Apostles, Judas, GB, Raymond, Satan, Holy Spirit

[JOHN BUTLER]

So there you had a member of the GB, who was supposed to be of the 'Faithful and discreet slave ' and he had opinions that should have been guided by God's Holy Spirit. 

And he had been involved in writing important books telling everyone about the JW Org.

Yet he gets kicked out by the other members of the GB for being an apostate. Because he spent time with a disassociated person.

Yes, what a 'wonderful' GB you have. What a wonderful Org you have. What a lot of hypocrites you follow. 

[FelixCA]

On 12/7/2017 at 5:47 AM, JW Insider said:

That comes from R.Franz in CoC. But nothing in CoC has ever been rebutted, and I have spoken to one member of the Governing Body who said that just because everything he said in the book was true, it's still poison, because the intent is to expose weakness, while love covers a multitude of sins

So if Raymond was a proven liar, and his accounts were challenged within the organization members along with Fred Franz himself, we are to believe that the CoC book was never challenged because you say so? We are to trust your words and your words only?

[FelixCA]

This proves the reach Satan has and the bad influence that affects the world. It would be like telling God it was his fault Adam and Eve became imperfect after being created perfect (sinless). So I don’t see where blaming an organization, a group, or society makes any sense. Where would free be, if implied after a single person’s decision was made that had a costly effect in our lives?

This would mean, an argument like this would be impossible to achieve if humanity thought the same. Can we then infer that generation X is to blame for our troubles today? Can we say, we share equal responsibility for every murder, assault, rape, etc. that is committed every second throughout the world? Why should those that abide by Gods and man’s laws need to accept the blame?

With that consent of thought, it would be the responsibility of each parent toward their OWN children. Understand what a child is into, whom they speak with, who they hang around with, at home and at church. So if we are to blame an organization for something, then make it equal across the board to blame everyone including members of that organization regardless if they themselves are critical of such organization enough to think their instructions don’t go far enough to please a few within the masses. Those critics would also bear the blame if we are to think without forethought.

[JOHN BUTLER]

It is fact that God allowed Adam and Eve to become imperfect, and to continue living long enough to produce offspring which were also imperfect etc.. We know of course that God was facing the challenge from spirit beings, so it was not truly about us humans, but about God's right to rule.. 

As for blaming an Organisation for it's faults, of course we should. Hence I left JW Org. 

Sorry but i relate this once again to Germany and Hitler. Hitler could not have done it all on his own, hence i blame the German people. 

If members of an Organisation turn a blind eye to immoral things happening within, and if those members are too frightened to act against the 'bosses' or internal police, then yes I blame that whole Organisation. 

I blame the bosses and internal police for not running the Organisation properly and not policing it properly. And I blame the members for not speaking up, and / or leaving that organisation. 

You added the word society. Did you mean 'a society' as in a group that a person joins, or did you mean society that one is born into, a country of birth etc? 

An organisation is something you actually join deliberately. Hence many JW children, when they become of 'age', will leave the JW Org, which in fact they were never a part of, they were just children of parents that deliberately joined that organisation. The expression the Org uses is 'making the truth your own', before a youngster gets baptised. But many youngsters see the hypocrisy and lies in the JW Org and decide to be no part of it. 

It is fact that many youngsters state that being made to be 'part of the JW Org' actually ruined their young lives. They were not given choices, just ordered to do things by their parents. The GB made the rules, the Elders distributed these rules and policed the congregation, the parents followed the rules without question, and the children suffered for it all. 

So yes, blame the whole Organisation for its sins, if the sins are made known to everyone within.. Because an adult does not have to be a part of that Organisation and a child is not actually part of that Organisation. 

But I don't really know what your point was in relation to this topic. 

[JW Insider]

6 hours ago, FelixCA said:

So if Raymond was a proven liar, and his accounts were challenged within the organization members along with Fred Franz himself, we are to believe that the CoC book was never challenged because you say so?

I should mention that these comments I had made were never made to defend R.Franz. In fact, as I recall, these comments were made under a different topic, and someone apparently moved them here because I happened to mention R.Franz in my response.

But back to your question that starts out with the words, "So if Raymond was a proven liar." I'm not sure what you are referring to. I've never heard anyone claim that R.Franz was a proven liar. If anyone ever said that, I'd be very interested in what they were referring to. It might be very useful to point to something inaccurate* in his book. I'm sure the average Witness who never knew him could easily get the idea he was "liar," but I have never heard anyone who knew him at Bethel ever say that anything in his book was inaccurate. Quite the opposite in fact.

[I found a couple inaccuracies, by the way, such as when in CoC, he mentioned that the Pope and bishops can speak as if they are "infallible" in the minds of Catholics. He should not have said "and bishops" unless he was referring only to previous "bishops of Rome," which are the popes.]

And by the way, R.Franz was an apostate. So if there was even one inaccuracy in any of his books, don't you think the Watchtower Society, or someone at least, should have pointed it out? What he exposed caused a lot of controversy. Pointing out even one inaccuracy would have helped quell the controversy and defend the Society.

But the problem, as best as I can see it, was not that he said anything untrue, but that his motive was to expose the human side of the organization and its decisions. It was to show how the Governing Body worked together at that time, and examples of how decisions and changes were made. And it showed its very human side, with its faults, mistakes, and interactions of personality. If you worked inside Bethel at that time and worked closely with several of the people he speaks about, you'd already know that his descriptions made perfect sense as they matched everything you could know about these persons. What none of us could know about, however, was what it was like inside any of those meetings of the Governing Body. And it turns out that it, if he is correct in his descriptions, then this is exactly what we would have expected anyway, knowing the personalities of these brothers as we saw and heard them acting and speaking on a daily basis. He speaks very kindly and respectfully of many of them. You can tell they were friends, just as you already knew if you were at Bethel at this time. But it becomes easy to understand how key decisions could be delayed or swayed by more outspoken and stronger personalities on the GB.

6 hours ago, FelixCA said:

and his accounts were challenged within the organization members along with Fred Franz himself

I don't know what you might mean here. No accounts were ever challenged, as far as I know. At least not by anyone who knew him. Especially not by Fred Franz, who knew him very well. If you have evidence to the contrary you should share it, especially because, as Witnesses, we don't want to be known for making false accusations.

6 hours ago, FelixCA said:

we are to believe that the CoC book was never challenged because you say so? We are to trust your words and your words only?

Not at all. I just share what I know and what I think. And you can share what you know and what you think. That's how we learn. That's how forums such as this work. I would never want someone to trust my words and my words only.

[JOHN BUTLER]

 @JW Insider   Quote " And it showed its very human side, with its faults, mistakes, and interactions of personality. ... " 

Sorry but i laughed. Those seem to be very carefully chosen words of yours. 

Also, " how key decisions could be delayed or swayed by more outspoken and stronger personalities on the GB. " 

And you think that is guided by 'Holy Spirit' ? 

It seems to become even clearer here that this is just a group of men who have put themselves up on high, in place of Jesus christ, and make decisions that suit themselves only. 

And they used to have over 8 million adults obeying their every word. 

However i found it even funnier that Felix makes accusations against a man, accusations that he cannot prove. Showing that once a person is given a bad name by the JW Org, then others jump on that bandwagon to criticise even with no evidence of their own. 

It seems that not many JW's here actually follow scripture. 

[JW Insider]

2 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

I blame the bosses and internal police for not running the Organisation properly and not policing it properly. And I blame the members for not speaking up, and / or leaving that organisation. 

Getting back to the topic. I think R.Franz is a curious case in point. I do blame him for some of the child abuse problems because I think he was the person who would have invoked the two-witness rule into judicial matters that are too difficult to figure out through external knowledge and common sense alone. He seemed to have been the one assigned to most of the congregational judicial issues related to immorality. Didn't mean it was his decision, but he was the one assigned to find scriptural defenses for the way the rest of the GB had voted to handle things. He should have had the wherewithal to either speak up or leave the organization. Yet he stayed, and remained an elder, a JW in good standing, even after he was asked to resign from the Governing Body.

[JOHN BUTLER]

Is the C of C book easily available and do you think I would benefit by reading it ? 

Up date.  Have hopefully saved pdf of C of C so will read later, bit by bit of course. 

 I do blame him for some of the child abuse problems because I think he was the person who would have invoked the two-witness rule into judicial matters that are too difficult to figure out through external knowledge and common sense alone. 

Would this have been a general introduction of the 'Two Witness' rule, not just for the Child abuse cases ? 

[Anna]

18 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

So there you had a member of the GB, who was supposed to be of the 'Faithful and discreet slave ' and he had opinions that should have been guided by God's Holy Spirit. 

What would you say to Jesus when he handpicked Judas Iscariot as one of his 12 Apostles?

[Witness]

36 minutes ago, Anna said:

What would you say to Jesus when he handpicked Judas Iscariot as one of his 12 Apostles?

Are you saying you don’t know why Judas was handpicked?

 Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

⁷⁰ Jesus replied to them, “Didn’t I choose you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” ⁷¹ He was referring to Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son^] one of the Twelve, because he was going to betray him.  John 6:68-71

 

While they were eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.”

²² Deeply distressed, each one began to say to him, “Surely not I, Lord?”

²³ He replied, “The one who dipped his hand with me in the bowl—he will betray me. ²⁴ The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for him if he had not been born.”  Matt 26:21-24

 

His role was instrumental in fulfilling prophesy, and God who reads the heart thoroughly, could see clearly that Judas had already chosen his path, which was destruction. Are you equating this to the GB, or Raymond Franz as being “handpicked by Jesus” to do good, or evil?

We have full evidence that the disciples were inspired by Spirit. John 20:22;  Rom 8:5,9; 1 Cor 2:10  We don't have that evidence with the GB who must alter teachings continually.   We don't hear how the Spirit directs them, but that they are not "inspired"; so, instead, we hear how the GB put their heads together to come up with new decrees.  There is no comparison to the apostles.  Why make it?  

 

 

[FelixCA]

3 hours ago, JW Insider said:

But back to your question that starts out with the words, "So if Raymond was a proven liar." I'm not sure what you are referring to. I've never heard anyone claim that R.Franz was a proven liar. If anyone ever said that, I'd be very interested in what they were referring to. It might be very useful to point to something inaccurate* in his book. I'm sure the average Witness who never knew him could easily get the idea he was "liar," but I have never heard anyone who knew him at Bethel ever say that anything in his book was inaccurate. Quite the opposite in fact.

[I found a couple inaccuracies, by the way, such as when in CoC, he mentioned that the Pope and bishops can speak as if they are "infallible" in the minds of Catholics. He should not have said "and bishops" unless he was referring only to previous "bishops of Rome," which are the popes.]

Apparently, you must not have known the Franz’s as well as you claim including other governing body members. However, having read Raymond books, I can unequivocally state I reject the claims about the organization. Therefore, your argument is incorrect. Here is a man that found confusion with cynicism. Who put him up to it?

One area which is true would be how the POPE saw itself. In the beginning, they saw themselves as equal to Christ, thus being incapable of doing wrong. This, of course, is ludicrous since no one made the pope perfect. It doesn’t take Raymond’s books to bring to light something that should be already known to Christians. Therefore, a poor example.

[JW Insider]

16 hours ago, FelixCA said:

Apparently, you must not have known the Franz’s as well as you claim including other governing body members. However, having read Raymond books, I can unequivocally state I reject the claims about the organization.

So it appears that you don't have any evidence to give for your claim that the book was "challenged" by Fred Franz or others who knew him.

19 hours ago, JW Insider said:

If you have evidence to the contrary you should share it

You didn't even say what claims about the organization that you reject. You should at least be able to point to one inaccuracy. Or someone should.