OneEyedJoe

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Posts by OneEyedJoe

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  36

  Devouring the Forbidden Fruit - Higher Education

  by cappytan in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  well, i told my wife over the weekend i was going to go back school to finish my degree.

  she is 100% supportive of it!

  apparently she doesn't think higher education is so evil either.. since my former major was computer programming and that was in the late 1990's, i was told i'd have to retake a bunch of classes since times have changed.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Awesome! That'll also give you a good excuse not to be given any "privileges" and help you miss the cult meetings. It's definitely never too late to go back to school.

  Do you know what type of career you want to go into once you get the degree(s)?
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  7

  What would you do with an abuse settlement?

  by StarTrekAngel in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  what would you do if you were conti or lopez and had a large award?

  sure, the options and the tastes are many but consider this.... i don't know if this has already been covered or mentioned but i think there would be no better investment of that money than to put into a non-profit.

  on dedicated to seek out and bring forward more cases.

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  OneEyedJoe

  I don't know if this has already been covered or mentioned but I think there would be no better investment of that money than to put into a non-profit. On dedicated to seek out and bring forward more cases. Use their own money against them. Conti, Lopez, all of them putting together a resource pool for that purpose.
  

  That's exactly what I immediately thought when I read the thread title.

  Whatever they do with it though, I hope it brings them some measure of peace.
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  20

  What would happen if life was found elsewhere?

  by HowTheBibleWasCreated in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  see jws have said time and again jesus died once for all time... a quote from hebrews.

  okay rule out humn-like aliens what about animals plants and microbes... i once had a hot fight with an elder when i still believed that here was no reason to doubt alien animals etc.

  yet not based on any wt article witnesses reject this often.. lets suppose say in a month microbes are found on ceres (i doubt it will happen but let's roll with it) they are living as much as our cells are and reporduce... okay what would mother say in the magazines when millions of jehovah's witnesses demand to know why jehovah created microbes on a dwarf planet?.

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  OneEyedJoe

  My stock answer any time people talk about how the discovery of ET life would affect religion:

  Religious people have been ignoring scientific evidence that contradicts their beliefs for centuries. What makes evidence of ET life special that it would suddenly change things?
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  2

  Child sexual abuse and a loving God.

  by Tenacious in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i'm having a hard time reconciling how such a loving and merciful god would require someone as innocent and helpless as a child or an adult for that matter, in order to properly establish a claim sexual abuse, having the need to produce another witness that actually witnessed the abuse.

  how ludicrous is this?

  how can the holy bible, the divine word of god, make a requirement such as this?

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  OneEyedJoe

  I don't think the bible actually indicates that this rule applies to sexual abuse. If I remember correctly, it was more for cases of fraud. There is a rule in the bible (which has it's own problems) that if a woman is raped and no one is around, the man who raped her has to take her as his wife. This indicates that her word that the man raped her would be sufficient in this case.

  Honestly, though, there are so many other problems with the bible that don't rely upon subjective interpretation to see. There are a hundred reasons that show it's not the word of god before you get to the (mis)handling of child abuse cases as a result of (mis)interpretation of certain vague scriptural rules.
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  22

  How do you respond to JW family?

  by Laika in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  for those who have left and are still in contact with jw family, how do you usually respond when they bring up jw stuff, i.e.

  start talking about the nearness of armageddon or things like that.. i usually say nothing and just let it pass but i'm considering changing tact to something more confrontational, less because i want to change their mind and more because i find it tiresome.

  thoughts?

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  OneEyedJoe

  Well I'm still in, but I think I'm in somewhat of a similar situation - I can't stand the constant JW talk. Depending on the topic being discussed I'll either ignore it entirely (sometimes I have to excuse myself to keep my sanity) or if I feel like I can say something to shut them down without it blowing back on me too much, I'll do it.

  For example, the other day I was with some family and they were talking about my elderly grandfather and how he'll need to be put in a nursing home soon and someone brought up a recent WT study article (actually I think it was two in a row) about caring for the elderly and one said something like "Wasn't that such a great article!? It was so good because a lot of people just don't want to think about getting older so they don't prepare for it at all." I just said "I don't think it's that they don't want to think about it so much as it is that they've been told their entire lives that they would never get old." You shoulda seen how fast they changed the subject off the cult talk after that.
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  18

  Definition of "Active Publisher" depends on the context

  by Simon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i don't know what the current definitive rule is that determines whether someone is viewed as an "active publisher" or not.

  i've seen comments suggesting that it is reporting a certain minimum number of hours per month which seems reasonable.. what is interesting is how they change the definition of what an active publisher is based on the context.

  normally, you are never doing enough, however much you are doing, and too little or some missed reporting will get you a talking to.. but note how they class 'active' in one of the latest body of elders letters:.

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  OneEyedJoe

  George said what I was going to - this has always been the definition of "active" as far back as I can remember. The point remains, though, that the WTS does seem to get a lot less strict about things when they're looking for cash. I'm sure they'd take money from the ghost of ray franz where he to offer it.

  As for the idea of not reporting because of this, I say do the opposite - make up time for as long as you're forced to be in. The more "active" pubs there are that aren't donating, the greater the disparity between what they ask for and what a publisher is inclined to give will be and it might just make a few wake up. There's a limit to how much they're going to get no matter how much they ask for so I don't think there's any downside to reporting time from that perspective.
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  79

  March JW Broadcast: Once again disparaging Higher Education - this time in the Music Video.

  by cappytan in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i will have the music video separated shortly.

  will post the link once it's done..

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  OneEyedJoe

  Ok, so that was pretty disgusting. Thanks for the warning 1:08. Education and a career - pretty bad stuff. Hmmm.
  

  That guy must not be very good at his job if he can't keep up with the workload. Maybe he should've invested in a little extra education.
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  58

  A Question for Underground Apostates, How Many Are There?

  by Village Idiot in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  when i first came to this forum i was of the belief that those of us who were still in due to family reasons were few in numbers perhaps one in a thousand in the jws.

  soon i came to the realization that there were many more.

  we have dozens of posters here who are mentally out but still in.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Because of the steadily increasing levels of apostate-related paranoia and propaganda that's constantly force-fed to congregations across the planet on a daily basis.
  

  Has there been much of an increase? To me it seems about the same as ever.
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  12

  How did you find the truth? - the loaded question.

  by user100 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  had dinner this weekend with a jw family and met a bunch of new jws.

  one of them who was not very talkative at all and out of the blue asked me how i found "the truth".

  i answered how my family has always been starting with my great grandfather.. then he clarified his question.. he said something about how this is a great question and people always talk about their spiritual heritage.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Whenever I'm asked a loaded question like that, I've taken to restating their question without the phrase "the truth." I just can't stomach it to support someone calling it the truth these days. I honestly think that's the worst part about being around JWs these days - the constant "the truth" this and "the truth" that. It's gotten to the point that I have to excuse myself to stay sane.

  I've also found that honesty in this situation can be a fun way of shutting people up. "How did you find the truth?" "Well my parents raised me as a JW so I didn't have much choice." Usually you get an uncomfortable silence and a quizzical look before they change the subject. Most JWs' faith is so thin that they're too scared to explore a topic if it looks like it's not going to result in getting 100% positive feedback about the cult.

  Also, another fun way to approach this type of situation is if you find someone that was recruited and you find out (as is often the case) that it was after some traumatic event in their life try saying something like "Wow, you're really lucky you found the JWs. After something like that, I bet it was hard to think clearly - if things had been a little different you might've ended up a mormon or something!"
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  48

  Just woke up

  by Doctor Who in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  new to the site.

  currently i am a ministerial servant and was told i was appointed to be an elder.

  i told the brothers i was not ready for that assignment.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Welcome! I hope you'll find this to be as good a source of support in a difficult time as I've found it to be. My advice would be to take your time and go slow. As it turns out, Armageddon isn't imminent, so you've got time to figure out how you want to handle things as you come to grasp fully the situation you're in.

  Go slow especially with trying to wake up any family. If you push too hard you could succeed only in alienating them and pushing them further in.

  I wish you the best of luck in your journey!