Posts by Quendi

48

Today's "gay-bashing" and other embarrassing content public talk!

by stuckinarut2 in

oh wow..... the public talk today is certainly embarrassing for witnesses!.

started (completely left field too...seemed to come out of nowhere) with condemning homosexuality, and anyone who even tolerates it.

if you like tv shows or movies with gay characters, you are "just as bad" (eg modern family tv show).

Quendi

You're spot on, Vidiot, about the WTS stance on other issues being a source of worry for its leadership. The Governing Body may well be obtuse and stubborn, but even from their ivory towers in Brooklyn they can see what is happening in the world at large. They think the solution is to attack the changing social and moral climate, not to create any kind of change in the world, but to keep their own youth in the fold. They are supporting a lost cause, however.

The answer the WTS has for the challenges today's youth face is the stale one of pioneering and Bethel service. No youth ministry exists in any congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. No valid and/or plausible career objectives are placed before young people. Straight Witnesses have a severely restricted choice of marriage mates whilst LGB Witnesses have none at all. The WTS actively discourages higher education and career advancement because it knows this will lead to further attrition among the young.

I think the organization feels that not only is it circling the drain, but the speed of that circling is increasing. There aren't enough men to fill congregation positions. The missionary school of Gilead has effectively been disbanded. Branch offices are being closed worldwide and their operations consolidated with other facilities. District overseers are being put out to grass to more or less fend for themselves. Methods being used in the canvassing work are ineffective and outdated. More and more baptismal candidates are born-in Witnesses and not new recruits. Signs of decay and decline are everywhere. No wonder the leadership reacts the way it does. To the rank-and-file, their pronouncements still seem divinely sanctioned. Outside and impartial observers hear them as the death rattle of an execrable cult.

Quendi

48

Today's "gay-bashing" and other embarrassing content public talk!

by stuckinarut2 in

oh wow..... the public talk today is certainly embarrassing for witnesses!.

started (completely left field too...seemed to come out of nowhere) with condemning homosexuality, and anyone who even tolerates it.

if you like tv shows or movies with gay characters, you are "just as bad" (eg modern family tv show).

Quendi

The passage in Romans 1 is understood by many to be a condemnation of homosexual activity in religious worship, Apognophos, and not of homosexuality itself. Paul speaks against those who turn the glory of the incorruptible God into corruptible images and worship these. Consorting with temple prostitutes was a rather common feature of idol worship and Paul condemns this in the strongest terms regardless of what kind of sex is involved.

Quendi

35

100 Years Ago Today: World War I Began - July, 28, 1914

by Oubliette in

100 years since world war i07/28/14 07:44 am by timothy noah and johnny simon.

"one hundred years ago today, emperor franz josef of austria-hungary declared war on serbia in retaliation for the assassination one month earlier of his heir apparent, archduke franz ferdinand, by a serbian pan-slavic nationalist.

what might otherwise have remained a regional conflict between the dying hapsburg empire and one of its former holdings instead became, through a tangle of alliances and a global power imbalance, two world wars that began in 1914 and ended in 1945, with a 21-year intermission for the jazz age and the great depression.".

Quendi

Hi Steve2,

I'm not arguing that World War I was the most significant event in history--far from that hyperbolic statement. I'm saying it was the watershed event of the twentieth century. The Vietnam War was a subset, coming as it did when the French were finally forced out of Indochina and the U.S. foolishly took their place. The French presence was bitterly resented by the Vietnamese. Ho Chi Minh, who later led the Vietnamese communist resistance, attended the Versailles Conference in 1919 to argue for self-determination for Indochina. He was never given a hearing, receiving only insults for his trouble. He never forgot his humiliation and used it to argue that evidently Wilson's "self-determination" policy did not apply to people of color. Zhou En-lai and W.E.B. DuBois got the same reception in Paris when they presented their cases before the war victors.

The terrorist organizations of today are the direct descendants of the anarchists and terrorists of the nineteenth century who wanted to destroy the existing order and put a new and fanatical regime in its place. The difference between today's groups and yesteryear's is the scope of their reach and the range of death and destruction they can cause. Otherwise, 1914's Black Hand group which murdered Franz Ferdinand is no different from Al Qaeda. But I do appreciate this discussion and I am looking forward to more discussion.

Quendi

35

100 Years Ago Today: World War I Began - July, 28, 1914

by Oubliette in

100 years since world war i07/28/14 07:44 am by timothy noah and johnny simon.

"one hundred years ago today, emperor franz josef of austria-hungary declared war on serbia in retaliation for the assassination one month earlier of his heir apparent, archduke franz ferdinand, by a serbian pan-slavic nationalist.

what might otherwise have remained a regional conflict between the dying hapsburg empire and one of its former holdings instead became, through a tangle of alliances and a global power imbalance, two world wars that began in 1914 and ended in 1945, with a 21-year intermission for the jazz age and the great depression.".

Quendi

The war shattered an entire world order. In 1914, sixty percent of the world's population lived under the rule of kingdoms or empires. Today less than ten percent do so. The only important royal dynasty to survive the war was the House of Windsor and that was not without challenge. The fragmentation of these empires led to the rise of independent states which continues down to this day as the doctrine of "self-determination", promulgated by Wilson at Versailles, continues to govern many movements in our time.

But what makes the Great War different from its predecessors is that it was the first fought in all four quarters of the globe and by blocs of nations as opposed to just a few. Its carnage also was unmatched in previous world history. Nobody knows how many actually died although estamates range from fourteen to twenty million. Among its aftershocks were the Spanish Flu, the pandemic that killed more people than the war itself, and widespread famine. So to say that the Great War was not much different from earlier ones entirely misses the point, I believe. There are other points that can be raised and I hope our discussion will do so.

Quendi

32

Would You Care If You Were Disfellowshipped?

by minimus in

jw
friends

just curious.

Quendi

When I was disfellowshipped in 2005, I was absolutely devastated. I thought the world had come to an end. Looking back on it now, it was the best thing that could have happened to me because I'm happy "like a room without a roof."

Quendi

35

100 Years Ago Today: World War I Began - July, 28, 1914

by Oubliette in

100 years since world war i07/28/14 07:44 am by timothy noah and johnny simon.

"one hundred years ago today, emperor franz josef of austria-hungary declared war on serbia in retaliation for the assassination one month earlier of his heir apparent, archduke franz ferdinand, by a serbian pan-slavic nationalist.

what might otherwise have remained a regional conflict between the dying hapsburg empire and one of its former holdings instead became, through a tangle of alliances and a global power imbalance, two world wars that began in 1914 and ended in 1945, with a 21-year intermission for the jazz age and the great depression.".

Quendi

“World War I set the violent twentieth century in motion. It was the first use of chemical weapons; the first mass bombardment of civilians from the sky; the century’s first genocide.” So begins the 1996 PBS series The Great War and the Shaping of the Twentieth Century. You can watch its episodes on YouTube. I completely agree with that opening statement because the geopolitical problems we are seeing in the twenty-first century can trace their roots to this enormous catastrophe in the first quarter of the twentieth.

I have called the Great War the forgotten war of the twentieth century. Its horror and ghastliness defy description. Its origins arose from the alliances created by the rival powers in Europe which were crafted by statesmen who convinced themselves that the specter of a huge war would be enough to forestall one. They thought that three of Europe’s monarchs, the King of England, the Kaiser of Germany and the Czar of Russia would never allow that to happen, that their family ties would override the militarism and aggression of their generals.

The war’s horrendous prosecution and unsatisfactory end were made even worse by the Versailles Peace Conference, a conclave which created the false peace that only allowed the combatants to rearm and proceed to a second conflict which was even more destructive than the first one. World War II merely took up the Great War’s unfinished business. Indeed many historians call both conflicts Europe’s “Second Thirty Years’ War.”

The First World War led to the birth of the first communist dictatorship. The world flirted with nuclear destruction as that dictatorship engaged in a murderous rivalry with its erstwhile allies. When the USSR finally imploded, some of the splinter states which emerged from its ruins fell to either fighting among themselves or suffering internecine bloodletting. And the problems elsewhere in southwest Asia as well as the Middle East can be traced to hatreds fostered by European colonialism which the Great War only intensified.

I could go on but I think I’ve made my point. The world we have today had its birth pangs in World War I. It was Austria-Hungary’s invasion of Serbia on 28 July 1914 that caused a myriad of dominoes to fall—and they are continuing to tumble even now.

Quendi

11

Gestapo Tactics - the Wayne Rogers story

by Lee Elder in

http://ajwrb.org/experiences/gestapo-tactics-the-wayne-rogers-story.

gestapo tactics the wayne rogers storyposted on july 27, 2014 by lee elderfreedom of thought is a right that many people take for granted.

there are many people who believe they have freedom of thought, but are mistaken.

Quendi

Thank you for sharing this very sad story. While you have definitely lost much, you have gained something invaluable: your freedom. I wish you every success as you move forward and I hope that you have found peace and happiness along with your integrity.

Quendi

48

Today's "gay-bashing" and other embarrassing content public talk!

by stuckinarut2 in

oh wow..... the public talk today is certainly embarrassing for witnesses!.

started (completely left field too...seemed to come out of nowhere) with condemning homosexuality, and anyone who even tolerates it.

if you like tv shows or movies with gay characters, you are "just as bad" (eg modern family tv show).

Quendi

We can't expect any better from the WTS, an organization given over to distorting the Bible and misrepresenting both God and Christ. But as I have stated elsewhere, this cult sees the rising tide of LGBT people being granted their full civil and human rights in the United States and is frightened. They are not alone. The political strength of anti-LGBT groups around the country is waning. Donations are drying up, access to the corridors of power is being restricted and a majority of the American public repudiates their views. Small wonder the stridency of the WTS's gay-bashing rhetoric is rising and polemical screeds from the platform are becoming more frequent.

Public opinion polls in the United States show that a large majority of young people favor same-sex marriage and an end to discrimination against LGBT people. Perhaps this is the real root of the Governing Body's fear because any hope the organization has for its future lies with young people. If growing numbers of this group reject a basic tenet of the Witness religion, what other teachings and practices will they reject? That rejection would ultimately signal the end of this cult and all it stands for. With two-thirds of all Witness youth abandoning the cult after reaching adulthood, further attrition is something the WTS cannot afford. A collapse in the United States would lead to a domino effect around the world that would spell certain doom for the organization.

As others have noted, we are witnessing a "circling of the wagons" by the WTS. I don't think this will do the Society any good because its leadership is also facing internal dissent as well as external opposition. It couldn't have happened to a nicer cult. I only hope I am around when its end comes, an end that will be 'according to their works.'

Quendi

3

Time magazine quote guarantee to be used in Watchtower

by Skinnedsheep in

jw
friends

article by jon meacham in the august 4th issue of time on pg 25. .

title.

"war without end.

Quendi

Doubtless the WTS will mine this quote for all it's worth, but that doesn't mean the quote itself is historically inaccurate. The problem with 1914 is the WTS completely misses its true importance and significance. World War I did set the violent twentieth century in motion and the aftershocks of that war are indeed being felt daily one hundred years later. I have called World War I the forgotten war of the twentieth century. Its violent beginning and unhappy ending sowed the seeds for World War II, the Cold War and all they entailed. Current problems in southwest Asia and the Black Sea region can be directly traced to the Versailles Peace Conference and the unanswered questions and unresolved issues it left.

Quendi

39

I do not miss anything about the conventions

by Darth Fader The Sequel in

this weekend nearly everyone i have ever known or that i am related to is sitting in a convention.

i miss none of it!!!!.

i do not miss:.

Quendi

I attended conventions from 1975 to 2005. The 1975 convention in Huntsville, Alabama was a very exciting one. We were all brimming over with anticipation of Armageddon coming that year. While the program did not make any definite predictions about that, saying that we shouldn't slow down and 'watch the clock', it did build our anticipation for the grand finale of "the system of things." Many of us really thought that the next year would see us in the "new system." I liked the 1978 international convention because ours was in New Orleans and that was a great city to visit. The 1982 convention was special because it was my first one in Denver and I really enjoyed meeting many new people then.

In all those years of convention attending, I stayed in hotels only twice. Once I was in a private home and stayed with a very gracious host. Conventions did not involve the stress for me that it had for others mainly because I did not have a family. In addition, after moving to Colorado, conventions no longer were the highlight of my summer. Exploring Colorado's high country became the main focus of the summer months and this was facilitated by having conventions early leaving the rest of the summer for play. On balance, however, I suffered many of the negatives Darth Fader recounted. Now that I'm out of the cult, I don't miss these banal gatherings at all. They never really did serve a good purpose and usually made its attendees feel nothing but FOG (Fear, Obligation, Guilt) when they were over. I'm glad I will never attend a Jehovah's Witness gathering again.

Quendi