Bungi Bill

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Posts by Bungi Bill

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  41

  Any Good 1975 Stories?

  by Think About It in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  despite denial by the wts of any 1975 armageddon predictions zealous jw's did believe it, openly talked about it, and some even sold houses & belongings in anticipation of it.

  do you have or know of any good 1975 stories?.

  here's mine.........i was a freshman in college and had quit attending the kh back in hs.

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  Bungi Bill

  I continue to be amazed how every man and his (or her) dog now claims to never have fallen for the 1975 Bull$h#t story - yet back in the day, I never recall anybody (not even one) express any doubts about this at all. Just like there is a collective case of amnesia at work somehow!
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  20

  Connections between Christadelphians and Russell´s Biblestudents

  by oppostate in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the bible students and the christadelphians have a lot in common.. i searched on facebook... .

  and look what i found:https://www.facebook.com/christadelphianbiblestudents/.

  there´s even a group named like that..

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  Bungi Bill

  Back in the late 1970s, I can recall a local Christadelphian making approaches to the local JW elders about some sort of merger. He was an avid reader of everything printed by the WTS, and felt that the JWs were, to quote "almost there" - so similar were the two respective beliefs.
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  70

  The Reasons for Cart Witnessing

  by Simon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  whatever we think of it, you have to admit that it's quite "genius".. the door to door ministry as done in western developed countries where the jw quirky religion has probably reached their saturation level was a complete and utter waste of time in terms of the effort expended to recruit people.. at the same time, it was rarely something that anyone enjoyed which led to people being labelled as inactive, being pressured to doing more and maybe ultimately deciding jwism wasn't for them and leaving.. there was also the issue that many jws are actually pretty bad at knowing and articulating their beliefs so were pretty incapable of getting any meaningful message across.. they solved all this with the cart witnessing.

  the real point isn't to recruit, it's to make life easier for jws.

  now they can stand and chat with their friend, have a coffee, not talk to anyone or make eye contact and still act as a walking billboard for jw.org.

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  Bungi Bill

  The organization doesn't give a damn about making life easier for JW's.

  For sure!

  In his Crisis of Conscience, Raymond Franz quotes the late N.H. Knorr as volunteering exactly that - even going as far as to say that "the Mormons treat their people better."

  Whatever it was that led the GB to introduce the literature carts, it wasn't the welfare of their Rank and File that they had in mind.
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  30

  Do you have any assembly memories/stories?

  by RisingEagle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  on an earlier thread about ice cream i remembered a snack that was sold at assemblies and that started me thinking about some of my memories of childhood at conventions/assemblies.

  i guess it was the taste/smell association because even today when i go to various convention halls for home improvement expos, car shows and the like it takes me right back to the past.

  i have many memories wrapped around the conventions and experienced different things because i have lots of elders in the family that were used, literally, for food service, the accounting office, security and dramas.

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  Bungi Bill

  I remember them being about as interesting as watching paint dry!
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  22

  Service experiences

  by former2free in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i know what you may be thinking by the title but bear with me.

  have you ever reflected on past service experiences and think wow if only i had listened to a householder?

  two things come to my mind of personal experience.

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  Bungi Bill

  To be fair, W. Schnell's 30 Years a Watchtower Slave hardly ranks amongst the great works of literature!

  Its style comes over more as that of some wild-eyed fanatic letting forth his pent up feelings. Moreover, those I met "at the doors" who recommended this book seemed to be cast in exactly the same mould (i.e. to use the vernacular of the time, "a screw loose in the head"). As to the those reviewers who described it as a "well written book", I would sure as hell hate to ever see their idea of a badly written one!

  Schnell's main fault was to make all sorts of allegations, but offer no evidence to back it up. This is something all of us ought to take note of in our condemnation of the JWs.

  (While there might be a certain therapeutic benefit in letting fly with ones emotions, if you are trying to get a point across, it is often a different matter).
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  70

  The Reasons for Cart Witnessing

  by Simon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  whatever we think of it, you have to admit that it's quite "genius".. the door to door ministry as done in western developed countries where the jw quirky religion has probably reached their saturation level was a complete and utter waste of time in terms of the effort expended to recruit people.. at the same time, it was rarely something that anyone enjoyed which led to people being labelled as inactive, being pressured to doing more and maybe ultimately deciding jwism wasn't for them and leaving.. there was also the issue that many jws are actually pretty bad at knowing and articulating their beliefs so were pretty incapable of getting any meaningful message across.. they solved all this with the cart witnessing.

  the real point isn't to recruit, it's to make life easier for jws.

  now they can stand and chat with their friend, have a coffee, not talk to anyone or make eye contact and still act as a walking billboard for jw.org.

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  Bungi Bill

  After relocating to another city in March of this year, I have yet to see an apathy cart anywhere. They must indeed be targeting inconspicuous locations!
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  13

  Are Jehovah’s Witnesses as “Ministers” Teachers?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  all jws are supposed to be “ ministers”.

  i would think that anyone that is considered a minister should have immense knowledge of their religion and should be able to teach anyone who inquires of the teachings.

  my understanding is that most witnesses cannot explain even basic teachings without difficulty.

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  Bungi Bill

  For a short time during the mid-1970s, that description was discarded for JW publishers. Only elders retained the title "Ministers." They even re-labelled the "Kingdom Ministry" the "Kingdom Service", and the "Ministry School" became the "Service School".

  However, that did not last too long - a few years at the most.

  As Zeb has already mentioned, there was much cherry-picking carried out both before changing the name from "Ministry" to "Service", and then when it was restored to "Ministry."

  (I seem to remember Ray Franz's input having something to do with the temporary name change).
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  20

  How did the bible fables get started?

  by Tameria2001 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  today while out running errands, i was flipping through the radio trying to find something to listen to.

  i ended up on some christian type of station, and the guy was talking about the ark, and the flood during noah's time.

  personally i no longer believe this fable, because the facts just don't line up.

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  Bungi Bill

  Those Jewish people who are well versed in the history of their own people would be quick to tell us that the Jewish writers of the Old Testament never intended their writings to be taken literally. Rather, these were folk tales compiled during their exile to Babylon - and written to forge a national identity.

  The point of these myths is not historical accuracy. They bond people together.

  Exactly!

  Why get all bent out of shape over a collection of Middle Eastern fairy tales.
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  32

  'Tactical Contact' - UK Police

  by LoveUniHateExams in

  1. social
  2. current

  take a look at this, fellow forum members .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5d7eoodv3e .

  f**king brilliant xd.

  thoughts?.

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  Bungi Bill

  Sad to say, but this is the only language that that element understands!
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  19

  The Worst Year to be Alive? Answer: Most likely to be 536 CE

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was a witness, since the early 1950's, to the relentless claims of the wt society (then synonymous with jws) that this was the worst of times to be alive.

  if i had been more questioning and less accepting, i would never have become a shill for these apologists pf the murderous yhwh and his accomplice jesus,.

  so how interesting to see today an opinion in science journal that:- .

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  Bungi Bill

  Hi again, FTS.

  This evening (Australian Eastern Standard Time), I have had opportunity to look at those links you posted. I do miss having access to History Channel, which I used to watch with great interest during the years I worked as a Fly-In / Fly-Out worker (and where the camp had a Satellite TV system, which included History Channel).

  One thing I notice in these discussions is that a number of the innovations talked about actually predated the American Civil War.

  For example, the Minie bullet was used by the British Army in the Crimean War (1853-1856), and also during the Indian Mutiny (1857). During those wars, the British standard infantry weapon was the model 1851 rifled musket ( 24 guage, or .577 inch calibre), which fired the Minie bullet and which was already well blooded by the time the Civil War broke out. The Prussian Army went one better than that, introducing the Dreyse needle rifle in 1841. This was a bolt action, breech loading rifle that got its name from the firing pin, which resembled a needle. The Dreyse rifle played a decisive role in the Prussian victories over Denmark in 1864, and Austria in 1866. As to the use of observation balloons, the French easily beat everybody else with those. They used hydrogen-filled observation balloons as early as 1794, when these played a role in the defeat of the Dutch - Austrian armies at Mauberge.

  Photography, also, was used to effect in the Crimean War, when correspondents of The Times brought home to the British public both the horrors of war and the incompetence of its army commanders. That war, too, saw extensive use of military railways, which saved the British army from starvation. (These were built by civilian contractors, which is the main reason the railway system was successful!).

  Another feature of the Crimean War was the extensive use of earthworks, which again predated the Civil War by almost ten years.

  Of the other Civil War innovations, these were either not used extensively (e.g. repeating rifles), and/or were of very limited success. An example of the latter is the so-called "torpedo" that the first submarine used. This was what today would be called a "Pole Charge" - a quantity of explosive on the end of a piece of timber, whose length is presumably long enough that the person detonating the device is not endangered. Except in the case of the Confederate submarine that sank a Federal warship with one of these devices, that length was not long enough - and it, too went down with its target!

  Similarly, too, with the iron-hulled warship. It was many decades after the Civil War before these became commonplace. (Most British warships of the 1880s were still wooden-hulled, with both sails and steam propulsion).

  While you share the point of view of some historians who consider the American Civil War to be the first Modern War, I have my doubts!