Posts by OnTheWayOut

25

Did Crisis of Conscience find a market or did it lumber along until the copies ran out?

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

curiosity.i would think c of c was the grand-daddy of all the ex-jw books.is there any way to know for sure how many copies sold?

over what span of time before the 1st edition ended?

why did it peter out of print if it was a perennial seller?today, every tom, dick, and jasper has self-published the bleeding wound, 1st person singular, true confessional version of their own fall from grace.

OnTheWayOut

Today, every Tom, Dick, and Jasper has self-published the bleeding wound, 1st person singular, true confessional version of their own fall from grace. It's as common as Zika virus.

Maybe if you wrote a book about JW's that includes aliens from another world, it could sell.

Obviously, CoC was not a commercial failure. It gave Ray some financing and he was able to publish a second book and have updated publishings for the first one.

But it does seem to me that it mainly started out as a big load in his garage for years.

Today's books are a bit different with Amazon and e-books and all. My book is available for $0.99 or $6.00 as a print book on Amazon (Fade from the Truth) There is no stack in my garage. You order the print book and some computer prints it and soft binds it and mails it with very little human interaction.

It was always priced that low and like Brock, I didn't release it primarily to make money, but to help people. I wrote it to help me and hoped to help at least one other person. And I did that. I consider that a success. So I think I finally, in 4 years, made close to $500, perhaps more. Most sales were e-books and it seems more Europeans bought it than Americans. But I don't have a tally since it's mostly e-books.

58

Download Raymond Franz PDF Books Crisis of Conscience and In Search of Christian Freedom

by Tenacious in

for those who've never read these incredible books by our friend ray franz.. here are links for both.

.

happy reading!.

OnTheWayOut

I have to give kudos to Tenacious for his comment on page 3 of this thread. Copyrights are important. This is no ordinary book. You can't find it in a library or book store and you can't really order it through the proper channels right now. But so many people get out of the religion after getting and reading CRISIS that it should be readily available to them. It makes that much of a difference to people even 33 years after initial publication.

I don't have my copies anymore. I made sure people who needed them got them. If the current copyright holders don't get it out there, find it whatever way you must when someone needs to read it.

This isn't quite a life-and-death argument like the price of epi-pens (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/epipen-price-hike-prompts-us-families-buy-drug/story?id=41769704)

....but some people will feel it's just as important to a small group of people. I am one of those people.

51

Can’t cope with being disfellowshipped…..Need some advice

by xxBettyBoopxx in

this site is great, i have been lurking for a while now.

but i can’t get reinstated and have used some of the advice already given.. i was df’d many months ago and go to all the meetings and do all the preparation for the meetings, but the jc committee keep refusing me.

tomorrow at the clam meeting i am puting yet another letter in and will be called for another dreadful jc meeting.. 1. what can i say to the elders to show that i am truly repentant?.

OnTheWayOut

...and so that you don't forget later, the very moment that they announce that you are reinstated, you don't have to kiss their asses anymore. You can miss all the meetings and not turn in any recruiting time slips. Don't concern yourself with "commenting privileges" or giving demonstrations on the platform. Reject their offers for shepherding and say "I am fine, I will call you if I need you."

Totally serious. You may have to do the missing meetings things a bit more gradually for the sake of family, but you don't need to be engaged in recruiting and commenting at meetings.

14

how many kingdom hall

by pepperheart in

when all the money from from the new york and london bethels has been used up,how many kingdom halls do people think will have to be sold off per year ?.

OnTheWayOut

To quote Donald Trump, "It'll be huge!"

103

NEW BLOOD CARD w/ FORCED COMPLIANCE also LEGALISM

by apocalypse in

i have looked around and i don't see this covered, so i am starting a thread.. 1) the new "blood card" goes beyond being just a "blood card".. 2) a new edict concerning compliance.. pay attention to the changes.. first, the new card is termed "advance decision to refuse specified medical treatment".

the big change with the card itself is that it includes an 'override' of your "power of attorney".

this is huge.

OnTheWayOut

If Watchtower wants to limit lawsuits and allows just about any fractions, then they also probably will not soon have any hardcore demands that every last JW is checked off a list of those who signed and turned in a copy.

People who missed out won't be able to sue WT so why should they care?

But some hardcore elders might still think this is a matter of everlasting life and death and be real ash hats about this.

Even if someone feels pressured to sign their stuff and give them a copy, you can get a new medical directive signed after you walk out and have it notarized or whatever. Then carry that one. But you should just be able to say "My decisions are a private matter and i will take care of it." Then don't give any copies to the elders.

14

Automatic log-out after a period of inactivity on this site?

by stuckinarut2 in

hi simon,.

i noticed that most financial sites like banks have an automatic log out after some time of inactivity.. could a similar thing work here perhaps?.

if someone has logged on, but not used the site for say 20 minutes, could they be logged out and have to reenter the passwords?.

OnTheWayOut

Just treat it like your porn pages. You won't forget to log out and shut it down.

The worst I have done is not go on an "incognito" page and then when my wife types the "j" of "jw. org," it could suggest "jehovahs-witness. com" but I wish she would open that page.

29

[Generic evolution vs. creation thread]

by sir82 in

jw
friends

to save us all a lot of time and effort..... [some complex structure in living organisms described].

[i can't imagine how this could be the product of evolution].

[therefore god created it].

OnTheWayOut

My favorite part of a Christian creationist's argument is when they are so sure they found a reason that evolution cannot be true, therefore THE GOD OF THEIR UNDERSTANDING did it.

Not Thor or Allah or Jupiter or Ra or ....... but this is for sure- The Father of Jesus did it.

29

[Generic evolution vs. creation thread]

by sir82 in

jw
friends

to save us all a lot of time and effort..... [some complex structure in living organisms described].

[i can't imagine how this could be the product of evolution].

[therefore god created it].

OnTheWayOut

[I can't imagine how this could be the product of evolution]

Similarly:

[Even though I am not an astrophysicist or even have a master's degree, I read that stars and planets
were formed by dust and gas and I just cannot believe that. ]

Really, anything can go into the [I can't imagine] category for believers.
I'm not a doctor, I'm not a biologist, I'm not a chemist, I'm not an engineer, BUT MY LIMITED MIND .......

60

The problem of sex (or why I'm not an atheist)

by EdenOne in

as i write this under the shadow of the walls of saint jorge's castle in lisbon, two very bored jws are standing just five metres away from me with a literature cart .... in my journey away from jwism i accepted evolution as a fact.

i also became anti-religion, agnostic and apatheist.

and, while i lean towards the persuasion of the atheist arguments, there are a few reasons that make it difficult for me to completely discard the notion of an intelligent origin of life.

OnTheWayOut

Nicolaou:

I didn't read the article so can't comment on it but my approach is very simple. Discard any argument that proposes god as an answer to complexity.

By invoking god you bring in the baggage of heaven, holy spirit, miracles and all manner of supernatural mumbo jumbo. Ridiculous.

A complex question isn't answered by raising a myriad of ever more hyper-complex ones.

From the linked article:

The evolution of sex (and its accompanying reproductive capability) is not a favorite topic of discussion in most evolutionary circles, because no matter how many theories evolutionists conjure up (and there are several), they still must surmount the enormous hurdle of explaining the origin of the first fully functional female and the first fully functional male necessary to begin the process. In his book, The Masterpiece of Nature: The Evolution of Genetics and Sexuality, Graham Bell described the dilemma in the following manner:

‘Sex is the queen of problems in evolutionary biology. Perhaps no other natural phenomenon has aroused so much interest; certainly none has sowed as much confusion. The insights of Darwin and Mendel, which have illuminated so many mysteries, have so far failed to shed more than a dim and wavering light on the central mystery of sexuality, emphasizing its obscurity by its very isolation.’[1]

So even if you are not invoking God, you are leaning toward not understanding something complex and opening a door for something more complex to be the answer. One enormous hurdle leads to putting up more hurdles.

That still falls back to "We can't explain, therefore- God."

We don't have all the answers about origins. We never will unless we could invent a time machine. Even if we produce life from nothing and cause it to evolve in a way that is similar to the path that earth took, it won't prove that things did happen that way.

But we've grown past ".....therefore- God." When we don't understand the proposed answers, we still have to deal with degrees of certainty and which explanations are most likely, most probable, most consistent with the reality we experience, and address the most issues of our understanding.

27

"If the Earth were just a little bit further from or closer to the Sun, we would all freeze or burn"

by Island Man in

i'm sure we've all heard this argument by theists employing the fine-tuning argument.

are you aware, however, of exactly how much this "little bit" really is?

theists would have us think that the slightest change in the distance would have drastic implications for survivability.

OnTheWayOut

There are many factors that would make a planet or moon able to support life, but the most basic factor is the body having liquid water available.

The habitable zone is the orbital region around a star in which a body can possess liquid water on its surface and possibly support life. Liquid water is essential to all life on earth, so the definition of a habitable zone is based on the idea that extraterrestrial life would share that same requirement.

Distance from the star primarily determines the habitable zone, but there are other factors in having liquid water. The reflectivity of the planet or moon, its green-house gases, internal heat of the mass, volcanic activity- these are factors that increase the probability that liquid water may be present on the surface. It's also possible that liquid water is present in some subsurface way to allow for some kind of simple life. It is accepted that Jupiter's moon, Europa has a liquid ocean below the surface. So Europa may be outside of the scientific habitable zone, but it still might support life.

Life on earth is special. Being in the habitable zone and having a large moon and all kinds of other factors have aided in the existence of "Life as we know it." But life-as-we-don't-know-it may very well have evolved here if the factors were different.

Many scientists accept that the habitable zone for our sun, based on an earth-type planet with green house gases can be from 0.9 to 1.5 times the actual distance of earth to the sun. [1.5] is quite a bit.

The changing conditions of the star effect the zone too. Venus may well have been very "habitable" when the sun was younger and Mars (and other outer bodies) may be very "habitable" a few billion years from now as the sun gets older.