Posts by OneEyedJoe

34

How far will they go?

by careful in

i've been drawing back lately and looking at the big picture going on in the org, somewhat like slimboyfat has also been doing, but i am wondering about different possibilities.

so the current gb has modernized recently in various ways.

they have done a strong and sudden about-face regarding the electronic world, from viewing the whole thing suspiciously and condemning bros. use tablets from the platform to suddenly embracing them and causing the r&f to do so to such a degree that old ones are spending hundreds of dollars to buy devices that they have no clue how to use; they have heavily embraced this media for their message, very much like the churches have been doing for years, especially with their jw broadcasting and their caleb and sophia animations.

OneEyedJoe

My question would be - how does allowing facial hair or being more flexible on dress help them? The modernization helps them by implementing new forms of indoctrination or cost cutting measures, but I don't see how becoming more flexible on other things really helps them directly. Perhaps a case could be made that they might think that the dress/grooming restriction is limiting new membership, but I sincerely doubt that is the case. None of the changes they've made have relaxed their control for no real gain.

I hope they do relax the dress/grooming restrictions, though, because that would be a big step towards the eventual dissolution of the cult, the way I see it. Those controls are a big part of the BITE model that they use to keep members indoctrinated, so if they were to relax things it might allow a few more to wake up and leave. With AMIII at the helm, though, it seems wildly unlikely that will happen.

Changes I see as being more likely is further downsizing, consolidation of KHs and congregations, and further cost cutting measures. Maybe something like allowing online preaching to count so that they can puff up their stats. Things that reduce their costs or liquidate assets are probably going to be the biggest and most likely changes we'll see, IMO.

38

To me this seams like more than a coincidence ...

by Greybeard in

jw
friends

sorry if this has been discussed before.... for a few days now, this question has been going through my mind.

what was the date the governing body took the sole role of the faithful and discreet slave and how close was it to the end of the mayan calendar in december of 2012?

i looked it up on jwfactes.com and sure enough, checkout the date on this article:.

OneEyedJoe

Sorry if this has been discussed before...

I think you're probably safe. There's not too many people that would make this particular assertion.

Furthermore, I don't think it even qualifies as a coincidence. The most popular date for the "end" (which it wasn't, really) of the mayan calendar is Dec. 21 2012, so I don't see how that very specific date relates to something that happened a month and a half prior. In addition to this, if you'd bothered to follow the link referenced on the jwfacts site you would've seen that the date refers not to when this change occurred but to when the article summarizing the annual meeting was published online. The change became official JW doctrine when it was announced at the annual meeting in October. So one event happened nearly 3 months prior to the other.

Given that nothing actually happened on Dec. 21 2012 makes your assertion of some connection all the more irrelevant.

I don't know why I'm bothering with this. I just always find it profoundly irritating when people try to make something out of nothing like this.

23

Evolution is a Fact #2 - DNA Functional Redundancy

by cofty in

in the first thread in this series we looked at how the same protein molecule can be assembled by many different sequences of amino acids.. we took the example of cytochrome c and saw that there are many times more possible sequences than atoms in the known universe.

however the sequences in humans and chimps are identical, and as we look at species less closely related to us by evolution the more differences we find.

this is very compelling evidence for common ancestry.. in this post we are going to look more closely at the dna code behind those amino acid sequences.. the "language" of dna is made up of just 4 "letters" - a,c,g and t.. sequences of letters are read off in groups of 3 called codons.. acggcctcgaatgccttc would be read as acg gcc tcg aat gcc ttc.

OneEyedJoe

Thanks cofty. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't making things up, and it seemed my google-fu was off last night.

23

Evolution is a Fact #2 - DNA Functional Redundancy

by cofty in

in the first thread in this series we looked at how the same protein molecule can be assembled by many different sequences of amino acids.. we took the example of cytochrome c and saw that there are many times more possible sequences than atoms in the known universe.

however the sequences in humans and chimps are identical, and as we look at species less closely related to us by evolution the more differences we find.

this is very compelling evidence for common ancestry.. in this post we are going to look more closely at the dna code behind those amino acid sequences.. the "language" of dna is made up of just 4 "letters" - a,c,g and t.. sequences of letters are read off in groups of 3 called codons.. acggcctcgaatgccttc would be read as acg gcc tcg aat gcc ttc.

OneEyedJoe

Cofty - in your post you say "if you want to make the amino acid [...]" - I always thought the codons told the enzyme that builds the proteins which amino acids to select - not how to build the amino acids themselves. Maybe a combination?

23

Non JW friends don't understand

by kozmo in

jw
friends

it never ceases to amaze me that your personal friends have no clue what it is like to have been one.

i was speaking with a friend the other day about having been a jw.

she said, oh i have a dear friend of 30 years who is one and she is so nice!

OneEyedJoe

I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at, but I'll agree that most never-a-JW people (short of those that have left a similar cult) have absolutely no conception of what its like. On the other hand, though, I've found that the friends I'm making outside the cult since leaving have been genuinely interested in me and have made a pretty good effort to understand. So while they won't get it right away, the ones that will be really good, close friends will certainly come to understand.

6

The revolting morality underpinning martyrdom.

by Island Man in

the three hebrew boys chose death over bowing down to lifeless idols.

early christians refused to sacrifice to the emperor's genious.

jws in nazi germany refused to sign a document that will result in their release or spare them from execution.

OneEyedJoe

Well said. I like the analogies you used - that really gets to the point. It seems that the only conclusion you can come to when examining the evidence is that god does not love mankind, he only loves himself. He doesn't care about our suffering and simply wants more people to worship him. That's why martyrdom is important - if people worshiped privately and silently then they would not spread their religion and that's the real goal.

I'm glad that asshole doesn't actually exist.

30

Why I like the Mormons and why they are so much nicer then the JWs.

by new boy in

jw
friends

i never really knew any until recently.

as a witness we all thought they were weird.

but the two faiths are a lot alike, except the mormons are really so much nicer than the jws!.

OneEyedJoe

#3 and 4 aren't always true. They're not as bad about shining family as JWs are, but it does happen. They're maybe not quite as bad as JWs but they're still a harmful cult.

76

What is your relationship with ALCOHOL?

by nicolaou in

here in the uk new drinking guidelines have been issued which suggest "no more than 14 units a week - equivalent to six pints of beer or seven glasses of wine.".

another piece of the advice which is getting a lot of attention is that "if people drink, it should be moderately over three or more days and that some days should be alcohol-free.".

already people are making cries of "nanny state!

OneEyedJoe

I very frequently have alcohol free days. Nights, on the other hand...

64

"Apostates " how honest are we?

by closed in

as i mentioned in another post i used to serve as an elder for 2 decades.

i was involved in a number of jc.

some i dealt with are good friends now.

OneEyedJoe

There's good and bad in any arbitrarily defined group of people. Try not to define the whole by the actions of one or two. Furthermore, the trauma of living as a JW and then being DFed (vs waking up while still in and leaving after, which is traumatic in itself) is enough to make some people go off the rails in their anger at what has been unjustly done to them. Is it right? Probably not. Are they acting angry/bitter just as the WT says they are? Probably. Is there a completely justified reason for them to be angry/bitter? Absolutely yes.

One of the bigger realizations that allowed me to wake up was seeing that even if apostates are angry/bitter and that drives some of their more objectionable behavior (latching on to false rumors about the organization, protesting at conventions, being insulting to believing JWs, etc) that maybe they're justifiably angry. Maybe they are bitter apostates, but if what they say is true (i.e. the cult has systematically lied to us to our detriment) then I should be one too.

9

Stories of "Miracles"

by cappytan in

jw
friends

so, all of us have probably heard a lot of urban miracle legends over the years in the org.here's one from outside the org.years ago, i worked with this lady.

she was my supervisor.

we liked having discussions on god and the bible.

OneEyedJoe

I was once told by a "brother" how jehovah had protected him from a dog attack. He was going up to a house but didn't notice the pit bull sitting on the porch. The dog charges at him full speed and he cries out to jehovah and suddenly its like the dog hit a wall and fell down and sulked back to the porch before he ran away.

Even as a believing JW I was pretty sure that this was a case of someone with a fear of dogs (confirmed) failing to notice that the dog was chained to the porch. He was terrified of dogs so he didn't notice minor details and didn't stick around to realize that it wasn't, as he claimed, an invisible angel that stepped between him and the dog, but a perfectly ordinary dog chain.