JW Insider

Those are actually excellent rules for getting rid of a person who comes to your door to sell you something you don't want. There is nothing "military" about them. I've used them myself on people who call at the door selling goods and services or political candidates. We should all learn from such rules how to be direct and honest with people, instead of being vacillating. I'm impressed. Now as to the Catholic doctrines which are listed below, these are the ideas that we should be able to rebut. But we should not be overly concerned just because some Catholics might be able to learn ways to be more honest with us. We should be appreciative, so that we can spend our time on persons who are looking for something better.

Turns out that all 4 of the gospel writers are also anonymous. There is absolutely no Biblical evidence that a man or apostle named Matthew wrote the gospel that came to be known as Matthew. There is not even a hint within the book itself. It's from a later tradition that decided that there should be only four gospels, and would assign an author to each of the four. (Luke says there were many gospels in his day.) Of course, the book of Luke does not ever say it was written by a person named Luke. The book of Acts, which was obviously written by the same person who wrote the book we call Luke, also never says it was written by Luke. Same goes for Mark, of course. The traditions that matched authors to each of these books comes from a later generation or two (or three) from a different part of the world outside the places they were written. The Gospel of John also never claims to be by an author named John. Instead, it teases us with its anonymity. It only says it was written by the disciple that Jesus loved.

Ultimately, it's not a matter of who they work for or who they speak for, or even if 99.9% of scientists all said the same thing. In past millennia when "science" was more of an art, it was possible for 100% of "scientists" to be wrong about a premise or hypothesis. (And of course I'm not talking about being wrong in the sense that Isaac Newton was supposedly wrong just because Einstein and others came along and improved on the physics out at the extremes of experience.) The only relevant question is whether there is data to support the idea that humans are having an effect on the earth's climate. If a few conservatives had discovered data to support this idea, liberals might be going crazy trying to deny it. If a few liberals had discovered data to support this idea, conservatives might be going crazy trying to deny it. That's why it's best to just look at the data, and not who is presenting the data. Otherwise we are more interested in the ad hominem argument instead of the facts themselves. Besides, remember how often you yourself have pointed out that even if Satan himself (aka Al Gore?) were to present truth then it's still truth.

I do not know what this means. Is someone trying to hold the GB accountable for man's influence on climate change?

My opinion is that this is completely untrue. There are several other gases that can now be modeled very accurately as greenhouse gases. These models can be shown to predict real-world situations, both closed experimental environments and now planetary environments. Yes. Please do. Scientists interested in publicity or sponsors will always be with us. And it is quite true that a lot of scientists come into their field with overarching beliefs so that they skew results, or ignore data they disagree with. However, the best way to get publicity or sponsors is to ignore the very similar results that 98% of climate scientists are getting, and skew the results in favor of the 2% whose results are all-important to the fossil fuel industry. Guess where the paying sponsors come from. (Hint: the fossil fuel industry.) Yes. Indeed.

Saw this on CNN: In fact, the Dow has reached a new high, on average, once every seven days since fully recovering from the Great Recession in March 2013. And it's happened under both Trump and former President Barack Obama: The Dow has hit an all-time high in 30 of the last 54 months since fully coming back from the market collapse of 2007-08. And it happened more than 100 times under Obama since 2013. I worked in the financial industry for nearly three decades after Bethel. I have assumed for all these years that there is a kind of "greed machine" going on behind the stock market numbers. We have been in a kind of "bubble" that is driven to ever larger profits by those who invest in the stock market generally. Sure there are many, many losing companies in the markets, but in general the bubble is driven to expand in a way that will always profit the financial industry. Even for those times when the bubble "burst" (e.g., 9/11/2001, 9/29/2008, etc.) there were built in safety measures to only let a certain amount of air out of the bubble instead of letting it truly burst. I expect that the greed factor is so high that the whole thing can come crashing down at any time and the safety measures will not be able to keep the bubble afloat. But it's only money, so this hasn't stopped me from putting half my 401k into the market since 9/31/2001 and then "swing-trading" the other 50% whenever the market drops or rises by triple-digits. In general, this means keeping an average of about 33% of that other 50% in the market, but moving it to 0% on any day that the market rises by triple-digits, and 100% on a day that the market drops by triple-digits. That might sound backwards, but this is set up to work on funds which only change value at 4:00 pm, so that any decision can be made or over-ridden by only looking at the market for 1 to 5 minutes at about 3:45 pm on weekdays, and ignoring the market at all other times of the day. There is no peace and security in the stock market. By definition, a rising stock market actually refers to the confidence that corporations will keep finding greedy new ways to exploit workers, exploit fear, consolidate power, and continue to find ways to squeeze out more profits -- generally always to the detriment of 95% of the world.

When I was taking a few semesters of Hebrew in college, I was surprised at the level of prejudice among Jews. Rabbi Acker, who taught the first two semesters, would curse out Israelis from Palestine who came in for an easy "3 credits" because they already spoke Hebrew and shouldn't have gotten into the beginning classes (Hebrew 101 and 201). To the rest of the class, he would call them "dirty" etc. But the most surprising thing was that several non-Israeli Jewish-American students already knew the Hebrew sentence for "To kill an Arab is a blessing" which accidentally came up when someone was trying to remember the Hebrew word for "blessing." Rabbi Acker chastised the person who brought it up saying that it was "Anti-Semitic" which resulted in a clamor of disbelief. He explained that in the Bible, the Arabs were Semites just like the Jews, therefore prejudice against Arabs was anti-Semitism.

That was just from the memory of what went through my mind when I created the post. I remember finding about 30 quotes on the Watchtower Library CD that made the opposite point of the same one you have referenced here. I remember only quoting only a few of them, because once the point is made, there was no reason to belabor it. Also, if you now say that you brought up 1874 because it was my own past comments that indicated a "false" presentation of Russell's own words, then you would only have to produce one single example. No need to keep count. Just find the one example and say what's false about it. So far I have always tried to correct any false statements made, so I'd be happy to see it and find out what was false about it. But your example above says that someone (apparently an ex-Bethelite) had said that Russell predicted the end of the world in 1874. I know that this wasn't me, because I have never believed that. In fact, when I saw that claim come up here once, I made it clear that it wasn't true. Perhaps it came up again by someone else and I missed it on another occasion. So until you have some evidence that what you are saying is true, I'll have to assume it is false and mistaken.

Thanks, but do it quickly before I have to hurt somebody. Figured as much. I thought you were doing that for a while on a few other threads, too. Haven't seen a problem with the "fit" on any of them, though. It allows any of us to read into them whatever we see fit, sometimes. I've been correctly counseled by you on several occasions already, whether it was aimed at me or not. This is appreciated when the counsel is thoughtful.

I agree with you on both of your claims, and it's greatly appreciated. But I still had not heard you make such a claim before. (Although I only read about half of what goes on here, because some people tend to go on forever and ever with their posts!!!)

How, is your statement factual? and how is my statement not been proven? For someone that indicates wordplay by others, you sure use a lot of it! You cut off the portion of the answer that already did show how it is factual. Also, you probably recall that when you have made the claim in the past that Jehovah's Witnesses cannot claim to have been Bible Students, I presented about 6 out of at least 30 quotes from the Watchtower that supported my point very clearly. You found zero that supported the point you were making. If you think it's necessary to rehash that point, I'll find that post again for you. By the way, making a clear point with supporting evidence is not called "wordplay."

One day you (correctly) highlight the fact that it is the uneducated, unlettered and ordinary persons who can more easily see the wisdom of God's word, and at other times I see you touting someone's education, PhD's, and titles as proof that persons like COJ, for example, should be judged as unworthy of consideration. Exactly! I believe you are exactly correct on this point. (Although I'm not sure why you brought it up.) Exactly! Russell could NOT have predicted anything concerning 1874. As far as we know he was even disdainful of Second Adventist chronology until late in 1875 or early 1876. So whatever you meant by the question" "So contrary to an ex-Bethelite assurance in Watchtower knowledge?" you are right to point this out, just as I have, by the way. A complete non sequitur. Just because I have pointed out the same thing you just did, you were forced to use a kind of "vagueness" about this supposed accusation involving an ex-Bethelite. I'm sure you knew that I have never ever even implied that Russell claimed the end of the world in 1874. So to answer your question about "who then makes a play on words" the answer is quite obvious. You just did! And it's this same kind of twisting of words and meanings about which many people have pretended that doctrinal issues have been answered. This is one of the bad things that happens to Witnesses when they have doctrinal questions or believe that they can see a contradiction in some of our traditional teachings that go back to the time of the Bible Students. If the question cannot be answered through bluster and wordplay, then the next step is to just dig in our heels and call the questionable doctrines "spirit directed truth" and associate all concerns and questions as "apostasy." 'Nuff said! Thanks. I didn't see myself, or you, or TTH, or anyone else here claiming to be well versed in English or commanding the language better than any other.

It's called projection. I've seen you do it now under almost all of your personas. The problem with your projection is that I have never posted here under any name except @JW Insider.

The following, as always, is just my personal opinion: A few times you have started off with a misunderstanding of the position of two out of the "three persons in one" that I mentioned. I have counted about six different monikers that all appear to come from the same source. But these last three just mentioned are the most used recently, in my opinion. I think that you might have been surprised that you have sometimes (even very recently) been "judged" especially by the primary one of the "three in one" as supporting dangerous ideas, even though you have mostly defended that same primary one. Having been here for nearly three years now, it's easier to get a handle on a person's reactions, language, style, and even which words are repeatedly misused/misspelled across the various personas. Some of these "elements of style" have already been explained by Allen under a couple of previous topics. I once defended Allen's language by also guessing that it was from using English as a second language. Big mistake! I was accused for a couple of years as "making fun" of him. Allen has since explained that some of these same types of misunderstandings are related to dyslexia. Still, I only bring this out because I think more people would be less confused by his take on things if they understood where the personas were coming from.

Exactly! You are probably thinking only of the times when Russell and Rutherford held beliefs that we now consider ridiculous. I was thinking about the times when Russell and Rutherford made statements that were Biblically and logically true. (For example: when Russell pointed out that the wars, earthquakes, pestilence and famine mentioned in Matthew 24 were NOT signs of the last days, but were the kinds of things that "must happen" over the entire course of the 1,800+ years since Jesus mentioned them. Or when Rutherford spoke about how evidence works, and how one piece of evidence is not worth that much, but when two or three pieces of corroborating evidence confirm each other, the likelihood of truth cannot be overlooked, and when that is multiplied half-a-dozen times we have something that might as well be called absolute truth.) But you should recall, too, that it is the Watchtower, not any of us, who have clumped together the Bible Student ideology with the Witness ideology. The Governing Body is identified as beginning in 1919 among Bible Students. Elijah is now supposed to be a prophetic picture of Russell from the 1870s to 1916 preparing the way for these "Bible Students" to come on the scene 1919. Some of the major Bible Student traditions that have been dropped were not dropped until 1943/4, and one of them in 1961/2. Of course, many of the Bible Student traditions have not been dropped at all. And many of them should not ever be dropped because they were correct from the start. There is no more need to go back to the problems of ancient times to use them as a justification for making the same mistakes in modern times. The examples were meant for our instruction. When Jesus says to watch out for something it is so the same mistakes are not repeated in future generations. To some it could sound like you are suggesting that the next generation of Witnesses should break off and form their own association, something like what Rutherford did, or even what you suggest Jesus was doing in breaking off from Judaism.

It has been typical of AllenSmith, J.R.Ewing, Gnosis Pithos, etc., to rely on a kind of "word salad" or various other types of "plays on words" and twisted and incorrect meaning of words. The problem is that while you probably think that it defends a particular Watchtower tradition, it ends up highlighting the weakness of that same tradition. For example, if the word "people" in the above statement of yours refers to people in the Writing Department at Bethel, then it makes more sense. This isn't exactly on topic, but in a way it really is. Consider: One of the bad things that can happen to a baptized Witness is that she is reading the Bible, runs across a passage that raises a question, then she studies the Watchtower's answer to that question, and her study reveals one of the contradictions or weaknesses of the traditional explanation or a recent update to that explanation. So she goes to the elders where her question reveals doubts, and because it is a question that the elders are unable to answer, she immediately comes under suspicion of having been influenced by apostates. But because her question is not solidly answered, then the same thing might happen again with a second difficult question, so that a pattern has now emerged and some elders might take this as evidence that she is now most definitely under the influence of apostasy, so they must shift the subject to a question of loyalty and obedience. In her frustration at having the topic changed from answering her question to a question of loyalty, her frustrated demeanor is seen as rebellion and an unwillingness to put herself under the authority of the elders or the Governing Body. She may not be disfellowshipped for this, as she might surely have been between 1979 and 1986, but the perceived haughtiness of the elders' response pushes her away from the congregation and she begins to draw away from close association. Her joy is gone and she now finds it physically and mentally depressing to go to the meetings. You may not have run across such a case, but I did. It was a sister who moved into our congregation in the 1990's, who attended for a while and then disappeared. When my wife spoke with her, this was her exact explanation for why she had moved into our congregation. She had hoped that the attitude she saw displayed was going to be different, but she saw the same kind of haughtiness among some elders and couldn't "shake" the feeling that it would just happen again.

It sounds like you are saying that A.C. did not depart due to the uncommon traits that Witnesses are known for, but instead that A.C. departed for the common traits that Witnesses are known for, which you admit to be "doctrinal errors" and that such doctrinal errors have been perceived even by our own skeptics. These doctrinal errors area pushed constantly you say by JWI and others, and have caused others to stumble. I can guess that you probably intended to say something else a little different from the above. But in any case, as the accusation of causing stumbling has been proposed, I would like to offer a more likely alternative about what causes this type of stumbling among us. What you refer to as doctrinal error that I have proposed, might very well be doctrinal error. It is after all being proposed by an imperfect human with faults common to many of us. And the persons from whom I first learned of such doctrinal alternatives were also imperfect humans with faults common to many of us. However, what I have presented is nothing new, and has been presented for hundreds of years by Bible students and Bible commentators. More specifically, several of the most damaging points to some of our doctrines that I have presented were actually made by Russell himself and Rutherford himself. And of course the absolutely most damaging evidence against some of these doctrinal points was made thousands of years ago, because I have always tried to highlight where these points were made in the Bible itself. If I had to guess, I'd say that this is the point that causes the most problems, as evidenced by the fact that you had no Biblical answers to even one of the points of Biblical evidence. I could turn around and say that it doesn't even matter who among us presents the Bible evidence for or against a certain belief. It could just as well have been presented as a question about who might have a Bible answer for the information that is presented over on some discussion site by Simon [forgot last name], or a blog by Doug Mason or a book by Carl Jonsson. These are points that we are all going to have to face head-on from the next generation of converts. And we are going to have to face the problem of many younger Witnesses who already know that a couple of the doctrines are on very problematic. "Fortunately" for the Watchtower Society, most current Witnesses and even most current converts don't care to concern themselves with the Scriptural evidence or lack thereof for certain doctrines. But unfortunately this means that the bulk of our publishers are also completely unable to explain the issue or even act like they ever noticed the problem. This will result in an unnecessary stagnation. I see some evidence of it already starting in several countries. So what really causes "stumbling" is not the person pointing out a potential problem, which is already pointed out in a hundred other places, going all the way back to the Bible writers themselves, but it's the dogmatic requirement of acceptance of some doctrines that cannot be defended by any of us. Here, on this forum, we have a chance to see if anyone can defend these, or see if are we destined to just accept without evidence. The latter is a dangerous position to be in. But it's also a self-inflicted injury. We need not teach any indefensible doctrines as dogma, we only need to teach them as a possibility that currently makes sense to many people, based on the secular world conditions which at least form a kind of parallel to the expectations that appear to be predicted Biblically.

The part about seeming wrapped to tight seems obvious, but he was trying to be sociable and then appears to have some kind of panic attack, perhaps not so much from the music itself but the incomprehensible sensory overload from the tapping and imperfect singing on top of the music. Not enough data to diagnose Asperger's Syndrome, but it's a possibility. I was speaking as if I was in that time period .... not now. Yes, I was kidding but you didn't need to edit it. It already was understood that your confusion about the right thing to do was back then, not now. That's why I joked about alcohol. It seems almost impossible, even at 3 AM, that 3 other people would not immediately realize that dropping off someone 50 miles from home at that time of night was very clearly a problem, no confusion about it.

I hadn't seen this one before, but I figured it was satire, or at least fake news, before I finished the first sentence. (Actually I scrolled upward to get to this post and had already seen the all-important info under "Breaking News" strategically cut off in a story that begs for validation.) Then the opening line, "in one Houston neighborhood," is another give-away, as in the more Onion-esque "area man." My comment was just an excuse to "play" on the words "there is a time and place for everything." "Tuesday" and "one [area] neighborhood" don't really count as "time and place" for a real newspaper-styled story. And, of course, the primary "play" on the words is the reference to Ecclesiastes 3, and the fact that Alessandro had just said he left 3 days ago. The fact that this was the first response coming immediately after Alessandro's was about as unexpected as hearing a comedy message recorded by Robin Williams when one calls up a suicide hotline.

Sorry for the barrage of questions, but I'm interested in a few things. I take it you are leaving for the doctrinal reasons, and not because of how you have been treated. Do you have family among the Witnesses, any close friends still in the congregation? Are there nearby congregations meeting in the same hall or one nearby? Is it your intent to explain all of your doctrinal reasons to persons within the congregation? Have you already told the elders how you feel about "some" doctrinal errors. I mention that last one because I think you'll find that if you weigh the pros and cons you could still find more pros. I hope you will at least be willing to discuss some more of your concerns here, and directly with persons at Bethel. They will take a phone call on any subject, and although they will want to inform your local elders you can ask that they do not if you are not comfortable. Ask to speak directly with one of the GB Helpers whom you think might be receptive to a discussion. If you want to message me, I can give a couple of suggestions.

Are you even in the right thread? A person is not a JW just because they have the same initials as Janice Wright. Besides -- (This one took exactly 30 seconds.) -- "there's a time and a place" and in this instance you got them both wrong. These photographs actually show a crocodile that was shot and killed on 6 July  2003 at Pointe-Noire in the Republic of Congo. According to an article in allafrica.com, the reptile was a Nile crocodile whose vital statistics fell a bit short of the claims made above: he was estimated to be 50 years  old, about 16 feet  in length, and about 1,900 lbs.  (not quite the 80-year-old, 21-foot,  4,500-pound  monster described in e-mail).  The local mayor reportedly insisted on preserving the crocodile’s carcass against the efforts of locals who wanted to eat it and arranged for it to be shipped to a taxidermist.

Sounds like it was a gathering party. If I were a judgmental person I might even suspect alcohol, too. Although I can think of other reasons for the confusion.

Spent from July 8 to July 22 this year in Anguilla. Brothers we called there yesterday are all suffering from damage to their homes and several vehicles. No reports of loss of life that they know of on the entire island yet, although injuries reported. To get to Anguilla (three times now) we fly into St. Maarten and take a ferry (although you can also switch planes in Puerto Rico or St. Maarten for a smaller plane that is able to land in Anguilla's smaller airport). Damage at both airports, and a lot of runway debris to clean up. Most homes of Witnesses there are in very low-cost housing construction: concrete walls with metal roof. Several roofs went flying, exposing the contents of home to a lot of water damage. From St. Maarten there was no report yet about the brothers, necessarily, but there are a couple of deaths and several injuries reported in both St. Maarten and St. Martin. [Updated edit: 1 person dead in Anguilla, not a Witness.]

I came late to this discussion, knowing that my viewpoint on this particular subject is based on what might seem a bit radical to some. So I apologize in advance for the opinions to follow: I wouldn't suggest "civil disobedience" either, but to your point, the earth didn't open up when Rutherford successfully attempted his own hostile takeover of the Watch Tower Society from 1916 to 1919 (technically, until 1931). After all, he went directly against the leadership of Russell and illegally went against the leadership of the majority, physically shutting that majority out, until he could put his own majority in place. But this is another one of those potential contradictions of a similar nature to the contradiction that forms the basis for this topic. We forgive him for bending the law and for several ethics violations because we are sure that, in the long run, he had the "truer" religion compared to those he outmaneuvered. Yet, this also suggests that the 'guide from history' has more to do with how we respond to the true Leader, the greater Moses, Jesus Christ. Thinking of men as effectively taking the place of Jesus as head is merely an expedience for modern organizational purposes, and is not related to theocracy, which is rule by God. If a doctrine shows up differently in God's Word from the way it shows up from the GB, then we surely have nothing to fear from merely obeying God as ruler rather than men. That's the true definition of theocracy. But we don't initiate discord, either. That's for the exact same reason we accept and respect the GB in the first place. We appreciate that the role they take on is for keeping order and for efficiently carrying out our ministry in an organized manner. So we gladly subject ourselves to the decisions of an organizational Governing Body. I don't see why anyone would object to that. Besides, it's working; the worldwide ministry is becoming increasingly more organized and efficient through this arrangement. These men also maintain "doctrinal order" by taking on the role of "guardians of the doctrine." This can be a very good thing. Teaching materials, presentation materials, publication content, dramas, videos, convention talks are coordinated and this produces less confusion. When a change is made it is often highlighted and even if not, there are usually efficient ways for us to discover and explain the change. We appreciate that the work done to find the support for these doctrines scripturally is taken very seriously and we have no major doctrines without some Biblical reason for it, even if that reason (for a former doctrine) was based on an admitted misunderstanding. I won't use this topic as a place to show the kind of trouble that can happen if the "guarding" part is taken more seriously than fixing any misunderstandings, but I think that should be obvious, from our own history. But the point is that it should not be difficult for any of us to rattle off anywhere from 10 to 20 doctrinal changes and changes in procedures that came about through "public pressure" even though this public pressure was not well-known to most of us, nor was it any kind of civil disobedience. I can think of a couple cases where it really was something like civil disobedience from the rank-and-file Bethelites, for example, but I am referring primarily to the public exposure of certain embarrassing doctrines by ex-JWs, or the pressure of civil courts and tax courts (US, UK, Belgium, Australia) and scrutiny of doctrine by psychologists, surgeons and law enforcement. Add to this an unknown number of letters that came in from Witnesses whose questions and objections really have been taken seriously over the years. It must be a lot more than some Witnesses and others here would believe.

The most recent persons I studied with who symbolized their dedication through baptism were the father and mother of two children, a pre-teen boy and a much younger girl. We absolutely discussed what baptism means in terms of their association and the potential for disfellowshipping. In fact, we spent hours on the subject, because the mother was a smoker, who needed a lot of moral support to help her quit, and she was (and still is) allowed to call the house any time day or night getting through the tough time she had in giving up the addiction. In fact, they put off baptism for at least an extra 6 months to be sure she was completely over it. But our studies also included a discussion of what can happen to children, too, and the pressure we can end up unknowingly putting on children and the emotional pain that could result if the decision of a child is not really his (or her) own decision, but primarily a way for the child to please their parents. So up to a point, I do, but I have probably over-used or even misused this verse: (Matthew 10:33-37) 33 But whoever disowns me before men, I will also disown him before my Father who is in the heavens. 34 Do not think I came to bring peace to the earth; I came to bring, not peace, but a sword. 35 For I came to cause division, with a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 Indeed, a man’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever has greater affection for father or mother than for me is not worthy of me; and whoever has greater affection for son or daughter than for me is not worthy of me. I'm wondering if this is really all that applicable to the variations of choices people make today. If their children grow up and become atheists, for example, are the parents really required to initiate that division? I read the verse carefully, now, and realize that we are not the ones creating this division and creating enemies. We are the ones who continue to love our enemies, the same way Jehovah continues to make it rain on both the righteous and unrighteous.