Posts by OneEyedJoe

29

"So you are an atheist. So would you kill me if it were to your advantage?"

by OnTheWayOut in

jw
friends

i worked a different shift.

i knew the people i worked with, but not as well as i could have.. anyway, religion comes up.

one guy mentions in front of another that i wrote a book about my religious experience.

OneEyedJoe

So he can do just whatever the hell he wants to and Jesus will forgive him, but you're the one without morals? I just don't even know what to do with someone who couldn't see the irony there. It sounds like his definition of morality is just to feel guilty about the stuff you do, not actually bother to be a decent person. Anyone that takes a course of action with the expectation that they'll be forgiven for it is about the bottom of the barrel as far as morality goes.

If you think about it, it makes perfect sense that an atheist (at least a thinking atheist, not necessarily those that are atheist by convenience) would be more moral than a theist - atheists have no expectation in some sky daddy that'll come along and make things right, so we need to try to get it right ourselves. Theists assume that if they make a mess of things because it's easier/fun sky daddy will come in and fix it and forgive them.

36

"Be Kind to the Fornicators in the Congregation!" -- New August Watchtower

by FusionTheism in

have you noticed the article entitled "watch your associations in these last days" in the new august 2015 study watchtower?.

unless i'm reading it wrong, or somehow misinterpreting it, it is saying that we should be kind to intentional breakers of god's laws inside and outside the congregation, including fornicators, but that we must not be close associates with them.. are they already preparing for a shift in their disfellowshipping practices?.

here are the relevant paragraphs:.

OneEyedJoe

This is probably more in the line of marking and I doubt it will have any impact on DFing. This will probably be taken to reinforce the informal shunning of people that aren't showing up at meetings and such. DFing is such a central part of the cult's information control that I don't see it ever going away.

9

John Carpenter's "THEY LIVE!"

by cappytan in

jw
friends

so i'm catching up on r rated movies that i missed when i was younger.

"they live!

" was on the el rey network the other day so decided to watch it.. it was kind of eerie watching this being a fader.. here's a guy living under a controlling regime of elites and only he can see the control measures for what they are.

OneEyedJoe

Great movie. And the 'I'm here to chew bubblegum and kick ass and km all out of gum' line is just classic. Actually watched it with the wife a couple years ago, and of course the parallels were lost on me at the time.

31

Something terrible has just happened

by Crazyguy in

jw
friends

the neighbor child came over to play with my youngest child.

i think she's about 4 maybe 5. well anyway there was some strawberries out on the counter and she asked if she could have one and i said no.

when i looked over later i saw her sneak one.

OneEyedJoe

That was a great laugh. Thanks for that.

34

Are J.W.'s as Gullible as the Org's Writings Imply?

by The Searcher in

the latest watchtower certainly indicates that the org thinks they are!!

why keep in expectation?

watchtower august 15 par.

OneEyedJoe

They're not necessarily gullible, generally speaking but they force themselves to be gullible when the WTS speaks because the cost of examining things objectively is too high.

41

Paradise is going to suck!

by WasOnceBlind in

once you really start thinking about it, the whole paradise idea is kind of depressing.

i remember growing up as kids my sister was the first to tell my parents (admittedly very courageously) that she wasn't sure she wanted to live in paradise, it sounded boring living forever.

i thought she was dumb for thinking that, i mean playing with lions!!!!

OneEyedJoe

Yep. Trying to reconcile the fact that most of the things that I enjoy doing create some form of pollution or involve eating animals, etc with the promise that we'd be happy in paradise often left me wondering just how lobotomized I'd have to be to live in paradise. I could never look forward to paradise and imagine myself there because it would've just been a shell of a person, not someone that I can see as being "me."

10

I Felt Proud Telling People That Michael Jackson Was Raised a JW

by Tempest in a Teacup in

jw
friends

i just remembered this thing this morning:.

sharing the same faith with the king of pop made me feel important for belonging to this religion, even if he was never baptised.

we were not in america or anywhere close by.

OneEyedJoe

I was always embarrassed when someone name-dropped him or prince to a study or call. In my mind the truth should have been able to stand on its own without having to resort to "well so-and-so believes it so you should to" type arguments. Plus it seemed like a bad idea putting all your chips on one famous person that's liable to become a drug addict or something - and in the case of MJ it seems I was right.

59

On the subject of Child Baptism - Video

by cappytan in

so, the latest "kids" kingdom melody video is out.. here are some screenshots:.

.

yep, that's right, they showed a kid with a teddy bear getting baptized.. here's the video in full for documentation, if you can stomach it.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ellrtyj_maq.

OneEyedJoe

OrphanCrow -

The difference between then and now is that prior to 1980, or thereabouts, someone could disassociate themselves without the enforced shunning that someone today would experience in those circumstances. Plus world conditions probably made it seem considerably more reasonable to make that particular bet and get baptized, with WWI a recent memory and WWII starting in 1939.

Today, world conditions are better than ever and armageddon is clearly nowhere near the horizon. Meanwhile, the punishment for changing your mind is much harsher. This time it's clear that the motivation is 100% control, not some altruistic desire to see these children survive the wrath of the desert god.

13

Will they jump of the building?

by John Aquila in

during the depression people committed suicide because everything they had invested in was gone overnight in an instant.

many people are very fragile creatures.

if by some freaking chance, (like enron, tiger woods, or the morning of august 1945 in hiroshima) the wts gets caught in a humongous scandal, say like links to human sex trafficking, (i can fantasize right) and the government steps in to investigate and finds them guilty and legally shuts them down permanently, will there be tons of suicides?

OneEyedJoe

I think the persecution complex is built up enough that quite a few would only redouble their efforts to remain loyal to the cult if the government tried to shut them down. If, on the other hand, some freak natural disaster (an asteroid strikes the new cult compound right after completion and kills the entire GB and most of the higher-ups - now who's fantasizing?) I think there could be something like what you're talking about.

There's been too much preparing (even the recent "gog of magog" change) for a government to try to shut them down that I think it might actually have the opposite effect and pull in a lot of the fence-sitters and doubters.

5

Trolley Witnessing Saves Money?

by TTATTelder in

i was just wondering, do you think the trolley cart stationary witnessing is to slow down the literature distribution at not-at-homes?.

it basically traps several shifts of pioneers to a cart or table and keeps the placement count way down compared to leaving something at every door in a neighborhood.. is money the main motivation here?

(besides staged facebook pics lol).

OneEyedJoe

I don't see why money would be the main motivator. They're constantly pushing their stats on everyone, and one of those is placements and distribution numbers, so I don't think they're really motivated to place less literature. Perhaps they want to place literature more efficiently (i.e. only people who want it enough to walk by and take it, not just getting rid of the cultists on their stoop) which is a reasonable goal.

In the end, I agree with Driving Force - it's an act of desperation. They'll try anything at this point.