The Librarian

If someone asked you this question at the door this morning how would you answer? ---------------------------------------------------- Jehovah’s Witnesses treat Father’s Day as any other, and will love their Fathers just as much that day as any other day. Jehovah’s Witnesses base all of their beliefs, their standards for conduct, and organizational procedures on the Bible. Yes, the Bible does command children to honor, obey and respect their parents. (Eph. 6:1, 2) But nowhere does it advocate the commemoration of a special “Father’s Day”.True Christians follow Jesus Christ as their Exemplar and realize that to Jesus, every day was Father’s Day. He did not set aside only one particular day out of the year to bring praise to his Father. He did so every day. It is also worthy to note that the main purpose for the creation of Father’s Day was to complement Mother’s Day. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not formally celebrate Mother’s Day - mostly for the same reasons as stated for Father’s Day above. But they also do not celebrate it because Jehovah’s Witnesses avoid participating in any celebrations with non-Christian religious origins. Some may counter that by saying that Mother’s Day does not have roots in ancient paganism and that it is presently considered a largely secular event. But the earliest Mother’s Day celebrations can be traced back to the spring celebrations of ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the mother of the gods. The Bible makes it clear that if a holiday or custom is being deliberately participated in by a Christian, it must have absolutely no known pagan religion associations. (Exodus 20:3; Luke 4:8; 2 Cor. 6:17) Via Elijah See also: List of World Holidays español

"Racket- (crime), a systematized element of organized crime. This recording was a Free Public Lecture given in 1939 By Judge J. F. Rutherford. The Judge plainly states where religion came from and what to do about it. Its message is still relevant down to this day. I can show you in your Copy of the Holy Scriptures which ones he used and why he gave this message. It is important to note that he said Christianity, NOT Christendom." - Kurtan (editor who posted this page) (Acts 5:38, 39 And so, under the present circumstances, I say to YOU, Do not meddle with these men, but let them alone; (because, if this scheme or this work is from men, it will be overthrown; but if it is from God, YOU will not be able to overthrow them;) otherwise, YOU may perhaps be found fighters actually against God.") (2 Corinthians 13:5 Keep testing whether YOU are in the faith, keep proving what YOU yourselves are. Or do YOU not recognize that Jesus Christ is in union with YOU? Unless YOU are disapproved.) KINGDOM NEWS New York City - July 1939

Judge J.F. Rutherford created many ideas in his tenure as President of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.one of those is this one: RELIGION is a SNARE and a RACKET 1939 When, in WWI, the brothers sought exemptions on religious conscience grounds, they could not convince local draft boards they had any formal religion or coherent beliefs because Pastor Russell had been totally against ORGANIZATION.There was no formal statement of orthodoxy and all I.B.S.A. (International Bible Students Association) members were democratic in believing whatever they pleasedlater, in 1929, Romans 13.1 was cited for refusing civilian service.Jehovah’s Witnesses claimed they were not a religion; just a bible society and they further decried their label as pacifist because they were total advocates of War of the great day of God the Almighty.In 1937 in the book Enemies, J.F. Rutherford made his position clear:“ Strange as it may seem, the two words "Christian" and "religion" are diametrically opposed one to the other. ”The greatest racket ever invented and practiced is that of religion.Clearly this was a tactical mistake that could cost the Society three kinds of important exemptions. Religious exemption in time of war for JW ministers whether full or part-time. Tax exemption for Watch Tower corporations. Real estate exemption for Watch Tower property holdings (including Kingdom Halls) A reversal of position was vitally necessary.President Rutherford died in 1942. Now it would not directly embarrass brother Rutherford if tax exemptions were sought.To avoid loss of exemption it had become necessary to finesse the absolute statements of President Rutherford when applying for the above exemptions although none of it was made public until 1950 in a book written by the former Vice-President of the Society and Attorney, Hayden C. Covington. In his book, “Defending and legally establishing the Good News”: “The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Inc., is incorporated under the laws of the State of New York for charitable, religious, and scientific purposes.The unincorporated bodies of persons known as Jehovah’s witnesses hold in common certain religious tenets and beliefs and recognize as their terrestrial governing organization the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Inc.By their adherence to the organization of this religious corporation, the unincorporated body of Jehovah's Witnesses are considered to constitute a recognized religious sect.” --Vol.II Opinion No.14, National Headquarters, Selective Service System, November 2, 1942. “The fact is, they have been recognized by the Selective Service System as a religious organization and are entitled to the same treatment as the members of any other religious organization...” - United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Hull v Stalter, 151F. 2d 633 (1945), said: It should also be noted: for the record that as early as 1934, the Society's corporations sought Tax Exemption as charitable and benevolent societies. "By orders of the commissioner of Internal Revenue, United States Treasurey Department, under dates of November 9, 1934, March 22, 1935, April 24, 1935, April 23, 1938, September 1, 1942, and June 17, 1946, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Inc. (a New Yourk corporation) and Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (a Pennsylvania corporation), were held to be entitled to exemption from the making of income tax returns under the Federal Internal Revenue Act because such societies were charitable corporations engaged in religious activity. ...have been declared exempt also from the payment of taxes on real estate owned and used by the for carrying out the chartered purposes of the societies because such societies are benevolent and engaged in religious activity."

His wife was Audrey Mock. Evidently there was some drama concerning Nathan Knorr winning her over.

Book can also be purchased via Amazon Thanks for the post and review @Kurt

1959_Jehovah's_Witnesses_in_the_Divine_Purpose.pdf

Click here to view Scrabble necklace with this cover on it / purchase link See also: Earlier official history book in 1959 called Jehovah's Witnesses in the Divine Purpose

I think there was a saucy story about Nathan Knorr's stealing an engaged woman from another bethelite. I searched but didn't find that post. rrrrr Maybe @JW Insider will remember where that story is at?

One at at time. Download all would probably overwhelm most people's systems.

Original Story:

@M. Doris Emmons... I just tried and they were working. Must be your browser or something.

The United Nations and Religion Who better to discuss religious freedom than the man tasked with promoting and defending it for the United Nations? Dr. Heiner Bielefeldt, U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. Show caption Dr. Heiner Bielefeldt, U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief.Photo courtesy United Nations - Geneva via Flickr This image available for Web publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.I caught up with Dr. Heiner Bielefeldt, U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, on the eve of his first official visit to Jordan last week. Speaking from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany where he’s also a human rights professor, Bielefeldt discussed the fundamentals of religious freedom, how it fits together with other rights, some of the worst offenders around the world and the state of religious liberty in the Middle East.The conversation started with a simple but loaded question: What is religious freedom? Bielefeldt acknowledged that defining it can be a tricky and often political endeavor — governments, scholars, people of faith and those of none sometimes tailor its definitions to suit their own interests.He sees religious freedom first and foremost as a human right that protects human beings rather than one that protects particular belief systems: “Religious freedom is as universal as any other human right and as liberal as freedom of expression. It protects a broad range of human freedoms like the search for meaning, the freedom to leave or change communities, to adopt a new faith, to spread one’s beliefs and to establish educational institutions. Like every other right to freedom, it’s about the right to equality.” But religious liberty often comes into conflict with other rights, like when it’s summoned up to suppress free speech or to oppress women and sexual minorities. Bielefeldt said these examples are “problematic invocations” rather than legitimate uses of religious freedom.Beyond such “subversion”, Bielefeldt identified three major obstacles to religious freedom around the world today: “One of the biggest obstacles is hatred, collective manifestations of hatred caused by aggravating societal circumstances. Another big problem is that, increasingly, people think freedom of religion or belief might be superfluous or not a human right at all. Another big issue is the situation of religious minorities worldwide. Some minorities are harassed, stigmatized and treated as though they do not belong to the nation.” In determining the worst state offenders of religious freedom, Bielefeldt thinks it wise to distinguish systematic state discrimination from society-based hostilities, citing China as an example of the former and Nigeria the latter: “In China, it seems the general population doesn’t care so much [about religion]. It’s really restrictive government policies that threaten religious freedom. We see that with the Falun Gong in Tibet, Protestants and Catholics, the non-recognition of churches. Freedom of belief is facilitated by state administration. Unless the state registers a group, it is illegal. That goes against the spirit of human rights. Here it’s not the society really, but rather the state apparatus exercising oppression. “In Nigeria, it’s totally different. There, Boko Haram, an Islamist terrorist group, is terrorizing Christians, but also many Muslims. State institutions can’t provide protection. It’s a totally different pattern.” Bielefeldt said the Middle East, and Egypt specifically, are home to both systems of oppression and a host of other complicating factors: “What we’re seeing now throughout the region is an enormous politicization of religion, especially of Islam. It’s a huge and complicated conflict that cannot simply be spelled out as Muslims vs. Christians. That would be too easy. In Egypt, there are Muslims and Christians on both sides of the political debate. “Christians are now an easy target group for people to vent their frustrations. It’s about the identity of the country, about creating a new Egypt. Religion is a big part of that, but it’s not the only thing. One shouldn’t leave out unemployment, the desperate situation of youth, and disenchantment with the West and Western development strategies that have failed. It’s a complicated picture. Religion is a big part of it, but it’s not the key to understanding absolutely everything.” On the international scale and particularly at the United Nations, Bielefeldt said the state and reputation of religious freedom have changed significantly in the past decade or so, notably around the discussion of religious defamation. Starting in the late 1990s, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, a group of 57 states that bills itself as the “collective voice of the Muslim world,” pushed for U.N. resolutions to prohibit such defamation.Bielefeldt said these resolutions “cast a shadow” on religious freedom: “The defamation of religions issue was articulated as a dichotomy of freedom of expression and freedom of religion, which is totally wrong in my opinion. Freedom of expression is often seen as totally liberal, you can be provocative with it. But the perception of freedom of religion is that there is a stop sign. You can only go so far. That has contributed to the dubious reputation of freedom of religion as being somewhat less liberal, which is unfair and unjust. It is as liberal a right as any but has this perception that it somehow doesn’t fit.” Red lines between religious liberty and freedom of expression surfaced amid these defamation debates when illustrations of the Prophet Muhammad, published in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, resulted in violent protests around the world. These demonstrations in 2005 and 2006 were led by some Muslims who deemed the depictions blasphemous and offensive. Bielefeldt said the fact that global media organizations reprinted the cartoons amid threats of violence “made it clear that there is no such right as the right to be free from criticism.”A U.N. Human Rights Council resolution in 2011 “put aside the discussion on religious defamation,” according to Bielefeldt, by considering and protecting both free speech and religious freedom.Bielefeldt is currently finishing a report on gender relations and religious freedom, in part to further emphasize his assertion that religious freedom should not be viewed as a right in isolation: “In this report, I’m speaking out against fragmentation, the idea that human rights should focus on gender or religion. Some people think it’s an alternative, an either/or of anti-discrimination. I don’t share this view. I believe all human rights are interrelated in a positive sense.” Bielefeldt is scheduled to issue preliminary findings from his current mission to Jordan on Sept. 10, with a full report slated for 2014. http://brianpellot.religionnews.com/2013/09/06/qa-with-united-nations-religious-freedom-czar-heiner-bielefeldt/

Our Brother Bill Underwood wrote an interesting article in the newspaper: If you had to choose between Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech, which would you choose?Now, you’re thinking, ‘I don’t have to choose, I already have both.’ Are you sure?Last August, the central district court of Tver – the oblast or ‘state’ in which Moscow resides, banned a religious website, jw.org. They did this secretly, not notifying the owners of the website until the day before the ban was to go into effect – January 22, 2014. Had they prevailed, their rationale would have been to claim, as they have in the past, that the ‘free speech’ on jw.org defames other religions. Jw.org won that battle in the court of appeals, but the foundation on which the attack was based still exists.In 1999, Pakistan brought a resolution to the UN calling for a ban on “Defamation of Islam.” Cooler heads prevailed and, after much discussion, the Commission on Human Rights passed instead a resolution banning “Defamation of Religion.”Over the years from 2000 to 2009 the resolution was added to, revised, strengthened, and re-worded, but it was consistently approved. Aside from the lack of elections, U.N. politicians are no different from any other type. It would have been politically incorrect to be seen as anti-Muslim, especially after 9/11, so passing a bill to protect them from defamation seemed like a good idea. Typical was the vote of the UN General Assembly in December, 2007: 108 for, 51 against, and 25 abstaining.In 2009, however, Pakistan pushed again. Their resolution that year stated that they were concerned that defamation of religion led to “the creation of a kind of Islamophobia in which Muslims were typecast as terrorists." They weren't opposed to freedom of expression, oh no. They merely wanted to ban "expression that led to incitement.”They said the hatred of Muslims was just like the hatred of Jews that Hitler had whipped up in pre-WWII Germany, and look what that led to. Has there been a Muslim “krystallnacht” that I didn’t hear about...the night of August 9, 1938 when Germans destroyed over 7,000 Jewish businesses and over 1,000 synagogues? Even in the days after 9/11 when there was enormous outrage against Muslims, the level of hatred never approached that.Pakistan’s proposed resolution said basically that freedom of speech sometimes has to yield in order to maintain peace. Governments such as Russia, Pakistan, and most of the middle east are quick to use this argument: some opinion or expression of yours is causing distress to others; therefore, instead of telling the ‘others’ to grow up and get over it, they tell you to stop expressing your opinion.In any case, this was a step too far, and the pendulum began to swing back. Pakistan’s argument was recognized for what it was, and over 200 civic groups, some Muslim, some Christian, some atheist, demanded that the UN push back.Over the preceding 10 years, the UN had assigned a “special rapporteur” to analyze the subject of defamation of religion and report back. The rapporteur’s report in 2009 included this telling statement: “[We] encourage a shift away from the sociological concept of the defamation of religions towards the legal norm of non-incitement to national, racial or religious hatred." Three months later when the United States and Egypt introduced a resolution which condemned "racial and religious stereotyping," EU representative Jean-Baptiste Mattei said the European Union "rejected and would continue to reject the concept of defamation of religions." Significantly, he said: "Human rights laws did not and should not protect belief systems." And the representative from Chile pointed out that, "The concept of the defamation of religion took them in an area that could lead to the actual prohibition of opinions." A month later, at a human rights meeting in Geneva, the United States representative admitted that defamation of religion is “a fundamentally flawed concept.” The rep from Sweden repeated what the Frenchman had said earlier: international human rights law protects individuals, not institutions or religions.By 2011 the backlash was complete. The UNHRC declared that "Prohibitions of displays of lack of respect for a religion or other belief system, including blasphemy laws, are incompatible with” the charter of the Human Rights Committee.In the years since then, any proposal in the UN attempting to ban ‘defamation of religion’ has been shot down. Freedom of speech has trumped freedom of religion.Last week, far from worrying about ‘defamation,’ the UN came out loudly and publicly chastising the Vatican. This has never happened before. Their purported justification for doing so went like this: The Vatican is a signatory of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, article 34 of which reads in part: “Parties undertake to protect the child from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.” The UN accused the Vatican not merely of failing to protect children, but of actively endangering children by their policy of moving pederasts to new parishes where they could continue their predations, and of obfuscating all attempts by law enforcement agencies to find and prosecute the offenders.Now, here’s where it gets really interesting: The UN went further. They also condemned the Church’s doctrines regarding homosexuality, abortion, and ‘reproductive rights.’Chastising a signatory of a contract for failing to abide by the contract is one thing; Attempting to dictate to a church what their doctrines should be is something else. Where is the UN’s authority to do that? Yet they did it anyway.If, as the UN says, religions and belief systems are not protected by human rights - and I agree, they clearly are not – what prevents them from taking the next step: deciding that religions and belief systems are nothing more than ancient superstitions that are doing more harm than good, and that it’s time to ban them?It’s too bad the UN doesn’t have any teeth. Do they? We'll Investigate that next. Bill.underwood@mail.com Source

Refreshing Those “Toiling and Loaded Down” Via

A Gift in Hand to Jehovah Via

I Keep Your Reminders Via

William Malenfant: Morality in the Last Days (2 Tim. 3:13)

Sinutko Charles - Apathy.mp3

La Bible nous enseigne que Dieu répond aux prières de différentes façons. Quand et comment Jéhovah répond-il à tes prières ? la source

la source

The decision vilifies the Witnesses and has emboldened some individuals and government officials to inflict further harm, as exemplified by recent incidents. Source

In der Bibel steht, dass Gott Gebete auf verschiedene Weise erhört. Wie und wann beantwortet Gott Gebete? Quelle

Jehovas Zeugen haben Bibelkurs-Programme für Seeleute in großen Seehäfen entwickelt. Wie ist die Resonanz? Quelle

Pour les marins qui se déplacent en permanence, les Témoins ont mis sur pied un programme d’enseignement biblique dans les grands ports. Comment les marins accueillent-ils cette initiative ? la source

The Bible teaches that God answers prayers in a variety of ways. How and when might he answer yours? Source