james_woods

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Posts by james_woods

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  97

  Pat Condell on Aggressive Atheism

  by cantleave in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this is pretty much how i feel.......who disagrees with this?.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yjo4duhmrzk&noredirect=1.

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  james_woods

  It seems that I have yet another opportunity to denounce Agressive Atheism.

  It seems to me that if Atheists are really so sure of their intellectual position, they would have the general decency to let other people worship as they please. If Atheists do not want to be forced into the churches, then let them not try to force people out of the churches.

  As to their cause - arguing over centuries-old customes - like the word "God" on courtroom inscriptions and on currency seems to me quite childish.

  Below the so-called "high intellectual standards" athests like Condell are supposed to be professing.
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  205

  Mother Teresa attacked by Atheist/Anostic group -

  by james_woods in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  while i am no fan of mother teresa after reading some of the revealed facts about her life and work - i thought this was just a little out of the realm of polite conversation (but was interesting):.

  atheist group at dartmouth plans anti mother teresa event.. .

  http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?id=4503.

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  james_woods

  Interesting discussion...I guess it was about time to re-visit the Mother Teresa legacy. I had no idea this would go 11 pages -

  I just put it up because I thought the way the Dartmouth people protested her was needlessly (rudely) harsh and did not serve any practical purpose.

  I did get one thing out of this that I believe should be corrected:

  Being critical of Mother Teresa is not the same thing at all as being critical of Catholic Charity in general, or the Catholic religion in general. No more than criticism of child molestation within the priesthood should be taken that way.

  The other side of the coin is the Catholics really should review any tendency toward knee-jerk reactions to automatically support Teresa without reservation - just the same as taking a stand against child abuse without condemning their church in general.
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  105

  Bigfoot Is Real

  by metatron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://networkedblogs.com/f8tw1.

  they got the dna to prove it.

  there are other dna studies, too - although the ones i've heard about concluded that it was an unknown primate, not a human.

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  james_woods

  So....still no actual evidence?

  My theory is that the UFOs have cleaned up any evidence for reasons of their own.
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  97

  Jehovah's Witnesses dismayed by new magazine format from Watchtower Society.

  by Balaamsass in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  wow.

  i was surprised this week by calls from active jws complaining about the new magazine format, and more begging for money from the platform.. frankly i was surprized by this reaction since this is old news to jwn members.

  i guess actually shuffling to the bookroom and grabbing the new "awake tracts" minus the inside cover forward ...awakened many sleepy, catatonic, bored jws who never read the things or go on the internet anyway.. any feedback from other areas?.

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  james_woods

  We always loved to see the improvements in the magazines...what a hype when they went full color!

  To be honest, I thought the full color magazines were a distinct step down in quality from the old traditional letterpress Watchtowers.

  They were, after all, not exactly the National Geographic!
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  33

  Can a JWs Elder be "removed" if his wife is known as the congregation "gossip"?

  by booker-t in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i remember in my kingdom hall one of our 5 elders bro.

  "smith" had a gossipy wife sis "smith" who would be known to gossip from the time she enter the hall until she left.

  i don't know how she never was reproved or counseled for her gossiping.

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  james_woods

  The answer to the thread title question is simply:

  Any elder can be removed for practically any reason at any time - it all depends on the local elder's political position and how well the elder is esteemed by the Circuit Overseer at the time.

  The inverse is also true - in that some very badly qualified people have survived in this position for very long periods of time.

  It is really just pure politics - plain and simple.
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  74

  Living Through the Brief Liberalization of Jehovah's Witnesses, Never Recovering

  by TMS in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  with the book crisis of conscience detailing the turbulence at bethel during the early to mid 70's, the transformation from autocratic rule to governance by committee or a body of men, many of us can speak to how that felt among the rank and file of the local congregations during those years.

  we learned new concepts based in large part to research done for the aid to bible understanding volume, then we were asked or coerced into unlearning those principles, going back to the old ways.

  some of us never readjusted, finding ourselves very different from our more hardline compadres.. the inertia for the changes that eventually were initiated in the congregations came from the discovery that the greek words episkopos and presbyteros were used biblically to refer to all qualified men in a congregation, not just one.

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  james_woods

  A young elder raised his hand and was recognized: "Since when do we allow Christendom to dictate our standards?" The Bethel brother's face turned beet red and he shut the meeting down abruptly. Going beyond the "things written" is always difficult to enforce.

  It is sort of a double-edged sword of credibility and embarrassment - how did the "suits and ties" standard get set in the first place? They could hardly say that this was because other churches went to church like that, so they said that it was "business standards".

  However, hardly anybody (other than the head waiter at a restaurant) dresses this way in business any more - so really, where does this standard come from?
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  56

  A Mormon becomes a JW in the Feb 2013 Watchtower...

  by cedars in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  glancing through the feb 2013 "public" watchtower edition, an interesting article appears on page 8.. here is the pdf download link.... http://www.jw.org/download/?fileformat=pdf&issue=20130201&output=html&pub=wp&langwritten=e&option=trgchlzrqvnyvrxf&txtcmslang=e.

  it's interesting how, in the story, the young man's jw aunt and uncle switch him from mormonism to the jw faith using third-party material (the nov 8, 1995 awake!

  article), and he ends up becoming a jw after confirming on the official mormon website that the claims in the awake!

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  james_woods

  Well, perhaps the Mormon can teach the Witnesses how to build better central halls of worship (and how to sing better).
• 
  41

  Who/what decides what is right and what is wrong?

  by Knowsnothing in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  is it the united states of america?

  is it democracy?

  is it communism?

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  james_woods

  Each one has to decide this for himself - it is the long way of human self-consciousness.
• 
  205

  Mother Teresa attacked by Atheist/Anostic group -

  by james_woods in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  while i am no fan of mother teresa after reading some of the revealed facts about her life and work - i thought this was just a little out of the realm of polite conversation (but was interesting):.

  atheist group at dartmouth plans anti mother teresa event.. .

  http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?id=4503.

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  james_woods

  So, apart from all that...

  Being publicly critical is bad manners no matter who the target is.

  If the criticism is true there may not be an acceptable delivery of the bad news.

  I don't understand, Terry - you surely cannot mean that being publicly critical of Hitler is bad manners?

  (* no - gentle readers - a point of logic. James is NOT comparing Teresa to Hitler *)
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  205

  Mother Teresa attacked by Atheist/Anostic group -

  by james_woods in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  while i am no fan of mother teresa after reading some of the revealed facts about her life and work - i thought this was just a little out of the realm of polite conversation (but was interesting):.

  atheist group at dartmouth plans anti mother teresa event.. .

  http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?id=4503.

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  james_woods

  Charliko - I am an agnostic, and I wrote this thread to show dismay at rampant atheistic hate speech.

  Mother Teresa was no saint - it is clear. However:

  I do not think that the kind of lunatic hate mentioned in the original post serves anybody in any useful way.