Malawi and MCP Cards?

[Thinking]

Just now, Many Miles said:

I can assure you, that's not the majority reason.

 

This is closer to the majority reason. Just how many brothers has the GB fail to 'back up' over the years for trying to do right, even going to far as to beg for their help to understand why the GB is teaching certain things it teaches and imposes under pain of being ostracized by close family and friends? You tell me. 

I’ve been there and experienced such pain that lead to a death….you are speaking with a sister that was engulfed with a huge amount of anger and resentment and righteous indignation which led to my two ears of inactivity…….its a long story but eventually I had to reason out that I came into the truth knowing all these things existed within the org….why do you think we have the Judas types….the haughty…the cruel even amongst us.

Unfortunately they tend to have a lot of power within congregations.

Jehovahs people are no different to his people of old times….once I got a grip on that..and working on my feelings .( which I might add they caused ) …I guess I was and still am being refined by fire….and I am NOT going to let those sorts of men push me out where I know Jehovah led me.

 

 

 

[TrueTomHarley]

3 hours ago, Many Miles said:

Just think about all the good that came from how Job lived his life

There could never have been a Mission Impossible without him.

 

3 hours ago, Many Miles said:

God is not dependent on humans organizing to get His will done.

No, but organizing does seem consistent with giving God a lot rather than giving him a little

3 hours ago, Many Miles said:

Because people organize to get things done does not mean to get things done you have to be organized.

It may be that as long as you don’t work to sabarolf organization, as though a freedom fighter, you’re okay—even as you stand apart from it yourself. Or it may not be okay. I’ll err on the side of sticking with what my experience tells me has worked to a reasonably fine degree, given that ‘we have this treasure in earthen vessels.’ I remember giving that talk on ‘Unified or Uniform,’ contrasting the unity of the earthly organization with the uniformity often demanding by nations, which goes so far as to stuff people into actual uniforms.

57 minutes ago, Thinking said:

I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was lying..more like acting like Abraham when he claimed Sarah’s as his sister….technically he wasn’t lying as they were actually closely related ( cannot remember how close ) .

Yeah—I always figured it was something like that. You said it well:

39 minutes ago, Thinking said:

Jehovahs people are no different to his people of old times…

40 minutes ago, Thinking said:

I’ve been there and experienced such pain that lead to a death

It makes a difference, doesn’t it? It’s a little bit like coming back from the dead when you finally get back on your feet.

I put the following in ‘No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash,’ a book I took down pending rewrite that I haven’t gotten around to, so now it is nowhere:

“After studying one book seemingly written for no other purpose other than to harp on dress and grooming and harangue about field service, the conductor said to me: “Tom, why don’t you comment? You know all these answers.” It was a turning point. He was right. I did know them all. It was time to stop sulking. From the circuit overseer on down, they had stirred up major chaos in the family. They had been heavy-handed and clumsy - but never malicious. And it had never been Jehovah. I had read of ill-goings-on in the first-century record. Congregations described in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 were veritable basket cases, some of them, but that did not mean that they were not congregations. Eventually things smooth out. Eventually 1 Timothy 5:24 comes to pass: “The sins of some men are publicly known, leading directly to judgment, but those of other men will become evident later.” “Later” may take its sweet time in rolling around but it always does roll around. Should I stumble when it becomes my turn? I’d read whiner after whiner carrying on about some personal affront or other on the Internet. Was I going to be one of them? 

 . . . Recovery didn’t happen overnight, for I have a PhD in grumbling. Indeed, I was so good at it that few noticed I grumbled, for I had never left the library – I had only strayed from the same page. Now it was time to get on the same paragraph. Was that book truly a dog? They’re not all dazzling flashes of light, you know, for the treasure is contained in earthen vessels. Or was it the conductor? Or was it me? No matter. If life throws you for a loop, you thank God for the discipline and move on. “For those whom Jehovah loves he disciplines, in fact, he scourges everyone whom he receives as a son,” the Bible says Tell me about it. “Half of those at Bethel are here to test the other half,” the old-timers said. Yeah – tell me about that, too.”

Everyone has a mid-life crisis or two, during which they have to reassess. It doesn’t even matter if it is a servant of God we’re speaking of. Everyone has a mid-life crisis.

[Pudgy]

When  I was about 13 years old I started collecting stamps, and having ADD I focused on this like the proverbial laser, and could even recognize stamps that had different numbers of perforations around the edges that were valuable, and those which were common because they had different numbers of perforations.  

This was about 1960, and it was the same time that I started getting an interest in Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The United States government came out with a series of stamps called “The American Credo Series“, about 1962 which has influenced my entire life, hopefully for the good, sometimes demonstrably for the good.

One stamp particularly resonated with me quoting Thomas Jefferson, and in 1964 when I was baptized it had become a part of my occasionally obnoxious and overbearing personality. 

I took the long version of this oath before my baptism oath, (… quite different from today’s baptism oath …), and in a massively imperfect way I consider both to still be in force.

Thomas Jefferson was also a massively imperfect man, as is the JW Governing Body.

Thomas Jefferson's second inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1805 expressed his commitment to protecting individual liberties and declared, "I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for the past, and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all."

[Thinking]

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

There could never have been a Mission Impossible without him.

 

No, but organizing does seem consistent with giving God a lot rather than giving him a little

It may be that as long as you don’t work to sabarolf organization, as though a freedom fighter, you’re okay—even as you stand apart from it yourself. Or it may not be okay. I’ll err on the side of sticking with what my experience tells me has worked to a reasonably fine degree, given that ‘we have this treasure in earthen vessels.’ I remember giving that talk on ‘Unified or Uniform,’ contrasting the unity of the earthly organization with the uniformity often demanding by nations, which goes so far as to stuff people into actual uniforms.

Yeah—I always figured it was something like that. You said it well:

It makes a difference, doesn’t it? It’s a little bit like coming back from the dead when you finally get back on your feet.

I put the following in ‘No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash,’ a book I took down pending rewrite that I haven’t gotten around to, so now it is nowhere:

“After studying one book seemingly written for no other purpose other than to harp on dress and grooming and harangue about field service, the conductor said to me: “Tom, why don’t you comment? You know all these answers.” It was a turning point. He was right. I did know them all. It was time to stop sulking. From the circuit overseer on down, they had stirred up major chaos in the family. They had been heavy-handed and clumsy - but never malicious. And it had never been Jehovah. I had read of ill-goings-on in the first-century record. Congregations described in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 were veritable basket cases, some of them, but that did not mean that they were not congregations. Eventually things smooth out. Eventually 1 Timothy 5:24 comes to pass: “The sins of some men are publicly known, leading directly to judgment, but those of other men will become evident later.” “Later” may take its sweet time in rolling around but it always does roll around. Should I stumble when it becomes my turn? I’d read whiner after whiner carrying on about some personal affront or other on the Internet. Was I going to be one of them? 

 . . . Recovery didn’t happen overnight, for I have a PhD in grumbling. Indeed, I was so good at it that few noticed I grumbled, for I had never left the library – I had only strayed from the same page. Now it was time to get on the same paragraph. Was that book truly a dog? They’re not all dazzling flashes of light, you know, for the treasure is contained in earthen vessels. Or was it the conductor? Or was it me? No matter. If life throws you for a loop, you thank God for the discipline and move on. “For those whom Jehovah loves he disciplines, in fact, he scourges everyone whom he receives as a son,” the Bible says Tell me about it. “Half of those at Bethel are here to test the other half,” the old-timers said. Yeah – tell me about that, too.”

Everyone has a mid-life crisis or two, during which they have to reassess. It doesn’t even matter if it is a servant of God we’re speaking of. Everyone has a mid-life crisis.

Why do a re write….its good and truthful….it would help others who have been hurt…..

[Thinking]

2 hours ago, Pudgy said:

When  I was about 13 years old I started collecting stamps, and having ADD I focused on this like the proverbial laser, and could even recognize stamps that had different numbers of perforations around the edges that were valuable, and those which were common because they had different numbers of perforations.  

This was about 1960, and it was the same time that I started getting an interest in Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The United States government came out with a series of stamps called “The American Credo Series“, about 1962 which has influenced my entire life, hopefully for the good, sometimes demonstrably for the good.

One stamp particularly resonated with me quoting Thomas Jefferson, and in 1964 when I was baptized it had become a part of my occasionally obnoxious and overbearing personality. 

I took the long version of this oath before my baptism oath, (… quite different from today’s baptism oath …), and in a massively imperfect way I consider both to still be in force.

Thomas Jefferson was also a massively imperfect man, as is the JW Governing Body.

Thomas Jefferson's second inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1805 expressed his commitment to protecting individual liberties and declared, "I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for the past, and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all."

Wow fancy having stamps like that…how interesting…

[Pudgy]

Yeah … first class mail was 4 CENTS !

[Thinking]

47 minutes ago, Pudgy said:

Yeah … first class mail was 4 CENTS !

Nowadays kids don’t know what stamps are…I made my grandkids write a thank you letter  to their great pop.

They didn’t know about stamps or writing a real letter and buying a stamp and walking to a post box and posting it….they thought it all tedious and a waste of time…and as we trudged back home they said……‘I dont see why we couldn’t have just rang him it doesn’t make sense…aaaah those bygone days…when getting a telegram was so exciting….we’ll sort of as it usually meant someone had died….

[Srecko Sostar]

There are irregularities in nature that are studied as chaos theory. Even in this chaos there is a certain order, but that order is different from our usual understanding of order and organization. I am reading a written work and there it says.

There are three basic characteristics of chaos:
1. disproportion between input and output;
2. inconspicuousness of the entrance;
3. unpredictable output

In the last few years, the application of chaos theory in social phenomena has been seriously considered. It is interesting that in the last 10 years or so, a number of physicists have moved into the field of sociology and political science.

They realized that some nonlinear equations that describe certain processes, even those that describe quantum physical events on at the level of the atom, can be applied to social and political phenomena, with the proviso that instead of the flow of liquid, for example, the transfer of information is considered: that instead of a phase transition, where a parameter suddenly changes, in society, for example, a law can change, and that instead of an essential phase transition can have a political revolution, so systems of differential equations that describe physical processes are applied for describing changes in society. By solving this system of equations, treating society as a chaotic system, one tries to predict the likely outcome. Politicians in the West are now closely following these pioneering studies.

Organizational chaos represents disorder, confusion, commotion in the organization. Organizational chaos means that the organization is in a state of entropy. Entropy is a measure of disorganization of the system, it is a state in which the system falls apart. The tendency towards disorganization, that is, organizational chaos, is a natural tendency of the system. organization as a measure of order in the system, the entropy of the system and its tendency towards organizational chaos is reduced.

My comment:

The schisms within the initial, Russell's WTS, and later other doctrinal turmoil under other presidents, indicate a certain chaotic state and consequently dramatic changes that the Society goes through, constantly. They could say that the leadership's pursuit of order and control is possible, but it is also not impossible to have disorder and chaos.
What kind of chaos could or should YHVH have anticipated, foreseen before the creation of angels and men?

 

[Pudgy]

Jehovah understood it all before it got started. This is evidenced by the following image called by physicists and mathematicians “The Thumbprint of God”. The equation that generated this image shows up in EVERYTHING! 

[Many Miles]

10 hours ago, Thinking said:

Jehovahs people are no different to his people of old times….once I got a grip on that..and working on my feelings .( which I might add they caused ) …I guess I was and still am being refined by fire….and I am NOT going to let those sorts of men push me out where I know Jehovah led me.

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

[TrueTomHarley]

7 hours ago, Thinking said:

Why do a re write….its good and truthful….it would help others who have been hurt…..

It is good and truthful, but not all of the book is satisfactory. I’ll put it in my next one, perhaps—which may be an exploration of ‘theodicy’ (why bad things happen). Does @Many Milesor anyone else know the origin of our ‘universal court case’ theodicy? I’d love to track that one down. @JW Insider once put me on the track of a Great Courses university professor exploring the subject and it was well-nigh insufferable. Not that I won’t have to plow through it again if I proceed, but I am reminded of a newly discovered and instantly favorite G K Chesterton quote: “The first effect of not believing in God is that you lose your common sense."

7 hours ago, Thinking said:

it had become a part of my occasionally obnoxious and overbearing personality. 

I have no idea what you are talking about. Why be so hard on yourself? 

It’s like when a car group of friends drove near a certain industrial complex. Surrounding blocks had been snatched up for parking, but here and there were some stalwarts who hadn’t sold their properties. Thus, there were a few rickety houses completely surrounded by blacktop. “These people are so stubborn!” Sam (who had worked there) grumbled. “The company needs that property. They pay good money for it.” He reflected a few seconds, then said, “I’m stubborn—but these people are more stubborn!”

Now, you know how brothers like to razz each other. Instantly, it started. “No! You, Sam—stubborn?! Don’t be so hard on yourself! How could you say that??!! Not you!”

Sam was probably the most stubborn person to have ever walked the planet.

[Many Miles]

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Does @Many Milesor anyone else know the origin of our ‘universal court case’ theodicy?

I'm not exactly sure of what you mean by "universal court case", and I don't confess expertise on the subject. But I do read. You might find helpful Volume 2 of A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy by Mercier. Take a look at the first page of the introduction (p 3). There is a footnote there that might give you a pathway to what you're interested in.