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illustration by Renoir
Doctrines were my teenage
years. I sought power, control, and answers to everything, so as to make
my life significant.
It worked, like the puberty
rituals of manhood. I attained what a man desires to obtain within the
system. At least, until I discovered that a man was more than his
doctrine.
One thing I found: the
desire for such primal powers reduces one's ability to appreciate the
more delicate and beautiful side to life. (It's just that sometimes it
is necessary to regroup into a primal, more simplistic mode so as
to survive the implosion of the mind.)
When one is comfortable with
being strong again, it is time to move on and explore the deeper things
in life.
Old fears must walk. New
life must begin.
-R. Watters, Nov. 1997
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Note: Free Minds, Inc. is not a religious
organization, nor is it connected with one. The following responses
assume that if you believe the Bible is the Word of God, and assuming
you follow the historical, grammatical,
interpretive method of understanding the Bible that would be used by
most linguists or historians in academia (believers or not), the
following represent a reasonable response to the Jehovah's Witnesses.
They also represent the interpretive beliefs of their author, Randall
Watters, who although not being an inerrantist
or a fundamentalist, believes that contemporary Protestant orthodoxy
best represents the teachings of the 66 books we call the Bible.
It is important to keep in mind that the first step in the birth of a
religion is experience. Those who experience the supernatural
explain the experience in their own limited terms. The goal of the
researcher is to discover, not just the person's interpretation of his
experience, but to sample the experience itself. It is also common for
the experience to be lost in the attempt to make sense of it.
How Mormons deal with "apostate literature" (same as JWs)
Current updates on the Blood Issue
JW Position on Blood (chart) from the Univ. of Pennsylvania Health
System
1914
and the change in "generation" (new light)
Abstaining from Blood
Anglo-Israelism, Gentile Times, Great Pyramid doctrines, source of
Ante-Nicene Fathers, The Watchtower and the
Apostasy in
the Bible
Articles by Carl
Olof Jonsson about JWs and Chronology
Baptismal
Questions Change in 1985
Baptism: New Light on What It Really Means
Birthdays, are they allowed to be celebrated
now?
Birthdays,
when were they banned? (1951)
Blood: Gene Smalley and the
WT's Blood Transfusion Doctrine
Blood: Related recent scholarly articles
on, (PDF format)
Optimal Care for Patients Who Are Jehovah's Witnesses
What Is Blood and What Is Not? Caring for the Jehovah's Witness Patient
Undergoing Cardiac Surgery
Coagulopathy After Cardiopulmonary Bypass in Jehovah's Witness Patients:
Management of Two Cases Using Fractionated Components and Factor VIIa
Coagulopathy After Cardiopulmonary Bypass in Jehovah's Witness Patients:
Management of and for the Individual Rather than the Religious
Institution
Blood and
the Law of God
Blood and
the Rh Factor
Blood
Is a Religious Issue
Blood
Fractions: New chart on what is acceptable (Dec. 2006)
Blood: Is It
Really Forbidden by Jehovah's Witnesses?
Blood: JW
Doctrine Hypocritical by Kerry Louderback
Blood:
Revisions on the Blood Issue (1997)
Blood: Do Witnesses Have A Choice?
Blood Substitutes: Truth about Polyheme
and Hemopure
Blacks
and the Watchtower
Body of
Christ
Book Review: A
History of Jehovah's Witnesses from a Black American Perspective
Born
Again
Changing
of 606 BCE to 607 BCE as start of Gentile Times, The
Churches: Are
the Churches the Body of Christ?
Creation of
Eve and the Interval Affecting 1975
Critique
of "Transfusion-Free Medicine" video
Cross: Did
Jesus Die on a Cross? and New Evidence for the Crucifixion
Cross: more exhaustive facts on historical
evidence for the Crucifixion
Dates and
the Watchtower
Destruction of Jerusalem and 607 BCE (charts, etc.) PDF format
Disfellowshiping
Disfellowshipping
II: Simon Says...
Disfellowshipping: A Harsher Line on disfellowshipped Witnesses for 2002
Disfellowshipping: a new policy
2002 by Bill Bowen
Divine Name: Is the Watchtower Interlinear hiding it?
(PDF file)
Divine Name in the New
World Translation (450k PDF file!)
Do
Jehovah's Witnesses Believe the Bible?
Douglas Walsh Trial in Scotland 1954 (free download)
EDUCATION, WT ban
on now Old Light
"Gentile
Times" - Is 607bce the correct date for the fall of Jerusalem?
God's Organization
Great Crowd, Where is the?
Heaven: Why All Christians Go To,
Holidays
How to Respond
to Jehovah's Witnesses at Your Door
How the
"Remnant" Knows They are "Anointed"
How To Use the 2005 Watchtower Pub. 'What
Does the Bible Really Teach?'
html
How
many treatises on Revelation has the Society published?
INSIGHT on the
Scriptures: book review
Interpretation
and Theology
Is It Proper to Worship
Jesus?
Is Today's
Increasing of Lawlessness Unprecedented? by Carl Olof Jonsson
Isaiah 9:6, Jehovah's Witnesses and (PDF format)
Jason D.
BeDuhn: Review of Truth in Translation
(2nd review)
Jehovah-the
Name
Jehovah’s
Witnesses, Higher Education and Misrepresentation
Jehovah's Witnesses Like to Have it Both
Ways
Jesus
Christ--Who Is He?
Jesus Christ: begotten or created?
Lying in Court and Religion: An Analysis of the Jehovah's Witness Theocratic Warfare Doctrine
by Dr. Jerry Bergman (Word Doc) html
format
Millerite Adventism and
Fred Franz
Nebuchadnezzar:
What Did He Destroy? (PDF
format)
New Light on
Civil Service in lieu of Military Service
New World
Translation of the Holy Scriptures by Dr. S. E.
Murrell, review of critical passages NEW
New World Translation, Is It a
Better Bible? (123k PDF file!)
New World
Translation and Its Critics
New World Translation
on Trial by Robert Bowman Jr.
New World
Translation: Misleading Revisions In,
New World Translation: Reviews in other
publications
New World Translation: What the
Scholars Really Said
New World
Translation: Who were the translators?
Opening
the Closed Mind: Witnessing to JWs
"Pay
Attention to Daniel's Prophecy," review of book (Kings of North and
South)
Prophet, Does the Watchtower Society claim to be? (documentation)
Resurrection,
Body, Judgment
Rolf Furuli: Review of his book on chronology by C. O. Jonsson
Rules for
Christian Living
Salvation in
Jesus Christ
Sin and
Salvation, Law and Freedom
Tetragram in
Hebrew
Versions, The
Tetragram
in the Christian Greek Scriptures
Theocratic War
Strategy
Tobacco Bombshell, The SEQUEL
Triune God of the Bible, The (PDF format) NEW
Triune God, the by Edmund J.
Fortman (excerpts)
20th
Year of Artaxerxes and the "Seventy Weeks" of Daniel
Trinity
Voting,
GB casts its ballot on "New Light" regarding,
War, Evil and Self-Defense
Was There
A Secret Black Man On The Governing Body?
Where Else Can We Go? by David Reed
Who
was Steven T. Byington? (Byington's Bible)
Witnessing
the Name [Jehovah] by Doug Mason
Women,
Watchtower view of (1967)
'Year 2000' and '20th Century' Quotations from the WT CD-ROM
Related Reference:
purchase books, cassettes
and videotapes related to these issues
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