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Anna

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  1. Haha
    Anna got a reaction from JW Insider in Uncovering Discrepancies in Secular History   
    "The manna was synthesized out of the residue of the comet's  elements left in the earth's atmosphere" 😀
  2. Haha
    Anna got a reaction from Pudgy in Uncovering Discrepancies in Secular History   
    "The manna was synthesized out of the residue of the comet's  elements left in the earth's atmosphere" 😀
  3. Thanks
    Anna reacted to JW Insider in Uncovering Discrepancies in Secular History   
    I didn't expect the 1950 Awake! article to be as supportive as it was. The entire article gives him the benefit of the doubt, right up to finally including a statement that it includes speculation and unproven ideas. Here is the first part, and I have included the conclusion above.  

     
  4. Haha
    Anna reacted to TrueTomHarley in Uncovering Discrepancies in Secular History   
    Yeah, you probably are still cowering in the basement from Orson Wells reading War of the Worlds.
    Lions and tigers and Martians—oh my.
  5. Thanks
    Anna reacted to JW Insider in Uncovering Discrepancies in Secular History   
    But you seem to forget that NO ONE relies on VAT 4956 as authoritative evidence. It's just one part of a puzzle made up of at least 50,000 pieces of evidence. And all 50,000 pieces just happen to consistently fit with all the other pieces of evidence. And all 50,000 pieces mitigate against the WTS publications' timeline of Nebuchadezzar and the other 5 Neo-Babylonian kings. It's the sum total of several completely independent lines of evidence --at least a dozen independent lines, where the 50,000 business tablets is counted as only one of those lines of evidence. It's not about any ONE piece of evidence for the Neo-Babylonian timeline.
    But most people would think it's akin to a game of foolishness to think of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky as providing authoritative evidence, as you have referenced him above. I have the book "Worlds in Collision" on the shelf behind me and I have skimmed it. You can verify in the May 8, 1950 Awake!, page 27,28, that his ideas were wildly speculative and completely unsupported by evidence. 
    *** dx30-85 Worlds in Collision ***
    WORLDS IN COLLISION
    book by Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky: g50 5/8 27-28
    [moved to the end of the post]
    That article was overly generous to him because he tried to support Biblical miraculous events with cosmic events in our solar system. Wikipedia gives a good summary of his ideas, some of which were published in "Worlds in Collision" some in "Ramses II and His Time," etc.
    The causes of these natural catastrophes were close encounters between the Earth and other bodies within the Solar System — not least what are now the planets Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, and Mars, these bodies having moved upon different orbits within human memory. To explain the fact that these changes to the configuration of the Solar System violate several well-understood laws of physics, Velikovsky invented a role for electromagnetic forces in counteracting gravity and orbital mechanics. Some of Velikovsky's specific postulated catastrophes included:[citation needed]
    A tentative suggestion that Earth had once been a satellite of a "proto-Saturn" body, before its current solar orbit. That the Deluge (Noah's Flood) had been caused by proto-Saturn's entering a nova state, and ejecting much of its mass into space. A suggestion that the planet Mercury was involved in the Tower of Babel catastrophe. Jupiter had been the prime mover in the catastrophe that saw the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Periodic close contacts with a "cometary Venus" (which had been ejected from Jupiter) had caused the Exodus events (c. 1500 BCE) and Joshua's subsequent "sun standing still" (Joshua 10:12–13) incident. Periodic close contacts with Mars had caused havoc in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE.
  6. Thanks
    Anna reacted to TrueTomHarley in Uncovering Discrepancies in Secular History   
    The closed and open club.
  7. Thanks
    Anna reacted to JW Insider in Uncovering Discrepancies in Secular History   
    You got me curious, since I honestly had never even skimmed this portion of COJ's book. I noticed a footnote, on the same page you pointed to, about the famous eight-UK-clergymen December 1917 Manifesto, from their "prophets" conference. This manifesto has been referenced in the WTS publications several times.
    *** nc pp. 20-21 pars. 36-37 When All Nations Collide, Head On, With God ***
    Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, Dr. F. B. Meyer, and six other well-known clergymen of England, issued a Manifesto, which was republished throughout the earth and which declared:
    37 “(1) That the present crisis points toward the close of the times of the Gentiles. . . . (5) That all human schemes of reconstruction must be subsidiary to the second coming of our Lord, because all nations will then be subject to His rule. . . .”—Current Opinion, for February 1918.
    I had already seen this same referenced Manifesto nearly 10 times in different WTS publications. But I had never realized that these "Gentile Times" were not really about 1914, but more specifically about the events of 1917. I hadn't noticed that the context in the WT about the 2520 years, really had nothing to do with this "Gentile Times" manifesto, because it was really more about the supposed fulfillment of the 1,260 days (years) of Revelation 11, which J.A.Brown had predicted 90 years earlier for 1917. (J.A.Brown never connected the 7 times, or 2,520 years, with the Gentile Times.)
    So I looked up the phrase "present crisis points toward the close of the times of the Gentiles" in Google. Mostly it came back with Watchtower Library and jw.org links. And I found a lot of links that showed other religions had used the same Manifesto to show that their prophets were just as good or better (Mormons) and other religions used it to show just how useless and irrelevant those predictions had already become. 
    But the most curious use of the manifesto was from Rutherford, who used it as "proof" that the world noticed the "beginning of the end of the world" in the 1920 book "Millions Now Living Will Never Die," page 40.
    Rutherford quoted from the Manifesto, and had only good things to say about these particular preachers. He called them honest and faithful and good, as compared to so many other clergymen:

    Even then, in 1920, it was rare to hear a good word about another preacher from Rutherford. But did he really think they were good, or did he change his mind about them?
    A TALE OF TWO FCC's
    [The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Council of Churches]
    Well, I checked another link, this time to the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, which printed the entire speech of Rutherford in 1926, here, page 339. The speech follows the same logic and context of the 1920 "Millions" book treatment, still pointing out the Zionist fulfillment of prophecy. But this time he points out that "these very distinguished men who signed the manifesto have vehemently spoken against present truth and the Lord's kingdom."
    https://www.google.com/books/edition/Federal_Communications_Commission/UAwvAAAAMAAJ


    What is his evidence of the signers of the above showing vehement opposition to "present truth" since then? It is that a different group of clergymen, who did NOT sign the above manifesto, had signed on to the proposal for the U.S. to join the League of Nations. So in January 1919, the executive committee of the Federal Council of Churches, had made a "blasphemous" statement in that proposal about the League of Nations, hoping it represented a means to peace in the world:
     
    The proposal was drafted by the executive committee of the FCC, and by December 1919 had become a petition to send to the U.S. Senate, where it failed. The proposals even contained wording that might remind you or Rutherford's own words about war. This is found in "Internationalizing the Social Gospel: The Federal Council of Churches and European Protestantism, 1914-1925 Author(s): Ralph L. Pearson"

    But, naturally, Rutherford doesn't admit that the Watchtower itself had offered the same optimistic idea about the same League of Nations, following some of the same wording of the FCC:
    One month after the statement of the FCC in January 1919, the February 15, 1919 Watchtower spoke in similar terms:
    “We cannot but admire the high principles embodied in the proposed League of Nations, formulated undoubtedly by those who have no knowledge of the great plan of God. This fact makes all the more wonderful the ideals which they express. For instance, it has been made plain by President Wilson and the advocates of his ideas that the proposed League of Nations is more than merely a league to enforce peace. They would not have us consider it to exclusively from the standpoint of politics or of military relations. It should be considered as fully from the economic and social points of view. The President’s idea seems to be that the League of Nations which he proposes would stand for world service rather than mere world regulation in the military sense, and that the very smallest of nations shall be participants in its every arrangement. In other words, his idea undoubtedly is that the league shall not be established merely for the purpose of promoting peace by threat or coercion; but that its purpose, when put into operation, will be to make all nations of earth one great family, working together for the common benefit in all the avenues of national life. Truly this is idealistic, and approximates in a small way that which God has foretold that he will bring about after this great time of trouble.” — Watch Tower,  February 15, 1919,  p.51 [Reprints page 6389].
  8. Haha
    Anna reacted to Pudgy in New Light on Beards   

    …. It just occurred to me!
    The subliminal hidden message with the Norwegian red white and blue “flag tie” is NOT FOR JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES!
    … IT’S FOR THE NORWEGIAN COURT SYSTEM OFFICIALS!
  9. Haha
    Anna reacted to TrueTomHarley in New Light on Beards   
    Doesn’t matter. I’m growing one like Rip Van Winkle as we speak. Long enough to sweep the kitchen floor with.
  10. Upvote
    Anna reacted to JW Insider in Khazars   
    This idea that Satan can put Jews in power implies that God doesn't want Jews in power. But that would also imply that God only wants "Christians" including Hitler, Biden, Pol Pot, Chiang Kai-Shek, etc. 
  11. Upvote
    Anna reacted to JW Insider in Khazars   
    @Mic Drop,
    I don't buy it. I watched the movie. It has all the hallmarks of the anti-semitic tropes that began to rise precipitously on social media during the last few years - pre-current-Gaza-war. And it has similarities to the same anti-semitic tropes that began to rise in Europe in the 900's to 1100's. It was back in the 500s AD/CE that many Khazars failed to take or keep land they fought for around what's now Ukraine and southern Russia. Khazars with a view to regaining power were still being driven out into the 900's. And therefore they migrated to what's now called Eastern Europe. It's also true that many of their groups converted to Judaism after settling in Eastern Europe. It's possibly also true that they could be hired as mercenaries even after their own designs on empire had dwindled. 
    But I think the film takes advantage of the fact that so few historical records have ever been considered reliable by the West when it comes to these regions. So it's easy to fill the vacuum with some very old antisemitic claims, fables, rumors, etc.. 
    The mention of Eisenhower in the movie was kind of a giveaway, too. It's like, Oh NO! The United States had a Jew in power once. How on earth could THAT have happened? Could it be . . . SATAN??"
    Trying to tie a connection back to Babylonian Child Sacrifice Black Magick, Secret Satanism, and Baal worship has long been a trope for those who need to think that no Jews like the Rothschilds and Eisenhowers (????) etc would not have been able to get into power in otherwise "Christian" nations without help from Satan.   
    Does child sacrifice actually work to gain power?? Does drinking blood? Does pedophilia??? (also mentioned in the movie) Yes, it's an evil world and many people have evil ideologies based on greed and lust and ego. But how exactly does child sacrifice or pedophilia or drinking blood produce a more powerful nation or cabal of some kind? To me that's a giveaway that the authors know that the appeal will be to people who don't really care about actual historical evidence.
    Also, the author(s) of the video proved that they have not done much homework, but are just trying to fill that supposed knowledge gap by grasping at old paranoid and prejudicial premises. (BTW, my mother and grandmother, in 1941 and 1942, sat next to Dwight Eisenhower's mother at an assembly of Jehovah's Witnesses. The Eisenhower family had been involved in a couple of "Christian" religions and a couple of them associated with IBSA and JWs for many years.)
  12. Haha
    Anna reacted to Pudgy in Trying to nail down 612 BCE as the date of Nineveh's destruction   
    Well … that clears THAT up! (???????)
  13. Haha
    Anna reacted to Pudgy in Forum participants we have known   
    … reminds me of many years ago I was riding back on Interstate 95 from  a Witness party in Towson, Maryland with three other Brothers, all listening to Beach Boy surfing songs on the tape player, singing along and slapping the dashboard and seats, and a Brother in the back seat screamed out “HOW LONG ARE ARE YOU GOING TO PERSECUTE ME, LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT!
    Was that you?
     
     
  14. Haha
    Anna reacted to Pudgy in Forum participants we have known   
    BTK59 … you are definitely overthinking everything.   By a LOT!
    Reads like a SERIOUS hug deficiency.
    Your obsession with me is futile.
    I am NOT going to hug you!
    It is obvious you do not understand “The Rules” here, or even know the secret handshake to not get banned.
    1. Participants must recite their arguments in iambic pentameter to enhance the elegance of discourse.
    2. Every point made must be accompanied by interpretive dance to emphasize its gravity.
    3. Rebuttal arguments must be delivered while wearing an oversized prop hat for added credibility.
    4. Participants must incorporate at least one random word from the Klingon language to showcase linguistic prowess.
    5. Points can be countered with the power of interpretive mime, as long as it's conducted in complete silence.
    6. If a debater quotes Shakespeare, opponents must reply in rhyming couplets for the remainder of the debate.
    7. The use of airhorn sound effects is permitted only during particularly compelling arguments.
    8. A gong will be struck to signal the end of a participant's turn, creating an air of ritualistic finality.
    9. A designated "metaphor meter" will gauge the complexity of metaphors used, awarding extra points for obscurity.
    10. During the final statements, participants must whisper their conclusions to convey an air of introspective wisdom.
    …. if you do all those things, you will get a hug from JWI, our leader, happy hoodadoo, and power lifter …. and (AND!) you can wear the coveted wooden-plaque-on-a-chain that says “I Am NOT Wrapped Too Tight!.

  15. Upvote
    Anna reacted to TrueTomHarley in Forum participants we have known   
    Never in my life had I encountered a more unpleasant person than AlanF. He was fine if you acquiesced to him . . . but if you disagreed to any significant degree, he would launch incredible streams of non-stop insults. My greatest fear was that his cherished evolution teachings might be correct and that he was the end result. Without specifically naming him, (which would be mean) ‘In the Last of the Last Days’ tells of a voracious opponent whose headstone no doubt calls the cemetery caretaker a moron for supposing the surrounding flowers are creations of God. 
    I didn’t like him very much.
  16. Upvote
    Anna reacted to JW Insider in Forum participants we have known   
    AlanF commented quite often on this forum when he was alive. He and @scholar JW had a history going back for many years —decades—according to scholar JW. Same with Ann O’maly whom scholar JW also appeared to have communicated with for many past years. 
    I hated AlanF’s position on evolution and complete dismissal of much of Genesis but I appreciated that both he and Ann O’maly were much more knowledgeable about neo-Babylonian chronology that I am. By a long shot. They both corrected me publicly with good evidence on several mistakes I made here while learning the topic. I always appreciate corrections by anyone, even a "public reproof." 
  17. Thanks
    Anna reacted to JW Insider in Trying to nail down 612 BCE as the date of Nineveh's destruction   
    There is NO Bible evidence for 539 BCE. There is NO Bible evidence for 587 BCE. There is NO Bible evidence for 607 BCE. I think most of us understand that by now. So, I propose a thread/topic where we shift the focus almost exclusively to the basic, fundamental question about the strength of the secular evidence in the Neo-Babylonian period. Why do we rely on it? Why does the WTS rely on secular Babylonian astronomer's evidence for Cyrus in 539? Why does the WTS reject the same evidence for Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year?  Is the evidence for Nebuchadnezzar's years actually 10 times better than for Cyrus?
    When that question is solved, it also resolves the entire question about the 70 years, the WTS 20-year gap, the years of those kings that came just before and just after. And it will automatically link to the resolution of dates for events like the Fall of Nineveh, the Battle of Carchemish, the death of Josiah, the years of Zedekiah, the BCE dates for the three different exile events reported in Jeremiah 52. And , of course, it should answer the question about the complete lack of evidence for 607 as Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year.  
    So in this new thread/topic there would need to be NO discussion of:
    the 70 years of Jewish Exile, or the 70 years of Babylonian domination over other nations the purpose of the WTS 20-year gap 1914 Daniel 4, Gentile Times, the length of the 7 times/years, the length of the 2,520 days making up those 7 years Not even any discussion of Bible prophecies or references in: Jeremiah, 2 Chronicles, Isaiah, Zechariah, Daniel.  Just the years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. Any discussion of other topics can be moved back to this topic/thread.
  18. Thanks
    Anna reacted to JW Insider in Trying to nail down 612 BCE as the date of Nineveh's destruction   
    I really like the fact that you are trying to work it out for yourself.
    Because I was always so skeptical of the accepted, secular chronology I thought it was important to "start from scratch" and work the whole thing out for myself. 
    I think most Witnesses don't realize that ANY time we see a B.C.E. date in the WTS publications, it means that we are relying on SECULAR chronology.
    Personally, I'm convinced that the Bible is sufficient on its own to keep us fully equipped, therefore without any need to rely on secular chronology, so I give no special credence or reliance to any specific years with a BCE date attached to them. Doesn't mean they can't be helpful in trying to figure out the order of events, but even here, those secular dates aren't necessary in order to understand the Bible, and figure out the order of Biblical events. 
    And from a purely Biblical perspective we aren't going to get any definite mentions of an eclipse or some other astronomical event that is tied to a specific month and day and year of a specific king. Therefore there can be no BCE dates calculated from the Bible. 
    In my opinion, there are two main stumbling blocks that always hamper any chronology discussion, and they are related:
    Witnesses are told that we are defending Biblical chronology based on a pivotal ('absolute') date of 539 BCE and the Biblical 70 years.  When arguing with Witnesses, Non-Witnesses don't (or won't) admit that the most logical and common-sense understanding of the 70 years favors the WTS viewpoint. 
  19. Upvote
    Anna reacted to JW Insider in Paul's Letter to the Galatians and the Struggle for Doctrinal Purity   
    I have some trouble with your reasoning here. You can't put new wine in old wineskins. The New Covenant should not borrow principles from the Old in the creation of laws and rules. The book of Hebrews appears to me to show how there are principles that can help explain the full transition from Old to New. We can find shadows in the Old that hinted there was going to be something new and better. But the Old covenant was a matter of "do this, do that, don't touch this, don't touch that." This is precicely what the "law written on the heart" changes from the "law written on stone."
    The New Covenant does not require us not to murder, for example, as part of a continued rule to follow. Christians don't follow a rule that tells us not to murder. We simply do not murder because it is not a reflection of our love for God who even extends love to enemies, and it is not loving to our neighbor. 
    (1 John 3:15-20) 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has everlasting life remaining in him. By this we have come to know love, because that one surrendered his life for us, and we are under obligation to surrender our lives for our brothers.  But whoever has the material possessions of this world and sees his brother in need and yet refuses to show him compassion, in what way does the love of God remain in him?  Little children, we should love, not in word or with the tongue, but in deed and truth. By this we will know that we originate with the truth, and we will assure our hearts before him regarding whatever our hearts may condemn us in, because God is greater than our hearts and knows all things. . .
     
    (1 John 4:20, 21) . . .If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet is hating his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And we have this commandment from him, that whoever loves God must also love his brother.
  20. Upvote
    Anna reacted to TrueTomHarley in Do-Jehovahs-Witnesses-have-humanitarian-aid-programs-in-addition-to-their-door-to-door-ministry?   
    (Quora question) Besides being a significant source for literacy in lands where it is poor, they are well known for disaster relief, prompting taking care of their own, in catastrophic times. They thus provide a good example for other groups to follow, for there is no reason that anyone cannot do as they do.  In recent years, some critics have attempted to spin this exercise of brotherly love as a lack of concern for anyone else. They do this even though they themselves would—say, in the event of an earthquake—check on family members first, never dreaming that anyone would frame that as indifference to the suffering of others. Jehovah’s Witnesses are a family, frankly not large enough to fix everyone. If opponents refuse to acknowledge that love of God can form the basis of family, that is hardly the Witnesses’ fault, is it?  
  21. Haha
    Anna reacted to Pudgy in The Watchtower's 20-year adjustment to the standard Neo-Babylonian chronology   
    When you see giant golden arrows embedded in burning military equipment globally ….
    text me.
     
  22. Upvote
    Anna reacted to JW Insider in The Watchtower's 20-year adjustment to the standard Neo-Babylonian chronology   
    The point of the thread is the self-imposed 20-year gap in the Watchtower's chronology schema. This discussion about 1914 is definitely related even if it looks out of place. I think it's good to see just how far one needs to stretch things to make it look like SOMETHING happened in 1914 that might be visible to the world AND that supposedly gives the WTS bragging rights for having predicted it in advance. 
    The only thing we have left of all the predictions that Russell made is not about the War, but simply the expression he used: that it would be "The End of the Gentile Times." To Russell that meant what it said: the complete and final end of the national (gentile) governments. Originally that they would be brought to nothing, and no nations or governments would exist after October 1914 because the ONLY legitimate government on earth after 1914 would be a Jewish government out of Palestine. The timeframe kept slipping and the WTS gave up on that idea completely around 1929/30. 
    Now the entire expression "End of the Gentile Times" has drifted so far away from its original meaning that it has nothing to do with Gentiles vs Jews at all. And the Gentiles don't stop ruling after all. There are more Gentile nations now than ever! And they are more powerful now than ever! And the "Jews" are now identified spiritually as the remnant of spiritual Israel, and yet they somehow get trampled and made captives after 1914 (especially 1918-1919). Some are even killed and put in prison, especially in the 1940's.
    So all that's left of that expression now is empty: the nations still rule even though their "time" has ended, but they have lost their "lease" to rule, but they aren't even aware of that. 
  23. Upvote
    Anna reacted to JW Insider in The Watchtower's 20-year adjustment to the standard Neo-Babylonian chronology   
    Just to be clear then. I absolutely do NOT liken the conflict between Arabs and Jews to currently applicable Biblical prophecy. Jesus said "nation would fight against nation" but the end is not yet. In other words not even world wars were a sign of the end. All nations fighting other nations is just another sign that we are living in a world that cannot govern itself and needs Jehovah's Kingdom as the ONLY permanent solution. Conflicts between nations provide an opportunity for Christians to prove their neutrality and to prove that they do not sacrifice lives to the god of this world by supporting wars and divisive politics. But there is no specific spiritual significance to conflicts between natural, physical Jews today and any other nations. Biblical lessons, yes, specific currently applicable prophecy, no, imo.
    And I hope I never try.
    Good question. He definitely examined Zionism, repeatedly.
    You should read the following book if you haven't aleady:

    As far as Russell's general involvement in politics, I agree it wasn't as steeped as Rutherford's, but it was there. Did you read C.T.Russell's open letter to President McKinley (and openly racist, too) about how Japan should get the Philippine Islands because Filipinos are basically lazy, and the Japanese are industrious?
    Anyway, here's the Watchtower's answer to your question in the 1975 Yearbook. The last paragraph is also my position on the prophetic angle you mentioned.
    *** yb75 pp. 53-54 Part 1—United States of America ***
    Then, again, it might have been New York city’s noted Hippodrome Theatre, where Russell addressed a large Jewish audience on Sunday, October 9, 1910. Regarding that discourse, the New York American of October 10, 1910, said, in part: “The unusual spectacle of 4,000 Hebrews enthusiastically applauding a Gentile preacher, after having listened to a sermon he addressed to them concerning their own religion, was presented at the Hippodrome yesterday afternoon, where Pastor Russell, the famous head of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, conducted a most unusual service.” Scores of rabbis and teachers were present. “There were no preliminaries,” said the newspaper. “Pastor Russell, tall, erect and white-bearded, walked across the stage without introduction, raised his hand, and his double quartette from the Brooklyn Tabernacle sang the hymn, ‘Zion’s Glad Day.’” As reported, eventually the audience ‘warmed up’ to the speaker. Next there was applause, finally enthusiastic response. The discourse over, Russell signaled again and the choir “raised the quaint, foreign-sounding strains of the Zion hymn, ‘Our Hope,’ one of the masterpieces of the eccentric East Side poet Imber.” The effect? This, according to the press account: “The unprecedented incident of Christian voices singing the Jewish anthem came as a tremendous surprise. For a moment the Hebrew auditors could scarcely believe their ears. Then, making sure it was their own hymn, they first cheered and clapped with such ardor that the music was drowned out, and then, with the second verse, joined in by hundreds. At the height of the enthusiasm over the dramatic surprise he prepared, Pastor Russell walked off the stage and the meeting ended with the end of the hymn.”
    Times have changed, and so have Christian views of Biblical prophecies once thought to apply to natural Jews in our day. With increased light from God, his people have discerned that such words foretell good things for the spiritual “Israel of God,” Jesus Christ’s anointed followers. (Rom. 9:6-8, 30-33; 11:17-32; Gal. 6:16) But we have been reviewing the early twentieth century, and this is how things were in those days.
     
  24. Upvote
    Anna reacted to TrueTomHarley in Q: How much credit do PIMO Jehovah’s Witnesses owe to Zoom for freeing them from attending boring meetings at the Kingdom Hall?   
    On the venues I have seen, a sense of optimism prevails among most, having ‘escaped’ from the ‘cult.’ Some of the younger one taunt GB brothers, reminiscent of adolescents mocking out their teachers. Some of the older ones greet new ‘escapees’ with, ‘Welcome to your future!’ They all but sing the song, ‘The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades.’
    It is an optimism that prevails in few other places. Elsewhere, people are anything but optimistic about the future and a fair number are not even sure there will be one. Even the songwriter pointed out that the ‘job waiting’ after graduation is in the nuclear industry and the reason he’s ’gotta wear shades’ is the threat of conflagration.
    Then there is an Amber Scorah who wrote a book upon going ‘apostate’ which was hailed by the media. The reviews lauded her ‘courage’ for facing the death of her newborn just following her ‘escape’ from a ‘high-control’ religion. ‘The dodo!’ I found myself thinking. Here she leaves a place where the death of a newborn would have unleashed scores of genuine comforters with a resurrection hope that never fails among Witnesses to soften the blow, to enter a community where there is no such comfort, but only the harsh loss itself, and she still counts it a victory! egged on by people who have donned the shades, know the meaning of the song, accept its possible outcome,  and still count it a victory for facing the future unafraid, without the ‘crutch’ of religion. It’s as though the closer the Atomic Scientist Doomsday Clock gets to midnight (now, 90 seconds to go) the more they cheer, so drunk are they that humans should rule the earth through their own self-determination, and not God.
    I recall Amber’s name because I made a mental note to read her book someday, along with Rolf’s. I’ll probably never get around to either of them because everyone has a tale of responding to woe. Everyone has a tale of reacting to things that don’t entirely square (as though everything in the greater world does). Everyone has a tale of miscarriage  like Job and/or being undermined by characters like Eli, Bill, and Zop. Mine is as good as theirs—they should read my books, not I theirs!—which have the added advantage of showing how you can throw out the bathwater without throwing out the baby. Or, just read and meditate on the Book of Job. That will do the trick, too.
    At our Kingdom Hall, the torch has been passed to a younger generation of elders. One of them handled the ‘Instruction’ talk last night, ‘Remain Loyal Despite the Actions of Others.’ Have you ever been hurt by another brother or sister? he asked. ‘It could have been accidental. It could have been deliberate; we’re imperfect,’ he said. He then related how he had had such an experience in another congregation at the hand of fellow elders. He gave no details, other than how it hurt him deeply and he wrestled for a proper reaction.
    ‘What about the sister in the picture?’ he returned to the text material, commented on the accompanying photo. Here she is being yelled at. Right outside the Kingdom Hall. That’s not pleasant, is it? It probably was traumatic. What will she do? Who will she tell? (the photo inset shows her in prayer) Will she tell everyone in the congregation? [laughter, because the friends are contrasting that with the inset] Will she go to another congregation? Will she leave the truth? He then returned to his own experience. ‘Do you want to leave the congregation?’ The CO had asked him, and pointed to one or two where they needed help. The CO presented it that neither option, stay or go, was wrong, but, ‘If you stay, you will grow.’ He did stay and did grow. He related how, by staying, he got to see how Jehovah handled the issue in time.
    It is always a matter of stay or go in the face of adversity. Sometimes the go is to a different congregation. Sometimes it is to leave the faith entirely.
    The Bethel brothers do push back against apostasy, but with such a non-applicable vagueness that you wonder if they are not keeping something under wraps. They give the solution without mentioning the sticky scenario that requires it.  ‘The unanswered argument always appears stronger for that reason,’ I read somewhere. It makes those who examine it overestimate its strength and those who don’t can become almost superstitious, fearing the power of ‘poisonous’ words.
    It can happen. Every malcontent wants to control the narrative. He wants your agenda to be replaced by his. To indulge him in all his accusations is dumb. However, to pretend he doesn’t exist isn’t all that much better. 
    Sure. It’s inconsistent to present investigation as bad when it was investigation that led us to become Witnesses in the first place. It’s enough to say, ‘Well, you wouldn’t want to hang out there, but if you go there at all, watch out for toxic people, hypercritical people, unforgiving people, and OCD people—all of whom present in great numbers.’
    The brothers really do give excellent counsel on combatting apostasy, but it can come across as hamstrung by a determination to avoid specifics. In the latest monthly broadcast one of the helpers gives such a talk. It is overall pretty good. But it starts with something like, ‘have you ever heard negative reports on JWs? It might be about (he mentions a few things that no one cares about—maybe they did at one time, but not now) and then says, ‘or maybe it is about our view of disfellowshipping. Bingo. I’d love to see a talk specifically on this topic. Maybe this is not the occasion for it, but is there one somewhere? A talk explaining the need for such discipline, and backing it up with secular considerations, not just the biblical ones that resonate with fewer and fewer people today. Something along the lines of, https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2018/08/the-trump-card-of-christian-discipline.html, maybe.
    No need to present a litany of court cases, which opposers want done. There’s hardly a point, anyway. The pattern today is that activists influence law to the point they sometimes replace it. Lower courts may be swayed, but higher courts, not yet so infiltrated, overturns negative rulings on the basis of higher principles. Will this trend continue? Who knows? As activist ‘wokeism’ advances, with it’s demand of ‘inclusion,’ sparks fly with any religion that wants ‘insulation,’ essentially, that wants to follow Jesus direction to be ‘no part of the world.’ In the secular world, we see that law is turned inside-out and upside-down in an attempt to advance political or social causes. Will such legal manipulation one day ensnare us at the highest court level? As it did in Russia, and then the ECHR overturned the Russian Supreme Count verdict against the JW organization and the next day Russia removed itself from it’s jurisdiction?
    So far, the earthly organization has proved adept at tweaking and amending policies to stay a step ahead of ones who use law in order to shut them down, Russia notwithstanding.  Always, such tweaks and amendments are lambasted as hypocrisy by opponents. Sometimes the brothers are somewhat clunky in response, but they do respond with what generally makes things better, leading some to say, ‘Jehovah uses the world to discipline his people!’ something I don’t say, but if it results in better policies and better navigation amidst a sea of circling sharks, why quibble?  
    If money is involved in any way, as it always will be with any large organization, then it is, ‘It’s all about money with them!’ Even if one takes this view, so what? ‘Is there any among you whose bull will fall into a pit who will not drop everything until it is pulled out?’ Jesus says. Preservation of money is an unremarkable concern in secular matters of life. Money has the power to do things, so you want to keep it if you can. It’s only the ‘love of money’ that messes you up, not money itself.
    The reason kids do not walk up and down the street with a shovel in winter or a lawn mower in summer, the way they used to, is that nobody will hire them. The reason nobody will hire them is that lawyers have exploited the occasional accident to award multi-million dollar verdicts. That’s why I pulled into the street of my childhood home to see my 77-year old dad, raised on a farm, perched atop his 2-story suburban home doing a re-roof. ‘Hey, Pop, you don’t have anything to prove at your age,’ I told him. It is also why every town used to have a ‘Suicide Hill’ for winter sledding, but now none of them do. It is safety, to be sure, but safety mostly driven by money. That hill was mobbed when I was a boy; my dad would take us there, as did many dads. Every so often, someone would break his leg. He’d emerge from the hospital on crutches with a bill for $100. Today, that bill might be in the hundreds of thousands, and people on TV would tell how their lawyer ‘got them 10 times what the insurance company offered.’
    The trouble with social media is that a comment from a principled and thoughtful person is immediately followed by one from a hedonistic moron who nonetheless carries equal weight. I am ecstatic about the internet. Something that would have taken me days to research I can now find out in seconds. But I haven’t lost sight of the fact that, by far, the greatest use of the internet is for porn. Closing in quickly is the spread of ‘misinformation,’ which is always in the eye of the beholder, lately countered with ‘fact-checking’ which is also in the eye of the beholder. AI Chat and, Lord help us, deep fakes, will presently make us all (except for some on this forum, of course) a flock of permanently-manipulated marks. AI tells us various things, but the Musk’s AI, fed differing algorithms, tell us another. And yet people are awed by artificial intelligence and count it as truly intelligent.
    It’s not so much the thought that you may be ‘manipulated’ on the JW website that rankles; it is the ridiculous thought that you will not be manipulated elsewhere, only more subtly, with the always reassuring majority backing, and it accord with the modern spirit to let no one tell us what to do! Those who decry brainwashing the loudest are not so much concerned about brainwashing, but about brainwashing that is not theirs. Everything must be seen in the context of, ‘Government by God, or Government by Man,’ the universal issue that Watchtower publications put their finger on a century ago. 
    Social media ‘exposes’ the faults of others, to be sure, but has it taken people anywhere other than it dawning on them they must rely upon themselves (not terrible in itself) because (the following is terrible) nobody is to be trusted. Twenty years into the widespread adoption of social media, has hatred been beaten back? Or has it increased ten-fold? These things are better seen in absence of any JW context, pro or con. Is there any figure anywhere, other than the occasional no-count entertainer or athlete, who garners overall public support. Or do we not just see the unseemly results when their respective enemies succeed in landing a punch or kicking them in the you-know-whats, revealing their shortcomings for all to see?
    All the same, if social media exists and becomes all the rage, as it has, you’d better learn how to use it. You don’t want to be like the Amish man who says, ‘Forget these wicked cars from the Devil. It’s horse and buggy for us!’ You will overall lose, because Christians are destined to lose, as enemies are written to have their day in the sun, as they did with our Lord, before the tables are turned to make victory our of defeat. But, even as you do lose, you will likely succeed in keeping more of your own people and will draw in a certain number of high-information people who can recognize the big picture—the sort of people JWs drew in decades ago from the religious world before anyone ever heard of social media. A bit of training would help equip ones so inclined, just as we train in other aspects of communication. 
    In Tom Irregardless and Me, I wrote about the JW website, then relatively new on the internet:
    “Members of the Governing Body thus repeat the pattern they are known for with any new technology: They eye it with suspicion. They advise caution. They know that when the thief switches getaway cars, it is the thief you have to watch, not the dazzling features of the new car. They follow the thief for a time. Convinced at last that they still have a bead on him, they examine the car. They circle it warily, kicking the tires. At last satisfied, they jump in with both feet and put it to good uses its inventors could only have dreamed of.”
    They have done that with the internet. They have not yet done that with social media. At present, the strategy still seems to be to hope it goes away.
     
  25. Haha
    Anna reacted to TrueTomHarley in Q: How much credit do PIMO Jehovah’s Witnesses owe to Zoom for freeing them from attending boring meetings at the Kingdom Hall?   
    In the sequel, Dorothy follows the yellow brick road as instructed. ‘Ah crap!’ she says at movie’s end. ‘California!’
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