You can also simply call in to meetings on your phone. You have a number to call and a meeting ID number to call in with. No video at all, audio only. You can turn your video and mic on and off during a normal video call. The admin can turn your mic on and off and stop your video but I don't think they can turn your video on. I don't play with that much. I've muted people that had a lot of background noise. Zoom is pretty cool. I've never had more than 12 or so at a time. I don't know what the screen looks like with so many people at once. There may be settings that I've never needed to explore.
dubstepped
JoinedPosts by dubstepped
-
12
The zoom app
by Fadeaway1962 inthere going to start using the zoom app for the meeting ,got to go a help my aged parents to set it up.. i'm not very good at the technical stuff is there any way of hiding your self on the app or is this a way of them checking to see who's listening to the meetings.. thought fading would have been easier during this virus.. thanks.
-
-
-
12
The zoom app
by Fadeaway1962 inthere going to start using the zoom app for the meeting ,got to go a help my aged parents to set it up.. i'm not very good at the technical stuff is there any way of hiding your self on the app or is this a way of them checking to see who's listening to the meetings.. thought fading would have been easier during this virus.. thanks.
-
-
dubstepped
I host online support groups using Zoom each week and use it in my coaching practice. I would pay to see these meetings. People doing all kinds of distracting things on camera, dogs barking or kids making noise, etc. I guess they could shut off everyone's mics and video but if they allow it my guess is that it will be a shit show, at least at first. People will struggle to find the controls on each device, get their mics working, lol. Service drops for people and they drop off and the whole screen rearranges.
This will be great!
At the same time, my prediction has been that eventually they would no longer need buildings and could just have an online cult with occasional meetups for service or conventions, and this could hasten the switch as they get even leaner and amass more wealth.
-
11
Should I feel sorry for unprepared jws?
by solomon inthose that discouraged working full time and/or getting some post secondary education and will now feel the pinch because of a tanking economy?.
-
-
dubstepped
Sure, I feel sorry for them. How quickly we forget that we were once them. It doesn't mean I'm codependent and obsessed with their feelings, or that I would help them, but I have empathy with the members that have been fooled like I was for so long.
"Should" you? You feel how you feel. Should implies there's one correct standard and you are where you are in your feeling with this and you don't owe anybody anything.
-
29
How Are JWs Affected By The Coronavirus?
by minimus inwill meetings and conventions be canceled?
the ministry?
shepherding calls, get togethers?
-
-
dubstepped
A friend said that in at least some part of Seattle they've stopped meetings and field service. I have no other details, but that's not something I had ever heard of.
-
52
Please help
by Dano3456 inmy wife and i are not religious nor do we want to be.
we are very set in our spiritual beliefs.
we have worked with a jw who's family have been like a part of our family for 6 years.
-
-
dubstepped
JWs are spiritual predators. Yes they want to teach your kids, and by doing so they think they're saving them. The meetings and the teachings are manipulative and designed to get in the minds and hearts of people. Get your children away from them. There are JWs that foster kids just to make money and preach to them. Do not allow your most vulnerable around them. They can be good people at heart but they are around a toxic environment that is spiritually abusive. Part of the lure is that they are often nice people. Sometimes nice people get caught up in really insidious things though.
-
12
I found an old pamphlet in one of my JW books. About the Hoxsey cure
by JimmyYoung ini found a pamphlet in one of my old bound vol.
a 1969 awake, that had a pamphlet from a senator who gave a speech on the hoxsey cure.
i know of several jws who went to mexico and got this treatment.
-
-
dubstepped
Wait, so the JWs have a history steeped in quackery then? I always wondered why people in my congregation went to flea market docs, literally buying bullshit from the flea market because everyone knows if you drop $150 on both rental you're a healer for sure. Iridology and reflexology, getting toxins out of your feet, oil pulling, etc. There was a sister in Indiana with a magic machine. A sister in Tennessee with magic beans of some sort, pills in supplement form. Funny how the evil medical establishment just wants your money but Bob and Mary sell you things proven to do nothing yet you willingly reach in your pockets for cash while praising them.
A sister at our KH with 2 kids died young. Rather than getting real medical help for the cancer she had she invested in all the quackery. They had a part on a meeting asking for money later to send her to New York to specialists. She finally went and the actual doctors said there was nothing they could do. The tumors were allowed to grow for too long and she was too compromised.
My mom was playing cards with a little old sister who pulled out a little box and shocked herself. It was a box of Radio Shock parts and batteries with leads coming out. She was shocking her colon cancer away. She knew it was working because the black color of her stool was the toxins leaving her body. Makes you want to scream.
So many fairy tales were peddled in the congregations. Everyone wants to feel special, like they have some secret knowledge of truth, whether spiritually or medically, and people wasted precious resources on each.
There's a great podcast that just wrapped their second season called "The Dream". Season 1 was about MLMs. Season 2 was about "wellness" and alternative medicine of sorts. Fascinating stuff.
-
7
Anatomy of a former JW
by Victor inone of the respondents on my post on mental illness stated that it was the same of ex jw's.
i thought about this for a couple of days and drawing from my personal experience, i can say that this is mostly true.
if one is disfellowshipped, the act of forcibly cutting off all ties to a jw's way of life is painful and in some cases inducing cognitive dissonance.
-
-
dubstepped
I (and many others) want death to the Watchtower Organization, its philosophies, practices and private courts... not personal growth, journey and discovery.
It's not an either/or situation.
-
9
Baptisms exceeding 300K last year – a possible reason
by Viva la Vida intwo facts to consider: 1) most baptisms take place during assemblies and conventions; 2) the theocratic year goes from september to august.
my theory: the borg changed the calendar of conventions and assemblies so to concentrate the baptisms in a single theocratic year.
if some conventions used to take place in july/august, for the 2018 series they moved them to september.
-
-
dubstepped
I think they just grew that much and we don't like it so we create ways to discredit it. They have growth from within and they grow in certain places more than others. It is what it is. They aren't going away.
-
7
Incest, Rape and Abuse in the Amish World
by cofty inso familiar and for all the same reasons.. the amish keep to themselves.
and they’re hiding a horrifying secret....
-
-
dubstepped
Yep. I know someone that works in the community to try to make change. She says that there is a segment of the older women in the community that have had enough and there is something afoot. They have a hard time getting people to take them seriously at times from the outside because people romanticize their way of life and don't want to see the realities. I hope there is change coming. The situation is really sad.
-
50
King David's Three Choices
by Jehalapeno ineditor's note: found this on reddit...thought the meat of the post would be a good post for discussion here as well.. consider the three choices god forced upon david for taking a census.
these three choices were forced on king david, not for murdering people, not for raping women, not for lying, stealing, or any crime we can think of in our modern world that is repugnant, but simply for taking a census or in other words, counting people.. for counting people, jehovah forced a decision on david that involved the lives of thousands upon thousands of innocent people.. the choices all dealt with the “way” jehovah would kill thousands of unsuspecting loyal worshipers.. 1 chronicles 21.
“these are the choices the lord has given you.
-
-
dubstepped
ThGod became Son to provide that sacrifice for sins that God did not ask of old Abraham nor would his son's death accomplish anything. 'My justice requires I step up to the plate'. Hallelujah ☺️
So then, it's just theater. Nothing was really sacrificed. God decided he couldn't forgive without the shedding of blood so he could come be the hero. Dude is insecure as can be. First he creates people just to praise him, now he sets up a scenario by which he gets to save those people and be even more the hero. Wow.
It's also not very good justice. If two human lives cost perfection and God's favor, and then only one life was sacrificed to balance it out, God isn't very good at math or restitution. He's also not very good at justice because he kind of had a ringer out there playing the game. If I was Satan I'd be pissed. God is a cheater and didn't play fair at all.
Then again, your belief seems to come down to "might makes right", so I guess fairness goes out the window.