Vidiot

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Posts by Vidiot

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  54

  Do you think a lot of JWs are ashamed of their beliefs?

  by I quit! in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the reason i asked this is because i'm going to the funeral of a man who wasn't a jw.

  my mother-in-law has lived in the same neighborhood as him for years and knows his wife.

  i asked her if she was going attend the funeral service.

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  Vidiot

  nugget - "I hated it when people made a big show of their beliefs..."

  When you saw it, was it a "Pharisee" moment?
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  54

  Do you think a lot of JWs are ashamed of their beliefs?

  by I quit! in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the reason i asked this is because i'm going to the funeral of a man who wasn't a jw.

  my mother-in-law has lived in the same neighborhood as him for years and knows his wife.

  i asked her if she was going attend the funeral service.

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  Vidiot

  jam - "Ashamed and Arrogant. Is that possible to be both???"

  Abso-fraggin'-lutely!

  One continually feeds the other in an ugly, vicious cycle of overcompensation.

  The really bad cases I knew always - always - crashed and burned, too.
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  18

  It's About Time Something Was Done.....

  by Sam Whiskey in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the toughest anti-illegal-immigrant measure in a generation passed the arizona legislature this week.

  if signed, as expected, by republican governor jan brewer, the law will give local police sweeping new powers in regard to undocumented workers.

  currently, immigration offenses are violations of federal, not state, law, and local police officers only can inquire about a person's immigration status if that person is suspected of another crime.

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  Vidiot

  WontLeave - "If you have given up on God's kingdom, then you have no hope for mankind and all is vanity and a striving after the wind."

  DanaBug - "This I also think is false. I have great hope for mankind, and it doesn't involve God in the least."

  This, I suspect is one of - if not the - major problems at the heart of the Right/Left conservative/liberal authoritarian/non-authoritarian dichotomy;

  - conservatives/right-wingers/authoritarians take it as an axiom that human beings are, at their core, fundamentally bad, and thusly need to be kept on a short leash for their - and everyone else's - own damn good...

  - liberals/leftists/non-authoritarians - on the other hand - tend to believe that humans, while flawed, are inherently decent and good, and for the most part, can be trusted to do the right thing even if they're off the leash...

  In my experience and observation, conservatives are "glass-is-half-empty", whilst liberals are "glass-is-half-full".

  And I suspect that the further into the 21st Century we get, they farther apart - and more irreconcilable - both "sides" will become ideologically; and what's more, it will be virtually impossible to not choose a side - our individual psychological makeups have (for all intents and purposes) already "chosen" our respective sides for us.

  I could be wrong.
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  18

  It's About Time Something Was Done.....

  by Sam Whiskey in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the toughest anti-illegal-immigrant measure in a generation passed the arizona legislature this week.

  if signed, as expected, by republican governor jan brewer, the law will give local police sweeping new powers in regard to undocumented workers.

  currently, immigration offenses are violations of federal, not state, law, and local police officers only can inquire about a person's immigration status if that person is suspected of another crime.

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  Vidiot

  The 21st Century Right Wing has done such a thorough job (re)defining "conservatism" as being Biblical literalist, pro-lassais-faire-capitalist, and anti-everything-else, that at this point, it is (ironically) virtually unrecognizable to "conservatism" as it was envisioned by its 20th Century forbears.
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  32

  My Trip to the Unitarian Universal Church

  by NewChapter in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so, pretty much i no longer care to believe in a god.

  but, either because of my 20 years in a jw daze, or because humans just desire this, i miss the community.

  so, i went to a unitarian church this morning.

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  Vidiot

  newchapter - "They do light candles, but it wasn't super ritualistic."

  Huh. Like I'd mentioned to you before, I was leaning towards UU for a while early into my fade, but anything ritualish kinda turned me off. If your experience is fairly standard (and if there are some individuals in my general age group there) I might still check a UU church out some day (there isn't one nearby where I live, though).

  You going back?
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  15

  born again

  by cskyjw.sun in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  john3:3"unless anyone is born again,he cannot see the kingdom of god".

  this concept is not just restricted to the anointed ones,it applies to all christians.everyone needs to be transformed from the 'old ways' of living to one that is led by the holy spirit at whatever levels that one is able to attain..

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  Vidiot

  dgp - "You know, very seriously speaking, this Born Again experience must be what I felt when I was finally able to shed every trace of religious belief."

  Seriously speaking, I've heard that very sentiment expressed before. More than once.

  You ever read Jesus for the Nonreligious by John Shelby Spong?
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  18

  It's About Time Something Was Done.....

  by Sam Whiskey in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the toughest anti-illegal-immigrant measure in a generation passed the arizona legislature this week.

  if signed, as expected, by republican governor jan brewer, the law will give local police sweeping new powers in regard to undocumented workers.

  currently, immigration offenses are violations of federal, not state, law, and local police officers only can inquire about a person's immigration status if that person is suspected of another crime.

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  Vidiot

  I have come to the conclusion that if Sam Whiskey is a JW, he became one due to his right-wing tendencies, and if he's an XJW, it's because they weren't right-wing enough for him.
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  113

  WTBTS Elder & Ministerial Servant Problems

  by JW GoneBad in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  i attended a recent ministerial servant k m school on the east coast and the main school instructor mentioned among other things (part entitled: 'objective of the km school course') that the total number of ministerial servants is seriously less than it should be.

  in times past the ratio of m ss to elders was much more than it is today.. in the u.s. apparently the total number of elders is 88,500+ as opposed to m ss 65,000. the numbers show & numbers don't lie: the society is running out of spiritual men.

  the instructor stated that this is a new downward trend that has (in so many words) the society worried.. the next speaker (part entitled: 'why we must be spiritual men') added that in his years as a traveling servant the pool of m ss has always been much, much larger than it is today.

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  Vidiot

  AnonJW, told by whom?
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  15

  born again

  by cskyjw.sun in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  john3:3"unless anyone is born again,he cannot see the kingdom of god".

  this concept is not just restricted to the anointed ones,it applies to all christians.everyone needs to be transformed from the 'old ways' of living to one that is led by the holy spirit at whatever levels that one is able to attain..

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  Vidiot

  Just say the magic words and you'll never die...
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  49

  The 'Last days' of the Watchtower Society - any truth in this?

  by callitquits76 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have heard this said a lot lately.

  is it wishful thinking?

  6 screens of the wt has this as their website banner but that website is like a tabloid newspaper..

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  Vidiot

  callitquits76 - "Is it wishful thinking?"

  I've said this before, but I'll reiterate:

  I'm having a hard time imagining how a semi-secretive, authoritarian, apocalyptic millennialist high-control group can adapt - that is, change - to survive and accomodate the realities of the information-saturated, technologically forward, WikiLeaks-level-transparency-craving socio-cultural environment of the 21st Century.

  The reasons why are thus; if they "mainstreamed" and effected progressive reform, they would arguably no longer be Jehovah's Witnesses, but if they become more hidebound and archconservative (which - by all indications - is happening), they marginilize and alienate themselves from the rest of humanity even further, which won't help them at all in the increasingly prevelant "global village".

  Frank Schaeffer once called the Christian Right the village idiot who keeps going around, poking everybody in the eye with a stick, and then crying "persecution!" when someone finally gets fed up and punches him in the nose. I have come to view the WTS as the Chistian Right in microcosm.