Posts by FaithfulDoubter

8

"Do Burned CDs Have a Short Life Span?"

by one in

jw
friends

"do burned cds have a short life span?

john blau, idg news service

tuesday, january 10, 2006

FaithfulDoubter

Hrm, I don't know how much I trust this "expert". He seems to be in the minority about 'tapes' being good. Tapes DO degrade over time, and digital tapes have arguably even more problems, ESPECIALLY if you use them often. (Stretching the tape often results in data loss and degredation.) I wouldn't trust tapes or CD-Rs to do real archival for much. (I'd lay good money that those people using tape for archival are using it purely because of capacity issues, NOT longevity...) That said, there are CD-Rs, and then there are CD-Rs... Some claim to have 100 year life-spans, and I know that I have several 7+ year old CD-Rs still good. The question is really how well you treat them and store them. If you store them at room temperature, out of the sunlight, in a CD-Bible or jewel case, I don't see having many trouble. And does it really take that much effort to reburn important CDs, or better yet store them on a nice network server....

Next thing you know, I'll be hearing about people storing things on floppy again because CD-Rs are so unrelaiable...

39

Are you paranoid about posting?

by wombat in

poor jwfacts got sprung when the jw trawlers were able to join the dots.. no, that's wrong - they knew it was him but it took something else for them to be able to prove it.. i am not game to post a bio about myself.

my jw siblings are very litigious.

one even sued another jw for libel.

FaithfulDoubter

Hmmm, yes, paranoia is a good thing. I haven't told any white lies, here anyway. I have in other places. I've also accidentally revealed my full name to a couple of people! (They asked me to e-mail them on the board, and I stupidly replied with my From: field with my full name filled out.) I realized what I'd done only after I sent a few e-mails out. Luckily, those people weren't JW moles in the slightest. I'm already starting to prepare for being outed, but I don't know the emotional toll it will take on me. I have a close relationship with my JW parents, and despite my father having physically abused me on a couple of occassions, wouldn't want him to know that I've told other people about that - and that I still felt he had, even though he did, or something...

24

Did you know of any JW elders or JW pioneers that were "racist"?

by booker-t in

i know this might sound like a question from "la-la" land but as a black ex-jws most of the white jw's that i did have contact with were really nice.

i was talking to a hispanic ex-jws the other day and he was telling me of some of the racist experiences he had as a jw.

i did not contradict him but i never experienced racism from caucasian jw's.

FaithfulDoubter

Another true story:

After a sister had chastised a young brother for dating an african-american sister, she was counselled on how race and such didn't matter. After reading several scriptures and so on with her, the brothers thought she was beginning to get the message. A few weeks later, talking to the younger brother she chastised before, in reference to the young african-american sister the brother was dating, she had this to say, "At least she wasn't a Mexican". Old habits die hard I guess.

24

Did you know of any JW elders or JW pioneers that were "racist"?

by booker-t in

i know this might sound like a question from "la-la" land but as a black ex-jws most of the white jw's that i did have contact with were really nice.

i was talking to a hispanic ex-jws the other day and he was telling me of some of the racist experiences he had as a jw.

i did not contradict him but i never experienced racism from caucasian jw's.

FaithfulDoubter

I have a couple stories...

Once I expressed interest in a black sister, and some family members strongly dissuaded me saying that the "worst thing I could ever do was mary a black sister". They then went on and said that interracial relationships don't work out, and so on and so forth. I chalked it down to age, but I've since heard rather similar comments from others.

I also heard of a congregation, that after segregation and so on was done away with, would self-segregate. All the black brothers and sisters on one side, white brothers and sisters on the other. After the meeting ended they wouldn't meangle together, and left rather quickly. I was shocked to hear about such a thing in the Organization!

Not trying to hijack the thread too much, but I've been thinking a lot about this issue lately. I don't think the JWs are really that much different in regards to race relations. It really is a function of age that determines who 'racist' you are. The later generations today are probably the least racist of any that have come so far, but it's still a definate problem. I see people sometimes make their living on feeding racism, some well meaning, and some that I think are just hateful. (I saw a bone-chilling speech on C-SPAN where a black former university professor advocated the final solution of killing all white people.) I don't think any JW would go that far. I think you'd be suprised what some of the older friends would say about different ethnic groups. I know I was.

11

Islamic Extremism:Begining of the End of All Religion?

by prophecor in

here's a scenario as to how it could be played out.

in an effort to squelch radical islam from gaining a foothold on the democratic processes that is begining to occur in the middle east, especially as it relates to iraq and eventually, maybe iran, could religion, all religion come to be eventually outlawed worldwide as a means of choking out the relentless hostile energy that occurs worlwide?

to try and stem the tide of suicide bombers around the world, as well as the possibility of bio-terrorism?

FaithfulDoubter

If religion was banned tommorow, I'd be doing my best to get my rear to a kingdom hall. It's lines of reasoning like this that scare me to no end. Really, this in my mind would be the critical sign that the JWs are right, and I just can't accept that right now. I think religion is far to important to too many people to be destroyed anytime soon.

21

WTS advocates resisting rape to the point of death?

by M.J. in

over the years the wts has vacillated on its stance regarding the distinction between rape and mutual consent to fornication.. in years past, the wts has stated that "the primary distinction between rape and consent was whether a woman screamed for help.

" (awake!, 4/22/73, p. 17).. the wts's latest published stance, however, states that while the act of screaming establishes innocence of the victim, screaming in itself is not the sole criteria for determining the victim's innocence before god.

if one is incapable of screaming, it does not matter, since jehovah can read a person's motives:.

FaithfulDoubter

JC is short for Judicial Committee. The Jehovah's Witnesses have their own 'court system', where a person is tried based on a panel of 3 or more elders (supposedly older mature men) in the congregation. They are not allowed to bring in a recording device, or have someone to help defend them against charges. The purpose of the JC is to determine first guilt or innocence, and then repentence of any sins that may have been committed. JCs can be held for all manner of reasons from fornication, to smoking, to apostasy. I'm sure there are other threads on here that better describe it, but the google search thing just gives me wierd links here.

73

Any Active JW's here!

by isaias4u2nv in

jw
friends

just very simply any active jw's in here!!

!

FaithfulDoubter

I am here, and active, but not for much longer I don't think.

21

WTS advocates resisting rape to the point of death?

by M.J. in

over the years the wts has vacillated on its stance regarding the distinction between rape and mutual consent to fornication.. in years past, the wts has stated that "the primary distinction between rape and consent was whether a woman screamed for help.

" (awake!, 4/22/73, p. 17).. the wts's latest published stance, however, states that while the act of screaming establishes innocence of the victim, screaming in itself is not the sole criteria for determining the victim's innocence before god.

if one is incapable of screaming, it does not matter, since jehovah can read a person's motives:.

FaithfulDoubter

In defense of us men folk, not all of us think like that!

When I was very young, someone I knew was DF'd because she was raped and became pregnant. She went to a man's house thinking there was going to be a party, but was decieved. Because she 'put herself into that situation', she was disfellowshipped.

Years later, when I found out about her circumstance, I kept on asking the person that told me (a long time JW), why they would disfellowship someone for being raped. It didn't make any sense to my young brain. (I was probably about 12 at the time.) They told me that Jehovah needed to insure there wasn't any reproach on his organization. That really didn't sit well with me, but when I pressured further I was warned I was going against Jehovah's will and that he would make everything right.

It's a sad thing that when a girl is raped, she has to sit through a JC to find out if it was 'consensual' or not, especially when the police are already pressing charges, and they have to go through the agony of a court trial and testifying. The whole thing makes my blood boil.... There are also instances of other sexual abuse I know of that happened to people I am close to, it really makes me wonder how widespread these issues are.

12

Disclaimer Letter

by feelinsketchy in

although i haven't personally seen the letter (hopefully i will tomorrow night), it seems clear that this would have a serious effect on the core teachings.

how do you go from listen to us unquestioningly, even when we're wrong we're right and if you think about doubting us you're gonna die to "well, all of what we say is open to interpretation and these are just suggestions?

how do you reconcile things like the blood issue, neutrality, holidays, even dress and grooming to this stance?

FaithfulDoubter

I certainly haven't heard about this letter, but I've missed the past several meetings. I doubt I'll be able to 'copy it' per se, but I'll see if it exists and get a summary.

24

Song 32

by Rooster in

song 32.

"from house to house".

(acts 20:20).

FaithfulDoubter

Eep! Now I got the kingdom melody stuck in my head. Why did I ever click on this thread????