Posts by fodeja

35

Austria goes "German Only"

by Adam in

jw
friends

i must be a glutton for punnishment or something, but here i go again, broaching the subject of speaking english in america.. apparently a law was recently passed in austria that people must satisfactorily pass a basic german language skills test in a few months or they will be fined.

if they do not master basic german in 4 years, they can be kicked out of the country.

many people interviewed in the article mentioned that they are too poor to afford the classes.

fodeja

Princess-

We should at least have a law that to own a business you must speak the language of your customers, but I do agree with you Adam.

Er, excuse me - is anyone forcing you to buy your ice cream there, or is there some kind of amendment to the US constution that you have a right to buy your ice cream there? If a business doesn't speak the language of its customers, it will fail, end of story. If your local Baskin-Robbins succeeds even though the guys selling ice cream only speak Baha Indonesia, then it's obviously a good business, and it's contributing to the country's wealth by providing jobs and paying taxes. That's capitalism. That's how free markets are supposed to work. And that's the heart and soul of the American way as preached throughout the whole wide world, isn't it?

(Unless we're speaking of protecting a structurally deficient steel industry from too much international competition, but I digress ;-))

f.

35

Austria goes "German Only"

by Adam in

jw
friends

i must be a glutton for punnishment or something, but here i go again, broaching the subject of speaking english in america.. apparently a law was recently passed in austria that people must satisfactorily pass a basic german language skills test in a few months or they will be fined.

if they do not master basic german in 4 years, they can be kicked out of the country.

many people interviewed in the article mentioned that they are too poor to afford the classes.

fodeja

Your headline is very misleading -- the proposed law cannot be considered a move towards "German only" in any way. There are still three official languages in Austria, as guaranteed by constitutional law. There are still bilingual road signs in certain parts of the country, bilingual schools, bilingual forms for all sorts of government business. This won't change. It shouldn't, as it's a fundamental part of the country's cultural heritage. Just like Italy shouldn't move to "Italian only", or -- as more extreme examples -- Switzerland to "Swiss German only", or Belgium to "French only". It wouldn't make sense at all. You might as well restrict American sports to baseball only.

The mentioned proposal just means that foreigners applying for citizenship should have a basic knowledge of the predominant official language in Austria, and that they will have to pass exams proving that. I think that's generally a fine idea, although the proposed implementation hasn't been well thought-out. For instance: if you've come to the country as a refugee, you probably didn't bring your savings account with you. As a refugee (or someone applying for that status - it can take years until things are decided), you are not allowed to work. So, if you like to stay and apply for citizenship: how are you supposed to pay for the language course? You'll have to depend on handouts -- which, of course, means that some right-wing idiots will blame you for exactly that.

f.

25

[email protected] SEND YOUR COMPLAINTS HERE

by thewiz in

jw
friends

swamp their server.

i can tell you the subject email address went through.

i didn't get a rejection anyway.

fodeja

*cough*

All you hotshot hacker wannabes could find out in a second that watchtower.org is a FreeBSD box, hosted by Verio.

Chances are, nobody's ever reading root's mail.

f.

22

Memorial attendance down?

by TweetieBird in

jw
friends

last night 3 congregations met at the assembly hall for the memorial.

there were just a little over 800 there which really surprised me.

in past years every congregation around here usually had at least 300 in attendance.

fodeja

Memorial attendance is, for reasons I don't understand, pretty much uncorrelated to all other JW statistics. Many, many countries have had a constant decline in publishers and service hours over the past ten years, but randomly changing memorial attendance (sometimes up, sometimes down) during the same period.

In other words, it does not matter whether memorial attendance is up or down n percent. If you see baptisms, publishers, and service hours as the relevant figures, that is.

f.

p.s.: As usual, JT has it right: "rice Christians" pretty much says it all.

36

President Bush

by Rado Vleugel in

jw
friends

in the netherlands and many other european countries president bush of the united states of america is considered as a man with low intellectual capabilities and a narrow minded unilateral view on the rest of the world who uses one-liners in stead of founded argumentation.

but in the us he is seen by most americans as a wise and great statesman, a marvellous leader in difficult times.. i am interested how jws in congregations from different countries look at president bush although they usually dont openly have an opinion about politicians.

opinions from ex-jws are of course also welcome.. rado vleugel.

fodeja

As I've said. Euro's aren't capable of a simple thank you

Yuck. Nationalism rearing its ugly head again, and as always, it's coming with blinders attached.

Are you referring to the same "Euros" who make up a significant portion of ISAF? Apart from British forces, one of the largest non-US military contingents in Afghanistan is German. The rather small Danish army lost two or three soldiers just a couple of days ago over there - ungrateful wimps, huh?

To get back to the topic: Bush is standing for a powerful nation whose actions can, and do, affect our entire world. People have every right to criticise those who are affecting their lives. So, those "Euros" and Asians and Africans are very well entitled to an opinion. For instance, I feel very much entitled to voice my concerns that the US as a nation generally doesn't give a fuck about the atmosphere we 6 billion citizens need to breathe - think Kyoto, think by far the highest per capita CO2 emission in the world. And I also feel very entitled to criticise any damn government on this planet that has enough firepower to blow us all to bits a couple of times over, be it the US or China. I feel very entitled to criticise any government that has spent decades in praising free trade and deregulated markets as the wonder cure for all of mankind's problems, and then resorts to economic policies from the prehistory of economic globalisation (very much like the WTS associating with the UN, if you ask me).

As regards the "be thankful" pseudo-argument, I agree with Expat. Every nation, including the US, is primarily acting in its own interest; if some of those interests happen to be congruent with my own interests, I'm thankful for exactly that, nothing more. Altruism on a national level is a myth, be it WWII or the "War on Terror".

f.

28

tax in france case lost

by meat pie in

i have just read via the freeminds site, that the case in france has been lost and watchtower must pay a total of 45 million euros or $39 million!

fodeja

as were the cases involving Greece and Austria, where the organization won.

Wrong, and a typical JW "urban legend" (or more appropriately: lie). The WTS did NOT win any case in the European Court of Human Rights regarding their legal status in Austria. Feel free to search the Judgments and Decisions database on http://www.echr.coe.int/Eng/Judgments.htm

If you're referring to the Hofmann case judgement of 1993: it's quite unrelated to this subject matter and precedes the currently relevant 1998 law on religions.

f.

11

lds.org or watchtower.org - where's the truth?

by fodeja in

jw
friends

http://www.watchtower.org .

http://www.lds.org/.

most people here will know the first website, but probably not the second one.

fodeja

Sorry, the Truth is in neither of those religions.

Damn. But then, I already know where The Truth is: http://www.ology.org/principia/

f.

11

lds.org or watchtower.org - where's the truth?

by fodeja in

jw
friends

http://www.watchtower.org .

http://www.lds.org/.

most people here will know the first website, but probably not the second one.

fodeja

http://www.watchtower.org

http://www.lds.org/

Most people here will know the first website, but probably not the second one. Imagine you're a web-surfing person mildly interested in religion, who doesn't know anything about Dubdom or the Mormons yet. You may notice some differences in site navigation and design (the LDS is definitely ahead these days - their site looks much sharper). You may notice that the Mormon site is offering a wide range of content, whereas the JW site is mostly offering a sampling of WTS literature snippets.

But there's one striking difference in content. Where's the bible? Compare the front pages: on the LDS site, there's a large, visible link to "The Scriptures" in the left upper corner. One mouse click, and you can read what's supposed to be the book of books for all "true Christians", right online, with footnotes and index.

Now compare watchtower.org: you can read about their "bible-based publications", browse an assortment of more or less scriptures-related articles from Awake! and the WT, you can request a "free home bible study", you can even watch a video that tells you how oh-so-important the bible is for all of us. But where is the bible?! Where is the best of all bible translations, the famous NWT? Shouldn't that be much, much more important than some old Awake! article about whether it's okay for Christians to pick their noses?

Hm.

f.

32

Watchtower Society visits Apostate Website!

by Rado Vleugel in

jw
friends

hello friends,.

i thought this might interst you:.

the wts is a regular visitor of watchtower information service, in the definition of the watchtower, an apostate website (screenshots of site statistics that proof the visits of the wts are shown in the article)!.

fodeja

He may want to get ready for a legal onslaught from WT legal.

Well, considering that the Netherlands has one of the most liberal copyright laws in the world, he shouldn't be too worried. I don't think this little website would be worth all the legal hassles and negative publicity for the WTS, anyway.

f.

p.s.: It's a great little website, Rado!

28

Elder's Suck - www.apostatesincorporated.com

by obiefernandez in

jw
friends

think of the awesome reception you will get at your next meeting or convention wearing a stylish apostates, inc. shirt.

such as our personal favorite:.

happy shopping!.

fodeja

How about the classic:

"Religion is a snare and a racket."

You could even wear it for the DC

f.