Is there a contradiction with regard to freedom to change one's religion?

[Guest J.R. Ewing]

Then, this shows the children with spiritual growth into spiritual maturity, then an apostate chastising them for their baptism.

So, that says more about the opposition than the faithful.

Hebrews 6:1-4English Standard Version (ESV)

6 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, ^2 and of instruction about washings,^[a] the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. ^3 And this we will do if God permits. ^4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,

[Anna]

On 8/27/2017 at 8:09 PM, Anna said:

Referring to people leaving their religion to join Jehovah's Witnesses:

"No one should be forced to worship in a way that he finds unacceptable or be made to choose between his beliefs and his family".  Awake 7/09 page 29

AND

Regarding those disfellowshipped from Jehovah's Witnesses:

"Really, what your beloved family member needs to see is your resolute stance to put Jehovah above anything else - including the family bond.....Do not look for excuses to associate with a disfellowshipped family member, for example, through email" p.16, paragraph 19, Study WT Jan / 2013

In the above situation we are assuming that the reason for disfellowshipping was because of changing one's religion and/or apostasy (not because of immorality etc.)

So I guess no one wants to have a go at solving this apparent discrepancy? Anyone?? @JW Insider, @Gone Fishing, @TrueTomHarley, or even @Allen Smith  

[TrueTomHarley]

Write them. Ask them to explain it, unless the context of the article does.

 

[Anna]

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Write them. Ask them to explain it, unless the context of the article does.

 

Good point about the context, that’s always important of course. The context in both articles is that they assume that JWs  are the true religion. But that should not be the deciding factor. As the first article goes on to say: “Although the Bible makes a clear distinction between true and false teachings, God allows each person the freedom to choose how he or she will respond. (Deuteronomy 30:19, 20) No one should be forced to worship in a way that he finds unacceptable or be made to choose between his beliefs and his family”

So if we have previously responded favorably, but now have changed our mind, does that change the dynamics of that statement? Besides “choosing death instead of life”, as per Deuteronomy, is there any reason why the person should be shunned as per the second article? I guess, to answer my own question it all depends if the person is disfellowshipped or not. So the second question would be “should a person be disfellowshiped for changing their belief” which goes back to the topic “Should JW's punish, disfellowship, or shun members who disagree with certain teachings” and I have no idea what the conclusion on that topic was as I got lost in the amount of postings (8 pages in 6 days) besides some quality input from JWInsider and you, all I know is that it ran off poor Bruce and that JTR had his fare share of input with cartoons, and that it digressed to the Walsh Trial, and a list of teachings JWs have wrong, then some backward and forward with Nanna and Albert etc. but has there been any conclusive ….umm… conclusion regarding the actual question?

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

Is there a contradiction with regard to freedom to change one's religion?

YESInstitutional disfellowshipping as it is done todayis taking families as hostages ... and threatening EVERYBODY( actually, only Jehovah's Witnesses ) with the same tyranny.That is why, as an institution,  we got thrown out of Russia.THEY have lived through that before, under Soviet rule. 

[TrueTomHarley]

4 hours ago, Anna said:

and I have no idea what the conclusion on that topic was as I got lost in the amount of postings (8 pages in 6 days) besides some quality input from JWInsider and you, all I know is that it ran off poor Bruce and that JTR had his fare share of input with cartoons, and that it digressed to the Walsh Trial, and a list of teachings JWs have wrong, then some backward and forward with Nanna and Albert etc. but has there been any conclusive ….umm… conclusion regarding the actual question?

No, there was not a conclusion to the matter, and don't think there will be by switching to another thread. It is a fallacy to think that when you put persons in a room and let them loose, even if they deem themselves thinking persons, they are going to arrive at a conclusion that will not be summarily rejected by the person who didn't think it in the first place. It is classic human self-rule. 

JTR's comment is just above mine. Do you think he is ever going to come around to a consensus view? I don't think so. He has said what he has just said for 10,000 posts. And was there a consensus view over 1914? Or did JWI eventually wear everyone down with posts as long as the phone book?

When I was a kid squabbling in the car back seat with my siblings and whining 'are we there yet?' my dad - everyone's dad that I know of - would eventually whirl around and yell: 'if you kids don't stop crying back there, I'll give you something to cry about!' It's undignified to think we have not outgrown that model, and we all hate to be undignified. But that does not mean we have outgrown it. 

All this incessant sniping at the GB is little more than the back-seat kids of yesteryear responding to dad's rebuke: "do YOU like dad?' 'No, I don't like dad at all -he's mean. If only dad would go jump in a lake. Then we could be like Howie Hoodlimm next door and Willie Watever down the street - their dads let them do whatever they want.

 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

3 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

 

JTR's comment is just above mine. Do you think he is ever going to come around to a consensus view? I don't think so. He has said what he has just said for 10,000 posts. And was there a consensus view over 1914? Or did JWI eventually wear everyone down with posts as long as the phone book?

When I was a kid squabbling in the car back seat with my siblings and whining 'are we there yet?' my dad - everyone's dad that I know of - would eventually whirl around and yell: 'if you kids don't stop crying back there, I'll give you something to cry about!' It's undignified to think we have not outgrown that model, and we all hate to be undignified. But that does not mean we have outgrown it. 

 

TTH:

Never in the history of the world has the majority EVER been right ... the most they can hope for is consensus.

YOU CAN VOTE TO KEEP THE PEACE, AND HAVE "ORDER" .... BUT YOU  CAN NOT VOTE ON TRUTH.

...and JWI's posts DID wear me down ... but to the best I could tell, every word was true. 

The fault was MINE .. not his, that I do not have the patience anymore to be a scholar. 

To more or less quote Alex Guiness playing Dr. Zhivago's policeman brother as he was in the snow watching Dr. Zhivago tear apart someone's fence for firewood "My brother is a much better man than I am, but that does not bother me ... I have killed much better men than I am, with a small pistol.".  If you do not get the philosophy behind that statement .. it means some things are not important ... and some things ARE.

And as far as kids squabbling in the car back seat with  siblings and whining 'are we there yet? ... we are adults with legitimate concerns ...legitimate real world problems .... Hurricane Harvey immediately comes to mind ... and we are told if we do not shut up, Big "Brother" Dad is going to stop the car and throw us outside ... and anyone else with legitimate concerns and complaints that dares disagree with his authority will also have the same fate.

That is an excellent way to keep order, but it is by extortion ... when the siblings  recognize  there is NO process  for the redress of legitimate grievances that exists ... none whatsoever.

Big "Brother" Dad, as always, knows what is best ... to maintain his position.

So ... one adult is treated like a child, and expelled from the car, the other adult siblings are also treated like children, with nothing of value to say ...   and are threatened to be ALSO expelled if we do say it, and some are for that reason! ..... and the grievances  go unanswered.

And the roadside becomes littered with the bodies of legitimate complainers. Dad does stop to paint with a broad brush in white, on both sides of the car "Celestial Chariot", as he grew up in the 50's when men named their cars.

And besides ... he can always get MORE children. He knows that so very well.

In Russian State Orphanages they bind babies in cloth so they cannot move their arms, and when they cry they are ignored. After awhile... they stop crying, because no one ever comes to show them tenderness and love .... and their "Big Brother" sees this as a good thing, because when they grow up, they will make excellent, totally obedient citizens and soldiers. 

It will never occur to them that they are anything else but machines to serve the State.

Sound Familiar?

Here is the quote:

" I told myself it was beneath my dignity to arrest a man for pilfering firewood.

But nothing ordered by the Party is beneath the dignity of any man.

And the Party was right: one man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic; five million people desperate for fuel will destroy a city.  That was the first time I ever saw my brother.

But I knew him.

And I knew I would disobey the Party.

Perhaps it was the tie of blood between us, but I doubt it; we were only half-tied anyway, and brothers will betray a brother.

Indeed, as a policeman I would say get hold of a man's brother and you're half-way home.

Nor was it admiration for a better man than me.

I did admire him; but I didn't think he was a better man. Besides, I've executed better men than me with a small pistol. "

                            But nothing ordered by the Party is beneath the dignity of any man.

                                       But nothing ordered by the Party is beneath the dignity of any man.

                                                      But nothing ordered by the Party is beneath the dignity of any man.

                                                                             But nothing ordered by the Party is beneath the dignity of any man.

                                                                                          *

3 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

It's undignified to think we have not outgrown that model, and we all hate to be undignified. But that does not mean we have outgrown it. 

... and therein is where the crime lies.

.

 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

3 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

It's undignified to think we have not outgrown that model, and we all hate to be undignified. But that does not mean we have outgrown it. 

... and therein is where the crime lies.

We are thinking adults ... not children .

The response is for children.

.

[TrueTomHarley]

2 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

In Russian State Orphanages they bind babies in cloth so they cannot move their arms, and when they cry they are ignored. After awhile... they stop crying, because no one ever comes to show them tenderness and love .... and their "Big Brother" sees this as a good thing, because when they grow up, they will make excellent, totally obedient citizens and soldiers. 

Careful. You have up till now suggested that from Putin on down, Russians all watch 'Leave it to Beaver' - that family ties mean EVERYTHING to them, and this is why they positively lose it - and rightly so - when they hear that a Witness family has been disrupted by a disfellowshipping. Are you now painting them as cold and uncaring? Putin knows where you live, you know, as PeterR reminded me - you provided him your address 'details' when you wrote in about the ban. Even if the purpose of your letter was to say 'attaboy!' he still has your address.

Did you also cheer on the Jewish pogroms in Russia? If I recall my 'Fiddler on the Roof,' Tavye's Jewish religion made he and his family shun the third daughter for marrying a Gentile soldier. It's outrageous!! Even Jehovah's Witnesses would not do that! What choice did the Czar have but to beat up every last Jew in sight and to leave it to another tyrant later on to take care of the ones he could not get to?

[TrueTomHarley]

1 hour ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

... and therein is where the crime lies.

We are thinking adults ... not children .

The response is for children.

If you would maintain that we are not children and advocate challenging everything and everyone under the sun, especially within the theocratic realm, then you must take ownership of the world such thinking has collectively produced. Look around you. Are you proud of what your thinking leads to? Unfortunately, though you revel in independence, you will find not everyone likewise reveling agrees with you - and the situation inevitably deteriorates to the one you love to describe ad nauseum - to one where MEN struggle for GLORY AND GUTS AND HONOR, feeling the HOT BREATH OF DEATH and they stare eyeball to eyeball with one another, locked into BATTLE, and ....well, you can complete the rest.

The 'dad' in the car is not just the GB, or even primarily so. It is God and Christ, who both make clear they grant authority to men. For every verse (NONE actually come to mind) that recommends overturning authority, there are twenty that say we ought to acquiesce to it. Even villainous secular authority we are advised to submit to, for the king paves the roads and it is 'not without purpose that he bears the sword.'

The Hillary-Trump turmoil, unabated months after the election, is a godsend for American Witnesses. Not that we take part in it, but we can point out that it demonstrates how people froth and lose their minds over something having nothing to do with religion - I've even heard cautions of looming civil war - therefore perhaps they can appreciate how some might get worked up over God, who offers more than any human king does.

In fact, Russian officials (and Chinese) must shake their heads in astonishment, that their old Communist predictions are coming absolutely true, and that the West is succumbing to its own decadence and celebration of speech without restraint. They offer an alternative model and there are many persons who prefer a level of security even at the expense of some freedoms. Of course, they do not merely offer it - they OFFER!! it and they will off you if you complain about it too much. Don't think I am advocating for it. I'm just observing that the Western alternative is not exactly nirvana either.

Railing on endlessly about disfellowshipping the way you do is to maintain, as you have, that our personal happiness is the issue before all creation. It is the approach of the churches who say it is all about us - about our own personal salvation and relationship with Jesus. That's where you belong, for that is your thinking. Does God want a clean people, since a soiled one - physically, morally, or spiritually - is a reflection on him and makes him 'fake news?' FUGETABOUTIT! You would have us believe that it is primarily about not stepping on the toes - EVER - of any individual.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

TTH:

Again you have projected accusations of thinking process to me that are false ....

and ... men are not ants.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

3 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Perhaps it was the tie of blood between us, but I doubt it; we were only half-tied anyway, and brothers will betray a brother.

Indeed, as a policeman I would say get hold of a man's brother and you're half-way home.