Posts by OneEyedJoe

7

Brilliant! I want to be a Pastafarian

by notsurewheretogo in

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pastafarian-man-niko-alm-wins-right-to-wear-colander-on-his-head-in-driving-license-photo-9610859.html.

.. .. an austrian man has won the right to wear a plastic colander on his head in his driving license photo, by apparently insisting that the kitchenware was a part of his religion.. niko alm decided to wear a pasta strainer on the document after he read that headwear is only allowed on official documentation, such as driving licenses, on religious grounds.. he submitted his application to wear the pasta strainer three years ago, citing he was a pastafarian the name given to a member of the church of the flying spaghetti monster.. the us-based parody-religion made headlines last month, when guy albon, a member from adelaide, used a photo of him wearing a metal colander on his gun license photo.

officials feared the photo suggested he did not have the mental competency to hold the license.. on its website, the leaders of the religion claim to have existed in secrecy for hundreds of years and claim to have atheists, agnostics, christians, muslims and hindus among their members.. niko alm who won the right to wear a colander on his head in his driving licence niko alm who won the right to wear a colander on his head in his driving licence following the confirmation, mr alm wrote on his blog: my headwear has now been recognised by the republic of austria.. however, a police spokesperson in vienna said: the photo was not approved on religious grounds.

OneEyedJoe

Let us all pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that we, too, may be touched by His noodley appendage!

22

Drama friday 2014 DC

by inbetween in

anyone seen the drama on friday ?.

it was about a pioneer couple, when the husband, also an elder, lost his job, and borrowed money from a fellwo elder, who apparently was considered weatlthy.. the main lesson of the drama was quite ok, even though a bit overdone, touching on the issue of gossip and false assumptions.. but there were at least two subtle lessons, whitch were quite disturbing:.

1) no matter what happens, remain pioneering.

OneEyedJoe

When the bank guy decided to quit and begin pioneering, I thought, if this was reality, the pioneer would be panicking because now he has no one to mooch off of.

The main plot, though, was shamelessly stolen from every sit-com and after-school special ever. Joe loans bob money, bob doesn't pay it back right away. Joe learns that bob bought something frivolous and gets angry. Finally, upon confronting bob, joe learns that the frivolous purchase wasn't as it seemed. Everyone's friends again.

Its like they're not even trying anymore.

24

Bizarro world conclusion to the 2014 International Convention Public Bible Discourse

by rory-ks in

jw
friends

it was entitled earth's new ruler - who really qualifies?

given by brother mark neumeyer*, "who has been a full-time servant for nearly 35 years, and is a helper of the governing body of jehovah's witnesses.

" it was his second talk of the convention.

OneEyedJoe

If I went to a convention because I got an invitation, and I heard the speaker say "we do not brainwash people" I'd be gone like a bat out of hell. Why would they feel the need to insist that they don't brainwash people? For that to make it in there, there would have to at least have been a fair amount of accusation that they do. Absent of that, the only reason to put it in there is if they know they do, and they want to address it head-on.

I think that the 'public discourse' is always really for the JWs, more than the few worldlies that happen to show up. It just takes comes at them from another angle...an excuse to remind them how terrible it is to be clueless in the world and not understand why bad things happen to good people, etc. It further alienates the outside world and allows the org to paint its own (misleading) picture of what the world is like.

13

Most absurd thing mentioned at District Convention, excuse me, Regional Convention

by Separation of Powers in

so, the round of "regional" conventions has been going on for a few months now.

for those that attended, or those that got transcripts of the parts,.

what was the most absurd thing you heard at yours?.

OneEyedJoe

Oh yeah, just remembered another gem delivered from the platform. Below is the exact quote, verbatim, with my additions to add context in brackets. My jaw about fell off when I heard this one, because I know it to be patently false.

"[The false doctrine and hypocrisy of] Christendom is the leading cause of atheism"

13

Most absurd thing mentioned at District Convention, excuse me, Regional Convention

by Separation of Powers in

so, the round of "regional" conventions has been going on for a few months now.

for those that attended, or those that got transcripts of the parts,.

what was the most absurd thing you heard at yours?.

OneEyedJoe

Yep, 100% of what I said was delivered from the stage. I didn't even have to embellish anything (though I did boil it down a bit) to make it more absurd either...it was pretty much presented as I said it, just with a bunch of fluff inserted everywhere so that it came at you a little slower. The bit with the kids talking about TNS, though, they didn't even try to soften the blow. This is pretty much verbatim how it went:

Kid 1: I want to have a house on the beach where I can go surfing every day!

Kid 2: I want to have a house in the mountains!

Kid 3 (aka voice of reason): Yeah but how do you know we'll be able to live where we want? Maybe we'll be assigned where to live. (when I heard that, I thought "wow, only a JW would think a perfect eternal life in paradise would include assigned housing")

Kid 2: Well the scriptures do say that Jehovah will satisfy the desires of every living thing, don't they? Well I desire a house in the mountains!

My next thought was, what about women who desire another kid in a couple thousand years when the earth's population is absolutely maxxed out? Guess they're out of luck. Good thing you got your house in the mountains early.

13

Most absurd thing mentioned at District Convention, excuse me, Regional Convention

by Separation of Powers in

so, the round of "regional" conventions has been going on for a few months now.

for those that attended, or those that got transcripts of the parts,.

what was the most absurd thing you heard at yours?.

OneEyedJoe

The overlapping generation is definitely the most absurd doctrine that they currently have on the books (at least the most absurd relative to its importance)

The entire 10 minute talk, along with a demonstration of a bunch of women talking about it, that they did on the admittedly pure conjecture that we'd all speak hebrew in the NS was pretty absurd too.

The demonstration/video (I was watching the monitors and cant remember if it was live or not) where a bunch of kids talked about the beach resort home that they'd definitely have in the NS (justified by scripture saying that god will satisfy all desires, and he desires a beach home) might have taken the cake for me.

The statement that they don't tickle their members ears with concerts etc in order to attract/retain members was pretty absurd since it was about an hour before a live action drama (and one that was advertized in the invitation, presumably to attract/retain members) that everyone always scrambles to their seats to see, since it's the most entertaining part of the 3 days of hell.

Really, i think it would be easier to discuss the parts that weren't absurd.

62

Roll call of those of us stuck in for our spouse or whos spouse is still in!

by BU2B in

jw
friends

i just wanted to get a feel for how many here have awakened to ttatt but are still carrying on some jw activities to pacify them and keep the peace.

also trying to hear from those who have left, but whose spouse has stayed in the wt and in the marriage.. for me it comes down to my own mental anguish.

i am mentally tortured by attending the meetings, yet i feel compelled to because my wife would kill me with her personality if i had her drag 2 small girls by herself there.

OneEyedJoe

BBB - I think the decision to DA or not needs to be a personal one. Everyone's case is different and you'll have to determine what you value most and work out the best way to get there. It could go either way. Currently my plan is to "innocently investigate" the religion sharing my findings along the way. At a certain point I'll decide to stop going, and I'll let my wife decide for herself. If talk comes up about DAing, I'll tell her that I'm prepared to DA if that's what she thinks is best, but I dont want to make things harder on her, and basically let her decide.

30

Would JWs Really Drink The Kool Aid?

by minimus in

jw
friends

if push came to shove and it was a showdown for loyalty to the organization or not following whatever decrees coming heir way, what percentage would remain loyal to the organization?

.

OneEyedJoe

According to a poll (with a pretty small sample set) on jwsurvey.org, something like half admitted in advance that they would drink the koolaid. Something tells me that the koolaid would be accompanied by some slick words to convince folks on the fence, so I suspect that it could be much higher than that. Especially when you consider that the ones answering questions on facebook aimed at JWs are probably already somewhat "spiritually weak" since they're disregarding the societies view on talking to people you don't know online.

Here's the link:

http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/would-you-take-the-pill-a-simple-facebook-test-has-shocking-results

62

Roll call of those of us stuck in for our spouse or whos spouse is still in!

by BU2B in

jw
friends

i just wanted to get a feel for how many here have awakened to ttatt but are still carrying on some jw activities to pacify them and keep the peace.

also trying to hear from those who have left, but whose spouse has stayed in the wt and in the marriage.. for me it comes down to my own mental anguish.

i am mentally tortured by attending the meetings, yet i feel compelled to because my wife would kill me with her personality if i had her drag 2 small girls by herself there.

OneEyedJoe

Yeah, I'm coming to a similar conclusion. The problem I'm having with my wife is that she has no confidence in her ability to think for herself. So if I present her with something that's clearly false doctrine, or something that's clearly a lie from the WTS, or whatever, she just says she must not understand it fully. She's in no way dumb, but she clearly thinks very little of herself. She turned out pretty well for being home-schooled through HS and having no education beyond that, but I think the biggest thing she lost was the oppurtunity to see that she's well above average in intelligence.

Now I'm thinking my strategy is to try and find things that I can "discover" innocently to make the case for losing faith in the WTS's decrees, ultimately allowing myself to view appostate websites with the motivation to "test everything" and then discover jwfacts in that path. At least she'll understand why I'm leaving and have greater difficulty ascribing improper motivation to my refusal to participate.

24

If the organization is all about money.....

by Pete Zahut in

then why would they be so insistent about dfing people ?

if it's money the watchtower org is after, it seems like they'd want to hold on to all the members they can.. how would you answer this logic?.

OneEyedJoe

It also helps that they frequently publish that the #1 cause of people getting DF'd is sexual imorality. So they DF people who are known fornicators, then they DF people who wake up to TTATT, and they give exactly the same announcement for both. The natural assumption to the R/F when a well-known intelligent member with a happy family gets DF'd (for apostacy, because they woke up to the lie) is that he was DF'd because they cheated on their spouse. It makes the congregation band together against them, instictively love-bombing the spouse (if they remain in the congregation) and it makes it easy for them to shun them. If the spouse also leaves, it's explained as depression due to their cheating mate. If they didn't DF people for fornication, there wouldn't be this implicit label of fornicator/adulterer put on the appostates. I think that's a big factor.

As others have said, it's also much about control. If they have to lose a few members to strengthen their grip on the majority who remain, it's worth it. Forcing people to shun their former friends and family forces them to become more invested in the cult. If you've shunned your best friend for 20 years, and then someone challenges the teachings of the JWs, the thought that you shunned your friend for absolutely no reason is too much to bear, and you hold on to the false doctrines just so that you don't have to face the absolutely reprehensible things that you've done.