Posts by StephaneLaliberte

10

Double Speak from last night's CLAM

by eyeslice in

now that there are no meetings to physically attend, i am in a position where i listen in to my wife's zoom calls.

i thought some of the ideas in last week's clam were a bit strange, for instance they harped on about being 'friendly' to non-jws but not to become 'friends' with them.

the poignant question being put to the audience; 'what is the difference between being friendly to an unbeliever and being his friend?'.

StephaneLaliberte

They are nice with you with the constant and never ending hope that you will convert to their beliefs. But nice is just nice. They're never be your friend.

46

The camp of Israel and the problem of pooping

by FFGhost in

so, in a couple weeks, the jws move on in their bible-reading slog to the book of deuteronomy.. take a gander at deuteronomy 23:12,13:.

a private place should be designated for use outside the camp, and there is where you should go.

13 a peg should be part of your equipment.

May JW Broaadcast - so bad, "it's not even wrong"

by FFGhost in

don't know how many of y'all still watch it.. this month's topic is "the king of the north" - cook goes into monotonous detail over the jw interpretation about rome, germany, ussr, russia, etc.. leaving aside for other commentators the emotionally manipulative videos of jws in russian holding cells, the tearjerker interviews, the god-awful stiffness of cook (i suspect he has never genuinely smiled, much less laughed, in his 60+ years), just thought i'd comment on one topic.. the centerpiece of the program is a "morning worship" monologue from splane.

let's again just leave to the side the dude's pomposity, smugness, and inflated sense of his own genius, and think about this part of his monologue.. he was tracing the history of the "king of the north" and talked about how "britain" (not england, not the united kingdom, not great britain, but "britain" - no idea why they have that fixation - anyway...) became the kotn in the 19th century.. paraphrasing his comments: "britain would not have become kotn if france had its way.

france was much wealthier and more powerful, but at the battle of waterloo, britain defeated france.

StephaneLaliberte

When I was a kid, around 18 years old, I started realizing that the king of the north prophesy didn't flow well. Why was it one king after another within fairly little time and than, for Rome/Britain/USA, it was 2,000 years, completely ignoring that the Romans were not the "prime" rulers since the 500s?

Than, when I was in my early 20s, realised that the prophesy was in fact written after the first few kings and the remainder of the text was simply a false prophesy.

However, for JWs and other fundamentalists out there, this cannot be. It is the word of God and thus, MUST be true. So, rather than facing the obvious and logical explanation, they twist the scriptures to fit their narrative.

14

Avatar (2009) - a mixed-bag but entertaining movie

by LoveUniHateExams in

so a few months ago i saw avatar (2009) from beginning to end for the first time.. if i'd seen this when i was ten, i'd probably have loved it.

i find the film entertaining but i do have issues with it.. the movie is beautiful to look at, and there's definitely some interesting concepts.. but star wars it ain't.. first issue, the na'vi: these are blue-skinned humanoids with tails.. my first question is: why do blue monkeys who live 5 light years away on an extrasolar moon have african accents?!.

i know what writer/director james cameron is doing in this film.

StephaneLaliberte

people don't dress up and go to conventions. Nothing.

Because people don't aspire to be, or find it fun to dress as, these characters in that movie. None of them spectacularly stands out and the story is basically very similar to "dances with wolves". Bad civilized nation takes over native in a cruel way. Been there, done that.

The only thing that was spectacular with that movie at the time was the visual effect. You didn't go to that movie for the story, you went to see the water falls from floating land masses, the dragons and the ships, all in 3D (when 3D was so cool).

14

Parking Attendant Training Videos

by Jofi_Wofo in

i know that all of the assembly/convention attendant training videos have been leaked publicly, but has anyone gotten a hold of the parking training videos?.

i saw these about a year and a half ago, when i was still pimo.

as bizarre and manipulative as the attendant video series is, the parking videos put them to shame.

StephaneLaliberte

I can't for the life of me imagine why a training video would be needed.

You could be surprised. I remember an elder who filled that role and was horrible at it. He was unable to direct traffic properly and we ended up waiting a solid 45 minutes just to get out of the parking lot. Normally, every other years, it took about 10 to 15 minutes! I've never seen him in that spot again. BTW, I liked that elder, he just sucked at directing traffic. :)

33

Memorial Prep question

by ExCircuitOverseer in

so are individual witnesses being told to prepare bread and have wine on hand for the zoom memorial?

are they saying it’s “vital” or is it just a “suggestion?” .

StephaneLaliberte

Its not a requirement, but frankly, I don't see the big deal. Its the only thing they celebrate. So why not put some heart into it? No birthdays, St-Valentine, {country}’s day, veteran day, Halloween, thanks giving, Christmas, new years eve, new years day, virtually nothing else but their “memorial”. Even if we don’t agree with the procedure, I see nothing wrong in putting a lot of efforts into it.

34

Colorado Mass Shooting

by Simon in

terrible news out of colorado this morning of a mass shooting in a supermarket leaving 10 dead.. missing from the homepage of cnn is any description of the shooter.

that's because it's a muslim refugee from syria who was apparently anti-trump and not a "maga white guy" which would otherwise be included in every headline.. more kids in cages than ever before (but strangely, now no one in the media seems to care) and now this.. biden doesn't have the magic wand he promised after all, right?.

StephaneLaliberte

Muslims follow a hate filled religious code. That is that. I think that very few if any Muslims are really peaceful.

There are close to 2 billion Muslims in the world. That's 1 in 4 humans on the planet. I doubt that hate actually extends to all these people that come from different background and cultures. You're logic could equally apply to the Christians as a whole who are also plagued by violent, terrorist sub groups of their own.

The problem with the media is that they often seem to ignore the violent terrorist sub groups when they originate from minorities and make a big firework show when its a white/Christian.

The fact that the media is bias doesn't mean that we need to lean on the complete opposite of the spectrum and make broad sweeping statements on a 1/4 of humanity.

34

Colorado Mass Shooting

by Simon in

terrible news out of colorado this morning of a mass shooting in a supermarket leaving 10 dead.. missing from the homepage of cnn is any description of the shooter.

that's because it's a muslim refugee from syria who was apparently anti-trump and not a "maga white guy" which would otherwise be included in every headline.. more kids in cages than ever before (but strangely, now no one in the media seems to care) and now this.. biden doesn't have the magic wand he promised after all, right?.

StephaneLaliberte

It's a distraction to avoid talking about the ethnicity and motivations of the attacker.

As we are often unable to face the real issues, we often resort to placing the attackers in "convenient" groups.

He's white kid that shot other kids? Must've been bullied.
He's an Arab shooting down white people? Must've been influenced by terrorists.
He's a white shooting Arab's? He's a white supremacist.
He's shooting just about anything he could shoot? He's a nut job.

Placing people in groups like that make us feel a bit more in control of what happened cause we can try to take actions to prevent these things by targeting these groups.

Bullied? Let's prevent bullying
Terrorist? Let's limit immigration further and enforce police/government monitoring
Supremacist? Let's provide more education to "de-program" them
Nuts? Lets pass laws that prevent the nut jobs from owning guns.

Reality is far from being this simple and by placing these people into "convenient' groups, we are not getting any closer to preventing such situations.

66

Watchtower fined in Belgium

by Vanderhoven7 in

jehovah's witnesses in belgium have to pay €12k fine for shunning policy.

news.

you have probably heard of the trial going on in belgium about the shunning policy of jws.

StephaneLaliberte

becoming a JW is a voluntary association.

I don't think people who sign up to become JWs truly understand what shunning is all about. Sure, they certainly mention it, but never really go into the details, or when they do, they do it so briefly that it is difficult to grasp its true nature.

They make it sound like the people being disfellowshipped are truly bad people, on par with murderers, adulterers, violent alcoholics and lying deceitful cunning sinners that actively want to harm you. They make it sound like a good thing, for your protection! They dehumanize them. As for the others, well, its only a brief temporary disciplinary measure; they’ll be back in a year or so.

Newcomers generally fail to grasp that disfellowshipping is not about the sin, its about the adherence to the group membership. Consider that many people get disfellowshipped for some sin they eventually stop practicing, and yet, their shunning continues to the end of their lives. They are not shunned because of what they did, they are shunned because they did not try to get back into the group. And so, the group simply takes the position that the person must still be actively practicing some sin or another. For instance, think of all the young ones who got disfellowshipped for practicing fornication and have since married; yet, they remain shunned by their family.

We can also doubt that new commers grasp the following possibilities: When you get baptized today, you agree with several teachings and practices that will change over the years to come. You may not agree with some of those changes and refuse to remain a JW. Or perhaps, as you study into greater depth the history of your religion and the basis of its teachings, you may choose to leave the group. Then again, you will be treated as a relentless sinner, a perpetual evil doer and loose contact with all of your JWs connections (friends and family).

Absurd situations like these will happen because all these people will not have the right to make this assessment for themselves, or to review their position over time. They are ordered by their religion to do this and as a result, the majority of them entirely avoid the process of thinking and considering the matter; there is no options, only the one that is ordered.

56

Do You Get Easily Offended By What People Do or Don’t Do?

by minimus in

jw
friends

does using uncle ben’s food products offend you?.

are you offended if you see a flag?

what about a confederate flag?.

StephaneLaliberte

Quite frankly, I'm starting to be offended by all the people that feel offended. The topic of genders, races, sex preferences, discrimination, etc is starting to get on my nerve. There's no escape from it. Its in the news, the radio, all over facebook, on this site, and even in mandatory training from the company where I work! I'm fed up with that topic.

Can we just live in piece???!!!!