Posts by MungoBaobab

"You don't seem to want to accept the fact that you're dealing with an expert in guerilla warfare. With a man who's the best with guns, with knives, with his bare hands. A man who's been trained to ignore pain. To ignore weather. To live off the land; to eat things that'd make a billygoat puke. In Vietnam his job was to dispose of enemy personel. To kill- PERIOD! To win by attrition. Well Rambo was the best." -Col. Sam Trautman, First Blood

87

WTS Official Spin on monthly Awake: 'More emphasis on the Bible!'

by Neo in

jw
friends

the march 2005 kingdom ministry brings up a full article about the awake only being published once a month, starting january 2006. .

but the fun thing is the roundabout way this change is announced.

knowing that the news would be a bitter pill to swallow (there should be a 'speeding up' of the preaching work, not a downsizing), the watchtower only announces the move to monthly publishing by the end of the article.

MungoBaobab

In view of that, starting from January 2006, Awake! will start giving more emphasis to the Kingdom of God. It will encourage readers in a more direct way to cling to the Bible for a solution to the problems, and will stress more clearly the biblical explanation of current events.

Observe the pendulum swinging; the Hegellian dialectic at work. With the members of the GB slowly becoming extinct, maybe there's some fear that the JWs as an organization will lose their focus. People have been saying for months, even years, that in order to survive the Organization needs to become more secular. More Awake! This could be a last-ditch attempt to preserve the Society's "spiritual integrity" by reshifting the focus back to the "fire-and-brimestone" approach of the Watchtower. Big mistake.

Someone said that Awake is the least read publication put out by the Organization. The only reason the Watchtower is more read is because of the compulsory Sunday Watchtower Study; the Awake is read more willingly.

We make fun of the Awake, but as a religious publication it's pretty benign. And not much more biased than your evening news. That's the one everyone tries to place. That's the only one people read if the article catches their fancy. Admit it; if you are into astronomy and the Awake has an article on the Hubble Space Telescope, would you read it? If you want to visit Prague, and they have an article on Prague, would you read it? If you've been thinking about repainting your living room, and the Awake has an article on painting, would you read it? Now, who here wonders about Meshibosheth on the plains of Moab and how that factors into our day? Who wants to read an article on Oholiab's journey to Kiriath-jearim and how we should follow in his footsteps?

That magazine became an invaluable tool in the preaching work. Why? Because it was designed especially for the public. The case of Watchtower was different, as it was viewed for many as designed for the "little flock".

So, if the focus is shifting from the "public," placing magazines with them is no longer a top concern. It's going after the Memorial attendees and securing baptized Witnesses, the modern day "little flock." So they know that their door-to-door approach is a lost cause, and arew aiming to keep the membership that they have. Well the younger generations are leaving, the older generations are dying off. Unless the pendulum swings back, which it probably will, I don't expect there to be a Watchtower society a century from now.

43

What was your turning point?

by jeanniebeanz in

jw
friends

what was it that was the real eye opener for you?.

for me, it was after watching the video, "jehovah's witnesses; a non-prophet organization," and the point on how the org puts itself in a place between jesus and mankind.

a position which does not exist scripturally.

MungoBaobab

#1) The August 1, 2002 Watchtower.

#2) No evidence of a disasterous global flood, only overwhelming evidence to the contrary; i.e. RECORDED HISTORY precedes the date for the flood

#3) Begging, pleading for the same thing in prayer several times a day, occasionally for hours on end and no response, then calling God a "son-of-a-bitch" in prayer for not doing anything about it and daring him to kill me that instant just like in OT times if he had a backbone or I'd live my life without him. Was that a run-on sentence? hehe

26

INCUBUS

by sistaintheback in

i have been dealing with one for the past few years.

not constantly, but about once every three months.

for those that don't know, an incubus is a demonic presence that only bothers women when they sleep.

MungoBaobab

Creatures reproduce according to their kind- just like the Bible says, actually. Parrots are attracted to and mate with parrots. Mice are attracted to and mate with other mice. Frogs, well, you get the idea. Humans have a biological compulsion to reproduce due to certain hormones, and if the glands driving these compulsions are removed (castration), so is the desire to copulate. So why would a demon, a being created without gender and the ability, let alone the desire, to copulate seek out "attractive" human women to have sex with? It would be like a human looking at a piece of fungus and wanting to secrete spores; like wanting to undergo mitosis and watching some paramicium pornography. LIke a human being seeing the red feathery crest on some species of finch in South America that make the other finches want to mate, and becoming aroused. There's no logic behind a demon wnating to have sex with a human being.

5

The face looks familiar, now it's clicked!

by qwerty in

jw
friends

i am at work and i have just over heard one of my colleagues speaking to another colleague about religion.. i was on a call with a customer at the time, i could hear him speaking about jesus and the randsom.

i thought i was hearing things, then the penny dropped.

i knew he looked familiar.

MungoBaobab

The opposite happened to me. Once I saw a guy I knew from SOMEWHERE at a D.C. Still to this day I cannot think of where I knew this guy from, but I pretended like I didn't recognize him just the same. I'm sure wherever it was I knew him from I wasn't acting like a good Witness!

15

Non-Bible-believer questions on the flood...

by undercover in

a friend of mine who is atheist gets all wound up when the subject of noah's flood comes up.

he doesn't rely on scientific discoveries or explanations to deny that the flood happened, he uses his own logic.

some of his statements(some of em are hilarious): .

MungoBaobab

Haven't you heard? Haven't you heard they found a frozen mammoth with food still in its mouth in Siberia? So there. Proof of the Flood.

>>scratches head<<

Huh?

4

B.U.M. Equipment

by MungoBaobab in

jw
friends

did anyone else hear of this jw urban legend that the sweatshirt company b.u.m.

equipment was owned by witnesses ("in california"), and that b.u.m.

stands for brothers united in the ministry?

MungoBaobab

Did anyone else hear of this JW urban legend that the sweatshirt company B.U.M. Equipment was owned by Witnesses ("in California"), and that B.U.M. stands for Brothers United in the Ministry? Had to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard, a few minutes on the internet proved it didn't stand for anything. I tried to tell my brother-in-law his story was full of it, but all I got in response was, "But Brother _______ wouldn't lie..."

42

The Longest Hour in the Life of a Young JW

by TMS in

jw
friends

.

the family bible study.

tms

MungoBaobab

Those damn closing DC talks. HEY! There was a Christian rock group called DC Talks, wasn't there? Anyway, I meant to talk about the closing prayers. Anyone else ever get dizzy standing there with your head down and eyes closed? Or maybe I was just hoping to drop dead.