Posts by pirata

41

Wife wants me to read Secret of Family Happiness, any suggestions?

by insearchoftruth in

hello, have been on this board for a few years, and now my wife is asking me to read the subject book with her.

.

it seems pretty 'vanilla' in my scan through it, seems to lift up the male headship issue a few times and of course the cure to all ill is to 'attend christian meetings'.. am still working to fully open her eyes, anything in here i can use that may help, any conflicts with current doctrine i could possibly point out??.

pirata

when I floated the idea in the past she was in jw mode and said that the secret book was bible based and others are based on the current system. Hoping she gets beyond that soon but who really knows.

JWs are not very good at compromise (mainly because having an open mind is only for people that are being studied with), f you went with the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus", you can suggest she search it in the Watchtower Library to see if it is mentioned there (which it is, in a positive way. The article that mentions it actually uses the information in the book as the basis for the article). Considering this book and seeing that there is nothing scary in it, or that the worldly wisdom in it really wasn't bad, she might be a bit more open to other material. Alternatively, you could suggest that if a book does not violate bible principles, then there is nothing wrong with considering and weighing the information there. If it goes against bible principles, then you can stop reading it.

Good luck!

25

I have never seen anything like this before. Japan Video

by sabastious in

jw
friends

i cannot believe this (no one is shown dying on this video btw):.

http://www.liveleak.com/mp53/player.swf?config=http://www.liveleak.com/mp53/player_config.php?token=e9e_1302492014%26embed=1.

-sab.

pirata

It is a good reminder to to make good use of the time we have now. We never now how long we have.

17

JW's have NO right to criticize the destruction of forests

by stillstuckcruz in

g90 3/22 pg 8: deforestation is much the same.

humans enjoy the forests, depend on them, in fact.

but they keep killing off the equivalent of the players: the individual species of plants and animals, whose complex interplay is what keeps the forest alive.

pirata

*** w09 7/1 p. 15 A Visit to a Remarkable Printery ***

In Wallkill, every month some 1,400 rolls of paper arrive at the printery, which uses some 80 to 100 tons of paper a day.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_trees_are_sacrificed_to_gain_one_ton_of_paper According to non-profit group Conservatree, it takes an average of 24 trees to make a ton (2,000 pounds) of typical office paper. It takes about 12 trees to make a ton (2,000 pounds) of thinner magazine or phone book paper. Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_trees_are_sacrificed_to_gain_one_ton_of_paper#ixzz1JJZGK3mk Assuming that magazine paper is halfway beetween the quality of magazines and office paper (thus 18 trees per ton), and an average of 90 tons per day we get: 365 * 90 * 18 = 591,300. A guesstimate of half a million trees consumed per year for Watchtower's North American printing operations.

19

Is there anything from the GB that isn't about them getting Money and Power?

by punkofnice in

since i woke up from the delusion of the jw cult, i have seen things very differently.. it seems to me that all the gb and their suck ups gear up for is money and/or power.. eg.

brothers in cheap salesman suits on the platform.

the 'clean' image.

pirata

It seems to me that the money is for the organization, not the GB. I sincerely doubt te individual GB members gets any large amount of money. Sure money is spent flying the GB all over the place, but I can't imagine flying all over the place to give talks is like a vacation as some have suggested.

My take: With the not-so-discreet idea that they are the 7 men on this earth that are God's channel to proclaim his "deep truths", they feel the necessity, of keeping their authority concrete and centralized. I cannot recall any one time period seeing so much emphasis on obeying the Governing Body than I have in the past 5 years. A large portion of the current book study book is spent reinforcing the concept of a Governing Body in Christianity. Money is a worry, because if the money dries up, it could be seen as evidence that Jehovah is no longer supporting the work. If obedience dries up, it will undermine the GB's role as the faithful slave. It's a struggle for survival. Not the survival of the Governing Body (leadership concepts shift over time), but for the support of the belief system.

8

Watchtower CD's

by whathappened in

does anyone know if the watchtower cd's from the early days that you order from freeminds has any reference on them regarding identifiers?

can you tell they are from freeminds or is there anything that gives away they were ordered from a so called apostate website?.

pirata

Make sure to delete the mp3tag information on mp3s from free minds, otherwise that's a big giveaway.

The research application CDs are fine (no commentary or apostate links).

62

Why did you "BORN IN's" leave?

by stillstuckcruz in

i'm sure at some point you have mentioed it somewhere on the site, perhaps several.

but this question is i guess personal.

for those her were born into the jdub religion, why did you leave at whatever point?

pirata

Once in a while I'd research topics in secular sources; I thought I'd find some non-JW sources to use in service to help convince householders. Some of the things I found made me think about our beliefs from different angles that I never thought of before. Through wikipedia I found about 1980's purge of Ray Franz and friends, and the ajwrb. This was a bit disturbing, but I shelved this. It still bothered me for a while, then the OKM article came out saying not to do research in groups, or do research with a view to verifying the correctness of the Society's publications. Although it is probaly a coincidence, I had prayed the night before I got that article to know if this was really the true religion. At the time, I thought the article was an answer to my prayer; and the answer was "If it was the true religion, they would not discourage verifying their assertions". After this I started doing more research to verify "my" faith, using any and all resources. Suffice to say, that led me to the old publications, freeminds, JWN, CoC, Gentile Times Reconsidered, ISOCF, etc, and I realized that the claim to be the only true religion on earth was seriously thrown into question.

I'm still in (for my marriage). But mentally I'm out.

81

How Many JWs Have You known Who Have Commited Suicide?

by Was New Boy in

jw
friends

james olsen and richaed wheellock both bethelites.. rich templet.

rich and james out of guilt, richard out of depression.. james and rich were both under 30 years old.. after richard wheelock (a bethel heavy) killed himself the society changed it's stand on whether suicides could be resurrectioned or not..

pirata

And in which religion on the planet does no one commit suicide?????

You're right. The same problem is common to all religions.

In which religion are there not aposters???

You're right. Many people change their beleifs throughout their lives, making them apostates. JWs are more unique in that regards since they pressure family members not to speak to or show natural love to family members living outside the immediate household who have changed their beliefs. Of course there's that "I love you so I ignore you so that you come to your senses" thing they call love.

In which religion are their no pedophiles ????

You're right. Also a problem in many religions.

Not one- so you are just targeting Jw,s out of fear of feeling dead inside of yourselves. guilt and fear come from the inside of a person it makes them reason wrongly in the 4% of brain that is being used, one of satans greatest weapons against the weak.

This is a JW discussion board after all. If you want to target other religions you'll need to read the Awake! and Watchtower, or go to a different message board specific to that religion.

Were in the bible does it say that one's of Satan's greatest weapons against the weak is reasoning wrongly in 4% of the brain?

--------

Back to the subject of this thread: I personally know of two suicides.

6

Need scholarly/credible references for Orthodox (or other) Jewish views on blood

by pirata in

is anyone aware of any scholarly/credible references for orthodox (or other) jewish views on blood?

i would like to share this information with a jw, and was looking for something that leaves jws out of the discussion and would be seen as somewhat authoritative.

thank you..

pirata

@Pahpa. Good point. A lot of the discussions that showed up in my google search ended up getting into JW theology.

@jgnat. Thank you jgnat the google queen, I'll take a look at those references.

@moshe. Cool, I didn't know such a resource existed. I'll try the online rabbi resources. Thanks! Very interesting point about the elevator.

@Terry, interesting. I'll take a look at the western texts and the Noahide laws. Good parallel to the Sabbath in Luke 6:6-11.

6

Need scholarly/credible references for Orthodox (or other) Jewish views on blood

by pirata in

is anyone aware of any scholarly/credible references for orthodox (or other) jewish views on blood?

i would like to share this information with a jw, and was looking for something that leaves jws out of the discussion and would be seen as somewhat authoritative.

thank you..

pirata

Is anyone aware of any scholarly/credible references for Orthodox (or other) Jewish views on blood? I would like to share this information with a JW, and was looking for something that leaves JWs out of the discussion and would be seen as somewhat authoritative. Thank you.

41

Wife wants me to read Secret of Family Happiness, any suggestions?

by insearchoftruth in

hello, have been on this board for a few years, and now my wife is asking me to read the subject book with her.

.

it seems pretty 'vanilla' in my scan through it, seems to lift up the male headship issue a few times and of course the cure to all ill is to 'attend christian meetings'.. am still working to fully open her eyes, anything in here i can use that may help, any conflicts with current doctrine i could possibly point out??.

pirata

This is a good opportunity for you.

Start with an ice-breaker. Download the full "U.S. Religious and landscape survey" here: http://religions.pewforum.org/reports. Discuss the chart on pg. 67 which shows that Jehovah's witnesses have a divorce rate of 14%, compare with non-religious (12%), or Hindus (5%). Except some objections like "Satan is putting on the pressure against God's true Worshippers, that's why it's higher", or "Of course their divorce rate is lower because more are living together" (with the exception of Hindus). You don't necessarily have to counter these, just bring up the fact and let it be.

Find your own book that you want to study in parallel (ie. One week do the "family happiness" book, the other week do your book). One book I like is the book "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why we justify foolish beliefs, Bad decisions, and hurtful acts", which not only explains cognitive dissonance theory, but also has a good chapter on how it can be used to maintain a strong marriage. It's only fair that you both get to share something you like with each other.

I suggest studying each chapter ahead of time, maybe posting here what you'll discuss each week and getting ideas for good points to bring up for that week. You can also look for parallels with the scriptures used in the chapter with similar sayings from other religions, or even secular sources.