Anna

It sounds like you fell out of bed and banged your head really hard! Lol 

It's not really a case of slipping through the cracks. And what policies in particular are you talking about? The purpose of disfellowshipping is twofold, and has been mentioned on another thread recently. Whether you agree or not, it is primarily to protect the congregation and keep it clean morally. You don't want members who are known to be practicing something which is condemned in the Bible to be freely associating with the congregation as if it was OK. I'm sure you can understand that. You also don't want members publicly speaking out against what JWs teach and cause a disturbance to members. Believe me, not everyone wants to discuss Malawi/Mexico and why 1914 could be wrong, even if they suspect it could be wrong. And that needs to be respected. Nothing likely would happen unless a number of members started complaining about this particular individual. You read in the letters yourself, no one gets dissfellowshipped automatically just for sharing some "controversial" information, but to try and hammer "TTATT"  (which by the way is subjective anyway) at every opportunity is obviously not going to go down very well. But if you call that exercising your conscience, then you might also need to reflect on the conscience of others too.
So, in a nutshell, the elders are not so interested in making life hard for someone who no longer wants to be a JW as you wish to believe. They have other things to do, most have families they'd like to spend time with. If the individual is not causing any trouble, then I can guarantee they'd much rather leave things alone. I don't know what kind of experiences you've had, and your friends, they either had Nazi elders, or must have been causing a disturbance among the friends. Somehow I think it's more likely to be the latter.
 

That is true to a point, and especially with regard to the JW community in general. However, with family it IS different, if we are going to be honest about it. If there was  an option whereby a family was able to associate with an apostate loved one and it was deemed OK, I am sure there would be many families who would. I can give you examples of quite a few, whose family members were raised as JW but picked another religion (my step son became a Mormon) and the other JW family members freely associate with them, some more, some less. Why, because they never chose to get baptized as JW. But really, they knew the truth, just didn't appeal to them for whatever reason. But if one gets baptized, and later on the truth loses it's appeal and they "apostatize" then that's a whole different story as we know. But really, the only difference is a vow that they broke between themselves and Jehovah. The vow wasn't made between themselves and the family, it is exclusively between them and God, so why should family loyalty/disloyalty play a part in that equation at all?

If we are going to be honest about this though, those who do wish to depart are very often at a dilemma because they know that if they do, the family will- if they value what makes the truth the truth - no longer speak with him. This dilemma has caused many to try and get around it by purposefully slowly drifting, without getting disfellowshipped, or, if already disfellowshipped, plan to make a show of coming back, get re-instated, and then become inactive.  I know of both scenarios personally.  And it is becoming more and more the norm now, as people are "wising up". Now what is the point of that? 

When it comes down to the grass roots, it’s all a numbers game. What would kings be without subjects? Governments have been overthrown and changed by the sheer power of numbers. If there is no support for a cause or idea, it dies out. No matter how ingenious. The only being that doesn’t need numbers is God. He needs nobody’s support to exist or to be the rightful sovereign. He needs nothing at all. He is the arbiter of right and wrong, he is the ultimate lawmaker.
On the other hand the GB need  numbers because without numbers it would be just them sitting in their office and Jehovah would have to have the stones cry out instead. If NO one cooperated with a policy, then this policy would fall flat, it would just be on paper. If EVERY member of JWs decided they would no longer cooperate with certain policies, where would those policies be? Of course this is not likely ever to happen, but the point I am trying to make is that many policies exist only because of the support they get. (and I am obviously not talking about what’s black and white in the Bible). So the GB are by no means unaffected by numbers. I dare to go as far as giving an example with the shaking up with regards to child sexual abuse. The society is and has changed the policies BECAUSE of numbers. The item at the convention about protecting our children was in response to the shake up. Had no one ever said anything, there would likely be no talk. Some have tried for this change decades before, but it took a government, (and one that made all the hearings transparent and available on line for anyone to reference), to make change happen. We are only human, the GB are only human, they need US to make anything “work”. The recent CO we had made an interesting remark, which when he said it made me remember something JWInsider said on here once. When I commended him for something he (the CO) said, he replied that “he just put it out there, to see if it will stick”. This is similar to saying if it gets support, we will go with it. This was in a small scale apparently what the GB do. Sometimes it is merely trial and error. If we get too strict here…we might alienate our friends… If we are too lax here we might lose them to sin….
Br. Jackson, during the inquiry into institutional child sexual abuse, conceded that yes, there are some things in our (at that time current policy), that can be changed if they don’t go against our understanding of scripture, or their principles. Why didn’t these things get changed before? Because they were never brought up, at least not by an entity that mattered.
Why, numbers matter in a congregational setting too. If everyone complains about brother so and so, you can bet something will be done, rather than if no one says anything. It’s part of one of our policies too, judicial cases are set up when they meet certain criteria, and one of these criteria is how wide spread is the case regarding the accused known, do many people know about it, or have many people complained about it….
So the point I am trying to make is that some things have and can change depending on the “notoriety” these thing get. And JWs as an organization are not immune to this. I’m still waiting for when families of disfellowshipped ones will not be “made” to shun their loved ones, but it will be left up to them whether they do so or not.
 

Definitely not  a Watchtower image. Evangelical or SDA.
       

I know. I have seen her and it is getting embarrassing. Someone should tell her that one time is enough.

I wish you the best in your endeavors. Thanks for all the input, and of course, if you decide to participate again, I'm sure you will be welcomed. Whether or not I am still here will be based on several factors. It's nice to find a place where one can show complete loyalty to the truth and still not hold back in sharing all aspects of the good news that we have found spiritually profitable. While no one can compare themselves to the Apostle Paul, we should still strive to be imitators of him. 
(Acts 20:20) 20 while I did not hold back from telling you any of the things that were profitable nor from teaching you publicly and from house to house. But as some have pointed out, this place, although a useful public forum for ideas to be shared, often becomes a place where opposers of scripture, and opposers of truth and evidence can become ridiculously juvenile and ill-behaved. And while joking and enjoying a laugh, and light-hearted association can be just fine, the propensity for unloving insults, sniping, and sarcasm can easily rub off on any of us. I have recently felt embarrassed at the way in which fellow brothers have claimed to proudly make a conscious decision to disregard Bible truth as long as they are generally confident that the men they choose to follow are backed by Jesus and Jehovah. This is so much like the high-control thinking that certain men have been able to achieve in several of the religious associations of Christendom, and I fear the trend of attracting more and more persons who are happy and proud not to think about scripture and evidence and truth.

This is SO TRUE .... especially in Toontown.
 
 

That's really the crux of all the problems with the organization. Rank-and-file JWs do not have the right to question any doctrines--even with Biblical support. Only the GB can correctly interpret the Bible. Only the GB can make "refinements" in doctrine. If we have a disagreement with a doctrine, we must quietly wait with the hope that it might get changed someday.
A Governing Body taking the lead is not a bad thing. It keeps our organization...organized. But the Governing Body has no external auditor to scrutinize its ideas. The Bible should be that external auditor, but the Bible and the GB are intertwined. The Bible can't stand apart from the GB. Only the GB's interpretations of Scriptures are correct. Therefore, they can always discern the Bible in a way that supports the status quo.
I believe that's the case with the "two overlapping generations" theory. For decades, the organization said the generation was one group that saw Jesus' presence in 1914--it was apostasy to suggest otherwise. It's clear now that that idea was wrong. I guess a combination of ego and a fear of losing credibility means the GB won't let go of 1914 and the generation. So, they force the square peg in a round hole. They use weak Biblical evidence to make the old idea "work" while maintaining a sense of urgency (the second group is older now so we must be close!!). It's not about a Bible interpretation that makes the most sense anymore. It's about maintaining the facade that the org knows what it's doing and that we are still on the threshold of the new system. No doubt in a few decades (if this system persists) another "refinement" will come along that will have the same purpose (wash, rinse, repeat). If you type random numbers in a keypad it may eventually unlock, and eventually this system will end. So, if the org exists at that time of the end maybe they can say they were right to keep us on the edge--even if the evidence was incorrect. (I believe they use this justification currently in God's Kingdom Rules! paraphrasing from memory: "We were wrong on this but it kept everyone zealous at that time.")

That's horrible. I can assure you that many JWs would not do something that insensitive. 

I think everyone knew that this was one of his favorite subjects along with his favorite numerology topics. I'm sure he was the one who wrote the article in 1956. I have been assured that he was the one who often repeated the idea that 999 people out of every thousand would die at Armageddon. This was even included in assembly speeches open to the public. The 99.9% figure was also included in the Watch Tower publications a few times.
*** w58 10/15 pp. 614-615 What Will Armageddon Mean for You? ***
Revelation 9:16 gives us an inkling of the size of Jehovah’s forces when it speaks of him as using, on a certain occasion, cavalry to the number of 200,000,000. And 2 Kings 19:35 tells of just one of these destroying a host of 185,000 warriors in one night. . . . On Satan’s side will be all the rest of mankind, more than 99.9 percent, even as we read: “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” He was also the one who said that due to the current laws of the land, we aren't allowed to kill our apostate children even though they are our own children.
*** w52 11/15 p. 703 Questions From Readers ***
In the case of where a father or mother or son or daughter is disfellowshiped, how should such person be treated by members of the family in their family relationship?—P. C., Ontario, Canada. We are not living today among theocratic nations where such members of our fleshly family relationship could be exterminated for apostasy from God and his theocratic organization, as was possible and was ordered in the nation of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai and in the land of Palestine. “Thou shalt surely kill him; thy hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him to death with stones, because he hath sought to draw thee away from Jehovah thy God, . . . And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is in the midst of thee.”—Deut. 13:6-11, AS. Being limited by the laws of the worldly nation in which we live and also by the laws of God through Jesus Christ, we can take action against apostates only to a certain extent, that is, consistent with both sets of laws. The law of the land and God’s law through Christ forbid us to kill apostates, even though they be members of our own flesh-and-blood family relationship. That's a very useful reminder not to kill our children, based on a question probably sent in by Percy Chapman, the Branch Servant in Ontario at the time.
And of course, Fred Franz was the one who assured me that the hundreds of thousands of Christian martyrs who were willing to die for their faith in the 2nd and 3rd centuries were mostly all in Gehenna now, with no hope of a resurrection.
Yes, he had a dark side. But at least he could snicker and joke while saying such serious things. I don't know if that makes it better or worse, though.

*** w56 8/1 p. 465 pars. 16-17 Jehovah’s Message Against Gog of Magog ***
16 In the wake of Armageddon’s carnage, disease and pestilence from the rot and decay would plague the survivors were it not for the fact that Jehovah sends forth an invitation to the birds and beasts to attend this great slaughter. “Speak unto the birds of every sort, and to every beast of the field,” Jehovah says, and say to them, “Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, . . . Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth.” This certainly shows the contempt in which Jehovah holds the proud and haughty of Gog’s system, letting the wild beasts and vultures feed upon them as worthless carrion!—Ezek. 39:17, 18, AS.
17 With such a glorious feast of victory concluded, only the bones, bones from one end of the earth to the other, will be left for burial. What a task that will be for the survivors, to cleanse the earth of every remaining evidence of Gog’s forces! Even with the work well organized it will take seven months, Jehovah says, just to bury the bones. Scouting corps will be sent out on a full-time basis to search the land thoroughly and, when bones are found, markers will be set up for those with the spades and shovels who follow. (Ezek. 39:14, 15) Those privileged to share in that cleanup work will not view it as a revolting and disgusting assignment but will rejoice to be alive when Gog’s long and oppressive rule has come to an end and when the wicked are no more. Survivors of Armageddon will be happy and will greatly rejoice to have a share in preparing the earth for a global paradise of beauty and perfection under the reign of the King Christ Jesus. But first, before that happy day, this message against Gog must be delivered in its completeness.

---------------
In 1965, or so, several congregations used to put on skits for the Circuit Overseer's visit. ("Circuit Servant" in those days.) We did one where we re-enacted this scene from Ezekiel. To prepare, we literally gathered some sun-bleached skulls and bones from long-demised cattle, always plentiful on the acres of land and farms in Missouri. Then we set up some sand-piles on the platform of the Kingdom Hall behind the back curtain, with the bones already placed there. Then, when time for the "drama" came around during the meeting, we opened the curtain, had some little kids play the scouts who put markers by the bones, and then had some more mature brothers put the bones in their large burlap sacks. In rehearsal, one brother picked up a skull and would say things like, "looks like this one died because he was too bull-headed," etc. But the conclusion of the actual drama went like this. One sack-toting brother asks the others, "Hey. Has anyone seen Brother One-hour?" After learning that no one has seen him, he then says: "You don't suppose!?!?!?!?!  . . . . . and then, of course, he gets all dramatically wide-eyed, and throws the whole sack across the stage. Lights go to dark. Applause!!

What does this one mean at Ezekiel 39:15?
"When those who pass through the land see a human bone, they will set up a marker beside it. Then those assigned to do the burying will bury it in the valley of Hamon-Gog...And they will cleanse the land."
Bethel has never commented on this verse, so I am not allowed to speak of it until they tell me what to think. (I just threw that in for @Albert Michelson and crew)
But if I could comment on it, I might offer that it tells how every last vestige of human thinking is cleared out after Armageddon, some of which are so skillfully interwoven by governments, business, contemporary thinkers and the like, that their effects are unnoticed, yet they affect us nonetheless. After Armageddon - gone!
For example, even without ill intent, we are hearing endlessly of the displaced in Houston where (at last count) 37 have died, and are completely ignorant - or it is mentioned only in passing - that over 1000 have died in India - same cause. Repeat this to Americans again and again, as with any other news story, and it plants the subtle notion - not easily dislodged - that American lives are the ones that matter. It is probably the same in all nations. 
Now it is an ongoing struggle. Paul says we are 'overturning reasonings against every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.' Every dividing thought, every undermining thought, every debased thought - thoughts that cannot be completely screened out even if we live and breathe jw.org - in the new system - gone in the new system!
Unless there will just be a lot of bones to pick up, and the mens' wives drive them, as mine does me to my howls of protest, to keep everything neat and tidy. 

I may have expressed something inelegantly but, in general, if it goes back from before I was born, I lose interest. If it also it requires eyestrain  - I am not an eagle-eyed kid anymore - it disappears almost entirely.
You have to be an historian for something that long ago, and that's not my thing - not for the sake of some piddly item that may have been no more than a bad hair day. If the man says he can't translate, what do I care? The fact is, it is translated by someone, they all remain anonymous there, who knows what was farmed out and to who? Of maybe God wrote it himself. (sigh...I'm being facetious here) The fact is, the translation exists and it get high marks. Not by Trinitarians, for it messes with some verses that cannot be rendered literally because it louses up their teaching. And there are some academics who look askance at the Name in the New Testament - inclusion of which is explained in an appendix. But other than that, it's well thought of.
If you have to go back 70 years to dig up dirt, there can't be much dirt to dig up. Statements play differently at different time periods - just watch a movie from that time, or reflect that John differs so much from the other three gospels because times had changed and the foremost needs of the congregation had changed with them. So I don't necessarily want to unravel mindsets back then that accommodated statements that today's mindsets do not, especially if I think an opponent simply wants, and cannot get his head around anything but, a sound byte.
Anyone can go back and have at it debating events back and forth and I'm not suggesting they can't or that it is a waste of time if they do. I'm just saying it it should hardly be considered mandatory after many decades, and a perfectly valid possible response is: 'who cares?' Even were a report from that long ago completely true, in our times complete scoundrels overhaul their image in far fewer years. So it doesn't interest me much to go there. Others will differ. More power to them if they do. But it's not mandatory.
Similarly, I have little taste for things having to do with chronology, because even if opponents were to be absolutely correct, it amounts to little more than misreading a bus schedule. In athletics, runners jump the gun all the time, and they simply restart the race; nobody makes a big deal over it. It's the runner sitting on his rear end at the starting blocks that you wonder about. Grumblers here ought to specify whether they still even believe we are in the last days. Some do. But some have gone atheist, and dismiss ISIS as just one of those things - why, there have always been bad people.
i like the truth also because it makes you nicer over time, when applied. I follow many sources on Twitter, which is the best way to get news, because you can choose your feeds. I choose all kinds of villains, along with the agreeable, so as to keep tabs on them. Few persons are as openly condescending and contemptuous than certain prominent atheists. Sometimes I worry that their cherished evolution is true and that they are the end result. If so, it's good-bye to the human race, for they do not suffer fools gladly. And a fool is anyone who disagrees with them.

What about when an apostate upvotes a brother? Gulp

I realize that I am not an elder or former elder such as some of you are but I know what Loyalty to Jehovah is. And since a forum such as this one it is impossible to determine who is or is not an apostate, disfellowshipped or pretending to be a brother while dispensing divisions  and we are obviously associating together here it is my decision to now leave as I wish to cherish true Loyalty to my Creator. 
Loyalty is important to me personally probably because my two previous marriages ended with my wife committing adultery although we were married for 7 and 10 years. So I can see how Jehovah must feel when someone who says they love you are disloyal to your face. I am currently married to my wife of 8 years and I believe we both must continue to develop loyalty to GOD FIRST then to each other. "Do ALL things for God's glory" 1 Cor. 10:31. And I no longer feel it is for me "God's glory" to be here. Goodbye.

I figured she could help me break into the business, so I dropped by. She eyed me briefly, and then pulled the trap door.
And she calls herself a sister!

Agree with above. Holding a personal belief is different from causing divisions.  How did we get to the stage where Christians would get into trouble for believing something different which is not an essential Christian teaching.  Is overlapping generation in the Bible?
"Acts 15: 28  For the holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to you except these necessary things: 29 to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what is strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you carefully keep yourselves from these things, you will prosper. Good health to you!” "
We don't wish to add further burdens to others. If we have personal thoughts on matters - that is freedom of thought and conscience. We don't have to share them and cause divisions.  But we are free to hold them. That's God given.
The days of Inquisition passed  a few hundred years ago.  Are we forgetting history? Why are we attracting trouble by asking persons what we can or cannot personally believe?

Similarly, the one with the Witness bowler pumping his fist at a strike, the ten pins being ten - you name 'em - aspects of this system of things, is also a phony.
Gasp!! Is that woman wearing PANTS?!! Kick her over the edge!

Not the first one. That could never be a Watchtower picture. I worked in the Art Department during my first few years at Bethel. There are several things wrong with this first picture. It would have been "blasphemy" to present a picture like that into any of the publications. 
Since the 1940's we have always kept the same "motif." If destruction is shown close-up, then there are NEVER any Witnesses near the destruction. (No "close calls" can be imagined.) It if is not a close-up of destruction, then the destruction must be in the far background, usually to the left, and if Witnesses are shown it is always a congregation-sized group of them, never just one or a few, and they should be streaming towards the right of the picture. The stream of Witnesses should be heading to higher ground ("the mountain of Jehovah") with no one looking back towards the destruction ("remember the wife of Lot"). If an artist made a picture with excess praise to the heavens it would be rejected. If an artist made a picture with a distracting bit of excess emotion or pathos it would be rejected. The eyes should be on something in front of them, with no eyes looking toward Jehovah or heaven. Upward-facing eyes should never be looking at anything higher than a mountaintop of a near horizon, usually out of the picture.
The picture here is probably intended to show the issue of "some chosen and some not." The wife and little girl are drawn ambiguously at the edge of a cliff, either having just climbed up or about to fall into it. Either way they are not being helped (yet) by the more obvious "saved" Christian. The "ambiguous" condition of people who might otherwise appear to be good Christians is a common theme in "left behind" imagery.  The inclusion of a small, innocent-looking child (with a doll) left behind is probably a signal that the artist is trying to present predestination.
 
:

Like I really should watch CNN to learn the truth about Trump or Breitbart to learn the truth about Obama?
I'll choose what I choose to see in proper context, neither cherry-picked nor skewed.
If tiny sound-byte snippets appeal to you - I have never known you to post anything else - they do not to me. I prefer comments well-rounded, in appropriate context, and not thrust upon me by someone who so pleadingly and pathetically has an agenda. I'm not opposed to looking at things, and I have looked at things. I will just not allow opponents to focus the lens for me. I'll do that myself.
Nobody is in prison, are they? You are trying to bake some acknowledged grains - even if they be more than grains - into a seven layer cake.
Please don't harp on this with me. There were two or three very long threads on this subject not long ago. I participated fully and you even threw in some cartoons. I don't want to re-invent the wheel throughout eternity. Go back and revisit those threads. Add to them if you think there is anything not covered.
I don't view this forum as your own personal courtroom, to cross-examine people at will. In any real courtroom, the judge eventually tells a lawyer to shut up when he does nothing but hurl accusations, repeat his same questions, and takes no note of the answers.

I do get warm feelies here. I don't think that's a bad thing. (I don't mean here, with @The Librarianand all; I mean in Jehovah's organization)
I am like most Witnesses who do not have to have every single duck lined up to declare this the truth. Actually, every duck is lined up, but I will concede there are a few chicks that have yet to straighten out and fly right - they being chicks.
@JW Insiderhas listed the main ducks, and he has appended a few more. In response to someone asking why I remain a Witness when bad things happen in the organization, I have written some additional reasons:
https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/42302-why-remain-a-witness-when-bad-things-happen/
Each of these desirable tenets is rare today. The combination of them in one faith is unique to Jehovah's Witnesses and that is why I have chosen the faith and am not likely to leave, especially for the greater world described in the last post. If you think your glorious freedom to engage your critical thinking without check has resulted in such a wonderful world, you are welcome to remain there.
When one has assembled the jigsaw puzzle and reproduced the box cover mountain vista, you are not easily put off by the critic who insists you have it all wrong. This is especially true if his own puzzle lies unassembled in the box.

(Acts 15:19, 20) 19 Therefore, my decision is not to trouble those from the nations who are turning to God, 20 but to write them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from what is strangled, and from blood. Note that it doesn't say abstain from idolatry, murder, and theft, but focuses first on "things polluted by idols." Thayer's Greek Lexicon says that the word  ἀλίσγημα here, refers to "pollution from the use of meats left from the heathen sacrifices." Obviously this meat could have been strangled, or otherwise improperly bled, and therefore contained blood. So 3 out of 4 counts from the "burden" could have been broken just by eating ἀλίσγημα.
In fact the NWT footnote on the word strangled shows that this isn't really the only idea here. It says "Or, 'what is killed without draining its blood.'" When the "burden" is repeated in verse 29, the intention is obviously the same:
(Acts 15:29) 29 to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what is strangled, and from sexual immorality. . . . But this time the word "pollution" (implying the ritual uncleanness of the meat) is made even clearer by using the word εἰδωλόθυτος, which is translated as "meats sacrificed to idols" in some translations (KJV) or just "things sacrificed to idols." All the meat-related items are now listed next to each other and sexual immorality is pushed to the end. Notice that the NWT cross-references both "things polluted by idols" and "things sacrificed to idols" with the verse at 1 Corinthians 10:14 which says "flee from idolatry." But the verse isn't about idolatry, it's about abstaining from improperly bled meat which could be bought at a Gentile meat market. Would Gentile Christians now have to go to a Jewish meat market to get their meat? Would they have to inquire as to whether something had been strangled or otherwise bled improperly?
Just look down from 1 Cor 10:14 to verse 25-27
(1 Corinthians 10:25-27) Eat whatever is sold in a meat market, making no inquiry because of your conscience, . . .  27 If an unbeliever invites you and you want to go, eat whatever is set before you, making no inquiry on account of your conscience. In fact it was only if someone else with a weaker conscience was there and pointed out:
(1 Corinthians 10:28, 29) 28 But if anyone says to you, “This is something offered in sacrifice,” do not eat because of the one who told you and because of conscience. 29 I do not mean your own conscience, but that of the other person. . . . And you can probably guess, now, what the Greek word was for "something offered in sacrifice." It was the exact same word that the "Governing Body" at Jerusalem put in the "burden:" εἰδωλόθυτος. So what do you think Paul was saying about the 3 meat-related items in the list?
And we don't have any evidence that Paul only said this before the Jerusalem council met, but would have complied afterwards. It was more likely already about 6 years after. For one thing the Insight book times Acts 15 to about 49 CE. And it times 1 Corinthians to about 55 CE.
*** it-1 p. 257 Barnabas *** In about 49 C.E., Barnabas and Paul took the burning question of circumcision of non-Jews up to the governing body in Jerusalem, and with that settled, they were soon back in Antioch preparing for their next missionary tour. (Ac 15:2-36) *** nwt p. 1663 Table of the Books of the Bible *** 1 Corinthians      Paul     Ephesus     c. 55[C.E.] Paul, therefore, appears to have knocked out two or three items from the very list that came from the "Governing Body." And I don't think Paul was ever disfellowshipped for this.

'Big Independent Thinking' is a clumsy term I devised on the spot to supplement the other 'Bigs.'  It is simply the stupid memes that catch on as wisdom, but invariably fall apart, often causing great harm. Here is an example from a book that the domineering @The Librarianrefuses to stock in her library, though it should replace at least half the rubbish she has sagging the shelves:
I found another atheist on the internet. This one was also raised a Witness, as was Brian. He too, was still a kid. It’s unbelievable! In his heady days of breaking break free!!!!!!!!!! he gushed on about his newfound ‘rationalism’ for the benefit of everyone else:
"Rationalism for me means a life of pure freedom. ..... But this means that this life that you’re living now is the most precious thing you’ll ever have. .... Because there is no Big Daddy to appease or suck up to, or be afraid of, you should be nice to people because it’s nice! You should treat people like you want to be treated! You should not steal or murder because it hurts people, and hurting people is wrong. Always. No one needs a god to tell them this.....Being a rationalist....If you say something irrational or realize the error in your own thoughts, a red flag immediately raises. .....rationalism is a worldview with no drawbacks, and only positives. It encourages honesty and truth.....It promotes interest in the common good..."
The idiot! The young naïve idiot! Why does he leave? Because he wants to go where there is no Big Daddy to suck up to! It doesn’t occur to him that with the gamut of human governments, the casinos that are world economies, the health woes that lead straight to death, he will do so much sucking up that God and the Governing Body will seem like doddering indulgent grandparents in comparison....‘C’mon, Tom, don’t be so hard on him! That’s the nature of inexperienced youth. They make mistakes.’ ...Agreed. All is forgiven. But what about the experienced liars that have misled him?
How lofty and soaring his words of rationalism sound! How much crap they are in reality! ‘The Toxins Trickle Downward’ (Economist, March 14, 2009) examined fallout from the financial crisis triggered by the misdeeds of those at the top of finance and government. Credit markets were now closed to the third world poor, commodity prices vital to their survival had collapsed, and remittances from citizens working abroad had dried up. The World Bank reckoned the crisis would account for 200,000 - 400,000 African lives lost, all children.
People at the top had used their “pure freedom,” to grind others into the dirt, and not to “treat people like you want to be treated!” (an exclamation mark, no less; oh, the joys of rationalism!) They were not “nice to people.” They “hurt people,” even though “hurting people is wrong.” Not only did they “hurt people” – they killed them, two to four hundred thousand of them!” All children! Plainly, we do need a “Big Daddy to appease” and a “god to tell us how to live.”
If you had had a son or daughter high up in the banking world back then, who was devising the complex financial instruments that would ultimately ruin us all, even killing the poor, you would have carried on about how well Junior was doing for himself, how respected he was in his career, and so forth. You wouldn’t have said ‘too bad he killed a few hundred thousand in Africa.’ You wouldn’t even have known about it. There is sufficient disconnect in this world’s construction so that the players on top can remain oblivious to the havoc they wreak below, oblivious to any need for soul-searching, until Eisenhower comes along and rubs their noses into it like the German mayor and the concentration camp.
The failure of human rule could not have been shown in more stark relief as in that article, with consequences so directly traceable to the human wisdom running the show. Russian President Vladimir Putin was both blunt and harsh: “Everything happening now in the economic and financial sphere began in the United States. This is not the irresponsibility of specific individuals but the irresponsibility of the system that claims leadership.” In 2016 America, all that remained was to Photoshop Putin with horns, gleefully pecking at his keyboard, doing his level best to hack the American election, but it was he who nailed it about unrestrained greed.
The 2011 film ‘Inside Job’ expressed dismay that no “specific individuals” were brought to justice: Charles Ferguson (film director): “Why do you think there isn’t a more systematic investigation being undertaken?” Nouriel Roubini (professor, NYU Business School): “Because then you will find the culprits.” Culprits and regulators alike belonged to the same social set and were members of the same country clubs; they had no desire to turn on one another.
Humans were not designed to rule themselves. It’s not an ability they have, the same as they cannot flap their arms and fly. Whether through greed, ignorance, pride, cowardice, or some mix of the four, the record of human rule aptly illustrates Jeremiah’s words:
I well know, O Jehovah, that to earthling man his way does not belong. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step. (Jeremiah 10:23)