Posts by OneEyedJoe

4

Theory of god

by azor in

i have noticed that theists have an aversion to the word theory.

as it is mostly attached to evolution, and they have a deep misunderstanding of what the word means.. i'm probably botching the following statement but the general idea is as follows.

it has been said that whoever sets the parameters of the battle or frames the argument wins.

I like this idea. Obviously few theists will be swayed by it, since they will continue to misunderstand what a theory is , and god's existence isn't a theory to them. I guess it's not really a theory to anyone since it isn't fit to be called a theory in the way that evolution is.

My go-to rebuttal when the word theory is used as an argument against evolution is that gravity is also described by physicists as a theory. It's not completely understood, but it's effects are readily visible. The same is true of evolution. I posted something to that effect on here and someone suggested that my point boiled down to "if you don't believe in evolution because it's a theory, you should jump off a cliff."

25

Today's (4/12) WT study - all about Jesus

by OneEyedJoe in

today's watchtower study article is all about jesus.

this stuck out to me after a year of hanging out on here where one frequent point of criticism is that jws claim to be christians but never talk about jesus.. anyone think it's a coincidence that today was the "special talk" follow-up to the memorial?

i think not - this is the most attended sunday meeting of the year, complete with many ubms, studies, and miscellaneous other potential victims who have been subjected to a coordinated effort to pressure them into attending.

OneEyedJoe

I don't think there are many of those people on this forum.

Probably not amongst long-time active posters, but I'll admit it took me a while after waking up to realize the level of deceptive recruiting that goes on, and I'm obviously still noticing new layers to it all the time.

It's the trick of the dog whistle - active JWs don't notice it as anything unusual, but visitors are comforted by the familiar emphasis on Jesus. They're able to get the r/f to deceive others without even realizing what they're doing, and I think it's important to call 'em on it.

25

Today's (4/12) WT study - all about Jesus

by OneEyedJoe in

today's watchtower study article is all about jesus.

this stuck out to me after a year of hanging out on here where one frequent point of criticism is that jws claim to be christians but never talk about jesus.. anyone think it's a coincidence that today was the "special talk" follow-up to the memorial?

i think not - this is the most attended sunday meeting of the year, complete with many ubms, studies, and miscellaneous other potential victims who have been subjected to a coordinated effort to pressure them into attending.

OneEyedJoe

Today's watchtower study article is all about Jesus. This stuck out to me after a year of hanging out on here where one frequent point of criticism is that jws claim to be Christians but never talk about Jesus.

Anyone think it's a coincidence that today was the "special talk" follow-up to the memorial? I think not - this is the most attended Sunday meeting of the year, complete with many UBMs, studies, and miscellaneous other potential victims who have been subjected to a coordinated effort to pressure them into attending. Someone at the top realizes that to draw these people in, you have to appear Christian. Classic bait and switch.

Anyone who doesn't think jws use deceptive recruiting tactics should think again. Just like every other cult, they do. And it goes deeper than just using their own "Bible" and the bait and switch "Bible study" that consists of studying only WT literature and cherry-picked scripture.

19

My first "disagreement" with standard JW thinking

by TTATT_Paladin in

about two years after i was baptized, i had this incident.

i looked at it as an isolated incident at the time, but now realize it would have had basically the same result with 99.99% of any jws not members here.. i will keep it short.

i was talking with a person who was raised in the religion.

OneEyedJoe

And WHY does the org feel that Hebrew is the language we will revert to, when the Jews were cast off as gods people, and killed Jesus??
Bit hypocritical right??

The logic is that the Israelites came from a line that want involved with building the tower of bable, so they'd never had their language confused. From this they assume that the ancient Hebrew that they spoke was the language that Adam and Eve spoke. Since it's "evidently" the original language, it seems logical to conclude that we'll be restored to speaking ancient Hebrew once we're raised to perfection.

Never mind the fact that we know that languages evolve over time - which is why we don't still speak old English. Also never mind the fact that there's a boatload of evidence of many languages that predated Hebrew.

19

My first "disagreement" with standard JW thinking

by TTATT_Paladin in

about two years after i was baptized, i had this incident.

i looked at it as an isolated incident at the time, but now realize it would have had basically the same result with 99.99% of any jws not members here.. i will keep it short.

i was talking with a person who was raised in the religion.

OneEyedJoe

That jw wasn't up on the doctrine (though neither were you) because the official doctrine is that people will speak ancient Hebrew in the new system.

32

Governing Body Sheep Fleecing - Official!

by The Searcher in

fellow witnesses - do you think the kingdom hall belongs to you, just because you all paid for it and personally finance its maintenance?

think again, sheep!

the "shepherds" have announced the fleecing in black & white for you, in case you decide to question them!.

OneEyedJoe

My son related this story to me that one congregation stood up to the society. Is i true that one congregation challenged the society on ownership and have legal tittle of their Kingdum Hall?

Maybe thinking of the menlo park congregation?

23

A Subtle Factor That Keeps Witnesses Silenced

by freemindfade in

had an interesting thought this morning.

when a witness is 'in' they think everyone else is following and trying there best all in unity.

i believe the reality is there are a lot of us 'in' who know different.

OneEyedJoe

This is why a lack of free speech is key to authoritarian regimes. They can keep control even if only a minority of the people are true followers, because the appearance is that everyone is loyal. If everyone else appears loyal because they're afraid of what you might do if they appear disloyal, then you're going to do the same thing.

In such a situation there's no way to be absolutely sure that someone else isn't loyal to the group/leader without exposing yourself to some risk first. Since most people tend to stick with the status quo, and try to minimize their personal risk, that doesn't happen very often. You usually have to get someone with nothing to lose before they'll do that, which in the case of JWs usually means a new convert or someone who's already estranged from family and doesn't have any close friends in the cult. The folks with nothing to lose, therefore never appear to be credible, so they have little impact even when they expose themselves.

14

Questions about Non JWs attending a JW baptism

by TTWSYF in

i attended my brother and sister in laws' baptism at a kingdom hall a number of years ago.

i was [am] not a jw so when i arrived i was bombarded with attention from the flock to which i politely stated that i was there to see my brother and his wife.

it seemed like the distraction was intentional.

OneEyedJoe

Yeah, once you see how deep a lot of the insane stuff goes, it's easy to start to assume that everything is an orchestrated conspiracy.

14

Questions about Non JWs attending a JW baptism

by TTWSYF in

i attended my brother and sister in laws' baptism at a kingdom hall a number of years ago.

i was [am] not a jw so when i arrived i was bombarded with attention from the flock to which i politely stated that i was there to see my brother and his wife.

it seemed like the distraction was intentional.

OneEyedJoe

Most JWs don't even realize that they're baptized in the name of the organization, so on an individual level I can't imagine that they were intentionally trying to distract you from that. As a JW I never heard any direction specifically around engaging non-believers at a baptism, but there's a constant reinforcement of the need to welcome any new ones and ask personal questions, etc. So my guess is that you just experiences run-of-the-mill love bombing that just so happened to result in your missing the baptism.

Plus, I'm sure any pioneers there were counting their time. Pioneers love to count time when they'd be wasting their time at meetings/errands/etc anyways.

35

Memorial attendance up or down on last year?

by freddo in

jw
friends

as per the title.

and was the one you attended at an early or late time of the evening.. any partakers?.

OneEyedJoe

Everyone said they were shocked at how low attendance was this year, though it may have been due to the 9:00 time slot that we got. Even so, it was easily the smallest group (by probably 20-30 people, down roughly 10-15% from the previous low) I've ever seen at a memorial in this congregation. Previous years in the 9:00 slot have never been so poorly attended.