In a decade or less, they'll be disfellowshipped, or reproved with sullied reputations, all because of a decision made under peer pressure at the age of 12.
miseryloveselders
JoinedPosts by miseryloveselders
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29
picture of JW child baptism ... link to news paper
by Aussie Oz ini won't post the picture as it may breach some copyright or something.
here is the link.
http://www.caller.com/photos/galleries/2010/aug/21/jehovahs-witnesses-baptism/.
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Attention Lurkers- Consider the effectiveness of your lifesaving work
by stuckinamovement inhypothetical scenario.
you are a city manager in a major metropolitan city with a population of 3,000,000.. .
if the governing body was truly convinced themselves of the impending disaster and the fact that the end is imminent would they not focus their efforts in spreading the message through effective means such as telephone, television, internet, social networks etc?
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miseryloveselders
Thanks for your comments. As a follow up...
If you doubt that the Governing Body doesn't believe themselves that the message that is born is urgent, take a look at the Proclaimer's book. You will see a distinct contrast with the way the message used to be spread, compared to the half hearted ineffective way today.
You will see pictures of the radio stations the society used to run (with world wide interconnects), the photo drama of creation shown in theaters (cutting edge for its time), the newspaper advertisements about talks given by the presidents, the sound cars, the phonographs, and lastly Witnesses with sandwich boards marching through cities. These photos are clear proof that the leadership sincerely believed that the message they bore was urgent and lifesaving. This was in the 1910's-1940's those guys walked the walk. They backed up their claims with action.
We often hear that the message that is born by witnesses is urgent and means peoples lives.... this claim is the same as in the 1910-1940 era but has been proved to be empty rhetoric by the actions of the leadership. Not one person's life has been saved by the preaching work in the last 130 years.
SIAM
I'm glad you bumped this thread, because I just noticed this post. This is a very good observation!! They were really gung ho about preaching back then weren't they? Wow!! Good post duke! Its in harmony with the conventions now too. There was a time a big deal was made about conventions, and information regarding locals and time was put out there for the public. They're getting away from that now too, and focusing more on who they know will attend, that being JWs. Just goes to show, this religion has officially entered ho-hum status. The leadership's focus appears to be centered on retention through the emphasis of importance on all the silly things that make JWs unique. My personal opinion is, they could care less about nonJWs, as they know with the exception of the foreign, uneducated population, nobody's converting to become a JW. So they keep the rest of us involved in stupid, repetative activities all for the sake of keeping us too busy to recognize we've been screwed. Fascinating.
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I Made Ground Turkey Meatballs On Yistiddy
by snowbird inground turkey breast.. lots of garlic, sage, oregano, and onions.
delicious!.
oh, in deference to coco, yistiddy is gullah for yesterday.. syl.
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miseryloveselders
Wow, that looks good too. Yeah, I don't think I'll be eating soup today. I've got plenty of options where I'm situated, and I'm looking to take advantage of them.
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I Made Ground Turkey Meatballs On Yistiddy
by snowbird inground turkey breast.. lots of garlic, sage, oregano, and onions.
delicious!.
oh, in deference to coco, yistiddy is gullah for yesterday.. syl.
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miseryloveselders
Jeez, I'm starving right now too. Lunch in another half hour or so. I got these Campbell's Select Harvest soups, and they taste like paper flavored water. Oh, what I wouldn't give for some meatballs right now.
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Nature Boy
by mimimimi innat king cole - nature boyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5izryyv5q0nature boy was written by eden ahbez, one of the strangest songwriters of the pre-hippie era.
he was a beatnik poet, a proto-hippie with long hair , a full beard, and routinely dressed in long, white, flowing garments.
he lived in griffith park in los angeles, ate fruit, vegetables and nuts.
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miseryloveselders
I was expecting this guy........
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miseryloveselders
Aww man, Iron Head, thanks for rubbing it in. .375 percentage LOL. Darth Plaugeis got the same as me. I don't smoke weed either, so what does that say about me? Aww man.
Steelers-AFC, Bears-NFC
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In your hall, how many converted to a JW from door to door in the last 10 years?
by just n from bethel inin mine that would be a big fat zero.. there have been a handful of teenage baptisms of jw children.. one that really was a foreign language group transfer.. but in the last ten years - there has not been one single convert from the d2d ministry.. btw - my congregation has had over 10 pioneers (real ones that actually do d2d, including elders) for the last decade.. not one.
10 x 70 hours a month x 120 months = 84,000 hours ... results = 0.. also most of our pioneers are pretty good at the door - some half way decent teachers.
one is sub co and another often is called to teach ... wait for it ... pioneer school!!!.
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miseryloveselders
Thinking about my congregation now, and I really can't think of anyone in the last 10 years. We've got a couple prospects, who are of Middle Eastern descent, but who knows how that will pan out. Every now and then people with mental problems show up. It's really sad when you think about it.
You know, I can't tell you how many times I've been in field service and a person turned me away, and I thought to myself, "what am I doing out here? This is the stupidest formality!" It really is a waste of time. This auxilliary pioneer thing for April, just proves to me they're grasping at straws. How logical is it for someone to do 30 hours in the ministry, and they have the same exact results as if they put in 4.5 hours? It's stupid, its retarded, and backwards.
Its really discouraging when you wake up in the morning, realizing that you're about to wake up or disturb people with something that they really don't care about or don't want to be bothered with. I can't tell you the last time I actually looked forward to field service. The best part about field service is when someone yells at you and gets beligerent with you. It provides some entertainment to an otherwise boring and waste of a morning and early afternoon.
I look at the pioneers in our congregation, and its pitiful watching them average seventy hours in a month(if they're truthful anways) and they're accomplishing absolutely nothing. I had the privilege(if you want to call it that) of handling the annual pioneer meeting with another elder a few years ago. This is before I even started lurking here. Even then I thought to myself, this outline and letter is so full of utter nonsense, that I felt awkward delivering it.
This religion, i don't know where its headed, but its not really encouraging any more. I don't know whats worse, dying at Armageddon, or spending the majority of your life serving this religion.
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MLK would be 82.
by Gregor inof the three assassinations, including the two kennedys, i feel mlk was the greatest loss.
i am sure the plight of black people would be much more hopeful today if he had continued his positive influence.
no one picked up his torch.
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miseryloveselders
Misery, It seems you chose to focus on my remarks as negativly as possible. My point was to express my admiration for Dr. King. I am familiar with the career of Jesse Jackson. Odd that you would choose to defend him with the statement:
" Thats not to say his bad publicity wasn't warrented, but even Adolf Hitler had some good qualities. Just goes to show bad publicity isn't always good publicity, especially when opponents have an axe to grind."
You sound confused. But you leave no doubt that you basically reject anything a "white conservative", has to say. Even if it was something positive about MLK. I never mentioned Al Sharpton in any context.
He Gregor, believe me, my response to you wasn't with a negative heart, or with malice if you will. Don't get me wrong, its not that serious to me. I don't brush off the thoughts of white conservatives either, as my views for the most part tend to swing conservative. My point is, and perhaps it got lost in the all the hoopla I typed, but my point is, its stereotypical of white conservatives to jump from MLK, to Jesse Jackson, when it comes to the questions surrounding effective "black leadership." I know you didn't mention Al Sharpton, but I feel lucky(not that JWs believe in luck) enough to say that, had our conversation went on long enough, you would have. Eventually our conversation would have rounded the bend to the NAACP, or some other percieved thorn in the sides of card carrying conservatives in this country, particulary white males. I found that when it comes to ill feelings toward Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton is usually not that far behind in that person's conscience. It's ALWAYS, both of them. I'm yet to hear one, without the other one mentioned. As you probably can tell, this isn't the first time I've had this exact conversation with someone before. The only new thing about this conversation was, I'm taking a chance and predicting what the other party is going to say beforehand, online. If I'm wrong about you, then I apologize, sincerely.
Also, I feel the need to mention, I'm far from confused, just......fair and trying with all my heart nowadays to be painfully honest. I just figured out within the past year or so, that the religious publishing company I put my faith in isn't all it said it was. That means my all of my views and thoughts, and perceptions, need reworked and reexamined. That being said, I refuse to expect too much from anybody any longer. That goes for Jesse Jackson, or Sarah Palin. Its foolish of us to think that when we discuss black leadership, automatically we have to jump from MLK to Jesse JAckson. Its not only foolish, but its unfair. It doesn't benefit the real discussion we need to be having about where we are, and where we need to go as a people. The only thing jumping from MLK to Jesse Jackson does is give the professional conservative pundits another reason to publish a book.
Last week I went into the book store, and I purchased Up From Slavery by Booker T Washington, and Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell. Before I settled on purchasing both of those books, I did a fair amount of browsing. What was hilarious to me, was there is no shortage of books by the likes of Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Al Franken, Bill Maher, and a host of others. The best part is, each one of them is exactly the fucking same. Exactly. Same arguments, same quips, same villains, same heroes, all the same. Even Ted Nugent has a book, and guess who he doesn't like when it comes to black leaders? Al and Jesse. I turn on the radio, and there's some local jackass who's imitating Rush Limbaugh to the point, that I feel Rush has a legitimate case for a lawsuit. There is no discussion anymore, or for that matter, any original thoughts. It's a major part of the reason this country is heading towards something, that quite frankly, I'm a little leary of. Until we move beyond these backward debates, we're always going to be stuck discussing the supposed handling of the torch of MLK to Jesse and AL.
One last thing, why do we always assume the likes of Jesse and Al are the leaders of all black people? There's a million people to mention, but for some reason, those two always get mentioned.
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MLK would be 82.
by Gregor inof the three assassinations, including the two kennedys, i feel mlk was the greatest loss.
i am sure the plight of black people would be much more hopeful today if he had continued his positive influence.
no one picked up his torch.
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miseryloveselders
Thanks for posting that Burns. Good read.
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MLK would be 82.
by Gregor inof the three assassinations, including the two kennedys, i feel mlk was the greatest loss.
i am sure the plight of black people would be much more hopeful today if he had continued his positive influence.
no one picked up his torch.
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miseryloveselders
Of the three assassinations, including the two Kennedys, I feel MLK was the greatest loss. I am sure the plight of black people would be much more hopeful today if he had continued his positive influence. No one picked up his torch. Certainly not Jesse Jackson.
Gregor, with all due respect, Jesse Jackson, with his many flaws, actually did quite a lot for black people. Forgive me Gregor if I'm wrong, but I fear you're getting your memo from mainstream media and the bad publicity he's recieved throughout the years. I have a feeling you have some research to do. Thats not to say his bad publicity wasn't warrented, but even Adolf Hitler had some good qualities. Just goes to show bad publicity isn't always good publicity, especially when opponents have an axe to grind. The problem with Jesse is, time caught up with him, and he never adjusted his positions as the times changed. Al Sharpton, another target for white conservatives, is an example of someone who is still quite flawed, yet his position has changed somewhat with the times. So much so, that I've seen white conservative leaders speak positively about him in recent years. Some have even worked with him. I believe a major reason behind that is the Tawany Brawly incident. Sharpton would be hesitant today to stick his nose into a matter like that without really examining the matter first. Call it political or social savvy, or just experience in the form of learning from one's mistakes. Maybe even old age, but he's not the same man. I'm sure Jesse Jackson isn't the same man either, older age playing a huge role in his circumstances as well. When's the last time anyone has seen him on television by the way? I didn't know he was still my leader, never knew he was my leader in the first place. Nobody gave me or my family the memo.
For the record, I don't feel the need to defend either one of those guys, but what makes me respond to this thread is, I find it short sighted on the part of white conservatives when they assume that imperfect men such as the aforementioned are automatically defaulted to become leaders of African-Amercans. Its just as ridiculous to assume the same for Sarah Palin being defaulted to become a leader of a particular brand of white conservatives in Trent Lott's absense. At the end of the day, these are all just individuals, dynamic to be sure, but still individuals, full of flaws and limited in their capacity to accomplish much on the behalf of too many. The reality is, a torch didn't need to be passed onto any particular individual upon MLK's passing. Its unfair to place such a demand on anyone's shoulders, and short sighted in the eyes of the critic or cynic. You know, Ray Franz has been dead several months now right? Would it be fair of me to say that FreeMinds, or Simon aren't picking up the torch appropriately? You and I both know thats silly. Considering one of Farkel's recent threads, it goes without saying that Ray Franz didn't speak on behalf of all former JWs either. In that same vein, neither does Jesse Jackson on behalf of black people. He's just another man. That's all, nothing more, or less. Stop expecting so much.
An another note, I find it curious that white conservatives are automatically defaulted to select Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton when it comes to a critical examination of African American related matters.
Now who's up for some fried chicken and watermellon? Outlaw, I'm betting KFC isopen today!