Should JW's punish, disfellowship, or shun members who disagree with certain teachings?

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

.....

[TrueTomHarley]

6 hours ago, J.R. Ewing said:

That would be my sentiment: I'm afraid you'll have to explain this one for me. I don't know what you mean.

I may have expressed something inelegantly but, in general, if it goes back from before I was born, I lose interest. If it also it requires eyestrain  - I am not an eagle-eyed kid anymore - it disappears almost entirely.

You have to be an historian for something that long ago, and that's not my thing - not for the sake of some piddly item that may have been no more than a bad hair day. If the man says he can't translate, what do I care? The fact is, it is translated by someone, they all remain anonymous there, who knows what was farmed out and to who? Of maybe God wrote it himself. (sigh...I'm being facetious here) The fact is, the translation exists and it get high marks. Not by Trinitarians, for it messes with some verses that cannot be rendered literally because it louses up their teaching. And there are some academics who look askance at the Name in the New Testament - inclusion of which is explained in an appendix. But other than that, it's well thought of.

If you have to go back 70 years to dig up dirt, there can't be much dirt to dig up. Statements play differently at different time periods - just watch a movie from that time, or reflect that John differs so much from the other three gospels because times had changed and the foremost needs of the congregation had changed with them. So I don't necessarily want to unravel mindsets back then that accommodated statements that today's mindsets do not, especially if I think an opponent simply wants, and cannot get his head around anything but, a sound byte.

Anyone can go back and have at it debating events back and forth and I'm not suggesting they can't or that it is a waste of time if they do. I'm just saying it it should hardly be considered mandatory after many decades, and a perfectly valid possible response is: 'who cares?' Even were a report from that long ago completely true, in our times complete scoundrels overhaul their image in far fewer years. So it doesn't interest me much to go there. Others will differ. More power to them if they do. But it's not mandatory.

Similarly, I have little taste for things having to do with chronology, because even if opponents were to be absolutely correct, it amounts to little more than misreading a bus schedule. In athletics, runners jump the gun all the time, and they simply restart the race; nobody makes a big deal over it. It's the runner sitting on his rear end at the starting blocks that you wonder about. Grumblers here ought to specify whether they still even believe we are in the last days. Some do. But some have gone atheist, and dismiss ISIS as just one of those things - why, there have always been bad people.

i like the truth also because it makes you nicer over time, when applied. I follow many sources on Twitter, which is the best way to get news, because you can choose your feeds. I choose all kinds of villains, along with the agreeable, so as to keep tabs on them. Few persons are as openly condescending and contemptuous than certain prominent atheists. Sometimes I worry that their cherished evolution is true and that they are the end result. If so, it's good-bye to the human race, for they do not suffer fools gladly. And a fool is anyone who disagrees with them.

[Guest J.R. Ewing]

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

And a fool is anyone who disagrees with them.

Overtly, then, that must make you one. However, keep up your condescension, JTR gets a kick out of it.

[bruceq]

Makes one ponder when so-called "brothers" upvote an apostate. Puts into question and their motivation and everything they have ever tried to teach on any subject. I had a cousin back in the late 70's who was an elder who became apostate and ridiculed the teaching of 1914 and became a leader of a group of them picketing District Conventions in the early 80"s that is until his name showed up in the newspaper for being a john for a prostitute then for some reason the picketing stopped and they disappeared. Â "They publicly declare that they know God, but they disown him by their works, because they are detestable and disobedient and not approved for good work of ANY sort." Titus 1:16. 

[TrueTomHarley]

42 minutes ago, J.R. Ewing said:

However, keep up your condescension

I try not to be condescending. I don't think I am. 

Everything is subjective, though. Apparently, you think it.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

bruceq:

You mentioned that it was in the late 70's ... that would make it AFTER the 1975 fiasco.

Perhaps a case, a GOOD case can be made ...  that by polluting the Word of God with silly, irrelevant and completely fabricated made up drivel,  and having NOTHING to do with reality, spirituality or TRUTH .... that the Elder you mentioned was CHASED AWAY.

Thrown to the wolves for not believing in what proved to be WRONG!

People ...most all people ... come to a point when they notice that there is a BIG difference between theory, and reality ... and when the people they have been relying on for spiritual guidance FAIL them ... they flounder about and get caught up in all kinds of things.

I greatly appreciate that by staying close to Jehovah's People during the 70s, through the 90s, and beyond, it saved me from MANY dangers and trialsome things I have seen happen to outsiders .... but then again, I never trusted ANYBODY overly much.

ESPECIALLY self-appointed "Sheriffs".

My Mother was a wonderful woman, and loved Jehovah with her whole heart, but there were many areas of human experience that she just did not see or understand ... even though she had been a Navy nurse during WWII, and saw more than most. 

She gave me much good advice ... and some bad advice.

I loved her dearly .... but I did not take her bad advice.

DISOBEYING HER, AND IGNORING HER BAD ADVICE WAS NOT DISLOYALTY !

This is how I view Jehovah' Witnesses, whose competence and motivations, as are my own,  cyclic like the ocean tides ... NOT a static thing.

Such is life among DNA based big ugly bags of mostly water.

Reality 101.

JUSTICE ... we get only from Jehovah God.

... all else is just "due process" ... sometimes resembling Justice.

 

[bruceq]

2 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

bruceq:

You mentioned that it was in the late 70's ... that would make it AFTER the 1975 fiasco.

Perhaps a case, a GOOD case can be made ...  that by polluting the Word of God with silly, irrelevant and completely fabricated made up drivel,  and having NOTHING to do with reality, spirituality or TRUTH .... that the Elder you mentioned was CHASED AWAY.

Thrown to the wolves for not believing in what proved to be WRONG!

People ...most all people ... come to a point when they notice that there is a BIG difference between theory, and reality ... and when the people they have been relying on for spiritual guidance FAIL them ... they flounder about and get caught up in all kinds of things.

I greatly appreciate that by staying close to Jehovah's People during the 70s, through the 90s, and beyond, it saved me from MANY dangers and trialsome things I have seen happen to outsiders .... but then again, I never trusted ANYBODY overly much.

ESPECIALLY self-appointed "Sheriffs".

My Mother was a wonderful woman, and loved Jehovah with her whole heart, but there were many areas of human experience that she just did not see or understand ... even though she had been a Navy nurse during WWII, and saw more than most. 

She gave me much good advice ... and some bad advice.

I loved her dearly .... but I did not take her bad advice.

DISOBEYING HER, AND IGNORING HER BAD ADVICE WAS NOT DISLOYALTY !

This is how I view Jehovah' Witnesses, whose competence and motivations, as are my own,  cyclic like the ocean tides ... NOT a static thing.

Such is life among DNA based big ugly bags of mostly water.

Reality 101.

JUSTICE ... we get only from Jehovah God.

... all else is just "due process" ... sometimes resembling Justice.

 

Makes one ponder when so-called "brothers" upvote an apostate. Puts into question and their motivation and everything they have ever tried to teach on any subject. I had a cousin back in the late 70's who was an elder who became apostate and ridiculed the teaching of 1914 and became a leader of a group of them picketing District Conventions in the early 80"s that is until his name showed up in the newspaper for being a john for a prostitute then for some reason the picketing stopped and they disappeared.  "They publicly declare that they know God, but they disown him by their works, because they are detestable and disobedient and not approved for good work of ANY sort." Titus 1:16. 

You just proved my point. Thanks

 

[Guest J.R. Ewing]

9 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Everything is subjective, though. Apparently, you think it.

When people grow up, they learn to read between the lines. The subtlety here is subjective! Intelligence in the other hand is objective.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

I upvote ANYBODY when what they say is true, and/or really applicable.

 

[bruceq]

1 hour ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I upvote ANYBODY when what they say is true, and/or really applicable.

 

 

We know. Satan can say things that are true also. But Titus 1:16 - he is not approved by God anymore than a blogger is who upvotes apostates and agrees with their haughty attitudes or "special interpretations".  

[Albert Michelson]

43 minutes ago, bruceq said:

I had a cousin back in the late 70's who was an elder who became apostate and ridiculed the teaching of 1914 and became a leader of a group of them picketing District Conventions in the early 80"s that is until his name showed up in the newspaper for being a john for a prostitute then for some reason the picketing stopped and they disappeared.

Hmmm kinda reminds you of all the JW elders and their secret sins.  I love how witnesses always ask for the indiscretions of their members and leaders to be overlooked but continually harp on or about any issue with Ex members.  The hypocrisy is palpable.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

3 minutes ago, bruceq said:

We know. Satan said some things that were also true. 

The source did NOT make those things any LESS true.

If your allegiance is to the TRUTH ... it is never mis-spent.