Phones and cars and perhaps other devices do listen to conversations that are within range of their “hearing”. Ten years ago I would have thought that was a crackpot idea, but now I think it’s pretty likely the case, given what we know from: Snowden; US spying on Merkel; three-letter agencies controling social media; the technical feasibility of doing so; the increasingly obvious propensity of government and business to spy on everything for their own advantage; as well as my own experiences, and others I know, of the phone apparently reacting to in-person conversations, as the other poster mentioned.
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
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Another way you are being spied upon
by careful infrom jeremy hsu, technology writer for new scientist magazine.. smart tvs take snapshots of what you watch multiple times per second.
smart tvs from samsung and lg take screenshots of what you are watching even when you are using them to display images from a connected laptop or video game console.
read the whole article below.
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WTS 2024 Annual Business Meeting ...
by careful in... is just three weeks from this saturday.
the org has been tight-lipped, really, successfully secret about advance info on these in recent years,.
now that these relatively recent changes on dress and grooming, reporting fs time, judicial matters, etc.
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slimboyfat
A new book on Revelation is overdue. The previous one was published 36 years ago in 1988. That’s longer than any previous period between books covering Revelation.
The Finished Mystery (1917)
Light I & II (1930)
Babylon the Great Has Fallen (1963)
Then is Finished the Mystery of God (1969)
Revelation—Its Grand Climax at Hand! (1988)
New Book (2024?)
But then, Watchtower is no longer primarily a book publishing organisation, so maybe the interval is no longer relevant?
A new Revelation book would present potentially difficult choices, such as whether to stick with a literal 144,000, with the 1914 and 1919 dates, and the wacky bowls and trumpet blasts interpretations.
If they do attempt it, then it will probably follow the pattern of the Pure Worship book on Ezekiel, and the book on Acts, which both declared that they were not verse by verse commentaries and therefore focussed on highlights and themes instead. Then they could effectively avoid parts they find tricky and offer impressions and lessons rather than detailed interpretations.
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Ten reasons Jehovah’s Witnesses have the true religion (plus a bonus one)
by slimboyfat inthinking back when i was a true believer these are probably the top ten reasons why i believed jws are the true religion.
1. they show love among themselves by not going to war.
not killing your fellow believers in any circumstances, including war, would seem to be a very basic requirement for true christianity.
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slimboyfat
Interestingly, while historians have made estimates, the Jehovah's Witnesses likely know the exact figures but choose not to share them.
The exact figures of what, how many “resisted”? You are trying to put an exact number something that is impossible to put an exact number on. Someone who spoke against the regime, went to jail, renounced their faith in custody, was released, later regretted that decision and rejoined. Did they resist, or not? People who broke down under torture and gave up names of their fellow believers. Did they resist, or not? People who reasoned it was proper to lie on forms to fool the Nazis and got released from prison that way. Did they resist or not? Someone who was a JW for social or family reasons but decided it wasn’t worth it when the Nazis came to power. Is that counted as a failure of JWs to resist? People who were true believers but simply couldn’t withstand the terror, or who compromised to save themselves, or their children, or others. Children who were removed from parents and were indoctrinated by the regime. All these scenarios, and many more complicated situations played out countless times. I don’t think we are in a position to judge except to say that any act of resistance was remarkable in the circumstances. We don’t need exact numbers to make the obvious observation that JWs stood out massively. We don’t need an exact figure in order to draw the same moral conclusion as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum that JWs were an “island of spiritual resistance” and that other churches have had to come to terms with the “widespread complicity” of their leadership and ordinary members.
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Ten reasons Jehovah’s Witnesses have the true religion (plus a bonus one)
by slimboyfat inthinking back when i was a true believer these are probably the top ten reasons why i believed jws are the true religion.
1. they show love among themselves by not going to war.
not killing your fellow believers in any circumstances, including war, would seem to be a very basic requirement for true christianity.
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slimboyfat
… WW2 demonstrates the dangers or neutrality …
If everyone was neutral there would have been no war, obviously, but you’re entitled to your opinion, notsopeacefulpete. Your entire post is a whole lot of cope, attempting to downplay the stand JWs took in Nazi Germany.
Protestant historian Detlef Garbe described the conduct of JWs in the Third Reich as a “ray of light in a dark age”. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum called JWs “an island of spiritual resistance”. Former JWs who attempt to deny reality on this do themselves no favours. It’s a sign of being in a bubble. Not everything about JWs is bad. If you can’t straightforwardly recognise opposing the Nazis as a good act it’s maybe time to reflect.
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Ten reasons Jehovah’s Witnesses have the true religion (plus a bonus one)
by slimboyfat inthinking back when i was a true believer these are probably the top ten reasons why i believed jws are the true religion.
1. they show love among themselves by not going to war.
not killing your fellow believers in any circumstances, including war, would seem to be a very basic requirement for true christianity.
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slimboyfat
StephaneLaliberte this is also a subject I have taken an interest in.
The only real difference was the numbers—there were many more Catholics, and therefore many more traitors and Nazi sympathizers, but the ratios were likely similar.
The ratios are entirely dissimilar. The overwhelming majority of JWs resisted the Nazis whereas only a small number of Protestants and Catholics did so. This is why the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum describes Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Third Reich as:
an island of spiritual resistance to the Nazi demand for absolute German commitment to the state.
Whereas it concludes its article about Protestants and Catholics this way:
After 1945, the silence of the church leadership and the widespread complicity of "ordinary Christians" compelled leaders of both churches to address issues of guilt and complicity during the Holocaust—a process that continues internationally to this day.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-german-churches-and-the-nazi-state
Note the contrast between “an island of spiritual resistance” and “the widespread complicity of ‘ordinary Christians’”.
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Ten reasons Jehovah’s Witnesses have the true religion (plus a bonus one)
by slimboyfat inthinking back when i was a true believer these are probably the top ten reasons why i believed jws are the true religion.
1. they show love among themselves by not going to war.
not killing your fellow believers in any circumstances, including war, would seem to be a very basic requirement for true christianity.
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slimboyfat
If those accusations are true then Barr would be an awful person. But I don’t believe an accusation just because someone makes it. If I remember reading about this case before, wasn’t there serious doubt about the timing of the accusation because some of the people accused were not where they would have had to have been? If I remember correctly there was a possibility that the accuser was mixing up some details including perhaps mixing up one GB member for another. The fact is I simply don’t know, so I won’t make a judgment either way. The things I do know about Barr for sure make me think he was a sincere person.
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Ten reasons Jehovah’s Witnesses have the true religion (plus a bonus one)
by slimboyfat inthinking back when i was a true believer these are probably the top ten reasons why i believed jws are the true religion.
1. they show love among themselves by not going to war.
not killing your fellow believers in any circumstances, including war, would seem to be a very basic requirement for true christianity.
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slimboyfat
Here are some of mine: I thought they were honest and I thought they really loved me and I thought they really loved Jehovah and I thought they really loved truth and I thought they really loved other people.
Yes, that too. Call me naive, but I do think there were and are many genuine brothers and sisters, including in the leadership. There have certainly been pretty awful people too, such as Leo Greenlees and Ted Jaracz, and some leaders lower down, and local elders. But I still think people like Lloyd Barry, Jack Barr, Geoffrey Jackson, Tony Morris in his own way, Fred Franz even, as well as many elders, and other brothers and sisters I’ve come across could be described that way.
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Ten reasons Jehovah’s Witnesses have the true religion (plus a bonus one)
by slimboyfat inthinking back when i was a true believer these are probably the top ten reasons why i believed jws are the true religion.
1. they show love among themselves by not going to war.
not killing your fellow believers in any circumstances, including war, would seem to be a very basic requirement for true christianity.
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slimboyfat
I’d say the first things that made me doubt were: the fact that Armageddon didn’t come after the generation died out in 1994, and the fact that they didn’t offer a plausible explanation for that, plus they kept changing the explanation. (They should have stuck with the first revision in 1995 that said it was the wicked generation that was around whenever Armageddon happened to arrive. The explanations just got increasingly bizarre after that.) Then I came across the misquotations in the Reasoning book, the Trinity brochure, and the blue Creation book. Then doubts about the blanket opposition to natural selection as an explanation of how life evolved. Plus there was the misrepresentation of data to make it seem like there had been more and bigger earthquakes in the 20th century, followed by the strange cover up and assertion that there didn’t need to be more or bigger earthquakes in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled. Then there was the persistent increases in the anointed when they should be going down. Plus the authoritarian clampdown on brothers doing their own scholarly research in the 2007 Kingdom Ministry. Doubts about the application of specific verses such as Matt 24:45 and Prov 4:18. Doubts about the “gentile times” chronology, obviously, don’t know how I forgot that one. I think those are the main ones.
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Flight MH370 - very thought provoking discussion.
by BoogerMan inthis video presents some sinister claims & info.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79r77zt6jku&t=4234s.
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slimboyfat
This seems like a plausible explanation. Governments get up to all sorts of things like this that we never hear about. This could be one of them. Even if it isn’t, governments obviously do sacrifice civilians in order to keep state secrets in scenarios like this and use their control over the media and other institutions in order to cover it up.
It’s now a matter of historical record in the UK, for example, that the government intentionally exposed its citizens to radioactive fallout from nuclear tests and then monitored them to see the results. They used their control of the media and censorship to deny the reality for decades and delayed acknowledgement until after most of the victims had died. Instead of compensating people they called them crackpots and conspiracy theorists until it was too late. If governments can do that, can they bring down a plane or two of civilians when they perceive a national security risk? Of course they can. It’s probably near impossible to prove it in any particlar case because the government has huge resources and censorship at its disposal, and the “conspiracy theorist” label is a powerful ideological weapon. But we can be sure this type of thing carries on today as it has always done.
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Ten reasons Jehovah’s Witnesses have the true religion (plus a bonus one)
by slimboyfat inthinking back when i was a true believer these are probably the top ten reasons why i believed jws are the true religion.
1. they show love among themselves by not going to war.
not killing your fellow believers in any circumstances, including war, would seem to be a very basic requirement for true christianity.
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slimboyfat
Did you go to the summer convention, no-zombie? It was wall to wall Jesus.
Thanks, Earnest, yes I can see that specific situation is powerful.
I could have added that the behaviour of JWs during the Third Reich was also something that convinced me Jehovah’s Witnesses have the truth. The Nazi regime is as close to a laboratory test of who are true Christians as you could conceivably devise and JWs conducted themselves well when so many others did not. That’s not to deny that individuals of other religions showed courage or that some other small groups also took a stand against the regime, but it seems obvious that JWs stood out as a religious group that stood firm under extreme trial.
FreeTheMasons and Vanderhoven and downvoter you’ve either misunderstood the thread or are not willing to enter into the spirit of it. There are hundreds of threads on why JWs are wrong. I thought one thread on why we thought they were right might be interesting. 💡