OneEyedJoe

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Posts by OneEyedJoe

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  22

  Swearing on the bible

  by Lost and adrift in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  on the subject of truth.

  ..... i was always under the impression that one of the reasons jws couldn't do jury duty or go to court etc was that we were not allowed to swear on the bible.

  ..as in i swear to tell the truth the whole truth etc etc .

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  OneEyedJoe

  I don't think I ever heard of a problem with swearing on the bible. If there isn't anything in JWdom advising against it, it would still be one of those things that I can see JWs getting worried about, thinking they might've missed that rule of whatever.
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  39

  How do you feel about the expression "The Truth"?

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it's amazing how the expression "the truth" has become such an ingrained term used by witnesses.. "we have 'the truth'".

  "is he 'in the truth'?".

  most here have found out so many facts about the organisation, and felt the effects of being "gut-punched" as we realised these facts.. so how do you feel about the expression "the truth" now?.

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  OneEyedJoe

  The term "the truth" in JWism may be a carryover from Freemasonary. Though with the Masons it is the pursuit of truth, not that they are in "the truth" as the JWs define their religion.
  

  From what I've read on this forum, the use of "the truth" or "in the truth" started in the 40s or 50s. By that point the JWs were pretty distinct from any potential freemason influences. My theory is that this is just a meme - an idea that someone had up top because it worked for Jesus ("I am the way, the truth and the life") and it stuck because it was helpful at keeping people indoctrinated and separate from other people. Probably a pretty similar process to what develops most of the loaded language in JWism (and other cults).

  Personally, the term makes me sick to hear it used in reference to the cult. I haven't used it since I woke up, and I think going back to exclusively using the JW loaded language words as they're used by the normal populous is a very useful part of cleaning out lingering indoctrination and any reservations/doubts one might have about leaving. It's a very unconscious part of their control, and it's difficult not to be influenced by it. As Steve Hassan said, words are the tools we use to think. If, upon leaving the cult, you continue to use the loaded language of the cult, your thinking will still be influenced by your past indoctrination.
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  14

  Whatever happened to the Lopez case?

  by StarTrekAngel in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  was it settled?

  is it still pending further appeal?

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  OneEyedJoe

  Was Lopez molested while in field service, or a similar activity? If so, was the congregation negligent in letting him be alone with a known pedophile? If so, then he wins the case hands down I'd think, based upon the precedent set by Conti.
  

  As I recall only his mother was a JW and as such was considered a "fatherless boy" and his molester was assigned to study with him and generally look out for his "spiritual well-being." They put his abuser in a position of trust, so it really doesn't matter where specifically the abuse occurred.
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  38

  Most Poorly Written JW Book

  by JW_Rogue in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  so i was thinking the other day that the wt corp has produced thousands of books over the years.

  although the writers have changed the style is almost always the same.

  however, some books are just worse than others.

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  OneEyedJoe

  My picks, just based on the ones that I remember, not including things from before my time:

  Award for most ridiculous doctrine and prophecy interpretation: Revalation book

  Award for most poorly researched/intentionally misleading: Creation book (I now call it the evolution book because I firmly believe that anyone who reads it and the sources they use and thinks critically on the information will have no choice but to accept evolution)

  Award for most likely to have been written by an illiterate teenager: Whatever the latest release is. Their quality of writing has been declining steadily over the years, so I have no doubt that they have and will continue to top themselves each year.
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  10

  JW.org inaccessible

  by Watchtower-Free in

  1. social
  2. humour

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  OneEyedJoe

  Why?
  

  Last year it was even worse - it wasn't accessible on the 29th either. They're doing better this year but something tells me that next year it'll be the same as the last 3 years.
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  11

  Are you related to me?

  by Coded Logic in

  1. social
  2. current

  the chances that anyone on this forum is my biological brother or sister, purely from a statistical point of view, is rather low.

  but how many generations back would we have to go to have a fair chance that one of my ancestors married one of your ancestors (or procreated anyway)?.

  i was born in 1985. less than 20 years before my birth my two parents were being conceived by a combined 4 parents of their own.. and if we go back even further, to 40 years before my birth, then i'll find an additional 8 ancestors.. around the 60 year mark i have another 16 ancestors.

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  OneEyedJoe

  While it's correct to say that we're all related, your math ought to account for the fact that no one's family tree is completely free from looping back around on itself when you go back that far. If it where then going back far enough would yield more ancestors than the human population of the time.

  Edit: I just looked at the article you linked and that was one of the first points made....my bad.
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  65

  How do I handle this situation?

  by BarelyThere in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey everyone.

  i'm sorry that this isn't a very thought provoking post but i could really use some advice on how to handle this.

  there isn't anyone else in my life i can ask right now because, being dfed, all of my friends are "worldly" and don't know how witnesses function.

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  OneEyedJoe

  I was never an elder so I could be wrong, but something tells me that the typical BOE might not look so kindly upon you reporting this "exemplary" MS. You, are DFed (and are not to be mourned and are to be viewed as having been killed by Jehovah, according to a recent WT study) and you're a lowly weaker vessel. Making a choice between you and one of their own isn't going to be difficult for them. Once they decide that your information isn't worth acting on they'll then have to sort out a punishment for you for bringing it to them in the first place. It might not be a conscious decision to punish you for it, but given the paranoid nature of the cult I wouldn't be surprised if they "circle the wagons" and make sure you don't get reinstated because you now are seen as having a tendency to try to "cause divisions" or slander men in authority. You've absolutely got the deck stacked against you here.

  Whether you move to a different congregation or not, I have no idea. Maybe someone who's an elder can give you some advice there as to whether there's any time penalty for getting reinstated in another congregation. If not, you'd probably have a better chance of getting reinstated if you can win over elders that don't know you and are starting fresh and get them to recommend you for reinstatement vs trying to win over elders that already have a bad opinion of you.
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  64

  Would a loving creator give humans the gift of free will?

  by Heisenberg in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  they say ignorance is bliss... well, i wish that god did not give adam free will.

  i am ok to not have free will if it means i will live forever in perfect paradisiac conditions.it has been explained that free will is a gift from god.

  they say 'who would want to live life like a robot?

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  OneEyedJoe

  There's a fair amount of evidence that we don't actually have free will. Our brains are complex, chaotic system in which small changes can drastically alter outcomes, which makes us somewhat unpredictable and gives us the appearance of free will. So my question would be: Would a loving god withhold free will, then tell us we have free will and punish us for our mistakes in spite of not having free will to avoid them?
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  6

  How and Why?

  by The Rebel in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  a recent thread i read about bethel " sending an old man packing" has bought to my attention it's one of many threads that show the most " loving" organisation in the world is cold and without love.. how can an organisation that is so unloving, have so many kind hearted people as members?.

  this is the sincere question that i have not found an answer to.. the rebel..

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  OneEyedJoe

  Because kind-hearted, honest people imagine others to be similarly kind-hearted and honest. So when an organization claims to be the most loving in the world and the "truth" they can't fathom that people could be so corrupt and dishonest and unloving as the cult truly is. So they remain trapped. And still more kind-hearted honest people see the ones that are trapped and think "surely these kind-hearted honest people wouldn't allow themselves to be associated with a unloving lying cult" and they become trapped too.
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  31

  Evolution is a Fact #5 - Vitamin C

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  part 1 - protein functional redundancypart 2 - dna functional redundancypart 3 - ervspart 4 - smelly genes.

  in part 4 we saw that roughly half of the 800 genes in the human genome that code for olfactory receptors are broken remnants of our evolutionary history.

  they were vital to our distant ancestors but in humans, as in our primate cousins they have been allowed to fall into disuse as our eyes became more important to our survival than our nose.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Ease off, clambake. This is all really basic stuff regarding evolution that Cofty is taking time out of his day to organize and post in a thoughtful way for those that are interested. He makes no claim to be furthering evolutionary research and he makes no claim to have special qualifications aside from having done his own research on the matter.

  Has any of what you are spewing been peer reviewed?
  

  Yes, all of what he's been posting has been, because it's all very well understood and accepted fact in the field of evolutionary biology.