Posts by Cadellin

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How Will The WTS Society Look In The Year 2030? How Will They Explain Why The Generation Is Now 116 Years Old?

by AvocadoJake in

jw
friends

imagine you are here in the year 2030 and nothing has happened?

how will field service be carried out?

will meetings still be at kingdom halls or will halls be used via skype?

Cadellin

The fact that it's still going strong on the cusp of 2012 is proof that there'll always be, at the very minimum, a significant core of kool-aid drinkers with memories no longer than a feather...

60

Bart Ehrman: "Biblical Scholarship and the Right to Know"

by leavingwt in

jw
friends

this entire article by dr. ehrman is worth a read.

here are a few selections from it.

im not opposed to religion and i dont think that all religion is oppressivefar from it.

I thought this was an excellent read, which should resonate with anyone who has left the WT because of its intellectual dishonesty. Ehrman's process of enlightenment regarding Biblical inerrancy, moving as it does through denial, rationalization and finally acceptance, finds parallel in many former JW's journeys. In particular, his desperate attempts to explain away obvious errors, like the Ahimelech/Abiathar discrepancy, find numerous correspondencies in the WT's own ideological structure.

Thank you for this interesting find!

36

Special A$$embly Day Notes

by PrincessCynic in

jw
friends

i wasted my sunday yesterday attending the special a$$embly day.

i thought some of you might like to see some of the notes i took to keep myself amused/awake.. we had a guest speaker from the local old people's home bethel.

he seemed slightly senile.

Cadellin

Ha, very funny, Princess. Yeah, you're right on the money. I went two weeks ago and we too had a speaker from the Big House. He said, with a note of genuine horror and surprise, and I quote, "Some [Witnesses] have started to rely on their own thinking, and the next thing you know, they've left Jehovah's organization!"

It was all I could do not to stand up on my tail and holler, "Hells, yeah!!!"

No Harry Potter jibes at ours (that's so 2007) but a few of the old, "the only reason anyone goes to University is to become rich and powerful..." Right, I wonder if the speaker's checked the recent salary range of social workers, school teachers, copy editors, or research techs lately?

39

Dec.15th WT -WTS Expects JW's to Preach Despite Chronic Illness - Sick !

by flipper in

jw
friends

in the dec.15th jw only version in an article titled " do not let illness rob you of joy " it promotes being a martyr in jehovah's witnesses preaching door to door in spite of debilitating and often life threatening illnesses .

ask yourself if jesus would have stood with a whip to the back of his disciples if they had these illnesses or medical conditions ??.

under the subheading entitled " they keep preaching despite chronic illness " with pictures of these alleged sick people sharing how they " sacrifice " to spread the wt society's message i will share the quotes with my takes.. izabella who suffers depression states, " i like the door to door ministry , but when i am not feeling up to it , i engage in telephone witnessing.

Cadellin

Her id card was revoked b/c she could not go door to door.

Band on the Run, I'm curious--what "id card" do you mean? Witnesses don't issue id cards. Was your grandmother a pioneer? Was it her pioneer card?

73

C.O. Jonsson's response to Watchtower's latest 607 articles

by wannabefree in

http://kristenfrihet.se/vtsvar/vtsvar1.pdf.

(thanks to augustin for bringing this to our attention in another thread.

).

Cadellin

Wow. Thank you so much for posting this. This is fascinating and easy to follow. This is a must-read.

14

Steve Jobs message @ death. ALL JWS NEED TO LISTEN TO THIS!!!

by itscrap&theyknowit! in

jw
friends

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2011/10/06/jobs-stanford-commencement-dying.cnn?hpt=hp_t1.

i cried when i watched this.

the message: don't let another human's opinion ruin your life!

Cadellin

Good-bye, Steve. And thanks.

Jobs

33

Victoria, Australia: Answers to questions asked by posters about the Steven Unthank criminal case against WT

by AndersonsInfo in

in reply to questions raised in the thread i started on 10/3/11, victoria, australia: wtbts and gb of jws have shown themselves to be "guilty" respecting previous noncompliance with working with children laws,i said i would talk to contacts in australia and get some answers.

here is the link to the 10/3/11 thread:.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/child-abuse/216634/1/victoria-australia-wtbts-and-gb-of-jws-have-shown-themselves-to-be-guilty-respecting-previous-noncompliance-with-e2809cworking-with-childrene2809d-laws.

Cadellin

Barbara, thank you for this valuable information and for all your hard work.

I'm aghast at the web of deceit.

I guess they're running with the advice to be "as cautious as serpents," and have totally forgotten the other half: "innocent as doves."

9

Why a religion academic abandoned a plan for intensive study of JW doctrines

by MrMonroe in

michael gilmour, professor of engish and biblical literature at providence university college, manitoba, proposed a society of biblical literature workshop examining the watchtower society's use of scripture.

he thought they were poorly represented in deep academic analysis, particularly considering they have their own bible and are "persistent" (other people say "relentless") in their proselytizing.. in the end, he decided against it.

much of the reason is the suspicion and contempt held by jws towards "worldly" bible scholars, who, of course, may form different conclusions to those of the governing body.. james a. beverley, in his excellent book, "crtisis of allegiance," made the point that despite their claims to be bible scholars par excellence, the wts's writings or "research" are never (repeat never) cited by any other academics; none are ever persuaded by the claim that only the wts can understand the "deep things of god.".

Cadellin

Gilmour's analysis of the Revelation book using reader-response theory is a fascinating read; the link is in the article that Mr. Monroe linked to (if that makes sense). He very aptly describes the Society's rhetorical strategy:

The vast quantity of literature produced by the society in order to keep the current body of symbols alive for the membership consists necessarily of a constant repetition of the basic viable symbolic themes. This repetition becomes mantric in quality, and the society’s constant rephrasing and re-presentation of the basic corpus of recognized belief becomes for the membership the rhythmic life-breath of the symbol, the truth...

He's quoting Botting's book in that last phrase. No wonder the meetings and literature seem to repetitive! It's because--duh--they are and that's so easily recognized by an outsider. Even when I was in, I had that sense, but I discounted it, considering the "mantric" repetition to be instead "timely reminders." Blech.

Reading Gilmour's analysis of the Revelation book really highlights how insular and paranoid the Society's teachings are, and underscores, for me, how you really can't critique a discourse as long as you're embedded in it. Once you're out, though, wow--the arrogance and paranoia just leap out at you.

His comments regarding the visual imagery in the book are interesting too--he notes prominence given to depictions of white Western heterosexual males, how sexual imagery is reviled as "disgusting" while the book is peppered with very violent images, and how depictions of spirit creatures are consistently old, white Westernized males. It's worth a read.

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