OneEyedJoe

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Posts by OneEyedJoe

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  34

  Pick your belief system

  by Giordano in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i think we've all noticed a ton of newbe's these past months.

  one part of escaping or thinking about escaping the jw's is coming to terms with what you believe now and/or what direction you are leaning towards.. here is a site that has a quick quiz that may be of some worth or just for fun.

  i took it when i first signed on here and the results surprised me because it was pretty accurate.. you don't have to sign up for anything and when you finish you will get a percentage answer on 20 major belief systems.

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  OneEyedJoe

  100% secular humanist (though this is still a fairly broad group)

  0% JW!
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  24

  New Marriage Arrangement Rumor?

  by Thoughtless in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so, i haven't lurked here in a long while however, i have been checking up more frequently and i saw that there is a rumor going around about getting barred from marriage if the brother not appointed by the time he is 23. is that true?

  if it is, i am so screwed haha.

  proud fader present within college.

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  OneEyedJoe

  I strongly doubt that it's going to be a rule as such, but in the US zone visit, AM3 said that a sister married a guy that was 23 and not an ms and she "payed for that won decision"

  In the end, it probably won't change much of anything. The girls that are so super dub that they'd obey that bs rule would only want to marry an ms anyway. If anything it's probably just going to help save a few men from marrying the super cultist women, so he's really doing them a favor.
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  12

  God was the cause of the evil

  by opusdei1972 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  bart ehrman noticed, in his book "god's problem", the fact that god was responsible for job's pain.

  to show it, bart quoted the following verse:.

  and they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the lord had brought upon him.

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  OneEyedJoe

  If I believed in all that nonsense, I'd just say that the story was written from the perspective of the comforters, which believed that it was god that caused Job's suffering. The reality was that they were wrong, and it was all satan's fault.
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  43

  2034 is going to be a huge letdown for the dubs

  by wha happened? in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i've seen a few postings of a possible "next date" for dubs of 2034. based on an article they published comparing the last days to the days of noah.

  preaching for 120 years.

  however, i noticed a little tidbit from wiki about age:.

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  OneEyedJoe

  They would need to drop the "overlapping generation" teaching before they replace it with the Noah's flood generation.
  

  I don't think so...they're all about "multiple lines of evidence" that point to the inexorable conclusion that the end of this system is going to come before xyz.

  I do tend to agree on your second point - I think they almost need to have another great disappointment ala 1914 or 1975. That would allow them to shed the dead weight, monetize the newly empty KHs, and anyone who's currently on the fence but decides to stick around would have no choice but to double-down. I think the 1975 fiasco is a large part of why the current generation of JWs is so much more complacent than the previous one that lived through 1975. In order to stick around after they were exposed as false prophets, they had to really internalize the doctrine and convince themselves that they were more sure than ever before. Today's generation is able to just float along because they haven't made nearly as bold a (false) prediction since.
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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

  I actually am not going to be shy about it. I'm going to mention in casual conversation things like, "The other day in _____ class we were discussing _________ and an interesting point was brought out."

  I can't wait for my privileges to be taken away.
  
  

  Considering that you're studying biology, I think it's inevitable that your privileges go away. Just mention evolution to an elder or two and that'll be that.

  It might also help you casually bring up evolution with your wife, but with all the progress you've been making with her lately, she might be mentally out before you start classes.
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  43

  2034 is going to be a huge letdown for the dubs

  by wha happened? in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i've seen a few postings of a possible "next date" for dubs of 2034. based on an article they published comparing the last days to the days of noah.

  preaching for 120 years.

  however, i noticed a little tidbit from wiki about age:.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Wouldn't the date technically be 2039 since the major preaching work didn't start until 1919?
  

  Not until 2034 comes and goes, then it'll be 2039.

  Also, I'd just like to state that the (2 year old) comment above (about the only place people are talking about 2034 is on apostate web sites) is not entirely accurate. As far back as the 1990's (probably driven by the generation change) I'd heard 2034 suggested as the end date based on the 120 years of Noah. Now, these have all been idle musings by individual JWs - so, basically what happened in 1975 ;-)
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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.