i sat in on the "know your options" reading tonight, and the elder said a couple things i was wondering about:.
1. he said if a doctor says you have a high risk of dying if you refuse a blood transfusion, he is misleading you.
he said people "rarely" die from refusing a blood transfusion.
He would be making claim No.1 without any statistical evidence to back it up;
- just repeating the WTS official line about his matter.
I read everything that they printed / listened to everything that they uttered for 28 years, and never once saw any creditable statistics presented to back up that statement.
Maintaining that a blood transfusion is "unlikely to save your life" is just one more example of a long line of JW psuedo-science.
Bill.
so this isn't one of the normal zomg teh witnesses h8 educashun!!!
!1 threads, because we all know that -.
rather, i'd just like to note that i was reading about paul today, and remembered that not only did he have an extremely good education for his time and speak, write, and read multiple languages, he was also aware of, and educated about, all of those horrible, worldly, ungodly philosophies that the jws are so scared of.. of course, when they're harping on the "you don't need college" bs, they never note that or take the more plausible line that education would help people defend their faith rationally (because it's not about beliefs anymore) because they know that taking an introductory logic course and two semesters of world history would sink any and all belief in what they say.... just a few thoughts..
How recent are "recent times"?
- I can recall 40 years ago the complaint being voiced that graduate engineers had little understanding about how their education related to the real world.
There is only one way to learn a practical skill - and that is by getting your hands dirty!
(Like mine are today, after finishing a shift working on the #*%*ing bloody control system of No.3 Boiler)
Bill.
so this isn't one of the normal zomg teh witnesses h8 educashun!!!
!1 threads, because we all know that -.
rather, i'd just like to note that i was reading about paul today, and remembered that not only did he have an extremely good education for his time and speak, write, and read multiple languages, he was also aware of, and educated about, all of those horrible, worldly, ungodly philosophies that the jws are so scared of.. of course, when they're harping on the "you don't need college" bs, they never note that or take the more plausible line that education would help people defend their faith rationally (because it's not about beliefs anymore) because they know that taking an introductory logic course and two semesters of world history would sink any and all belief in what they say.... just a few thoughts..
I seem to remember it being explained how Paul had learnt the tent making trade, in addition to receiving his (what was for for those times) excellent academic education.
Apparently, the Jewish sect of the Pharisees made a particular point that all their young people learned a practical skill;
- this, in addition to their intensive academic training.
In other words, their education was well balanced.
That contrasts with the often overly-academic education provided today.
As an example, graduate engineers come out of university full of theory; but unable to even hold a screwdriver straight:
- yet they are telling the likes of me what to do!
DESIGN ENGINEER'S KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIs)
1) To make things very difficult for the builder (20%)
2) To make things totally impossible for the service technician (80%)
(Spoken by a service technician, who would have liked to have done the degree course in engineering, but was stopped by you know who!)
At least Saul of Tarsus (and those like him) did not have that problem - they would have at least known how their academic learning related to the real world.
Bill.
the witness came to my house on jan 8 2011 it was completely unannounced.i just wush they would leave us alone.
by the way happy new year everyone i hope you had a goof christmas..
It should not be hard to get rid of them. Most JWs these days appear to be just going through the motions of doing the door to door work - their heart certainly does not seem to be in what they are doing anymore.
All the ones that have called at my house in recent years were only too happy to have an excuse to beat a hasty retreat:
- I think that even giving them a sideways look is enough to give them that excuse!
Bill.
i was active back then and terrorized by armageddon.
my basic temperament is introspective.
i never felt worthy enough.
It gets worse and worse, doesn't it?
- Eve's menstrual cycle.
- Train timetables between Pittsburg and New York.
- Russell's calculations, based on the dimensions of the Pyramid of Gizeh.(When events did not quite work out to plan, he had to re-calculate things From that, he concluded that the structure had somehow settled down on its foundations, and was now actually wider than it had once been!).
The question raises itself once more:
Who was actually the maddest - these guys for teaching such wierd and wonderful psuedo science, or us for believing it?
Bill.
these are good comments to consider enjoy!.
jehovah's witnesses who leave their religion, do so for many different reasons.
here are seven.. watchtower prophecies and dates for armageddon have failed repeatedly.
I came into "The Truth" because to me, all religion seemed to be just a lot of hocus-pocus (to put it in polite language!):
- However, the JWs appealed, because they appeared to be different; at least as compared with the mainstream churches.
28 years down the track, the penny finally dropped that the JWs were just another religion - and that these are all the bloody same, no matter who they are!
The disappointment was all the more intense in that I had actually expected far more from the Witlesses - having once swallowed their propaganda totally.
And yes, I did hit the bottle rather hard for a time after leaving; until discovering other, non-harmful ways of coping with the distress (not that alcohol abuse is restricted to non-JWs; far from it!).
I am well aware of the official WTs line, that all who give "The Truth" away do so only so they can get drunk, do drugs, womanize etc. etc. etc. Like so much else of the official WTs line, that, too, is total nonsense (Expletive Deleted!).
Bill.
wonder if anyone had a scan available of the 2010 annual report, which can normally be found in the 2011 yearbook.. .
thanks in advance!.
What difference does it make whether someone who abandons the religion was "born in", or introduced to it later in childhood or youth?
A lost person is a lost person - period!
That two out of every three persons raised in the cult ultimately abandon it indicates that something is seriously wrong:
- and furthermore, will remain seriously wrong, as long as the powers that be continue to keep their heads buried deep in the sand.
The serious loss of young persons from this cult is not a new phenomenon. During the mid-1970s, I can recall it being the focus of much of the program at one Circuit Assembly. At that stage, 50% of those raised "In The Truth" abandoned it. Now the figure is 67% - so whatever was done 35 years ago to counter this trend has failed spectacularly!
Bill.
i thought this was pretty hysterical and something that i would have never noticed before i woke up.
in the jan 1 wt under the heading 'was the garden of eden a real place?
part of the reasoning they use as to why no one could find the garden of eden even though there are specifics in genesis identifying it's location is because "the flood of noah's day may have altered the topography in ways that we simply cannot know today".
This reminds me of observations by people who have travelled through that part of the world where the Garden of Eden was supposed to have been:
i.e. around where the borders of Turkey, Iraq and Armenia meet.
Their feelings were unanimous, and to the effect of:
"If this is supposed to be the Garden of Eden, then I would hate to see what Hell looks like!"
Prodigal Son,
Two good points!
1) The JWs would have us believe that the ark as not boat-shaped, but was rather a rectangular wooden box.
My father was from a family of marine engineers, and had himself worked in the shipbuilding industry. I remember him trying to point out to the JWs exactly the same fact that you have brought out - that a box shaped craft of those dimensions would be broken apart very quickly by the forces of waves.
2) And the other one!
- who was the silliest; religion for teaching such an unlikely story, or us for believing it?
Bill.
please read and i will tell you now this was it was like for me !.
kingdom halls are a hellish memory for me.
i grew up as a jehovah's witness from the age of 9 until i fought my way to freedom at age 18. i recall children as young as a year old being beaten repeatedly for not sitting still during services...some sessions, called assemblies, were 6 hours long and lasted for 3-5 days in succession.. my nephew was one of many who felt the literal sting of the watchtower's stance of "spare the rod, spoil the child.
It is quite a challenge for most adults to sit through even two hours of a boring, mind-numbing JW meeting; listening to a succession of badly-educated speakers, delivering by monotone the same spiel we have heard already - one zillion times before!
To expect a small child to sit quietly through the same is whatever is worse than ridiculous;
- do these idiots not realize that children have a short attention span at the best of times?
- and furthermore, when it comes to matters of which they haven't a clue (e.g. the subjects covered at most JW meetings), a child's attention span is practically non existent.
No wonder two thirds of the JW children give the religion away as soon as they can - the miracle is that even one third remain with the cult.
Full marks to those other churches that provide seperate activities for children:
- activites that are geared for their level of development, and consequently capture the child's interest.
- which at the end of the day, results in a child actually coming home having learned something positive.
(Contrast that with the experience of a typical JW child:
- unlikely to retain anything positive from attending a meeting at the kingdom hell hall.
- quite likely, though, to come home sporting bruises or other marks from corporal punishment!)
While I am no fan of the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) either, at least their retention rate makes that of the JWs look stupid by comparison.
All this is evidently too much for the old fossils of the Governing Body to comprehend:
- it is disappointing, though, that JW parents don't wake up to themselves over this matter; as they at least are in a position to make a choice.
Bill.
PS: I cannot thank my father enough for resisting the pressure from his JW parents, to bring us three children up as JWs. Yuk!
where sincerity, mercy, love predominated the witnesses at one time?
or has it always been like it is today, corrupt, hypocritical, abuse of power, unloving?
just curious if it started out with good intentions and then like anything else as time goes on and it becomes too big for unqualified people to handle it, it all goes bad..
Stevenson, in his book 1975 - Year of Doom? summed it up one sentence:
" no other religious group demands so much of its members, in return for so little."
Also, according to Raymond Franz in Crisis of Conscience, the then WTS president, Nathan Knorr, once volunteered that the JWs "do not look after their members."
In other words, the JW religion is described by some at the top as being one that cares nothing at all about its members' welfare, and yet is insistent on squeezing as much out of them as is bodily possible.
That should answer the above question!
As to previous times - in many ways, the JWs were once even more demanding than they are now.
There will be some here who can recall how pre-1971, to be classified as a "Regular Publisher", you were required to put in at least 10 hours a month, place at least 12 magazines, and conduct at least one bible study (this ended about the time I first began attending the kingdom hall).
It goes without saying that if you did not qualify to meet the requirements of being a "Regular Publisher", then you were one of the lowest forms of life imaginable!
- the congregation had on display a blackboard that listed how it had performed during the previous month,
- and if any of the performance indicators were below target, the "Congregation Servant" would read the Riot Act at the next Service Meeting.
(Look out if you didn't place your twelve magazines - it would be "ten laps of the parade ground, holding your rifle above your head!")
What good can it bring to be a member of a religious group that is organised and run like a business?
Bill.
