**For Friend

You said

"…Articles discouraging independent thinking do not discourage individual thinking or conclusions

but rather reaching those conclusions independent of considering arguments and conclusions of the Society…"

And you accused me of not formulating my views well. You do seem to have a penchant for semantics though.

in·de·pen·dent

Pronunciation: "in-d&-'pen-d&nt

Function: adjective

Date: 1611

1 : not dependent: as a (1) : not subject to control by others : SELF-GOVERNING (2) : not affiliated with a larger controlling unit b (1) : not requiring or relying on something else : not contingent <an independent conclusion> (2) : not looking to others for one's opinions or for guidance in conduct (3) : not bound by or committed to a political party c (1) : not requiring or relying on others (as for care or livelihood) <independent of her parents> (2) : being enough to free one from the necessity of working for a living <a man of independent means> d : showing a desire for freedom <an independent manner> e (1) : not determined by or capable of being deduced or derived from or expressed in terms of members (as axioms or equations) of the set under consideration; especially : having linear independence <an independent set of vectors> (2) : having the property that the joint probability (as of events or samples) or the joint probability density function (as of random variables) equals the product of the probabilities or probability density functions of separate occurrence

2 capitalized : of or relating to the Independents

3 a : MAIN 5 <an independent clause> b : neither deducible from nor incompatible with another statement <independent

postulates>

synonym see FREE

- in·de·pen·dent·ly adverb

in·di·vid·u·al

Pronunciation: "in-d&-'vij-w&l, -'vi-j&-w&l, -'vi-j&l

Function: adjective

Etymology: Medieval Latin individualis, from Latin individuus indivisible, from in- + dividuus divided, from dividere to divide

Date: 15th century

1 obsolete : INSEPARABLE

2 a : of, relating to, or distinctively associated with an individual <an individual effort> b : being an individual or existing as an indivisible whole c : intended for one person <an individual serving>

3 : existing as a distinct entity : SEPARATE

4 : having marked individuality <an individual style>

synonym see SPECIAL, CHARACTERISTIC

- in·di·vid·u·al·ly adverb

So what is one doing when one thinks independently? They are thinking as an individual not subject to control by others. You have contradicted yourself.

Friend, I haven’t steered the conversation anywhere after my first post. I have simply responded (maybe not formulating my thoughts well enough for you) to your replies. You have steered the conversation to where we now are. I haven’t asked for your response to those aspects of my comments you didn’t reply to. I have to assume you don’t want to discuss them for whatever personal reasons you may have. That is, of course, well within your rights.

So I’ll ask a question point blank. Do you agree with my summary of where we are right now as of my last post? I’ll include the quote one more time:

"In other words you may say what you like as long as it is ineffectual, not heard and doesn’t cause debate. So any view is O.K. as long as it is non-threatening to the JW status quo? Sounds like the same problem the Romans and Pharisees had with Jesus -- it didn’t matter what ideas he preached until people started paying attention. Until then, he was just a divergent carpenter with some wild ideas and didn’t threaten the aspirations of those within their ranks."

I say this not fully agreeing that it reflects completely accurately the extent of suppression of free expression existing in the WT organization. We could of course go on forever discussing our personal feelings about that, but personal feelings being highly subjective, we would probably never see eye to eye. We do both agree that there isn’t sufficient room for individual expression within the WT organization. I just feel it goes to a far more dangerous place than you obviously feel. All the same, do you agree with the above quote?

Peace,

CPiolo