Juan Rivera

Thank you TrueTomHarley.
All I can say is the cuts have been more than one, and each one is deep. Though I can and do engage in many topics, this one stirs from the bottom of wounds too many of us have had to face. And too often we try to rationalize what has happened by looking at everything except the center of it all, which is a religious position that cannot stand up in the face of basic challenges, and in fact is self-condemning based on premises offered in its support.

I’ll say it….he would come under the mosaic Law and when Christ died faithful…..he would then become under Christs Law….and as Christ instructed Peter to put away his sword thus he would say to Cornelius….thus he would be just like you and me…completely neutral..and looking for another job.
 I find it so frustrating when something is so simple…seems so complex to such seemingly highly intelligent people…I’m coming to the conclusion that I must be more of the mind of Einstein that I ever realized.

This is why I'm a firm believer that people who want to conduct academic debates about theology, study philosophy before they study theology. Some of those concepts are metaphysical. But even more necessary are the epistemological ones, especially those in logic and critical thinking. (I’ll admit I’m an epistemological tyro). Without a proper study of philosophy, there is a lot of frustrating going-round-in-circles.
 

@Many Miles I haven't fully read your above response, but I will follow up. 
Can you disclose or tell me a bit more what is your relationship with the Congregation and if you consider yourself a Witness? I’m intrigued in learning where you are coming from? I don’t mean to be nosy, and fully understand the repercussions. 
To give you some background. And please don’t take this the wrong way. I am of the belief of using your real name, unless doing so would risk your career or livelihood. Real names makes us accountable for our words, by tying our reputations to what we say and how we say it. Transparency contributes to authentic dialogue, anonymity detracts.  I’ve said in the forum before that I am not a fan of anonymous internet dialogue because it artificially separates persons from ideas and arguments, and in this way it assumes a false anthropology, as if we are mere intellects, and not embodied beings with feelings and biases and emotions, character, histories, etc. In my opinion, so long as a person remains anonymous or hides his or her identity behind a moniker or an avatar she remains incapable of entering into authentic dialogue, because authentic dialogue requires the personal authenticity by which we reveal who we are, where we stand, and take responsibility for our words, by allowing them to be connected with our personal identity by those who we enter into dialogue. Maintaining anonymity, for example, hinders the development and expression of sociability. I don't think that ideas and persons can ever be fully separated. All dialogue is between persons, and it involves the character of the participants.
My reason for including some biographical facts here and elsewhere in the forum is not to persuade other Witnesses, but only to explain that I don't think that ideas and persons can ever be fully separated. The more I know about you, the more I can determine your credibility, your sincerity, your authenticity, and likewise the same is true the more you know about me.
I'd be glad to learn more specifically what your position actually is from a JW framework. Feel free to write me privately to discuss your thoughts.

There was more than one reason I choked a bit on that attribution from Splane.
- Splane is part of the GB who deemed the GB is the "faithful slave".
- Schroeder was part of the GB who deemed those who felt the "faithful slave" pictures only the leading ones of the anointed as "objectors".
According to Splane, we should learn from Schroeder.
According to Schroeder, Splane would fit into the "objectors" category.
Choke...choke...
Alfred Hitchcock anyone?
 
 

@Many Miles I haven't fully read your above response, but I will follow up. 
Can you disclose or tell me a bit more what is your relationship with the Congregation and if you consider yourself a Witness? I’m intrigued in learning where you are coming from? I don’t mean to be nosy, and fully understand the repercussions. 
To give you some background. And please don’t take this the wrong way. I am of the belief of using your real name, unless doing so would risk your career or livelihood. Real names makes us accountable for our words, by tying our reputations to what we say and how we say it. Transparency contributes to authentic dialogue, anonymity detracts.  I’ve said in the forum before that I am not a fan of anonymous internet dialogue because it artificially separates persons from ideas and arguments, and in this way it assumes a false anthropology, as if we are mere intellects, and not embodied beings with feelings and biases and emotions, character, histories, etc. In my opinion, so long as a person remains anonymous or hides his or her identity behind a moniker or an avatar she remains incapable of entering into authentic dialogue, because authentic dialogue requires the personal authenticity by which we reveal who we are, where we stand, and take responsibility for our words, by allowing them to be connected with our personal identity by those who we enter into dialogue. Maintaining anonymity, for example, hinders the development and expression of sociability. I don't think that ideas and persons can ever be fully separated. All dialogue is between persons, and it involves the character of the participants.
My reason for including some biographical facts here and elsewhere in the forum is not to persuade other Witnesses, but only to explain that I don't think that ideas and persons can ever be fully separated. The more I know about you, the more I can determine your credibility, your sincerity, your authenticity, and likewise the same is true the more you know about me.
I'd be glad to learn more specifically what your position actually is from a JW framework. Feel free to write me privately to discuss your thoughts.

Apostasy? Well that's a loud word! Let's say it again. Apostasy! Everyone feel better now?
Jesus was accused and put to death for blasphemy. Blasphemy was held on par with apostasy by the same murderers. So what? If our Master is the Christ, should any of us expect better treatment? The main thing is making sure of all things and holding fast to what is fine.
What is true is what matters. Those who prefer what is false over what is true will attempt to characterize (brand) persons all manner of ways to distract from their showing a preference for what is false over what is true. If we suffer, let it be over saying things that are true.
Don't let distractions interfere with focusing on truth.

I think that some brothers feel they can do a lot more good for both the organization and the congregations overall by not declaring themselves apostates, even if they hold beliefs different from the accepted doctrinal party line. For example, I recall very clearly when I did research for Brother Bert Schroeder (1977-1982) that he often hinted at different beliefs and sometimes even got in trouble for promoting them as "trial balloons" when giving talks during his travels. In those days, the accepted doctrinal party line, even among members of the Governing Body, was that it had to be whatever was already approved (or would be approved) by Brother Fred Franz. This kept other GB members from even attempting to propose alternatives to prophetic interpretations. 
In 1974 there were only 9 active members of the GB, and that number suddenly doubled almost exactly at the time when there was talk about changing the nature of the GB from a "non-governing" governing body into a GOVERNING  Body. Along with the already declined health of Groh and Sullivan, it became known that Knorr might soon die and leave the non-governing GB with only 8. So 8 additional GB members were added in late 1974 to double that active number to 17 (although Brother Fekel wasn't very active).
Until then, many of these same GB members, and even a lot of long-time Bethel "heavies" as they were called, were willing to talk about a pet doctrine that differed in some way from the party line. In fact, they appeared to take some pride in the fact that they could think independently of Fred Franz on a certain topic. When I started in 1976, there was still talk among various table heads (Bethel elders and "heavies") that up until 1974, it was easy to get Brother "so-and-so" to tell you his alternative explanation of this or that doctrine (or policy) [the mediator, the tribulation, parable of leaven, mustard tree, dragnet, etc]-- "but now he's on the Governing Body." As one example, I had questions about 1918 and 1919 and was told that Brother Sydlik had an alternative explanation. It took some doing, but I finally got Brother Sydlik to share what I was told he had shared freely before his appointment to the GB in late 1974. Also, when I worked for Brother Schroeder, he had alternative explanations to the "generation," to the various "type" and "anti-type" classes, to the meaning of "house-to-house," to the physicality rather than just the symbolism of the "heart," and several other ideas. He even asked me to research supposed health differences among people who were left-handed, right-handed and those who were forced to change from left to right at a young age. [He wanted me to "prove" that people who were forced to change had more blood sugar problems. It was the only research assignment that seemed to have nothing to do with the Bible.]
Should Schroeder and Sydlik and all those Bethel "heavies" and other Bethel Elders have declared themselves apostate? They were among at least 5 GB members who, at least around 1978-81 didn't even fully accept our 1914 doctrine. 
Now I don't agree with most of the novel ideas that Schroeder had, but I think it there was some good in the freedom of thought and expression that allowed some to stand up against the "old guard" thinking of Fred Franz on some issues. Fred Franz fought back right in front of the Bethel family sometimes. I was there the morning he railed loudly against those who thought Jesus was "the mediator of every Tom, Dick, and Harry." My own table head at the time was one of those persons, as were probably many others. Fred Franz thought it was apostasy to even harbor a doubt in your mind about 1914, 1918 and 1919. 
But when Brother Splane gave the first major announcement about finally dropping the unsupported "type" & "antitype" classes, who did he credit with promoting this very idea from decades earlier? Listen to his talk and note that he specifically credited Brother Bert Schroeder, who had died about a decade before this change was finally implemented. 
So I would agree that "apostate" ideas are not good to promote as a certainty. But Schroeder was apparently more careful promoting them under Fred Franz tenure, but then more openly when Fred Franz died. And what was apostasy has now become something he is credited for promoting.

I had discussions with him. He knows me. He had no answers either, except to fall back on secular constitutional legalism, which proves nothing from a logical let alone a scriptural perspective. But the worst was his use of demonstrably false premises. He just could not accept that certain premises put forth by the society could be false. This despite evidence as plain as his face in a mirror. Those premises asserted by the society are presented here:
 

Good for you. I was denied this. Perhaps my questions where too precise and hit too close to home. They asked for my questions up front. But they also knew I was not going to be intimidated or distracted from having them answer what needed to be answered. They knew me plenty well enough to know that. Then they outright refused to meet with me in person despite long time appointment within the organization. They just would not do it.
It's really too bad, and sad. It could be so much better.

I hear you. I probably mentioned already on the forum that I grew up as a Witness and baptized at 15, but then got caught in Greg Stafford’s theology (Mere Christianity) at 18 which then evolved in me becoming a Neo-Anabaptist for 5/6 years when I was 21, back in (2011- 2016) while still being a Witness. I explored other options after as well, but found that I could not take them seriously as intellectual propositions and remained a Witness.
I try to be careful when constructing arguments and often wonder if I have understood and learned the other person’s position. So I try to live by these three options:
Try to refute the argument.
Say that I need time to think about it.
Or accept the conclusion of the argument.
Anything else would be intellectual sloppiness at best.
I’m still trying to grasp and understand your position and of other Witnesses here, especially JW Insider’s since I used to believe the same thing you guys do (a more rudimentary form though 😂) in ecclesiology.
I'm not saying that the thesis you have described is unreasonable. But I do believe that it is neither fitting nor true.
Looking forward to our discussions. I've some catching up to do. I’ll get to reading all your points and JW insiders eventually.
 

This is why I'm a firm believer that people who want to conduct academic debates about theology, study philosophy before they study theology. Some of those concepts are metaphysical. But even more necessary are the epistemological ones, especially those in logic and critical thinking. (I’ll admit I’m an epistemological tyro). Without a proper study of philosophy, there is a lot of frustrating going-round-in-circles.
 

Based on the latter clause of your sentence, by "Congregation" presumably you mean JWs.
I can't attend public meetings. To do so would represent tacit support for a teaching I know causes many, many deaths, and it is untenable. I long for the day when it is repealed, or at least relegated to a status similar to what it held prior to 1961.
In the meantime I consider myself like Elijah, or David who had to keep himself from the anointed of Jehovah in order to help those he still loved and cared about.
For now, that's all you need to know about me, if that.
I do not hide my identity from those who earn my trust. But that trust has to be earned. One day perhaps you'll learn of me from me. In the meantime, whether we have dialogue is up to you.

In that case there's a single doctrinal position you need to apply yourself to. The society's blood doctrine.
That doctrine has led to a lot of premature death.
From day one there has been disagreement within the community of JWs about the merit of this doctrine. From day one. And people are dying over it.
If that teaching is demonstrably wrong then the society has bloodguilt. If a person stands in even tacit support of that, natural law condemns them. Also, what God said to Noah condemns them too. Look close. Look very close. And, look hard. You don't want to be on the wrong side of that teaching.
"No one has love greater than this, that someone should surrender his life in behalf of his friends." (Jesus)
In reverse chronological order:
- If we have permission to donate our life to save a friend then we have permission to donate our blood to save a friend
- Christians have never been under Mosaic law provisions related to blood
- Noah was told nothing whatsoever about donor blood
- God said nothing to Adam or Eve prohibiting them from anything they might want to do with blood
 

I hear you. I probably mentioned already on the forum that I grew up as a Witness and baptized at 15, but then got caught in Greg Stafford’s theology (Mere Christianity) at 18 which then evolved in me becoming a Neo-Anabaptist for 5/6 years when I was 21, back in (2011- 2016) while still being a Witness. I explored other options after as well, but found that I could not take them seriously as intellectual propositions and remained a Witness.
I try to be careful when constructing arguments and often wonder if I have understood and learned the other person’s position. So I try to live by these three options:
Try to refute the argument.
Say that I need time to think about it.
Or accept the conclusion of the argument.
Anything else would be intellectual sloppiness at best.
I’m still trying to grasp and understand your position and of other Witnesses here, especially JW Insider’s since I used to believe the same thing you guys do (a more rudimentary form though 😂) in ecclesiology.
I'm not saying that the thesis you have described is unreasonable. But I do believe that it is neither fitting nor true.
Looking forward to our discussions. I've some catching up to do. I’ll get to reading all your points and JW insiders eventually.
 

Early Christians were a body of individuals united in a common cause of following the Christ as best they could. They understood that no matter their family history God accepted their worship so long as they feared (respected) Him and worked righteousness. Jesus life, death and resurrection served as assurance, it gave them hope to add to love and faith they already had. That was it. Those same Christians also realized there were persons who had yet to learn of Jesus, and likely among them were persons' whose worship God accepted, just like He accepted the worship of Cornelius. Christianity was not a unity intended create a hierarchy to lord over worshipers of God and potential worshipers of God. Christianity was a common cause of helping all of these learn of the hope in Christ, and that God had not forsaken them. 
Today we can theorize about concepts like denomination, but it's an exercise in futility. Nothing has changed about what God expects, and focusing on things like the nit of denominations has potential to detract us from things that really matter, like natural law.
Yes.
See my first paragraph above. Insofar as I know, nothing has changed except humans have transposed a bunch of ideas that distract from Christian unity. It's God place to determine whose worship He accepts, and no one else's.

That happens sometimes. When it does the problem is not how strong a person's grasp of concepts is but, rather, whether the person's willingness to learn is greater than their desire to persuade (or protect).
More often than not, the problem I see between persons engaged in a contentious subject is a goal to persuade (or protect) rather than a goal of sharing and learning.

I would be more generous. I'd say some individuals find themselves atheists not because they want to be an atheist but, rather, because they find themselves incapable of doing otherwise. If, for instance, someone has examined evidence to the best of their ability, and they honestly come to the conclusion "there is no god", when in reality there is a god, what difference does that make to a almighty and benevolent god? An almighty and benevolent god would look for no more than any given human is capable of. How could he do otherwise?
In the case that God exists, and He's almighty and He's benevolent, the most He could possibly look for in any human is their best effort. Each human is unique and has their own capabilities. If, as it turns out, an honest person finds they are incapable of believing there is an almighty and benevolent God, then they have done their best. In this case the almighty and benevolent God would look upon an individual as one having no helper, and God would be their helper when the time came. In the meantime the individual would be held accountable for no more than abiding by natural law.
All that said, we're still left with a variable we cannot account for: what is or is not benevolent is entirely at the option of an almighty god.

@Many Miles I understand, so let me be clear that I am not advocating any kind of autocracy, on the part of anyone, or any kind of abuse of power. Hierarchy does not in any way justify abuse of those for whom one is responsible. The Scriptures teach and speak of the importance of the strong helping the weak. And that is the purpose of the hierarchy, that those who have God given authority, might serve those entrusted to them. Of course a tyrant does not serve those whom he rules. But tyranny is an abuse of government, not the proper use of government. The true ruler of any society serves that society through his leadership. Hence, when Jesus says that the Apostles should not lord it over them, as the Gentiles do, Jesus is not contrasting leadership in the Kingdom with the way leadership in the state should be (as though civic leaders should not serve those whom they lead). The worldly (fallen) notion of authority is one of domination and tyranny. That’s not the way God has created hierarchy in the family, and in the Congregation. Indeed the leaders of the Congregation have been called to serve the sheep, and that is what they are supposed to do, through their teaching, and their prayers, and their ministry.
I agree that Jehovah was not bound to do it this way. Jehovah, being omnipotent, could have done it other ways. He could have set up His Congregation such that it had no hierarchy, and each man was guided entirely by the holy spirit through his own reading of Scripture. But, that would be entirely unfitting to human nature. We are social beings, and our nature is expressed in societies, as Aristotle explains in his Politics. In addition, Jehovah delights in allowing us to participate in His work, and by setting up a hierarchy, Christ has given men the gift of participating in many unique ways in the extension of His work, with His authorization. The Body is an extension of the Head. The Apostles, elders and overseers have been given the great gift of participating in a very special way in the work of Christ, governing Christ's Congregation, sharing in His ministry, and guarding and providing the interpretation of the content of our faith.
I hear your but, can we be ordered to a common purpose without a hierarchy? That’s like saying that societies and nations can function in an ordered way without a government. This is a common notion among twenty-something anarchists and anarchist leaning libertarians, and hippies. But it is naïve. In reality, throughout the entire history of civilization all societies have understood that without a hierarchy, the immediate result is that each man does what it is right in his own eyes, and the short term result is chaos, which inevitably and shortly leads to tyranny. See Plato’s Republic. No country sends out an army that has no hierarchy. An army has a hierarchy, precisely so that they will work together as one body. And that is why Christ established Apostles in His Congregation, and gave them authority. And it is why they appointed elders and overseers so that His Congregation wouldn’t be left as sheep without a shepherd.
The principle I am pointing out is that in any natural human society, unity requires one leader. Anarchy is loved only by those who haven’t tried it. Even a pure democracy or oligarchy will inevitably have a single functioning leader, even if the person isn’t given any formal title. Nature abhors a leadership vacuum. Pretty much everyone recognizes this.  My point is that it is ad hoc to accept this need for a single visible head in every other human society, whether large or small, at every level of human society, and yet deny it regarding the Congregation, where Christ cannot be the visible Head, because He (being in Heaven) is not now visible to us. As far as I understand, every human society is naturally hierarchical, it has a visible leader, from the family, to the local community, to the state. Any human society must be hierarchical if it is to be unified. That is a natural principle of a human society. It belongs to our human nature to be ordered. An organism (body) is unified in its hierarchy. Meaning the parts of a body are ordered hierarchically, in systems, organs, tissues, and so on. Not every part of the organism is the head according to Paul’s description of the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12) If there were no hierarchy, then the whole would not be a body. Do you agree?
Going back to my earlier point. We can draw from Plato’s Republic that all other things being equal, a unified form of government is a better government, because it is most capable of preserving the unity of the governed. And that form of government that is intrinsically most capable of being unified and preserving unity is that in which the highest political authority belongs to a single individual at a time. This is precisely why countries do not have multiple presidents at the same time, and companies do not have multiple CEOs at the same time, and congregations do not have multiple coordinators of the bodies of elders(circuit overseer) and to a similar degree a chairman/ presiding overseer/ coordinator of body elders at the same time. Both natural societies and man made societies require unified leadership. In Scripture we find that there are heads of families. The Congregation herself is described as “God’s household” (1 Timothy 3:15; Ephesians 2:19), “those related to us in the faith” or “household of the faith”(Galatians 6:10) and the “house of God” (1 Peter 4:17). Hence it would be odd if this family (the Congregation) did not also have a primary head for its government. A body with multiple heads is divided (and potentially divisible) in a way that a body with one head is not. So we should expect there to be a head for the society Christ established. So the fact that we believe that we are the head of our home, that our elders are the head of our congregation, that Biden is the head of our country, and that the CEO of our company is the head of that company. You seem to agree that every other social unit needs a head. So it would be ad hoc to believe that the Congregation does not need a visible head.  
Without a shared hierarchy, what it means to follow Christ and Jehovah will be different for every man, and in many cases, contradictory, in part because who they are, will be different for every man. If you don’t believe me, just look around. Think about all the contradictory claims the world is hearing about Jehovah and Christ and His Congregation, from all the thousands of sects each divided from all the others in matters of doctrine, worship, morals, and practice. Imagine if all Christians were truly united under one Governing Body, all holding and teaching the same faith, sharing all the same worship, and submitting to the same leadership. For example, instead of millions of people hearing Benny Hinn teach that there are nine members of the Trinity, they would hear the teaching of the Father as the only true God.
To clarify an earlier point. There is no contradiction between Christ being the head and leader of the Congregation, and the Governing Body being the head or taking the lead(leaders) of the Congregation, so long as we are very clear that the word head and taking the lead (leader) is being used in two distinct senses. Christ is the Head and leader of the Congregation, because He is the Congregation’s source, life, highest authority, and end. But the Governing Body is the visible representative of Christ, under Christ’s authority but acting in His authority as steward of the Congregation. So the Governing Body is the head and taking the lead (leader) of the Congregation in a different sense than Christ is the Head of the Congregation. The Governing Body is subordinate to Christ. But Witnesses are subordinate to Christ by being subordinate to the Governing Body, as Jesus said, “Whoever listens to you listens to me. And whoever disregards you disregards me also. Moreover, whoever disregards me disregards also Him who sent me.” (Luke 10:16) But if it were true that no one could speak for Christ without undermining Christ’s unique authority, this verse could not be in the Bible. This verse (along with others) shows how Christ’s delegation of authority in His Congregation does not undermine His unique authority, but allows others to participate in it, in a subordinate way. So you can start to see how the Bible speaks at times using negative phrases when in fact is not trying to exclude all others from being considered or described the same way as the subject here. What I am talking about is a different type of application, a different degree of usage. 

The Great Courses professor (David Kyle Johnson: The Big Questions of Philosophy) says that it does makes sense. It alone is logically consistent. He traces it to Augustine and says, ‘Maybe God permits evil because it is essential to his pursuit of his greater goal of allowing free will.’ This is essentially what the Watchtower says, though they develop it more.. Moreover, you who sniff because uneducated ‘dumbbells’ say it today might not sniff upon learning that a highly esteemed and educated philosopher also said it.
Johnson extracts a similar lesson from the Book of Job, in which God finally weighs in but doesn’t answer any of Job’s questions, much less his charges. Instead, he says ‘Where were you when I did such-and-such?’ Whereas Carl Jung (Answer to Job) just thinks God is being a bully, Johnson rightly draws the inference that maybe there are greater questions at work to be settled that Job doesn’t know about.
That doesn’t mean that Johnson accepts this ‘theodicy.’ He is atheist. 
People speak of weighty issues as though they are in vacuum, but atheism changes one’s outlook on everything. If you do damage, or allow damage to happen, and you can fix it, that makes huge difference from one who does damage, or allows it to happen, and cannot fix it. Thus, a doctor who breaks a child’s arm and sends you his bill is different from a doctor who breaks a child’s arm in order to set it properly, and upon doing so, sends you his bill. Holocaust is horrific—not to minimize the human suffering involved, but if you can fix it, even that memory in time becomes like a bad dream, a former thing no longer called to account.
But if you’re atheist, there’s no fixing anything. Any damage done is this life is damage done permanently, since this life is all there is. That’s why, while I can understand people falling to atheism, I can’t see them embracing it as though, it, too, is ‘good news.’ It’s a great tragedy, if true. You ought to be sad about it, as H.G. Wells was when he cited the demoralizing lack of faith that ensued in the wake of rapid acceptance of evolution. It’s not good. It’s bad. But eventually, when they accumulate enough, perceptions flip, and it becomes yet another instance of what’s bad is good and vice-versa. That everlasting life you once envisioned? It’s like paper gains in the stock market; they were never real anyway. The sooner you awake from that notion to ‘live fully’ the two or three decades you have left, the better. ‘Imagine’ that, as you are dying of Covid on a ventilator, there is ‘above you only sky’—and learn to find comfort in that prospect.
You should always ask, in any forum where one is critical of the faith, ‘Has this fellow gone atheist or not?’ Criticism of the human the organization to declare the genuine good news may really just be attacks on the belief in God. Nobody would deny there are flaws in the earthy organization, to the point where one may unexpectedly take one on the chin, but if you don’t believe in God, they are everything, whereas if you do believe in God, they are merely painful, like that sliver jabbing you in the butt when you slid over in the lifeboat to make room. Atheist critics come around and say, ‘Do you realize you could wake up one day and say all your life has been wasted?’ Of course you do. It’s called ‘shipwreck of the faith’ when that happens. It’s not as though the notion has never occurred to a believer. “If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are to be pitied more than anyone,” Paul says at 1 Corinthians 15:19
Although black and white thinking in general is not a great thing, and one does well to banish it in most day-to-day considerations, certain issues, such as belief in God, are indeed black and white. This is true even when such belief results in inconvenience, such as when a car group of sisters was rear-ended by a cop in an actual black and white who was insufficiently focused on his driving. Had they been atheist, it wouldn’t have happened.
 

He did confront God and that might read shocking to some. In the end, though, all was forgiven and he was cut considerable slack due to the agonizing stress he was under. His three interrogators, on the other hand, were cut less slack, since they used their good health to pound their fellow into the ground with their ‘holiness’ and assumed ‘theology’ which held that if you suffer, it serves you right. You must have done something wrong.
The scripture from Job that makes our day as Jehovah’s Witnesses—you can almost hear the cymbals crash at Kingdom Hall when it is cited—is “until I die, I will not renounce my integrity.” Right it is that it should be highlighted, for it demonstrates that man can, under the worst of circumstances, maintain integrity to God.
But it is part of a package: The full verse reads: “It is unthinkable for me to declare you men righteous! Until I die, I will not renounce my integrity!”
Part of keeping his integrity lies in not letting these three bullies gaslight him, not ‘declaring them righteous.’ He knows who he is. He knows he is not what they say, a hypocrite who fully deserves his own downfall. Defending himself before these three louts is part of ‘not renouncing his integrity.’
Apparently, not renouncing his integrity even involves challenging God. Job begins his speech with a preamble just 3 verses earlier: “As surely as God lives, who has deprived me of justice, As the Almighty lives, who has made me bitter.”
Of course he ‘dares challenge his Creator!’ Unless there really is a hellfire, he couldn’t possibly suffer more than he is doing at present! What’s he got to lose? What’s God going to do—kill him? That’s exactly what he wants. Although we go on and on about Job’s faith in the resurrection, even writing a song about it (and it’s a good song, too), the context of his remark appears to show he doesn’t have any faith in a resurrection at all:
He says: “For there is hope even for a tree. If it is cut down, it will sprout again, And its twigs will continue to grow. . . . At the scent of water it will sprout; And it will produce branches like a new plant. But a man dies and lies powerless; When a human expires, where is he? Waters disappear from the sea, And a river drains away and dries up. Man also lies down and does not get up. Until heaven is no more, they will not wake up, Nor will they be aroused from their sleep.” (Job 14: 7-12)
so that the verses we like, the verses that follow, read as though something he would like to see, but fat chance that they will! Wishful thinking they appear to be, no more: 
“O that in the Grave you would conceal me, That you would hide me until your anger passes by, That you would set a time limit for me and remember me! If a man dies, can he live again? I will wait all the days of my compulsory service Until my relief comes. You will call, and I will answer you. You will long for the work of your hands.”
It’s a little hard to tell for sure, but those first verses hardly seem a preamble for a speech lauding God for the resurrection hope.
Nonetheless, God makes it all good at the end. Job makes no accusation to God beyond what can easily be explained by the suffering he undergoes. His companions, under no stress at all, go well beyond anything Job says. ‘What does God care if you do what’s right? It’s impossible to please him. Even the angels can’t do it!’ — they revisit the point several times. ‘The very heavens are not clean in his eyes,’ say they.
While one might come online and chew out an Eliphaz, Bildad, or Zophar, one does not do it with a Job, condemnatory though some of his reasonings were. That role must be reserved for God. Even Elihu, who has words of correction for Job, makes clear his motive: “If you have something to say, reply to me. Speak, for I want to prove you right,”  he says to Job. (33: 32) In the meantime, he’s not going to take advantage of his health to bully a sick man, as the other three fellows do: “Look! I am just like you before the true God; From the clay I too was shaped. So no fear of me should terrify you, And no pressure from me should overwhelm you.” (33: 6-7)
He’s not going to be a Zophar. No one wants to be a Zophar, who to put it in modern terms, visits a patient on a respirator with COVID-19, who has lost his entire family to that plague, has lost everything else as well, who says something rash in his agony, so Zophar responds: “I have heard a reproof that insults me—my understanding impels me to reply.” (!) You almost expect him to challenge Job to a duel! It’s his mission to defend God from any ill talk, regardless of circumstances, but there are times to give it a rest.
You can’t tell a person that their experience is not theirs. No one should try. Everyone will have their say until God debuts with 70 questions to make you say, as did Job, ‘maybe I was a little rash.’ They’re not going to say it to me, or you, only to God after he makes an appearance. Meanwhile, nobody wants to be a Zophar.
 
 

You'd be shocked if you only knew the reality of that photo in respect to me. But, yeah, you got things pretty close to how things are. That photo hits so close to home that it is actually ...
I'm just gonna stop there.

So here I am plowing through some Great Courses professor lecturing on the great questions of philosophy and I’m getting madder and madder because it just seems a primer for atheism. I don’t recall philosophy historically being on such a mission. Imagine being a student in this fellow’s class, where you have to spit back some variation of what he told you, otherwise you get a failing grade. 
The litmus test for the problem of evil, he says, is the Holocaust. He cites some scrawling on a barracks wall from a prisoner who soon thereafter died to the effect that if he meets God in the afterlife, God will have to beg his forgiveness. It’s not hard to empathize.
Sometimes when your back is up against the wall and you’ve got nothing to lose you take a few shots.
Nonetheless, there were hundreds of Jehovah’s Witnesses also consigned to the camps. They were unique among the prisoners—actual martyrs rather than victims—in that they alone had the power to write their ticket out. All they need do is renounce their faith and comply with the war effort. Only a handful complied.
In the context of reviewing Carl Jung’s ‘Answer to Job,’ written in the early 50s, I explored the topic in a certain blog post, quoting first a Watchtower article, then adding my own comments: 
“From the Watchtower of 2/1/92:
'In concentration camps, the Witnesses were identified by small purple triangles on their sleeves and were singled out for special brutality. Did this break them? Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim noted that they “not only showed unusual heights of human dignity and moral behavior, but seemed protected against the same camp experience that soon destroyed persons considered very well integrated by my psychoanalytic friends and myself.”'
“Why didn't the well-integrated psychoanalytic-approved prisoners hold up? Probably because they read too much Jung and not enough Watchtower!! Not Jehovah's Witnesses! They weren't hamstrung by having been nourished on Jungian theology. Job meant something to them. It wasn't there simply to generate wordy theories and earn university degrees. A correct appreciation of it afforded them power, and enabled them to bear up under the greatest evil of our time, a mass evil entirely analogous to the trials of Job! They applied the book! And in doing so, they proved the book's premise: man can maintain integrity to God under the most severe provocation. Indeed, some are on record as saying they would not have traded the experience for anything, since it afforded them just that opportunity. (another fact I find staggering)”
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2011/02/carl-jung-job-and-the-holocaust.html
 

More often than not, all we can do is share our experience and training for the benefit of others, and we can work to improve ourselves too. But in the end the most we can do is honestly try our best. Whether that helps improve someone's life or some circumstance is usually beyond our control.

I far prefer the term ‘Golden Rule’ to ‘Human Rights’ as the former preserves all that is noble about human rights, while discarding all that is pretentious. Our own bodies do not respect our ‘human rights,’ crapping out on us when we need them the most and finally shutting down altogether.
Moreover, it really seems that if they are ‘rights’ you ought to be able to do something about it when they are violated. Instead, rights are all-but violated with impunity today. We are reduced to saying people ought ‘take responsibilty’ and be ‘held accountable,’ neither of which happens with any reliability. Utter such lofty terms all you want; not much changes.
This years favorite word: ‘Unacceptable’
Use in a paragraph:
They finally hung that slippery politician that everyone knew should be hung. ‘Any last words?’ they asked him on the scaffold. ‘This is unacceptable!’ he cried, as the trap door swung open and the rope snapped taut.
Unacceptable or not, off he went, every bit as much as if it was acceptable.