Bungi Bill

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Posts by Bungi Bill

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  22

  Was the TM School really any good ?

  by Phizzy in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  many of us were members of the theocratic ministry school for many years.

  some say it helped them with public speaking, and maybe it did for some.. but, when you look back at the quality of student it turned out, was it really any good ?.

  most elders are crap public speakers, most r&f bros are crap at reading aloud, most jw's are crap at selling their religion at the door, most jw's have scant real knowledge of the bible.. there are reasons for this, quite often the tms overeer hasn't a clue how to teach a person to progress.

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  Bungi Bill

  As a young adult, I had a long, but ultimately successful, battle with shyness. The TMS helped me in no small way to overcome this.

  I also developed into a good speaker (not my own estimation, but the almost unanimous observations of others), again, thanks entirely to the TMS.

  Further, I was by no means a natural speaker. So while it may be the case that the TMS has helped some with natural talent to develop their latent abilities, that wasnt the case with me. My speaking skills learned on the TMS have helped, particularly in facing down an angry crowd in some Third World country, who were teetering on the brink of becoming a Lynch mob!

  While I too have been guilty of bashing anything connected with the JWs, the TMS is not as useless as many ex JWs claim it to be.

  (White Dove, eat your heart out!)

  Bill.
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  23

  did Russell come up with 1914 via the pyramid or just confirm it via pyramid

  by Crazyguy in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so i read somewhere that the 1914 date came from bourbor and that russell used the pyramid to confirm his belief in 1914. its this accurate?

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  Bungi Bill

  Russell was not by any means the originator of the 1914 date. Rather, this was borrowed from a group known as the Second Adventists, a fact readily acknowledged by the late N.H. Knorr (as quoted in Raymond Fraqnz's Crisis of Conscience). Led by one Nelson Barbour, the Second Adventists was one of a number of groups that emerged from the wreckage of William Miller's 1844 debacle. As others here have noted, Barbour finally settled on 1914 after his prophecies about 1873 and 1874, failed to eventuate.

  Incredible as it may now seem, Pyramidology was taken quite seriously during those years of the mid to late 19th Century. (Many persons, it would seem, were very taken in by an 1864 book on this subject by a Professor Smythe). Charles Russell went on to use this pseudo-science to back up his 1914 date, probably deluding himself into believing that Pyramidolgy actually "confirmed" what he had said all along about 1914.

  One of the morals of this story is that if two dates line up, it means nothing at all!

  Bill.
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  27

  How many people have you helped/facilitated to leave JWs?

  by Julia Orwell in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  me: one, my husband, so far.

  if we all snatch one person from the borg, will our numbers grow exponentially?

  i'm no mathematician.. how many have you personally helped?.

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  Bungi Bill

  I regret to have to say that my success rate here is as bad as my success rate was at "bringing others into The Truth" i.e. a big fat zero!

  However, I may have succeeded in frightening some off from getting involved with the JWs.

  Bill.
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  23

  Does the borg really produce great readers? How much did you actually read when in?

  by likeabird in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've been reading a lot and learning even more (project deadlines to meet), getting this overwhelming satisfaction and feeling good.. and then i stopped and realised that i never got that feeling when reading borg publications.. i also realized that i have probably read more non-fiction books in the last month than i did during my whole life in the borg.. for all my reading (and i was fully in) i read no more than two wt books cover to cover.

  none of my study books were studied cover to cover and wts were usually quickly underlined and rarely properly studied.

  magazines were usually flicked through and resolutions to read them cover to cover rarely lasted more than a few weeks.. i did manage to read the bible through once - but that was because i was always afraid someone door to door would ask me if i had, so i figured i should just crack on with it.

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  Bungi Bill

  I have always been an avid reader, and this is what played a large part in getting me into trouble:

  - i.e. when my newly converted JW grandmother started supplying us with WTS literature, I read everything I could get my hands on. That is what then led me into the JW religion.

  For 28 years, I read everything that the WTS printed. During the majority of that time, Fred Franz was the writer of their hard-bound books. Whatever has been said about the reading skills required to understand the current WTS books, this wasn't the case back then (when Mad Freddy used to come up with seldom-used words of the English language such as "revivify"). While the content of his books was straight out of Cloud Cuckoo Land, you would have struggled to read these with only Grade 5 reading skills.

  I also once read the bible from cover to cover - and a lot of good that did me, too! I only did that for exactly the same reasons as already been stated by Likeabird.

  So, in answer to your question about whethe ror not the borg makes us into good readers, with me it was the opposite:

  - it was my already being an avid reader that brought me into the borg. (Unfortunately though, I had yet to learn critical reading skills).

  Bill.
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  14

  Double standing on higher education

  by KSFernando in

  1. watchtower
  2. medical

  jw discourage higher education through conventions magazine etc.

  in kindom ministry 2011 july they considered higher education as date, and use alcohol or drugs.

  however if you look at the front page of the brochure "jehovah's witnesseswho are they?

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  Bungi Bill

  Julia Orwell

  - Good one!

  Yes, when it comes to the matter of higher education, JWs have freedom all-right:

  - the freedom to do as they are told!

  (Which, in the broader sense, is the JW attitude to Christain Freedom as well).

  I would have gone to university at the end of Grade 12, only the elders had some pull over my father, and stopped it

  i.e. while some would like to argue that "it was my father's choice", had that elder not interfered in the process, I know what my father's choice would have been!

  Bill.

  PS: Incidentally, I have never known the WTS to give bibles away, as some here have claimed.
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  9

  Article on Religious fundamentalism may be a mental illnes

  by sherry11 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the table turned.

  found this article in regard to religious fundamentalism may be a mental illness which can be cured.. "someone who has for example become radicalised to a cult ideology we might stop seeing that as a personal choice that they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance.".

  http://refreshingnews99.blogspot.in/2013/05/leading-neuroscientist-religious.html.

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  Bungi Bill

  Having had rather extensive dealings with the mentally ill, this comes as no surprize at all.

  Bill.
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  1

  Climate Change: A Very Hopeful Development

  by metatron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://singularityhub.com/2013/05/02/allan-savory-to-reverse-desertification-solve-global-warming-feed-worlds-poor/.

  there is a very interesting ted talk about overcoming desertification.

  while there has been criticism of the idea, it nevertheless offers hope for changing the earth for the better.

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  Bungi Bill

  Allan Savory may well have a point.

  That national parks project he was involved with is not the only example of a land management practice, introduced to advance "conservation", but which instead only made matters worse.

  (For example, the capital city of Australia, Canberra, suffered disastrous fires in 2009. These, ironically, resulted from the rigorous suppression of the naturally occurring bushfires in the surrounding forest areas. Left to themselves, these fires kept the undergrowth down to a safe level, in which fires could and would occur - but never reached a very destructive level. Conversely, if vegetation growth is left unchecked, the inevitable "fire of all fires" - when it finally occurs - is not only just merely destructive. Rather, if there is a word somewhere for a state much worse than disastrous, that would accurately describe the results!)

  However, the writer of that article was quite correct in the cautionary remarks of his conclusion:

  "Silver bullet solutions are rare. Silver bullet sales are commonplace."

  Ain't that a fact!

  Bill.
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  31

  Who/what is more responsible for you becoming a JW?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  is it family, friends, idealism???

  what????.

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  Bungi Bill

  Mostly family, with a touch of curiosity to boot:

  - all added together with early adolescent rebellion against a parent, who was trying to make me go to church!

  At a rather impressionable age, I was introduced to the JW religion by a grandmother who had converted a year or two earlier.

  Bill.
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  45

  Disgusted with JW Funeral Today!

  by time2keepmoving in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  my son grew up with one of the young brothers in the kingdom and after graduation both him and my son left the kh.

  the young man who left the hall fell into the wrong crowd and i mean a really dangerous crowd and as a result of him getting involved in illegal activity he was murdered.

  i really feel for this young man, because he was a decent kid.

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  Bungi Bill

  The hypocrites!

  I have heard JWs roundly ciriticize "worldly" funerals for just the same things as you describe.

  You are also right on the mark about them not caring about their youths, and in no way trying to make it attractive to young people. Statistically, two out of every three of those raised "In The Truth" give it away.

  That in itself ought to rate as a miracleL

  - i.e. that they can even hang on to as many as one third of those born into their #$#%^ religion!

  Bill.
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  33

  Why Does The Watchtower Dis-fellowshiping For Smoking and Not Gluttony and Alcoholism?

  by ÁrbolesdeArabia in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  health care studies are showing obese body weight index is worse than smoking "death sticks", so how is the tower going to address their growing problem of overweight elders and elderettes?

  if a organization is able to disfellowship a member for smoking, why not do the same with other vices and crutches their people use to hide stress, emotional disorders and depression?

  employers are asking for a bmi test a their potential employees to create a diet to get healthy.

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  Bungi Bill

  rjastrow,

  Some very good points. Once you try to legislate (read "Compile your own Talmud"), where do you stop? How do you stop - and who has the authority to start making rules over other people, anyway? Certainly not a committee of eight self-appointed #$%*s in New York.

  (I seem to remember Murphy's Law No.7 having something to say about this, to the effect that "Each new solution brings its own set of problems.")

  By the way, welcome!

  Bill.