Posts by Bungi Bill

11

JW Husbands - a learned domination?

by skeeter1 in

jw
friends

are jw husbands bad people?

would you want your daughter to marry one?.

i ask because a male jw relative was baptised.

Bungi Bill

This was something that I never was comfortable with, particularly as my wife was one of those unusual persons whose IQ is clean off the top end of the scale - which is set at 200. (That her talents were completely wasted with the JWs is another story!)

My first introduction to domestic violence was with the JWs. I will say that in that particular case, the wife was not after equality in the relationship, she wanted to dominate -and in a non JW family, she definitely would have (thus making her husband well and truly "hen pecked"). However, the elders leaned heavily on him to excercise his "headship", even to the point of suggesting he use his fists to emphasize who should be in control. (One elder's exact words were that this husband "should clobber her.") If this wasn't exactly giving official sanction for violence, it was certainly telling that brother that the elders were going to look the other way when he used it.

Needless to say, the results of all this pressure was predictable.

The greatest irony of the lot, in my opinion, was that book the WTS printed in the late 1970s, Making your family life happy." The JW way of life is almost gauranteed to do the opposite!

Bill.

22

Mass Apostasy- Sign of the Lords presence

by mankkeli in

jw
friends

this quote is from the watchtower 1980 8/1.

"are you profoundly shocked and unduly disturbed when you see or hear of a christian you know yielding to doubts, cooling off and perhaps even becoming rebellious to the point of deserting the christian congregation and trying to draw others away with him?

if so, you may be comforted in knowing that, sad as such occurrences may be, the scriptures forewarn us that they will happen.. among the various causes of apostasy, one of the foremost is unquestionably a lackoffaith through doubt.

Bungi Bill

More of this "Jehovah's happy people" nonsense - and by contrast, all "apostates" are supposed to be sad.

Interestingly (and not at all surprizingly) the common theme that I hear from people around me when the subject of JWs comes up is "they never look happy." Sounds like all the active JWs around here must be apostates in disguise!

Bill.

14

Is the Watchtower all about GIVE and TAKE?

by Fernando in

does the watchtower give or create community, and take or steal faith and salvation?.

Bungi Bill

It is all about taking, and very little to do with giving.

W. Stevenson summed it up concisely in his 1975 - Year of Doom? "No other religious group demands so much from its members, in return for so little."

Bill.

46

QFR: "Warning - memorial partakers might be loonies!"

by cedars in

as part of my objective analysis of four month's worth of watchtower study editions from july to october 2011, i found the following gem from a question from readers, on page 22 of the august 15 magazine.

the question under discussion was "how are we to understand the figures in the annual service report?

", and it goes on to provide an idiot's guide to what the figures mean, including the following.... "memorial partakers.

Bungi Bill

From my experience with ones who more recently began "partaking of the emblems", mental illness is all to common amongst them.

I should know, I was married to one such person.

(Bi Polar Disorder, and another condition that medical science has only been able to identify now, some 25 years after the event).

If that is a commentary on the calibre of WTS leadership, no wonder most JWs are so messed up!

Bill.

14

Conscience---Oh really?

by Terry in

whatever else you may think about jehovah's witnesses, what they think about their own "trained christian conscience" is an absolute.. the governing body feeds them what they should think and say and do; they obey.. conversely, what they must not think and say or do must be obeyed absolutely as well.

agreed?.

by internalizing these instructions, directions and taboos all jehovah's witnesses become tuned in to the collective authority of jehovah's "arrangement.".

Bungi Bill

Further to their many, various utterances about conscience:

- During the mid-1970s, there was a series of Watchtower articles about this very subject. Also, it would seem that at the same time the elders heard a lot about conscience - and its proper role in things - while attending the Kingdom Ministry School. I even heard it said by one brother on his return from the Kingdom Ministry School that the then Branch Overseer was going to "have to alter his approach."

- Indeed, the whole thrust suddenly became to the effect that the WTS's publications, talks from the platform, counsel from the elders, everything in fact, was no longer about telling a person what to do, but "making suggestions."

(I can even recall one Circuit Overseer reprimanding a brother for asking him a question "that your conscience should answer for you.")

Some congregations then took this "new light" at face value, and removed most man made rules and regulations. Aroundabout this time, I was in a congregation that allowed its Ministerial Servants to sport beards; and (horror of horrors!), the sisters were permitted to wear pants suits.

It goes without saying that this situation did not last very long!

By the early 1980s, pointed remarks were being made at District Conventions - and quoting some obscure "fashion consultant" - that pants suits were "inappropriate for wearing to church." Also at that same DC, a directive came out beforehand regarding the attendants that "no beards allowed."

A memorable quote from one of our congregation's elders sometime after that was to the effect that "The Society does make suggestions to us, but expects us to carry these out."

In other words, the previous situation in which everybody was free to do as they were told had been totally restored!

Bill.

16

The end is coming on May 2011

by I need a lot of help in

jw
friends

.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110103/ap_on_re/us_rel_apocalypse_soon.

Bungi Bill

Harold Camping evidently uses a different calendar to everyone else;

- one in which May comes sometime after August!

Bill.

33

The (study) WT November 2011 Makes Me Puke !

by Hairyhegoat in

jw
friends

this study edition is an absolute attack on kids going to higher education, and you all are getting too cosy at home with your sky tv and the internet, get out on the doors you idle dogs.. oh and if you have a good job already you could not be putting the kingdum first !.

here is some of the crap in the mag, and the article temporary residents in a wicked world.. 10. .

in view of the imminent end of the present system of things, as jehovahs servants.

Bungi Bill

How many generations of JWs have they preached this same nonsense to now - time they changed the bloody record! (the needle has got itself stuck in this one).

Has anyone else ever noticed, though, that the JW families who remain with "The Truth" throughout the generations are usually the same ones that give lip service only to this sort of "counsel" from the WTS?

i.e. the parents usually have a profitable and well established family business (not necessarily a janitorial one, either!), the family is never ever "short of a quid", their children do attend college; and throughout it all, their father remains an elder in the congregation.

By contrast, the ones that take to heart the official line of the WTS typically get themselves badly hurt, then - but, unfortunately, only then - recognize it for the BS that it is; finally throwing it back in the WTS's face. The only trouble being that by then it is very difficult, if not impossible, to reverse the damage done by swallowing the WTS's line.

Bill.

4

Can the neo-Babylonian Chronology be Reduced? (Part 1), Carl Olof Jonsson

by Doug Mason in

in this article, carl olof jonsson examines the attempts by some who are trying to shorten the chronology and move the reigns of its kings forward in time by hundreds of years.. http://www.jwstudies.com/can_the_neo-babylonian_chronology_be_reduced__part_1__carl_olof_jonsson.pdf.

doug.

Bungi Bill

Doug,

Thanks for the link.

It would appear that the Neo-Babylonian era was a very well documented period in ancient history. Also, the fact that they wrote on clay tablets - rather than on paper - has ensured the survival of much of this documentation.

Bill.

8

Questions from JWN readers 1914 & 607 vs 587 (parody)

by stuckinamovement in

questions from jwn readers.

1914 is a date that many people question.

this is equal to 3.5 lunar years of 360 days.

Bungi Bill

Talk about quote-mining, numerology - and a vivid imagination! Nobody but a dyed-in-the-wool JW would be impressed.

Bill.

140

Why So Many Young People Are Leaving The Watchtower

by Jeremy C in

i have been giving a lot of thought to the young people who are leaving the watchtower organization in recent years.

last night, i was reading the thread posted by jwfacts a while back in which he provided some statistics and graphs showing the rapidly declining growth in the watchtower.

one factor that was discussed at length was the high number of young people who do not stay in the organization.

Bungi Bill

In other words, their 130 year old "The Sky is Falling" gig is eventually going to send them to extinction:

-and it might well be a toss-up as to which will contribute the most to that,

i.e. interest by the community in the JW charade drying up , or haemorrhaging to death by loss of those already in (particularly the young).

Roll on the day!

Bill.