what the hell?
it's after 4 am here in minnesota and my brain just won't shut down.
of all things....in the middle of the night,algebra is bugging me.
I can see right from the get go Recovering that you are a serious person.
My intention was to add an extra bit of non-sequitur levity.
You should consider asking your doctor about a malaise that can effect one's funny bone.
In the words of Robert Plant "Does anyone remember laughter?"
To this day Mr. Plant is still embarrassed anytime he hears his attempt at humor.
I am therefore in good company.
so im reading this book 1619 about slavery then it dawned on me that shunning like slavery emotionally rips apart families.
if you look at romans 1:32 study note under natural afection they tell on themselves if you cannnot love your familey you cannot love others wow just wow try shareing that point with your pimi relatives..
Jesus and his followers did not write anything down or if they did........ nothing survived.
So we are left with an oral tradition in the years that followed. Which means those oral stories about Jesus followed the Roman Trade Routes and needed to be translated into many different languages. And adjusted to the life culture of different nationalities.That translation process would have meant scribes in each of those languages who were themselves enslaved or freemen in the employment of rich and powerful persons.
So maybe Jesus did say something about slavery. It would certainly be in keeping with his humanitarian side.
It occurs to me that the rich owner of a slave plantation, factory, mill or earthworks might have 'suggested' to his scribe that anything Jesus said in the oral translation that was negative about Slavery and anything he said in favor of women's rights should not be added to the account.
what the hell?
it's after 4 am here in minnesota and my brain just won't shut down.
of all things....in the middle of the night,algebra is bugging me.
I never had a need for Algebra ......Trying to master Algebra destroyed my basic math skills for a long period of time. This was in the 8th and 9th grade,
In my entire life time, some 76 years and counting....I haven't needed higher math....shit I am higher math.....bite me.
I have never had a need for Algebra. Nor have I ever looked into a colonoscopy scope while it's up my butt.
I'd be happy to look at a bra but that's is far as I need to go.
It's all about the basics .... Algebra has nothing to do with real life, Building something ....sure. But what's important is:
How is my family doing.
How much money was in my check book or savings account.....did we forget to pay the rent or our monthly mortgage? What about my tab at my local bar?
My income and my debts.
My tax obligations.
My investments. Up. Down or sideways....will Algebra help? Hell No!
Not running out of gas. Keeping track of State auto inspections and licenses and oil changes. No Algebra there.
Getting my teeth cleaned by a dentist who still thinks I can comment on his stupid point of view when his fingers and tools are in my mouth.
Finding floor number one.......or the ground floor..... or the Basement........ it's always different in every building. when I am in an elevator. And........ I've forgotten......... for a moment........... why I am in it. It's sometimes the simplest things and a busy mind juggling two or more things that makes you stop and review where you are and why you are there. It's the insanity of daily living and balancing obligations that can stop you in place until you sort it out. Algebra can't help.
Negotiating strange airports, shuttles and rental cars. I always start with 'Why the hell am I here?. Wheres a Bar?
I never needed Algebra to bring down a deer during hunting season. To be honest I have never shot an animal but I needed to throw a shoe at my neighbors dog.....while I was climbing over their fence....long story.
I have never had a conservation with a medical doctor, Dentist etc. that involved Algebra. Just my health issues which are complicated enough.
I have never talked to an elected State official or college professor that involved Algebra. Bribes and political correctness .......sure.
The list goes on for thousands of reasons why I don't need nor have I ever needed Algebra.
Which makes me a happy man. While I may have missed out on Algebra I have also missed out of jumping out of an airplane........... when it's not on the ground.
By the way I play competitive chess once a week...... No algebra allowed ......but cigars are ok.
My world is an algebraic free world. And I stand behind that.
so im reading this book 1619 about slavery then it dawned on me that shunning like slavery emotionally rips apart families.
if you look at romans 1:32 study note under natural afection they tell on themselves if you cannnot love your familey you cannot love others wow just wow try shareing that point with your pimi relatives..
Jesus didn't address slavery....he never said 'free the slaves'. There was a cost factor in caring for one's slave's but there was also a stronger profit motive. Slavery worked....... unless you were a slave.
The fact that Jesus never really addressed this issue casts a sense of doubt on his motives and actions. Slaves........ the meekest of the meek inhabited...nothing.
On the one hand you have a Jesus who is all nice and fuzzy. Then again you have a Jesus who doesn't give a crap about slaves.
Jesus was running for the office of the 'anointed one'......... Nothing else mattered.
Since Jesus never wrote anything down nor did his followers in his life time....... all we have to work with is a guy who bypassed one of the great issues of his day and kept slavery going until this very day.
He could have said slavery was wrong......he didn't. So much for Jesus and all of the Old and New testament. In fact it supported Slavery which still goes on to this day. Indentured servants....indeed.
Lets call it what it is....... slavery.
i am not talking about the usual crap from the cult writings, but rather things idiots believed on their own.
maybe even helped on by the cult but not directly taught.
i knew an old man now long gone kunde in michigan.
Speaking of Chiropractors There was a congregation I gave a public talk in Northwestern Pennsylvania. This would have been in 1962 or there about. Later on I learned that the Presiding Minister, who was a chiropractor, gave a very 'special adjustment' to a couple of married sisters.
A couple of Sisters? Goodness how did they sit in a KH and listen to this guy. Or meet and greet their fellow congregants?
I never followed up if all involved got divorced....... apparently the circuit wasn't in favor of letting people know about this.
i am not talking about the usual crap from the cult writings, but rather things idiots believed on their own.
maybe even helped on by the cult but not directly taught.
i knew an old man now long gone kunde in michigan.
Hi Jimmy,
There has always been a fascination with false information in the Witness world especially quick cures that don't work and false conclusions posing as real science.
You can go back to the era of Miracle Wheat sponsored by Russell. Wheat that was sold to the Bible Students for many times more then regular wheat.
On March 22, 1911, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that Russell was accused of gaining profit from a strain of wheat named "Miracle Wheat" by K.B. Stoner of Fincastle, Virginia, who claimed to have discovered this strain. Russell sold the wheat for $60 per bushel, far above the average cost of wheat at the time. Throughout 1912 and 1913, the Eagle continued to report on Russell's alleged fraud. Russell sued the Eagle for libel, but lost. A government expert investigated the "Miracle Wheat" and said it "was low in the Government tests". Prior to entering the court, the Eagle declared that "at the trial it will show that "Pastor" Russell's religious cult is nothing more than a money-making scheme."[87]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taze_Russell#'Miracle_Wheat'
And of course there was the entire pyramid fiasco.
I remember on a personal level the friends were more then willing to believe in false cures especially relating to cancer..
I recall that there was a certain loaf of bread that could cure cancer, there were coffee enemas and grape therapy and that aluminium cookware was a cancer cause.
In the 1950's they tried to make the case that Blood transfusions were dangerous. A part from scripture it was medically wrong. This was after World War Two , Korea and Vietnam. And millions of troops saved.
All in all we lost two members of our family well before their time that needed blood for a surgical procedure one to cure a heart defect and the other to be able to stay on the surgical table while they cut away tumors. Her blood pressure dropped with out blood and they had to stop the surgery.
I guess there was a lot of misinformation re the Societies input on medical issues.
I learned to never trust a corporation when they presented a 'certainly' as to an outcome. Especially anything from a religion.
its not just x jws but religious people in general.
they feel free to post this crap on the internet about jesus is lord share this post, or some drivel but then if you post any thing that questions it you get jumped on like someone saying the earth is a globe at a flat earth convention.
they can say what ever they want but don't dare question it.
I think Vidiot has the truth of it.....at least in our case. My wife and I fled the Society in the mid 1960's.......... my mother despaired over the length of my hair. She couldn't get past it.
She remained an uber JW. Died at the age of ninety still believing Armageddon was right around the corner.
It was a looser religion in that era....a lot of parties, drink fests. International assemblies....... pioneering where the need was great and of course avoiding Vietnam.
Then as the 1960's progressed it all unraveled in the late sixties for our generation. 1975 turned into a laughing stock.
The Elder arrangement was reinstated, Raymond Franz questioned why the JW's couldn't study their bible where one or two gathered together. He was spanked soundly and shunned and the beginning of the end started.
We are definitely in the last days folks......at least for the WT Society you can't stay viable if over sixty percent of born-ins leave.
i think it's closer to 5 million with all the selling of kingdom hells and branch bethel's all over the world.
it's even hard to get a hard copy of the lastest craptower or afake mag now in new york city..
How many turn in deceptive or misguided field service reports will always be a question.
Counting numbers is more of a business way of keeping track. Since this religion is more of a corporation then a religion the numbers misdirect.
The Mormons list a membership of 18 plus million Mormons. But they get to that figure by counting every one who was born-in or joined the Mormon religion but turned inactive.
In the past....... JW yearbook surveys included.....Baptisms, Peak Publishers and 'Leavers'. Check the memorial attendance and deduct peak publishers and you have an idea who shows up once a year out of respect or curiosity.
Leavers could be JW's who died, or JW's who left the religion. The numbers I saw indicted that half of those who identified with the religion left it one way or another.
While you can still leave........ as long as you don't mind being shunned in one form or another .........prior to 1980........ a person who left without having committed a major sin simply left. Family and friends could stay in contact. The friendships usually faded, but family ties could be maintained.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuf_6bp-cke&t=205s.
its only 5 mins and kind of a eureka moment for me.
its actually pretty funny once you think about it.
In the New Testament being a witness of Jesus is mentioned over 20 times....... being a witness of Jehovah is not mentioned at all. And only once in the Old Testament.
Besides which their was no J in the Jewish alphabet up to 400 plus years ago.
Sorry guys but Jehovah and Jesus were not their proper names after the Latin alphabet took over. Getting Latinized is a bitch.
The name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible is YHWH ( י ה ו ה), also known as the Tetragrammaton (Greek for "four-letter [word]"). Hebrew is an abjad, so the word's letters Yōd, Hē, Vav, Hē are usually taken for consonants and expanded to Yahweh in English.
Jesus' name in Hebrew was “Yeshua” which translates to English as Joshua.
To this day we are not even close to understanding God and Jesus's names.
Your prayers or messages aren't answered if you can't call the person you worship by their proper name. They don't pick up the phone.
It was Rutherford ( a drunk) who decided to use the name Jehovah as in Jehovah's Witnesses. By doing that he did not get the singular message out that being a witness for Jesus would have been. People could understand a witness for Jesus.......but Jehovah? To this day.......not really.
2016 yearbook.
You can't make this crap up.
"more then 1300 new halls need to be built or renovated."
It should read these days that more then 1300 Halls were closed and sold off. The times do change.
Memo to the Society we JW's can always find a place to rent. They are called Kingdom Halls because that's what the congregation's rented....... that and store fronts. I guess calling it the Kingdom Store Front didn't work.
President Eisenhower and his family, when he was growing up, used their living room as their offical KH.
I've personally served in small store front KH's as well as second floor KH. If you couldn't walk up a flight of stairs you couldn't attend the meetings.
