Like Vidiot said, I see the current leadership as fully reactionary. GB 2.0 got their positions by being company men, not visionaries. Their first answer to any situation will be, "do more of the same!" Even their approach to coming up with "new light" has become, "do more of the same!" Their changes in teaching with "generation" and FDS aren't well thought out and explained in a way that all the JWs can understand and explain. Instead, they seem to change for change's sake. They have to say something to keep the sheeple excited, so they flip-flop on interpretations as the rank-and-file nod in agreement... because they aren't allowed to do anything else. Goofy changes in interpretation, threats of birds pecking out the eyes of non-JWs, the end is close because the GB says it is, all things things are the "more of the same" that can be expected in the future.
Billy the Ex-Bethelite
JoinedPosts by Billy the Ex-Bethelite
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30
ARE THEY RAMPING UP THE FEAR MONGERING AGAIN?
by im stuck in inhi as many of you know i am a born in baptized and in good standing, but mentally out.
when i was a kid it was always you will die soon and terrible pictures of horrid destruction.
then for a number of years not so much.
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Atheists, what is the best argument FOR God?
by bohm inthere are no convincing arguments for god, but some are worse than others.
i thought it would be interesting to see what people consider the best (of the bad) arguments for god?.
in my oppinion it is the fine-tuning argument from cosmology.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
The best argument FOR God? Mr. Diety, of course! He'll answer every Bible question you've ever... or never... had.
Second best argument FOR God? Mrs. Betty Bowers, of course! She explains the "mental" in "fundamentalist."
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Do not talk about GAWD in Cracker Barrel on Sunday
by confusedandalone inso this morning the wife and i went to cracker barrel for breakfast.
my lovely sister watched the kids for us last night so we have to pick them up later.. anyway a few minutes later the family sits at a table next to us.
their food comes and they begin to pray.they all join hands and he begins praying out loud.. very loud.. so out of respect my wife and i stop talking... they eat and we eat no biggie.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
LisaRose, If Florida is still like it was the last time I was down there, it can be challenging to find a restaurant that isn't a Cracker Barrel. Maybe it was the route we took, but it seemed like there was 2 Cracker Barrels at every exit.
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NNew member...1st post
by Oh Gawd innew guy here so i thought i would make a brief introduction.. my exposure to the jw's is indirect, as i have never been a member; however my wife of 22 years grew up in a jw household.
her dad is the grand-pooba or whatever level of "elder" you call it for his kh.
her mom, sister, brother, and their spouses all died in the wool witnesses.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
Welcome!
You can't paint all JWs with the same brush. There are plenty like your family that pick-and-choose and would place money as their priority. In my experience, the COs and DOs are increasingly of that mentality, so you can only expect that the rank-and-file will similarly have a "say one thing, but do another" mentality. But there are also those elderly, childless couples that have spent decades pioneering and scrapping by financially because they really believed what WT promised. The old couple may get interviewed at the DC who say they are "spiritually rich" and have "large spiritual families." From the platform, they are praised for their faithfulness, but in the individual minds of most of the JWs, they're thinking, "I don't want to be old, lonely, and broke like that."
There are still some gung-ho pioneers that will quit their jobs if they have to work one meeting night per year. But there are lots of "phantom" pioneers that fake their hours and readily take a better-paying job that requires working on meetings nights. Typically, they make a few appearances at a neighboring congregation's meetings so they could pretend that they are still making all the meetings... somewhere.
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More WT Propaganda: 10 Year Old Children Should Get Baptized!
by Oubliette ini just caught this in an upcoming study article which will be "studied" in the congregations the week of 11/18-24/13:.
he and his wife were elated when their eldest daughter, age ten, told them that she loved her parents, loved the brothers and sisters, and loved jehovah very much.
she said that she wanted to dedicate her life to jehovah and get baptized.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
Of course the JW reasoning is that they have "the truth" and there's nothing else that their children should ever be dedicated to. And they think it's "a protection" so that their kiddies will think more seriously before ever engaging in "wrongdoing."
In reality, their reasoning "the younger the better" is moving 100% in the direction of infant baptism. And I've certainly seen teens who'd been dunked around 10 find themselves DFd before 20.
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Do not talk about GAWD in Cracker Barrel on Sunday
by confusedandalone inso this morning the wife and i went to cracker barrel for breakfast.
my lovely sister watched the kids for us last night so we have to pick them up later.. anyway a few minutes later the family sits at a table next to us.
their food comes and they begin to pray.they all join hands and he begins praying out loud.. very loud.. so out of respect my wife and i stop talking... they eat and we eat no biggie.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
"He says, "Look at all this food GAHD has provided for us this morning... don't you want to give thanks?""
Was he saying that GAWD was going to be paying the check? Or was he saying that GAWD was slinging hash in the kitchen of a Crapper Barrel.
When it comes to religious zealots, it's not that their world revolves around GAWD, it's that everything revolves around them. "He proceeded to say, "The SPIRIT TOLD ME I WOULD RUN INTO YOU TODAY"" So if the spirit has nothing better to do than tell him that he'd run into you, that's a pretty pathetic "spirit" that would ignore the suffering and needs of thousands of people in the Phillipines to prioritize some guy in Florida.
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More WT Propaganda: Low Paying Jobs are OK for Family Heads. Just "Don't Miss the Meetings!"
by Oubliette ingod, evidently, wants you to be poor: .
a newly baptized brother is married, and he and his wife have three small children.
one day, a workmate suggested that he and the brother move to another company that paid a higher wage and provided more benefits.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
"How are your classes coming? When do you graduate?"
Classes are a lot of work and stress, but I'm surviving. The WT boast that reading their magazines is the equivalent of a college degree is way off. You can't read The Awake! then go design a bridge, automobile assembly line, or a refinery. It would have been so much better if I would have done this 25 years ago. Such are the consequences of being misled by WT false prophecies.
2014 is going to be a huge year... not because it's a hundred years since 1914, but because it will be the year I finally get my BS. And I'll be able to get a career (not just "a job") that will pay well and have benefits.
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More WT Propaganda: Low Paying Jobs are OK for Family Heads. Just "Don't Miss the Meetings!"
by Oubliette ingod, evidently, wants you to be poor: .
a newly baptized brother is married, and he and his wife have three small children.
one day, a workmate suggested that he and the brother move to another company that paid a higher wage and provided more benefits.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
"Do you think that he came to regret the decision?"
Yes. Yes I do. I certainly regret the terrible decisions I made based on WT propaganda.
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Well it is time for me to say GOODBYE!!!
by mouthy init has been nice talking with you.but i seem to upset a few because of my faith.. so have a great christmas.... & be good, i wont be here to send you to your rooms .
i have grown close to many of you.... if i have ever said anything to hurt you sorry!!!!.
when i kick the bucket i am sure "mary" who ssometimes post will let you know.. mouthy grace gough.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
Sorry to hear about the death of your son-in-law. As if the darkness and chill of November isn't gloomy enough, bad news sure doesn't help. But hang in there dear Grace! Christmas is coming and another springtime won't be far behind.
And don't let us skeptical types here on the forum discourage you. In spite of differing points-of-view, we still have much in common. I may buy into the theory of evolution, but I still believe life is miraculous and every day should be treated like a gift. And I have studied lots of math and science, but none of that stuff can begin to explain the power of love.
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Hand-in-Hand - The Indian and Chinese Armies train together.
by fulltimestudent inits only 3 weeks since the wall street journal reported on a top-level meeting between the indian and chinese leaderships, with a headline, "when china and india shake hands, the world takes notice," - which means that this military training exercise must already have been planned.. ( previous link: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/social/current/265752/1/when-india-and-china-shake-hands-the-world-takes-notice-the-indian-pm#.uobtjmrmhcy ).
today, the people's daily carries these piks of a co-ordination exercise between the indian and chinese armies.
billed as an anti-terrorist exercise, it likely gave the two armies a chance to get used to the way their opposite numbers do things.. it's significance?
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
1.36 billion people in China, 1.24 billion people in India. WT brags about having a few million sheeple doing the d2d shuffle and building a few sheds. Sure makes the JW organization look like nothing.