xero

Musing here in this spot for no reason other than it seems as good as any.... So....opposers generally don't say that they deny God outright, but this is ultimately confused and twisted. If JW's don't have God's favor, they never say if anyone else does. By doing this they deny God, by saying he has no witnesses. If they say "No, God does have witnesses, but it's just not JW's." you go back and press again, and get the same non-answer, which denies God again as having any witnesses. Then they perhaps say "It's an individual thing." and You say "OK, show me the scriptures" Of course there aren't any saying that at least not in the way they are suggesting. You try to help them out "Maybe you're saying that JW's are part of the dragnet?" They say "No!...I mean yes!...I mean No!" You say "Is anyone part of the dragnet?" They say "Yes." Then you say "Ok. What part of the dragnet are you associated with? Where are you in the illustration of the dragnet?" They don't have an answer. If it's an individual decision as to where to be, then isn't it correct too that others may decide differently from them and choose to stay w/JWs? If so, then shouldn't their concern be for themselves and what they are doing to promote the kingdom?

https://www.dailygrail.com/2016/11/how-was-the-great-pyramid-built-these-notches-where-its-faces-meet-may-be-evidence-for-an-internal-ramp/ Of course no science can be done on the past - only the present. Age of the universe, the earth all these things are correlations at best with other known entities. It's "forensic science", but that's not the same "science" as designing a more efficient combustion engine or longer-lasting battery. The former "science" does it's best at creating a believable "just-so story", the latter has no need of stories as the engine or battery designed works to the specs or they don't.

I despise the trinity. I read a lot of apologetic works and I have to suffer through the sections where they genuflect to the trinity.

Your long-winded replies show you have a pride problem. If the GB needs disciplining, Jehovah will be the one to give it. Jude 9

And responded to like a person who doesn't take counsel. "A man repeatedly reproved but making his neck hard will suddenly be broken, and that without healing." - Proverbs 29:1

BTW - My favorite character

As far as you worrying about other people, don't you have your hands full with yourself?

Let's stay on topic, shall we? Let's dive into your defects. Maybe we can help you stop doing whatever it is your keep doing? We can't until you ask for help. Remember, asking for help is a strength, not a weakness. It's a baby step, but I know you can do it.

And you have none to concern yourself with? Can you even name a defect you have which you've struggled with, but you keep sinning anyway?

I don't mean to sound critical, but you really need to reword this. It's contorting the English language in a way that's painful to read.

You make it sound like the literature has zero scriptural support. It's commentary on scripture. You might not agree with the application, but it's not as if it's just completely made up. I don't dwell on the extreme interpretations and I don't think too many do.

Well it's clear that a lot have processed whatever they're processed and decided that staying was better than leaving. Look at all the Catholics who are still Catholics after the chronic and ongoing mess of pedo-priests.

https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/04b1b958-20be-4605-a376-c3e8fe72e571

Point is that none of the people complaining about the GB actually are in their congregation and it's a waste of time chasing real or imagined deficiencies of other people you don't know when you just look in the mirror and realize you have your own homework to do.

I do get that some people hold the organization responsible for whatever was going on w/CSA or other stuff and they leave their local congregation because they feel that the local congregation should have risen up against the main organization. I just know that locally, where I am and where I've been, things like this didn't happen on my watch and I'll have to be frank about it when I say that just like people who are privy to materials presented to them in a grand jury, I haven't been presented with information which damns the organization as others imagine it has (am I responsible for everything others do?) I suspect many have never read the hebrew scriptures and been honest w/themselves as to how they would have handled the crappy behavior of many Jehovah was using. They imagine they would have stayed, but we don't know. Face it ten tribes split w/Judah and Benjamin remaining when Solomon and his son turned into jerks. That didn't ultimately go well w/them. Sure today you have people who are pretty much into what I call idolatrous worship of the GB, but these people are the same kinds you see in the world who want to push a theocratic sharia onto everyone, but these ultimately get dealt with because that's not in line w/Jehovah's spirit and I see that these get tripped up. Some who thought I was out of control have gotten DF'ed for various things after they were heavy on others. I believe you just deal w/the discipline you get, try not to stir things up, realize there are opinionated people who want to push their way onto others, but you just keep following scripture and nodding your head when you get what you feel is "great scripture, brother! just doesn't apply to me here, but thanks so much for giving me the nudge" from anyone who feels you need some counsel. As to telling people the truth about the organization, I'd just explain why I'm where I am and why I'm doing what I'm doing. People will judge according to how they want to judge. It doesn't matter to me if they listen or don't listen. At this point I feel it's all a spiritual exercise that I'm benefitting from and if I get potshots taken at me, fine, take them. Granted I don't go out of my way to antagonize anyone outside or inside, but I never tell people to believe anything I don't and can't back up with scripture alone. Being frank w/people is easy, feels good and when you get bothered occasionally by someone who thinks you're going astray by not insisting that people believe everything they read in the latest publication you just deal with it. You do more good long term in my view by staying and keeping your cool and taking punches and keeping your integrity with your own conscience than leaving, but I DO understand why some have left and so do many who haven't.

So did Jehovah create the sun on the fourth day?

Actually we don't know that. People today look "apparently well" until they aren't and this can happen quickly. Take the epidemic of 1918. Young people would be healthy in the morning, no symptoms and dead by the end of the day.

If you knew anything about hebraisms and the way things are expressed, you'd know that the translation "Jehovah struck the child" is an interpretation w/regard to Jehovah allowing. So you have latitude as to how to read and view this scripture. Elsewhere it says Ezekiel 18:20 -The soul who sins is the one who will die. A son will bear no guilt because of the error of his father, and a father will bear no guilt because of the error of his son. The righteousness of the righteous one will be accounted to him alone, and the wickedness of the wicked one will be accounted to him alone. And that the unborn are considered precious and valuable has been discussed elsewhere (Ps. 139 16) The fact that the scripture attributes an executional act on the part of Jehovah towards the relatively innocent unborn child serves to underscore that all things which happen in the universe are only possible because Jehovah ALLOWS it. Your ability to enjoy something? "Jehovah made me enjoy that ice cream cone." "Really? Jehovah MADE you? So you ate the whole carton and it's Jehovah's fault?" One might say - Jehovah ALLOWED the bible writer to describe the death of the child as being the result of direct intervention. Or do we say Jehovah CAUSED the bible writer to describe it this way? There have been a lot of discussions w/regard to the difference between causing and allowing ... https://bnonn.com/is-there-a-relevant-difference-between-causing-and-permitting-evil/ I think in this particular case the translation is intended to underscore that bad behavior will be punished and that innocent (relatively so) people can and will bear the brunt at times as well and this is on them for their bad behavior. In every case the whiners against Jehovah are in a weak position w/their arguments.

He's not directing the speculations any more than he killed the baby which came out of Bathsheba that wasn't Uriah's. Allowing and controlling are not the same as causing. No. Causing and controlling are precisely what Satan and those like him think you have to do for things to work. You can see this in leftists and progressives who have to control everything. (and the imagine they can control the weather too...what incredible hubris)

Not really. Some people just get more discipline than others. If you know anything, you know that no one gets DF'ed for doing anything. They get DF'ed for their attitude about what they're doing. If you don't cop an attitude, you generally don't get DF'ed. Now it's true that you can look at a person's behavior and intuit the attitude especially if they keep repeating the thing that got them disciplinary attention to begin with. Some people need something sterner to get their attention. But no one's been weeded. These can still stay in the garden, they just don't have all the privileges they had formerly. The "weeding" is what people do to themselves when they leave permanently. Are they leaving to a better, more correct group of Christians, or just a group who'll tolerate all manner of bad behavior? Or, and this is what some do, they become atheists or agnostics in a sense saying "If God doesn't present himself in a way I understand and approve of, I'll just wave my hands and he'll cease to exist." Yes, it is their job to shepherd the flock and yes it means to watch out for malcontents and others who'd want people to go astray. (This is the problem I see in Christendom in general) More denominations SHOULD disfellowship their members. It's a good thing, not a bad thing. Now you can argue that the way some handle their associations w/DF'd ones isn't something handled well at times and you'd be right, but that's going to happen w/everything that humans are involved with. They are going to get it wrong. Family members have to take responsibility for the way they handle members of their own family and others who are DF'ed - there are going to be some who minimize the discipline and they have to deal with that (and I've seen that they do...eventually). Issues w/CSA and these other things have been examined by others outside as well as inside and adjustments have been made, but no....it's not perfect and never will be, but when this organization is contrasted w/others there isn't a better organization I'm aware of doctrinally or practice-wise with which one might associate. Do I believe every recent interpretation or other older interpretations which have come down the pike? No. And I don't teach any of those things as facts, but as interpretations. The facts are clear and these are what can be clearly pointed to in scripture - the rest is speculation and there is and has always been organizational speculation as well as private and personal speculation. Does this mean that Jehovah isn't in control and directing things? No.

27 So the slaves of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow fine seed in your field? How, then, does it have weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy, a man, did this.’y The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go out and collect them?’ 29 He said, ‘No, for fear that while collecting the weeds, you uproot the wheat with them. - Mt 13:27-27 "taking down" = weeding - Jesus said that wasn't your job. As for turning away and how one does this and to whom is everyone's responsibility. If you've judged then you have to deal w/the judgement you've made. Clearly not everyone JW or non-JW agrees w/you, but it's your prerogative and your responsibility. Whether it's a better use of your time to turn people towards something or away from something is your prerogative and responsibility as well.

If you can tell the difference between good and bad advice, you don't need it, if you can't it doesn't matter because you'll just end up finding out anyway. There are times when you can end up in the right place following the wrong advice and times you can end up in the wrong place following the right advice and whether it's the wrong place or the right place or not depends on Jehovah. There was the time King David (actually, before he was king) when he'd had it w/Saul making his life difficult so he left Israel to go fight as a mercenary for the Philistines. Now he'd always vowed to not lift his hand up (w/graffiti or otherwise) against the anointed of Jehovah, but maybe he's changed his mind because he's on his way to Mt. Gilboa w/the Philistines to fight Saul...but at Aphek he's stopped and sent home...now could be this southward movement of men might have looked like a flanking maneuver to the Israelite scouts and maybe this put them out of position so they weren't in time to defend the entrance to the Jezreel valley leading ultimately to Saul's death? Who knows? Jehovah could have used David in a way to both stop him from breaking his vow AND leading to Saul's death and ultimate replacement. That's all speculation, but could be that's what was going down. Thing is, though David didn't fight against an arguably bad King because he was put there by Jehovah and Jehovah was going to have to take him out. In any case, Jehovah's will was done and we can likewise know it will be done today. You just don't want to be the intentional instrument to take down anyone or any group whom you see doing God's will, not matter how defective you imagine them to be. We aren't authorized to trash the dragnet either any more than we're authorized to do some weeding, but we can weed ourselves and our own hearts and we should.

Some people must have a great electrolyte balance going that they don't get massive charley horses from their patting themselves on the back for doing what they want anyway. Seriously. God exists, his name really is Jehovah and at some point in time he'll intervene in human affairs and straighten it all out. In the mean-time instead of spending time filling in the gaps of bible-knowlege or figuring out how to get possession of their own vessel in sanctification and honor people spend their time spraying anti-JW graffiti on whatever surface they can find. It's boring, repetitive and in the end a galactic waste of time. People that want to leave will find a reason to leave and those who remain will likewise and Jehovah is the judge of both. Main thing anyone should do is make sure they're following their bible-trained consciences.

Strikes me that opposers are hanging on to the organization like a drunk man does to keep from stumbling.

Anyone reading the Bible would see that the people whom God led w/an organization tacked this way and that. The leaders bore the brunt of censure should they have tacked wrongly. Nonetheless people would observe and decide that they felt that "irregardless" of the tacking, that they were confident that the group was heading in the right direction. I don't see that there ever has been universal agreement among members of the groups of God's people. Not in Bible times and not today either. This lack of Swiss thought engineering isn't an issue for me now, nor has it ever been.