Posts by AnnOMaly

19

Amway

by bobld in

jw
friends

wt inc./j.w.

are similar to amway,one promosies paradise the other financial freedom.. the top get all the benefits.the r&f do all the work.. amway has rallies/seminars/meeting/etc.. wt inc. has r.c.

(was d.c.)/c.a./tms/etc.. recruitment: amway meet for coffee for a financial discussion only to invite you to a hotel meeting but don't say what it is about.when you get there you say wtf it is an amway meeting.. wt inc/j.w.

AnnOMaly

Cross-referencing to another current thread: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/282989/1/Herbalife-and-the-Watchtower-Comparison-Herba-life-is-under-attack

Hi Brock, I'm looking forward to your new book

What I do want you to know is that my personal experience with the large, long established and well known network marketing company I was associated with was a complete bust. I never made one thin dime of profit after subtracting my expenses. In fact, I lost money.

Maybe that was my fault. Maybe I wasn't cut out for that kind of business. Maybe I didn't try hard enough.

Maybe.

Or maybe it just felt too familiar to my religion and that made me feel uncomfortable. Maybe I experienced so much malaise from this familiarity that it was difficult to overcome mentally.

You nailed it. I was with a MLM company for a while many years ago (not Amway). I still buy some of their product but the business side quickly fizzled. I think I made a profit one month (peanuts), broke even a few months, and made a loss the rest LOL. However, I learned some skills and traveled to some new places - not a total waste.

The product and business plan are said to be the best on the market. If you fail at the business, it's your fault. The business plan set-up isn't to blame, oh no. It's you. Some products were hailed as magic bullets to solve an array of health or cleaning problems. If a customer had problems with the product, it's either your fault for not showing her how to use it properly or the customer's fault for not using it properly, or she didn't really give it a chance. It isn't that the product just doesn't work for her problem.

Always had to smile and be positive; always had to big up the benefits of the product and business. Once, when I was seemingly doing OK and beginning to rise up the levels, I was interviewed for a promotional video. I was enthusiastically asked if was I making good money. I told them the truth - 'not really.' Needless to say, I didn't make it into the video.

Even back then, as a loyal dub, the similarities between MLM meetings and sales methods and JW meetings and FS were striking. Everyone was a potential recruit or customer. My dilemma was, when I casually encountered somebody and we got chatting, do I 'witness' to them or 'sell' to them? Truth is, I didn't like to do either.

10

Herbalife and the Watchtower Comparison, Herba-life is under attack!

by BucketShopBill in

jws are, i think they are more like "herba-drones" it's been on the news as a massive war with a billionaire who is trying to expose it as a cult company.. http://www.benzinga.com/media/cnbc/14/08/4799559/scott-wapner-believes-that-bill-ackman-is-increasing-his-short-position-in-.

herbalife has it's people believe it's products can extend life (jws believe their teachings will bring "everlasting life") and tell you to hit everyone up you know to buy these life-saving products.

jws tell you to preach to your family and workmates, everyone is fair game to herba-drones and jw-drones, nobody is safe unless your a nutritionist (ex-jw with wisdom) who knows they sell a bogus emotion and worthless products.. .

AnnOMaly

Obviously being a JW makes a person vulnerable to that type of manipulation, but you would still think that the Watchtower warnings about the greed of the world would make them more cautious to any but their own religious ponzi scheme.

Given the constant emphasis on pioneering and being available to go to conventions, assemblies, etc., the idea of being your own boss, being master/mistress of your own time, having a ready-made network of friends in the Org. and the promise of making good money makes the MLM schemes very attractive to the JW.

Cross-referencing to another current thread: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/282981/1/Amway#.U_ruQsWwIaI

4

DNS errors in reaching JWN??

by Fernando in

i am getting frequent/intermittent errors in reaching jwn.. anyone else?.

could this be dns related?.

sabotage?.

AnnOMaly

Yep, similar for me. It's been intermittent but seems to be OK atm. At one point last week, I couldn't get on for several hours. Most unusual. I thought the site was down. Neither .net nor .com would come up - not in Chrome nor in IE.

Ah, just seen another thread on this: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/forum/tech-support/282922/1/Anyone-Else-Havng-Trouble-Logging-In-Today#.U_mg8sWwIaI

12

Assembly:Symposium:Who will not inherit God's Kingdom:"Idolaters

by raymond frantz in

lol!

typing that while at the assembly, the benefits of technology.this theme is about idolatry.

the watchtower explains what is idolatry.

AnnOMaly

He also mentioned that they were favouring preaching on social media instead, implying that it was more productive.

LOL. Give it a few years and the Org will be adopting the same method. They adopted 'Family Worship' night that the LDS had been doing for, like, forever.

6

Ostracism Hurts: The Psychological Costs of Ignoring or Excluding Others

by JHK in

http://www.psycholawlogy.com/2013/05/14/hurting-others-hurts-psychological-costs-of-ignoring-or-excluding-others/.

AnnOMaly

Good article. That the shunner also suffers psychological harm doesn't surprise me. I always felt conflicted and my stomach would knot up when I tried to do the 'right' thing and ignore a DFed person. It's far less stressful to just be friendly ... or to at least show common civility and courtesy.

100

Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?

by Bart Belteshassur in

i haven't come across any arguement that does not involve secular history and external references.

in fact the wt can not get to 607 bce without using external sources as in knowing that they need to get back from 1914 ce to 607 bce, and botching an argument using an external date as reference to create their start point at 537 bce.. i realize that to get the final date we must provide a fixed figure from somewhere which can only be a historical source, but the objective would be to disprove the wt flim flam.

once that is achieve we can use which ever fixed historical point they wish to chose.

AnnOMaly

Bart,

My question must be which Darius is refered to in Haggai, and which Artaxerxes relates to Nehemaih's decree, and which Artaxerxes relates to Ezra?

Darius I (521-486 BCE) for Ezra and Haggai;

AND

Artaxerxes I (464-424 BCE) for both Ezra 4 and 7, and Nehemiah (my view).

OR

(Jeffro's view) 'Artaxerxes'/Bardiya (522 BCE) for Ezra 4;

Artaxerxes I (464-424 BCE) for Ezra 7 and Nehemiah.

100

Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?

by Bart Belteshassur in

i haven't come across any arguement that does not involve secular history and external references.

in fact the wt can not get to 607 bce without using external sources as in knowing that they need to get back from 1914 ce to 607 bce, and botching an argument using an external date as reference to create their start point at 537 bce.. i realize that to get the final date we must provide a fixed figure from somewhere which can only be a historical source, but the objective would be to disprove the wt flim flam.

once that is achieve we can use which ever fixed historical point they wish to chose.

AnnOMaly

Hi Jeffro

I do not use Josephus as the basis for my conclusion. It just happens to say something similar.

I said you use Josephus to support your position. Josephus takes his information from 1 Esdras, assumes that it is in chronological order and that 'Artaxerxes' was Cambyses.

It's also interesting that he didn't think to associate the 'Artaxerxes' letter with the "Magi" (Bardiya) who "attained the government of the Persians for a year" (Ant. 11.3.1).

The author of Ezra/1 Esdras (whichever was first) could have used the wrong throne name (which doesn't identify a specific king) but known which individual and period they referred to.

'Could have' reflects conjecture, of course. The author or later redactor 'could have' (and IMO more likely) got the right throne name(s) and mentioned it (them) out of sequence as part of the 'opposition' theme. 1 Esdras, as you admitted above, "associates events under Darius with events under Cyrus for literary purposes, however the rest of the book is in chronological order." If 1 Esdras can deviate from chronological order there, then it and Ezra conceivably 'could have,' deviated from chronological order with the first mentioned 'Artaxerxes.'

This does not require that the king was broadly known as the other name. The author of E[z/sdr]a[/s] could simply have confused the names, just like Josephus does.

Or he 'could simply have' NOT confused the names and placed later 'opposition' events in with the 'opposition' summary.

Or he could have jumbled events from kings from both periods. Or he could have made the whole thing up about the letters.

Indeed he 'could have' made the whole thing up. In that case, this textual passage is useless for chronological/historical purposes and it is pointless insisting on a timeline (one way or another) for Ezra 4:6-23.

(How did the author of E[z/sdr]a[/s] get the letters?

Unknown. How did he get a copy of the letters between Tattenai and Darius or know that they found the memo about Cyrus' order in Ecbatana?

Are we going with the 'inspired' [aka 'magic', aka superstitious nonsense] theory?)

??? I hope we are going with an approach that tries to harmonize ancient Jewish accounts of history with other historical sources. What has the subject of 'inspiration' to do with anything?

Anyway, I think we're at a stalemate.

100

Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?

by Bart Belteshassur in

i haven't come across any arguement that does not involve secular history and external references.

in fact the wt can not get to 607 bce without using external sources as in knowing that they need to get back from 1914 ce to 607 bce, and botching an argument using an external date as reference to create their start point at 537 bce.. i realize that to get the final date we must provide a fixed figure from somewhere which can only be a historical source, but the objective would be to disprove the wt flim flam.

once that is achieve we can use which ever fixed historical point they wish to chose.

AnnOMaly

Bart, there is no disconnect except in 4:6-23. The second year of their return (537 BCE) they laid the temple foundations (3:8). Celebrations (3:10-13). Samaritans/neighbors wanted in on the temple building and the Jews told them 'no' (4:1-3). General comment about temple-building trouble from the time of Cyrus to the time of Darius (4:4, 5). Additional info on later opposition to city wall building in Xerxes' and Artaxerxes' reigns (4:6-23). Back to the topic of temple-building trouble in Darius' reign (4:24f.).

The official WT view is that the Jews returned in 537 BCE so their second year when the foundation was laid was 536 BCE. The WT believes the 'Artaxerxes' of 4:7f. is Bardiya who stopped the work in 522 BCE..

19

weird: passing around literature fragments in prison

by Magnum in

i dont have any specific references, but over the years i remember reading in the mags and hearing in talks stories of imprisoned jws who would somehow get a piece of a page of a jw magazine or an article or something like that and pass it around and get spiritually nourished by it as if it almost had a magical or supernatural nature.

does anybody else remember such?.

i always thought it just didnt make sense.

AnnOMaly

They could send such a message by simply writing a note and saying such. Wouldn't that be more personal? Wouldn't that be more effective than smuggling in an article written by somebody thousands of miles away who doesn't even know they're imprisoned?

But a handwritten note could've been written by anyone. Official writing from 'mother' would have more weight. I remember visiting Selters bethel once. One of the many things they had on display from the Nazi era was a matchbox containing a part of one of Rutherford's books in miniature form, specially printed so it could be smuggled into the camps. It was pretty cute. To think that the Org. had not forgotten them would also have greater psychological impact, and yes, of course Brooklyn knew the JWs were being imprisoned!

If their God is so powerful, why can't he sustain them with his so-called holy spirit? It makes no sense to me that a piece of cheap paper with some writing on it could be so important and be treated in such a way. It's almost like idolatry.

You don't get the same feeling of solidarity or comradeship without human contact.

And as to your first point, "The fragments being smuggled in would only contain what was deemed faith-strengthening or doctrinally important", the stories I remember don't indicate that someone specifically chose a part of a magazine that he thought would be appropriate. It was more like they just came across or happened to get a mag or a page or two of one, so the material could have been about anything.

That's not the impression I got from stories I heard, but your experience may well be different

Phizzy - Funny story! LOL.

100

Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?

by Bart Belteshassur in

i haven't come across any arguement that does not involve secular history and external references.

in fact the wt can not get to 607 bce without using external sources as in knowing that they need to get back from 1914 ce to 607 bce, and botching an argument using an external date as reference to create their start point at 537 bce.. i realize that to get the final date we must provide a fixed figure from somewhere which can only be a historical source, but the objective would be to disprove the wt flim flam.

once that is achieve we can use which ever fixed historical point they wish to chose.

AnnOMaly

(Bart) AnnO - I am making the point that in the second year of their coming is when the letter to Aterxexes was written which as you suggest is between the 4th and 7th months of 522BCE. It therefore follows that the return of this group must have been the year before 523BCE

Oh I see what you're getting at. No, it was the second year after they were first repatriated, i.e. early in Cyrus' reign, that they laid the foundations of the temple. That would be 537 BCE. It was after that that all the trouble started. If 'Artaxerxes' = Bardiya, then the letter was written about 15 years later. Ezra 4:4,5 does say it was an ongoing problem.