Thanks for the further work, blondie. I wonder how being a professor of religion at a Lutheran university works into that scenario. I also wonder if the so-revered GB is even aware of such a thing, or if they are aware of it, whether they simply don't want to touch it. They might lose an appointed man (assuming Foster is such), something in short supply these days.
careful
JoinedPosts by careful
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31
Wythenshawe Kingdom Hall - Sold
by AdamCzarnobay ini was slightly surprised to see that wythenshawe hall has been sold.
it's now a mosque.
this one had an attached flat where the co and his wife lived, i wonder what accommodation they put them in these days..
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Theocratic Warfare and Taqiyya
by aqwsed12345 inthe concept of strategic deception exists in several religious and ideological contexts.
in this article, we will explore and compare the theocratic warfare doctrine of the watchtower society and taqiyya in islam.
both concepts have parallels in their mechanisms of permitting deception for religious purposes but differ significantly in their application and historical roots.. 1. theocratic warfare: the "rahab method".
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careful
You can add well-known OT/LXX scholar Eugene Ulrich of Notre Dame to that list of Skehan and Tov. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental Composition of the Bible, Supp. VT 169 (Leiden: Brill, 2015) 154.
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Reddit thread - ‘Organization Finally Suggesting to Plan for Retirement’
by LongHairGal inthis information is supposed to be in the upcoming march wt.
(i don’t go on jw dot org).
it would sound like they are hinting at a change in thinking.. in my opinion, any such change would be yet another slap in the face to faithful pimis along with those other recent changes.. there are so many heartfelt responses on that thread and a lot of justified anger.. don’t know what to say except that i’m so glad i never listened to the religion all those years ago.
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careful
If this is true, it is a big change. Anyone have the org. link?
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Wythenshawe Kingdom Hall - Sold
by AdamCzarnobay ini was slightly surprised to see that wythenshawe hall has been sold.
it's now a mosque.
this one had an attached flat where the co and his wife lived, i wonder what accommodation they put them in these days..
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careful
Blondie, I have long appreciated your well-researched and informative posts here. That said, I have a problem with this statement:
But a jw can't donate money to another religious organization or accept money in pay for work done from a religious organization.
There are bros/sisters who work or have worked for colleges and universities run by Catholic and Protestant religions. I knew a sister who worked at a Protestant one as a postal clerk. I asked her whether her paycheck was from the postal service or the college. She said the latter. She was in good standing in the cong. and loved the FS.
Right now and for years, there is a brother named Edgar Foster in good standing who teaches part-time at Lutheran Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina. He got a PhD from the University of Glasgow and has a blog defending the org and its beliefs:
https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com
Here is a description of a course he teaches from the university's online catalogue:
And another of a teaching award he received in 2016:
So it appears either that things have changed or there was some long-standing "exception" in this regard. I knew that sister many years ago.
What do you think?
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The Watchtower—Study Edition | January 2025 Husbands, Honor Your Wife
by RULES & REGULATIONS in14 a husband who physically or verbally abuses his wife needs to take additional steps to repair his relationship with jehovah and with his wife.
what are these steps?
first, he recognizes that he has a serious problem.
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careful
liam,
I can think of numerous sisters, both single and married, who would absolutely cherish (one group) and hate (other group) your pic! I had to lol! To me it looks like the cover pic of the underground Witness "Handbook for Single Sisters".
As for R&R's OP: conspicuous by its absence is any ref. to calling in Caesar to protect the wife. How they don't want to touch on that! The scenario they portray looks entirely in-house, as if sisters—in the predicament of being married to a guy who could give a rat's ass about what the scriptures say or of having a "relationship with Jehovah"—don't matter.
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Does god punish children for their parents sins?
by moomanchu inezekiel 18: 1-4 , “the word of the lord came to me: ‘what do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of israel: “the parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”?
as surely as i live, declares the sovereign lord, you will no longer quote this proverb in israel.
for everyone belongs to me, the parent as well as the child—both alike belong to me.
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careful
What people want to believe themselves (or what they want to believe the scriptures say) and then what the scriptures themselves do say are usually two different things. That said, from a purely historical perspective, there does seem to be an evolution of thought within the history of the Hebrew Bible itself.
For example, acc. to the Mosaic Law (in a dramatic date perspective, prior to David) David should have taken vengeance sometimes but did not. Indeed, he should have been stoned himself for arranging Uriah's death, but he was not. So the contradiction between Ex. 20 and Deut. 18 that you point out can be easily conceived of—again from a purely historical perspective—as simply an evolution of religious thinking within the Hebrew/Israelite/Jewish faith, that is, "our ancestors used to believe that our God Jehovah takes vengeance for the sins of fathers upon sons. But we Jews [by the date of Ezekiel] now know that isn't how God operates. Each person is individually responsible for his/her own actions."
That's a nice tidy explanation, but then we encounter in the NT, which is supposed to be more loving and tolerant than the OT, Matthew's report that the Jews responsible for wanting Jesus dead exclaim, "Let his blood come upon us and our children" (27:25), clearly a return to the spirit of Ex. 20.
Go figure! If we want any sort of crystal clear theology rooted the Bible, we're dreaming. It's generally pretty murky stuff, full of contradictions or at least what look like such on the surface. Enter the theologians.
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Conversion Therapy for Gay Bethelites in Poland (?)
by Jensus inrecently, there was a rather accurate report on jw on german tv station "sat1".
you find it on their streaming service joyn.. https://www.joyn.de/serien/jenseits-des-glaubens-zwischen-religion-und-verblendung/1-2-die-zeugen-jehovas.
there was one piece of information that was new for me: a former bethelite explained that he realized that he was gay.
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careful
Sounds rather bizarre . . . Who paid for this "therapy," the org? Or did some European socialized medicine program offer it?
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Memory hole, international conspiracy, and the JW international network
by slimboyfat incan anyone else who was around 15 to 20 years ago remember an odd story about jw missionaries being stopped at the swiss/italian border with american bonds worth billions of dollars in their possession?
because i can find little to no information about it anywhere online, yet at the time i am sure i recall it being reported by different mainstream news sources, including the bbc.
why do some news stories seem to disappear from the internet altogether?
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careful
SBF, what have you been smoking? Drinking? Dreaming about? Have you looked into any side effects from medications you take?
Have you thought about fixing your concerns and energies on more tangible subjects?
Just a thought . . .
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Any information about a special talk on Marriage in December 2024
by insearchoftruth intwo folks from the local kh visited the house yesterday looking for my wife who is an on again off again baptized jw.
wife was not available so they asked me to tell her about a special talk on marriage next week.
any outlines available for this ‘special talk’ or could this potentially be a local issue?.
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careful
One thing you can count on in Witness land: anything that is designated as "special" will be ordinary, normal, run-of-the-mill. It's a phrase they use without normal meaning in order to spice up their unexciting life—at least in their eyes.
What special could they say about marriage that they haven't before? Maybe that blow jobs and cunnilingus are OK now. That might be viewed as "special" to them. However, it's not altogether new since it's been in print/on video now for some time.
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Memories of Excessive Laughter
by Sea Breeze injw's are not known for laughter.
there are the rare exceptions.
they are more known for their fear mongering and doomsday scenarios where "the dead shall come to be as manure on the surface of the ground from one end of the earth clear to the other".
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careful
It wasn't her laugh that people mocked it was like "why the hell are you laughing right now there's nothing funny." For her it was a defensive delay tactic to give a reaction to a question so that her brain had time to come up with a reply.
moomanchu, she's not laughing any more. Instead "trying to figure out" why she/her dem. cronies lost—all the while while not facing the real reason that the majority of voting Americans rejected her: the dems have gone too far in their liberalism. We witness the long-simmering anti-liberal reaction all over the West: in the UK with Brexit, in Hungary, Germany, and Poland with the rise of the radical right. People are scared of encouraging kids to choose their body gender surgically before they can drive a car or even reach puberty. That's what the liberals have brought about.