Pudgy

Papa Goldfish to Mama Goldfish, in their Golden Years “ You know, babe, we have had a good life in this pond, plenty of food, clean water, and seen the birth of our 22,000 children. We should celebrate!”
” A life without celebration is like sleeping upside down on the surface.”
 

I think that the ban on celebrating birthdays is a stupid idea, which has no basis in the Biblical text. A revision of such dogma at WTJWorg is needed.
As for "Christmas", the exact date is not known, so its celebration is questionable. In addition, Jesus is not on Earth, so he cannot be congratulated or brought gifts. 
Let us therefore dwell on the birthdays of mortals. lol

…. and, 13 hours later, on a related note …
"I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves." - Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead)

I suppose I have acquired that unfortunate habit from you, Pudgy, as you frequently deviate from the topic with your irrelevant rants and incoherent comments.
Once you offer evidence to back up your expertise rather than confusion, you will likely have something valuable to add, particularly when accompanied by your friends.
Meanwhile, I see you as nothing more than a disillusioned and expelled person who seeks to lay the blame for their own mistakes solely on the Watchtower.

What is so pathetically sad, George88, is that the point was SO SIMPLE TO UNDERSTAND … and look how you distorted it!

I generally ignore your comments BTK59, because they do not address what is actually being discussed .. you go off on an irrelevant tangent, misconstrue the real issues, and ask rhetorical questions that are borderline absurd.
For a change, I will this one time address your post, point by point as follows:
However, my question, "pudgy", why should I pay attention to the relentless complaints of excommunicated former members who have nothing constructive to offer except ignorance and distortions?
Because Everything I post is true, based on evident facts that are or can be easily proven, and are common knowledge for anyone not immersed in an agenda driven matrix of religious fantasy. For a change, attack what I actually present instead of your hatred for the messenger.
Ignorance and distortions?
Challenge me on SPECIFIC EXAMPLES! Without real, SPECIFIC EXAMPLES, your fantasy opinions are only fantasy opinions.
You desire to remove the intermediary, you are that intermediary.
Since you did not specify what the hell you are talking about, this is not even addressable. Care to quote me or at least give an example?
Is it fair to blame Christ or the apostles if someone decides to stop identifying as a Christian or following Christianity because they no longer found it beneficial?
Since your reading comprehension skills are distorted and warped by trying to defend the indefensible, you have not seen that I have NEVER, not once, in the more than a decade of posting on this forum, accused Christ or the Apostles of ANYTHING. I have accused the Governing Body of chasing rational people away by the tens of thousands with their irrational, unscriptural policys masquerading as the will of God.
Eventually, your dislike towards the organization should be justified.
There are two ways to read the above sentence, and in the first case, I have already addressed it. As a clarifying point, I am also an American (USA) citizen, and really happy about that … but I dislike the reality that agenda driven power hungry men have so severely damaged the Republic with disregard for it’s founding document, the Constitution. 
I feel the same way when the Governing Body severely damages the Brotherhood, by disregarding the Bible, to maintain control.
Hmmmmm …. this wasn’t too bad. I may address your sad ad-hominem attacks more often.
… or not!
 

No.

… and if you really HAVE an alleged specific example, try not to obfuscate it with associated irrelevancies ….

Your entire argument and chain of logic, BTK59, can be instantly and totally refuted by the real life classic example that for 80+ years the Society’s policy irrationally and unscripturally  placed heavy burdens on the Brotherhood by persecution of Brothers with beards. I was even chastised for a mustache in a “little back room” with three elders, which hurt my feelings terribly. 
There is only so long some people will tolerate small tyrannies before the start voting with their wallets and their cars to escape it.
Of those who once chose to become Jehovah’s Witnesses, according to 2016 Pewresearch.org, 66% no longer identify with Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are voting with their wallets and their feet. 
JW Core Theology (15%) produces peace, righteousness, fairness, Truth, and Freedom as an adopted Son of God. So why do 66% LEAVE?
There should be a line at the Kingdom Halls of people trying to GET IN!
That is NOT the case.
Then if you consider the PIMOs (Physically in, mentally out) who only stay to keep their families from shunning them and tearing their family relationships apart, that even further emphasizes the fallacy of your theories.
I plan to celebrate per GB Update 2023-8 “Beard Liberation Day” every December 15th, for the rest of my life, for what I personally endured for 60+ years, and hope for a theocratic future with many other needed and overdue reforms.
When having to endure petty tyranny, some do not consider it petty.
Such is the case in California now, a State I used to love and admire, having lived in San Diego, Malibu, Hollywood, and San Francisco many years ago. The thought of even visiting gives me the creeps now.
Many are leaving for good, to Texas, Florida, Nevada, North and South Carolina, etc. They are voting with their wallets and their cars!

Babies baptised into the Catholic Church are “infant conscripts who are held to lifelong obligations of obedience”, according to former president Mary McAleese.
Saying that early Baptism breaches fundamental human rights, she said: “You can’t impose, really, obligations on people who are only two weeks old and you can’t say to them at seven or eight or 14 or 19 ‘here is what you contracted, here is what you signed up to’ because the truth is they didn’t.”
The current model of Baptism “worked for many centuries because people didn’t understand that they had the right to say no, the right to walk away”, she declared.
“But you and I know, we live now in times where we have the right to freedom of conscience, freedom of belief, freedom of opinion, freedom of religion and freedom to change religion. The Catholic Church yet has to fully embrace that thinking,” she told The Irish Times.
She said conscience was “supreme” where Catholics were concerned.
“My human right to inform my own conscience, my human right to express my conscience even if it is the case that it contradicts the magisterium [teaching authority of the church], that right to conscience is supreme.”

Abandoned teachings
She said many things down the centuries were taught “with great passion that quietly now have been abandoned by the very magisterium that taught them”.
She instanced examples such as its condemnation of Gallileo or, more recently, the description in 1930 by Pope Pius XI of those who advocated emancipation and equality for women as “false teachers”.
Mrs McAleese said she did not intend to attend any World Meeting of Families events in Dublin in August because it had “become a political rally rather than a religious and spiritual experience”.
The meeting, which will be attended by Pope Francis, is a forum “for the reinforcement of orthodoxy”, she said.
She will, however, be taking part in the Dublin Pride Parade next Saturday “under the BeLongTo banner” and with “the members of our own family, straight and gay, young and old, we’ll all be there”.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/mary-mcaleese-baptised-children-infant-conscripts-1.3540624

…

Hope this helps:
Matthew 28:19... Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
watchtower: (1) “Have you repented of your sins, dedicated yourself to Jehovah, and accepted his way of salvation through Jesus Christ?”

(2) “Do you understand that your baptism identifies you as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in association with Jehovah’s organization?”

Your entire argument and chain of logic, BTK59, can be instantly and totally refuted by the real life classic example that for 80+ years the Society’s policy irrationally and unscripturally  placed heavy burdens on the Brotherhood by persecution of Brothers with beards. I was even chastised for a mustache in a “little back room” with three elders, which hurt my feelings terribly. 
There is only so long some people will tolerate small tyrannies before the start voting with their wallets and their cars to escape it.
Of those who once chose to become Jehovah’s Witnesses, according to 2016 Pewresearch.org, 66% no longer identify with Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are voting with their wallets and their feet. 
JW Core Theology (15%) produces peace, righteousness, fairness, Truth, and Freedom as an adopted Son of God. So why do 66% LEAVE?
There should be a line at the Kingdom Halls of people trying to GET IN!
That is NOT the case.
Then if you consider the PIMOs (Physically in, mentally out) who only stay to keep their families from shunning them and tearing their family relationships apart, that even further emphasizes the fallacy of your theories.
I plan to celebrate per GB Update 2023-8 “Beard Liberation Day” every December 15th, for the rest of my life, for what I personally endured for 60+ years, and hope for a theocratic future with many other needed and overdue reforms.
When having to endure petty tyranny, some do not consider it petty.
Such is the case in California now, a State I used to love and admire, having lived in San Diego, Malibu, Hollywood, and San Francisco many years ago. The thought of even visiting gives me the creeps now.
Many are leaving for good, to Texas, Florida, Nevada, North and South Carolina, etc. They are voting with their wallets and their cars!

Yes.
Yes. If GB claims to be guided by HS in their decisions, then the possibility that their errors are a reflection of "imperfection" is reduced or completely nullified.
Therefore, the GB should finally decide on the basic setting; Are they led with HS or are they led with their own mental faculties and beliefs?

However, opinions are an indicator of whether we are more or less sane. With that evidence, someone could start to prove this or that. lol

Proof, evidence of this is all those "JW kids" who left WTJWorg years or even decades later.

lol,
"Scriptural maturity" means understanding the meaning of the WTJWorg statement which reads: 
Children are not fully developed in their ability to think, to reason, or to recognize and avoid danger. (1 Cor. 13:11) 
After that, the person will also understand the mentioned biblical quote.

According to WTJWorg the alleged "spiritual growth", progress is conditioned by a good understanding and daily reading of "spiritual literature". If we exclude the Bible, which people in general and even JWs themselves will not be able to understand without the aid of WTJWorg, i.e. the huge amount of written material that explains and interprets the Bible, we arrive at the following:
"Spiritual growth" in WTJWorg means constant change of theology, clarification and abandonment of "incorrect truths" because of some new "incorrect truths".
Indeed, all those baptized children were indeed not "spiritually mature" when they agreed to accept the WTJWorg conditions for baptism.

Well… I go by life experiences. 
When my brother was 17, during the 1960’s, he wanted to Join the Marines, go to Vietnam and  “kill gooks”.
A year later he was 18, a hippie, and said “Hell No! We won’t go!”, and didn’t.
Real life experiences trump esoteric theory.

This is the underlying principle of what everyone here knows and remembers …  and the REASON for objections to minor child baptisms …except of course Wally McNasty and his up and down voting clone sock puppets.
But then again, that is what WDS IS.

Regardless of anything else that may or may not be true, the 2001 and 2012 Watchtowers offers much  sound advice. (… entirely from memory, but it made sense at the time…)
The fact that it is CONFLICTING advice is the sticking point!
And … the issue of massive collateral damage for a premature decision made by an 8 year old, etc. is never mentioned in baptism recruiting efforts.
At what age do you think a child is mature enough to give others the legal right to destroy him or her, and their family relationships, perhaps ten years later?
There was a valid reason why Jesus was not baptized at age 12.

This is the underlying principle of what everyone here knows and remembers …  and the REASON for objections to minor child baptisms …except of course Wally McNasty and his up and down voting clone sock puppets.
But then again, that is what WDS IS.

Regardless of anything else that may or may not be true, the 2001 and 2012 Watchtowers offers much  sound advice. (… entirely from memory, but it made sense at the time…)
The fact that it is CONFLICTING advice is the sticking point!
And … the issue of massive collateral damage for a premature decision made by an 8 year old, etc. is never mentioned in baptism recruiting efforts.
At what age do you think a child is mature enough to give others the legal right to destroy him or her, and their family relationships, perhaps ten years later?
There was a valid reason why Jesus was not baptized at age 12.

When it comes to "one of the most serious" decisions (marrying), the society says: "Christians want to wait to get married until they are mature..." (Ref Jan 15, 2001 Watchtower)
So for "one of the most serious" decisions of marrying, the advice is to wait until you are mature.
When it comes to baptism, the society calls this "the most serious decision" an individual can make. (Ref June 15, 2012 Watchtower)

I think the issue of underage baptism needs to be evaluated the same way other decisions are made by minors …. and since a Baptism Covenant and dedication between a person and God CANNOT BE UNDONE … except by God … it should be made with that foremost in mind.
This is a Covenant Of Dedication, allegiance and fealty to God and his Christ ….
ONLY!
1.) At what age should a lesser decision be made by a minor about getting married? I say at least 18, and for about 1/4 of the population 24 to 30.
2.) At what age should a lesser decision be made by a minor about getting a driver’s license? I say at least 18, if they can pass the exams.
3.) At what age should a male or female decide that they want to be surgically mutilated, by circumcision or “transgender” reassignment? I say at least 30.
4) At what age should a man or woman be allowed to take up recreational parachuting? I say at least 18.
5. At what age should a person be allowed to join a military organization? I say at least 18, preferably 24.
6.) At what age should a person be allowed to consume alcohol, or other recreational drugs? I say 18 as a minimum.
7.) Since the JW baptism oath of today legally binds you to obey the policys and directives of the “Organization”, under pain of being disfellowshipped, and exiled, and shunned, and the same to every JW that knows you that does not do the same, at what age should a young person be baptized? I say 18, the same as any secular military organization.
In scripture ONLY men and women were baptized. Jesus was Bar-Mitzpah’d at age 12, presumably, but waited to be baptized until he was 30.
Why?
A person, boy or girl, should not make a decision at age 8, 10, 12 or before age 18 that has the potential to later HAVE OTHERS DESTROY THEIR AND THEIR FAMILIES’ LIVES.
These conclusions are only my personal opinions, but they have a rational basis.
Like circumcision, male or female … baptism cannot be undone.
If the Society would allow shunning to be a personal decision of each individual in the Congregation, and release all the hostages from their oath of fealty and obedience to the WTB&TS “Organization”, so they cannot be sued because they are members of a private legal covenant … I would withdraw my objection to an 8 year old being baptized.
For a change …. let God decide.
The Baptism Covenant should be between individual people and God and Christ ONLY.
Earthly accountants, lawyers, and overreaching tyrants who promise to rule well, BUT INTEND TO RULE ANYWAY, should not be involved.
It took them 80+ YEARS to figure out beards!

… exactly the diversionary tactics I described in my posts … instead of just downvoting my posts … refute them!

…. give it a try  … you can use whatever Whack-A-Mole pop up screen name you want!  After two sentences everybody knows it’s YOU anyway!