TrueTomHarley

Of course. If you are not witnessing for Jehovah, then you are not one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, are you? That doesn’t mean you are disinvited to meetings, though, does it? The point is that if they based membership based on who attends meetings, reported membership would be larger than the way it is measured now. Every religious group has to have some criteria for counting members. For the Catholic Church, all you have to do is exist.

Come, come. Stop weaseling. This is not an answer. The question was: ‘‘How will you know when judgement is just a short way off yet?’ Planning to die real soon, are you? If it is composed of anyone like the anointed ones of first-century Bible record, it will make some adjustments to changing times and circumstances. As soon as that happens, you will call them all liars. It is your pattern. There is no reason to think that would change. You really don’t know how things work, do you?

Since you don’t know that it is, why do you bring it up? Next thing you know, you will have everyone at the convention counting their time once a visitor walks into the auditorium.

Do you think it is wrong, then, for the brothers to do cart witnessing in this place with plenty of foot traffic? What of when the friends call on people who are home but decline to answer the door? Do you think is wrong for the Witnesses to move on? Or should they be more proactive and knock on the door for an hour, if need be, until the householder answers? Come, come. You are simply an enemy of Jehovah’s Witnesses and feel obliged to criticize everything they do. There is nothing wrong with the cart work.

It is possible that my “dream” could come true. The present tactic of enemies of Jehovah’s Witnesses is to portray the faith as composed of two classes—with the evil “corporate” class manipulating the ones “below.” Just as in a war, strategists might call for killing off the enemy generals, and thus “liberating” the enemy troups who are being evilly manipulated. Of course it is nonsense, just as it is nonsense in a literal war. It doesn’t occur to the presumptuous strategists that the “enemy” soldiers might actually believe in their cause. Or perhaps they know it full well, but they have just hit on a pious-sounding way—posing as the people’s liberator—-to bust up what they don’t like. At any rate, one way to defuse this idiocy is to avoid any perception of the “corporate class” telling the underlings what to do. I believe this is happening now in Europe, where privacy laws enacted against data-collecting are being applied to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Don’t collect data, then, the Branch says, and they provide no direction as to how to do it. Opponents celebrate the blow with which they have struck the Witnesses’ preaching work. If it was the work of men—the corporation “telling” members what to do—they would be right. But if the directive to preach the good news and make disciples of ones who respond favorably is from God (via the Bible), then members can be trusted to devise their own methods for carrying out the work that they believe is the Christian privilege and duty. Maybe the same thing will happen someday with “counting time.” Alexander Dvorkin, the anti-cult ringleader in Russia, said that as far as he knew, Witnesses were required to report their activity to HQ each month—insinuating that it was for the purpose of updating a file kept on each member, instead of simply reporting the aggregate number that it actually is. One way to counter such misrepresentation—whether it be deliberate of just through ignorance—might be to simply not tally the stats centrally. Forget all about counting time. I wouldn’t be sad to see it go, if it did. There are goofy things about counting time. A major one from my point of view is that one can achieve far more productive results during evening witnesses than one can during the weekday, but nowhere near the number of hours. I think it serves to discourage witnessing during these more productive times.

I do it is fair to make the “worldly education system” take responsibility for the world that is has collectively created. Very few who have prominent roles in the governing of this system of things are not highly educated. They should embrace what they have produced.

“For as they were in those days before the Flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they took no note—they even ignored the literature carts!—until the Flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.”

How will you know when Judgement is just a short way off yet?

So. Now you think that advertising the kingdom is a waste of time. Do you even think anymore that there is a kingdom? Or is the kingdom simply in our hearts? Should we instead begin praying for the world leaders fo be blessed so as to succeed in bringing better conditions? In fact, do you retain anything at all of your former worship other than an odd insistence that God produce a true anointed one that does not “lie?” With your characterization of every error or change as a “lie,” you may have to take what you can get. If you tell God that your insistence is on purity, he will likely say that you are no great shakes yourself—you will just have to learn to work with and trust [did you actually say that you trust no one at all?] other imperfect people. Beyond question, God gives “gifts in men.” “And he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelizers, some as shepherds and teachers,” for our “readjustment.” What happens if we forsake that? ”So we should no longer be children, tossed about as by waves and carried here and there by every wind of teaching by means of the trickery of men, by means of cunning in deceptive schemes.” (Ephesians 4:11,14) Hasn’t that happened to you? If the evangelizers, shepherds, and teachers of Jehovah’s Witnesses are not good enough for you, tell me where they are to be found. What! God is incompetent, is he, unable to fulfill his above statement? Tell me where they are. It will be nice if they know that there is a kingdom, that God and Jesus are not the same, that all good people do not go to heaven, and that the name of God is not The LORD.

They actually shortchange themselves that way. Often there are people who attend meetings who don’t engage in the public ministry. They are not counted. If you asked them, however, what was their religious leaning, most would say that they are Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Over the weekend, I was in a circuit way out there in the back hills, and I came to know some of the strange ways of the local elders out there. I learned that when they really got riled at one another, they would spit out out the most spiteful words that they could think of: “May you be assigned to preside in JTR’s congregation!”

There is a part of me that would like to see the end of counting time altogether. It leads to too many odd situations of doing or not doing something for the sake of accumulating hours or.keeping time going. At present, if I auxiliary pioneer, at the end of the month I write ‘50.’ (Or ‘30’ as the case may be) If I feel bad about it afterwards, I don’t do it again. With a million people in the Branch, if you flat-out lied, it would make no statistical difference. There is nothing sinister about counting time, and the people who carry on as though there is are just being childish, imo. Few bits of counsel are heard more frequently than the counsel not to boast over ‘accomplishments.’ But as a practical matter, even though it exists so as to get an overall picture of what is happening in the ministry, it has its drawbacks.

Why did you have to go to learnreligions.com? Why couldn’t you just rattle them off the top of your head? You—who once specialized in religion. There is admittedly some exaggeration, but not enough to derail the basic statement:

For example: Virtually unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses is the idea that when the person dies, the soul dies, for the two terms are synonymous. The dead are non-existent, pending future resurrection. Failing to recognize this leads to teachings that God ‘takes’ people, even children, for his ‘heavenly garden.’ It is a non-comforting slander against Him that may have tripped up even Darwin. Imagine how history might have played out differently had he been exposed to religious truth and not error. https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/01/two-darwin-things-that-might-have-changed-history.html

The things Jehovah’s Witnesses have reinterpreted, or even flip-flopped on, are all superfluous things. They are all trimmings on the tree, and not the tree itself. The essential doctrines of Jehovah’s Witnesses that distinguish them from any other religion have been solidly established for over 100 years: teachings that the Trinity is unscriptural, for example, and that the soul does not live on after death. These are the important points that one should focus on. No one else figured it out. Forerunners of today’s Governing Body did, constituting powerful evidence that they are indeed led by God’s spirit. Among the basic tenets discerned 100 years ago is that human salvation is not the prime issue before all creation, but the vindication of God’s name and purposes is.23 It is a huge distinction between Jehovah’s Witnesses and the general world of churches. It is the approach of the latter who say that it is all about us: all about our own personal salvation and relationship with Jesus. It invariably makes one self-centered. Invariably it leads to emphasis on rights outstripping responsibilities.

They are all the same to him. ‘All roads lead to heaven’ resounds to him like a clarion call. One wonders what would satisfy him. Seemingly, only Jesus physical return and one-on-one communication with him would do the trick. What of the reasons that he became a Witness in the first place—the clear answer as to why God allows suffering, the knowledge of what happens to people when they die, and even the reason that they die? He has forgotten all about it. It is all “hot air” to him. It frequently happens when ones leave the JW faith. They lose every ounce of spiritual discernment that they once had, to become completely immersed with matters of the here and now. In no time at all, if they have not gone atheist, they are praying to The LORD.

There is churn among Jehovah’s Witnesses but it is offset by a higher participation rate. After all, with many religions, members may not actually leave, but how would you know if they did?

‘Broke record,’ for instance.

I think he means by taking a ‘wait and see’ attitude, rather than diving in and correcting matters. It does not sound as though they didn’t know just what to correct. They didn’t go in lockstep back then, is my take, and Paul was confident enough in that to operate freely without ‘checking in’ for authorization. But neither do they go in lockstep today, despite obvious greater organization—which is entirely consistent with the greater field (and harvest) that is being cultivated. Many arrangements originate outside of Bethel, which is initially very hesitant, even suspect of them, until they see how it works out, after which it gets behind and magnifies them. Witnessing methods, construction techniques, internet utilization, for example.

Yes. Without some sort of governing arrangement—call it what you will—the Bible becomes a relic with the death of the apostles. Similar to how the constitution becomes a relic in the absence of a Supreme Court. I swear that there are some who would prefer it that way. That way they can personalize it any way they want. Don’t like this or that? Simply interpret it away—no harm done.

Um...uh....let’s just say it is cutting edge scholarship by “just an ordinary man” who wishes to remain anonymous.

Great! Just great! And how am I supposed to knew whether the next comment from you is actually from you or from one of the 18 chickens?

Yes

My only fear is that one day the blabbermouth will spill the beans about ME>

Even when the call has gone well, I tell Tom Pearlsandswine upon my return to the car: ‘I can’t believe that fellow could not see that Jesus and God are different!’ I watch his ears redden. I savor the moment. I know his thoughts: ‘You kept me waiting 45 MINUTES so you could blow times arguing the Trinity?!”