dgp

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Posts by dgp

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  10

  A sparkling, clear glass of pure life-giving water...with a twist

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i can remember a long while back sitting down with a one volue comprehensive printing of pastor russell's studies in the scriptures.. i decided i would try and be as objective and neutral as i could possibly be.

  i would begin at the beginning and form impressions on the spot.. well, let me tell you!.

  the "tone" was lovely.

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  dgp

  Interesting. That feeling is what must lead many to join. "You see, I have this craving for God, and these guys are so good at preaching..."
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  26

  Parroting in the meetings

  by dgp in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in the one meeting i attended, i noticed that some witnesses were creative in the answers they gave to the questions, while others were simply repeating what the magazine said.

  i remember that, at the time, i thought the creative ones were also the smart ones, while the others were lazy, and that no doubt the creative ones would rank higher in the watchtower.. well, i think i have changed my mind.

  it seems to me that those parroting the questions are, in a way, the smart ones.

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  dgp

  I see. My understanding of the thing was too simplistic. You're right; there was one child, maybe a ten year old, who always answered in a fresh manner. He also used the toilet a lot.
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  26

  Parroting in the meetings

  by dgp in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in the one meeting i attended, i noticed that some witnesses were creative in the answers they gave to the questions, while others were simply repeating what the magazine said.

  i remember that, at the time, i thought the creative ones were also the smart ones, while the others were lazy, and that no doubt the creative ones would rank higher in the watchtower.. well, i think i have changed my mind.

  it seems to me that those parroting the questions are, in a way, the smart ones.

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  dgp

  In the one meeting I attended, I noticed that some witnesses were creative in the answers they gave to the questions, while others were simply repeating what the magazine said. I remember that, at the time, I thought the creative ones were also the smart ones, while the others were lazy, and that no doubt the creative ones would rank higher in the Watchtower.

  Well, I think I have changed my mind. It seems to me that those parroting the questions are, in a way, the smart ones. At least the ones who understand things by instinct. They seem to me to be the ones who actually understood that they are just expected to toe the line, and that can be achieved with a minimum of effort. The "creative ones" might one day think too much and overstep.

  What do you guys think?
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  8

  'OKM_June_2011_Britain_and_Ireland_OCRd.pdf'

  by fokyc in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  .

  preview or download here:.

  http://www.box.net/shared/jj7gq77hc1.

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  dgp

  Question from the ignorant worldly: What is this Kingdom Ministry about?
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  64

  Where do you think the US is headed?

  by 2pink in

  1. social
  2. current

  since you all are a critical thinking bunch...i thought i'd put this question to you.. i'm a born and raised us citizen as is my husband.

  ever since we left the borg almost 2 years ago (wow, time flies when you're finally having fun!

  ), we've paid more attention to politics.

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  dgp

  2Pink, apologies accepted, and you accept mine if I misunderstood you. The core of my post was meant to give you an alternative way to look at the problems the United States are now facing.

  I beg to disagree with you with respect to immigrants, to a point. America is a country that became great thanks to immigrants. It may be forgotten now, but, what happened to "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!".

  All whites and blacks (and many other hues) are immigrants themselves or descend from immigrants. It is always the poor that move and try to thrive abroad, simply because they cannot do it at home. I don't question your figures, and I know for a fact that some immigrants do have "anchor babies" and do cost money. What I cannot agree with, as a matter of simple logic, is that immigration is a bad business for the country receiving the immigrants, for the simple reason that, if the advantages disappeared under the weight of the immigrants, then those people would go back home. You may not know it, but moving to the United States is not the great thing it used to be. There were thousands of Mexicans who returned home because they couldn't find jobs when the crisis began. But this didn't happen because the immigrants sucked the country dry. American politicians and bankers did that. The only immigrant involved may have been the lady who served them the drinks when they were plotting what to do.

  There are immigrants in many other countries of the world, and I am sure every country complains about them; but every country that receives them, needs them. Spain, for one, has its share of them. Many are Latin Americans, who happen to be moving there these days, because, well, they don't have to learn another language. Or maybe they do. Anyways, Latin American governments pointed out once that Spain said nothing about immigration when droves of Spaniards left for Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina and Uruguay, but it did complain a lot when the situation changed and migration went the other way.

  That said, I remember the words of a German politician. If I'm not mistaken, his name was Stoiber. "We need to distinguish the immigrants we need from those who need us". Obviously he wanted the second kind. But that sort of weakens the idea that immigrants are a burden, don't you think?

  Your children are legal immigrants, but they are immigrants all the same. Those illegal immigrants who pick apples or clean windows are making a contribution as well. In an economic sense, is there a difference between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants?

  I don't question that Americans lose jobs when poor immigrants accept working for less. I understand that blacks complained a lot about that competition. A friend of mine who lives in Canada, an immigrant himself, complains about those nasty Filipino who work forever and accept even less than he. I wonder if employers complain. If there is a damage in terms of loss of jobs within America, those hiring managers are to blame. I agree with you that a program that brought workers into America, in a legal frame, would be a great thing. I'm sure immigrants wouldn't complain. Hiring managers would.

  I may appear to be saying contradictory things, but the United States just can't be a country that is not interested in what happens abroad and does not attempt to act to change it to its own needs. It's just too big for that. One may deplore the awful mistakes America makes when intervening abroad, but the idea would be that they made sense. It would not be realistic to expect America not to act. America could act as a check and balance to an undemocratic country like China.

  I can understand very well that you don't like what you see in the United States these days. I was trying to point out that sometimes what you see as a problem may not be so. China has always been among the most important countries in the world. For many years it considered itself to be the top country in the world, with enough reasons for that feeling. But then it sank. What is now the United States became important only in the last two hundred years. In that sense, Chinese hegemony is the natural state of things in the world, and American power is but an anomaly.
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  64

  Where do you think the US is headed?

  by 2pink in

  1. social
  2. current

  since you all are a critical thinking bunch...i thought i'd put this question to you.. i'm a born and raised us citizen as is my husband.

  ever since we left the borg almost 2 years ago (wow, time flies when you're finally having fun!

  ), we've paid more attention to politics.

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  dgp

  Well, I think I would need to give a disclaimer first: Many of my relatives would be among those bad immigrants who have drained the American soil off its money to send it home. My bias being made known, maybe I cannot answer your question, but I can offer some comments.

  First: I suppose your question actually means something like "everything is bad in this country and I don't see it improving in the near future, or even in the distant future". You can say that about most countries in the world at the time, and certainly it has been possible to say that about many countries, for a long time now. Many a country would want to have the kind of economic problems the US now has. So, in relative terms, your despair might appear to be like nothing for many a president. Does malnourishment keep your kids as midgets, as in much of the "developing" world?

  By the way, in case anyone forgets that, it was American politicians and banks that created the current world economic crises. From outside, American politicians and financiers appear as very crooked and very stupid, at the same time. One can help but wonder how it can be that the World Bank is lead by an American, and the IMF by an European, those being countries that have actually shown the world what NOT to do. In Spain, Zapatero has just been punished by voters. But in America you can't punish Democrats or Republicans, since, well, there are no real alternatives to those parties. I wonder if anyone could actually believe that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans anticipated what kind of a crisis would come. But who else would you take to office? And, since America is so powerful, what can other countries do if Americans elect a dunce to office? Say someone who sends troops to an Arab country to find weapons of mass destruction, only no one finds them?

  Americans may be used to the feeling that no one can actually beat them at anything. Except, perhaps, at cooking. The fact that much of the world is catching up is not bad news, unless you want to continue to be the top guy and expect everyone else to be second, or third, or umpteenth, forever. You could almost say that you want other countries to know what their right place is. When America was fabulously rich compared to everyone else, of course Americans had a feeling of primacy. The fact that others have lifted themselves out of poverty does not mean America has lost any ground; only that it now has competitors, and that, inevitably, sometimes it will not win. Britain and France (and Spain or Portugal) have taken the loss of their primacy with a better spirit. So has Russia.

  Canada is a very nice country with no dreams of superpowers. They happen to feel they live next to an nosey, interfering asshole neighbor country.

  Those immigrants you despise that much are there because America benefits from their presence. The money they send home is not something they stole from anyone, but the surplus of their labor, that, unless I am wrong, they may spend as they see fit. Highly trained Indians and Chinese probably do the same as Manuel the manual laborer, only that, in their case, the advantage and prosperity they bring to America is easier to see. Whatever you think about immigrants, and whatever their level, America would not be better off if those people were not there and didn't send their money back home. In case anyone doesn't know that, the fact that Mexico, for example, enjoys such a high level of remittances for the United States is no doubt linked to the amount of goods that country imports from America. Take those remittances away and then a good deal of American exports would be gone, too.

  Foreign Affairs is a reputed magazine. The November/December 2010 edition, "The World Ahead", contains an article by Mr. Nick Eberstadt, "The Demographic Future". In that article, Mr. Eberstadt holds that "The United States will avoid the demographic stagnation and decline that faces most other OECD countries." Why? "The United States demographic exceptionalism is explained by the country's relatively high fertility rate and its continuing influx of immigrants". In other words, whether you like it or not, America needs immigrants to continue to be a world power. The other solution is having more American women having more children. Which they don't want to do. That is something Latin Americans do; they breed.

  By the way, are you thinking of becoming an immigrant into some other country and perhaps send your money back home?

  Other countries are catching up with the United States because they have invested better and more heavily in training their young. You'd be surprised to know that, for years, Latin Americans looked down on American high school graduates for the simple reason that the average American student knew a lot less than the average Latin American high school graduate. Of course the situation was very different once those students entered college, and I am not sure Latin America has any advantage anymore, but the decline in education is something America could handle very well. Other countries have done a lot more with a lot less.

  As to this comment of yours:

  i feel that the US uses its power to act arrogantly and irrationally and stick its nose in places it ought not. we are like the nosey, interfering asshole next door neighbor that no one likes!

  I may reply that you live in a land that the nosey, interfering asshole next door neighbor took from the country where so many of those despicable immigrants who drain the budget and send money back home are from. So was the case with Texas, Arizona and New *Mexico*. The state of Colorado is named with a Spanish word, proof that native English speakers gave it that name originally. The same with Florida. By the way, what were white, English-speaking settlers in Texas before Mexico lost that land? Immigrants?

  And that, yes, this is an opinion that many have had about Americans for a very long time. With plenty of reason. I personally feel concerned about the rise of dictatorial powers such as China. I feel that we might end up in a much less democratic world if the bastards at the top of that pyramid had their way. But, in a sense, one can be glad that America is no longer capable of imposing its will anywhere just as it pleases. Lord Acton said it so well: "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Why is it a bad thing for mankind if the government of one single country can't police the entire world? So your feeling of loss is somebody else's feeling of relief. Sort of.
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  32

  WITNESSES- WHAT PROOF DO YOU HAVE THAT YOU ARE THE TRUE RELIGION?

  by mrquik in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs
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  dgp

  I believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists. Otherwise, he wouldn't be in the Wikipedia.
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  33

  Amazing Awake Experience, Former druggie looks up JWs in the phone book and starts studying

  by LostGeneration in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  no looking up jws on the internet first?

  and uses a phone book, who even owns a phone book anymore?.

  here is the an "experience" from pg 7 of the august 2011 awake.. my teenage years were a blur of alcohol,.

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  dgp

  According to "Ashley",

  "But the best thing is that I am in control.”

  HA!
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  62

  I fell & Guess What???

  by mouthy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i moved on sat...fell & fractured my wrist..... it is in a caste,thank god it is the ,left one.... i am all settles in with the help of my daughter ,sonin law,grandkids.. i was at the hospital for hours....was able to talk to doc,nurse,why.

  they must not shut the door on the jw's as they have been doing.. they were very interesting took my card to give the ones they have.

  been listening to.....so i feel good came out of bad....

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  dgp

  Get well very soon, dear Mouthy.
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  53

  What do you really know about "Millions Now Living Will Never Die"?

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  pay attention to what you are told and how you are told it.. what is the actual message being communicated?

  what is the intention behind it?.

  this 128-page book millions now living will never die, was placed with the people on a contribution of 25c a copy.. .

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  dgp

  Bookmarked for later.