Oh happy day! Free at last!
JV
i woke up today a right grumpy basket case.... not a good day for the jehovah's witness to call on me to do there usual shepherding call, bringing me the usual mags of shite!
i stood there on the doorstep in my pj's, care free and all fired up.
i was asked how i was doing & then informed that they had my latest mags.
Oh happy day! Free at last!
JV
this is an exact copy of my letter to the watchtower.
it never recieved a reply (i did not include 'attn writing committee' in the address however).
please keep in mind that when i wrote this i had just started my intensive research into their beliefs/history, and despite my agressive tone i really did expect a satisfactory answer.
AiAi - You have a PM
i know that the failed predictions of amageddon for 1914, 1918, 1925, during wwii, and 1975 have been well documented here and other places, but are there any [documented] 'prophesies' that actually came true?.
dc.
Blues Brother,
The Allied Forces called themselves officially as "United Nations combined forces" from about 1943 forward. The four main allied powers continued as the security council, USA, Great Britain, France, USSR. China was also considered a "member," but since they fought only in defensive mode and did not send troops to other parts of the world, they were not really considered important (like Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, etc.), although they were "allies."
It was pretty clear by 1942, based on the public speeches of Roosevelt and Churchill, that the League of Nations would be replaced by a similar organization. The main difference would be that the USA, instead of refusing to join the League, would take the leadership role for the UN.
All the writers of the Watchtower had to do was pick up a New York Times and read the headlines. The term "United Nations" was all over the front pages throughout the war.
JV
i know that the failed predictions of amageddon for 1914, 1918, 1925, during wwii, and 1975 have been well documented here and other places, but are there any [documented] 'prophesies' that actually came true?.
dc.
Sorry Processor, but that prophecy came from the "Marconi wireless experts," not the Watchtower. The Golden Age was simply grabbing a news story from wire services and reprinting it.
Sorry - no credit unless they came up with it on their own.
JV
i'm hardly the biggest fan but i thought this was genuinely funny.
he held a mirror up to the overpaid botoxed schmucks and some of them found it funny.
but i'm hearing there's a bit of a criticism.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvhxzp2spla.
Gervais is definitely an acquired taste. Yes, he can be very funny at times and is often on the mark. But he can also come off as being full of himself and smarter than his audience. That's why he turns off so many people - besides being unintelligible at times with his British accent. I played back a video of one of his comedy shows and there were at least eight times when I simply could not make out what the final punch line was - even when I put on my stereo headset and turned up the volume.
George Carlin could be nasty and totally over the top at times, but his message was clear and to the point. I used to cringe at the number of strong curse words he'd use at times, often just tossing them completely out of context, but that was (I think) because he saw himself as the logical successor to Lenny Bruce.
JV
i tried to find it, but it's gone.
as well as the jehovah's witness fb page.
it seems in the recent weeks those sites became "overrun" with apostates and were no longer encouraging.
When I was a JW, we'd read about the term "agape love," but we'd never use it in day-to-day conversation.
In the late 1980s, I had a young man working for me who belonged to some little church near Dallas, TX. It was called the Agape Bible Church, or something like that. One day I was out in the field training him (he was an excellent employee, BTW) on a new procedure. I told him that we should take a break and get a cup of coffee. When we got to the local McDonalds, he told me that he could not drink coffee. I said, OK, have a coke. Nope, couldn't have coke. What would you like then? I asked. "Two plain hamburgers and a cup of water." I said OK, and bought him the two hamburgers.
I sat there and watched him eat those dry hamburgers with water. He then told me that he didn't mean to be rude and refuse my offer of coffee, but he was really hungry and his religion didn't allow him to drink coffee, tea or any type of soda because it was a sin. He couldn't have cheese or pickles on his hamburger either "per old testament laws." When he was done, he prayed outloud, right there in the restaurant, thanking God for blessing him and asking God to bless me because I bought him a couple of hamburgers. I noticed that he constantly used the word "agape" almost everytime he finished a sentence.
This kid was a real "kool-aid" drinker. One day I got a call from a customer complaining that this kid had stopped working and was in the utility closet praying out loud - so loud he was creating a disturbance. "And what the hell is all that 'agape' crap he keeps saying to everyone? He's scaring off my customers."
When he got back to the service center I pulled him aside and counseled him about preaching and practicing his religion openly on company time and at customer premises. I told him that I knew he was a good employee, but he had to be more discreet about practicing his religion on company time.
Next day he came in and resigned. Went home the night before and told his pastor what happened. The pastor told him that both me and my company were obviously "tools of the Devil and in order to please God he should quit his job."
So that term "agape" used like that was the first time I encountered its use that way. My family were JWs, and none of them used agape in normal conversation, so I just forgot about it.
Lately, however, I see "agape" popping up all the time in forums, comments, and websites frequented by JWs and former JWs. Two JW boys came to my door a couple of years ago, and used the term several times.
When did this use of the term start? Was it encouraged by the WT, or is this just something some of the R&F picked up?
JV
i know that the failed predictions of amageddon for 1914, 1918, 1925, during wwii, and 1975 have been well documented here and other places, but are there any [documented] 'prophesies' that actually came true?.
dc.
Wait a minute!
What about the "ancient worthies" like David, Abraham, and Moses? Are you telling me that they DID NOT show up in San Diego in 1925?
Could I have been mislead?
JV
i tried to find it, but it's gone.
as well as the jehovah's witness fb page.
it seems in the recent weeks those sites became "overrun" with apostates and were no longer encouraging.
Ziddina,
Go to Yahoo Answers to get your daily doze - oops, I meant dose - of "banal chatter."
I go there every so often whenever one of the questions shows up on my Google alerts. The usual form is like this:
"Q: Why do Jehovah's Witnesses look forward to a promised paradise New Earth after the war of Armageddon?"
Why would anyone besides JWs (or ex-JWs) even go to such a question?
The first few answers are usually composed of quotes from some Watchtower or a JW study book. Most are simply made up of scripture quotations pulled right out of the publications with exact punctuation (even including the original brackets and ellipses).
When an ex-JW or apostate jumps in you'll typically see a change of direction. Sometimes scriptures are quoted, but more often than not the answer includes an appeal to reason. Often there are also references to discarded JW teachings from several years before.
If the discussion continues for any length, you begin to see name calling directed toward the ex-JW contributors. Once in a while, you will see some totally illogical attack on a JW contributor that is nasty, profane and completely out of context with the discussion. My guess is that those are setups by JWs to appear to be "persecution" directed toward the Witnesses. The apostates I know wouldn't waste their time calling people names like that.
In most cases, the discussion ends after about a dozen comments. Surprisingly, some non-supporting answers are chosen as the best, but most of the time the first one that toes the Watchtower line becomes the winning comment.
I've heard from some of my insider sources that many JWs, especially younger JWs of high school and college age, are using Yahoo Answers and the similar Topix forums as a way to count hours toward their service time. In fact, one "friend of a friend of a JW" told me that they've heard conversations around the KH parking lots where several young people were bragging about doing just that. They'd actually tell their friends that they would put up a question about "X" and that all their friends should log in to the Answers site and answer. That way they could all count service time.
Amazing. Too bad the Internet machine didn't exist when I was a kid. I could have pioneered without putting so many long, hot miles on my bicycle with my bookbag strapped to the luggage rack. I could have just jumped on my laptop for an hour or two each day and I would have easily qualified as a new version pioneer. In fact, I'd probably be on the Gubning Booty right now, giving you all orders and being directly inspired by J. Hovah (or saying that I was).
JV
(( hardcopy link of boe ltr pdf : http://www.sendspace.com/file/1gncdo ))... in my best 'theocratic' voice trying to mimic a service meeting conductor (giggles) ..."if you have acrobat you can insert this behind the other boes in the ks10 pdf, or if not consider downloading and keeping it in the same file as your ks10 for future need to know..... i chose to 'highlight' what i thought might be of interest to the forum in the below transcript but of course it is not limited!.
to all bodies of elders.
re: letters of introduction.
TYVM!
the conference call from saturday night went great; with returning guest "jonny the bethelite".
he is making quite a stir on the conference call!.
if you missed it, the call is up on the site.. we also have a newer, simpler and user friendly site.
Much improved, Rick! Far more welcoming. The technical aspects are great, but the colors (black, dark gray, scarlet) are still a little foreboding and make reading the smaller text more difficult, especially the red text over the gray backgrounds.
Over all - a big improvement. Nice work by your webmaster, whoever that might be.
JV (exjwdotcommie)