Posts by Bungi Bill

47

Did you actually read the bible end to end?

by Ultimate Axiom in

in my ten years as a witness i never read the whole bible end to end, what with four magazines a month, the book study, meetings and talk preparations, there just wasn’t the time.

i knew all the important references to ‘prove’ the various jw doctrines, and the cherry picked chapters that help foster the idea that it’s a good book, but that’s not reading it.

well after nearly forty years out, i decided i would do it.

Bungi Bill

I figured that as we were supposed to be offering the public "free" home bible studies, one ought to at least have read the thing from cover to cover. It was hard going, and I ended up using the New English Version. This at least is laid out like a book, instead of being broken up into individual verses. For me, that made it a little easier to follow!

The results, though, were disappointing - although I now realise that I had completely unrealistic expectations about what it was going to achieve. Somehow, I imagined reading the bible was going to be a mind-altering experience of some kind!

68

The paranormal.

by Lost in the fog in

i know that a lot of the people on here have turned their backs on the idea of a deity deciding that god does not exist.

but what about the unseen spirit world generally such as poltergeists, jinns, voodoo, etc.

if you have become agnostic, atheist, or just don't care since leaving, do you think that there are spirits out there or have you decided that is also hokum?

Bungi Bill

Xanthippe,

I believe you have summed the matter up perfectly!

24

More on South Africa

by zeb in

jw
friends

https://killingfieldsmovie.com/.

write to your mp help these people to leave to come to safety..

Bungi Bill

Are we forgetting how the white Dutch stole their farms from the indigenous people

The reality is a little less clear-cut than one might imagine. Southern Africa's indigenous peoples were of a group of non-Bantu people, referred to collectively as the "Khoisan". This included the hunter-gatherer San people (formerly called "Bushmen") as well as the pastoralist Khoikhoi (formerly known as "Hottentots").

At the time the Dutch established their 17th Century outpost in what is now Capetown, they found the district already settled by the Khoikhoi. These peoples had previously experienced displacement from the north by various migrations of the Bantu, and now faced similar displacement from Dutch settlement. Later, during a period known as the "Mfecane" (1815 - 1840) widescale warfare between various African (i.e. Bantu) tribes left large areas depopulated; and therefore ripe for settlement by others - including Trek-Boers from the Cape.

Regarding the whole of Southern Africa, the matter of who did what to who is just a little bit more involved than merely the good guys wearing white hats / black skins and the bad guys wearing black hats / white skins. (For a starter, the "indigenous" people weren't black; but were more Asian in appearance).

21

Should calling someone 'Nazi' be made illegal?

by LoveUniHateExams in

a rabble-rouser called james goddard and a crowd of pro-brexit people called anna soubry 'nazi' recently.. the same crowd also called owen jones a few names.. i don't know these people but they seem to be unsavory people - they were certainly not behaving themselves.. the met police are looking into the matter, to see if the crowd did anything illegal.

a journalist asked the police officer if calling someone 'nazi' is illegal.

the officer said 'that's what we're looking into'.. first, this crowd behaved badly, no question.. what i find fascinating, though, is the speed of response from authorities.. calling people fascist or nazi has been going on for decades.

Bungi Bill

Labels of are of no use to me. Liberal. Conservative. Right. Left. Far Right. Far Left. Center right. Centrist. Socialist. Fascist. Nazi.

Same here!

The only label I identify with is "Left Right Out".

26

Elders encouraging young ones to live in a fairy tale

by Addison0998 in

so one of the elders at the meeting tonight addressed to parents in his talk, “if your child wants to flip burgers for the rest of their life, because that’s is the only job that will allow them to have a schedule for full time service, you would want to support them the best you can.” he has also said told parents that if their children already have plans to go to college, even in the near future, they should try to do everything to stop them.

there’s so much ranting i could do about that alone, but to make matters worse, this is a considerably well off man.

he has his own buisness, a nice house with an additional room he added on last year, and him and his wife just took a lavish european trip.

Bungi Bill

we've always been discouraged from putting money in pension plans because we'd never need one.

Oh, yes! That priceless gem of wisdom in the Awake of May, 1969, quoting Nathan Knorr himself and assuring our generation that we would "never grow old in this system of things." It was stated in so many words, AND put in writing.

Let the apologists try weaseling out of that one!

26

Elders encouraging young ones to live in a fairy tale

by Addison0998 in

so one of the elders at the meeting tonight addressed to parents in his talk, “if your child wants to flip burgers for the rest of their life, because that’s is the only job that will allow them to have a schedule for full time service, you would want to support them the best you can.” he has also said told parents that if their children already have plans to go to college, even in the near future, they should try to do everything to stop them.

there’s so much ranting i could do about that alone, but to make matters worse, this is a considerably well off man.

he has his own buisness, a nice house with an additional room he added on last year, and him and his wife just took a lavish european trip.

Bungi Bill

Hypocrisy is a central theme throughout all religion - without exception, and including that of the JWs.

The case cited above by Addison0998 is yet another example of the "I've got mine, but you cannot have yours" attitude.

that!

7

Who were the Picts?

by LoveUniHateExams in

so, i've been reading a bit about the picts recently.. i'm not sure there's a consensus on exactly who they were or what type of language they spoke.. even their name - picts - has more than one explanation of where it came from.

i've read some scholars believe it comes from latin pictus (painted), referring to their supposed habit of painting themselves and/or tattooing themselves.

other scholars believe that the name pict comes from another source.

Bungi Bill

Roman writers described the typical Pict as being tall, long limbed and red-headed. This raises an alternative - that they were possibly of Germanic origin.

70

The Reasons for Cart Witnessing

by Simon in

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.

Bungi Bill

but not every member of a jw congregation can do cart work. The "privilege" is given to pioneers and a few select prominent ones in the congregations.

Sounds like yet another example of "its not for bastards like you"!

The apathy cart may make things easier for the select few, but everybody else has to firstly win their spurs, before receiving this "priviledge".

That may involve some pounding of the pavement in genuine door-to-door work. More likley though, as DesirousOfChange pointed out, "winning ones spurs" is done by sloping off to Sturbucks at first opportunity (or some other ingenious ways of clocking up impressive numbers of "hours" with minimal effort).

23

2018 Closes With an Islamist Terror Attack in Manchester

by cofty in

three victims, including a policeman are in hospital with serious knife injuries after a frenzied attack on new year's eve.. the suspect is a somalian immigrant - according to a bbc reporter who happened to witness the incident he was shouting allah as he knifed his victims.. the conduct of the british transport police officer was outstanding.. bbc report.... a woman in a hijab was pictured assisting the victims.

here in one image we have the dilemma of islam.. .

Bungi Bill

Leon Uris, 'The Haj

Let's keep in mind here in this discussion that The Haj, by Leon Uris, is after all just a work of fiction. The sentiment quoted above from this work reflects the opinion of - not the fictitious Palestinian boy, "Ishmael"- but of the book's author, himself.

I am an avid reader, and Leon Uris is one of my favorite authors. However, a theme that runs through almost all his works is a right old contempt - and in about equal measure - for all things German, Arab and British. This is particularly the case in what he has to say about both the Palestinian Arabs and the British Administration of what was then the Palestine Mandate. If you believed Leon Uris, everything that is wrong in the Middle East is entirely and absolutely the fault of both the Palestinian Arabs and the British Empire.

The Haj is an interesting novel, but should not be treated as a reference work on the Middle East and its problems.

30

Enlighten me If you can

by ZindagiNaMilegiDobaara in

confusing standards or hodge podge?.

what is this about beards i never got the hang of from day one?

are beards ok or not?.

Bungi Bill

Papua New Guinea is a country in which beards are the rule rather than the exception. This includes its business, professional and political elite. Many of the country's prime ministers - and nearly all its governor generals - have worn beards.

Yet, the JWs in that country still enforce a no-beards rule. Talk about Corporate Image!