Reasons for not returning - haha!!!
But one reason in particular - they'd only chuck me out again. For I will never return to the way of life they advocate.
fulltimestudent
JoinedPosts by fulltimestudent
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20
Reasons for NOT Returning
by Saved_JW ini left the watchtower in the winter of 2008. my first year out was by far the most difficult.
i had every intention of returning to the watchtower for the very purpose of being able to speak with my friends and family.
i had already concluded that the teachings were not the "truth" [after reading crisis of conscience] so coming back was more emotional then anything.
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All Hail Our Robot Overlords
by Coded Logic inabsolutely amazing how fast this technology is advancing.
at the darpa challenge last year the robots could hardly walk up right and it took them ten minutes to walk through an open door frame.
now they're running around outside and opening doors like a pack of velociraptors!
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fulltimestudent
And so single-minded! Once programmed the robot cannot be deflected from its task - a perfect Christian.
But you need more than the GB types, you also need the the 'worker' types. So robots give you the perfect coingregation, no messy humans with their doubts and disobedience, made without sexual feelings to cause gossip in the ranks.
So how about these 540 robots performing in perfect unison demonstrating the posibilities for a trouble free organisation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFEqTgIXvf8
You can even have high-flying 'Elder' drones keeping watch overhead for the slightest deviation. If one deviates, back to the workshop for re-programming. No need for disfellowshipping anymore.
The perfect Jesus people at last.
(Note: this was one of the performances for the Chinese New Year Concert on Chinese National Television. The city used as a background is Guangzhou in southern China).
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Christians, Pedophilia and the Australian Royal Commission
by fulltimestudent inthe vast majority of christians are not pedophiles and would most likely deplore it.
so why do so many church organisations try to cover it up?.
probably there are two reasons:.
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fulltimestudent
jhine : Of course you're right all churches have their share of cover up scandals . ... Any organisation , religious or otherwise , that can afford access to children or vulnerable adults will be targeted by paedophiles . lt would be interesting to know if , say , the Boy Scouts or gymnastic clubs have the same problem of people covering up for paedophile behaviour for the above two reasons .
Peophiles infiltrating an organisation is one way to explain their presence Jan, but there's another explanation I once read on Richard Sipe's web-site. The site is called, "Celibacy, Sex and Catholic church" and the link to it is - http://www.awrsipe.com/ - Sipe has studied this problem for many years. The Wikipedia entry under his name describes his experience:
"(He) is a former Benedictine monk-priest of 18 years, a sociologist and author of six books about Catholicism and the sexual abuses arising from the Catholic Church's requirements of celibacy. He is an American Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor trained specifically[2] to deal with the mental health problems of Roman Catholic priests. He practiced psychotherapy, "taught on the faculties of Major Catholic Seminaries and colleges, lectured in medical schools, and served as a consultant and expert witness in both civil and criminal cases involving the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests". During his training and therapies, he conducted a 25-year ethnographic study published in 1990 about the sexual behavior of supposed celibates, in which he found more than half were involved in sexual relationships. In 1970, after leaving the priesthood, Richard Sipe married former nun, Marianne and they have one son.[1]
The site is now quite large and I'm unable to find the discussion I once read, but his argument essentially says that at puberty many Catholic youths will have a sexual experience and recoil in disgust (from the incident and themselves) because of Catholic teachings about sex. Some will have had the experience with other boys, and though recoiling in disgust will carry the memory of the exciting sexual feelings and pleasure they experienced.
They may go into the priesthood and may eventually have many opportunities to be alone with young people. If the memory of their sexual experience (when young and with someone like the young people they now deal with as priests) is aroused, the temptation may become too much to resist, particularly in the Catholic environment of enforced celibacy (with its denial of basic human sexuality).
Is it really working out like that? I feel I'm unable to answer that, except to say that its possible.
Interestingly, Sipe recounts that many studies within the Church indicate that only about 50% of Catholic clergy (of all levels) keep their vow of celibacy.
However, an affair with either an adult male or an adult woman is one thing, a criminal act with an underage person is another thing. A difficulty here is that, while in the USA the age of consent for consensual sex is 18, In Australia its 16, and in some places in the world its only 13.
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And, yes, the Boy Scouts have had a great deal of trouble with this problem, and in the scouts it seems a matter of infiltration and not the problem described above. It is of interest that Lord Baden Powell, the founder of the scouting organisations, liked to collect photographs of boys and young men naked. There is no evidence that he ever did anything to any young man or boy, in fact in the scouting manual he wrote he condemns such activity.
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Come home Cardinal Pell (song)
by zound inenjoy a catchy protest song imploring catholic cardinal george pell to return to australia to face the royal commission for years of covering up child abuse.
just as the royal commission began uncovering dirt, george pell got 'promoted' and moved from australia to the vatican.
now he is coincidently too 'unwell' to return to australia to face the commission.
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fulltimestudent
Today (saturday 20th Feb.) the news is that the Victorian police have been investigating Cardinal Pell for child sex offences committed when he was a priest.
Pell 'vehemently' denies the allegation.
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Was Adam "born" Circumsized ?
by RubaDub ini guess we have to assume that jesus was circumcised on the 8th day but what about adam?
he was "perfect", so did he have the weenie cut or not?.
i would like to bring this question up at a "get-together".. rub a dub .
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fulltimestudent
David_Jay : In Judaism, rabbinic custom states that Adam was created circumcised and that all the Jewish male saints had this privilege. However the view is not universal among Jews
Oh! David, that's such a disappointment!
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Prince's recent passport pik!
by fulltimestudent inwell, that's the claim.
is this sexy, or isn't it?
are male witnesses now allowed to wear eye liner?.
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fulltimestudent
sir82 : Generally true, but Michael Jackson did get DF'ed in the 80's
- Back in the day, I was told by an ex-missionary (who maintained links with Brooklyn) that MJ had confessed to screwing a 'girl' on the back seat of his Rolls Royce (grin - I'm trying to imagine the scene), and that it was because MJ wanted out.
- Impossible to verify, of course. But that's the story. In the light of subsequent knowledge it may be difficult to imagine that the story is true. But maybe MJ made it up, because he did want out.
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Prince's recent passport pik!
by fulltimestudent inwell, that's the claim.
is this sexy, or isn't it?
are male witnesses now allowed to wear eye liner?.
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fulltimestudent
Well, that's the claim
Is this sexy, or isn't it? Are male witnesses now allowed to wear eye liner?
I wonder if the elders want to discuss it with him?
If not, can we assume that there are two levels of standards within the YHWH organisation?
Link: https://twitter.com/Prince3EG/status/697809908700303360/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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Freddy Franz, One of the smartest men of his day????
by DwainBowman inback in my teen years this story swept through jw land, that according to, the guinness book of records , freddy franz, was listed as one of the seven, most intelligent , men in the world.
dose anyone else remember this?
i remember trying to look it up, but never found anything in print, and ii point that out once or twice , and was told a co, had told about it, and he wouldn't lie!
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fulltimestudent
Another aspect of Freddy's "scholarship" has to do with his personal studies. Did he cease all reading of papers by academic scholars?
I've tried to find out whether, either Freddy personally or the library at Brooklyn bethel subscribed to any of the many journals that focus on OT or NT studies, but no one seems to be able to answer that question.
In the many readings that have been assigned for class readings over the past few years, I often experienced "echoes" of WT study articles. That may be purely coincidental, or it may be because Freddy had also read some of those journal articles.
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The really positive thing to come from this thread is that it raises questions about "religious" personalities. Some very strange people populate the centuries of Christian history.
We can start with Jesus himself. Do the popular images have any validity?
Here's a forensic reconstruction of what a typical Galilean may have looked like.
You can find that image in this BBC item:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35120965
More importantly, how did he think? What were his public statements of his ideas really like? Did he sound "noble and distinguished" or was he more like Freddy?
The Gospel records are at least second hand and unlikely to be by anyone who actually knew him.
Then there are all the strange people in Christian history. Have you ever studied the life of St Symeon the stylite. A really strange man, but one who came to exercise enough influence to be able to berate an Emperor.
He lived for most of life on top of a pole, his food passed up to him in a bucket and his body wastes passed down in the same bucket.
There's many more, but I'll save them for another day
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Freddy Franz, One of the smartest men of his day????
by DwainBowman inback in my teen years this story swept through jw land, that according to, the guinness book of records , freddy franz, was listed as one of the seven, most intelligent , men in the world.
dose anyone else remember this?
i remember trying to look it up, but never found anything in print, and ii point that out once or twice , and was told a co, had told about it, and he wouldn't lie!
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fulltimestudent
There's little doubt that FF was an 'interesting' character.
And before I go to my main point, may I say that my understanding of Freddy's education was that he had studied for the first year in a classics course in some US. university.
However the Wikipedia entry (which of course, may have been edited) notes:
He graduated from Woodward High School in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1911 and attended the University of Cincinnati where he studied liberal arts and later (for two years) Biblical Greek,[1][3] with the intention of becoming a Presbyterian preacher.[2] He learned German and could read Latin and Greek and in later years learned Spanish, Portuguese and French and a basic understanding of Hebrew.[3] His association with the Bible Students began after he read some of the literature of Charles Taze Russell. He was baptized as a Bible Student on either November 30, 1913,[4] or, according to Franz, April 5, 1914.[5]
In 1920 he joined the Watch Tower headquarters staff in Brooklyn, New York[2] and in 1926 became a member of the editorial staff as a Bible researcher and writer for the Society’s publicationsThere is no explanation as to why he dropped out of the course in which he was enrolled. But it seems to have something to do with his interest in Charlie Russell's mob. His years of university study were likely 1912 and 1913, and he was baptised as a Bible Student in 1913 or 1914, which I guess was a critical date in BS thought.
I wonder what he did between his baptism and his joining Brooklyn HQ in 1920?
I've always thought of him as a frustrated Bible scholar, and perhaps his appointment to the WTS editorial staff in 1926 was the culmination of his own dream. But maybe he did have greater ambitions.
I think that he became the 'ghost writer' for Joe Rutherford, and was likely filling an important role in NY Bethel by the 1940's as Knorr was starting his era of authority.
How the partnership of Knorr/Franz developed would be one of the more interesting stories about the WTS.
