I am an apostate of Jehovah's Witnesses -so WHAT?

NEW portal for Information on JWS in Greek language

2010-01-25T10:34:00.000-08:00

http://rwssel.blogspot.com/

Crisis of Conscience and In Search of Christian Freedom now available in Greek!!!

2010-01-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

We apologize to our readers for not posting for a long time. ..

2009-08-11T04:02:00.001-07:00

We will be back very soon..

URGENT HELP needed! WTS sensored my blog in Greece!

2009-04-26T12:55:00.000-07:00

www.rwssel.pblogs.gr (The title of the blog translated in English is "JWs.. awake (up)!"

This is one of my blogs on JWs which is hosted in www. pathfinder.gr

The other day I received a message (in Greek and therefore I present you the main issue) that

I should remove any COPYRIGHTED material owned by the WTS within 4 days or elase my blog will be shut down!!! (this is a hosted blog service,nothing to do with blogspot.com)

The following information appeared as a holder of the copyright (!!):

1. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. http://www.watchtower.org/ and
2. Christian (...) Jehovah's witnesses of Greece, Legal Department, (phone 0030210 6197630) Name (I withhold his name for the time being)

Of course there is back up of the blog, so no real harm occurs. However, this blog has/has a VERY HIGH GOOGLE RANKING in google.gr for the keywords related to JWs!

Along other Christian bloggers we have formed a coallition against the WTS and please if you can help us on whatever way you may wish or can.

www.jehovahgr.blogspot.com (coallition, open for more authors for Greek speakers, though)
www.m-t-i.blogspot.com (running in parallel with sensored blog, in Greek)
www.i-am-an-apostate.blogspot.com (my humourous blog in English

Please share this message EVERYWHERE! Greece, the cradle of Democracy is being raped by the Watchtower scumbags!

Are we still near Armageddon? 29 years before

2009-04-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

The WTBT$ printed THIS!

Then why shouldn't I call myself a PROUD APOSTATE of this cult?

Jehovah's Witnesses Memorial 2009

2009-04-01T11:19:00.000-07:00

Proof that the Watchtower ...is the TRUTH

2009-03-14T04:28:00.001-07:00

Ultimate video clip for Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses!!

2009-03-10T00:19:00.000-07:00

Oh, my goodness! I can download ALL THESE for free?

2009-03-08T12:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.watchtowerdocuments.com/

WatchTower-Stop: WITNESSES OF JEHOVAH: THE SALESMEN OF GOD!

2009-03-07T10:38:00.000-08:00

WatchTower-Stop: WITNESSES OF JEHOVAH: THE SALESMEN OF GOD!

JWs, 1914, & Paganistic Egyptian Roots

2009-02-20T08:23:00.000-08:00

Counted Worthy - Watchtower Comments (144,000 fiasco!)

2009-02-20T08:16:00.000-08:00

WTS statistics for 2008

2009-02-15T13:29:00.001-08:00

WHY the number of the "partakers" went UP??!!!

2009-02-14T10:47:00.000-08:00

HOW ON EARTH do they get away with this???

This number is supposed to be dwindling over years!

Question Jehovahs Witnesses 3/4 - Watchtower Comments

2008-12-07T15:18:00.000-08:00

Question Jehovahs Witnesses 1,2/4 - Watchtower Comments

2008-11-26T04:53:00.000-08:00

Watchtower and the Occult

2008-11-25T21:56:00.000-08:00

1975 & Watchtower

2008-11-19T15:11:00.000-08:00

Jehovah's Witnesses & 1975

2008-11-18T11:57:00.000-08:00

To verdener (Wordls apart)

2008-11-16T01:45:00.000-08:00

lick HERE!
http://freedomfromthejw.blogspot.com

Apostate magazine!!

2008-11-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Worlds Apart (To Verdener)-The movie that WILL ridicule the WTB$

2008-11-09T18:40:00.000-08:00

You can watch trailers from the official website of the movie!
http://www.toverdener.dk/

Download a part of the movie:
http://rapidshare.com/files/164265825/To_verdener_chunk_2.avi.html
(and BUY IT!)

Sara is a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses. She spends most of her spare time accompanying her parents, going from door to door with a copy of the "Watchtower" in her hand, trying to draw people into conversations about faith and religion. The Jehovah's Witnesses are missionaries and Sara is proud of this. Judgement Day and Salvation are fixed stars in her worldview. Sara knows exactly what she wants--and what she doesn't want. But, when she falls in love with Teis, her rock solid take on life begins to crumble. Teis is not a Jehovah's Witness--nor does it look as though he will allow himself to be baptized, and so Sara faces some difficult decisions. Their secret trysts mean that she has less time for missionary work and this puts Sara in a terrible predicament. It is not possible for her to lie to her parents; moreover, honoring them unconditionally, as her faith demands, is becoming increasingly difficult. Through Teis, she is able to see for the first time in her life, how others perceive the Jehovah's Witnesses. Sara's perception of the world and her image of her parents are now called into question as Sara finds herself torn between her faith and her love.

WORLDS APART

TO VERDENER

World Cinema

(Denmark, 2008, 108 mins)

In Danish with English subtitles

35mm

North American Premiere

Screenwriter(s) : Niels Oplev, Steen Bille
Directed By: Niels Arden Oplev

Cast: Rosalinde Mynster, Pilou Asbaek, Jens Jorn Spottag, Sarah Boberg
Producer: Thomas Heinesen

Spiritual Confusion

2008-11-09T03:56:00.001-08:00

Jehovah's Witnesses Love To Think They Are Being Persecuted

2008-11-08T03:16:00.000-08:00

click to enlarge!

Jehovah's Witnesses love to think they are being persecuted. In fact, they, more than any other religion, believe that any kind of persecution makes them more special.

In November's Kingdom Ministry the article PREPARE NEW ONES TO FACE OPPOSITION reinforces that need for the witnesses. Witnesses are to explain to their Bible studies that when people express concern about their studying with witnesses because of their blood transfusion policy, or mention that there are pedophiles in the congregations, they are to just chalk that up to persecution.

....more at:

http://governingbodyletters.blogspot.com/2008/10/jehovahs-witnesses-love-to-think-they.html

Propaganda in The Watchtower

2008-11-07T23:36:00.000-08:00

New, dynamic site about the WashTowel...

2008-11-05T11:57:00.000-08:00

http://www.watchtowercomments.com/index.html

A must-see site

Why Should Jehovah's Witnesses Watch?

2008-11-04T08:53:00.001-08:00

Inside the Watchtower Society's World Headquarters

2008-10-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

Jehovah Witnesses Exposed!

2008-10-22T19:03:00.000-07:00

The New Revised New World Translation

2008-10-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

Circular Reasoning of the Watchtower...

2008-10-04T07:44:00.000-07:00

Found on http://governingbodyletters.blogspot.com/

An Open Letter To My Brothers and Sisters; Jehovah's Witness

2008-09-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

Jehovah's Witness Growth Chart

2008-09-27T05:01:00.000-07:00

Statistics for the 2008 Service Year have not yet been published, but when they are in February 2009, you will see a definite downswing in the number of field service hours as well as the growth rate.

Jilted lover 'guns down Jehovah's Witness parents of former lover after being sacked from family business'

2008-09-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1058867/Jilted-lover-guns-Jehovahs-Witness-parents-lover-sacked-family-business.html

'Jehovah's Witnesses' Encounter Truth Fairy...and Brenda Lee

2008-09-20T17:14:00.001-07:00

Jehovah’s Witnesses plans for stadium service in Russia blocked!

2008-09-16T15:43:00.000-07:00

MURMANSK, July 18 (RIA Novosti) - Prosecutors in the northeast Russian city of Murmansk said on Friday that a planned series of Jehovah’s Witnesses services in a stadium cannot go ahead, as they contravene a law on the use of sports facilities.

The statement said that according to Russian law, sports facilities cannot be used for religious purposes. The group had signed a contract with the Murmansk Central Stadium for services from July 18-20.

In May 2007, the Murmansk branch of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which has around 800 members, clashed with the local administration when authorities refused to allocate land for the construction of a religious center in a densely-populated area of the city.

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/21782/jehovahs-witnesses-russia

Make one of those

2008-09-13T19:25:00.001-07:00

HOT Downloads of Watchtower old SCRAP publications!!!

2008-09-13T14:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.kingdomherald.com/downloads/

THEOCRATIC LIBRARY

* 1808 - New Testament Improved Version
* 1872 - Evidences from Scriptures - N.H. Barbour
* 1880 - The Day Dawn - John Paton
* 1890 - The Day Dawn [Revised] - John Paton
* 1894 - A Conspiracy Exposed
* 1904 - The Divine Plan of the Ages - C.T. Russell
* 1905 - In the Garden of the Lord
* 1905 - "Thy Word is Truth / Features of God's Plan / 1908 - Questions Answering Questions"
* 1914 - The Photo Drama of Creation
* 1914 - Sabbath Observances - E.C. Henninges
* 1917 - An Open Letter to the People of the Lord
* 1917 - Light After Darkness - by the four ousted Watch Tower Directors
* 1917- Facts for Shareholders - by the four ousted Watch Tower Directors
* 1917 - Watch Tower Proxy - Voting proxy for the officers of the WtBTS
* 1917 - An Open Letter to the People of the Lord
* 1918 - Another Harvest Siftings Reviewed - P.S.L. Johnson
* 1918 - The Heavenly Bridegroom - Gertrude Seibert
* 1918 - Rutherford vs the United States
* 1920 - Millions Now Living Will Never Die
* 1920 - Memoirs of Aunt Sarah - Minna Edgar
* 1923 - World Distress Why? - Judge Rutherford
* 1924 - Desirable Government - Judge Rutherford
* 1924 - Hell: What is it? - Judge Rutherford
* 1925 - Comfort for the People - Judge Rutherford
* 1925 - Our Lord's Return - Judge Rutherford
* 1926 - The Standard for the People - Judge Rutherford
* 1927 - Freedom for the Peoples - Judge Rutherford
* 1927 - Where are the Dead? - Judge Rutherford
* 1928 - Prosperity Sure - Judge Rutherford
* 1928 - The Last Days - Judge Rutherford
* 1928 - The People's Friend - Judge Rutherford
* 1929 - Christ Promised Return - E.C. Henninges [Started the 1909 New Covenant schism]
* 1929 - Judgement - Judge Rutherford
* 1929 - Oppression - Judge Rutherford
* 1930 - Crimes and Calamities - Judge Rutherford
* 1930 - Prohibition League of Nations - Judge Rutherford
* 1930 - War or Peace - Which? - Judge Rutherford
* 1931 - Bethel Home Rules and Regulations [What members of Bethel can and cannot do]
* 1931 - Heaven and purgatory - Judge Rutherford
* 1931 - The Kingdom - Judge Rutherford [infamous name change to JW's]
* 1932 - Cause of Death
* 1932 - Good News
* 1932 - Health and Life
* 1932 - Hereafter
* 1932 - Home and Happiness
* 1932 - Keys of Heaven
* 1932 - Liberty
* 1932 - The Final War
* 1932 - The Kingdom, the Hope of the World
* 1932 - What Is Truth?
* 1932 - What You Need
* 1932 - Where Are the Dead? (revised)
* 1932 - Who Is God?
* 1933 - Dividing the People
* 1933 - Escape to the Kingdom
* 1933 - Intolerance
* 1933 - The Crisis
* 1934 - Advocate - Armageddon
* 1934 - Angels
* 1934 - Beyond the Grave
* 1934 - Favored People
* 1934 - His Vengence
* 1934 - His Works
* 1934 - Righteous Ruler
* 1934 - Supremacy
* 1934 - Why Pray for Prosperity?
* 1934 - World Recovery
* 1935 - Favored People
* 1935 - Government—Hiding the Truth, Why?
* 1935 - His Vengeance
* 1935 - Loyalty
* 1935 - Universal War Near
* 1935 - Who Shall Rule the World?
* 1936 - Choosing, Riches or Ruin?
* 1936 - Protection
* 1937 - Armageddon
* 1937 - Safety
* 1937 - Uncovered
* 1938 - Cure
* 1938 - Face the Facts
* 1938 - Warning
* 1939 - Advice for Kingdom Publishers
* 1939 - Fascism or Freedom
* 1939 - Government and Peace
* 1939 - Neutrality
* 1940 - Conspiracy Against Democracy
* 1940 - End of Nazism
* 1940 - Judge Rutherford Uncovers Fifth Column
* 1940 - Refugees
* 1940 - Satisfied
* 1940 - Kingdom News - Volume 1, Number 7 [UK Edition]
* 1940 - Judge for 4 Days Rutherford - [All about the Judges legal practices]
* 1941 - Comfort All That Mourn
* 1941 - God and the State
* 1941 - Jehovah’s Servants Defended
* 1941 - Theocracy
* 1942 - Hope
* 1942 - Jehovah’s Witnesses: Who Are They? What Is Their Work?
* 1942 - Organization Instructions
* 1942 - Peace—Can It Last?
* 1942 - The New World
* 1943 - Course in Theocratic Ministry
* 1943 - Fighting for Liberty on the Home Front
* 1943 - Freedom in the New World
* 1943 - Freedom of Worship
* 1943 - The Truth Shall Make You Free
* 1944 - One World, One Government
* 1944 - Religion Reaps the Whirlwind
* 1944 - The Coming World Regeneration
* 1944 - "The Kingdom of God Is Nigh"
* 1944 - The Kingdom is at Hand
* 1945 - Organization Instructions for the Kingdom Publisher
* 1945 - The "Commander to the Peoples"
* 1945 - ‘The Meek Inherit the Earth’
* 1945 - Theocratic Aid to Kingdom Publishers
* 1946 - Amendments to Organization Instructions
* 1946 - "Be Glad, Ye Nations"
* 1946 - "The Prince of Peace"
* 1946 - Equipped for Every Good Work
* 1946 - Let God Be True
* 1947 - The Joy of All the People
* 1948 - Permanent Governor of All Nations
* 1949 - Counsel on Theocratic Organization for Jehovah’s Witnesses
* 1949 - The Kingdom Hope of All Mankind
* 1950 - Can You Live Forever in Happiness on Earth?
* 1950 - Defending and Legally Establishing the Good News
* 1950 - Evolution Versus the New World
* 1950 - This Means Everlasting Life
* 1951 - Will Religion Meet the World Crisis?
* 1952 - God’s Way Is Love
* 1953 - After Armageddon—God’s New World
* 1953 - Basis for Belief in a New World
* 1953 - "Preach the Word"
* 1953 - "New Heavens and a New Earth"
* 1953 - Make Sure of All Things
* 1954 - "This Good News of the Kingdom"
* 1955 - Christendom or Christianity—Which One Is "the Light of the World"?
* 1955 - Preaching Together in Unity
* 1955 - What Do the Scriptures Say About "Survival After Death"?
* 1955 - World Conquest Soon—By God’s Kingdom
* 1957 - Healing of the Nations Has Drawn Near
* 1957 - Make Sure of All Things
* 1958 - God’s Kingdom Rules—Is the World’s End Near?
* 1959 - When God Speaks Peace to All Nations
* 1955 - Jehovah's Witnesses the New World Society - Marley Cole
* 1957 - Faith on the March - A.H. MacMillan
* 1957 - The Kingdom - Marley Cole
* 1959 - Jehovah's Witnesses in the Divine Purpose
* 1972 - The Bible in Living English (John Byington)

NOTE: SOME are not available....

STUDIES IN THE SCRIPTURES!! 1-7

2008-09-13T13:40:00.001-07:00

STUDIES IN THE SCRIPTURES!! 1-7

Download while it is up

http://rapidshare.com/files/145028379/Watchtower_Pubs_Studies_in_the_Scriptures_1-7.rar.html

A Message for Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses

2008-09-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

2008 Young People Ask DOWNLOAD

2008-09-13T12:44:00.000-07:00

http://sendspace.com/file/gvo9q9

Again, the Watchtower Society if feeding its young Jehobah's Witnesses with the same bs..

The difference? The quality of the paper. I wonder why WWF is saying on this!

September 1st Watchtower Regarding Higher Education

2008-09-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

On Page 10 of the magazine:
What will be the "End Afterward"?
Young people are often exposed to temptations and pressures to experiment with things that seem popular. Here are some likely scenarios.
Someone dares you to smoke a cigerette.
A well-intentioned teacher urges you to pursue higher education at a university.
You are invited to a party where alcohol and possibly drugs will be freely available.
"Why don't you post your profile on the Internet?" someone suggests.
A friend invites you to watch a movie that features violence or immorality.
If you are ever confronted with any of such situations, what will you do? Will you simply give in, or will you carefully consider what the "end afterward" could be? You would be wise to ask yourself: "Can a man rake together fire into his bosom and yet his very garments not be burned? Or can a man walk upon the coals and his feet themselves not be scorched?" - Prov 6:27,28

Institutional Murder

2008-09-08T04:29:00.000-07:00

WT Child Baptism

2008-09-07T04:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l8ELIQEdZE

A Jehovah's Witness in American Most Wanted!!!

2008-09-03T14:38:00.001-07:00

http://www.amw.com/fugitives/brief.cfm?id=35566

This son of a bitch, is wanted! WHEN HE COMMITED HIS CRIMES, he WAS a Ministerial Servant of the Jehovah'w Witnesses!

Jehovah Of The Watchtower-How to witness to JWs..

2008-09-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

The Filthfull and Disgraceful Slave's dictatorship rules:

2008-09-03T07:13:00.000-07:00

Kingdom Ministry (internal bulletin of JWs), Sept.2007

"We tell you what to believe!Period!"

I only wish, Russel could read that now (from Hell)

Breaking news: The 1914 Generation is DEAD...

2008-09-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

The governing body killed them all in 11/8/1995

The Greatness of the "Good News" by the Jehovah's Witnesses (yeah, right!)

2008-09-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.watchtower.org/statistics/worldwide_report.htm

According to the WTS, there are 26,333 Jehovah's Witnesses in India in 2005. Do you happen to know the population of India?

At least 1,200,000,000
1/5 of WORLD POPULATION!

Let me see...that's 0.002% !!!!

Do you really think that god is delivering His message to India? For Salvation? (If we are to believe the WT crap of course!)

Well, Governing Body old men have figure out how to answer this:

"God will save those who didn't hear the message!"

So, you might consider moving to India and make sure no JDub ever finds you!

Think!

The Mystery has finished: Russel was a LUNATIC MASON!

2008-09-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

Even the republics will disappear in the fall of 1920…Every kingdom of the earth will pass away, be swallowed up in anarchy…The three days in which Pharaoh’s host pursued the Israelites into the wilderness represent the three years from 1917 to 1920 at which time all of Pharaoh’s messengers will be swallowed up in the sea of anarchy…Also, in the year 1918, when God destroys the churches wholesale and church members by the millions…the inheritance of desolation that will be Christendom’s after 1918 so will God do the successful revolutionary movement; it shall be utterly desolated even all of it’ Not one vestige of it shall survive the revenges of world-wide all embracing anarchy, in the fall of 1920″ pg.258

Food in proper time...

2008-08-31T13:12:00.000-07:00

Send a FAX to the Watchtower or any related JW number FREE

2008-08-30T13:04:00.001-07:00

Take a look here!

Fax Documents Over the Internet for Free to any Phone number in US

http://www.labnol.org/internet/tools/fax-documents-over-internet-free-unlimited/3116/

Jehovah's Witnesses, Watchtower - Time to Blow the Cover

2008-08-30T06:03:00.000-07:00

Phonecall to the Watchtower regarding pedophilia lawsuits

2008-08-30T05:15:00.000-07:00

What JW's are trying to hide from you!

2008-08-30T05:12:00.000-07:00

(Rotten) Meat in due season!

2008-08-30T04:42:00.000-07:00

In the Crandle of Democracy!

2008-08-29T19:52:00.000-07:00

Possibly you don't know it, but this site comes from Greece., which is considered the Crandle of Democracy (=Greek word).

For those of you who have not read R.Franz's book "In Search of Christian Freedom", there was an incident back in 1987, where 2 active medium ranked JWs, were videotaping people entering the house of a former JW, to frame active members!! They were caught in action and sentenced to 6 months jailing .

Here is the abstract from the book (I hope Mr Franz doesn't have any problems with copyrighted material--the book is HUGE!)

I google it, but couldn't find any articles/comments on this. Read the actual pages below.

AMAZING GB!

Jehovah's Witnesses and Sex

2008-08-29T19:32:00.000-07:00

Watchtower 1972 December 1 pp.734-6 Questions from Readers

Recently in the news was a court decision ruling that oral copulation by adults is no longer punishable by law in a certain state. Would such practice therefore be solely a matter for individual conscience if engaged in by a Christian couple within the marriage arrangement?—U.S.A.

The Watchtower answer:

We believe that, aside from those who have been indoctrinated with the view that ‘in marriage anything goes,’ the vast majority of persons would normally reject as repugnant the practice of oral copulation, as also anal copulation. If these forms of intercourse are not "contrary to nature," then what is? That those practicing such acts do so by mutual consent as married persons would not thereby make these acts natural or not "obscene." Are we being ‘narrow’ or ‘extreme’ in taking such position?

No, as seen by the fact that several states of the United States have for long had laws against precisely such practices, classifying them as forms of "sodomy"—even though those engaging in them are married. Because of this legal usage, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary includes in its definition of "sodomy" this: "carnal copulation with a member of the same sex or with an animal or unnatural carnal copulation with a member of the opposite sex; specif: the penetration of the male organ into the mouth or anus of another." Of course, dictionaries and state laws differ but our position is based primarily upon God’s Word the Bible. Yet such worldly evidence serves a certain purpose, one corresponding in principle to what the apostle said at 1 Corinthians 5:1. There he showed that the sexual relations of one member in the Corinthian congregation were of a kind condemned even by people of the pagan nations. So, the application of the term "sodomy" in modern times to the mentioned forms of copulation shows that we are not unreasonable in saying they are not only "unnatural" but grossly so.

…Therefore the overruling of some state law and the declaring of oral copulation (or similar unnatural copulation) as ‘legal’ does not alter our Bible-based position. In a world of decaying morals we can expect that some law courts may succumb in varying degrees to the growing trend toward sexual perversion, just as some of the clergy and doctors have done.

It is not our purpose to attempt to draw a precise line as to where what is "natural" ends and what is "unnatural" begins. But we believe that, by meditating on Bible principles, a Christian should at least be able to discern what is grossly unnatural. In other areas, the Christian’s individual conscience will have to guide, and this includes questions regarding caresses and ‘love play’ prior to intercourse. (Compare Proverbs 5:18, 19.) But even here the Christian who wants to produce the fruits of God’s holy spirit will wisely avoid practices that approach, or could easily lead one to fall into, unnatural forms of copulation.

What if certain married couples in the congregation in the past or even in recent times have engaged in practices such as those just described, not appreciating till now the gravity of the wrong? Then they can seek God’s forgiveness in prayer and prove their sincere repentance by desisting from such gross unnatural acts.

It is certainly not the responsibility of elders or any others in a Christian congregation to search into the private lives of married couples. Nevertheless, if future cases of gross unnatural conduct, such as the practice of oral or anal copulation, are brought to their attention, the elders should act to try to correct the situation before further harm results, as they would do with any other serious wrong. Their concern is, of course, to try to help those who go astray and are ‘caught in the snare of the Devil.’ (2 Tim. 2:26) But if persons willfully show disrespect for Jehovah God’s marital arrangements, then it becomes necessary to remove them from the congregation as dangerous "leaven" that could contaminate others.—1 Cor. 5:6, 11-13.

What of Christian women married to unbelievers and whose mates insist on their sharing in such grossly unnatural acts? Does the apostle’s statement that "the wife does not exercise authority over her own body, but her husband does" give a wife the basis for submitting to these demands? (1 Cor. 7:4) No, for such husbandly authority is only relative. God’s authority remains always supreme. (1 Cor. 11:3; Acts 5:29) The apostle, furthermore, was speaking of normal sexual relations, as the context indicates. True, refusal to engage in unholy acts may bring hardship or even persecution on a wife, but the situation is the same as if her husband demanded that she engage in some form of idolatry, in misuse of blood, dishonesty or other such wrong.

Millions of married couples throughout the earth, both in the past and in the present, have found that unselfish love brings joy and full satisfaction, for both partners, in marital relations, without resorting to perverted methods. Realizing that a corrupt world is soon to be wiped away, we can think on the words of the apostle Peter, who wrote: "Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in holy acts of conduct and deeds of godly devotion, awaiting and keeping close in mind the presence of the day of Jehovah." Yes, this is not the time to be slipping into, or letting others beguile or pressure us into, unholy practices just to satisfy selfish passion. Not if we truly cherish our hope of living in the fresh, clean new order now so near. (2 Pet. 3:11, 12; Jude 7) So, Christian married couples can keep ‘the marriage bed without defilement,’ not only by refraining from fornication and adultery, but also by avoiding defiling, unnatural practices.—Heb.13:4.

Sorry guys, no oral sex for you!

Another one now.

Examining the Scriptures Daily 2002

Friday, February 22

—Flee from fornication.

"While sexuality is a gift from God, it is not to be Expressed without restraint, even within the marriage arrangement." Eph. 5:28-30; 1 Pet. 3:1,7

Outside of marriage, sexual relations are forbidden. The Bible is quite specific on this matter. ( Ex. 20:14; Mark 7: 21,22 ) What is meant by the word "fornication"? It is translated from the Greek word por·nei’a, which is Sometimes used to apply to sexual relations between unmarried people. ( 1 Cor. 6: 9 ) Elsewhere, such as at Mat.5:32, 19:9, the term is broader in meaning and refers to additionally to adultery, incest, and bestiality. Other sexual practices between individuals not married to each other, such as oral and anal sex and the sexual manipulation of another’s genitalia, can also be designated as por·nei’a. All such practices are condemned —either explicitly or by implication—in God’s Word.—Lev. 20:10,13,15,16; Rom. 1:24,26,27,32.

Why not oulaw sex altogether??

Download the book Sex, God and Marriage
http://www.ploughbooks.co.uk/downloads/download.php?ebook=sex-god-and-marriage.pdf

Eftychos (Fortunately)

2008-08-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

A video clip of a Greek song "Eftychos" (Fortunately) that I believe expresses all exJWs or those struggling for freedom of this CULT! Ok this guy talkes about a girl, but if you substitute "you" with "you the WTS" there you have it!:D

We have uploaded the video on youtube (more than 20,000 views)

Enjoy it!!

Jehovah's Son Fortells the Watchtower Org.

2008-08-29T16:32:00.000-07:00

I'm still laughing!!!!!

How Do Jehovah's Witnesses Interpret Scriptures?

2008-08-29T16:24:00.000-07:00

Truthbookblues

on Youtube!!

Dennis Lindberg

2008-08-29T16:16:00.000-07:00

Dennis Lindberg had a choice to make. He was seriously ill, he was coerced and he was 14. He had every right to make a choice, IF it were not the result of being under duress. The confusion in that boys mind must have been monumental! Thank you Watchtower.

A clever one!

2008-08-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

FBI's X-files on J. Rutherfooooord (2nd President of the WTS)

2008-08-29T05:33:00.000-07:00

http://governingbodyletters.blogspot.com/

The "Truth",Internet and TRUTH!!

2008-08-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

Virtual Experiment

The Truth vs. the truth

by Stephen Cox

Can the Truth survive the Internet?

This is a story about American values, Bulgaria’s policy on human rights, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, and the strange and unforeseen persistence of truth in our allegedly postmodern age.

Stephen Cox is professor of literature at the University of California in San Diego, and the author of “The Titanic Story.”

In this age (so it is said), there is room for data and opinion and diverse points of view, but none at all for simple “truth” - a term that must never be invoked unless it is surrounded by a guard of scare-quotes and qualifying phrases. Among the advanced thinkers of the late 20th century, fear of truth rose to the level of hysteria. The dean of postmodern theorists, Jean-François Lyotard, habitually associated “truth” with the threat of “terror.” Similar language was adopted by practitioners of deconstruction, critical theory, and the militantly relativist species of religious studies, cultural studies, and identity politics. Today, the term of choice may not be “terror”; it may be “oppression,” “domination,” or the more stylish “hegemony.” But whatever words are used, Truth is clearly on the defensive within the American intelligentsia.

And there are good reasons for the suspicion of truth.

The 20th century was an era of lies - enormous, ridiculous lies, the lies of fascism, communism, and “scientific” racism - lies that were retailed as objective truths by intellectual and political authorities who used them to maintain their power and make it appear legitimate. It is possible to argue that if we are ever to escape from Authority, we must first escape from Truth; and that is precisely what postmodern thinkers argue.

According to the most optimistic of these thinkers, however, a means of escape has now been discovered, a way of making the lies and pretenses of established authority yield to the reality of diverse points of view and heterogeneous “language games.” This means of escape is the Internet, the most efficient device ever invented for confronting “truth” with kaleidoscopic opinions and perspectives. The net can connect anyone to anyone, anyone’s game to anyone else’s. It is incredibly cheap, incredibly easy to use, incredibly powerful.

In postmodern circles there are, indeed, suspicions of the Internet, as there are of truth, suspicions centering on its service to “globalization” and “consumer capitalism.” But to theorists who have moved beyond leftist clichŽs, the Internet seems, in the words of one of the host of webpages devoted to the topic, a “direct embodiment” of postmodernism.

A generation ago, in the Neoplastic Era of electronic technology, Ralph Ellison compared modern American culture to a phonograph record. Both of them operated on the principle of “random accessibility”: everyone has access to anything - just drop the needle. It was an apt metaphor, but the Internet is much greater than a metaphor. It provides the maximum degree of accessibility, and it provides something more. You don’t sit passively in front of the Internet; you use it to make things: business deals, political movements, marriages, communities of shared eccentricities.

The 20th century was an era of lies - enormous, ridiculous lies, the lies of fascism, communism, and “scientific” racism.

You can also use it to make trouble. The day has come when every large institution in the world depends on the Internet to do its business. That is another way of saying that every large institution is continually exposed to electronic penetration and attack by competitors, dissidents, rebels, and spies. There could not be a better environment for the subversion of institutions and ideas. The Internet is hospitable to opinion and information; it is not hospitable to authority and authority’s best friend, the “truth.”

Or so it might appear. It’s at least a plausible hypothesis. But we need a test case, an example of some crucial conflict between the Internet and a formidable, institutionally embodied “truth.” I have found such a case.

There is a large American institution whose very name for itself is “the Truth.” With about 2 million adherents in the United States and about 15 million in the world (6.3 million of them active adherents), it is the second-largest of America’s native-born religions. The Mormons are ahead in numbers, but even they are less impressively authoritarian than the organization to which I refer: the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, whose followers are known as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Now, however, the Witnesses are locked in mortal combat with the forces of dissent, and the field of battle is the Internet. The outcome of the struggle is undecided, but its shape is definite, and it has a lot to teach us about postmodern ideas of truth and authority.
Who Are They?

Who are Jehovah’s Witnesses? That is a difficult question for most people to answer. The Witnesses are the least known of America’s large minority groups. They do not vote, they do not congregate in Utah, they do not operate colleges, hospitals, or newspapers. They have no dealings with any other religious sect, tradition, or tendency, refraining even from celebrating the “pagan” holidays of Christmas and Easter. Their only visible folkway is a habit of materializing on people’s doorsteps to “place” a copy of the Watchtower magazine.

But there is a heavy irony about their isolation and invisibility. At every stage of their history, they have assimilated leading features of the surrounding society, features that self-isolation has preserved and replicated in exaggerated, ultimately self-subverting forms, like the quaint, helpless fauna that inhabit remote islands. Another irony is that the Witnesses’ system of authority began with the attempt of a solitary dissident to escape from the confines of “Christendom.”

The inventor of the Watchtower Society, Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), owned a small chain of men’s clothing stores in Pittsburgh. In his spare time, he studied the Bible. A lover of progress and enlightenment, he found himself unable to accept the intellectual discipline of historic Christianity. He rejected the doctrines of the trinity and the immortal soul; in his book The New Creation (1904), he even compromised with the theory of evolution. So far, he was a typical 19th-century rationalist. Yet he could not agree with the newly fashionable “higher criticism” and its rationalist attack on the Bible’s coherence, inspiration, and authority. He proposed to fight rationalism with rationalism. He would defend the Bible on scientific grounds.

Unfortunately, science, for him, was largely a matter of calculations and measurements. The crucial thing was the Bible’s use of numbers. He became convinced that he had discovered the number system of Bible prophecy, and that the numbers tallied perfectly not only with the known events of history but also (oddly but happily) with the dimensions of the Great Pyramid, God’s “stone witness” in the land of Egypt. He outlined God’s plans in an elaborate and beautiful diagram, studded with symbolic pyramids, called the “Chart of the Ages.” His mathematics demonstrated that history would soon culminate in God’s restoration of the earthly paradise. And he started calling his movement the Truth. It was “Science . . . springing from the Word of God.”

Russell wasn’t the only prophet of the millennium. Most of his ideas about history originated in America’s vast, amorphous Second Advent movement. His followers and the Seventh-Day Adventists are the major living descendants of the remarkable people who in the mid-19th century roused America by proclaiming that the second coming or “advent” of Christ would soon occur. But Russell’s own group, once started, developed in complete independence from any other. Russell was a good writer and public speaker and an energetic self-advertiser. Hundreds of newspapers reprinted his sermons; millions of people bought his books. His journal, “Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence,” began in 1879 with a circulation of 6,000; its current circulation is well over 20,000,000.

His great mistake, a mistake that would be repeated several times in Watchtower history, was the prediction of a specific date for the end of the world. He thought it would all be over by the end of 1914. Something did happen in 1914, but it wasn’t quite the end of the world. After Russell died, his disciples reassessed his arithmetic. They affirmed its truth, while altering its specifics. The Watchtower Society eventually decided that 1914 was right, but it was right because it marked Christ’s (invisible) second coming, which Russell thought had happened in 1874. The end of the world would happen later. Other predictions located it in 1918, 1925, 1942, and 1975. The failure of these forecasts led to defections, sometimes to massive ones; but the people who stayed (and they are the only people who really matter to any organization) were those who still believed that, in principle, such events were subject to rational calculation. And who better to do the calculations than the experts at the Watchtower Society?

The Internet is hospitable to opinion and information; it is not hospitable to authority and authority’s best friend, the “truth.”

Russell’s era was the Witnesses’ Age of Reason. The next Watchtower president, Joseph Franklin Rutherford (1869-1942), presided over the Age of Politics. Rutherford, universally known as Judge Rutherford, was a lawyer who had served as a temporary judge in Boonville, Missouri. He had, in addition, campaigned for William Jennings Bryan, apostle of Free Silver and other Progressive causes. Like Bryan, he cast himself in the prophetic mode and crusaded against the power of big capital. Like Bryan, he also opposed America’s entry into World War I. His opposition to the war and military service led to his imprisonment for nine months on (palpably false) charges of sedition. He became, with some reason, a vigorous enemy of secular authority.

Russell had regarded history as a process of reconciliation between God and man. Rutherford saw it as a battle between God’s government, the Theocracy, and Satan’s government, the tyrannical nation-states, greedy capitalists, and power-mad churches, a battle that would end in the slaughter of everyone who was not on the side of Theocracy. This essentially political conception guided his reorganization of Russellism. In the “holy nation,” as Rutherford called the Watchtower movement, congregational church government was replaced by “theocratic” mandates. He decreed that all local officials would henceforth be appointed by Watchtower headquarters, and congregations would be called “companies,” as in “military companies.” He changed the name of the movement itself from Bible Students (too generic) to Jehovah’s Witnesses (a legalistic term of his own coinage).

Rutherford’s slogan was “Advertise, Advertise, Advertise the King and His Kingdom!” His advertising style was crude but marvelously theatrical. He wrote a book called “Millions Now Living Will Never Die.” He sent his followers into the streets wearing sandwich boards that said, “Religion Is a Snare and a Racket” (the Watchtower movement was not a mere “religion”). He published cartoons depicting porcine priests and Satanic politicians. He took to the radio, rivaling Father Coughlin in blistering attacks on the government. His sound-trucks (some of them armored) toured North America, blaring his speeches to unwilling ears. He staged huge conventions that, like the legislatures of totalitarian states, unanimously approved the bombastic “resolutions” the leader wrote on their behalf. To distinguish the practices of the Theocracy from those of Satan’s Organization, he outlawed the celebration of birthdays, Christmas, and Easter, and the use of the cross in worship. He decided that flag-salutes, voting, and enlisting in the army were treason to Theocracy, and he outlawed them, too. Everyone in the Watchtower movement was required to participate in “service,” selling Rutherford’s books and ideas to the general public. Dissenters were purged and publicly denounced. There was one Truth, and Judge Rutherford was its prophet.

Rutherford’s career was a parody (if it is possible to parody such things) of the extremist political tendencies of the era. When he died in 1942 at his San Diego residence - an estate intended as the capital of the resurrected patriarchs’ millennial regime, but equipped, for the present, with secret shelters against enemy attack - it was obvious that he had outlived his time. In ensuing years, the Watchtower Society learned to behave less like a political cult and more like a modern corporation - while retaining most of Rutherford’s doctrines and all of his authority.

Every stereotype has its archetype. Sloan Wilson supplied the stereotype of America’s corporate culture in the title of his novel “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” (1955). The archetype had appeared some years before. N. H. Knorr (1905-1977), Rutherford’s successor as president of the Watchtower Society, literally was the man in the gray flannel suit. Like Rutherford, he exerted complete corporate control; but whereas Rutherford put his personal stamp on everything, Knorr wouldn’t even sign his own name. All Watchtower literature was now produced anonymously, by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Inc. All directives were communicated, in a vague but decisive way, by “the Society.” Maximum standardization was achieved: all effort was concentrated on house-to-house distribution of literature, the kind of thing that almost anyone can do. The rebarbative doctrines of Rutherford’s time were massaged into truth-bites bland enough to be marketed everyplace in the world where people were attracted to American goods.

The Watchtower assumed the shape of a multinational firm, with scores of branches and tens of thousands of local outlets, all as much alike, wherever they were, as so many McDonald’s restaurants. The Watchtower’s factories and offices towered over Brooklyn Heights; Wall Street traders practiced divination on the daily messages of the Watchtower’s neon signs. And the Watchtower moved with the times. In the 1970s, it followed the precedent of other large American corporations: it cultivated a blander style of management and a spiffier public image. It replaced its imperial presidency with a web of committees, and it replaced the stodgy look of its books and magazines, a style formed in reaction to the excesses of the Rutherford period, with pastel graphics and a friendly, though insistent, use of multicultural images and rhetoric, capitalizing especially on the Society’s success in wooing African Americans.

Russell proposed to fight rationalism with rationalism. He would defend the Bible on scientific grounds.

Its statistical self-confidence blinded it to its limitations. The movement was severely burdened by its past. While it struggled to make itself inviting to everyone, it was cursed with ordinances against participation in virtually all civic customs and virtually all religious practices except selling Watchtower literature and hearing it expounded. The Witnesses’ niggling, estranging regulations made them appear absurd, especially to their own young people.

Still more embarrassing - deadly, in fact - was the Society’s notorious “blood ban,” its belief that blood transfusions constitute a violation of God’s law against eating blood (Genesis 9:4). The belief was inspired by the Society’s Rutherford-era war on “so-called medical science” (a branch of Satan’s empire) and became one of the most prominent fixations of the Watchtower movement. Receiving a transfusion, or permitting one’s child to do so, was a D.O. (disfellowshipping offence); and to be disfellowshipped was to be thrown out of the Truth and shunned by one’s friends and relatives. For five decades, the “blood ban” took a steady toll of believers’ lives. It is still doing so.

Another embarrassing feature of the Truth, and its mathematics, resurfaced dangerously in the 1960s, when the Society added up some more numbers and predicted that the current order of things would end in 1975. This time, the calculations were simpler, clearer, and even more compelling than Russell’s. They led to a tremendous revival of devotion within the Witness community. Many people who had drifted away raced back; many Witnesses sacrificed promising careers to work full time spreading the good news of the world’s forthcoming end.

The world obstinately endured, and the Witnesses’ effort to recover from the resulting public relations disaster brought yet another old characteristic to the fore - the Society’s custom, dating back to Russell’s use of the term “present truth,” of treating every falsification of its prophecies as a sign that the Truth itself is advancing. Not everyone accepted this paradoxical (or, to borrow Lyotard’s word, “paralogical”) idea of truth as something that simultaneously moves and maintains its fixed location at Watchtower headquarters. Several hundred thousand Witnesses dropped out; others were expelled after a failed attempt at doctrinal reform by Raymond Franz, a member of the Society’s august Governing Body.

The organization survived, in large part because of its ability to restrict communications. Anyone who made “apostate” remarks or carried “apostate” news was immediately disfellowshipped and shunned. Of course, if you wanted to attack the Truth, you could go write a book about it (Franz wrote two of them), but the market was small. It was pretty much restricted to Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Witnesses were under orders never to read apostate books. In any event, that kind of reading material had to be sought, usually with difficulty; it did not just turn up on your doorstep, like the Watchtower. Dissidents came to the Witnesses’ conventions and tried to pass out their own literature, most of which was thrown away. They conducted direct-mail campaigns, with little more effect than the appearance of cartoons in Watchtower publications showing pieces of apostate mail whizzing into the trash can.

Then the Internet was born.
Appearance of the Antichrist

Suppose you were a devout Jehovah’s Witness and you had just hooked up to the Internet. What would be the first thing you’d do? You’d sit down in front of the computer and type in “Watchtower” or “Jehovah’s Witnesses.” And what you’d see on your screen would be: “Questions for Jehovah’s Witnesses,” “Answering the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” “False Prophecies of Jehovah’s Witnesses,” “Beyond Jehovah’s Witnesses,” “Watchtower Observer,” “Free Minds, Inc.” - row upon row of opposition pages and sites. If you clicked onto one of those sites, you would be amazed and disgusted, but also, perhaps, enticed, especially if you had ever harbored any nagging doubts about the Truth or any secret resentments against authority in general.

A state-of-the-art opposition website is a supermarket of information and opinion, offering Watchtower news, personal experiences of former Witnesses, humor, facts about the Watchtower’s colorful history (the subject of systematic suppression and distortion by the Society), analysis of the Society’s unique methods of biblical interpretation, psychological and procedural advice for people who want to leave the Watchtower, and, of course, links to other opposition sites.

Opposition sites have achieved a virtual monopoly on the sale of back-dated Watchtower publications, literature that the Society considers too full of embarrassing Old Truths to be marketed to anyone, even for reasons of nostalgia. And if print technology is too low-tech for you, CD-ROMs are also for sale. One thin disk will give you a treasury of the Society’s outdated speculations about the fast-approaching showdown between labor and capital (Russell, “The Battle of Armageddon,” 1912) , the prophetic significance of the Lackawanna Railroad (Clayton J. Woodworth, et al., “The Finished Mystery,” 1917), the inadvisability of marriage, now that Armageddon is so close (Rutherford, Children, 1941), and hundreds of other topics.

Rutherford saw history as a battle between God’s government, the Theocracy, and Satan’s government, the tyrannical nation-states, greedy capitalists, and power-mad churches.

A number of apostate sites target the blood ban, the most vulnerable spot in the Watchtower’s defenses. The most influential of these sites has been “New Light on Blood,” the propaganda machine of a secret society of Witnesses whose aim is a radical reform of the Watchtower organization. The Associated Jehovah’s Witnesses for Reform on Blood is composed of people from many countries, and it appears to have high-level contacts within the official organization. Its power stems from the fact that its existence is largely electronic and “virtual.” It can gather facts, it can infiltrate the official organization, it can alert the mass media, it can warn wavering Witnesses that they are in danger of “bloodguilt” (the most terrible thing you can say to a Witness) if they fail to oppose the ban on blood; it can do all this and still evade the identification and punishment of its members. Never has insurrection been so easy: “If you want to remain anonymous, use an anonymous remailer like this one.”

But are there no loyal forces in cyberspace? When the Internet first became widely accessible, loyal websites proliferated. Individual Witnesses saw the new technology as an opportunity to communicate with fellow believers in an unofficial way. The Watchtower had always quashed independent Witness publications. Truth had to flow in one direction only - out from the Society’s editorial offices and down to the local congregations. Even loyalists welcomed a break from that routine. But while print technology could be easily policed, the Internet could not; so the Society issued warnings about the “spiritual pornography” to be found in cyberspace and rumbled sadly about the ease with which people become addicted to the Internet and start neglecting kingdom service. Some loyal websites took the cue and vanished.

Yet even the Society was no match for the Internet. It found that the public press considered the net a principal source of information, and it didn’t want anybody turning to apostate websites for information about the Watchtower itself. So it made the momentous decision to create its own website. While acknowledging the existence of “other sites” that “express favorable or unfavorable opinions about us,” watchtower.org proclaimed itself the only “authoritative source about the beliefs, teachings, and activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

The official site offers a variety of best-foot-forward articles (”Five Ways to Improve the Quality of Your Life,” “When No One Will Be Poor,” “The Marvelous New World of God’s Making”). But it’s not all sunshine. The apostate sites have always been a very present absence at the official one, much of which is continuously devoted to a defense of the blood ban. Publicly attacked for maintaining a harmful and illiberal policy, the Society responds with articles about health and freedom: “Blood - Vital for Life,” “Quality Alternatives to Transfusion,” “Blood: Whose Choice and Whose Conscience?” and “You Have the Right to Choose.”

The Society was learning the law of the Internet: the net is an agent of mainstream American values - freedom, competition, adequate public debate. To state that law in another way: there isn’t much point in creating a website to announce that you know everything and that if other people don’t agree, they can just get lost. When you enter the Web, you get stuck to the rules of dialogue. And that is what happened to the Watchtower Society. Not only did it have to speak of rights instead of “theocratic” orders, but its involvement with the Web authorized its followers to exercise their own right to electronic dialogue.

During the late 1990s, hundreds of loyal websites blossomed, mostly innocuous and controversy-free: personal sites that discussed the happiness of selling Witness literature, offered snapshots of family trips, and made sure to include a link to watchtower.org. Other loyal sites featured chatrooms and bulletin boards, carefully monitored to exclude comments that were not “upbuilding.” Some offered anti-apostate material. One delightful chat-oriented site presented a page called the “Paradise Earth Ban List,” a lake of digital fire reserved for people “who have broken the rules and are banned from #paradise_earth.” Few of the loyal sites seemed to be much encumbered by visitors.

A site that became very active indeed was H2O (Hourglass2 Outpost). Created in late 1996, its International Open Forum served, during the next five years or so - a long time on the Internet - as the primary meeting place for Internet-friendly Witnesses, and a model of the Internet’s negotiations with Truth and Authority. Clicking onto the Forum’s message board, Witnesses were greeted by a babel of electronic voices loud enough to make any postmodern thinker believe that the millennium had indeed arrived. Occasionally, monitors announced that they had removed somebody’s post because it was abusive or non-”upbuilding,” but their anxiety seemed to result principally from a desire to keep both dissenters and loyalists coming to the site. There was no institutional truth in sight, even the truth about who owned the forum. Just as the Watchtower Society replicated the anonymity of the corporation, so H2O replicated the anonymity of the Society.

Whereas Rutherford put his personal stamp on everything, Knorr wouldn’t even sign his own name. All Watchtower literature was now produced anonymously.

That symmetry, or irony, was not much appreciated by loyalists who clicked onto this “Witness” site, only to find their most cherished beliefs under attack by correspondents called “Dred Scott,” “Sceptic’s Soapbox,” “Liberal Elder,” and “Crunchy Frog.” The board was regularly swept by urgent demands to know “who runs this site?” And there was always someone who volunteered to rescue unsuspecting loyalists by letting them know that:

“HOURGLASS 2 IS AN APOSTATE WEBSITE. IF YOU READ BETWEEN THE LINES, VERY CAREFULLY, YOU WILL SEE THAT THE INDIVIDUALS WHO RUN THIS WEBSITE ARE APOSTATE.”

Those warnings were posted just as anonymously as anything else. Few loyalists wanted the Society to know that they frequented a site that was also frequented by apostates.

H2O’s packaging betrayed no apostasy. Its sponsors sometimes posted “Dear brothers & sisters” messages to warn, perhaps with ironic intention, that “H2O is no more inspired or able to protect you from apostates, than is the Watchtower Society.” That did not allay loyalist suspicions that H2O was a front for the Blood Reform group. On the board itself, loyalists accused apostates of setting up websites in order to trace the electronic addresses of loyal correspondents and get them in trouble with the Society. Apostates, in turn, accused the Society of setting up pseudo-apostate sites in order to get the addresses of pseudo-loyalists and disfellowship them. Meanwhile, loyalists accused other loyalists of disloyalty, and a loyalist intellectual attempted to convince everyone that God himself is “the Master of Deception,” cunningly testing his servants with truths that look like lies. Adding to the mix were people who kept coming up with “news” from “inside the org,” news intended either to inspirit Watchtower subversives with prophecies of reform, to dispirit them with false prophecies, or simply to spread the terror of being uncovered: the Society knows who you are! You will soon be disfellowshipped!
Birth of the Social Contract

The Witnesses’ Internet wars might, at first glance, seem like nothing but battles of spy vs. spy, of polarized and mutually parodic ideologues - the “atheists” vs. the “Society men.” Closer inspection showed “a continuous spectrum of opinion” (as one H2O participant put it), the kind of spectrum that appears in any large community of talkers and listeners. H2O and its sibling sites presented Jehovah’s Witnesses with their first opportunity to become that kind of community, and the experiment was well worth watching - not just as a test of the Witnesses’ reactions but also as a test of postmodern ideas.

Contrary to the assumptions and hopes of postmodernists who looked to cyberspace for the long-promised transvaluation of all values, the revolution of the Internet turned out to be the revolution of a type of normalcy. It continually reinstituted the “spontaneous order” that Friedrich Hayek considered the significant achievement of a free society. Even H2O was not just so many anonymous people presenting diverse points of view. It was a social order characterized by a division of labor.

On any board as popular as H2O, the “lurkers” or observers outnumber the active posters. On H2O, the posters were further divided by ideology. But that’s not the only important thing. Regular posters developed specialized roles. Some were demagogues, provocateurs, advocates for the intellectually handicapped, or professional cynics and victims. Others took on the practical job of telling other people how to handle their software and maintain their websites. Still others became historians canvassing the records of the Witness movement for absurd or instructive facts, sociologists analyzing the behavior of Witness subgroups, lawyers providing advice about the complicated procedures of the Watchtower “judicial” system, psychologists picking up the pieces that the lawyers left behind, salesmen promoting some great new notion or some great new link, dramatists, story-tellers, satirists, and comedians turning the Witness experience into works of literary art. Every social role represented someone’s attempt to earn the currency of the Internet - the attention and respect of other people. Together, these roles approximated the patterning of a real community.

The virtual community was almost entirely anonymous, but it’s clear that some of its members were a lot better known to one another than they were to their Witness families and friends. The obsessive privacy of modern communities is often regarded as the enemy of public life. At H2O, however, one could see that privacy creates the margin of safety that individuals need if they are to discover any life at all. The plastic computer case signified both privacy and power.

“[I]n 1995 when I bought my first computer (Mac 8100) I realized what I had been associated with [in the Watchtower]. . . . It was then that a big part of myself was freed. The Internet did indeed save my ’soul.’

It was more than a question of discovering the facts about the Watchtower movement. People on the net discovered talents that they never knew they had, and they got a chance to cultivate them. Many began their involvement as naive lurkers and loyalists, only to be drawn into dialogue and develop a role as thinkers and writers - often, I would add, acute and forceful thinkers, and writers of charm and wit.

The failure of the world to end in 1975 brought back the Society’s custom of treating every falsification of its prophecies as a sign that the Truth itself is advancing.

These charming, intelligent, irritating, not infrequently hostile strangers also discovered a conception of the social contract that is older than Hayekian or even Lockean ideas of the free society. Its locus classicus is the passage in Sophocles’ “Antigone” where Haemon suddenly realizes what is wrong with his authoritarian father: “You want to talk but never to hear and listen.

Tell that to the Watchtower Society. But you can also tell it to patrons of the Internet who threaten other patrons, call them morons and fools, distract them with irrelevant issues, or simply lie about the facts. On H2O, as on any other website, people who kept doing these things suffered the worst civil penalty that an individualist society can inflict: they stopped being taken seriously.

The Internet’s version of the social contract was based on the perceived interests of the participants, not on institutional hegemony or agreement about substantive issues. Was this a vindication of postmodernist ideas about the abandonment of truth and authority?
Resurgence of Truth

Not at all. The sudden, spontaneous evolution of Witness websites was entirely the product of private individuals’ concern with the authority of old-fashioned truth. The dissidents spent their time and energy trying, as they frequently said, “to tell the truth about the Truth.” The loyalists who appeared on disloyal sites had the same idea. They were sufficiently motivated by the pursuit of truth to risk a bad conscience and discipline by their own religious organization for engaging in dialogue with its opponents. People on both sides were trying to live up to the demands of a simple but practical theory, one of the oldest theories in the world: the correspondence theory of truth.

Nearly everyone involved in the Watchtower wars agreed on the simple idea that truth corresponds to ascertainable fact, and falsehood doesn’t. Set aside, for the moment, all the symmetries and ironies, debates and paranoias among the pro-Watchtower and anti-Watchtower forces. The question that drew thousands of people into the arena of electronic debate was not a matter of unrelated perspectives and relativistic principles. It was much more straightforward: Did the Watchtower Society’s ideas about the world, and about itself, correspond to facts?

“Rick,” one of the anonymous people responsible for the H2O board, conceded that issues are usually not “black and white”; still, he suggested, “truth will reveal itself to those who never stop seeking it.” Everyone else seemed to agree. If someone could have convinced the Internet debaters that the search for truth was just an amusing language game or a search for diverse opinions, none of them would have stayed on the board. What drew the virtual community together was the conviction that ideas can be found that make a recognizable match with fact.

This conviction easily transcended all boundaries of class, gender, ethnicity, national culture, and current religious convictions. Prominent among the participants in the great Internet debate were African Americans, Norwegians, Venezuelans, Finns, Australians, militant atheists, born-again Christians, wealthy businessmen, impoverished single moms, physicians, janitors, and the blandest of general Americans. They all took the universal Internet community so much for granted that no one even mentioned multiculturalism or reflected, in the style of the Disney Corporation, that “it’s a small world, after all.” Again, if you’re looking for a vindication of the free society as Americans have traditionally understood it, this is a good place to start. But it’s important to repeat that the net is not just a way of saying things; it’s also a way of doing things. All sides in the Watchtower controversy now seem to accept the fact that the virtual community has a serious impact on the real community. Dramatic evidence began appearing in 1998, with the Bulgarian Blood Battle.

The Watchtower Society had been scuffling with the government of Bulgaria since 1994. The issues were blood transfusions and military service. The government believed that the Witnesses’ blood ban was a threat to public health. The Witnesses believed that the government’s reluctance to exempt them from military service was an infringement of liberty. One thing led to another, and the Watchtower Society haled Bulgaria before the European Commission of Human Rights. Negotiations followed, and in early March, 1998, the legal dispute was amicably settled. Bulgaria agreed to give the Witnesses conscientious objector status, and the Watchtower Society agreed not to impose “any control or sanction” on Witnesses who received blood transfusions. Anyone who read the agreement would conclude that the blood ban was lifted, at least for Bulgarians.

In times past, such a portentous change would never have caused a ripple in the Society’s international organization, because it would never have received any publicity. In the 1960s and 1970s, Witnesses in Mexico were allowed to exempt themselves from military service by purchasing a little card indicating that they had “served,” while Witnesses in Malawi, who knew nothing about events in Mexico, suffered horrible persecution for refusing to buy a little card indicating that they were “members” of the ruling political party.

The Internet broke the Witnesses’ isolation from truth. On April 20, 1998, the obscure Bulgarian agreement was discovered lurking on the website of the European Commission and was reported by a poster on H2O. This seems to have been the first news that the Watchtower world (including almost everyone at Watchtower headquarters) had received of it. The news aroused both hope and suspicion. Was this apostate trickery, or a symptom of Watchtower reform? Electronic research confirmed that the news was authentic: the Society had compromised its stance on blood. In the Witness community, this was one of the biggest events imaginable. “As a witness of 40 years standing,” one H2O poster observed, “I never thought I would see it.”

People on both sides were trying to live up to the demands of a simple but practical theory, one of the oldest theories in the world: the correspondence theory of truth.

But what did it mean? Was the Society hesitantly adapting itself to a new, more open world? Had it conveniently discovered some new truth about blood? Would it admit that its old idea of truth was false? Would it have to admit this, now that everybody who had a computer could see what was happening? Intelligence from Europe and America suggested that the Society was dithering, unprepared to react to the challenge of quick and uncontrolled publicity. But with the Internet watching, even the slowest, heaviest authority can’t take long to dither.

When the Society acted, its objective was not to speak the truth but to quell disorder on the net. On April 27, 1998, it dispatched a press release to a friendly site, NoBlood.com. Its announcement was a masterpiece of obscurantism. It said nothing about the Society’s moral compromise; it merely applauded a victory for “religious freedom.”

This was a desperate gamble. The Society had decided to engage with the Internet’s demand for public dialogue, but only by playing its own private game with words. The strategy was boldly postmodern. It was meant to free the Society from any binding relationship between language and reality, any expectation that it would satisfy the correspondence theory of truth. Of course, that kind of freedom could be achieved only by identifying truth with institutional authority. But this is an ironic reflection on postmodern theories about authority and truth, not on the Society, which has always simply identified the two.

Understanding that principle, operators of loyal websites quickly purged people who came up with annoying questions about the Society’s announcement. Loyalists posting on enemy sites went so far as to argue that the blood ban had never existed in the first place, that individual consciences had always been invited to decide things for themselves - even though, admittedly, a wrong decision might have certain unpleasant institutional consequences. This, indeed, was the Society’s new line: having a blood transfusion is completely up to you - just don’t do it, if you know what’s good for you.

The immediate effect was to inspirit the Watchtower’s opponents. Dissenters, especially the people at H2O, spoke of final judgments and miraculous conversions:

“This has to be the beginning of the end for the WBTS [Watchtower Bible and Tract Society] as we know it. No way in hell will this slip quietly into obscurity.”

“They compromised their faith in Jehovah and failed the test.”

“I’m so [expletive deleted] at myself for being a SUCKER! for so many years. Thanks to the Internet I was able to wake up from my STUPIDITY!!!”

By fall, 1999, the Society realized that it was in serious trouble. It began taking action to soften its image, while hardening its authority. It yielded to one of the most vociferous demands of its Internet opponents: it made four appointments of relatively young men to the Governing Body, one of them the GB’s first African American member. At the same time, it aimed a harsh blow at its Internet intelligentsia. An extraordinarily long and emphatic article in Our Kingdom Ministry, the Watchtower house organ, denounced the Internet, coming down hard on even such seemingly “innocent” phenomena as the electronic sharing of edifying news and chat. Kingdom Ministry made a special target of loyalist sites that had been dispensing increasingly sophisticated defenses of the Society’s doctrines. It insisted on the Society’s exclusive right to market its own teachings, using its own books and its own website.

Websites all over the world went blank - but only temporarily. Even the Watchtower Society could not tell private individuals to unplug their machines. The lasting effect was simply to make the loyalists who remained in action, or who returned to the Web, endure the ridicule of Internet opponents who wondered how they could keep defending the Society’s authority after the Society had authoritatively decreed that they must not take it upon themselves to do so.

While the blood battle continued on the Internet, another problem cropped up - less important, but with its own nasty squint toward the problem of truth: Y2K. The Society had never associated any of its millennial prophecies with the advent of the actual millennium. Nevertheless, a long time had passed since 1914, which was supposed to mark the beginning of this world’s end. Apocalyptic hopes were endemic in local congregations; they attached themselves to the year 2000; they were encouraged and spread by the Internet; and they were frustrated, as all preceding hopes had been.

The Witnesses are stuck in the door-to-door-salesman routines of a pre-electronic world, with no electronic outreach except watchtower.org, which no one will ever find unless he goes to look for it.

The millennium dawned very dismally over the Watchtower Society. Since 1999 it had been spending much of its time (in some issues of its publications, all of its time) exhorting Witnesses to patience and endurance over the long haul. The exhortations were a concession to reality, the new reality that the Internet helped to create. In most countries of the industrialized world, as well as many countries of the third world, membership was slumping badly. Despite gargantuan efforts at proselytization, the number of Jehovah’s Witnesses in 17 heavily Internetted countries, including the United States, actually shrank in 1999. Growth in the world as a whole was a very suboptimal 2%. The pattern continued in 2000, with zero growth or losses in 74 out of 235 countries or territories reporting statistics, declining placements of literature, and an 11% decrease in baptisms. Growth in the United States reached only about one half of one percent.

2002 saw a modest turnaround: the worldwide number of active Witnesses increased by 2.84%. Witness watchers attributed the change, which was especially evident in certain Western nations (e.g., the United States, where the increase was 3%), to anxieties prompted by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The number of baptisms, however, still floated near a 14-year low, while the number of hours that Witnesses spent preaching remained steady. In 1988, almost 3,300 hours of witnessing were required to produce one convert. That was a lot of hours. But by 2002, over 4,500 hours were required (up from about 3,500 in 1999 and about 4,000 in 2000). That means that the average Witness, who logs about 200 hours of preaching a year, will work more than two decades before achieving any quantifiable result.

The problem looks even worse when you consider that many baptisms are those of family members, who are a great deal easier to convert than randomly contacted “householders.” For generations, Watchtower publications have excoriated “Christendom” for its laziness and smugness, but now it appears that the Witnesses’ own zeal is much less effective than that of many evangelical and mainline Christians. No wonder: the Witnesses are stuck in the door-to-door-salesman routines of a pre-electronic world, with no electronic outreach except watchtower.org, which no one will ever find unless he goes to look for it.
Where Are They Going?

In the last year or so, the Watchtower Society has encountered additional threats, and it has tried some new responses, most of them feckless. One of the biggest threats was an infection from the Witnesses’ ancient enemy, the Roman Catholic Church. Russell, like most Protestants of his time, was fervently anti-Catholic, and Rutherford insisted that the Catholic Church was the real leader of the Axis powers. As late as 1960, the Society was inspired by the Kennedy presidential campaign to publish a special issue of its magazine Awake attacking “The Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century”. The Society had always rejoiced in the Church’s embarrassments. Yet the Church’s current sex scandals showed how easy it is to pursue a scandal in any religious group, given the ability of the Internet to organize the forces of disaffection. Watchtower dissidents learned the lesson, organized, and began attracting significant media coverage to their stories of sex abuse and cover-ups among Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Fearful of legal interference in any form, the Society tried various means of appearing to decentralize itself, protectively isolating religious functions in certain corporate bodies and business functions in others. When former Watchtower President Milton Henschel died in March 2003, the Society’s news release said only that he had “filled various administrative capacities.” It was a far cry from the leader-worship of Rutherford’s day, or the corporation-worship of Knorr’s. It was as if the presidency had never existed, or as if Henschel had been an interchangeable part of some electronic device. Once again, the Society was acquiring the characteristics of its surroundings. It was succumbing, at least in style, to the age of the Internet - not, to be sure, to the Internet’s wild, demotic individualism, but to its other characteristic, its capacity for remoteness and anonymity. The digitized world was now inhabited by a digitized Society, with the Governing Body its shadowy webmaster. Dodging attempts at refutation, Witness literature grew grayer and blander, as if its content were computer-generated from some remote source.

The Internet broke the Witnesses’ isolation from truth.

Meanwhile, the Society’s foes continued building their own institutions. H2O remains, and it has been joined by other well-mounted message boards, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses Discussion Forum (jehovahs-witness.com). The conflict between the Internet and the Society is decidedly unequal. The Society’s task is, first, to convince people that it has a comprehensive and fully consistent explanation of reality; then, to organize these people into a force that can support a vast profusion of things: printing plants, assembly halls, local churches, mortgages, investments, legal offices. The task of the Internet dissidents is simply to show that the Society’s ideas aren’t true, and to organize such inexpensive virtual institutions as may be useful in spreading that message. The dissidents have a considerable economic advantage.

Can the Society, or anything like it, have a future in an Internetted world?

Perhaps. There are several options available to it. The most obvious is to do what Raymond Franz tried to get it to do, a quarter-century ago: admit it was wrong. But this, of course, is the least likely option to be taken. Only one modern American institution has ever admitted that it was fundamentally in error - the Worldwide Church of God, an Adventist church that, influenced by the Witnesses, once referred to its members as “in the Truth,” and to everyone else as out of it. During the 1990s, the WCG leadership surveyed its distinctive teachings and announced that they could not be squared with the Bible. The reward for its courage was the loss of 50-60% of its membership. This is an example that the Watchtower Society will be very reluctant to follow.

It is much more likely to choose one of two other options, roughly the same two that confront all other truth-challenged institutions in the modern world.

The first option is for the Society to keep trying to isolate its own version of truth from the checkable truth of the Internet. If it does that, the Watchtower movement will become a living fossil, a fellowship confined to people who, like the Amish, are content to remain in a world that predates the net.

The second option is for the Society to adapt its version of truth, bit by bit, to the fact-gathering capability of the Internet and the free society that the Internet exemplifies.

This second option is almost certainly the one that will be taken. Like other earthly authorities, the Society has a will to live at almost any cost. It will try to live even if the cost is a quiet coming to terms with its own mistakes. The real question is whether the speed of the Internet will give it time for an orderly evolution. We have seen, in Eastern Europe, how quickly glasnost can be followed by oblivion. The crucial factor may be the morale of the leadership, its ability to live with the same truth that normal people live with, while simultaneously acting as if it were still in possession of its higher truth.

Raymond Franz told me the following episode from the life of his uncle, Frederick Franz, the fourth president of the Watchtower Society. In old age, Frederick Franz was taken to an eye doctor, who found that he couldn’t read even the first line on the eye chart. The doctor pronounced him almost totally blind, with no possibility of improvement. “Well,” Franz said, slapping his knees, “as long as I’m here, I might as well get my eyeglass prescription brought up to date!”

That’s morale for you. Does the Society still have enough of it, at a time when morale has so few ways of evading the embarrassments of truth? We’ll find out - because the Internet will tell us.

http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2003_10/cox-truth.html

From God's Hands To The Watchtower Magazine?

2008-08-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

Without a doubt the most time-worn excuse of Jehovah's Witnesses when it comes to errors, omissions and failures of the Jehovah's Witnesses' parent organization goes something like this:
"Well the writers of the Society are not inspired."
The statement above is certainly true. The writers for the Society certainly are not inspired. We all know this. The problem however, is that they don't seem to know it.
At this point the believing Jehovah's Witness will immediately object with something to this effect: "Show me where they've directly claimed to be inspired."

However this is a thinly disguised bifurcation. There are other ways to claim you are inspired besides the explicit statement thereof. Although there are many examples on this very blog where they directly claim inspiration. this time I'd like to concentrate on the picture shown above.
The meaning of this picture is unmistakable. Control of Jehovah's Witnesses' literature publication rests in Jehovah's hands. Jehovah's Witnesses' literature literally comes from God's hands to yours. The issue of imperfection is immaterial when someone is claiming to represent God, or to be dispensing spiritual food from God, since God is not imperfect.

So, my littel GB's old men, when it comes to WTS...

WashTowel Society, give us A BREAK, will ya?

2008-08-27T22:28:00.000-07:00

Russel was doing the same "independent Bible group study", did he not?

September 2007 Our Kingdom Ministry

Benefits of Being One of Jehovah's Witnesses

2008-08-27T17:35:00.001-07:00

Ok, NO FREE beers, but...

1. Jehovah's Witnesses can count the time they share their faith with nonbelievers door-to-door or with young children, thus proving to God, in actual hard numbers, how worthy they are to have everlasting life.
2. Jehovah's Witnesses are encouraged not to attend college, which promotes independent thinking and is controlled by demons. They are happy to get a good job as a janitor or a window washer.
3. Jehovah's Witnesses get to celebrate the birth of a child but not the anniversary of the birth. They also do not have to worry about birthdays, holidays and Christmas, all of which are pagan and controlled by demons.
4. Jehovah's Witnesses do not pass a collection plate at their meetings like the demonized churches do. Instead there are collections boxes in their Kingdom Halls and Assembly Halls, and they are often reminded from the platform and in their literature not to forget to contribute. They are also urged to put in their wills that when they die, their house, CD's, jewelery, life insurance, and cash go directly to the Watchtower Society. The end is fast approaching so their families really have no need for money that should rightfully go to them.
5. Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate holidays so they do not have to be with their families during these special times to enjoy each other's company and eat the cookies, turkey, ham, pies, and other such food.
6. Because Jehovah's Witnesses are the only true Christians on earth, we do not have the problems that other churches have with broken families, adultery, fornication, pedophiles, over drinking, and gossip.
7. Jehovah's Witnesses do not have to worry about giving food, shelter and clothing to the poor and needy in our community because we give them the Truth which will enable them to live forever in a paradise earth.
8. Jehovah's Witnesses are in close contact with God as he speaks to them through the Faithful and Discreet Slave and through the Watchtower.
9. Jehovah's Witnesses alone will live in Paradise where there will be no cars, TVs, computors, radios, theaters, washing machines, clothes dryers, refrigerators, stoves, airplanes, electric lights, or malls to buy or clothes. Just miles and miles of garden and lions to pet.
10. Jehovah's Witnesses go to a summer District Assembly vacation every year, at the same city every year and have a picnic at their seats during the sessions and then stay at the fine hotels that they are told to stay in.
11. Jehovah's Witnesses know the true meaning of the words soon, near, very soon, very near, so close, just around the corner, shortly, near future and rapidly approaching.
12. Jehovah's Witnesses do not have to worry about getting old or having a retirement plan. See No. 11 above.
Hopefully, now you can understand the many benefits of being a Jehovah's Witness.

Were Jehovah's Witnesses Chosen By God?

2008-08-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

Jehovah's Witnesses often try to defend their religion against various charges by comparing themselves to the Israelites and then saying, "Well, the Israelites were God's chosen people even though they made mistakes. And even though we make mistakes we are still God chosen people today."
Well of course that argument simply doesn't cut it. The Israelites, according to the Bible, came into existence as a result of a promise that God made to Abraham. God caused Abraham's descendents to multiply profusely and grow into a populous nation. They existed because God said he would cause them to come into existence, and that he would make them his special people because of his promise to Abraham. Their being a chosen people had nothing to do with their conduct as individuals or as a nation -- their relationship with God had little to do with them, and everything to do with God.
Eventually God made himself known to the Israelites as "Jehovah", caused the Israelites to worship him, and gave them the Law. However, people outside of the Jewish nation could also worship Jehovah, as did Job and his friends. And as we know, God eventually abandoned the Israelites for their unfaithfulness, and formed "the Christian congregation".
The Christian congregation was different in principle from the Israelite congregation. In the latter, people had no choice whether to belong; they were Jews by birth. On the other hand, people had to make a conscious decision about joining the Christian congregation. They became or remained Christians because of their conduct and their relationship with God and Christ.
The Israelites remained Israelites no matter what bad things they did. But a Christian might no longer be a Christian for any number of reasons. In fact, the standards written by various New Testament writers were a litmus test for Christianity. Anyone violating certain standards of conduct was by definition not a Christian (of course, one can split hairs no end about the details, but we're talking about gross violations of what virtually all professed Christians agree on). Anyone who repudiated the Christian faith was no longer a Christian, whereas a Jew who repudiated his religion remained a Jew.
Jesus instituted the Christian congregation, meaning the entire body of faithful Christians, and said that he would be "with" them until he returned. Assuming that that holds true today, the entire body of faithful Christians on earth would constitute the Christian congregation. Here is where Jehovah's Witnesses get into serious trouble.
Jehovah's Witnesses teach that they and they alone are real Christians and therefore that "the entire body of faithful Christians on earth" is composed exclusively of Jehovah's Witnesses. Oh, a few individuals will allow that a few outside their organization might be true Christians, but that is not what the Jehovah's Witnesses organization that "speaks" through the printing presses of its Watchtower Society teach. The leaders have stated quite explicitly that salvation for Christians cannot be obtained outside the Jehovah's Witness organization, that it is in fact exclusively the "ark of salvation". By such teachings, Jehovah's Witnesses condemn all other supposed Christians as fakes, imposters, as members of wicked "Christendom". Therefore one should expect that Jehovah's Witnesses, both as individuals and as an organization, would be a cut above others who claim to be Christian and would always have been so. After all, no one becomes a Christian by birth, but by choice.
Jehovah's Witnesses also teach that there were no real Christians on earth until the 1870s, when the Watchtower Society's founder, Chares Taze Russell, began his Bible studies. They teach that Russell was the first modern-day member of "the anointed", of the "faithful and discreet slave class". However, this conflicts with another teaching that "one generation of the 'slave' class fed the next succeeding generation". JWs have never explained this contradiction.
At any rate, Jehovah's Witnesses teach that somehow God brought them into existence in the 1870s as "the Bible Students" under the leadership of C. T. Russell. After Russell died and J. F. Rutherford became their leader, they teach that in 1919 Christ made an inspection of all of the Christian religions on the earth, found all of them except one -- the Bible Students -- wanting, and chose their leaders "to be over all Christ's belongings." Thus we find that JWs teach not only that their religion was instituted by God himself in the 1870s, and their leaders appointed as "the faithful slave", but that Christ reaffirmed it and gave these leaders great spiritual authority over the entire body of Christians in the world in 1919.
What do Jehovah's Witnesses actually base all this reasoning on, beyond their arguable interpretations of the Bible? Why, on their claim that they and they alone were so much better than all other Christian groups that Christ specially appointed their leaders in 1919 to have spiritual authority. In other words, they base these claims on their claims that their conduct was and remains a cut above that of everyone else, and that their teachings are virtually identical to those of the early Christians.
To sum it up, Jehovah's Witnesses teach that they are God's chosen people today because of their conduct and their teachings, whereas the Israelites were God's chosen by virtue of birth. The two situations cannot be compared.
This naturally leaves the Witnesses open to criticism. What if their claims of being such good Christians are not true? What if their leadership has proved itself unfaithful to God by, say, telling lies in God's name? Making false predictions in his name? Allowing pedophiles to roam freely in the congregations? Teaching their members that salvation lies not in Christ but in attending meetings and going in field service? Not allowing Christians to think for themselves but dictating to them what their faith is? Would these disqualify them from being "God's chosen"? Of course they would! The truth of the base claim of Jehovah's Witness leaders to speak for God relies on whether they in fact speak for God. But since God doesn't answer questions of this sort, people must observe Jehovah's Witnesses and judge for themselves whether they measure up.
On this blog and other internet websites it quickly becomes evident that many Jehovah's Witness teachings, and their most fundamental one of all, cannot stand up to criticism. They have no means at all of proving that they are "God's chosen". The best they can do is compare themselves to the Israelites and whimper, "well, they were God's chosen despite their faults, and so are we". Jehovah's Witnesses, as individuals, have been so heavily indoctrinated with the fundamental teaching that theirs is the true religion they cannot fathom the fact that it is not. Their faith in the Organization is based on mere claims, not demonstrable facts -- and all Jehovah's Witnesses know this, even though they will not admit it. That's why many of them become so angry when their basic doctrine is challenged.

This is sad

2008-08-27T17:27:00.000-07:00

One of the main concerns of Jehovah's Witnesses Is Being Loyal To The Organization.
The binding, restricting effect that this concern for organizational submission can have on person's minds was illustrated to me by an experience related by Robert Lang, then the assistant Bethel Home Overseer at the international headquarters. He had been transferred to a different congregation in the New York city area and he said that at one of the first meetings he attended there the elders approached him for advice.
It seems that a young woman, the sister of one of the ministerial servants, was disfellowshiped and was still attending meetings. She had a small baby and brought it with her to the Kingdom Hall in a baby carriage. The Hall itself was on the second story of a building and the stairs were long and steep. The young woman would back up the stairs, pulling the baby carriage - with the baby in it - up the stairs as she went. The question the elders asked was whether it would be proper for the disfellowshiped woman's brother to assist her in getting up the stairs! Some thought so, others said, no, being disfellowshiped she should be considered as if she were not even there.
To his credit, Lang said, "I don't know what the rule is on this, I only know one thing: if I'm around when she starts pulling that carriage up the stairs, I'm going to help her! When I think of what could happen if she were to stumble and lose control of the carriage ....'
The most frightening thing about this is that adult men did not feel they could be guided by their own hearts and minds in a circumstance so obviously calling for human kindness. The pressing concern for them was - not the danger to the infant's life - but WHAT THE ORGANIZATION POLICY ALLOWED in such cases They gave evidence of having become emasculated men in matters of ethics, of right and wrong.
Robert Lang was for him "the kind of person he was, not because of the organization, but in spite of the organization."
IN SEARCH OF CHRISTIAN FREEDOM, Ray Franz, pp. 404, 405.

The new hot T-shirt...

2008-08-26T18:03:00.000-07:00

Theocratic War Strategy

2008-08-26T04:13:00.000-07:00

Withholding information that you know the answer to in a court of law is the same as lying. The result is the same. You are punished for it. The lie is called perjury and you are held in contempt of court fot it. Refusing to answer is showing your contempt for the court. You are punished for it. In both cases, you have failed to answer a question from a truth seeking authority. Many Jehovah's Witnesses have had their consciences dulled by their blind devotion to a less than honest organization.
The Jehovah's Witnesses have used the Courts extensively in their efforts to legitimize their religion. Truth in a court of law, as elsewhere in life, is paramount.
By being truthful in all things and to everyone we show that we are true christians. Jehovah's Witnesses teach wait on Jehovah for other things, why not tell the truth at all times and use the wait on Jehovah doctrine?

Russel sells WHAT for $60???!!

2008-08-26T04:10:00.000-07:00

Real estate and the Watchtower 1925 fiasco

2008-08-25T00:12:00.001-07:00

Rutherford was thinking one day: How the hell am I going to have a new home, without paying a dollar?

Well, i will tell them that SOON, ABRAHAM, ISAAK and other will be RESURRECTED(!!) and of course they need a home!

In the meantime , I can move in!!!

Rutherford in his new FREE home...

Mr Russel, what will happen in WW1?

2008-08-21T21:40:00.000-07:00

Excuse Mr Rutherford, what did you say about 1925???

2008-08-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

The chief thing to be restored is the human race to life; and since other Scriptures definitely fix the fact that there will be a resurrection of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and other faithful ones of old, and that these will have the first favor, we may expect 1925 to witness the return of these faithful men of Israel from the condition of death, being resurrected and fully restored to perfect humanity and made the visible, legal representatives of the new order of things on earth.

A message from C.T. Russel for YOU JW!!!

2008-08-21T06:36:00.000-07:00

GB : JWs please, please DON'T go to University

2008-08-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

The Watchtower DOES NOT want you to go to University!

Lost time is NOT the reason for sure!

Amazing upload:INDEX TO LETTERS For Bodies of Elders

2008-08-19T13:02:00.000-07:00

406 pages!!!

http://rapidshare.com/files/138572891/Jehovah_s_Witness__Elder_Letters_from__1981_to_2006.pdf.html

These people BELIEVED they were inspired by God!

2008-08-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

Believe it not, almost 7 Million people, say YES!!! (WTS victims)

"Revelation"..Climax!!!

2008-08-19T09:13:00.000-07:00

Indeed, what a Revelation!!!!

Are you a JW??

2008-08-19T03:29:00.001-07:00

gOLDEN aGE, 9/8/1937,p.773

2008-08-19T03:23:00.000-07:00

New Governing Body member!!!

2008-08-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

Some of the Prophetic Speculations made by the Watchtower organization (none of which ever came true!!)

2008-08-18T04:29:00.000-07:00

1831: William Miller begins preaching Christ's return in the fall of 1843.

1842: Miller and followers begin publishing a journal, The Midnight Cry.

1843, late: Miller and followers disappointed; fix Christ's return in the spring of 1844.

1844, spring: Miller and followers disappointed; fix Christ's return on October 22, 1844.

1844, late: Miller and followers anticipate disappointment.

1844, October 21: Miller says: "I told some of my brethren Christ would not come on the morrow" because the Second Coming would be "in an hour they think not". He was not responsible for the deception: "No one can honestly say that he has been deceived by me. My advice has always been for each to study the evidence of his faith for himself." God may have designed the delay so that people would turn to the Bible to study further and be reconciled to God. After all, to have erred in the precise date did not reduce the urgency of the times. Every passing day was one day nearer the end.

1844, November 10: Miller safely revises the date and overcomes all possibility of disappointment: "I have fixed my mind upon another time, and here I mean to stand until God gives me more light. -- And that is Today, TODAY, and TODAY, until He comes."

1845: Miller admits his mistake: "That I have been mistaken in the time, I freely confess; and I have no desire to defend my course any further than I have been actuated by pure motives, and it has resulted in God's glory. My mistakes and errors God, I trust, will forgive."

1845: George Storrs, one of Miller's leading followers, declares that God had not been in the "definite time" movement, that they had been "mesmereized" by mere human influence, and that "the Bible did not teach definite time at all."

1840s, late: Seventh Day Adventists, Second Adventists, and many other groups form from splinters of Miller's movement, carrying on with new prophetic speculations. Some decide that Miller had been right after all, that Miller had "expected the wrong thing at the right time".

1860: Nelson H. Barbour discovers that certain chronological calculations show 6,000 years of human history ending in 1873; he begins preaching that the Second Coming of the Lord would be in 1873.

1869: Barbour publishes 1st edition of the pamphlet Evidences for the Coming of the Lord in 1873; or the Midnight Cry.

1871: Barbour publishes 2nd edition of Evidences.

1873: Barbour begins publishing a monthly journal, The Midnight Cry, and Herald of the Morning.

1873, late: Barbour revises his prediction to autumn, 1874; ceases publication of The Midnight Cry, and Herald of the Morning.

1875: Barbour and followers decide that Christ had returned invisibly in 1874, that they had merely "expected the wrong thing at the right time"; in June Barbour restarts his journal as Herald of the Morning and lays the foundation for further predictions; in the September issue he makes a prediction that "the Gentile times" would end in 1914; in later issues he expands on this theme.

1870s: Charles Taze Russell forms Bible study classes, adopts many teachings from former Millerites including George Storrs, and various prophetic speculators

1876, January: Russell reads Barbour's magazine, invites him to teach him all about Bible chronology.

1876, early: Russell convinces Barbour to cease publication of Herald of the Morning so that they can work on a book that would be a compilation of articles that would otherwise have been published in Barbour's magazine.

1876, late: in the October issue of George Storrs' periodical The Bible Examiner Russell restates Barbour's prediction that "the Gentile times" will end in 1914.

1877: Russell and Barbour publish the book Three Worlds, and the Harvest of This World, predict that "the saints" would be resurrected in 1878 and teach that "the parable of the Ten Virgins" began to be fulfilled in 1844 by Miller's followers; Russell publishes his booklet Object and Manner of Our Lord's Return.

1878: Russell and Barbour restart publication of Herald of the Morning; "the saints" do not appear and so Russell spiritualizes their "resurrection", saying that it had indeed occurred but invisibly, and that he had been expecting "the wrong thing at the right time", just as Christ had invisibly returned in 1874; Russell and Barbour disagree on whether "the saints" had been resurrected, and this creates the first major disagreement between them.

1879: Russell and Barbour split company; in July Russell begins publishing his own journal, Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence; Russell continues to proclaim that Christ had returned in 1874 and that "the Gentile Times" would end in 1914; Russell reaffirms his teaching that Miller's movement in 1844 began the "modern day" fulfillment of end-times prophecies.

1880, late and early 1881: Russell predicts another earthly "resurrection of the saints" in October, 1881.

1881, late: Russell spiritualizes the October "resurrection", saying that it closed a period of "the high calling".

1880s: Russell refines beliefs, including exactly what would happen in 1914.

1889: Russell publishes volume 2 of The Millennial Dawn, The Time Is At Hand; predicts that by 1914 "the Kingdom of God" will have obtained full control in heaven and on earth, that Christ would be reigning visibly, that "the saints" would all be resurrected, that the city of Jerusalem would be highly honored again, that "the Battle of Armageddon" (which had begun in 1878) would have culminated in worldwide anarchy and given way to "new heavens and new earth" with peaceful blessings, and that "God's Kingdom" would be "in the earth and then smite and crush the Gentile image" and would "fully consume the power of these kings".

1904: Russell decides that 1914 was not necessarily the proper date for "the Gentile times" to end after all, that perhaps it would be 1915 and that other things he had predicted might turn out rather differently.

1914, early: Russell waffles about the certainty of his dating scheme, wonders if he had been "expecting the wrong thing at the right time".

1914, late: Russell and followers decide that the outbreak of "the Great War" is a fulfillment of Russell's predictions and that the war would culminate in the Battle of Armageddon.

1916: Russell writes that some of his predictions had indeed not been fulfilled, but much like William Miller did, that they "certainly did have a very stimulating and sanctifying effect upon thousands, all of whom accordingly can praise the Lord -- even for the mistake. Many, indeed, can express themselves as being thankful to the Lord that the culmination of the Church's hopes was not reached at the time we expected; and that we, as the Lord's people, have further opportunities of perfecting holiness and of being participators with our Master in the further presentation of His Message to His people."

1917: The book The Finished Mystery predicts that the War would soon end in the Battle of Armageddon.

1918: The Watchtower Society begins delivering public lectures titled "Millions Now Living May Never Die" which were quickly changed to "Millions Now Living Will Never Die".

1920: In the booklet "Millions Now Living Will Never Die" the WTS begins predicting that 1925 would see the resurrection of the faithful prophets of old and the beginning of the Battle of Armageddon.

1925: Armageddon does not come.

1920s, late: The Bible Students lose 3/4 of their membership; those who remain begin to forget about 1925.

1940:The Watchtower informs the public that Armageddon is only months away.

1942: After J. F. Rutherford's death Nathan Knorr announces that the end of the War would not see the Battle of Armageddon after all, but that it would soon follow.

1950s: The Society tells its followers to expect Armageddon very soon.

1961: In the book Let Your Name Be Sanctified Fred Franz tells JWs that in 1942, when upon his deathbed Rutherford appointed Franz and Knorr to head up the Society, the "Elijah" work was finished and the "Elishah" began. This work, he wrote, began in the 1870s with Russell. Putting this together with Russell's teachings on "the Ten Virgins", it would seem that William Miller really began this modern-day Elijah work and is the spiritual father of Jehovah's Witnesses. Of course, Miller has many other "daughters".

1966: In the book Life Everlasting in the Freedom of the Sons of God Fred Franz tells JWs that 6,000 years of human history would be finished in 1975 and that it was a good bet that Armageddon would come by then.

1967: The Society instructs District Overseers to deliver speeches at circuit assemblies announcing that Armageddon would definitely have arrived by 1975.

1968: The Society institutes a six-month Bible Study campaign in anticipation of the great influx of new converts in the few years before Armageddon.

1960s, late, through early 1970s: JWs inform the world that it is extremely likely that Armageddon will come by 1975.

1975: The Society informs its followers that Armageddon did not arrive.

1976: Fred Franz blames the JW community: "it didn't come because YOU were expecting it". The Watchtower blames the JW community for being disappointed by listening to it.

1970s, late: Many JWs abandon ship.

1980: The Society admits to having had some share in the disappointment.

1980s: The JW community and WTS leaders forget about 1975; some expect Armageddon in 1984 or 1994 based on the time for 70 or 80 years for a generation from 1914 to expire; a small number of WTS publications hint or state outright that "it will all be over" by the year 2000.

1990s: Many JWs quietly expect "the end" by 2000; the WTS keeps up their expectations with general statements of "real soon now".

1995: The WTS changes its teaching on "the generation" but keeps up with the "Real Soon Now" theme.

(It is rumored that the definition of "generation" will again going to change)

The above brief chronology documents some 170 years of "crying wolf" by prophetic speculators. Not a single prediction has ever come true. Contrast this with what happened when God spoke through Moses -- "it all came true." (Joshua 21:45)

Even if some of the predictions of today's prophetic speculators should come true, it would be purely by accident, just as when the wolf came after the boy had "cried wolf" every day for years. It would be no credit to the boy.

In fact, because Jesus said that "at an hour that you do not think to be it, the Son of man is coming", anyone who correctly "predicts" the time of his coming cannot be his follower. Conversely, no one who is Jesus' true follower would presume to make such predictions.

William Miller ultimately learned the proper attitude the hard way: "I have fixed my mind upon another time, and here I mean to stand until God gives me more light. -- And that is Today, TODAY, and TODAY, until He comes."

http://jehovahswitness-publications.com/failedprophesies.aspx

GR-BIBLOS Version 11.5

2008-08-17T05:34:00.000-07:00

Greek Bible (NT) software
Amazing piece of software, for those studying the Bible seriously!

Download it here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/71542473/cd115.part1.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/71543229/cd115.part2.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/71543338/cd115.part3.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/71538870/cd115.part4.rar.html

Follow us the WTS for the way of salvation!

2008-08-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

2008-08-16T07:02:00.000-07:00

This is the road of salvation, if you follow the WTS!

Wait a minute:Did they celembrate Xmas??

2008-08-16T06:55:00.000-07:00

Yeah, this CLEAN organization, God's organization, the Filthful (sorry, Faithful) and Disgrace (Discreet) Slave, CELEBRATED XMAS IN BETHEL!!!

Russel continued along!

2008-08-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

FOOD FOR THINKING CHRISTIANS!!

AND THE WHOLE universe BURST to LAUGHING!

Download it here:

http://rwssel.pblogs.gr/2008/08/food-for-thinking-christians.html

The second book of Russel: Worlds, 1877

2008-08-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

THREE WORLDS,
AND
THE HARVEST OF THIS WORLD.
A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE BIBLE PLAN OF REDEMPTION, WHICH
SPANS THREE WORLDS: “THE WORLD THAT WAS,” “THE
WORLD THAT NOW IS,” AND “THE WORLD TO COME;”
WITH THE EVIDENCES THAT WE ARE NOW
IN THE “TIME OF HARVEST,” OR
CLOSING WORK OF THE
GOSPEL AGE.

Download it here:

http://rwssel.pblogs.gr/files/165249-1877_worlds.pdf

..and the first book, by C.T.Russel!

2008-08-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

Object and Manner (1877)

The definition of a lunatic begins...

Download it here:

http://rwssel.pblogs.gr/files/165234-1877_object_and_manner.pdf

Ok, let's start off with the Biography of C.T. Russel

2008-08-15T06:50:00.000-07:00

Download the book(1916) here :

http://rwssel.pblogs.gr/files/165230-1916_biography_of_russell.pdf

Book: Springmeier - The Watchtower & The Masons - A Preliminary Investigation (dark side of Jehovah's Witnesses) (1990).pdf

2008-08-15T03:50:00.000-07:00

Download it for free!

And buy it if you like it...

http://rwssel.pblogs.gr/2008/08/masonoi-martyres-toy-iehwba-katebaste-to-biblio.html

We have ALL the publications from day ONE of the Watchtower Inc

2008-08-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

We are gonna have fun with all the lunatic statements of the WTS first 2 presidents.

Stay tuned!!

Rotherford: Millions now living will never die!

2008-08-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

Today, some 80 or so years after that stupid FALSE PROPHESY,

I say, "Billions now living will 100% DIE!"

We will present what Russel and Rotherford said

2008-08-14T11:46:00.000-07:00

1879 "Christ came in the character of a Bridegroom in 1874.... at the beginning of the Gospel harvest." (Watchtower, Oct 1879, p. 4)

Verdict: False Prophet!

What is an "Apostate"??

2008-08-14T11:34:00.000-07:00

Abandonment of one's religious faith, a political party, one's principles, or a cause.

Derives from the Greek "apostasis", which means "standing away"

YES, I AM AN APOSTATE OF THE JD!!

Welcome to "I am an apostate of Jehovah's Witnesses"

2008-08-14T09:30:00.001-07:00