i was an advocate of the idea that a sea landing is beyond impossible for any pilot.
some years ago terrorists hijack a plane in africa and demand to be flown to australia.
the pilot runs out of fuel at the sychelles islands and ditches in the sea with most passengers dead or drowned.
It helped too that the Hudson hadn't frozen over yet. Just a couple of days later and that landing would have been almost impossible. That was part of the reason the plane wasn't lifted sooner. There are ice chunks all over that part of the river now.
Isaac
i seem to recall reading some time back that the society once wrote how some in the congregation refer to the society as "mama" or "mother".
does anyone remember that?
better yet, does anyone have a reference for that?.
***
We are subject, therefore, to God through Christ, the chief one in God’s wifely organization, which is our mother. Hence, as parents are known by their children, to bring reproach on the visible New World society is to bring reproach on Jehovah God and Christ Jesus and on our mother.
w57 5/1 p.280 par.2 TrustYourProved,FaithfulBrothers ******w57 5/1 p.274 par.3 ShowRespectforJehovah’sOrganization***
It is through his organization that God provides this light that the proverb says is the teaching or law of the mother. If we are to walk in the light of truth we must recognize not only Jehovah God as our Father but his organization as our mother.
*** w50 10/1 p.346 par.15 TheWayofSuccess***
A person who thinks he can get along without God’s organization and can study the Bible on his own and can do God’s work independently as he thinks best apart from all organization is very foolish. He lacks all understanding of how God has dealt with his servants in times past. We must not forget that God instructs us through his organization, his woman, our mother. He respects his woman and appreciates the work that she does in behalf of His sons and daughters. So he does not like it when any professed Christian disrespects the "mother" organization. To disrespect her means to disrespect Jesus Christ, for God has made this beloved Son the head of the Theocratic organization. He who robs the organization of the respect due this symbolic mother is working to destroy the organization, not build it up. He is guilty of transgressing against her divine husband, Jehovah our heavenly Father. What you do against her you do against him. "Whoso robbeth his father or his mother, and saith, It is no transgression; the same is the companion of a destroyer." And the great destroyer is Satan the Devil. (Prov. 28:24) Let us, then, not rob and destroy, but show love and respect for our mother by never forsaking her law and teaching as the Devil did. Let us ever be obedient to her, doing so as to Jehovah, her Husband and Head.
two nights ago i read martin luther king jr.'s letter from a birmingham jail.. it is an open letter that dr. king wrote from the city jail in birmingham alabama.
he was confined there after being arrested for his part in a non-violent protest conducted against segregation.
king's letter is a response to a statement made by eight white alabama clergymen titled "a call for unity".
We do need to get a little louder with WT I think. Not quite sure how to do that. I know the info on the Net is helping tremendously.
Snowbird: Its amazing that they would tear gas protests for better schools. I was a PTA President for two years, currently a school board member and I can't even imagine such a thing. They really had some interesting ways in the South.
Isaac
this has been my most challenging video yet!
click for an exclusive look inside the walls of gilead, as well as an overview of what crap gilead teaches.. .
includes never before see video interviews with gilead instructors, wally "the end is coming really soon" liverance, lawrence "newly anointed" bowen, and mark "mr. availability" noumair.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5fqz2_lzge.
Nice job. Even JWs will find this one hard to resist watching.
Isaac
two nights ago i read martin luther king jr.'s letter from a birmingham jail.. it is an open letter that dr. king wrote from the city jail in birmingham alabama.
he was confined there after being arrested for his part in a non-violent protest conducted against segregation.
king's letter is a response to a statement made by eight white alabama clergymen titled "a call for unity".
Nice video. On my daughter's Youtube so she can see more than just "fluff".
Isaac
the first time i went to australia bethel during a holiday, we pioneer boys put on our best "going out" clothes, no ties just very smart, well groomed and neat.
the sister we stayed with said: "oh no you can't wear those clothes, you have to dress in meeting clothes!
" so we did, realizing we had shamed ourselves and our god.
OMG! When did they come out with this. I always knew these were their standards. But to see it so explicit...Wow.
Isaac
i was an advocate of the idea that a sea landing is beyond impossible for any pilot.
some years ago terrorists hijack a plane in africa and demand to be flown to australia.
the pilot runs out of fuel at the sychelles islands and ditches in the sea with most passengers dead or drowned.
All the above is true for a succesful ditching. Add to that nose up enough so that the engines don't dip down into the water until the plane has slowed sufficiently. Interestingly one engine remined attached to the wing in Flight 1549.
Isaac
two nights ago i read martin luther king jr.'s letter from a birmingham jail.. it is an open letter that dr. king wrote from the city jail in birmingham alabama.
he was confined there after being arrested for his part in a non-violent protest conducted against segregation.
king's letter is a response to a statement made by eight white alabama clergymen titled "a call for unity".
Two nights ago I read Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham jail.
It is an open letter that Dr. King wrote from the city jail in Birmingham Alabama. He was confined there after being arrested for his part in a non-violent protest conducted against segregation. King's letter is a response to a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen titled "A Call for Unity". The clergymen believed that the battle against social injustices should be fought in the courts, not the streets. The situation and his responses reminded me of issues we have faced. I thought I'd share some of them. Dr. King's words are in red and bracketed by quote marks. Mine are in black.
A few things jumped out at me in this letter: One was the application of Biblical events to modern day problems.
"Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience."
JWs are often taught to imitate Biblical characters and events in an almost literal fashion. For example, they MUST go from door to door though today there are more effective ways to get a message out en masse. Dr. King here uses Biblical events as metaphors and draws from the principles contained in them.
Another is his condemnation of "superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes" by the Birmingham clergy. That sounds very much like the WT when they deplore things like child abuse cases in the organization but not the policies that cause them in the first place.
Still another is this comment: "But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth".
WT instills in its followers an unhealthy pacifism. This makes sense since they don't want the tension caused by criticism, constructive or otherwise of their policies and teachings.
He further states: "Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals."
This is true of the JWs. Individual members are often decent, wonderful people. The organization is most definitely immoral. And the Governing Body will never share their power voluntarily with persons other than Yes men who are cronies of theirs.
"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." The most relief the WT ever gives are a few less pioneer hours or a slightly shorter meeting.
"Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied.""
Wait on Jehovah is the mantra of the WT. But "Jehovah" never seems to do anything substantive. Still JWs must "show a waiting attitude".
"We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter."
Many religions change for the betterment of their devotees. Not WT. Catholic churches apologize for child abuse. Not WT.
"An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal."
The Governing Body and company never follow what they command others to do in the same way that they command them to.
"Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest."
The WT world is replete with examples of this.
"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
Even JW moderates who simpathize with our cause, fall into this trap.
"In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion?"
WT condemns the anger that we feel. But what about what caused the anger?
"I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood."
Do things in God's time we were always told. Give the organization time people would say, it will come around. The GB are old men others said, just give it time and new members will make changes.
And finally this most definitely came true:
"I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence."
You may very well find other connections. Please feel free to share. The letter in its entirety can be found at http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html.
Isaac Carmignani
i am going off the board.
i feel it has run its course i leave it to those who want it.
there are some who have made me unwelcome on here, so i will sign off.
Welcome back Bubblie.
Isaac
hey look, it's a new jw memoir... and this one is funny!.
will be released march 3, 2009.. preorder from amazon: http://www.amazon.com/im-perfect-youre-doomed-upbringing/dp/1416556842.
[inkling].
As Lance mentioned Kyria is in our meetup here in NYC. We are looking forward to this release.
Isaac
