile / cell phones. Even prior to this we had fax machines and landline phones. So using the excuse that the Anointed would have to gather in one place is rather pathetic. 
I do honestly hope that members of the Anointed DO CONTACT EACH OTHER.  Those of the Anointed will have more spirituality and guidance from God. Otherwise why would God even have an Anointed here on Earth. God could just as easily use Christ to chose a person after they have died, and then resurrect them in the spirit. Why would God anoint someone and then tell them (through the GB) to be inactive as an Anointed ? 
Of course you GB worshippers don't like the scripture of 'Ten men clinging to the skirt of a Jew' because you know the Jew represents the whole of the Anointed. 
The Org needs Anointed people from around the Earth, to be the leaders of the Organisation. They need not be permanently in one location together. Internet is quite fast you know . But the GB would lose their power to dominate 8.5 million people, and to also dominate and lie to another possible 8 million so called Bible studies.   

In addition, anointed Christians do not view themselves as being part of an elite club. They do not seek out others who claim to have the same calling, hoping to bond with them or endeavoring to form private groups for Bible study. (Gal. 1:15-17) Such efforts would cause divisions within the congregation and work against the holy spirit, which promotes peace and unity.   wt 1/2016, "We Want to Go With You".
It would be important and interesting to see what are examples that WT Society GB and elders saw as danger for Corporation and as braking Bible Principles. 
We all are aware how people doing this sort of "separation" inside same structure. "Birds of feather flock together". It is visible to many how JW people contribute in various measures to this same. Bethel workers are one "social class", also pioneers understanding each other more than some other level of brotherhood can do that. Brothers who are wealthier or have more education find more friends inside such people and making that sort of "social group". Poor brothers understand each other more, much better than someone who has plenty of money can have that compassion to them. All such gathering can be seen as gathering based on some reasons that is not "Biblical", but it is not so simple or good  to make automatic conclusion or judgement.
If anointed individuals understand each other more better and in special way, it is normal to see them want to spend more time been together. Do you want to spend more of your time with people who understand you and your inner life or you want to be with those people who can't do that??
We all can be seen as "elite" in own eyes, or in eyes of other.
Warning about private groups for study Bible is based on need to control everyone, not just appointed. 
 

Anna said:
Yes, Ms. too-naive-for-her-own-good.
     
Some are, some are not. Watchtower writers are past masters at manipulating the JW community with smooth words that are deliberately ambiguous, or say one thing but mean another. Again you're far too naive.
At the time I had not been an active JW for at least 15 years. One loses the bad mental conditioning after awhile.
He was quite good at deciphering the ambiguities of WTS instructions. He and his wife were very well respected, and entertained GB members. At the time he had been a JW for 60 years, so he knew what he was talking about.
Oftentimes the Society designs its instructions with a subtly hidden message that astute JWs are supposed to pick up on.
You forget the most important thing: since out of one side of its mouth the GB claims to admit that it is fallible, then its Bible interpretations are open to questioning. If a dissenting JW has figured out the truth of some Bible teaching, finds it at odds with Watchtower teaching, and lets it be known to others, then who is "causing division"? The one teaching the Bible, or the one teaching the commands of men? Remember that God is not directing these fallible men of the GB.
 
They're right there in black and white. Go back and read what you posted from the Watchtower.
Still missing the point. You're approaching Orwellian crimestop here.

But you continue to miss the crucial point: the anointed are not supposed to get together and discuss spiritual things.

You don't even know your current Watchtowers! LOL!

Anna said:
That's true of a surprising large fraction of seemingly righteous JWs.
     
You just proved 4Jah2me's point. A long time ago a prominent elder explained to me that negative suggestions from the Society are not merely suggestions, but commands from God not to do something. That's what language like "they would be working against the holy spirit" means. Where have you been?

You're asking questions impossible for JWs to answer without exposing the contradictions inherent in their worship of the Governing Body, i.e., their equating its words with God's words. They get to the heart of whether JW elders are actually appointed by holy spirit, or merely in the self-deceiving sense that the Pope is appointed by holy spirit.

But you continue to miss the crucial point: the anointed are not supposed to get together and discuss spiritual things.

"Elite club" comes from the sarcastic mouths of an "elite" leadership.