Gopher

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Posts by Gopher

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  124

  Are JWs the worst restaurant customers?

  by Alfred in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  (a little background info before i ask my question...).

  my sister-in-law (non-jw), who manages a popular chain restaurant near a kingdom hall, just found out that my wife and i have recently faded, so she decided to get something off her chest the other day... you guessed it: she wanted us to know that jws are the worst customers ever!

  she then told us some really embarrassing stories about how jws would request a table for 15 to 20 people (after a sunday meeting) and then (when the bill came) some of the jws would start deliberating amongst themselves on whether or not the waiter was diligent or not (to justify the low tip he was getting anyway).

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  Gopher

  : Why do American employers get away with not paying their staff properly?
  
  The better employers don't, the ones who are seeking to build a high-quality reputation by attracting the best people. But other employers screw their employees over because THEY CAN.
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  35

  What has happened to Jehovah's Witnesses???

  by DATA-DOG in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i know this is old news, but as i sit here, and ponder the upcoming agm, i can't help but think, " what happened?!!

  " i actually awoke an hour before my alarm went off, just thinking of everything that is bothering me about the wtbts.

  approach this list as a born-in, someone who was told that you were different from everyone else.

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  Gopher

  "...can you even imagine what would have happened to any one of us who said, " I feel the NWT needs to be updated. I have been comparing it's text with several other translations and a concordance. I feel that it is needlessly wordy and hard to understand..."
  
  Agreed. Of course Fred Franz was a main force behind the 1950's work of creating the original NWT. He could take something that should be said in 20 words and stretch it to 120, in flowery language.
  
  But since the passing of FF they have dumbed down much of their literature -- and of course they would feel the need to dumb down (excuse me, "simplify") the NWT. So now they have a New New World Translation to last them the few remaining months until Armageddon.
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  30

  A small observation from the AGM...

  by sir82 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ...but it struck me as significant anyway.. i attended at a jw assembly hall, and was sitting behind a pretty typical jw family.

  2 kids about ages 8 & 5, frazzled hen-pecked husband, and....the mom.

  the lady of the house.

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  Gopher

  "I thought it was really strange with all the applause. THEY CAN"T HEAR YOU MORON!!"
  
  Doesn't matter. Jehovah really cares how much each person was paying attention to his current representatives. It all goes up on a big scoreboard in heaven. If you applaud more, you encourage others who are watching to also be excited about all the nonsense that is happening - and your Father who is watching in secret will repay you (or something like that).
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  19

  If God knows how we are wired, Why punish people for being gay?

  by suavojr in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i just finished reading this story on yahoo, two comments stick out and cannot comprehend why can't we just show true love and stop beign hurtful to our flesh and blood.

  so yes, if god made us and knows how we are wired how can god kill a person for beign gay when they did not choose to be gay?

  why the more religious a person is, the more fanatical?.

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  Gopher

  37.2% of all statistics are made up on-the-spot.

  (In reference to the 1% 'born that way' claim someone made earlier in the post.) If someone firmly wants to believe that 99% of gay and lesbian people actually CHOOSE to be in that hated minority, there's probably no talking them out of it. The more you try to bring factual evidence to a dyed-in-the-wool believer of what they want to believe, the more hardened they become in their belief bubble.
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  37

  My Mom Is Finally Seeing The Light!

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am very happy that my dear old mom is finally seeing the truth about the "truth".

  what hit her like a ton of bricks is the latest wt.

  study article that exalts the governing body and pretty much negates everything the bible students and russell, the founder of the watchtower, ever said was truth!.

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  Gopher

  Happy to hear your mom responded to the fake "new light" from the Watchtower with some "new ideas' of her own.
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  30

  1914 not Christ's Return anymore?

  by pacloc in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  looking at the public dec 2013 watchtower under bible questions answered it looks like they are saying that the invisible return of christ is completely in the future.

  i thought that they always said it started in 1914?

  am i reading this wrong?.

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  Gopher

  The more stages and phases they tack on to the original teaching, the more most of the R-and-F Witnesses will just stop trying to understand and say "they're the ones who know the deep things they're talking about".
  
  The Watchtower -- baffling people with BS for 134 years and counting!!
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  65

  1975 - The Killer WT quote

  by tim hooper in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  one thing is absolutely certain, bible chronology reinforced with fulfilled bible prophecy shows that six thousand years of mans existence will soon be up, yes, within this generation!

  (matt.

  24:34) this is, therefore, no time to be indifferent and complacent.

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  Gopher

  Data Dog -
  
  You asked was their putting their word above the Bible intentional? Franz is dead so he cannot tell us, but judging from their words in the 1968 article in the original post, and especially the phrase "to the contrary" -- it shows they clearly wanted people to follow THEIR interpretation instead of reasoning (which they called "toying") based on Matthew 24:36.
  
  I clearly remember the spirit of urgency about the possibility put before us as JW's that this world wouldn't survive anywhere near to the end of the century. This excitement was at every level (congregation, circuit and district). There was little if anything passed down to us from headquarters or at conventions during those years (1966-1975) to tone down this excitement other than mild / milquetoast non-warnings that "oh we cannot be sure, but the signs seem to indicate this".
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  65

  1975 - The Killer WT quote

  by tim hooper in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  one thing is absolutely certain, bible chronology reinforced with fulfilled bible prophecy shows that six thousand years of mans existence will soon be up, yes, within this generation!

  (matt.

  24:34) this is, therefore, no time to be indifferent and complacent.

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  Gopher

  The JW's never speak of the 6,000 year time period since Adam any more. But it used to be the BIG THING. I remember it quite clearly.
  
  A lot of emphasis and excitement was truly built around the "end of 6000 years". They've dropped that doctrine onto their big stinking, heaping pile of discarded doctrine a.k.a. "old light".
  
  Watchtower defenders to this day will tell you "the Watchtower never explicitly stated that the year 1975 would bring Armageddon". Technically that is true. But the spirit of the times in the organization was very much excitement around that date. They kept bringing up the date over and over starting in 1966. Watchtower doctrinnaire Fred Franz decided to raise the hopes of everyone so as to build excitement and growth into the organization. I have little doubt about his motives in doing this, and the others on the Governing Body assented to it - even printing stuff like posted above by Tim Hooper: in so many words "please disregard Matthew 24:36 and listen to OUR idea".
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  13

  Jehovah's Witnesses Are Clueless!

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i really don't think they get it.. they have their blinders on and just won't think about anything that could possibly make them question anything.. they are like stepford families and robots.

  they do as they're told while they have that dense look on their faces.. ok, that's my vent for the moment.. .

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  Gopher

  Based on my memories of those oh so "happy" years I spent in the wacky Watchtower World, people do question things a little bit here and there - it's human nature.
  
  The problem is that their indoctrination / inculcation teaches them to only look for answers from JW (or JW-friendly) sources that confirm their bias towards the idea that "only the Watchtower has the truth".
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  9

  Syposiums are pagan!

  by krejames in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the bbc has been producing some interesting documentaries lately.

  one series is about ancient greece and i learned something new (for me) that i thought a few here might like as much as i did.. according to one episode in the series, syposiums originated in ancient greece as events where people would get together, get drunk, make sacrifices to the pagan gods and then finally various people would stand up and talk and talk and talk, no doubt in a drunken ramble, about the deep topics of the day.. for this reason i cannot possibly attend another jw assembly or convention any more.

  they always feature syposiums and now i know they are clearly rooted in paganism, well, it goes against my christian trained conscience..... .

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  Gopher

  Is the plural of symposium "symposia"? (Is "ambrosia" plural for ambrosium?) But I digress.
  
  A symposium is merely a method of cult repetition (or "inculcation" as they call it), saying the same thing multiple different ways in an effort to make the audience believe it, remember it and/or act on it.
  
  It doesn't really matter. Everyone forgets about most of that stuff a couple of days after the convention ends, and they go back to life as abnormal.