Billy the Ex-Bethelite

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Posts by Billy the Ex-Bethelite

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  17

  OMG... what happened in a bar today

  by leaving_quietly in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  so, i'm sitting in a bar, having a drink.

  the bar participates in taptv, an online trivia thing.

  the question that came up was, "what did jehovah's witnesses call themselves before 1931".

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  She said "because every time they come to my door, they're like sales people.'

  The history and methods of WT are rooted in salesmanship.
  
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  42

  Convention Cartoon

  by freemindfade in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  so last night they played the convention cartoon.

  there were a few laughs from the audience, overall though people seemed a little taken aback and tight lipped.

  like no one gushed about it afterwards, no applause, just like it was nothing new at all.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Still trying to figure out who would want to be waiting outside the convention at 7:50 a.m. After driving half the day to get there, I'd be lucky to wake up before 7, much less be there before 8.

  Normally, I'd just try to get there about a half hour before it started. Only a couple of conventions did I have to get there really early before the doors officially opened because I was an attendant or sound duty. It was weird that there were maybe a couple of hundred that were lined up before the doors were opened. Maybe a handful were nutty enough to run and get into shoving matches to get a particular front aisle seat or something. And some of them totally freaked out because they saw that some attendants and others in departments that had to be there early had already saved some seats for their families.
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  27

  Assembly Survival Kit

  by pronomono in

  1. social
  2. humour

  so, i've got the assembly tomorrow, or so the wife says.

  i should have bought this in preparation..... .

  http://cdn.blessthisstuff.com/imagens/stuff/gentlemans-survival-kit-2.jpg.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Anti-depression a must need.

  Indeed. Might need a bigger film canister.
  
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  27

  Assembly Survival Kit

  by pronomono in

  1. social
  2. humour

  so, i've got the assembly tomorrow, or so the wife says.

  i should have bought this in preparation..... .

  http://cdn.blessthisstuff.com/imagens/stuff/gentlemans-survival-kit-2.jpg.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  What's in the round tin in the middle?

  http://www.blessthisstuff.com/stuff/wear/bags-luggage/gentlemans-survival-kit/
  

  I thought it looked like a film canister... and it is. It's used to hold kindling. And the rectangular thing above it is a tin for matches. At a Botchtower Crapvention there is plenty of litteratrash around to burn. I suppose you could put beef jerky in the film canister instead.
  
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  27

  Assembly Survival Kit

  by pronomono in

  1. social
  2. humour

  so, i've got the assembly tomorrow, or so the wife says.

  i should have bought this in preparation..... .

  http://cdn.blessthisstuff.com/imagens/stuff/gentlemans-survival-kit-2.jpg.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  And wear some kind of brace and crutches so that you can bring a comfortable folding chair and sit in the infirmed section.
  

  
  
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  48

  May’s ‘study WT’ admits having taught “far-fetched” ideas

  by wheelwithinwheel in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  not on the front page, not in the study articles, but carefully camouflaged in the questions from readers on page 18 (watchtower march 15, 2015).

  you can bet most jws wont even read it..

  there is no apology...just the usual excuses..

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  You mean the average Witness actually knows about the concepts of Types and Antitypes? That's an unfounded assumption.

  This would be the old-timers like my parents. So many of the things they had been previously taught have already been discarded, this is just one more thing... yet a very big thing.

  When they write stuff like this, it gives ever more validity to my argument that WT teachings are all like shifting sand. To try to build faith on what they are teaching and prophesying now is futile since those teachings can dramatically shift with one sentence in one article. Then shift again just a few months later.
  
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  72

  Coping With Atheism (Long-ish Post...sorry!)

  by humblepotato in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  long time lurker (2009-ish), first time poster.

  first of all, i want to say thank you everyone who contributes to these boards and provokes stimulating conversations and thought processes.

  all the opinions and different perspectives are very enlightening.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Greetings HumblePotato, Welcome, you are!

  

  As an atheist, I'll readily admit that there's a lot that I don't know. But there's a lot that I'm certain of:

  • The bible is a fictional story book. It may have some valuable moral lessons that people can learn from... but the Harry Potter books and Smurfs cartoons have valuable moral lessons too. But the bible also contains plenty of morals, lessons, and stories that are wrong now and were wrong then. (A rape victim must marry her rapist? That is completely f###ed up.)
  • All the other religious belief systems I've examined claim they are "true". Yet, under critical examination they are not profound religious "truth" either.
  • There are religious groups that do good works, but I might as well join a social club and volunteer for charities instead. They do good works without wasting time on theology.
  • Is there a higher power/spirit/god(s) that exist but are giving us the silent treatment? Is there some other life after death that those on the other side cannot communicate back to us? Or is there some type of reincarnation? Maybe, maybe not. Spending time looking for answers that aren't there (or coming up with more unanswered questions) is time that could be spent doing other productive and enjoyable things.

  You've probably already seen it, but here's a link to my thread about asking questions without really setting off the "apostate detectors":

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/254990/exjw-psychology-102-how-ask-question-when-questions-arent-allowed
  

  Since you've already seen how JWs will jump all over you if you express doubts, putting the questions in the context of maybe just one question encountered in FS, from a relative, or at work, puts the discussion in an entirely different context. "I know the Bible must be true, but how do I answer my workmate who questions how we don't believe in evolution, yet we do believe that the millions of species of animals could have fit in a floating box about 4000 years ago. I guess we don't have an answer and I'll just have to stop talking about it and stop preaching to him."
  
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  10

  A Toast to Windchimes

  by DarioKehl in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i recently researched on jw dot org why toasts are not allowed.

  in the article, they candidly admit that wedding bands also have pagan origins, but their modern understanding trumps this fact since they serve another function: signifying whether or not a person is married.

  same with neck ties, i guess (although their pagan origins were not mentioned in the article).

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Someone should totally make a flag saluting, toasting Sparlock windchime.

  That would make a great birthday present!

  As I've said about a billions times, pants are pagan. Trousers predate Christ, so he would have known about them from his pre-human existence. But Jesus never wore pants. Nor did he prophecy that his true followers would wear this heathen attire. It wasn't until after the death of the apostles and the coming of the great apostasy that trousers and Christmas became popular. And while Christmas makes god sad once each year, pants make god sad every day.
  
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  28

  How hard is it to attend a congregation outside of the territory where you live? Consequences for doing so.

  by hoser in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i need to change congregation but stay living in the same place.

  any experience with this.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  I knew lots that attended congregations whose territory they didn't live in. Some were helping out where needed. Others were honest in admitting that they had differences with elders or others in their previous congo.

  Probably the most interesting, and I think it was legitimate, reason was that this person had been attending the same congregation for over a decade and they just wanted to make some new friends and work different territory in serve-us.
  
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  24

  They only care about themselves......

  by dubstepped in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've watched the reaction to the nepal disaster for the first time with eyes opened.

  lots of comments about praying for the brothers and sisters affected.

  the official release on the website references only the sister and her two children that died, along with the impact on the brothers there.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  There are several factors that contribute to dubs not getting involved in relief work like this:

  • "Rely on Jehovah!" It was posted here that in the recent WT broadcast a UBM decided to study because he prayed to jehovah and the prayer was answered... finding a leak at his job. So if jehovah would help this guy find a leak, certainly he would help a JW praying to find their child buried under a collapsed building... Right?
    
  • They are programmed that if assistance needs to be organized, WT will do it. Years ago when hurricanes went through the US, RBCs got very involved. That decreased as the years passed, until it seems that JW relief work is just organized as a photo op for WT literatrash and videos. If WT Corp said the word, putting emphasis on relief work instead of just the futile preaching works, I suspect that a lot of dubs would step up. But with GB 2.0, that isn't going to happen.
    
  • Any JW that would be inclined to get involved in nonWT relief work will get redirected to WT building projects, meeting involvement, and preaching. And JWs hear things like "worldly charities are all corrupt and the work and money doesn't go where it's really needed."
  • Doctors Without Borders and Engineers Without Borders? How many JWs are doctors and engineers in order to get involved in this kind of relief work? In WTland, becoming a doctor to save lives is a satanic waste of time. But becoming a pioneer, working for minimum wage, and spending hours every day standing by a litteratrash cart is the most important work the GB can think of.
  • And fundamental to the JW worldview, bad news is excellent news! WT doesn't want the world to become a better place. They don't want to see lives saves, people evacuated from disasters, buildings repaired, etc. WT thrives on bad news... the worse the better. They want to see people dying in natural disasters, people helpless and abandoned, buildings crumbling, etc. because things like that tell them that their panda-petting paradise is getting closer.