Posts by Bungi Bill

41

CO admits from platform that "we were embarassed by 1975."

by watson in

said with a smirk/smile/grin.

this one is the most glib i've seen.. actually, several times "75" came up.

maybe they feel the more they bring it up and make light of it, the more of a non-issue it will become..

Bungi Bill

Few JWs, in the years leading up to 1975, seemed to know anything about "Judge" Rutherford's utterances concerning 1925.

As an example, forty years ago in the small town where I started associating with the JWs, they had become such a pest that the local churches all got together and printed an information circular - giving the Witnesses the proverbial "both barrels".

One of the things that this circular dug up was the WTS's repeated failure of prophecy; and it did mention 1925 as being one such case of several.

The "brother" I was "studying" with at that time strenuously assured me that the WTS had never ever, at any timementioned anything about 1925. (Like the local churches were having to invent stuff, in order to smear the JWs!) Furthermore, I think that he sincerely believed this to be the case - so well had the 1925 debacle been covered up by then.

As another poster put it - " when you fail to know your history, you are doomed to repeat it."

Thank God for the Internet!

Bill.

29

What would you do if witnesses called on you on Christmas day?

by RosePetal in

jw
friends

if you are celebrating christmas and have perhaps moved and they do not know you.

what would you do if they called, would you invite them in?.

Bungi Bill

I couldn't tell you what I will say to them, should they call here next Saturday:

- as it is guaranteed to be unprintable!

Bill.

56

What is the WT's Motivation? Who Benefits?

by InterestedOne in

jw
friends

another thing my jw friend says to me when i question the wt is, "what would their motivation be?

they're so humble and no-one gets paid except a basic living allowance for the workers at bethel.

they're not like those other rotten 'ministries' whose leaders get paid a lot of money, etc.".

Bungi Bill

I would suspect that members of the GB are motivated more by the Power / Authority / Respect / Influence side of things than by anything else.

It is rather difficult to believe that they themselves believe their own nonsense:

- If you were serious about sounding out a warning to as many people as possible in the shortest possible time, you would be using some means of mass communication - not sending people trudging from door to door with bags of literature. (Certainly not when such things as radio, television and internet are widely available).

- At least some of the WT's past leaders were guilty of this. Schnell, in his 30 Years a Watchtower Slave, records an instance in which J.F. Rutherford openly volunteered that the WTS's then hype about 1925 was totally wrong - yet still saw nothing wrong in deluding people into believing that year would see Armeggedon. (William Schnell, while serving as an interpretor, was privy to this conversation between Joseph Rutherford and the WTS's director for Germany).

- This would remove altruistic motives from the list of "possibles"!

However, in the more recent past (if not now as well), it would have been extremely easy for somebody to skim off large sums of money. Raymond Franz mentioned in Crisis of Conscience that, in his time at least, nobody could be sure exactly how much money the Watchtower Society was making in any given year.

Whether or not that situation still persists today (Raymond Franz was dismissed from the GB 30 years ago) , Power and Prestige on their own would be enough to motivate many persons.

Bill.

39

do you miss anything from when you were a jw?

by Newborn in

jw
friends

a few of my friends who also used to be jw's, say they miss certain things abt it...i can honestly say that i don't miss a single thing (my sister obviously who's still in but nothing else).. before i could sometimes miss having such a strong belief but that's also gone.

i guess i've moved on big time.

/newborn.

Bungi Bill

Absolutetly bloody nothing at all!

As for the assemblies, meetings, conventiuons, special talks etc. etc. etc - yuk!!!!

Bill.

19

No JW's w/ post-graduate degree in Biblical Greek/Hebrew?

by InterestedOne in

does anyone here have info regarding the validity/invalidity of the following statement i read while browsing:.

"as far as we have been able to determine, no baptized jehovahs witness has ever been awarded a post-graduate academic degree by an accredited institution in the field of biblical greek or hebrew.

this is rather startling in a religious sect of approximately six million people who pride themselves on being zealous students of the bible.

Bungi Bill

I have heard this "rebuttal" before, and it largely hangs on how much harder it is supposed to be to translate English into a foreign language than the other way around.

For a number of years, I used a foreign language (the Tok Pisin language, of Papua New Guinea) in the course of my everyday work. All I can say is that I never at any time had any more difficulty in translating English into Tok Pisin, than I had in translating Tok Pisin into English.

If that is indeed a problem (i.e the translating of English into the foreign language), then this raises questions about the "translators" grasp of that particular language.

The other part of this "rebuttal" has to do with F.W. Franz saying he "wouldn't", rather than he "couldn't" translate that bible verse into Hebrew;

- perhaps because the question was irrelevant?

I would have thought that the proper response to an irrelevant question from the prosecutor would have been for Franz's lawyer to have protested to the court that the question had no relevance. Yet, there is no evidence that this happened.

Bill.

19

No JW's w/ post-graduate degree in Biblical Greek/Hebrew?

by InterestedOne in

does anyone here have info regarding the validity/invalidity of the following statement i read while browsing:.

"as far as we have been able to determine, no baptized jehovahs witness has ever been awarded a post-graduate academic degree by an accredited institution in the field of biblical greek or hebrew.

this is rather startling in a religious sect of approximately six million people who pride themselves on being zealous students of the bible.

Bungi Bill

When I first began a "Bible Study" JW Indoctrination Course over 40 years ago, I was assured that F.W. Franz was, to quote, "The Foremost Scholar of Hebrew and Greek in the World."

Sad to say, for several decades, I actually believed that to be the case!

HOWEVER:

- During a 1954 court case in Scotland, his knowledge of Hebrew was shown up as being, at the best, extremely basic.

(Somebody fluent in a foreign language has no more difficulty in translating that into English than in translating English into the foreign language. I know this from experience, having for many years had to use another language as part of my everyday work. The operative word is "fluent", which Franz was shown up not to be!)

- An Awake article in the late 1980s gave Franz's university qualifications as being in modern Greek, NOT the Koine (Common) Greek of the Bible writers.

It is extremely unlikely that anyone in the congregations has post- graduate qualifications in the Hebrew and/or Common Greek:

- Those born into the JW religion are (and always were) scared off from a college education.

- Those who were already qualified before contact with the witnesses would quickly see through the sham of the WT's interpretation of the Bible (similar to the person Lady Lee mentions).

While, certainly, there is no way to actually prove that above statement ( as quoted from the "spiritwatch" website); it is still by no means an unreasonable claim to make - given the WT's downer on education.

Bill.

19

Fred Franz: Time in Which We Are Now Interested -- 1975 lecture

by cabasilas in

from internet archive:.

"time in which we are now interested," lecture given by frederick w. franz on february 5, 1975 at the los angeles sports arena in los angeles, california.

this was a special lecture given by fred franz (then vice president of the watchtower society and one of the main theologians of jehovah's witnesses at that time) on the 6,000 year chronology that pointed to the year 1975 as a special year marked in bible prophecy.

Bungi Bill

Franz's statement at 50:50 minutes - regarding the time between Adam's creation and that of Eve - was his escape clause.

Over the previous nine years, the WTS had said (and written) a lot about 1975. However, this was the first time that they tried to cover themselves:

- just in case the unthinkable did happen (as, of course, it certainly did!).

Bill.

33

return visit with my jw barber today

by JunkYardDog in

jw
friends

as i sit down i see wt books on the counter.

after the hair cut the barber agreed it look up some of the stuff i told him.

i agreed , it don't make it true , but most everything on those sites is on the wts cd.

Bungi Bill

No harm in giving them a dose of their own medicine!

To think, too, that the cheeky #%&* most likely is counting time while he works.

(What was the recent observation by Farkel that much of the "reported" time is bogus?)

Bill.

31

7th Day Adventists came to my house... it was weird

by sabastious in

jw
friends

so i get a knock on the door and a minister from a local 7th day adventists is at my doorstep.

it felt very much like a witness.

he asked me about my life and how things were going and if i was a christian.. i explained to him that i gave up christianity a while back and he asked why.

Bungi Bill

I have only once received a visit from the Seventh Day Adventists. This was nearly 30 years ago, and they were calling in at every house in the street, asking for donations. (Not that they got one razoo out of me!)

Bill.

67

Fake Knock and Other Sneaky Tactics During Field Service

by sacolton in

yeah, i hated "field circus".

i don't like bothering people on saturday mornings about the latest watchtower & awake magazines and try to convert them from their religon to become a jehovah's witness.

so, what i did was just wait until the group passes by and fake knocked.

Bungi Bill

The last two JWs who called at my place seemed very reluctant to press the door bell:

- like they half suspected it to be wired to a plug of gelignite!

Bill.