The worst part about a ban on assault rifles would be the sense in many that we've taken some reasonable action to address the issue and would reduce the likelihood of "common sense" (i.e. keeping guns out of the hands of people that are obviously at risk of using them unethically) action being taken.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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36
Three Simple Reasons Why an Assault-Weapons Ban Is Bad Policy
by freemindfade ini keep saying this is a bad place/policy to put all the time, energy and resources if you really do in fact care, or if you are just riding the agenda bandwagon: .
an assault-weapons ban is irrelevant to suicide deaths.
the large majority of gun deaths are suicides, and there is no credible argument that an assault-weapons ban will have the slightest effect on suicide.
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Question about a kingdom Ministry
by new boy indoes any one remember a km back in the nineteen sixties that stated at the very top "only x (number of months left) before 1975 arrives".
question?
what was the number of months in this statement?
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OneEyedJoe
https://www.jwfacts.com/images/kingdom-ministry-1968-mar-1975.JPG
90 months mentioned here. I'm not sure if this is what you're after, though.
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Lloyd Evans' New Book - Is It Really Necessary?
by pale.emperor inso lloyd evans will shortly be releasing his new book how to leave the jehovah's witnesses.
i do enjoy his rebuttals and the stuff he manages to get hold of and leak.
but i'm struggling to understand what he could possibly write to merit a whole book.. all info on how to leave is right here on this forum.
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OneEyedJoe
Deleted...posted in the wrong thread.
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65
Lloyd Evans' New Book - Is It Really Necessary?
by pale.emperor inso lloyd evans will shortly be releasing his new book how to leave the jehovah's witnesses.
i do enjoy his rebuttals and the stuff he manages to get hold of and leak.
but i'm struggling to understand what he could possibly write to merit a whole book.. all info on how to leave is right here on this forum.
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OneEyedJoe
So don't buy it.
Alternatively: This thread - is it really necessary?
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Massive hints against alcohol
by purrpurr inin the most recent assembly there were several heavy hints about not drinking alcohol at all.
saying that it doesn't give a good witness or would stumble others.. is this a new "unwritten directive?.
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OneEyedJoe
It doesn't matter what the scriptures say about booze, they could ban it if they so choose. Just because it says it'll be there in the new system, or because Jesus made wine, it doesn't mean that we have to drink now.
Just like beards - the only relevant scripture in the bible goes directly opposite to their ban. They've even speculated (or told the story of someone that speculated) as to whether men would wear beards in the new system. This would just be the same thing - Oh we can have wine in the new system because there will be no chance of stumbling anyone and we'll be perfectly able to resist the temptation to overly indulge. But for now, we have to make ourselves extra pure and go above and beyond and be faithful in what is least, etc etc.
That said, I doubt they'll completely outlaw it. As things stand it can be a useful tool to judge people and build different tiers of JWs. JWs love to rank themselves so that elders and pioneers can feel superior to other JWs. They can use it as a secondary means of judging people - if you don't want brother x to be an elder, suggest that he drinks to much. They also don't want to lose more members, so they'll be unlikely to start DFing people for drinking, so they'll likely continue to try to walk the fence like they are now - it's the perfect solution. Impose control on the JWs that are most 'in' and get them to stop drinking. Let the others that continue to drink stay donating JWs, but impose a guilt trip on them to keep them feeling like shitty people.
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Pioneer School scare tactics
by neat blue dog ini just talked with a pioneer who came back from school and she said that at the end there was emphasis put on two things.. 1: stay loyal to the governing body and their teachings.. 2: beware of propaganda.
they said that in wartime the enemy will use propaganda to break the spirit of or confuse the troops.
they said the same things is happening now, so reject negative reports about the organization.. this pioneer (who is fully pimi btw and enthusiastic about it) said she asked her cotboe about if we really have that problem here.
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OneEyedJoe
'They're trying to tell us that something big's gonna happen!'
It's so odd that JWs so universally think the leadership always has information that they're not willing to share and spend such effort trying to read between the lines to suss out what they're really trying to say. If they thought this through, they'd realize that if this is the case, then the leadership is treating them like children at the least and committing lies of omission at worst.
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Is porn really such a big problem in the wt?
by purrpurr inin the most recent circuit assembly there was a lot about porn and warning against porn.
even warning against looking at swim wear adverts!
so i was wondering, is porn really such an issue in the wt?.
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OneEyedJoe
It's not a problem per se, but it's something they need to control in order to keep JWs under their control. Controlling sexuality is something that just about every cult does. If you can get people to give up their autonomy over their most basic impulses, you can generally get them to give you power over the rest of their lives.
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Elder to visit me this Saturday to invite for the memorial
by EverApostate injust a brief history of me.
me and my wife got baptized into the jw cult in 1997. we were both protestants before and in fact it was me who dragged her into the cult.
during 2009, another jw friend of mine raised suspicions about his research on the blood and 607 bc theories.
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OneEyedJoe
If your goal here is to plant seeds with your wife, then you should tailor what you talk about to what she'd most likely care about, not to what you care about. Maybe you woke up because of the blood issue, but maybe that doesn't really resonate with her. Think about her personality (especially before she joined the cult) and what she cares about. Think about what sorts of things get her emotional - does she well up at a movie when a child is injured? If so maybe talk about the issues with child abuse. Does she get passionate about nature and animals? Maybe you could talk about the misquotes/lies in the creation book.
The point is that you have to know what makes her tick and what her tie to the cult is. If she's in the cult for the social stuff, then you have to demonstrate that the cult's rules aren't healthy for people to live by and that they're not happier than non-cultists. I think that was why I failed to wake up my exwife - she was emotional and I was logical and I found it difficult to get on the same wavelength as her to make points that'd resonate with her, and if you take too long to do that, the walls go up and nothing you say will have any impact.
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Quick and vague Memorial invitations
by RULES & REGULATIONS inthis morning my doorbell rang.
i opened the door thinking it was a package delivery person or local politicians thanking my community for voting in yesterday's election.
there was a middle aged man standing by himself.
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OneEyedJoe
I doubt they were sent specifically to you.- starting about 6 years ago they were encouraging really short presentations for invitations, at least in my neighborhood. It may just be that the territory was too big for them to cover with the invitations otherwise. Locally they'd often go alone to doors (especially the men) and give very short "presentations" and just shove the invitation into the person's hands.
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Sincere question to those who no longer believe in God
by nowwhat? ini get it, not a fan of yahweh the desert god.
but what about jesus?
anything wrong with his teachings like the sermon on the mount and the example he set.
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OneEyedJoe
I think too many folks here are letting Jesus off the hook too easily just by attacking his association with the Israelite god of war. He had tons of terrible teachings, even in the sermon on the mount. I find far greater fault in his actual teachings than his attempt to parlay the existing believe in yahweh into a basis for common ground for the beginning of his new religion. You'll have to forgive me as I can't be bothered to look up scriptural citations, but some issues with Jesus off the top of my head are:
Golden rule - it assumes that everyone is the same and fails to encourage putting yourself in the other person's shoes. Instead of doing to others as you'd have them do to you, treat others how they want to be treated. A fundamentalist christian might think "If I were so delusional as to think I'm gay, I'd want people to shout me down and send me to conversion therapy, etc" but I suspect most gay people don't actually want to be treated that way. You could argue that most people would want others to consider how they want to be treated, and through that extra step you can get to the better rule, but if Jesus meant that, he should've said it. Not saying it confuses the matter if that's what the true ideal is.
Those who lose brother or sister or mother or father for my name will gain those back a thousand fold. (again, I forget the exact words, but you get the gist) and I think there's one where he says if you love your family more than him you're not worthy of him...Sounds like a cult leader to me - preaching the doctrine of separating families.
Don't store up treasures on earth - store them up in heaven. The idea that life doesn't really start until the afterlife is one of the most pernicious religious doctrines that there are. It doesn't take much imagination these days to see how that teaching could go wrong.
Turn the other cheek - I wonder how many victims of domestic abuse went on living in terror due to this teaching.
He taught that the only unforgivable sin was blasphemy against the holy spirit. Really, dude? That's the one you pick to be unforgivable? I guess when you teach that this life is temporary and unimportant compared to the afterlife (see above) it doesn't really matter if people go around killing - that can be forgiven. But don't you dare think about talking shit about something that doesn't exist.
Conspicuous by it's absence in Jesus' teachings is any condemnation of slavery. While I don't think it's generally ok to condemn someone for everything they didn't say, this would've been an easy moral victory for him. He would've had plenty of exposure to slavery and it's obvious result in human suffering, but he was too much of a coward to condemn it.
But, by far, the worst thing that Jesus taught was absolutism. Anyone that didn't believe that Jesus was the shit was to be condemned. Anyone who thought that maybe his way wasn't perfect was not worthy and to be ignored and cast out. You're either with him, or against him. Black and white. Again, so many times, he sounds like a cult leader. He never acknowledged moral nuance and grey areas, he discouraged independent thought, or any attempts to develop an even better moral code than what he offered. This sort of absolutism has lead to religiously motivated genocide for most of human history. It leads to closed minds and tribalism. It leads to being stuck at a sub-optimal moral code when we have the means to develop a far better one.
