I definitely got the sense that the WBTS was very pro-vaccine during the pandemic from comments my family made but I never inquired as to why. So, I will inquire now, why were they so pro-vaccine? They are typically opposed to most government mandates which made the rabid pro-vax position very curious.
Big Dog
JoinedPosts by Big Dog
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34
Covid Vx likened to Jesus ransom
by KerryKing inthis morning i decided to log into the local cong meeting on zoom, during the public talk the speaker likened the covid vx to jesus ransom sacrifice, saying that those who didn't avail of the vx, the 'anti vaxxers', are just like people who refuse to put faith in jesus.. i felt sick, knowing my unvxed but active jw parents were sitting there, i logged off immediately.
surely such talk is pure blasphemy or am i just over reacting?!.
i appreciate your thoughts, it will hopefully help me to approach my jw family with facts and logic, i'm praying they wake up fully and 'get out of her', i know they have reservations that's why they refused the vx..
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Governing body
by moley inare the governing body really in charge or are they just a figurehead with the real power being behind the curtain .
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Big Dog
From my experience institutions like churches, governments, corporations, etc tend to take on a life of their own after they have been in existence for a while. Typically, after the individuals responsible for creating the entity die off you end up with stewards whose primary goal is to keep the entity chugging along on its predetermined course. Occasionally someone downstream might get the reins and attempt to adjust the course but that is always a battle against the inertia that the entity has acquired and is often unsuccessful.
It would seem the charismatic leaders of the last century of the WBTS are long gone and what you have left are a group of corporate goons whose only goal is to keep the gravy train going.
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Another big win for child molesters!
by lastmanstanding init just keeps getting easier and easier to molest.
when big religion has got your back, and you know that you can rape kids with impunity as father religion keeps the door to heaven swinging wide, 24/7 absolution available for the superstitious pedo, why not should everyone rape kids….
the pedophile loophole, the mainstay of the whitewashed, clergy penitent privilege, the hole e grail of the christian whore is swinging open, welcoming the perverts.
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Big Dog
The public policy behind privileged communications is that we want people to be able to seek help without fear of reprisal or prosecution. The idea is that it is more important for people to get help than to punish them for prior bad acts. There are only a handful of legally protected relationships in the US and the law is not uniform, some are social worker-client, attorney-client, religious cleric-parishioner, psychologist-patient, spousal privilege, reporter-source and doctor-patient.
The privilege protects the communication between the parties from being subject to legal subpoena and being used as evidence against an individual. The privilege does not protect the threat of futured illegal acts or contemplated harm, only acts in the past.
It can be difficult at best to weigh the competing interests between wanting people to seek help and prosecuting them for prior crimes. There is an old saying that hard cases make bad laws, meaning that basing a law on a particularly difficult set of facts or bad outcome is not always the best idea.
Would we rather someone get counseling and perhaps stop whatever it is they are doing, or would we rather see that they are punished? If we begin carving out exceptions to the privilege rule that is usually a slippery slope towards nullifying it.
Also, I suspect most of the time the professional will admonish the confessor to cease their activities and even confess and accept punishment for them. I can see the value of a patient being able to tell his physician that he has been ingesting illegal drugs so that the doctor may treat him properly without worrying about the physician calling the police and reporting him after he leaves the office or a reporter being able to protect a source that delivers important information about some wrongdoing so that they don't have to fear for their life.
All privilege is like any other law or rule, it's a line we draw in the sand and there will always be situations just on the other side of the line that we don't like. I hate it that pedophiles can be shielded from prosecution due to clerical privilege but I'm not sure what the answer is as I believe privilege has sound public policy behind it.
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Has the Watchtower Faithful Slave become the Evil Slave?
by Vanderhoven7 inwhat evidence suggests to you that the wt f&ds is actually more like the es of matthew 24?.
45¶who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?.
46blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.. .
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Big Dog
PetrW and Boogerman,
Thank you for the clarification. I was looking at the term slave through contemporary lens and didn't appreciate all of the nuances the word could carry, especially in biblical times. That explains quite a bit.
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Has the Watchtower Faithful Slave become the Evil Slave?
by Vanderhoven7 inwhat evidence suggests to you that the wt f&ds is actually more like the es of matthew 24?.
45¶who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?.
46blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.. .
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Big Dog
I have wondered at the use of the word slave, a word that typically has universally negative connotations. Isn't a "faithful" slave something of an oxymoron? Does a slave have a choice whether to be faithful or not? Don't they operate under threat of physical coercion for any transgression or for not following the master's orders? I wouldn't see much value or fidelity in a slave carrying out orders, I would see more in the way of self-preservation in those acts. The faithfulness of a partner or an employee would certainly seem to be more meaningful than one's chattel property.
All this talk of being slaves to God seems a bit, off, to say the least. Is that really the relationship that we would seek or want to foster?
In a broader sense I have always wondered why the bible was largely silent on the topic of slavery, something today's society has condemned as evil.
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Israel vs Hamas
by Riley inwe might have russians involved in the middle east and are attacking israel.. wait.. i thought the watchtower and tract society was the central figures in the end times.
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not that i believe in any of this nonsense but any news in jw world about how the evangelical narrative might be playing out closer than the wts stupidity.
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Big Dog
Listen to Blondie, she knows what she is talking about.
Trying to divine when the end of the world is coming, if it is in fact coming which is a different discussion, is a parlor game at best and a waste of time at the worst.
I can remember all of the pseudo-scientific calculations with Daniel and his prophecies. I hated that study book more than most and that's saying something.
End times porn.
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TODAY is my 56th anniversary of GOING TO PRISON as a Jehovah's Witness Conscientious Objector
by Terry inwhat happened to jehovah’s witness young men and why did it happen?______in the 1960s men of draft age were called upon to either serve in the military (during the vietnam war) or to comply with the alternate service option: serving in a hospital or community in need.. non-jehovah’s witnesses were faced with only one refusal: military service.jw boys and young men were instructed (in private) to refuse the alternate civilian service as well.
the superior authorities had made this exemption for people of conscience.the law was clear on this.
if we worked in a hospital community we would be free to go about our witnessing ministry - if we double-refused: we would languish in prison.a no-brainer to them.
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Big Dog
Terry, words fail me. All I can say is that it makes me physically ill to think that you were incarcerated because of those cretins on the GB. I am sickened at the time that you lost from your life obeying the rules dictated by those pond scum in Brooklyn.
To use their phraseology, wouldn't it be fitting that if there is a hell those douchebags be locked in the lowest levels and roasted for all eternity for their crimes. I don't know if even Dante could have envisioned a suitable punishment for them.
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Encouraging scriptures for the day
by Kosonen inhello my friends,.
here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.
revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).
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Big Dog
This thread has turned into a self perpetuating acid trip. It has found a rhythm of sorts with the back and forth of biblical verses and secular prose and poetry. Have Godsmack provide the soundtrack and it could be performance art.
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A Coin With a Remarkable History
by cofty inover the years i have shared a few examples of objects i have found while metal detecting near my home in northumberland in ne england.
i live in a rural estate that was the site of a medieval village with a manor house and defensive tower.
many of the things i find illustrate the amazing history of the location.
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Big Dog
PetrW,
Stranger things have happened. Those guys came back with a lot of interesting items they "liberated" while there. One other item he had that I was always fascinated by was a bible he carried that saved his life when a German soldier tried to bayonet him. He still got stuck but the bible slowed the blade down enough so that the wound was more superficial and though he ended the story there one would assume left him able to end the German soldier. The hole from the bayonet went right through the middle of the good book and many of the pages were soaked with blood. I believe he was buried with it.
I remember asking him why he was always in such a good mood and he replied after living through 3 years of combat he said every meal was a feast, every paycheck a fortune and every day a gift. Difficult to argue with that.
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Trinity Statements in the Dead Sea Scrolls
by Sea Breeze indr. ken johnson has identified several statements in the dead sea scrolls that predict that god would visit the earth as a man... as the messiah.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljrfvytjhve&ab_channel=kenjohnson%28biblefacts%29 .
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Big Dog
I have read most of this thread and don't think I missed it but if I did apologies. When discussing the trinity doctrine with people as an academic exercise, especially JW's, my question was always well what about the Holy Spirit? It seems most of the wrangling always involves Jesus and his nature with respect to God and so forth.
The Holy Spirit is if I remember my JW teaching correctly God's active spirit. It is a part of God, emanates from God yet has the hallmarks of personhood, independent action, emotion, appearance in a different form, etc. I would ask, well, it appears that you have no trouble with 2/3 of the trinity concept, why would it be such a leap to see Jesus in the same fashion? I never really saw that much difference between the two.