Many Miles

We all have reasons for choices we make. You've experienced some troubled waters in your journey. I only applaud that you are still around and willing to speak your mind to help others with your experience. Hopefully that's what we're all doing.

That's a pretty fatalistic perspective. Though the most we can do is try our best, I hold a positive view that we do not waste our time when we share our experience and training to help others, or some circumstance that needs improvement. I also find it helpful to pursue improvement for myself too.

That's a pretty fatalistic perspective. Though the most we can do is try our best, I hold a positive view that we do not waste our time when we share our experience and training to help others, or some circumstance that needs improvement. I also find it helpful to pursue improvement for myself too.

More often than not, all we can do is share our experience and training for the benefit of others, and we can work to improve ourselves too. But in the end the most we can do is honestly try our best. Whether that helps improve someone's life or some circumstance is usually beyond our control.

I think it would seem to be quite presumptuous to say that we are the only spokesperson that God is using. Not my words. But I agree with the sentiment.
The early Christian church found it difficult to think there were people whose worship God accepted outside Judaism and outside Christianity. But God showed them different. There's no reason to think these worshipers were particularly organized. They were just living life in a way God accepted. How we live our life is our worship, not what organization we do or do not belong to. Just think about all the good that came from how Job lived his life, and this despite him having no advertised affiliation with any organization.
Asserting we must be organized to get things done is a slippery slop, and oftentimes the sentiment has ended up hurting people because too late folks discovered an organization had an underlying operating arrangement different than they were either allowed to or led to believe. God is not dependent on humans organizing to get His will done.
Because people organize to get things done does not mean to get things done you have to be organized. Because someone does not organize does not mean they don't care about getting things done; it just means they don't organize. That said, unity within an organization is not because of uniformity. To the contrary, unity is continuing within a common cause despite holding differences.
I'm not anti-organization. I am for rationality and transparency. Any organization whose primary purpose is to help people follow Jesus should be completely transparent and rational in all things. We find these attributes in the early Christian church.
 

From our level of knowledge, we are unable to conceive something that exists with no beginning. Hence, regarding the question of rights, when it comes to a creator with no beginning, answering the question is outside any objective rational argument we could form based on evidence. It would be unanswerable by us, based on objective knowledge we currently have as humans. But, if Armageddon comes and a bunch of people are destroyed, objectively we can say whatever was responsible for the event had the power to destroy a bunch of people and did so.

Yes. True. An unavoidable observation. We should all learn from one another.

TTH:  Using that same logic the Nazis had the right to rule mankind.
…, or a Comet had the right to rule the Dinosaurs.

From our level of knowledge, we are unable to conceive something that exists with no beginning. Hence, regarding the question of rights, when it comes to a creator with no beginning, answering the question is outside any objective rational argument we could form based on evidence. It would be unanswerable by us, based on objective knowledge we currently have as humans. But, if Armageddon comes and a bunch of people are destroyed, objectively we can say whatever was responsible for the event had the power to destroy a bunch of people and did so.

We all have reasons for choices we make. You've experienced some troubled waters in your journey. I only applaud that you are still around and willing to speak your mind to help others with your experience. Hopefully that's what we're all doing.

I think it would seem to be quite presumptuous to say that we are the only spokesperson that God is using. Not my words. But I agree with the sentiment.
The early Christian church found it difficult to think there were people whose worship God accepted outside Judaism and outside Christianity. But God showed them different. There's no reason to think these worshipers were particularly organized. They were just living life in a way God accepted. How we live our life is our worship, not what organization we do or do not belong to. Just think about all the good that came from how Job lived his life, and this despite him having no advertised affiliation with any organization.
Asserting we must be organized to get things done is a slippery slop, and oftentimes the sentiment has ended up hurting people because too late folks discovered an organization had an underlying operating arrangement different than they were either allowed to or led to believe. God is not dependent on humans organizing to get His will done.
Because people organize to get things done does not mean to get things done you have to be organized. Because someone does not organize does not mean they don't care about getting things done; it just means they don't organize. That said, unity within an organization is not because of uniformity. To the contrary, unity is continuing within a common cause despite holding differences.
I'm not anti-organization. I am for rationality and transparency. Any organization whose primary purpose is to help people follow Jesus should be completely transparent and rational in all things. We find these attributes in the early Christian church.
 

Yes. True. An unavoidable observation. We should all learn from one another.

I can assure you, that's not the majority reason.
 
This is closer to the majority reason. Just how many brothers has the GB fail to 'back up' over the years for trying to do right, even going to far as to beg for their help to understand why the GB is teaching certain things it teaches and imposes under pain of being ostracized by close family and friends? You tell me. 

I think it would seem to be quite presumptuous to say that we are the only spokesperson that God is using. Not my words. But I agree with the sentiment.
The early Christian church found it difficult to think there were people whose worship God accepted outside Judaism and outside Christianity. But God showed them different. There's no reason to think these worshipers were particularly organized. They were just living life in a way God accepted. How we live our life is our worship, not what organization we do or do not belong to. Just think about all the good that came from how Job lived his life, and this despite him having no advertised affiliation with any organization.
Asserting we must be organized to get things done is a slippery slop, and oftentimes the sentiment has ended up hurting people because too late folks discovered an organization had an underlying operating arrangement different than they were either allowed to or led to believe. God is not dependent on humans organizing to get His will done.
Because people organize to get things done does not mean to get things done you have to be organized. Because someone does not organize does not mean they don't care about getting things done; it just means they don't organize. That said, unity within an organization is not because of uniformity. To the contrary, unity is continuing within a common cause despite holding differences.
I'm not anti-organization. I am for rationality and transparency. Any organization whose primary purpose is to help people follow Jesus should be completely transparent and rational in all things. We find these attributes in the early Christian church.
 

I can assure you, that's not the majority reason.
 
This is closer to the majority reason. Just how many brothers has the GB fail to 'back up' over the years for trying to do right, even going to far as to beg for their help to understand why the GB is teaching certain things it teaches and imposes under pain of being ostracized by close family and friends? You tell me. 

Yes. True. An unavoidable observation. We should all learn from one another.

You have a great quality of humbleness Tom….i try to learn from it .

I think it would seem to be quite presumptuous to say that we are the only spokesperson that God is using. Not my words. But I agree with the sentiment.
The early Christian church found it difficult to think there were people whose worship God accepted outside Judaism and outside Christianity. But God showed them different. There's no reason to think these worshipers were particularly organized. They were just living life in a way God accepted. How we live our life is our worship, not what organization we do or do not belong to. Just think about all the good that came from how Job lived his life, and this despite him having no advertised affiliation with any organization.
Asserting we must be organized to get things done is a slippery slop, and oftentimes the sentiment has ended up hurting people because too late folks discovered an organization had an underlying operating arrangement different than they were either allowed to or led to believe. God is not dependent on humans organizing to get His will done.
Because people organize to get things done does not mean to get things done you have to be organized. Because someone does not organize does not mean they don't care about getting things done; it just means they don't organize. That said, unity within an organization is not because of uniformity. To the contrary, unity is continuing within a common cause despite holding differences.
I'm not anti-organization. I am for rationality and transparency. Any organization whose primary purpose is to help people follow Jesus should be completely transparent and rational in all things. We find these attributes in the early Christian church.
 

It took a while for me to realize that, among some branches of Christians, there is virtue in ‘moving beyond’ the Bible. Most Witnesses will assume that if they can demonstrate they are adhering to the Bible, they’re golden. Those other church people will hang their heads sheepishly. Or they will argue that something is not translated accurately, or interpreted accurately, or that it applied to a specific and temporary situation. Instead, ‘progressive’ Christians take pride in moving beyond the Bible. It is not a misunderstanding for them. It is deliberate. They will even look upon you pityingly for still practicing ‘primitive’ Christianity, as though a spiritual Neanderthal who should have evolved with the times, but hasn’t.
The expression ‘primitive Christianity’—‘scholars’ will say that Jehovah's Witnesses practice it. We take it as a compliment, but it is actually an insult. It may not be intended as an insult, but the terminology itself is coined by those who view matters that way. In any other context, would you be flattered by being described as ‘primitive?’ Moreover, who would ever do it other than someone thoroughly steeped in evolution? Their philosophical view spill over into everything else. Humans evolved from the caveman. So should you, in their view. Grow up from your ‘caveman’ religion.
Anyone seeking to adhere to the Bible as written will be described today as a ‘cult.’ This is certainly true of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but it is also true of ‘fundamentalist’ faiths which, in their own eyes, at least, are also adhering to the Bible. The branches of Christianity that are progressive, that ‘keep up’ with the times, that do not make a fuss about the morality it deems outdated, is never described that way.
The criteria for cult classification used to be: if you fell under the spell of a charismatic leader, withdrew from society, and began doing strange things, you just might be a member of a cult. By this definition, JWs are not a cult. Their leaders are anything but charismatic—some are an acquired taste to listen to. They don’t withdraw from life, but continue in work, school, and the greater community. Do they do ‘strange things?’ It’s in the eye of the beholder, I suppose, but there was a time when speaking about one’s faith was not considered overly strange. They are not a cult by the old standard.
By the new one, the BITE one that revolves around various forms of ‘undue influence,’ they are—but so is the Bible, since those forms of ‘influence’ are no more than attempts to carry out what was clearly written as policy for the first-century congregation. The real question is, ‘Is it such a horrid thing to be in such a ‘cult’ if that is exactly what the Bible advises? Or is it more horrid to insist upon ‘freedom of mind’ to the nth degree, as is typical today in the West? Look at the world such ‘freedom of mind’ has collectively produced—it can be argued that such ‘freedom’ does not serve humanity well.
Witnesses will say that we need some ‘authority’ that is more than collective popular opinion, and so they put themselves where such authority exists. What we need is authority that reflects godly thinking and not just evolving human wisdom. Plainly, there will be some flaws in such authority, since everything humans touch is flawed. ‘We have this treasure [of the ministry] in earthen vessels [us—with all our imperfections] the NT writer advises. But when Christians cast off such authority in favor of something, say, more democratic in nature, they presently become almost indistinguishable from the evolving and declining standards of the greater world.
Students of the 60s taunted police by calling them PIGS, doubling down when they saw it got under their skin. In time, one innovative officer responded with: PIGS—Pride, Integrity, Guts, Service. Why not do the same with CULT when applied to Jehovah’s Witnesses. CULT—Courage, Unity, Love, Truth. Let persons insist upon their ‘freedom of mind.’ They end up missing the greatest freedom of all: freedom from sin and its resulting death.
The latest manifestation of that ‘freedom of mind’ obsession? An article about the decreasing popularity of religion (any religion, not just JW) among the young. “They. Really. Don’t. Like. Organized. Religion.” it states. That sentence (if it is one) says it all. I know the following in symbolic, but as symbolism goes, it doesn’t get any better. Todays ‘freedom of mind’ people are so fiercely independent they can’t even stand for words to be organized properly, lest one unduly influence another.
You organize to get things done. If you don’t care about getting things done, you don’t organize. To spread the news of God’s Kingdom worldwide in a way that does not quickly devolve into a quagmire of individual opinion seems to Jehovah’s Witnesses a project worth organizing for. So they do. And they put up with how in any organization, ‘you can’t always get what you want’ even as they at the same time reap the benefits of organization.

I can ride with witty good humored sarcasm every time...

"God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul." (Gen 2:7) 
Or, as the Live Forever book expresses it:
"Notice, however, that the Bible does not say that God gave man a soul. Rather, it says that after God started man breathing “the man came to be a living soul.” So the man was a soul, just as a man who becomes a doctor is a doctor. (1 Corinthians 15:45)  The “dust from the ground,” from which the physical body is formed, is not the soul. Nor does the Bible say that the “breath of life” is the soul. Rather, the Bible shows that the putting together of these two things is what resulted in ‘man’s becoming a living soul.’"
Plenty of children have comprehended that.
 

"God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul." (Gen 2:7) 
Or, as the Live Forever book expresses it:
"Notice, however, that the Bible does not say that God gave man a soul. Rather, it says that after God started man breathing “the man came to be a living soul.” So the man was a soul, just as a man who becomes a doctor is a doctor. (1 Corinthians 15:45)  The “dust from the ground,” from which the physical body is formed, is not the soul. Nor does the Bible say that the “breath of life” is the soul. Rather, the Bible shows that the putting together of these two things is what resulted in ‘man’s becoming a living soul.’"
Plenty of children have comprehended that.
 

I can ride with witty good humored sarcasm every time...

Well—had you put it that way in the first place . . .

Juan, that's a lot of words, and to be honest, I'm not really sure what you're trying to say.
Because above you write:
"The question is not whether one will have glasses through which to interpret Scripture, but rather which glasses are the correct ones?" [Underlining added]
Let's start with something simple. Check the box that applies:
We should believe teaching "x" because:
[______] it's rational.
[______] the society says so.
[______] some other reason other than because it's "rational" or "the society says so".