Posted by ros [ros] on April 06, 1999 at 12:07:23 {JK6FUAMFdMAPLKlRwd1.7/SY5I9NtE}:
In Reply to: *******Opinion About Reform posted by Rosetta on April 05, 1999 at 19:17:53:
If Jehovah God is NOT using the JW org. as his channel, as they claim, then why bother trying to reform.
As far as I'm concerned, Jehovah's Witnesses' religion is their right and their personal responsibility, including willful
submission to authoritarianism, EXCEPT where it hurts other innocent people or inhibits basic human rights of people who just happen to, though no choice of their own, have been born into the Witness subculture, or have otherwise
been associated with it, and who come to a conclusion that they do no longer believe the doctrine. The Watchtower hails civil rights and religious freedom while denying it to their own members. Mandating strict adherence to their
teachings, irrespective of right or wrong, on penalty of severance from one's friends and family--mother, father, sisters, brothers, children, grandchildren--is an absolute unholy abomination in my opinion, both Biblically and plain,
self-evident human decency.
I don't really care whether they disfellowship people from membership in their organization; although I would challenge the Biblicalness of a lot of their "disfellowshipping offenses." But I would press for
reform on their extremist shunning policy for people who leave the religion, and for the right of their members to "choose a blood transfusion without control or sanction from the organization" for themselves and especially for their
innocent children. That's why they need to be reformed.
Ros