My Presentation at the UU Church

by Shepherd Book 9 Replies latest jw friends

  • Shepherd Book
    Shepherd Book

    As some of you already know, I was invited to give a presentation for the Minneapolis Theosopical Society at the Unitarian-Universalist Church a few weeks ago. The title of my 'talk' was "Why Does Everyone Celebrate in December?" and I discussed the December Solstice and holidays celebrated around that time.

    Of course, I also managed to find a way to talk about JWs and their disdain for Xmas and all holidays. During the Q-and-A session that followed, I was expecting most of the questions to be about the solstice or different holidays, but was surprised to discover everyone wanted to talk about the JWs.

    Anyway, here's a link to the presentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8kqyXt0ib0. On the right side of the page are prompts to click on parts 2-5. Part four has most of the discussion about JWs, and the last half of part 5 has the start of the Q-and-A (the tape ran out, so no more was recorded).

  • Jadeen
    Jadeen

    That was really interesting! And I thought that it was funny that they wanted to ask you about your experiences as a JW.

  • Quandry
    Quandry

    Very nicely done! I enjoyed the humor injected into your presentation.

  • Shepherd Book
    Shepherd Book

    Thanks guys.

    Yeah, I was expecting a bunch of tough questions about history and astronomy so I spent several hours brushing up on ancient festival and on the science of the Earth and the Sun during the solstice. Turns out, they just wanted to know about being a JW & why I left. The bad news is, I didn't expect that; the good news is, I guess I'm an 'expert' at that subject.

  • AdaMakawee
    AdaMakawee

    This was excellent. I listened to all of it and enjoyed it very much. Thanks for sharing with us.

  • Shepherd Book
    Shepherd Book

    No problem! (Well, it was a little problem, since dealing with YouTube can be a hassle, but I didn't mind.) Glad you liked it.

  • cameo-d
    cameo-d

    Hi sheperd. You have a PM concerning dead links in a previous post...the one with the newspaper article. Thanks

  • Gayle
    Gayle

    I really appreciated your comment that you were questioning things for awhile, but once your son came along you knew had to move on,,(not your words exactly) had a lot of family there so hard to do but your son made the difference.

  • aniron
    aniron

    The points you brought out about December/Christmas etc, very similar to those brought out by the Pastor at the Pentecostal Church I attend.

    I too have found when speaking on similar subjects that people wanted to know more about the JW teachings.

    One point, JWs always seems to think that Christians are ignorant about Christmas etc, and being deceived by "the clergy".
    When I became a Christian 10 years ago I was surprised that the majority did know about so-called pagan connections of it.
    In fact as I said above our Pastor has spoken on such things.

    What we celebrate is THE BIRTH of our Saviour, NOT His "birthday" this would be done no matter what month it was.

  • choosing life
    choosing life

    Bookmarking, thanks for sharing.

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