Posts by slimboyfat

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

As so often, you say multiple contradictory things at once in the style of: there’s absolutely no hole in the bucket, and I didn’t make the hole in the bucket, and it wasn’t my fault I made the hole the bucket, and who cares if there is a hole in the bucket anyway?

You start out saying it “strains credibility” that the pope made the comment.

Then you go on to say: “He may have been polite (because he was a gentleman), but to interpret a passing kindness as some hidden theological endorsement is naive at best and deceitful at worst.”

So which is it?

My view is it’s plausible he made the comment though it can’t be proved. And if he did make the comment then obviously it was not intended as a theological endorsement of JWs. He was just being polite. I said so above before you did. Your comments don’t contradict what I wrote they agree with them.

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

As an aside, though, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that some highly ranked official in the Catholic church did comment favourably on the evangelistic approach taken by Jehovahs Witnesses. I have heard such comments myself, from an admittedly lay member of the church, but one whose level of faith could only be described as "greater than devout".

Indeed it’s the sort of mild compliment that others give to JWs all the time in preference to being rude or calling them heretics. Who knows if the pope really said this? We weren’t there. But it’s entirely plausible as the kind of response he might have made to a relative upon finding out she had become a JW. What would people rather him say, “well I called up to greet and recall our shared childhood but now that I find you’ve become a JW burn in hell!” 😆

The woman was apparently disappointed the pope never contacted her again especially when he visited Australia three years later. That’s perhaps its own story. His magnanimity and desire for reaching out to old friends early in the role had perhaps worn out as the pressures of the position took their toll. (All complete speculation, of course, before the numpties again point out the bleeding obvious.)

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

Nicknames are peculiar, that’s the point of them. Some are predictable from a given name, many are not, anyone with basic life experience and a family knows this. In my family there are various nicknames that subvert or bear little relation to given names. Trying to work out the probability of a nickname in a different culture a century ago is a fools game with zero evidentiary value to anyone with any common sense. If the former pope’s cousin says she called her childhood playmate Pepi I’m inclined to believe her over a ChatGPT fuelled know-it-all who lacks any semblance of common sense. Not only did you seem to forget that a woman changes her name on getting married, you also didn’t know that Slavic names are very common in Bavaria despite claiming supposed familiarity with the area. Spew our ChatGPT nonsense elsewhere. This so-called discussion is a complete waste of time.

About nicknames, was it on here, or elsewhere, I heard about somebody called Hunter who gained the nickname Gatherer because he became a vegetarian? Classic. 😆

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

It's possible that it was her married name, but that doesn't solve the other problem.

Wow. You wasted a whole paragraph on a logical nonsense that anyone could spot in a nanosecond and all you can say is it’s “possible” that it’s her married name. It’s “possible” that this entire conversation is a complete waste of time. Forgive me if I don’t further credit you as an expert on Bavarian childhood nicknames of the 1930s more than somebody who was there when you can’t even spot that a woman’s married name is different than her maiden name. Completely by the way, Slavic names are very common in Austria and Bavaria. I have relatives who had Slavic names (Polish and Czech) throughout the Nazi period in Germany and Austria. Even the blind alleys you would lead us down are fact free zones.

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

Wasn’t Brzakovic her married name? 🤨

She married in 1956.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/195999273/stefanie-brzakovic

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

Kaleb yes I can see you had no JW connection at the time so that wasn’t the reason the priest told the story. I’m just wondering, if there was no particular connection to JWs, then the fact the priest thought it was interesting and/or amusing to relate the story to a general audience - it perhaps indicates the priest gave some more thought or mental space to JWs than his quip in the story itself suggested.

In other news, I think it’s a bit hasty to say Catholics have been nicer to JWs than JWs are to Catholics when in Canada, for example, the Catholic Church promoted the persecution of JWs. For all their rhetorical flourishes I don’t recall JWs lobbying governments to get the Catholic Church banned.

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

Okay you got me, it said first cousin! See I can admit when I’m wrong. You could try it. 😉

31

Curious? How many members of this group feel we are living in the "End Times"?

by Balaamsass2 in

i like to take a peek at the kids over on reddit every week or so.. this thread caught my eye:" curious….

do any ex jw or pimo, still believe the world is ending.

i see people who have never been witnesses think that the world will end soon and they say things like “jesus is coming soon”….

slimboyfat

Was Newton blinded by belief or are we in the modern age blinded by the modern dogma that only science can deliver true knowledge? Scientific knowledge itself changes over time and we can never know in advance what will need to be changed, which should give some pause or humility before ruling anything out in this mysterious existence in which we find ourselves.

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

The original article said she was a “cousin” of the pope, it didn’t say “first cousin”, to be accurate. For many people the additional clarity in the the second interview in 2008 that she was a “second cousin”, specifying that her mother was the pope’s cousin, along with dates, locations, key childhood experiences, and mention of another living relative in Australia, might tend to corroborate - but you think it does the opposite?

As I already said, maybe we can’t prove it’s true (although your arguments against are looking increasingly desperate) but it’s certainly likely enough to be true to be relevant to the conversation, which is all I claimed. And the original statement you put out from ChatGPT and claimed to have verified is clearly false when you said: “There is no widely available documentation or media coverage to verify this story.” You’ve gone from arguing there was none, to arguing there was only one, to arguing you don’t believe any of the sources anyway - quite a distance, and somewhat “tedious”, to use your own word.

31

Curious? How many members of this group feel we are living in the "End Times"?

by Balaamsass2 in

i like to take a peek at the kids over on reddit every week or so.. this thread caught my eye:" curious….

do any ex jw or pimo, still believe the world is ending.

i see people who have never been witnesses think that the world will end soon and they say things like “jesus is coming soon”….

slimboyfat

Most prophets and end-times predictors point to dates within their own lifetime. Isaac Newton apparently bucked that trend and predicted the end for 2060.

https://isaac-newton.org/statement-on-the-date-2060/