if you are ever in a situation where a witness is seemingly interested in what you have to say and believe ask them this question:.
"if what you believed about the witnesses and the watchtower organzation was false and there was no hope of paradise or anything else, would you want to find that out?
or would you like to be kept in blissful ignorance and die believing it was all true.".
Another good thread, Sab. I asked the same thing to my mum. She came back with 'But I'm happy in the troof'. I said what about all your friends who have got really hard lives as JWs, but could jack it in, and make their lives easier, not living in poverty. She said, 'But they're happy, regardless of whether it's the troof'.
At that point, I went outside to slam my head repeatedly in the car door.
i have closely followed the premier league for the last 13 matchdays, and i am getting ready to pick a team that i will not only follow this year but for the foreseeable future.
i am not interested in chelsea, manchester u., manchester city or arsenal.
all four remind me of teams i loathe in american sports (cowboys, yankees, celtics).
West Ham are in free-fall. I think undoubtedly they will go down. I hope they hold on to Avram Grant, I think he's a quality coach. I think next season they'll destroy the championship and get automatic promotion as champions.
This weekend saw some pretty interesting results, eh?
EJW- for gawd's sake don't become a fan of Bolton. You'll regret it.
a fundamental platform of the watchtower bible and tract society, from which its fearsome prognostications are launched, is the inexorable deterioration of the world.
the world is becoming a less and less hospitable place in which to live.
it seems with news of every earthquake, every natural catastrophe, every epidemic, every atrocity, and every disaster manmade or otherwise, there is the inevitable shaking of the finger and stern proclamation, "see?
Nope, I don't believe the world is getting worse. The world is now educated and informed, and healthy. All the things that make for a broken society are being eradicated... ignorance, pestilence, governmental coups etc. This all really only happens in Africa, but we're slowly beginning to help out. I think that living in 11th century europe is probably similar to parts of modern day Africa. The only thing that will really screw things up in the near future is overpopulation. I think many governments will probably have to deal with this by doing sterilizations, and offering incentives to not procreate.
Nobody's mentioned it yet, but if you search out the world geological survey, the incidence of earthquakes is actually lower now than it has been in the past. The Afghan and Iraq wars' bodycount has been much lower than the first and second world wars. I think people aren't so predisposed to be sucker-punched into supporting wars for their religion, or nationalsistc fervour, as opposed to say, 100 years ago. (the millions of church-going youth going to sign up to win the war with the 'Bosch' or 'Krauts', being cheered on by their families and peers, is thankfully a thing of the past).
There is growing sexual equality, religious tolerance, racial tolerance etc, which is down to education, and the growing moral zeitgeist from of all places - TV!
The bottom line is that if you got in a time machine and went back 200 years to live in the good old days, you'd probably be dead by the time you hit 40.
i have closely followed the premier league for the last 13 matchdays, and i am getting ready to pick a team that i will not only follow this year but for the foreseeable future.
i am not interested in chelsea, manchester u., manchester city or arsenal.
all four remind me of teams i loathe in american sports (cowboys, yankees, celtics).
XJW4EVR is looking for a team he can watch in the EPL. While West Ham are a great team with a great tradition and some truly iconic players from the past, I'm not sure they'll make it this season. Also, you've got to worry that West Ham are now owned by the UK pornography king, David Sullivan. (who knows, maybe the club shop will have West Ham dobbers and dildos by next season?) Funnily enough, I know loads of people who have West Ham as their second-favourite club.
Cook My Socks- You're right about all the foreigners in those teams. It's endemic, and truly shameful that we can't scrape together some half-decent English talent in the prem.
Man Ure....hmmm. All their fans come from the football wasteland that is the west country. I can see the Glazers milking that cow till it keels over and dies. I think Man Ure are on the Wane. They don't have the financial clout to compete anymore, and when Fergie retires....ouch!
If you're dead set on following Liverpool, then you have to wear the uniform.... white trainers, shell suit, permed hair and moustache....
i have closely followed the premier league for the last 13 matchdays, and i am getting ready to pick a team that i will not only follow this year but for the foreseeable future.
i am not interested in chelsea, manchester u., manchester city or arsenal.
all four remind me of teams i loathe in american sports (cowboys, yankees, celtics).
It is a collossal task to get a team into the top four. The current manager Roy Hodgkins is a bit of a journeyman, and I believe will be sacked around Christmas. Liverpool will have to spend big time to build the team around Torres and Gerrard. There is way too much expectation from the fans, which has always been a millstone for past managers. Follow Liverpool and you will get to know the meaning of the word frustration! Liverpool have had heartache for 20 years. They really crave the Premier League title. It will be interesting who they appoint. The job seems to be a bit of a poisoned chalice!
Arsene Wenger's not so bad. He's a bit of a purist, and likes to see the passing game from his team. He does make some disparaging remarks about other teams who like to kick his team around the field. Still, he's got a point, every season somebody breaks one of his players' legs! (real bad breaks where their legs are bent at a right angle!)
Good choice for the EPL. Best league in the world, for now.....
i was just talking to my wife this morning about underlining or highlighting the wt paragraphs.. when i was 13 years old i would fight with my dad because i refused to highlight the answers.. the reason was because i wanted my comment to be genuine.
i felt that highlighting the "answer" made me lean on just using that as a crutch and not truly putting it in my own words.. i still hold that argument now, and i am 26. the only reason you would ever have to highlight something in a study book would be if you needed to remember it, maybe it is fairly complicated or subtle information that could be easily forgotten.. so many times in the wt the "question" has the same phrase that's in the paragraph!
it's literally like playing connect the dots.. so what i would do is not highlight during the family study.
At about the age of eight or nine, I found it disturbing how our book study conductor would talk about the terrible things that worldly people would have to suffer. He spoke with a real condescending and contemptuous tone, while having a kind of a smirk, coupled with a smell under his nose. I actually thought to myself, 'why would jehovah have such a nasty prick as this leading our congregation?' Then I felt bad that I felt this way about an elder. He never changed, and is still the most objectionable and self-righteous person you could ever meet. Of course, as I later took notice, the primary qualification for being an elder is to be a prick. This is why I always held back when I got commended by the 'appointed men'. Thank god I never quite 'reached out' far enough...
i have closely followed the premier league for the last 13 matchdays, and i am getting ready to pick a team that i will not only follow this year but for the foreseeable future.
i am not interested in chelsea, manchester u., manchester city or arsenal.
all four remind me of teams i loathe in american sports (cowboys, yankees, celtics).
I'm an Arsenal fan, until my hometown team make the premiership, which could be in about a year or two given the cash being pumped in. From your list, I'd pick Newcastle. Liverpool are gonna be up there with the big boys soon enough, and they are like your list of loathed american teams. I say Newcastle because they have a passion in their city for football like no other place I've known. They'd miss their wife's funeral up there if newcastle were playing. The fans are always good humoured, and get behind their team even when the sh*t hits the fan. they've always been a nearly team, and with a bit of luck they could be near the top and start doing better and in the cups. The next team I'd go for after Newcastle is Tottenham, simply because at this minute, they seem to have gotten their act together. The rest are just so unglamorous, and destined for mid-table obscurity.
You could follow Arsenal. They aren't a big-money club, and have a strict wage structure with no superstars like all the teams with sugar-daddies. Plus, they play some nice passing football.
i really don't have the time or the finances for a professional psychiatrist.
i know i am depressed and i know why.
the problem, as i have said before in one or two other threads, is that the solution won't really change my depression and may, in fact, make it worse.. so i am resigned to being depressed but would like to know if there are some coping techniques or other suggestions.
I've read a few places where they say that taking multivitamins helps quite a lot. I have a bro-in-law that tried suicide. I forced him to go on multivitamins and vitamin C, and now he's as happy as he's ever been. It can be exacerbated by a chemical imbalance in the brain due to not enough nutrition/ the right nutrition. You won't notice a difference for about 3 months, once you start on multivits, so stick with it. Make sure you get good quality multivitamins, also with minerals.
Even if you have a good diet, suppliments will help. Some people's brains burn certain chemicals quicker than other people, and it triggers depression. It might sound like quackery, but a lot of doctors and nutritionists agree.
Hope this helps
do you ever pray?.
have you felt, "what the heck?
it's worth a shot"?.
Last time, 4 years ago. Time before that, 7 years ago (properly).
4 years ago I was asked to say a blessing before a meal at my mum's house. (she didn't know I'd left). It was a surreal experience. There was lots of silence as I forgot what to say. The brain heals itself and consigns all the bad shit and trauma to the 'out tray', which is obviously where all the WT drivel had been sent.
I spent the next hour or so thinking to myself 'WTF did I just do?'
Dear Jebus, rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub.
has anyone ever calculated how many ex-jws there are in the world today?
i know the 'retention rate' is pretty low.
i just wondered if anybody has done the math and worked it out, figuring in maybe an allowance for deaths, and also, perhaps a figure for people who have studied with the witnesses, become unbaptised publishers, then walked away.
Thanks Gayle. Wow, they've done a lot of work. Never seen so many bar graphs. Going on what I've read there, I think a guess could be anywhere between 5 and 10 million Ex-JWs worldwide. It's hard to tell how many people have become publishers, but never followed through to baptism. The trends are very encouraging... mostly going south! I think soon the % increase will go below world population increase. The average number of hours in field service to ratio of baptisms is going up, so that's good too. Many more wasted hours for dwindling interest. The lions share of increase is probably born-ins, and not calls in the ministry.