Posts by OneEyedJoe

18

their beliefs and practice's don't tally- tonights book study

by purrpurr in

tonights book study in part is about jesus throwing out the merchants and money lenders in the temple... how do they manage to tally that up with asking for funds for all their various projects?

it seems hardly a meeting goes by without some kind of money plea?

don't they realise that they are doing the same thing that jesus got so angry about and threw out of the temple?

OneEyedJoe

I'm ok with the money part as they can't force us to give. The part which got to me was paragraph 8 onwards about man-made rules

Particularly the part about how the religious leaders of the day demonized non-jews and encouraged predjudice against them. I was sitting there thinking "is anyone else hearing/reading this?" How is the frequent encouragement to limit your association with non-JWs (often followed with condemnation of their acceptance of homosexuality, casual dating, premarital sex, etc) any different from this?

59

My Relief

by Smart in

what a massive relief!

thank god i have just found this site the other day!

i don't know where to begin!

OneEyedJoe

Welcome! We'd all love to hear your story.

You've happened upon a great forum with a lot of different personalities, you're sure to find many here that you relate to (and probably more than a few you'll clash with, but that's OK)

Glad to have you!

24

Show this to the young ones in the congregation

by EdenOne in

hopefully it will make them think.. .

.

eden.

OneEyedJoe

It really pisses me off that the WT library starts at 1970 for awakes because of this quote.

44

Find What Your Social Status Was in the Congregation

by Mary in

jw
friends

ever notice how the "happiest people on earth" are also the most class-oriented?

the social structure in the congregation is more complex than the blueprints of a nuclear warhead, but just so that you "remember your place", see if you can find where your niche was/is:.

1. at the top of the social order of things within the congregation is of course, the presiding overseer and his family.

OneEyedJoe

I'm a 5/8 but my current goal is to work my way to a 7 .

5

No Heaven For God

by Coded Logic in

imagine, for a moment, that you are the christian god.

and you have been around since before time began.

what would it be like to never be able to learn anything .

OneEyedJoe

If such a being existed, i suspect that much of it's behavior would resemble that of a spoiled petulant child. I guess that would explain a fair portion of the OT.

36

Pope says Big bang and Evolution are correct !

by Phizzy in

from the u.k independent newspaper :.

" the theories of evolution and the big bang are real and god is not a magician with a magic wand, pope francis has declared.. speaking at the pontifical academy of sciences, the pope made comments which experts said put an end to the pseudo theories of creationism and intelligent design that some argue were encouraged by his predecessor, benedict xvi.. francis explained that both scientific theories were not incompatible with the existence of a creator arguing instead that they require it.. when we read about creation in genesis, we run the risk of imagining god was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything.

but that is not so, francis said.. he added: he created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfilment.. the big bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it.. evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.. the catholic church has long had a reputation for being anti-science most famously when galileo faced the inquisition and was forced to retract his heretic theory that the earth revolved around the sun.. but pope franciss comments were more in keeping with the progressive work of pope pius xii, who opened the door to the idea of evolution and actively welcomed the big bang theory.

OneEyedJoe

All good questions theredeamer. I'd add: If evolution is real, in what sense could it be said that we were "made in god's image?" I don't know what typical christian doctrine is on this point but the JW assessment that we have essentially the same emotional traits (most notably, love) seems like a reasonable interpretation of this verse.

If evolution is true, we evolved from single-cellular life, which certainly could not be said to have been made in god's image. So, all traits that we possess that are a reflection of god would've come about through an unguided process.* What does that say about the one in whom's image we were supposedly made? That seems irreconcilable.

* if you want to assert that evolution was a guided process, you've got an uphill battle against all manner of things like male nipples, eyes that were origonally better suited for seeing underwater, the appendix, our broken vitamin C gene, etc, etc. There's too many "mistakes" in our makeup for it to be possible that our evolution was guided by some perfect, omniscient, omnibenevolent being.

36

Pope says Big bang and Evolution are correct !

by Phizzy in

from the u.k independent newspaper :.

" the theories of evolution and the big bang are real and god is not a magician with a magic wand, pope francis has declared.. speaking at the pontifical academy of sciences, the pope made comments which experts said put an end to the pseudo theories of creationism and intelligent design that some argue were encouraged by his predecessor, benedict xvi.. francis explained that both scientific theories were not incompatible with the existence of a creator arguing instead that they require it.. when we read about creation in genesis, we run the risk of imagining god was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything.

but that is not so, francis said.. he added: he created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfilment.. the big bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it.. evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.. the catholic church has long had a reputation for being anti-science most famously when galileo faced the inquisition and was forced to retract his heretic theory that the earth revolved around the sun.. but pope franciss comments were more in keeping with the progressive work of pope pius xii, who opened the door to the idea of evolution and actively welcomed the big bang theory.

OneEyedJoe

Vidiot - you're right, there's no way they could change the stance on evolution without a major overhaul in doctrine. They could probably do it, but they'd definitely lose a few donating members in the process.

I remember a while back I hear a public talk about evolution. The entire thing was basically just an appeal to consequence - If you believe in evolution, then you can't possibly believe in christianity, therefore evolution is false. At the time I wasn't awake to TTATT, but I had sorta figured that evolution must be true (and everything the WTS printed on the topic was riddled with holes). The brother giving the talk was by far the most intelligent one in the congregation, so I got rather excited - part of me hoped he'd finally point to some irrefutable evidence contradicting evolution and I'd be able to shed the lingering doubts that I'd had for years. Needless to say things worked out a little differently.

Sure, creation and evolution aren't mutually exclusive, but it seems to me that the JWs have one thing right in that christianity without adam and eve essentially just becomes a nice feeling because your imaginary friend loves you and tells you there's life after death.

That said, I do like the current pope. The way things are going he'll soon be advocating for condoms and doggie-style.

13

What will cause 1,000 year rebellion in Paradise....veggie diet..constant kingdom songs!

by Witness 007 in

imagine you somehow got ressurected in paradise.

oh hell no nooooo!

life is one long convention.

OneEyedJoe

Yeah, I was always a little wary of living forever in paradise. So many of the things that I enjoy doing would probably be forbidden or impossible in the JW idea of paradise. When they'd say things like "no matter what it's like, we know that we'll all be happy" to my ear it sounded like we'd all be lobotomized to the point that "learning about Jehovah" for eternity would somehow be enjoyable.

13

A question that bugging me

by wheelwithinwheel in

jw
friends

why it has been deemed appropriate to assign brothers and sisters in each international convention city to spend hours and hours making souvenir grab bags full of knick-knacks.

and to assign other brothers and sisters to spend hours and hours preparing choreography, music, lighting, costumes and props, and practicing and practicing cowboy songs, pop music, dance and jw.org skits.. .

and to assign other brothers and sisters to spend hours and hours constructing giant bibles popping out of jw.org boxes and giant bibles turning into baptismal pools.. .

OneEyedJoe

there was an article on jwsurvey about this very inconsistency. It's clearly hypocritical of them, but the reason is clear - international delegates pay a premium to the WTS to go to these things, so they have to make sure that they're entertained. Since serve-us is just to keep the r/f busy anyway, they see no problem with redirecting them to helping them make money in a more direct way since it'll still keep them busy.

19

Social media strategy to expose JW molestation issues

by JimmyPage in

jw
friends

there are a lot of jws who will never hear about the molestation issues the wt has because all their friends on social media are fellow cult members.. what i'm going to attempt is to create a profile for an alter ego.

it will have a profile pic and banner that says "jw.org" or some other pro-jw nonsense.. then i will attempt to befriend a jw.

when one bites and accepts me the others will fall like dominoes and also accept my friendship.. at first i will post pro-jw things that will get me "likes", subscribers, and promotions in their news feed.. then i will lower the boom by posting the recent news video from the texas molestation story.

OneEyedJoe

If it's to work, you'll have to be somewhat subtle. I'd say posting one article (like a link to fox news where they talk about the texas 6) accompanied by something like "I don't understand how something like this could happen." If you just post up a dozen links on every court case out there, alarm bells will go off. If they think they're helping a fellow JW deal with something, they're more likely to be strung along a little longer. Asking questions (or implied questions in the case I gave) is the best way of getting someone to think. Just asserting that something is true can easily be resisted (unless it comes from god the governing body) but if you ask a question and you get it to where they actually want to help you find the answer, they'll devote some mental resource to it and a seed might be planted.