Posts by neverendingjourney

125

?Please explain Evolution to me in simple terms

by Guest with Questions in

and please dont give me links to read.

i dont want a complicated version; just a very simple explanation on the theory of evolution, and if possible, in your own words.

many of us are very ignorant on this subject and it seems that a few here are very knowledgeable so i hope you can help me and others also.. also if you believe in the theory of common descent, could you explain that to me also?

neverendingjourney

There are more people that have "seen" ghosts, than have seen a bird, or a man, or whatever "morph" into another species.
Are all these people lying?

Were the ancient Greeks lying when thousands of them claimed to have interacted with gods and demigods? Yes. Was I lying when I would make up ghost and demon stories as a child to fit in with my dub family? Yes. Just because thousands of people claim to have paranormal experience doesn't mean they are real. My parents have claimed to have had paranormal experiences countless times, and when I finally shook off the JW superstitions, I was able to come up with a logical, valid explanation for each and every one of them. Sometimes things happened that I could not provide an immediate explanation for, but eventually the truth came out. Never once has anyone anywhere on the planet ever proven or shown evidence for ghosts and the paranormal. Not once. I prefer to believe in things for which there is evidence, like evolution, for instance.

As for the second part of your statement, you again show that the efforts of every person posting on here in defense of science are in vain. It's been explained countless times to you that species don't morph into other species over the lifespan of a human being. These things take thousands and thousands of years. The reason we know this is the case is because of the fossil record, not because of eyewitness testimony. Distorting evolutionary science the way you do is what infuriates many posters and leads them to hurl insults at you.

125

?Please explain Evolution to me in simple terms

by Guest with Questions in

and please dont give me links to read.

i dont want a complicated version; just a very simple explanation on the theory of evolution, and if possible, in your own words.

many of us are very ignorant on this subject and it seems that a few here are very knowledgeable so i hope you can help me and others also.. also if you believe in the theory of common descent, could you explain that to me also?

neverendingjourney

I've read through several of these threads, and this is the form they all seem to take, depending on whether the believer or non-believer started the thread:

Creationist: Evolution is just a theory.

Evolutionist: Yes, but there is proof to back it up.

C: No there's not

E: Presents proof.

C: That's not good enough.

E: Presents more proof.

[Insults are exchanged]

C: I didn't come from monkeys. That's stupid. It only makes sense that there is a God.

E: A lot of things in life don't make sense. Science isn't intuitive.

C: Whatever, you're not going to stop me from believing in God.

E: Nobody is trying to tell you to stop believing in God, but we don't want you misrepresenting science.

C: Go f*$k yourself

E: Right back at you.

And the cycle repeats itself a few days later.

71

Becoming officially recognized as Annointed

by B_Deserter in

i've heard there is a very secretive process the wts uses to determine whether or not they'll consider someone "of the annointed.

" from what i've heard it's a very rigorous set of questions.

can anyone here confirm this?

neverendingjourney

I heard you don't even have to be annointed to be on the GB now.

I've never heard this and it would go against JW theology if they made this change. The governing body justifies their power because they claim to be the representatives of the faithful and discreet (slave), the anointed. They fancy themselves a sort of elder body for the anointed. Since they interpret Mathew 24:45-47 to mean that Jesus has appointed the remnant of the 144,000 as the FDS, they draw their own authority from claiming to be the spokesmen, an elder body, for the FDS. To put non-anointed on the governing body would make no sense keeping these teachings in mind. The non-anointed are not supposed to be taking a leadership role under JW theology because Jesus didn't appoint them to oversee the "domestics."

It's possible, probably highly likely, that they changed the 1935 teaching in order to persuade "capable," long-time Bethelites to decide that they are part of the anointed after all in order to qualify for vacant GB spots.

125

?Please explain Evolution to me in simple terms

by Guest with Questions in

and please dont give me links to read.

i dont want a complicated version; just a very simple explanation on the theory of evolution, and if possible, in your own words.

many of us are very ignorant on this subject and it seems that a few here are very knowledgeable so i hope you can help me and others also.. also if you believe in the theory of common descent, could you explain that to me also?

neverendingjourney

Warlock:

Please don't take this as an insult, but you believe in ghosts, which we can't see, but you won't believe in evolution because you can't observe a bird morph into another species in your lifetime? Please explain the discrepancy.

15

imagine written by john lennon

by alexrae in

jw
friends

does anyone know the lyrics to the song imagine written by a sister that supposedly lives in ireland?.......she supposedly changed the lyrics and im curious about it.

neverendingjourney

John Lennon was a real visionary, a true musician, not like most of the scrubs that you hear on the radio today. Here's some links, for your enjoyment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEOkxRLzBf0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xjw-l673UI

112

30 Minute Public Talk-CONFIRMED

by stillajwexelder in

i can confirm (as there seems to be some doubt) at the service meeting last night during the item about the new watchtower, a letter was read by the po.

the public talk is to be 30 minutes long.

this is to allow for more association and ministry.. lengthy negative introductions about the state of the system of things/deep last days etc are to be heavily curtailed.

neverendingjourney

The next service meeting, there were three parts. The announcements were a little long, the middle speaker turned his 25 minute part into 35 minutes

I remember these meetings all too well. It seriously pissed me off. Then the elders than ran over time would "counsel" any brother that dared complain about it because it showed that you weren't "appreciating Jehovah's spiritual food." It was the typical higher-up JW mindset. They'd excuse their lack of preparation and blame it on the publishers for not wanting to spend an extra 10 minutes "enjoying the spiritual banquet."

One elder in particular hardly ever prepared for the service meeting. He'd never have people ready with presentations, so he regularly snatched people that showed up early to the hall and gave them the "privilege" of preparing on-the-spot demonstrations that night. It seriously pissed me off. If you told him no, he'd get mad and lecture you about the importance of not rejecting the opportunity to "serve Jehovah." Before I left, I was almost at the point of hating that particular brother. He was such an ass and he'd always have a fake smile on his face. God, I'm glad I don't have to stare at his ugly face anymore.

7

Have we traded one "end times" for another?

by undercover in

jw
friends

having been a member on this board for a while now, i've noticed that from time to time news leaks about some new damning information that could/maybe/hopfully/luckily will bring down the watchtower society.. is is possible since we were conditioned by the wts to expect the "end" that our mind set is that we must expect something big to happen in our lifetime?

instead of the end of the wicked world are we now expecting to see the end of the wicked society?.

i know that not everyone expects the same thing as far as the future of the wts, but i see quite a few that seem to think that its end is imminent.

neverendingjourney

I don’t believe I’ll live to see the “death” of the Jehovah’s Witness religion, and I’m still in my 20s. I believe that the Watchtower will spend the next 10 years or so increasing at its current rate of 1 or 2 percent per year. They will continue to make inroads in the developing world and immigrant populations in the developed nations of the West. In the meantime, they will continue to lose longtime members at an astonishing rate. The free flow of information will continue to expose the Watchtower and lead a lot of JWs that are on the fence to get out of it completely. They will eventually tap out in the developing world and have nowhere new to go for growth. This is when their decline will begin. They won’t have new members coming in to replace the members that they will continue to loose annually. They will then have to decide if they wish to continue on as always or make the decision to become mainstream. If they decide against going mainstream, they will continue to loose members until they become a shadow of what they once were.

There is a lot there preventing the JW religion from imploding. Most members have invested too much of their lives in the religion to even consider that they may be wrong. The JWs have been so good at mind control that most members would not care about any potential scandal that emerges. Someone might record a governing body meeting where every last one of them say that they don’t believe the JWs have the truth and JWs would attribute that tape to Jehovah and thank him for cleansing his organization. People that expect and Enron-like implosion are likely fooling themselves. I am happy for every piece of damning information that is revealed about them, however. The more damaging information that is made available about them, the easier it becomes for fence-sitting JWs to make their exit from the religion. That will only help to accelerate the religion’s ultimate demise.

But another reason why I don’t constantly look forward to the “death of the Watchtower” is because I don’t think that will be very significant in the global scheme of things. The JWs represent one tenth of a percent of the human population. That’s nothing. There are many other mind-control religions out there that would take the place of the JWs once they have disappeared from the face of the Earth. The real problem is human credulity and ignorance. The JW religion is only a symptom of these underlying problems. As long as there is a significant amount of the human population that is credulous and ignorant, there will be mind-control religions there to suck them in.

112

30 Minute Public Talk-CONFIRMED

by stillajwexelder in

i can confirm (as there seems to be some doubt) at the service meeting last night during the item about the new watchtower, a letter was read by the po.

the public talk is to be 30 minutes long.

this is to allow for more association and ministry.. lengthy negative introductions about the state of the system of things/deep last days etc are to be heavily curtailed.

neverendingjourney

If they are going to leave the outlines unchanged, it confirms my suspicions that this arrangement is about cutting out the individual speaker's input into the final presentation of the talk. The speaker is going to be forced to cut out his own personal anecdotes, stories and analogies to get in all of the information on the outline. They're tightening the reigns, folks.

Forty five minutes allowed for a significant amount of personal freedom for each speaker to structure the talk in their own unique way. Thirty minutes per talk is going to ensure that the talk that Speaker A and Speaker B give using the same outline will sound almost identical.

This new arrangement is in line with the instructions Watchtower conductors received a while back telling them to cut out their own use of additional study materials that were not included in the article. They were told to stick to the information as presented in the Watchtower magazine only. This 30 minute talk thing is just another step in that direction.

4

Need some info

by TweetieBird in

jw
friends

i haven't been to a meeting in a couple of years but getting ready to visit witness relatives and will have to go to meetings.

can someone fill me in on what they are studying at the book study and anything else that might be new or different the past 2 years?

thanks!

neverendingjourney

They are still studying the red Revelation It's Grand Climax is at Hand book for the congregation book study. The Awake is now only being published once a month. There will be a new JW-only version of the Watchtower starting next year that will be used for the Watchtower Study meeting. The other Watchtower will be a public edition. There are reports coming in that letters have been read in some congregations that the Public Talk will be reduced from 45 to 30 minutes next year as well, but apparently not all congregations have received the news yet. Other than that, it's pretty much the same ol' sh*t. There was a HUGE revision of a doctrinal point regarding the completion of the gathering of the anointed that was supposed to have occurred in 1935, but 90-95% of witnesses have no idea what that means or how important that was in the development of JW theology, so I wouldn't concern myself with that particular point.

112

30 Minute Public Talk-CONFIRMED

by stillajwexelder in

i can confirm (as there seems to be some doubt) at the service meeting last night during the item about the new watchtower, a letter was read by the po.

the public talk is to be 30 minutes long.

this is to allow for more association and ministry.. lengthy negative introductions about the state of the system of things/deep last days etc are to be heavily curtailed.

neverendingjourney

There is some strange plan to all of this, i just can't put my finger on it yet.

I’m kind of torn about this. On the one hand, you have a bunch of GB members picked under the supervision of hardliners such as Ted Jaracz. It’s hard to imagine change coming from those individuals. On the other hand, these men are not idiots. I’m sure they see the writing on the wall. Their growth has been stagnant in the industrial world for over a decade now. Their growth is coming primarily from the developing lands and from immigrant populations in the developing world. They need to change and innovate or face going the way of the dodo.

When I heard the news about the new JW-only version of the Watchtower, I immediately thought that they were planning to unload a bunch of “new light” upon their followers and were looking for a way to keep the damage control to a minimum. However, I later thought that this couldn’t be the case because of everything I’ve heard about the demeanor of the governing body. Everything I’ve read suggests that they are not amenable to change. Only the future will tell.

One thing is certain. This isn’t the same religion I grew up in. When I was a kid, the religion was full of people that honestly felt that Armageddon was just around the corner. JWism was a temporary vessel to lead them to the new system of things. As of two years ago, when I stopped going to the meetings, I saw that few JWs actually believed and behaved as if the end was just around the corner. That saying became a simple slogan. JWism had morphed into a permanent way of life for the majority of the JWs I knew. It was about climbing the theocratic ladder to gain prestige and power. Perhaps the GB is finally going to adapt to the reality on the ground and shift the emphasis of the religion away from being an apocalyptic cult to a cult that focuses more on setting up a community system for their members with a focus on controlling their lives in order to keep them busy working for the religion’s best interests. We shall see how events unfold.