Posts by Bungi Bill

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!

12

Paradise Lost

by galaxy7 in

jw
friends

does anyone remember the book paradise lost to paradise regained?

i was made to study the scary parts evertime i misbehaved which must have been all the time as the book imprinted into my brain.all i wanted in life as a child was to join the girl guides go hang out at the ywca with my friends and take part in sports day at school.so my mother asked the then congregation servant if i was demonized,they decided i would be fertalizer for my mothers pear tree.

anyway i grew up fairly normal,took me ages not to be afraid of lightning.had children who never entered a kingdom hall.most of my family served in some capacity at bethel so they dont talk to me.since then i have been a searcher looking for somthing to fill the void.has anyone found anything??

Bungi Bill

Was that the one they had to "correct" so many times between its first and second editions - and there was only months between each printing?

39

These days it not really that hard being a witness.

by I believe in overlapping in

if you are a true believer, then you are toast.

because you will be a slave to everything the watchtower, circuit overseers, elders, pioneers, imply.

believe me, there are not many true believers anymore, and the majority of them are old.

Bungi Bill

For the record, and don't all come down on me for this, I thought the OP was quite arrogant and also very disrespectful to Finkelstein.

No argument from me on that statement!

I will say, though, that things had already got easier being a JW between when I began "associating" with the JWs in the late 1960s and the time of my baptism in the early 1970s.

For example, the infamous eight-day long assemblies were no more, and the requirements for being a "regular" publisher were much more relaxed. By the time I got baptised, you didn't fall into the "irregular" category if you failed to make 10 hours of service and conduct at least one bible study during the month. Also, if you failed to "place" at least 12 magazines a month, you were no longer made to do keep your rifle held above your head whilst doing ten laps of the parade ground at double-time (so to speak!). For an excellent description of what things were once like as a JW, W.C . Stevenson's The Inside Story of Jehovahs Witnesses ( published in 1968) is an informative read.

As to the present situation, I have been out too long to be able to comment. I do notice, however, that those long-time JWs who have remained with it (some of them for 70+ years) seem to pay lip service to everything the hallowed Governing Body says, while quietly ignoring the more extreme demands of the religion. I suspect, though, that the "It's not for bastards like you" mentality is very much at work there - e.g. Brother big-shot Gilead graduate ex-missionary elder sends his son to university, but ordinary Joe-Publisher better not even think about doing the same (I have seen it happen! )

PS: I didn't intend to sound like some disgruntled old veteran complaining that the "The new guys aren't as good as we was"!

20

What are your favourite Christmas songs?

by LoveUniHateExams in

jw
friends

here's one of mine .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyotvgpn0ru .

how about you?.

Bungi Bill

Kevin Bloody Wilson's Hey Santa

41

Any Good 1975 Stories?

by Think About It in

jw
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.

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!

20

Connections between Christadelphians and Russell´s Biblestudents

by oppostate in

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..

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.

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

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.

30

Do you have any assembly memories/stories?

by RisingEagle in

jw
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.

Bungi Bill

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

22

Service experiences

by former2free in

jw
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.

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).