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".
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.
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".
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.. .
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.
confusing standards or hodge podge?.
what is this about beards i never got the hang of from day one?
are beards ok or not?.
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!
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??
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?
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.
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"!
here's one of mine .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyotvgpn0ru .
how about you?.
Kevin Bloody Wilson's Hey Santa