Posts by rmt1

32

How Many Enjoy Celebrating Holidays? Birthdays?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i admit that i do enjoy it, especially with my grandkids.

birthdays, too.. i believe we missed out on a lot of fun and normal activities because we were witnesses..

rmt1

Totally love Christmas since its a convolution of multiple inputs, not least of which is celestial mechanics, and not least of which is the bitter huddling cold that invites you to take stock of what's good. I could not give a fig's leaf how arbitrarily made up it is. It's got music that no other holiday has. It's been diluted since secular forces have been taking religion out of schools. So being an ex-JW and trying to get in on the (scientifically invalid but emotionally) vibrant experience that was missed as a kid is practically a no-go. The holiday has been sucked dry by the money changers and politicians (I say this as an atheist).

Thanksgiving lost its nationalistic or exceptionalist meaning, so it's not anything particular now. Secular excuse for kicking back. Eh. There's a bit of national pride to be gleaned, but what is the nation to be proud about right now? It's becoming a police state.

Halloween is too much of a grab bag or catch-all of detritus. Has no meaning anymore (not that Thanksgiving or Christmas absolutely do, either). I watch a good many supernatural suspense/thriller movies to get my dose of chills. No chills in Halloween.

Birthdays are a great thing to do if you remember them. Real life / exiting young adulthood has a way of shelving them, since their significance is inversely proportional to quantity.

Easter is tainted from Memorial - Never got up a good sense of envy about rabbits and easter eggs, since the pagan roots were kind of un-provocatively obvious and not hotly contested. At least Christmas pagan roots had some subtleties, niceties, grist for the supposition that ancient Christians may or may not have given gifts on the 25th, stuff like that. Easter's just kind of you and Jesus and little cups of watercolor paint and mess. Not engaging, unless you perhaps have kids.

New Year's is of course a secular accomplishment to partake in. Doesn't have to be any spiritual dimension to it, no gratitude to god, no forgiveness, no promises, no resolutions. Just a general satisfaction of a year under the belt, whatever that brought you.

43

Former L T Elder- Head Quarters & Great Tribulation

by James Jackson in

jw
friends

the local needs talk this week was about helping with the building project in warick new york.

the speaker said twice that project was for building the "world head quarters"!

then he added twice; that the "great tribulation" cannot start to after the "world head quarters" is built!

rmt1

http://jwleaks.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/watchtower-warwick-site-plan.jpg

Will the service building have industrial capacity? Printing presses?

https://plus.google.com/111737312357973104330/posts

I wonder if you could quantify how much the real estate of, or under, the lake costs in real dollars? Because that's people's gas money. That's people's grocery money. That's people prescription money. That's people's discretionary income for clothing their children. That's people's monthly auto insurance premiums. That's people's funds for car repair. It's a lot of things...

63

"Giving Makes You Happy" jw.org video for kids

by Scully in

giving makes you happy.

.

rmt1

Lot of anti-MBoBS. I can certainly say I have not clapped eyes on the thing in 20? years. I'm sure some of what I think would change.

10

What is more important? Money or the message?

by snare&racket in

jw
friends

imagine the dilemma..... you have a message to spread, but spreading it may cost you money when selling your property as your message is a little embarassing and weird.... do you paint over it and secure the sale or leave it be and stand by your message in the hope it saves even one more life?.

it really isn't the same religion i grew up in!

people have died defending and spreading that message from brooklyn, a message that they would now paint over for the sake of a building sale... .

rmt1

Thank you for these very quantitative answers. It bugged me looking up of the floor plans that there is no obvious 'industrial' center of the new complex. There is no thrumming heartbeat, like you could imagine with the industrial capacity at Brooklyn, or Wallkill, to stretch 'industry'. So that tells me all printing is offshored, which is consistent with modern corporations. Plus the possibility of going where environmental regulations enable competitively low costs. (Who are TWS main competitors, by the way?)

So the lakefront really does spell real estate, which spells at least 30 to 50 years investment. When were the iconic Brooklyn factories/offices built? They got there at the turn of the century, so 100+ years of value for some properties. Losing Brooklyn actually makes me nostalgic of my temp month at Bethel, heh. I stayed in Sands? residence. January, wind tunnels, got chapped everywhere from relentless pointless showers to be ready for the next meal. Did HVAC on something. Did that at Patterson for a month, too. Best part, almost the finest rational, was missing meetings.

One other reason for owning actual lake property, I suppose, is to have some right to keep recreation OFF those water premises.

63

"Giving Makes You Happy" jw.org video for kids

by Scully in

giving makes you happy.

.

rmt1

I know I should be on guard against armchair quarterbacking to the cognitive environment of a 6/7/8 yo in 1980 and that of a 6/7/8 yo in 2013. I'll assume by your vitriol that you were alive in 1980 and would have something to say about how much media the typical 6/7/8 yo had access to. Leaving aside your assessment of how good or bad TWS content is for one's mental, emotional, cognitive, psychological, psychiatric, spiritual, ontological health, which I did not specifically pontificate upon myself in that particular paragraph, I think the odds are high that you would agree with me that the JW child default media of today (videos with jingles) are inferior in mental stimulation to the JW child default media of decades ago. You do not have to consume time arguing a strawman that I claim JW media has ever been cognitively stimulating. You might, however, agree that in a resource-starved environment, a creature adapts to less inputs, makes the most of something, gets by with what it has. Like the difference between meth and lean. For a JW child of 1980, who did not have access to other stimulants, I contend, or claim, that My Book of Bible Stories was a decent piece of media for allowing some kinds of mental engagement or escape. You can react allergically to that claim, and I do laugh along with you, but I'm not making that claim outside the context of comparison to this present form of JW child media.

10

Who says Perfect Humans were created, [evolved] to live forever? WT does*, genesis does not. do you?

by prologos in

the only reference to living forever, (or indefinitely long) in the genesis 2&3 account, is in reference to the "tree of life".

gen 3:22 "--eat and live to time indefinite--".

this tree must have been hard to find because wt writers opined that eventually, in their faithful course, a&e would be led to that allowed tree to gain everlasting life's symbolic confirmation.. therefore as the ancients accidentally & correctly wrote, humans did not have inherent everlasting life, but it was gained through diet.

rmt1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-kravetz/telomeres-aging_b_3618321.html

10

What is more important? Money or the message?

by snare&racket in

jw
friends

imagine the dilemma..... you have a message to spread, but spreading it may cost you money when selling your property as your message is a little embarassing and weird.... do you paint over it and secure the sale or leave it be and stand by your message in the hope it saves even one more life?.

it really isn't the same religion i grew up in!

people have died defending and spreading that message from brooklyn, a message that they would now paint over for the sake of a building sale... .

rmt1

"Brooklyn bought half a lake"

I'm curious if this was a condition of sale. I.e., was it impossible to parcel the lot smaller? Is there any real value to lake property, itself? Can they use it for boating or recreation? Just seems bizarre, like an attempt to build one of the paradise cartoons, but to never actually live that real paradise. Like they're ok, just ok, being stuck in a spiritual paradise but 'faking' living in a physical paradise, constructed, painted, landscaped to spec. (I cannot imagine bros and sis' going swimming in that area.)

63

"Giving Makes You Happy" jw.org video for kids

by Scully in

giving makes you happy.

.

rmt1

I don't recall any sort of media, as a child in the seventies and early eighties, so passively indoctrinating with lessons learned from modern passification, baby-sitting, parental dereliction that have cropped up in the last decade. No comparison. With the My Book of Bible Stories, and a 7/8/9 year old brain, you could get sucked into another world through the well-done artwork and digestible content. These here short films are modern-day dramas from the DC boiled down to a soundbite worth of scarce insight. I always enjoyed the historical dramas as being THE escape or repreive from the general boredom of the DC, and always hated the modern-day dramas as being too immediate, too in your face, too preachy. Does jw.org do any historical cartoon/dramas for the kids? That would be evidence they at least gave a crap about engaging a genuine sense of wonder.

63

"Giving Makes You Happy" jw.org video for kids

by Scully in

giving makes you happy.

.

rmt1

somebody hit something above.

Painting a fence is code for construction work.

Serving refreshments to a landscaper is code for construction work.

Since (), (), and () have wisely advised me not to be cynical, I'll go ahead and wonder out loud, without asserting anything nefarious:

[00:56] "Why is a picture book of third grade level fractions being visibly, recognizably, unmistakably, apparently, optically, visually, coincidentally, mysteriously, cryptically, serendipetously placed at the END of this video that is about giving and has already included signifiers of construction work?"

It can be argued that giving a fraction of a person-hour as a professional painter, or as a professional landscaper, can be easily converted by some rate of exchange into another, more portable, form of value. Human Resources has codes or cost centers where you can assign fractions of a FTE (Full Time Employee) to various tasks. Your job description may specify that 4/5 of your time goes to doing one thing in one department, and the other 1/5 goes to a related skill in some other department. Fractions are all around us and they are convenient short-hand for estimating shares of a collective good, rates of repayment, rates of monthly contribution to retirement, health insurance, taxes, and other things.

It can be argued that a flower is not a reduceable unit of giving. If the makers of the video wanted to associate fractions with giving, for some reason, then including fractions in a video about giving is an excellent way to acheive that. If the makers of the video afterwards wanted to erase the conscious association of fractions with giving, then capping the lesson with an irreducable, unfractionable unit of giving is an excellent way to achieve that (Derrida, Heidegger, sous rature, erasure).

It can also be argued that a flower is not necessarily just a flower, and is by virtue of who the makers are, a signifier of a happy, permanent, global, utopian, extensively landscaped, unerringly painted, future, state.

Fractions can also signify construction, at least in the United States where 2x4s and 1/2 or 3/8 or 3/4 inch plywood coexist. (I do miss quickbuilds. Good times, by themselves.)

63

"Giving Makes You Happy" jw.org video for kids

by Scully in

giving makes you happy.

.

rmt1

Using encryption terms, this video is a public key that has been carefully sterilized and is viewable by a wide audience, simply repeating a generalized version of the Golden Rule which addresses recipient people. (See selfishness and altruism.) The private key, passed carefully and guardedly among known allies, is the very non-public instruction to place resources into a wooden box that goes to a recipient corporation. Combine the two keys, public and private, and you have the authenticated message to the child. This is the glowing lure of an angler fish. The teeth are on the inside.