you don't see me posting very often, but i do read the site frequently.
my husband (who is an urban planner) came across a "blurb" in an engineering magazine.
i have a scan of the blurb, but have no idea how to post.
$50 million??? So much for keeping your eye simple...
"Why this waste? For the contributions to the worldwide work could have been used to help the poor!" (This he said, because he realized that building a new headquarters for a handful of brothers was probably not as important as helping people who actually need homes, food, that sort of thing.)
--sd-7
a brother once explained away 1975 by saying "jehovah changed his mind about the ninevites, didn't he?
did that mean he was a false prophet?
how would you answer that?.
A brother once explained away 1975 by saying "Jehovah changed his mind about the Ninevites, didn't he? Did that mean he was a false prophet? No."
We're not talking about the Ninevites. Explain how 1975 is related to Ninevites. Are you suggesting that God had actually planned to end the world in 1975 and then changed his mind? How would you know? Jesus said that only God knows when the end will come. Are you saying you know more than Jesus?
What were the reasons 1975 was stated as an end date? What about the end of 6,000 years of human history had anything to do with God's plans?
--sd-7
from the official jw website.... .
school shooting in connecticutdecember 17, 2012 | united states.
on friday, december 14, 2012, a shooting took place at an elementary school in newtown, connecticut.
It is better to keep your attacks to concrete doctrinal issues. Attacking an organization's culture is a distraction. It only affects those who already have left.
Hey, pick up an issue of Awake! sometime, will ya? You may have noticed a similar pattern in there against 'Christendom'. And a similar effect on those who have already left other Christian religions...so JWs and ex-JWs are probably two sides of the same coin, in terms of the obsession with stickin' it to each other. Whereas JWs who visit here to argue are on a different plane of existence altogether (which I say with no insult intended), as they straddle the two worlds to debate with ex-JWs. That's an interesting dynamic, though, and provides good opportunities for open debate on legitimate issues.
But this back-and-forth is all so pointless, really. As far as JWs are concerned, this is essentially a social issue, a situation where charity could be shown, and really, that ain't their cup o' tea. That said, I do think people could be comforted by the scriptures in a situation like this, and JWs might even help in that regard, to an extent. To the extent that any comfort is brought to those who lost children and friends in this tragedy, it would be a good thing.
To the extent that such people are recruited into a cult, though, it would be a bad thing. Just so we're clear. This sort of article shouldn't surprise anyone, and is no more cold than any of the other approaches the organization has had to external events. Dude. We're talking about people who will send kids to their deaths based on splitting hairs on the blood issue. You expect them to pour out their hearts in a compassionate display of warm, Christian love for non-JW kids? Right. "You picked the wrong house, bub!"
--sd-7
slidin fast made a great post yesterday about the elephant in the room, the fact that the wt teaches millions of innocent six and seven year olds are doomed to die if their version of armageddon comes about.. that coupled with a brief, stupid conversation with my jw father this morning where he asserted "we really need jehovah's kingdom" in response to the shooting led me to investigate how many six and seven year olds would be killed at armageddon.. according to census.gov there are about 243 million six and seven year olds alive in the world.
all of them doomed to die, according to wt theology.
(well, lets give them 1 million jw kids, even though that probably covers all jw kids, not just 6-7 year olds).
Maybe. But if the parents don't accept the message, the children die, too, as they did in the Flood, so that negates that argument.
I doubt most JWs are actually thinking about just what would happen if the Armageddon they are told about actually happened. Thinking of parents watching their children melting away, infants dying in cribs, cleaning up the bones and debris and finding the tiny skulls and wondering what sort of life this child would have had if Armageddon didn't happen just then.
I'm guessing they assume God will wipe out the PTSD that would surely result from that scenario...or they're really so cold as to be just fine with that series of events. Or more likely, they haven't thought it through.
--sd-7
just had a couple of jws stop by my house.
they had been before several times and know that i'm a pretty devout catholic, so i'm sure they were just swinging by to get more time for the card.. well, this time the opening line was about the tragedy in ct. i mean, really?
you're going to try to get converts by capitalizing on this tragedy?
No, it's the same low. You can't get any colder than absolute zero.
--sd-7
from the official jw website.... .
school shooting in connecticutdecember 17, 2012 | united states.
on friday, december 14, 2012, a shooting took place at an elementary school in newtown, connecticut.
It could be that some individual JWs will offer some assistance. The big problem is that there will never be an organization-sponsored assistance for these individuals beyond attempting to recruit them. Because that's the thing they put above all else, recruitment, and disturbing events open the doors to recruitment opportunities.
The only reason it would be relevant to mention JW kids would be if they were actually victims, I would think. The fact that they weren't makes it a sort of non-news item, unless their stories are going to be related in detail or something, like if they got some kids together and prayed or something like that (I'd be impressed to see that one).
Is it wrong for them to mention it? No. It's more wrong to say that JWs in the area will offer assistance, when they'll really only offer recruitment, which to them, I suppose, is assistance. If you're not interested in joining up, you'll be told to have a nice day, and there the 'assistance' will end.
--sd-7
good morning all,.
i have had the opportunity over the last couple of years to speak with a couple of jw's who had either attended the same congregation i did or were married to someone who to the same one.
for the record, i disassociated myself in 1992 due to being followed around by an elder or two who had heard that i had ray franz's "crisis of conscience" in my possession.
The most I ever heard was that I'd put braids in my hair, but that was because a random non-JW sat next to my mom during a meeting and someone mistook him for me. But I think the Mrs. has a picture of me on her FB page now, so...there can be no doubts as to what my appearance is now, beard and all...it is time for a shave, though. Gotta do the Tony Stark goatee again. I miss it.
Anyway, I don't hear a lot of rumors of that sort. I guess since my mom sees me often enough due to the grandkids, she at least knows I'm just going to work and comin' home, reading a lot of books, and that's about as unusual as it's gotten. I'm glad, though--too many rumors floating in that congregation anyway. I always hated that gossip stuff.
--sd-7
god = loving.
god = all powerfull.
god didn't stop this from happing?.
Well, blaming God is only relevant if you believe God is real. If you don't, then it's not.
As much as it's making me revert to old JW form, my belief on this is, if God is real, then God is not Superman. He's not going to swoop in and stop bad things from happening. If he was that kind of God, the Bible stories wouldn't even exist, because he would've stopped Adam and Eve from eating the fruit--or just executed them on the spot. Or let their kids be born perfect with a similar fruit-in-the-middle-don't-eat-it command laid on them. Or something else. Ultimately, these are man's problems and man has to solve them.
Whatever the case, I would find it difficult to comprehend a god of love who could watch things like this happening all over the Earth and not get involved. He'd have to have a hell of a lot of self-control, that's for sure. Either way, it's not his job to save us from ourselves; presumably the only job he took on was to save us from sin, and with that done, all the rest can be fixed in the end anyway. Maybe from Godview, all of this stuff is a drop in the ocean of time...just a thought.
--sd-7
for what ever reason i have been contacted by a number of jw's as to why i do not attend the meetings etc.
in the past i have blown it off by saying i am super busy, tired, sick etc.
i had the opportunity just last week when i ran into an elder and his wife at the grocery store to respond to their comment.
"Why do my kids have a lower level of protection from child molesters than elders kids?"
Answer: Disfellowship me.
And to think, you're the incorrigibly wicked one!
--sd-7
i know this might sound silly but field service did provide a strange type of good feelings after i was done.
i called this the "halo-effect" because i felt so "righteous, obedient and good" for taking the weirdos or "the friends" in my station wagon.
vans and station wagon owners in the congregations often get used hard, pile up seven whacks and your off!
sd-7 get netflix if you cant afford cable, lots of old cartoons and shows to catch up on life you missed and its like $8
Way ahead of you, pal; I've had Netflix for awhile. I've upgraded since those days, and my movie collection is sufficient now that I have no great lack in entertainment even if I didn't have Netflix. I've definitely caught up on some episodes I missed, that's for sure. I was just reminiscing on the early post-high school days. I had a VCR and a 13" TV and like, 8 VHS movies that I watched over and over and over and over when I wasn't watching stuff I'd taped. But thanks for the advice.
--sd-7
