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Posts by DT
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3Big Miracle
by DT ini recently saw the movie "big miracle", a story of three gray whales that were trapped in the arctic ice off point barrow, alaska in 1988 with no way to escape without human intervention.
it had some entertaining moments and was made fairly well.
i remember when this happened and it was nice to get more details of what took place.. i think it also provides an interesting perspective on human nature.
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Big Miracle
by DT ini recently saw the movie "big miracle", a story of three gray whales that were trapped in the arctic ice off point barrow, alaska in 1988 with no way to escape without human intervention.
it had some entertaining moments and was made fairly well.
i remember when this happened and it was nice to get more details of what took place.. i think it also provides an interesting perspective on human nature.
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DT
I recently saw the movie "Big Miracle", a story of three gray whales that were trapped in the arctic ice off Point Barrow, Alaska in 1988 with no way to escape without human intervention. It had some entertaining moments and was made fairly well. I remember when this happened and it was nice to get more details of what took place.
I think it also provides an interesting perspective on human nature. Consider the following events. (Spoiler alert and some of my comments could offend some animal lovers.)
The governor of Alaska was initially reluctant to use the National Guard in an attempt to rescue whales. A primary reason seemed to be the danger it would pose to people working in harsh arctic conditions. He later succumbed to public pressure. It turned out that this rescue attempt failed and nearly resulted in human casualties. Imagine having a son in the National Guard and being told that he was killed, not in defending the country, but in a publicity stunt.
A Greenpeace environmental activist was very critical of oil drilling in the arctic. However, she helped arrange rescue attempts involving transporting very heavy equipment over long distances that consumed an enormous amount of fuel. It seems to me that the negative environmental impact from these attempts may have been far worse than the benefits of saving a few whales. At one point, she criticizes others for assisting for publicity reasons. It is then pointed out that she and her organization were receiving the same kinds of benefits from this worldwide attention.
At first the residents in the area wanted to hunt and slaughter the whales. I do like whales and feel that hunting them should be either strictly controlled or eliminated. However, hunting them seemed to me to be a logical and even humane choice in this situation. Also, harvesting this food from the local environment would have saved enormous transportation costs and fuel usage from not having to import the same amount of food by plane. The local residents eventually decided that it was not in their best interests to slaughter these whales with the whole world watching and they assisted the rescue efforts.
Does anybody else view these events as at least a little odd? Were these rescue efforts a wise decision from an environmental viewpoint? What do you think about public officials yielding to public pressure to do things that they feel are unwise? How do you think this situation should have been handled?
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Can the Watchtower Society survive without time reports?
by DT inthere has already been much discussion about how the watchtower society has declared in australia that going door to door is part of a personal ministry.
this seems to be a lame attempt to avoid liability considering that they require time reports and have formal meetings for field service at the kingdom hall.. this is a bit of a dilemma.
reporting time and formal meetings for field service are important methods of control, however it's not clear if the organization is willing or able to handle the potential liability that may come from this.. imagine what would happen if they lost these methods of control.
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DT
I thought this thread is relevant to this topic.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/224678/1/No-answer-to-this-one
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Can the Watchtower Society survive without time reports?
by DT inthere has already been much discussion about how the watchtower society has declared in australia that going door to door is part of a personal ministry.
this seems to be a lame attempt to avoid liability considering that they require time reports and have formal meetings for field service at the kingdom hall.. this is a bit of a dilemma.
reporting time and formal meetings for field service are important methods of control, however it's not clear if the organization is willing or able to handle the potential liability that may come from this.. imagine what would happen if they lost these methods of control.
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DT
There has already been much discussion about how the Watchtower Society has declared in Australia that going door to door is part of a personal ministry. This seems to be a lame attempt to avoid liability considering that they require time reports and have formal meetings for field service at the kingdom hall.
This is a bit of a dilemma. Reporting time and formal meetings for field service are important methods of control, however it's not clear if the organization is willing or able to handle the potential liability that may come from this.
Imagine what would happen if they lost these methods of control. Witnesses could take breaks from the ministry without consequences. The hounders would find it difficult to decide who to hound. The traveling overseers wouldn't have data to help them decide how a congregation is doing. It would be much easier to fade. Their recruitment efforts would likely be reduced to a small fraction of what it is today. They might have to consider changing their disfellowshipping policy to reduce their turnover rate to compensate for slower growth.
They might not even be able to survive in their present form.
This may be like an Achilles' heel that those who are still in for family may be able to exploit. Reporting time for not going in the ministry (or for discussing Bible topics online) or not reporting time while visibly engaged in the formal ministry (perhaps for the benefit of relatives) are great ways to undermine the system. A person could report literature placements, but not hours, based on the idea that the hours are none of their business, but there may be a need to keep track of literature.
Any recordings or documentation of efforts to get a person to report time could be of public interest and useful in the event of lawsuits regarding the organization's liability for the door to door ministry.
Other, more subtle, methods could be used like only reporting hours in multiples of two (two hours per Saturday morning), or only reporting one hour for every month, regardless of the amount of time. If questioned, the example of Ananias and Sapphira could be mentioned to show how God views those who report more than what was given.
A person could only report time when the brother who collects time calls them. This would be a good time to record the conversation.
Someone who has the assignment of handling time reports could stop calling people with reminders with the defense that this could expose him and the organization to liability.
A person could also agree to work with their spouse, but suggest that they don't meet at the hall because it's really supposed to be a personal ministry.
Reporting time is already a joke, but there is much that can be done to make this more obvious.
I look forward to your comments.
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No answer to this one!
by truthseeker1969 inas many of you know my brother an elder was called on to sit in a "judicial committee" re-instatement.. the brother has in the past done all he can to prove he is repentant but this time the co was here and apparently had a few things to say to the cobe when they were discussing the process.
the co asked why the poor guy had four re-instatement hearings and why the co had received a letter from him detailing that he "did not think he could do anymore".. anyway, long story short, the co sat in the hearing and hey presto the brother was re-instated.
my brother and the co spoke with the brother and the co said that he had done well and was sorry that the process has taken so long and shook his hand.. now he mentioned the latest letter about confidentiality and said that the society is being hit left right and center with civil lawsuits and are scared as the have no way of defending them.
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DT
I think a useful form of protest for some would be to go out in service (perhaps to please family members) but refuse to report time. It would be interesting to document any attempts to get a person to report time as this could be relevant to lawsuits concerning liability for the preaching work.
Someone who is pressured by family to go preaching might at least be able to refuse to meet for formal meetings for service, citing the principle that this is supposed to be a personal ministry.
Someone who handles the time reports could stop calling people asking them to report their time and only handle reports made voluntarily. If questioned, he could cite Biblical principles or the idea that this could result in legal liability for him.
If the Watchtower Society loses the ability to collect time reports and hold formal meetings for field service, then they would lose major forms of control. People could take time off from the ministry without consequences. Any recruitment efforts would probably shrink to a small fraction of what happens today. Given their high turnover rate, they would face a terrifying decline, possibly forcing them to change their disfellowshipping policy. Even then, the decline from people leaving voluntarily would be substantial.
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Worldwide meeting times and locations now available on ''jw.org''
by ThomasCovenant inapologies if this has already been posted, but just noticed on jw.org that as well as a 'convention' search there is now a 'meetings' search.. my hometown congregation is there along with address and times and phone numbers.
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http://www.jw.org/index.html?option=frnspnpbrtzgt .
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DT
I'm glad to see that there is finally a place for people to look up their local congregation so they can either call or write and ask to be put on their do not call list.
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DT
Suppose a woman catches her husband in the act, but he later denies anything happened and recieves no congregational discipline. I wonder what would happen if the wife decides to remarry. She knows she is scripturally free, but can't prove it. I wonder if the elders would then take action against her.
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Breaking the Watchtower into Two Opossing Camps, Possible?
by Scott77 inis there a possibility that the watchtower will be split into two opposing camps at sometime in the foreseeable future?
judging from the past, do we envisage such a scenario happening before our eyes?.
scott77.
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DT
As some have already mentioned, the Watchtower Society has already split into a large number of corporations. They are working together for the moment, but it wouldn't take much for some to decide to leave and possibly take significant assets with them.
The governing body has done much to try to distance themselves from this corporate structure. I could see a coup taking place where the governing body is forcibly removed and made the scapegoat for the policies that expose the organization to legal liability. Their efforts to shield themselves from liability might actually make them powerless to stop this kind of rebellion once it starts.
If some kind of split takes place, then there is the question of whether one or both groups would seek help from the courts. They might actually prefer to lose some assets then to allow their dirty secrets to come out in court. I could see court involvement leading to information being uncovered that could lead to massive lawsuits or even jail time for some Watchtower officials.
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Atheism or Agnosticism, which one is correct?
by Joey Jo-Jo inthis has been bugging me for a while, and while i dont want to turn this into something about semantics i think that we should quickly define what an agnostic and atheists are.. richard dawkins defines 7 different types of atheist ranging from weak to militant atheists, but along these definitions there appears one definition with a strong resemblance to agnosticism.. to me an agnostic is a person who neither believes nor disbelieves in deity/deities, but there are those who define agnostics as a ignorant who simply just don't care or don't have the intelligence to come to sound conclusion.. an atheist can be a person who disbelieves in a deity/deities based on the current mathematical and scientific understandings of the universe, as well as understandings that can refute certain religions such as the strong influence of protestantism christianity in america.. .
from here i will refer deity as anything ranging jehovah to a real spaghetti monster, it's not important because a) we dont know b)for the purpose of this discussion it is not important to define what we believe god to be.. an argument that can be used about a deity is -we cannot prove nor disprove that god exists- this is referred to as a null hypothesis, an assumption that we cannot create a hypothesis to prove or disprove this deity.
this to me is agnosticism and is more correct than the idea of atheism.
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DT
It is common to view theism, agnosticism and atheism as a spectrum. This can be convenient since many people gradually shift their perspectives over time. However, this approach isn't really compatible with the meanings of the words themselves and can cause a lot of confusion. There is no need for the term agnosticism to fill in a gap between theism and atheism. Theism is a definite state of belief and atheism merely refers to those who don't have that belief, regardless of whether they lack belief or believe the opposite.
Agnosticism refers to lack of knowledge rather than lack of belief. Therefore, it includes some theists and atheists. I viewed myself as an agnostic, even when I had a positive belief in God, because I recognized the fact that I couldn't know for sure. Now, I still consider myself an agnostic, even though I am now an atheist. I can respect many atheists and theists, but I have a hard time respecting those who claim knowledge that they don't have.
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The Great Watchtower Internet Retreat
by DT inthere has been a lot of talk about the new watchtower internet strategy.
it appears that the watchtower is trying to improve their internet presence.
this could be true, but i think there are good reasons to think that the opposite might be the case.. i suspect that this new internet announcement was primarily designed to draw attention away from the announcement that they are cutting down on the printing of the magazines again.. they are basically dropping two of their websites and redesigning a website on a url that has the lowest rating of the three.
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DT
It's almost like they are giving up. They let an apostate in Australia dictate their policy on background checks. They're laying off workers and selling factory buildings. They're even going to shut down their main website. If they were a company, I would think they are going out of business.