Bungi Bill

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Posts by Bungi Bill

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  13

  The list of things that would never have occurred if the JW organization never existed

  by thetrueone in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  coming off a topic that terry started recently concerning what if j rutherford never grabbed a hold of the wts.

  corporation.. i thought it might be interesting to accumulate a list of things that would never have happened due to the wts/jws .

  existence and expansion over the years.

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  Bungi Bill

  I, too, would never have met my wife:

  - thus sparing her, me, and the three children from untold misery.

  (As you might have deduced by now, that didn't work out too well!)

  Bill.
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  322

  WT Nov. 1, 2011 (public) - When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed - Part 2

  by AnnOMaly in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  out now.. yes, yes, yessssss!

  on p. 26-27 they talk about how the lunar positions on vat 4956 fit 588/7 bce!!!.

  "clearly, much of the astronomical data in vat 4956 fits the year 588 b.c.e.

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  Bungi Bill

  It is a technique called "muddying the water":

  - usually resorted to by people who know that they are wrong, but no way in hell will they admit to this!

  Bill.
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  7

  Delineating the shameful story of the Jehovah's Witnesses failed apocalypse saga

  by mankkeli in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  one of the most firmly established new religious movements which bases its mission on apocalyptic predictions is jehovahs witnesses.

  jehovahs witnesses believe that we are living in a harvest period, the end days of the present world, and should dramatically change our lives accordingly.. the movement can be traced to the 1830s, when a baptist leader named william miller announced that the bible is full of secret numerical clues.

  according to his interpretation of scriptural passages, he wrote of his prediction that christ would return to earth some time between march 21, 1843 and march 21, 1844. an estimated 100,000 people accepted his message and formed an informal network to anticipate the second coming, often leaving their mainstream christain churches in the process.

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  Bungi Bill

  Further to theBibleResearcher's comments, C.T. Russell adopted the date 1874 from the Second Adventists - but after the event, and by which time they had modified its significance to beginning the "invisible return" of Jesus Christ. (The meeting between Russell and the Second Adventist's N.H. Barbour occurred sometime in 1876). The Second Adventists were a result of the wreckage of William Miller's Adventist movement. The JWs, however, were only very indirectly so.

  However, both Russell and Barbour both believed that 1914 would mark the end of the "last days", and definitely see the end of the world. (Barbour later abandoned this idea, but Russell never did - until 1914 came and went, after which he amended it to 1915, according to his The Time is at Hand of that same year).

  Likewise, in the early 1920s, the Witnesses did predict that the end would happen in 1925 (WT 7/15/24, p.211). This was the thrust of J.F. Rutherford's bombasts that "Millions Now Living Will Never Die." (Incidentally, the "understanding" about the Other Sheep came about ten years after that, in 1935).

  Once again, the JWs were expicit about expecting the end to happen in 1975. While they may not have anywhere in writing said precisely that "Armegeddon will happen in 1975", that thought was left hanging there repeatedly:

  - so as to leave the reader with no doubt that this is what the WTS believed; and furthermore, what it wanted its readers to believe. (Either that, or the WTS made an abysmal job of communicating what they did believe!).

  Just a few examples of many include Life Everlasting in Freedom of the Sons of God (1966). Around about page 29, after extensive discussion about 1975 marking the 6000th anniversary of human creation, the expression "appropriate" was used to describe the sequence of events should God pull the pin on "This System" during that same year.

  Further to that, a series of Watchtower articles in 1968 added fuel to the 1975 fire :

  - WT 5/1/68 p.271 spoke of the "gap" as being "less than one year."

  - WT 8/15/68 p.499 talked of "weeks or months - not years."

  During those years, I was an avid reader of everything that the WTS printed, and I saw first hand how their writings about 1975 were interpreted:

  - both by Witnesses and non-Witnesses alike.

  In addition to what was written, much more was said from the platform - much of it quite specific that the end would be in 1975.

  So what Mankelli says concerning JW predictions about the date of "Armgeddon" are quite correct - and it would take a great excercise in weasel talk to try and talk their way out of that one (particularly the 1975 date). Not to say it hasn't been tried, however!

  Bill.
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  322

  WT Nov. 1, 2011 (public) - When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed - Part 2

  by AnnOMaly in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  out now.. yes, yes, yessssss!

  on p. 26-27 they talk about how the lunar positions on vat 4956 fit 588/7 bce!!!.

  "clearly, much of the astronomical data in vat 4956 fits the year 588 b.c.e.

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  Bungi Bill

  Regarding Rolf Furuli, and what he might know that nobody else does, I thought that his area of expertise is in the ancient languages?

  - His profile gives occupation as lecturer in the Semitic Languages at Oslo University

  i.e. Rolf Furuli is not an historian, an archeologist or a chronologist - making him more of a JW apologist on this matter, rather than any sort of an authority.

  Bill.
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  29

  How Did You Get Rid of Your Bound Volumes?

  by Eiben Scrood in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my town will no longer collect old books like that as trash and they're pretty hard to burn.

  my solution has been to include one in every bag of used cat litter when i clean the cat boxes.

  i've gotten rid of around 30 that way and i'm about halfway there.

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  Bungi Bill

  I would like to be able to say that I got rid of mine by means of a box of matches and about a gallon of kerosene. However, my JW family snaffled them first, so it didn't happen!

  Bill.
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  11

  JW Husbands - a learned domination?

  by skeeter1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  are jw husbands bad people?

  would you want your daughter to marry one?.

  i ask because a male jw relative was baptised.

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  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.
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  22

  Mass Apostasy- Sign of the Lord’s presence

  by mankkeli in

  1. jw
  2. 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.

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  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.
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  14

  Is the Watchtower all about GIVE and TAKE?

  by Fernando in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

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

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  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.
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  46

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

  by cedars in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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.

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  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.
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  14

  Conscience---Oh really?

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. medical

  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.".

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  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.