Conscience individual and collective

[Srecko Sostar]

2 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Just like the Watchtower questions those that want to get baptized, to make sure they understand the promise their making to God, and it's not a game that stupid people will renege later on.

Didn't candidate already went through strict process with elders and enormous number of questions? It would be expected that after such treatment with the elders, it would be clear to everyone what kind of promise it was, and how both side are sure what they understand.

[TrueTomHarley]

7 hours ago, Pudgy said:

My considered dogged opinion is that Sen-yor Chavez is on the verge of hysterical panic.

Technically, I cannot vouch for this, since I took Anna’s counsel (Do not feed the troll) to heart and blocked him. One can do this in settings—I had no idea.  But extrapolating from my previous interaction with him, the comment is worth an upvote, no doubt.

And how is this working out for me, blocking a few whose comments are utterly predicable, incessantly argumentative, with no capacity of mercy toward human foible, frequently bereft of reason, and have not budged one iota in years, so that all you do is engage in verbal fisticuffs, prompting the occasional rare first time visitor to say: “Wow—he’s not exactly letting God be the judge, is he?”

Quote the final words of Jack London for an answer, from his hilarious short story Moonface: “My days are peaceful now, and my night's sleep deep.” 

Admittedly, Jack’s protagonist offed his foe with dynamite, didn’t just block him, but since I am a servant of the Lord I have repudiated such unkind tactics.

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2020/09/a-review-of-the-jack-london-short-story-moon-facetheyre-always-throwing-goodness-at-you-but-with-a-l.html

(Plus, the ‘ignore’ option permits one to peak if desired.’ I did so once, and said, “Yep—same old boy.”)

 

[Srecko Sostar]

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

3 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Jesus initiated the “new commandments,” which made all the “old commandments” rejected and unnecessary. In a sense, the old has become a "false religion." The Jewish religious system is, even according to WTJWorg, rejected by God. Watch out, "rejected by God."

Your mentally ill, if this is the kind of things you think about in a daily basis. This is the most absurd of backward thinking of have come across. A 3-year-old has better intelligence.

You speaking about "dedicated organization". 

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

by means of a dedicated organization

Has the “organization” and organized system of worship through Moses ceased to be a dedicated and correct system of worship of God?
If that system is still “correct and dedicated” why did you choose this worship system that WTJWorg has?

 

[Anna]

On 4/21/2021 at 3:53 PM, xero said:

Here's another, same guy. I believe he's a witness.

https://www.academia.edu/3290630/Dating_the_Biblical_Chronology

 

I also subscribe to academia.edu. Yes, I think you are talking about Gerard Gertoux. (Although the link you provide somehow doesn't go to that article)  I believe JWInsider has been in correspondence with him quite a few times..

 

[xero]

1 hour ago, Anna said:

I also subscribe to academia.edu. Yes, I think you are talking about Gerard Gertoux. (Although the link you provide somehow doesn't go to that article)  I believe JWInsider has been in correspondence with him quite a few times..

 

I'd like to know more about him and his background (or have a zoom chat). One thing I've had to navigate, as have many others is that there's often this misunderstanding that being interested in exploring subjects such as the ones that we as JW's profess to be interested in (like Jehovah and the Bible) is somehow disloyal if we decide that we on our own wish to explore further.

A person can be faithful and quite frankly bored by material which is repetitive and containing nothing novel. It's not surprising that when you are truly interested in the material, that you eventually "make the truth your own" and strike off in some ways exploring areas not of interest to the average.

This doesn't mean you're a "bad person" or "unfaithful" or even "unappreciative". It just means that you're not learning disabled or perpetually fascinated by spiritual milk ("Yes, I know. God's name is Jehovah. Fascinating").

Of course this is where the novelty in exploration can cause people who don't appreciate things this way to assume that one finds something deficient in the relationship or that it is failing them in some way or that these have failed the other.

It can also (and understandably can) create conflict in the congregation. "Why is that brother reading that? Doesn't he appreciate the organization?". So if a brother or sister does have interests which aren't currently satisfied in this area it would be nice to know how these have managed to balance it out.

Are these living a double-life? They realize that many people simply don't have the capacity to be AS interested in these things and they keep it to themselves?

How do they do it? Should they have to do it?

My sister (a non-JW) once asked me (she's high functioning autistic w/160 IQ) "What do you DO at those meetings? Just believe the same things together?" and I laughed and said this is how it goes Mary "Bro X to Bro Y. I believe Z. and "Bro Y says so do I whereupon Bro X responds, his eyes slightly squinting "Mighty fine! Mighty fine!""

She laughed (apparently I'm one of the few family members who can make her laugh).

This reminds me of people who don't understand why when they value the same things, they still have problems in their relationships. The answer, I've read somewhere is that when there's a conflict of valued things, the relative importance of each to the other values isn't the same - hence the friction.

So you may have some who say they value learning about Jehovah and the world he created and they value the Bible, but they may value the relationships between people and stability and continuity more than the novelty which might come from a new idea or a new discovery or even the prospect of further exploration.

Take the great commission. I thought it was THE most important thing, but not everyone looked at it the same way.

When I was first appointed as an MS I remember how happy I was we had a project to remake the maps for our territory. Well I knew that we weren't really working the apartment complexes properly because no one liked getting kicked out or having the police called on them, so I knew they really weren't getting worked at all and to me it was a lie when people checked these back in.

So I decided to break every apartment complex into a separate territory so that people who really wanted to work these would work them. I redid all the territories in this way.

Then after six months the CO came by and did his inspection and asked me about the territories and I explained what I did and why and he seemed satisfied. ("Where is the history of workage for these territories?") Of course no one really wanted to work these and so because I was a pioneer I decided to do them and I'd make raids on the apartments by working a few buildings and then running out before security got me. But truth was that no one wanted them at all.

BUT we actually we finally telling the truth about our territory coverage. YAY!

Then Bro Brandt (I remember him now) came back and checked the territories the next time, and complained about me to the elders and I remember being behind the counter when he came up to me and asked me the same question he asked me before, and I said "For the same reason I told you the last time you asked." (I was a little sharp, but I didn't like the tone of his voice). Then he said "What am I going to tell the society?" and I said "Why don't you tell them what you told them last time." (pretty much knowing I'm not going to be an elder ANY time soon. But quite frankly he pissed me off. The black brothers w/me behind the counter were a bit surprised by me. One (who'd been a gang member) later asked me if I'd grown up in the hood, because I didn't show any fear. I said, no, but I did grow up in Laredo where you'd get picked on all the time for being a gringo.

The elders decided maybe someone else should be territory servant, but nobody wanted the job.

Next time around, though, I did have a private talk w/Bro Brandt and he apologized. He said "Bro X, what did the elders tell you to do w/the territories?" and I said "Nothing." and he said "They didn't tell you to try to estimate workage?" and I said "No. I haven't heard a thing. Which elders did you tell? Let's go get them, get a room and straighten this thing out." We did and these elders had some really shameful looks on their faces.

Thing is, now our congregation was finally having to take their commission more seriously because my remapping the territories made us look bad.

I remember thinking how maybe getting the phone numbers of a number of these which we were totally locked out of might help. This was before telephone witnessing became a thing.

So I looked around for telephone directories on disk and I found a few, but they weren't up to date. Then I did more research and realized that I could get a reel-to-reel tape from the utility department with names, addresses AND phone numbers! Everyone had to pay their utilities and their phone number would be up to date.

Yay! But before I could get the brothers to approve of the $800 for the adventure ( I would have paid for it myself, but I had to also pay this third party to perform some extractions of the data to csv so we could put these  in spreadsheets.

So for the lockouts we tried calling the numbers I could get even if these were old off the disks I bought at work for other telemarketing efforts and coupled this with direct mail to get the rest.

We did have one brother from Guyana who was up for innovation so we got all the difficult apartments and he acted as a general, we would get assigned maybe two doors and the congregation carpooled and parked outside and at 10 AM sharp, we'd all knock at the same time on our prescribed doors. BOOM! And we were gone before security could zip up their fly!

 

 

[xero]

Then there was crusty, cranky old Bro Manera. I remember being at an elders meeting w/him and floated the idea of turning unassigned territory into telephone territory that congregations could GET assigned and these could then work them any way they'd like - phone, physical, letters - the closest to in person was best, but the point would be to get to these people more frequently.

He didn't get it. He said "I think it would be confusing to the ones who were working it.". I blurted out "I don't think you get it. No one's working the territory because it's not assigned. Why not just assign it and get the job done w/whatever means can be made?" As all the other elders (except one) looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

 

[TrueTomHarley]

1 hour ago, xero said:

Of course no one really wanted to work these and so because I was a pioneer I decided to do them and I'd make raids on the apartments by working a few buildings and then running out before security got me

I did exactly the same thing. Working a unit at a time. On my final run, with no bad experiences, I called on the manager. “There! See? Nobody cares if we call or not.”

Are you kidding me, she said. ‘The phone’s been ringing off the hook. It’s just that nobody found you in time.”

Apartments were a pain, heightened because some of the friends were LOUD. You’d want to be discreet and there they were as though using a megaphone behind you. I had some good experiences working my apartment territory, though. One fellow said repeatedly (like 4Jah might) that he and Jesus were tight. There was no need for me to come calling because he loved Jesus. He Jesused this and Jesused that. All the while, his wife was in the background urging him to not talk to me. Suddenly he whirled about: “WILL YOU SHUT UP!!” he screamed. And without missing a beat, he resumed for my benefit his lovefest with Jesus.

Exiting the building, a door opened. I had spoken to the man before who had blown me off. Now he was interested. “That’s guys a real yo-yo,” he said, and then invited me in for the nicest conversation.

[Srecko Sostar]

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

The Watchtower is a building, with dedicated people inside

How many "dedicated people" live inside building aka Watchtower? What about people who don't live inside "building"? Are they dedicated too, or what they are because they live in their "not-dedicated" buildings, houses, flats?

What is "spirit-guided"? Organization? Watchtower building/s? GB? Elders? JW members? ...etc.

[Srecko Sostar]

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Wow! Have you ever been to a baptism from the Watchtower? Why do you claim, the Watchtower is equal to the Catholic Church with their rites? 

When do you think, John the Baptist said those words to Jesus?

I don't recall that John the Baptist say anything while baptizing Jesus. 

But i recall that Jesus said what they said about baptizing in the name of ...

[Srecko Sostar]

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Look at the people here, that profess to be in God's side, while defaming him like Judas.

It may be that something has spoiled them from then until today.

[Srecko Sostar]

3 hours ago, xero said:

My sister (a non-JW) once asked me (she's high functioning autistic w/160 IQ)

Is it somehow connected that high IQ helps individual not to be JW? My IQ in the past (when i was 19) was 120. But despite above average IQ i became JW. Maybe insufficiently above average :))

 Perhaps my IQ has dropped in the meantime :)) Does that explain why I left JW? :))

[JW Insider]

3 hours ago, xero said:

Yay! But before I could get the brothers to approve of the $800 for the adventure ( I would have paid for it myself, but I had to also pay this third party to perform some extractions of the data to csv so we could put these  in spreadsheets.

There are other ways --for free-- to get names tied to addresses tied to phone numbers, and these are usually about to 90% up to date. When you sort them by address you can get entire apartment complexes. My son is an attorney and merely requested them through FOIA and has on separate occasions, obtained the entire counties of Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Nassau (Long Island). You can't legally use the data for any specific non-political purpose, and you definitely can't use it to look up specific people one might wish to know about. But, if I looked at it closely, I could even tell you whether a specific Witness voted in a previous election.