slimboyfat

Joined

• started 537 topics
• posted 17,591 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by slimboyfat

• 
  20

  I wish all Witness men were like this ...

  by vienne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  my intro essay for the new book caused all sorts of off blog controversy.

  my writing partner, a retired educator and a witness, responded.

  why aren't more witness men like this?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  Bruce himself wrote:

  Some Witnesses fear what others may write. They do not like even mild criticism.
  

  That seems like best explanation for the complaints from JWs. And the reason they contacted Bruce is because he is a JW and he controls the blog.

  If there was any good evidence of misogyny then it’s strange that neither Bruce nor Rachael have quoted a single comment to that effect. They seem to be relying on the idea that any complaint to Bruce about Rachael is in itself misogyny. But it seems rather obvious that if a JW is disturbed about comments on the blog then they are going to complain to the owner of the blog who is a fellow JW, rather than to someone who is not the owner, not a JW, and the source of the critical comments in the first place.

  Gender is a red herring, and a convenient way of avoiding facing the real issue here: that a collaboration between a JW and a non-JW probably involves some compromises that will not please everyone. That they are seem presently unwilling to address this issue without weaponising gender as a diversion hardly inspires confidence.

  
  
• 
  9

  The Photo-drama of Creation.

  by Lost in the fog in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  if anyone is interested in russell's the photo-drama of creation here's a link to the text and picture slides.

  .

  http://www.thestudiesinthescriptures.com/pages/english/eng%20pd/eng%20pd%2001-9/engpd%201.htm .

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  I like the bit where it supports evolution.
• 
  20

  German got his silver sword

  by fastJehu in

  1. social
  2. current

  on saturday 02-02-2019 german jws got there silver sword.

  rumour has it that all of europe received the translation yesterday, because gerrit lösch visited the european branch in selters (germany).

  can anyone confirm that?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  Yes they had special meeting broadcast to KHs yesterday.
• 
  20

  I wish all Witness men were like this ...

  by vienne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  my intro essay for the new book caused all sorts of off blog controversy.

  my writing partner, a retired educator and a witness, responded.

  why aren't more witness men like this?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  The reason JWs are complaining to Bruce Schulz, who is a baptised JW, about your blog posts is because you have been somewhat critical of Watchtower. They are appealing to him as a JW to maintain orthodoxy, rather that to him as a man to silence a woman. But I guess it is easier to defend against phantom misogyny than it is to tackle head on the complicated (but interesting and important) issues involved in a baptised JW conducting such a project with non-baptised person with some critical views of Watchtower. I guess one way to deal with the tensions involved in that collaboration is to pretend they don’t exist and to label any JW who complains about the blog a misogynist, but I suggest that is not the most productive way of handling the situation.
• 
  35

  Evidence of a form of telepathy, science and personal experiences.

  by Bad_Wolf in

  1. social
  2. current

  i believe in rational explanations for everything, whether they are understood yet or not.

  medication used to be considered 'magic' until understood how it worked.

  on the subject of telepathy, for me it's very subtle but has happened many times.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  The burden of proof is on those who insist that this world with its laws and conscious beings can exist without any ultimate intelligence behind it at all. If it’s really true that the world just exists without any cause beyond itself then that’s a magic trick that puts any other miracle or supernatural phenomenon well and truly in the shade.

  As Rupert Sheldrake says, a materialist perspective relies on the belief: “give us one free miracle and we'll explain the rest”. The one free miracle being the appearance of the universe and the laws that govern it in the first place. That takes some faith!
• 
  35

  Evidence of a form of telepathy, science and personal experiences.

  by Bad_Wolf in

  1. social
  2. current

  i believe in rational explanations for everything, whether they are understood yet or not.

  medication used to be considered 'magic' until understood how it worked.

  on the subject of telepathy, for me it's very subtle but has happened many times.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  The thing about supernatural phenomena is either they are real or they are not.

  Maybe telepathy, remote viewing, prophecy and other “miracles” are possible or maybe they are not. It would be remarkable if at least some of the things we now call “supernatural” didn’t turn out to have some basis in fact. Because it would mean we already know the exact limits of what is possible in the world. This claim in itself seems pretty incredible to me.

  Reductive marerialists seem to have an obsession with dimissing the reality of anything that science can’t explain. It borders on superstition. But even if we grant materialist assumptions, and agree that only material things exists and have material causes, and there is nothing supernatural. Even if we grant all that, we still need to explain the mysterious fact of existence itself. In other words, even if we grant that there is nothing supernatural in the world, the very fact that the world exists at all is “supernatural”. We can’t explain the laws of nature by a natural process. They just exist, by themselves, or by an infinite mind? Any possibility is deeply mysterious, and supernatural.

  In a way it is true that there is nothing supernatural in the world, as such, because everything about the world is deeply supernatural. Not just parts of it, but its very existence, and everything about it.
• 
  27

  Infiltrated Elders?

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so i'm watching john cedars commentary on the annual meeting from this last october, and at one point he shows a clip of garrett loesch talking about the struggles jehovah's witnesses faced decades before in the soviet union.

  he claimed that police officers, maybe the kgb, infiltrated congregations which met in secret by studying with jehovah's witnesses, getting baptized, and then working their way up to becoming elders.

  ceders jokes that this shows what kind of role holy spirit actually plays within body of elders, but another interpretation came to my mind just now.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  JWs have long taught that elders infiltrating the organisation is a fulfilment of bible prophecy. This from the Daniel book published in the late 1990s.

  8 Not all who professed to have an interest in serving God during the Cold War years had good motives. The angel had warned: “Many will certainly join themselves to them by means of smoothness.” (Daniel 11:34b) A considerable number showed an interest in the truth but were not willing to make a dedication to God. Yet others who seemed to accept the good news were really spies for the authorities. A report from one land reads: “Some of these unscrupulous characters were avowed Communists who had crept into the Lord’s organization, made a great display of zeal, and had even been appointed to high positions of service.”

  9 The angel continued: “And some of those having insight will be made to stumble, in order to do a refining work because of them and to do a cleansing and to do a whitening, until the time of the end; because it is yet for the time appointed.” (Daniel 11:35) The infiltrators caused some faithful ones to fall into the hands of the authorities. Jehovah allowed such things to happen for a refining and a cleansing of his people. Just as Jesus “learned obedience from the things he suffered,” so these faithful ones learned endurance from the testing of their faith. (Hebrews 5:8; James 1:2, 3; compare Malachi 3:3.) They are thus ‘refined, cleansed, and whitened.’
  

  https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101999036
• 
  26

  Remember 1992?

  by Tobyjones262 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  anyone remember 1992?

  i can remember i was in the cult.

  times were changing at a rapid pace.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  I agree 1995 was the turning point for JWs. It was the autumn of that year when the Watchtower announced they were giving up of the generation prediction, and the Awake! dropped its generation purpose statement too. They have never recovered from the loss of confidence following that failure, or come up with a reasonable excuse, or a viable alternative for insisting the end must be near.
• 
  20

  I wish all Witness men were like this ...

  by vienne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  my intro essay for the new book caused all sorts of off blog controversy.

  my writing partner, a retired educator and a witness, responded.

  why aren't more witness men like this?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  You say that the people complaining are “both male”, but their maleness doesn’t in itself make their objections gender based, does it?

  Do these emails actually object to your input on the basis of your gender, rather than being a non-Witness and somewhat critical of the Watchtower Society?
• 
  20

  I wish all Witness men were like this ...

  by vienne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  my intro essay for the new book caused all sorts of off blog controversy.

  my writing partner, a retired educator and a witness, responded.

  why aren't more witness men like this?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  The interesting issue here is the extent to which baptised versus non-baptised researchers can freely investigate and write Watchtower history. I have no idea why this is framed as an issue of gender, which frankly seems like a red herring.