JW Insider

6 minutes ago, xero said:

For that matter so do CO's and DO's.

D.O.'s? How long has it been since you were a JW?

49 minutes ago, Matthew9969 said:

Gotta say, makes me wonder about collective conscience since all jw's are willing to die and/or allow their children to die for a non biblical no blood transfusion doctrine.

Mostly all, perhaps. To me it really is a matter of conscience. While my wife and I have been willing to die over the no-blood doctrine, we both agreed when our children were young that we would not be willing to impose our conscience(s) upon our young children before they were baptized. This still doesn't mean that we would simply allow them to take blood or blood-based medical treatments, but it would be a medical decision depending on risks to their physical life. It turns out there are only few limited circumstances where one could say that blood is absolutely required to offer the optimal chance of saving a physical life. But, contrary to the beliefs of many Witnesses, those circumstances do exist. The principle, for my own conscience, is built from this:

(Matthew 12:10-12) . . .So they asked him, “Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath?” so that they might accuse him. 11 He said to them: “If you have one sheep and that sheep falls into a pit on the Sabbath, is there a man among you who will not grab hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! . . .

Fortunately, the issue has not come up for any of us.

12 minutes ago, xero said:

and there are others which are less proximate in my mind which might be used could be used as an example of Jehovah's earthly organization imagining one thing to be the thing which is important, but Jehovah had something else in mind.

That example (Paul's ministry) was an excellent example, because we consider both Paul and some of the elders and apostles at Jerusalem to be analogous to a 'governing body' which Paul sometimes good direction from -- but we also consider Paul himself to be a part of that same body, which covers the potential problem of Paul making statements that were not immediately acceptable to the Jerusalem body.

Of course, one of the more obvious examples is the one that Paul spoke of directly as a matter of conscience: the eating of meats that had been sacrificed to idols. The Jerusalem body evidently said no, and Paul said that it was or had become a matter of conscience. (Also a possibility of timing at play here.) It seems probable that he still wouldn't eat meats in front of Jerusalem's body of elders to avoid stumbling their weak consciences.

That interpretation is likely controversial to some, and I might not have it right, but we do know that Paul said conscience was directly related to this issue.

31 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

That's means, we have to accept and take responsibility for our personal actions and behavior. Galatians 6:5

Exactly! And if we feel our conscience is weak, or has made us react too strongly or strictly, we can improve our conscience through association with a collective group (congregation/brotherhood) of serious persons who continually train their conscience with Bible principles.

11 hours ago, xero said:

Will your conscience work right if it doesn't get recalibrated by scripture AND by others who admit to the same scriptures?

I appreciated your take on the questions you raised. I have heard ex-Witnesses claim that there is no such thing as a collective conscience or an organizational conscience, and that all of us are therefore completely on our own when we stand individually before the judgment seat. I agree with the Bible statement that we stand alone for judgment, but you have made an excellent point about how all of us will develop morality based on what has been passed down to us and what we get (or even choose to get) from our various environments. But we all have opportunities for further conforming our environment by choosing association with those who will prod us and encourage us in the direction of an ever clearer Bible-trained conscience.

No one can argue that there isn't already a collective conscience that waits for us to absorb it, much of it subconsciously I suspect. But if we accept that, then we should have no problem "artificially" maneuvering our environment to strengthen our conscience. And, of course, many of us have found the environment of the brotherhood of Witnesses to be perfectly suited to the needs of our conscience.

I also agree with Srecko, that to some extent we will probably accept some decisions made by a "collective" conscience that will be seem artificial to us.

(2 Timothy 3:1-5) . . .But know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. 2 For men will be . . .3 having no natural affection, . . .

Our conscience tells us that we can't turn our back on the physical and psychological needs of family members who might be disfellowshipped. This is a case, as Srecko says, where our own "natural affection" might say we must do one thing, but the collective environment of our congregation tells us to do something else. Perhaps it will not always be right for everyone to respond in exactly the same way the "collective" conscience tells us to. After all:

(James 4:17) 17 Therefore, if someone knows how to do what is right and yet does not do it, it is a sin for him.

But without the additional training of conscience from the congregation, would we even have stopped to think about the application of Jesus' words about how he came to put a sword on the earth?

(Matthew 10:34-36) . . .Do not think I came to bring peace to the earth; I came to bring, not peace, but a sword. 35 For I came to cause division, with a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 Indeed, a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.

There will be some tension between the two extremes on this topic, but I think that's a good part of what a conscience is for.

51 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

JWI getting upset enough to call for banning people.

I don't like it when people are banned.

I especially don't like that they lose the continuity of the good points and arguments that they have been making. When a person loses their temper or says something that sounds threatening, they aren't really hurting anyone, in my opinion. I think it's appropriate to publicly criticize and even remove certain types of abusive content like spamming, porn, gore, bullying against specific groups/individuals, overt racism, and deliberately threatening or inflammatory content -- but not to completely ban individuals who merely lose their temper or use harsh words. We should be adults here. We can expect some harsh words here and there. There are very few "child-safe" places on the Internet.

And on a religiously charged forum, we should also realize that "attacks" on our views are not usually meant personally. If Allen Smith attacked my views, he might have appeared to be attacking me, but I present myself almost anonymously here. So what does it really mean to attack me personally? I certainly don't feel it that way. I'm sure the intent is to attack the views themselves, and usually with the full backing of the Watchtower's current views. This is easily understood. I also see it as a means of him trying to warn others who might be influenced by evidence that goes against the Watchtower's current views on certain specific topics. This means that he may very well be a Witness, but just very frustrated at the difficulty in mounting counter-evidence. Different people will handle that situation in their own way. Frustration for some means cursing and threatening, name-calling and judging. For others it will present as child-like tantrums. For some it will be grasping at straws or non-sensible counter-arguments. And for some, they will very seriously study the issue and find real counter-arguments.

So, the various types of responses can actually say something about the strength of the original arguments and evidence, and even the cursing and the tantrums and the name-calling will often inadvertently speak to the validity of the original evidence. In these cases, especially, it's much better to keep all those uncomfortable words and exchanges on the forum. Along with negative responses to them. The same effort it takes for an admin/moderator to evaluate someone's words as supposedly worthy of banning, is about the same amount of work it takes to merely flag the questionable comment and write up a quick explanation of why the forum owners/admins/moderators don't like the comment.

Banning removes the entire continuation of argument/evidence and counter-argument/counter-evidence. I still don't like banning anyone. I haven't seen anyone here whose posts rose to that level. For my own comfort level, there have been a few curse-words I would have "asterisked" (mostly from another Alan) but that can be usually be set automatically in software.

48 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

I believe, you were insinuating, you were a road scholar full of information and insight

Then you would be wrong. I'm not a scholar.

48 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

But, I guess, your intelligence by your comment is limited after all.

Very limited. But evidently still correct, in this case.

18 minutes ago, Anna said:

I used to hate it even more when our teenage soon would  watch something with us. He would casually say: mum, that's nothing, I hear that at school all day....

I worked with an IT consultant who was on the autism spectrum, and he swears (!!) that when he was growing up he thought swear words were part of a special language only used by school-children. He never heard these words from grown-ups or his straight-laced parents.

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Beings from another planet poking gentle fun at customs by describing it in words they don’t quite have.

Nathan W Pyle's alien comics are hilarious. Without kids, I don't think I would have known. Do you think the WTS will ever make use of something like them to help show the folly of Birthdays (aka Emergence Days)? Or Valentine's Day?

Unfinished business?

5 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

All this is making serious inroads on my time. And now you throw in some hilarious dog blog that will take some time if I intend to go through it!

I sighed at that tiny square at the top of the right-hand scrollbar, which indicated a novella below. But it was mostly pictures that required only a quick glance and a chuckle. The entire piece literally takes about 3 minutes tops. And I needed something light as I just watched the "Trial of the Chicago 7" on Netflix. I recommend both highly. Thanks xero; and thanks, Alan Sorkin.

3 minutes ago, Anna said:

If the number was not literal, it would help in solving the problem of ever increasing partakers each year.

It would also resolve the issue of there having been more than a million partakers who faced death for their Christian faith rather than give a pinch of incense to the Roman emperor, or contaminate their conscience with other forms of idolatry or blood. It's either that or explicitly allow for the idea that an earthly hope had been opened up generally to Christians before 1935.

35 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

INSIDER! Does not speak for the Watchtower.

True. I've made that very clear many times. I think of this site as a place to discuss various opinions and concerns about various Watchtower doctrines. After much prayer and study and meditation, I even find myself in disagreement with almost all of our chronology-related doctrines. Of course, at last count, I also find myself completely agreeing with about 95% of the Watchtower's other doctrines. (It's closer to 98.6% when using the list of all the different baptismal questions that have been used since 1967, when I was baptized.) So I have no problem discussing the 5% that I question.

35 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

I demonstrated earlier his ignorance about Russell

What happened to your three posts about Russell? It looks like you deleted those posts and a couple of others under this topic that other persons here had already answered. For a minute there, I assumed you actually went back and looked up some of those Russell quotes and realized that you needed to remove your own posts. But that didn't sound very much like you at all! LOL!

3 minutes ago, xero said:

I usually just double the allocation.

Xero, the Data Science Guy.

7 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

There were 145,732. It is close enough, allowing for human imperfection.

Sand = silica. In Silicon Valley, 1K=1,024.* So, 144K actually equals 144*1024=147,456.

*The kilobyte has traditionally been used to refer to 1024 bytes (2¹⁰ B).^[5][6][7] The usage of the metric prefix kilo for binary multiples arose as a convenience, because 1024 is approximately 1000 -- Wikipedia article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobyte

1 hour ago, Kick_Faceinator said:

“And the number of the people of Israel will be like the grains of sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it will be said to them, ‘The sons of the living God.” Hosea 1:10

This would make perfect sense as an interpretation of Revelation 7. After all, the apostle Paul said that Israel would now be made up of the "full number" of Gentiles even though the number of "all Israel" would also have to come in. And, of course, Jesus said that the lost sheep of the house of Israel would be visited first, but that he had other sheep which were not of that fold which would also come in. Paul used Hosea to show how both Jews and Gentiles would make up Israel.

(Romans 9:24-26) 24 namely, us, whom he called not only from among Jews but also from among nations, what of it? ²⁵ It is as he says also in Ho·seʹa: “Those not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not loved, ‘beloved’; ²⁶ and in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”

(Romans 9:6) . . .For not all who descend from Israel are really “Israel.”

(Romans 9:27) . . .Moreover, Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Although the number of the sons of Israel may be as the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.

(Romans 11:25, 26) . . .For I do not want you to be unaware of this sacred secret, brothers, so that you do not become wise in your own eyes: A partial dulling of senses has come upon Israel until the full number of people of the nations has come in, ²⁶ and in this manner all Israel will be saved.. . .

Our current teaching accepts that Paul was speaking of literal Jews and Gentiles, but Jesus' statement about "other sheep" and Revelation's "144,000" from Israel and the "great crowd" are understood as "spiritual" Israel and "spiritual" Gentiles (where both groups are mostly physical gentiles).

4 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Is there a possibility that, the number, 144000 should not be taken literally?

Yes, of course. There are very few numbers in Revelation that are taken literally. Even the number 144,000 is made up of a non-literal number of tribes (12) each made up of a non-literal number of persons from each one of them (12,000).

The rationale for taking this one literally is that it is compared with an uncountable number of gentiles who come out of the great tribulation. We don't teach that these are literal gentiles either.

19 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

The reference of the 144,001 simply means Christ and the 144, 000

In general, that statement is true. Except when this particular mystery doctrine was being explained by Russell. For example, in Volume VI of Studies in the Scriptures, page 239, Russell showed that the 144,000 were "Joint-sacrificers" with Jesus Christ.

As I mentioned above, these 144,000 joint-sacrificers are correctly referred to as "gods," per Russell:

[also, Volume VI of Studies in the Scriptures, p.239]

3 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

Hence in no sense have I, as a pope, taken the place of Christ before his Church.

This is correct. Russell never took the place of Christ before his Church. Christ was the Head of the Body, and Russell would never consider himself the "Head" of the Body of Christ. This doesn't mean that Russell would ever have admitted that any other person could be God's "mouthpiece." Russell only said this about himself, and no one else. Also Russell printed letters that addressed himself as "the faithful and wise servant." He printed no letters that identified anyone else as that "faithful and wise servant." He did this while teaching that this "servant" could only be ONE INDIVIDUAL, and not a class of individuals.

9 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Ah well—if he did he took it back, didn’t he?

No. I don't think he ever took it back. The teaching survived into Rutherford's period of leadership, and there were still echoes of it during the time of Knorr and Franz. I don't recall exactly when it was rejected in print, but some say that Franz, while giving the Memorial talk, would quote the verse from 1 Cor 12:12 and then follow up with an odd statement to the effect that "only the 144,000 share the flesh and blood of the Christ, even though Jesus himself no longer shares flesh and blood." It's scriptural but by putting emphasis on the word "share" he made it sound odd, perhaps invoking John 6.

There's even an echo of it in the expression, "he is one of 'the anointed.'"

Originally this "mystery doctrine" led to some awkward sounding statements from Russell too. For example, he said in 1914 (Watchtower, p.83):

https://archive.org/details/1914WatchTower/mode/2up?q=sum+total

"The word Christ signifies anointed. God has declared that He will have an anointed King and High Priest to be His Agent in the blessing of the world. He has declared that that great King is, primarily, the Lord Jesus Christ. He also declares that instead of the Lord Jesus being the sum-total of the Anointed One, it is His good pleasure that there shall be members added to Him. And the adding of these members has been the completing of this Anointed One."

But if all the anointed were "The Christ" this had led to him also claiming that the anointed 144,000, including himself, were also the "Mighty God" and the "Eternal Father." (Isaiah 9) And his explanations seemed strained.

"Soon follows the power which will, under him as our head, constitute the whole body of Christ the "Mighty God" to rule and bless the nations - and the body with the head, shall share in the work of restoring the life lost in Adam, and therefore be members of that company which as a whole will be the Everlasting Father to the restored race." - (WT November 1881: 298)

Rutherford called this body of Christ: "the Great Messiah." This followed consistently on Russell's statements such as another from the same 1914 Watchtower:

"And as we further study, we find that this is the Mystery mentioned in the Scriptures: to wit, that the great Messiah so long promised should be composed of many individuals;

But I think it was only Russell who delved into statements that would show that this doctrine proved that when Jesus said "Ye are gods" in John 10, that this also had reference to the 144,001. I'm sure that to some, this would have sounded too similar to Mormon teaching.

5 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

Is that blasphemy ?  And if Russell was being guided by God through Christ, Russell would never have done it.

I think that if you understood the whole picture of Russell's attempt (and the difficulties) to make all scripture fit into one complete view, you would never call it blasphemy. In fact, I don't think you could even provide any "proof" that he was wrong. Take the following two passages from 1 Corinthians for example:

(1 Corinthians 12:12) For just as the body is one but has many members, and all the members of that body, although many, are one body, so too is the Christ.

(1 Corinthians 6:15) Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

Paul could easily be interpreted as saying that each and every one of the "Anointed" (which is an English word for the Greek word "Christ") are therefore all included in the "Anointed." Therefore this interpretation was imposed back upon Ephesians 1:9, so that the very doctrine of all 144,000 being gathered into the Christ, was considered to be the "mystery" or the "sacred secret:"

(Ephesians 1:9, 10) ⁹ by making known to us the sacred secret of his will. It is according to his good pleasure that he himself purposed ¹⁰ for an administration at the full limit of the appointed times, to gather all things together in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth. . . .

The better understanding, of course, is that the 144,000 are in close union with Christ, and only the primary one, the Head, should be called "The Christ" or the "Anointed One."

(Galatians 3:16) . . .. It says, not: “And to seeds,” as in the case of many such, but as in the case of one: “And to your seed,” who is Christ.

On 3/19/2021 at 12:25 PM, Anna said:

In context, Jesus at Luke 21:8  is talking about a person's impersonating or saying they are the expected Messiah during the time of the end. Russell did no such thing.

Just for a laugh, people should know that Russell did also claim to be "The Christ." He claimed that all 144,001 members of Christ's body were "The Christ."

On 3/19/2021 at 10:14 AM, César Chávez said:

Answer this. Why Would God find it necessary to include in scripture, that people should pick among themselves 7 men full of spirit in Acts 6?

From the context it seems that the 11 +1 apostles were meeting in Jerusalem to devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. This is probably a reference to the necessary spiritual preparation the apostles needed to focus on for producing the foundation of teaching we now find in the Christian Greek Scriptures. This was the priority so soon after Jesus was resurrected because Jesus had asked them to meet together in Jerusalem, at least until the holy spirit opened up their understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures, and who knew how long it would be before they would be persecuted and even killed:

(Luke 24:45-49) ⁴⁵ Then he opened up their minds fully to grasp the meaning of the Scriptures, ⁴⁶ and he said to them, “This is what is written: that the Christ would suffer and rise from among the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷ and on the basis of his name, repentance for forgiveness of sins would be preached in all the nations—starting out from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸ You are to be witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹ And look! I am sending upon you what my Father promised. You, though, stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

(Acts 1:4) . . .While he was meeting with them, he ordered them: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but keep waiting for what the Father has promised, about which you heard from me;

But shortly after the spirit was poured out upon them, and upon many other women and men among the Christians (Acts 2) there was a problem with Jewish prejudice against non-Jewish Christians. The Greek-speaking Christians were being overlooked (ignored) when it came to sharing the supplies of physical food among them. (Some Jews even assumed that this prejudice was Scriptural.)

So the apostles were still devoting themselves to prayer and teaching and didn't have the time at that moment to manage the distribution of food. They needed some capable ministerial servants or "deacons" for this purpose.

(Acts 6:2-4) . . .So the Twelve called the multitude of the disciples together and said: “It is not right for us to leave the word of God to distribute food to tables (literally, to be deacons for tables: διακονεῖν-diakonein). ³ So, brothers, select for yourselves seven reputable men from among you, full of spirit and wisdom, that we may appoint them over this necessary matter; ⁴ but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

So the 12 apostles needed some "deacons" (ministerial servants) to manage the daily food distributions. But these deacons were well qualified in that they were filled with the recently poured out holy spirit. They had already gained the respect of the multitude of Christians through their actions and ability to teach. It shows, that like in 1 Timothy, deacons were to have almost the same qualifications as elders, but elders had more of the teaching responsibilities.

(1 Timothy 3:8-13) . . .Ministerial servants [Greek: "deacons"] should likewise be serious, not double-tongued, not indulging in a lot of wine, not greedy of dishonest gain, ⁹ holding the sacred secret of the faith with a clean conscience. ¹⁰ Also, let these be tested as to fitness first; then let them serve as ministers [Greek: "deacons"], as they are free from accusation. ¹¹ ... ¹³ For the men who minister [Gk: "are deacons"] in a fine manner are acquiring for themselves a fine standing and great freeness of speech in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

12 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Never have I heard a brother refer to God as “the man upstairs” though the expression is common elsewhere.

I haven't either. But the topic of using God's name on this channel came up in his "Allen Smith" period, and again in his BTK period. As CC, (assuming the three are one) there has been a consistency of practice. But he has chided/counseled me, even for using my account name which implies Jehovah's name in the abbreviation JW. But that may be more because he doesn't believe I deserve to use the term. But it was in that context (discussing my "handle") that he once brought up the fact that he personally believes that casual use of the Divine Name is out of place here. You might even recall a few uses of "G-d" instead of "God" following a similar Jewish practice.

Note page 8 of another topic:

On 4/12/2020 at 6:41 AM, César Chávez said:

Now to the rabbinic understanding, Elohim was used by G-d himself. This can only come from ancient Hebrew scholars that also accepted Baal by the Israelite's.

So, I'd say there has been a consistency, although he uses it in quotes from others, quotes from sources, and usually only in discussions regarding the use of God's name itself. (Edited to add: BTW, CC's posts on that topic were excellent and thought-provoking, in my opinion.)

On 3/16/2021 at 4:01 PM, xero said:

It's opposers who get hung up on punctuation because they don't get that it's all wheat and weeds until the harvest.

I'm sure you are aware of this, but there have been multiple times when you have said things like what you just said here. It can indicate that you do not believe we have currently reached the time of the harvest. Scripturally, of course, this is a strong possibility. But you probably know that the Watchtower teaches that we have been in the harvest since 1914:

*** w2020 May p. 9 Rival Kings in the Time of the End ***
1914 ONWARD
Harvest season; weeds separated from wheat

It is also possible to find a scriptural precedent for the idea that the harvest can cover a period of time, and does not just refer to the time when the wheat and weeds are finally separated.

(Matthew 9:37, 38) . . .Then he said to his disciples: “Yes, the harvest is great, but the workers are few. ³⁸ Therefore, beg the Master of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.”

I hoped you would clarify your own view.