Bungi Bill

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Posts by Bungi Bill

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  31

  Have Jehovah's Witnesses Become Boring?

  by David_Jay in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  okay, that new video about 1975 has got people talking, and yes, the child abuse cases will always require us to remain vigilant...but after my having left in the late 1980s/early 1990s, it seems all the real "exciting" stuff is gone.

  when i left the witnesses were still preaching that the "generation that was old enough to understand the events of 1914" will not pass away before armageddon comes.

  no blood cards were our badges (not that stupid jw logo) and that card meant what it said, "no blood"!

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  Bungi Bill

  Smiddy,

  You could also add to that list Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction". So many people back then did fearfully believe that the world was sitting on a time-bomb, and that its detonation was more a question of "when" rather than "if".
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  31

  Have Jehovah's Witnesses Become Boring?

  by David_Jay in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  okay, that new video about 1975 has got people talking, and yes, the child abuse cases will always require us to remain vigilant...but after my having left in the late 1980s/early 1990s, it seems all the real "exciting" stuff is gone.

  when i left the witnesses were still preaching that the "generation that was old enough to understand the events of 1914" will not pass away before armageddon comes.

  no blood cards were our badges (not that stupid jw logo) and that card meant what it said, "no blood"!

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  Bungi Bill

  David_Jay,

  Another excellent post, and an overall discussion carried out at a depth that has become refreshingly different.

  While not these days a great fan of copy and paste, this observation of yours does rate repeating:

  It's got so boring that even on sites like this we are reduced to arguing with one another, exJW against exJW, trying to attack each other's new life and new set of convictions after the Watchtower.

  This, sadly, has become all too common on this site. Frankly, it is disturbing the level many will stoop to , thinking nothing of name calling and other ad-hominem attacks on others who are supposed to be on the same side - i.e. Ex Jehovahs Witnesses.

  As to whether the Witnesses always were boring:

  - it certainly did not seem that way when I began hearing about them in the early to mid-1960s.

  In fact, that was one of the initial attractions about the JWs; what they were saying did appear to be both relevant and interesting in the "modern" world of the often turbulent 1960s. By contrast, the mainstream churches came over as just about the very definition of the word "boring."

  Certainly, the hardback works of F.W. Franz - such as Your Will Be Done On Earth and Babylon The Great Has Fallen! :God's Kingdom Rules at least conveyed the appearance of great academic depth. (Regrettably, this was at a time when pseudo-science gained quite a following; "Chariots of the Gods", "The Bermuda Triangle" and "Harmonic 33" being some popular examples).

  I wasn't the only one to feel the same way, either. Feedback we received from the "territory" - even in the 1980s - was that "what these people are talking about is very interesting." My own sister said similar things once she entered into a "Bible Study" with the local JWs (thankfully, though, she woke up to herself before getting too deeply enmeshed!).

  It is quite correct, though, that the fizz and the sparkle has long gone out of it in recent decades!
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  28

  Window Cleaners?

  by nicolaou in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  like a lot of others here, i gave higher education a miss when i left school (1980).

  under the encouragement of the society i pioneered for three years instead!.

  now i clean windows for a living.

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  Bungi Bill

  Around here, they are also well represented in carpet cleaning and pest control.
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  11

  Counting Field Service Time

  by Sour Grapes in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  something that always drove me crazy was when the jw's would say after the meeting on sunday, "i have to go out this afternoon to get my time in.

  " in the car group after service someone would always ask, "so how much time did we get?".

  it the watchtower company said that turning in time is no longer required because jehovah knows what we are doing to serve him, there would be a tremendous drop in the door to door activity and the coffee cart work.

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  Bungi Bill

  "Pussycat Publishers" - know them well!
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  12

  What Is Brain Washing?

  by Brokeback Watchtower in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i don't think this applies to the watchtower corporation as the beginning this is talking about the more extreme forms.

  but interesting just the same.

  i'm sure we see some of the wt's depictions of death and and destruction(verbal and in pictures) that awaits those not in corporate "jehovah's" favor, a clear uses of inducing maximum fear and stress to make the mind more suggestable to corporate directives.

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  Bungi Bill

  Back when I was a good and loyal JW, I used to take strong exception to accusations that we, as JWs, were "brainwashed."

  The expression "brainwashing" first appeared into usage during the Korean War (1950-1953), when it was used to describe the treatment meted out by the communists on allied prisoners of war. (Another name suggested for the process is "Menticide" - i.e. the complete destruction of the mind).

  After researching the methods used by the communists to "brainwash" allied POWs, the only resemblance that I could see (and still can see) between this and the JWs is possibly the indoctrination process. Even that, though, while being somewhat similar in form, is nowhere close in degree. Also, indoctrination is only one of many parts to "brainwashing" a person. Prominently featured in the process are such cruelties as starvation, freezing in an unheated prison cell during the depths of a Korean winter, and the withholding of medical treatment - all the while keeping a person awake for days at a time, with three shifts of interrogators mentally tormenting him without letup.

  I had to conclude from that that those who accused the JWs of being brainwashed had no idea what the process actually involved, and that the term was being used more as some sort of a religious swear word than an accurate description of anything.

  (There is plenty of excellent material available about the brainwashing processes used by the communist countries. One such work I found particularly interesting was General Dean's Story. Dean was a senior American general, captured during the opening phases of the Korean War, and who endured three years of brainwashing while being held as a prisoner of war.)
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  65

  Major changes to convention security beginning in 2017

  by Edison Trent in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  short info on interesting changes to the major conventions this year: there will be a new security concept that will be implemented at all regional conventions in 2017.. similar to other major events (e.g.

  festivals, concerts), there will be admittance controls in stadiums.. - at each entrance, there will be a massive presence of attendants that look at each visitor.. - there will be pocket checks at the entrance.. - suspicious persons are no longer left on the convention grounds.. - suppliers to the stadium will be intensively inspected by attendants.. - there will be a special sign for attendants that must enter the stadium before 7.30 am.

  all others (even all attendants) can only enter after 7.30 am..

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  Bungi Bill

  Or the latest issue of Penthouse?
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  32

  If Jesus had to choose his earthly organisation NOW, who would win?

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we all know that the society claims that jesus invisibly chose the bible students (forerunners of jw) in 1919 to be his organization here on earth.. yet, as we know, so much of what they then taught and did was wrong according to current teaching and practice.. the reply witnesses will give is something like "they were the most sincere seekers of truth blah blah...and jesus could see their potential".

  so, pretend for a moment that the current organization and the 1919 organization were both in concurrent existence at the time he invisibly came to choose.... which would he choose?

  the current or former?.

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  Bungi Bill

  If not them, perhaps the Whakatane branch of the RSA?
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  32

  If Jesus had to choose his earthly organisation NOW, who would win?

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we all know that the society claims that jesus invisibly chose the bible students (forerunners of jw) in 1919 to be his organization here on earth.. yet, as we know, so much of what they then taught and did was wrong according to current teaching and practice.. the reply witnesses will give is something like "they were the most sincere seekers of truth blah blah...and jesus could see their potential".

  so, pretend for a moment that the current organization and the 1919 organization were both in concurrent existence at the time he invisibly came to choose.... which would he choose?

  the current or former?.

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  Bungi Bill

  I don't know - probably the Warriors rugby league team!
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  11

  Counting Field Service Time

  by Sour Grapes in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  something that always drove me crazy was when the jw's would say after the meeting on sunday, "i have to go out this afternoon to get my time in.

  " in the car group after service someone would always ask, "so how much time did we get?".

  it the watchtower company said that turning in time is no longer required because jehovah knows what we are doing to serve him, there would be a tremendous drop in the door to door activity and the coffee cart work.

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  Bungi Bill

  Then by extension, if time cannot be "counted" for an activity - e.g. helping somebody in the congregation who is sick or infirm - nobody is going to be interested. Never mind the fact that such an act of kindness is likely to make more of a "witness" than any amount of door knocking!

  Back in 1983-84, my wife of the time became seriously ill and required a total of three months in hospital. We had three small children, two of whom were preschoolers. To get any assistance in caring for my children, I had to turn to a welfare group that was operated collectively by the local churches. This was a small town in which there were very few secrets, and the irony of all this was in no way lost on these very same local churches.

  As for our local congregation, I was accused of "using people" when I attempted to get some help from them. That fact became widely known in the community, too. Hours could not be counted for doing this, so nobody was even remotely interested.

  A bloody good example of "Agape" love being displayed by "Jehovah's Christian Witnesses" - and thank God for Babylon the Great! (That time, anyway).
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  52

  last convention before global attack on witnesses

  by Phoebe in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so it's not enough that i'm dealing with post traumatic stress/anxiety and panic attacks all related to my life as a jw (50 years baptized -- i stopped going a couple of months ago) at 3 a.m. i get an email from the other side of the world.

  'you have to go to the convention.

  bro sanderson says we must watch the news, things are happening.

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  Bungi Bill

  Some people are saying this is out last convention before a global attack on witnesses."

  I heard this in 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995, 2000, 2010 and again in 2016.

  I could add to that 1969, too!