Posts by adjusted knowledge

14

Are Christians more or less likely to be in favour of stronger gun control than atheists?

by Seraphim23 in

jw
friends

i have no agenda with this post, if anything i am suspecting the results will be against what i would want to hear as a christian.

however im asking the question as i am curious as to the results.

my personal position is in favour of a total ban but i do live in the united kingdom, however many of my friends live in the states.

adjusted knowledge

In China they have many mass killings done by knives.

On March 23, 2010, Zheng Minsheng (郑民生) [ 7 ] 41, murdered eight children with a knife in an elementary school in Nanping, [ 8 ] Fujian province.

April 2010 Leizhou, [ 11 ] Guangdong another knife-wielding man named Chen Kangbing, 33 (陈康炳) [ 12 ] at Hongfu Primary School wounded 16 students and a teacher

May 2010 An attacker named Wu Huanming (吴环明), 48, killed seven children and two adults and injured 11 other persons with a cleaver at a kindergarten in Hanzhong, Shaanxi on May 12, 2010

I could keep going but you get the point.

I propose the following on knife control.

Owning a knife should not be an automatic right. Every knife owner should have to pass a knife safety class, a background check and be licenced, with biometric functionality, so no one but you can ever use your licience. There will be a licence fee to cover the cost of this. Every knife should be licenced as well. All knives would be tracked from time of manufacture. All knives have a unique signature, microscopic imprints it leaves on every wound in the victim. All knives would be test stabbed at the factory and the markings entered into a database, so that if it is ever used in a crime it can be tracked back to the owner.

:)

27

Question for believers in the Bible/God

by not bitter in

jw
friends

my question basically is - why believe?.

now as a non believer i find it hard to understand how anyone in their right mind can believe in the supernatural and more to the point, live their lives according to an old book.

not just christians obviously.. my intention is not to offend people.

adjusted knowledge

It is not surprising why people believe in a god and follow some spiritual book. It isn't that difficult to understand. People fear death. That is the simple explanation. If you take time to ponder on being Mortal it can be quite frightening. To KNOW you will die and it is forever is hard for many to accept. To accept means there is no justice and life is not fair. A belief in something more than a finite existence gives comfort to many.

The idea of seeing a child in another life after losing your child to a horrible disease, is more appealing than accepting that nature is both cruel and beautiful. Evolution is an important breakthrough in science with the transitional fossils being found to help answer our origins, but it doesn't answer the questions people have.

Why? and What? Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? In the science world these question are meaningless but to the average person they mean everything.

Then there are many who see how complicated life is and how so many things have to be in place for life to exist, and they just can't accept life is done without intelligence. Science can explain the transformation of life but the very beginning they still have not answered. The planet has only one Gensis and life is not spontaneous being created now. The study of abiogenesis is making great strives to answer these questions but scientists still have been unable to demonstrate life generation from non-living matter. Spiritual books answer these questions and offers simple explanations.

51

oh cr@p!! its my turn for "an elder called and wants to arrange a shepherding call" thread. Moral support please.

by MissFit in

jw
friends

is coming and the elder wanted to set up a visit.

it's not like i wasn't warned.

there was a thread that talked about the push to call on inactive ones.. thanks to the heads up here, i knew the motive for the call.. i don't think i even know that eld.

adjusted knowledge

I think "moral support" is a cliche, so that is why it is acceptable. Written English grammar is hard to use correctly. I don't see the need to correct people's grammar in an informal writing environment. There are many people that English is their second or third language. I blame being a JW for my poor grammar, because I was taught we will all be speaking ancient Hebrew in the paradise. So why master English? :)

23

How many educated adults are being converted into the Jehovah's Witnesses nowadays?

by EdenOne in

jw
friends

the other day i was sitting in one of those meetings where the public talk was absolutely mind-dumbing.

by minute 5 i couldn't take it anymore paying further attention to what was being said, so my mind wandered.

i looked around to my own kh and started to notice something.

adjusted knowledge

I stopped by to see my mother who was attending the one day assembly. They had their usual youth experiences going on the stage. You know where the young publishers tell how they gave up worldly goals to pioneer. Anyways this young attractive Spanish girl, perhaps 19-20 was giving her experience of pioneering and avoiding the pressure of outside influence in her spiritual development. I noticed in the assembly hall people nodding their heads and smiling. Then this young girl mentioned how she pioneers AND is taking courses at her community college to earn her AA degree. I literally heard a gasp from members around me. I understand their disappointment because how dare she only pioneer for just 100 hours, when she can obviously do 140.

They should be proud of this young woman and I at least feel she has a chance in life. With an AA degree she can easily bounce into a 4 year program of her choosing once she figures out that a career is needed to survive in this world. They also had a visiting brother from Bethel who represents the GB. He bashed on doing outside research but yet quotes Mark Twain. It is so hypocritical of the WT leaders to bash education but yet they will quote from Samuel Clemens who for the most part of his life was Anti-Religion, and they will quote from other educated men/women from all fields.

But to answer your question, I know of not one child in the congregation I left many years ago completing any college. I do know an elder from that congregation got his Law Degree. Which means he had to earn a BS/BA degree prior to the J.D. degree. So a total of SEVEN years of higher education. This is the same elder who condemn me for watching Brave Heart back in the 1990's. Yes, I watched my first R rated movie. I was such a big sinner.

115

Survey---who is inactive, disfellowshipped/disassociated or active?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i am inactive for about 10 years now..

adjusted knowledge

Inactive since 1996 (last time I submitted field service report). I attended meetings and assemblies sporatically till 2000. I haven't been to a memorial since 2000.

I faded in good standing.

7

Help with some questions on "new light"

by adjusted knowledge in

jw
friends

for a future conversation i will have with my mother i need some questions answered.

otherwise i will have to search and read through jw literature and i rather not :0. what was the teaching of 1919 during 1980's and 1990's (this is when i was active and my mother became a witness)?.

what is the current teaching of 1919?.

adjusted knowledge

For a future conversation I will have with my mother I need some questions answered. Otherwise I will have to search and read through JW literature and I rather not :0

What was the teaching of 1919 during 1980's and 1990's (this is when I was active and my mother became a witness)?

What is the current teaching of 1919?

What evidence or proof does the governing body used that they are choosen from God? Besides their referencing some scripture.

What are the major changes in beliefs from 1995 to Now? I already know about the scandals and not interested in using that material since she won't believe it. But showing her doctrinal changes I think will have an impact.

I basically want to show my mother that the religion I was brought up in is not the same religion she belongs to now. That in fact if I refused to accept the new light and only believed what I was taught in 1980-1999 I would be disfellowship for apostasy.

Whoever is willing to answer this, if you could maybe list watchtower references it would help. My mother has an entire library of the bound volumes.

42

Did anyone in the congregation discourage you from going to college?

by Trapped in JW land in

i remember being out on service with an elder when i was 17. he asked me what i plan on doing after high school.

i told him i was thinking of going to college to be a teacher.

he then asked me, "do you think this system is going to be around that long"?

adjusted knowledge

I had a few that would discourage my attending college. I did early admission to a junior college in my senior year of high school. I explained to those in the kingdom hall I had to finish the next two semesters or I wouldn't graduate high school. Then when I pursued my AA and BS I simply moved away and faded. The congregation I attended was fairly easy going with only a few fanaticals.

5

Governing Body has a system in place to cash in?

by adjusted knowledge in

jw
friends

so i recently attended a few meetings in the last 30 days.

i've not been in over a decade.

as posted in an earlier topic, i still have a few family members in.

adjusted knowledge

So I recently attended a few meetings in the last 30 days. I've not been in over a decade. As posted in an earlier topic, I still have a few family members in. I was visiting family members and during vacation went to a few meetings.

At one Sunday public talk the visiting Elder was talking about the importance of attending every meeting. He stated that important communication could be delivered from the Governing Body BEFORE the Great Tribulation occurs. This was the same message I heard over and over again in the 80's and 90's. Often time it would be followed up with examples in the bible of those who lost their lives for not following direction. On other occassions the Talks would speak of how perhaps special direction of hiding will be given and we may miss out because of not attending meetings.

I never gave it much thought even in my youth. Even before I learned TTAT, the scared tactics didn't work on me. I just thought these talks were used to get meeting attendance up. However, now I think this could be used as a tool to "cash in". Perhaps, this topic has been spoke of in the past and I'm just coming to the same conclusion many of you already had. But think about this, if the Governing Body wanted to "cash in" they could send the direction to sell off all real estate and collect tax free.

The most valuable asset the GB has is real estate. This is true with most traditional companies. Think McDondalds is in the burger business? Nope they are in the commercial real estate business. Poorly run companies such as Sears and Kmart are able to last decades, because of the selling off of real estate, while the top managers pocket the money.

I'm not stating the current GB will do this but they do leave the door open for this to happen in the future. I'm sure most rank and file JW would not question the direction and in fact would be thrilled that finally the big A is on the way. All it would take is a big event (war, major natural disaster, ect..) for the GB to use.

Or maybe I'm way off.. If this has been talked about just pm a link...

53

Describe What a Jehovah's Witness Elder Is Like

by minimus in

jw
friends

i know what they are supposed to be like.

but at this point in time, do you think the elders look joyful?

are they serious bible students?

adjusted knowledge

My experiences with Elders is much different than what is posted here. True it has been many years since I've been an active witness, but while I was active, the elders in my congregation did care. Yes, they were hypocrites at times when it came to their family, but overall decent men. I would over look their flaws, mostly because I felt sorry for them. The actions of the Elders didn't impact my attitude to the religion. The bible is full of examples that God considered holy men that were killers of women and children. It is the teachings of the prophecies by the GB, and to be honest if they were to get just one right I might believe.

35

How Do You Come to Terms with Being Just One of the 7 Billion?

by will-be-apostate in

jw
friends

being a jw makes one feel special, no doubt.

when i found out ttatt i realized i'm not special at all.

i'm just one of the other 7 billion human beings who will live and die being nobody, the world will forget about them (and i'm not talking about relatives and friend), they didn't make anything special in their life, they didn't change the course of history, were not famous nor rich, didn't invent facebook, google or anything awesome, didn't have an article published in newscientist, had no imdb profil, not even a wiki page, didn't write a book etc.

adjusted knowledge

I know what you mean about feeling special because how we were taught. We were taught that God knew the name of every star and so each of us were special in his eye. Even before I left the organization I no longer had that feeling of being special. The trigger was when I saw the images of the Catacombs of Paris. There were walls as far as the eye can see of human skulls stacked upon each other. I learned latter there were millions of remains down there. Looking at those skulls and thinking each one was unique at one point in existence but long forgotten. The bible may condemn, "Let's eat, drink, and marry for tommorrow we shall die"; but can you really blame people for this attitude.