Posts by Half banana

25

Kids ... and baptism.

by Tallon in

i have noticed, from reading posts on this and other related websites, what to me is an alarming practice taking place within the jw's.

and that is the baptism of kids.. on a recent discussion posted by pe ( video of the girl now forced to shun her sister) this child was baptised at 9 years old.

all of us who were baptised at a much older age know of the many questions one needs to give serious consideration and understanding of to become eligible for baptism, not to mention the two baptism questions asked before being dunked.. surely the organisation must know that children of such a young age are not mature enough to fully grasp the seriousness, demands and consequences of making such a decision.. another point; if jesus is the example to follow, then why did he only get baptised at age 30, and he was perfect!.

Half banana

Getting baptised in childhood is a cruel trap sprung by JW org in order to retain members. Their literature however railed against the evils of infant baptism in other religions for years.

Too bad that you were too young to understand what you were doing! We've got you now and its tough luck. You wanted to get baptised in the first place, nobody forced you (except the expectation of parents, friends, relatives) and if you change your mind we will get everyone to shun you.................

This cultic behaviour should be publicised as an example of one of their unconscionable practices.

They could easily make a general rule that baptism should only be at an age when independence from parents could be attained say eighteen but no, baptism at nine years old! How can anyone be held to promises of lifetime commitments made at the age of nine? Only in the JWs!

Of course if they did suggest a minimum age of eighteen, the numbers of JWs would plummet.

23

Instructions to remove old WT information from kh libraries

by Half banana in

a pimo friend (physically in mentally out) has just informed me that the cult has decided that they want to suppress all old jw org information by removing bound volumes etc from kh libraries.. in reality, all through their history they have claimed divine "new light" as a means of changing uncomfortable doctrines.

this however would mean that new jws, or more likely these days young jws, will be prevented from seeing the old light which had been held up as divinely inspired truth in the past.. truth which would get you through big a and which if you didn't agree with would get you disfellowshipped.. anyone else heard of this?

what might be the reasons (if true) for removing the old wts?.

Half banana

Libraries may simply be old light?

What is important is to have the new sanitised electronic history of the Watchtower cult. Where past mistakes can always be erased or modified to conform to the sunny uplands of paradise thinking.

15

Me and my schools band

by Akid48 in

so i made this to take off some of the anxiety of what i have to tell all my friends when i have to go to my band camp i have to go to.. so i play tuba in my school i love it i had made friends that are now close friends.so i am number 1 or 2 when it comes to how good we play so when placements for what band your in for next year i was put in to honors band my aunt said good job but when we went to the meeting for it she got mad saying she thinks it to much for me going into school early than i do staying at school later and some things she said was right but the thing that got her mad is that i might not be able to go to the meetings after home work etc and she went more into the jw things on school.. the thing that gets me mad is that know i have to think of a way to tell my friends that i im out of honors band because of jw reasons.. one more thing is i cant do many things i suck at sports and many more butt playing the tuba was the one thing i could say im good at than video games but it seems like at high school i might have to drop it :(.

Half banana

Brilliant Kid! don't let your well meaning aunt spoil your talent for music.

Surely it's only occasionally that a rehearsal or performance would conflict with a meeting time?

I regret to this day having given up college study to pioneer instead. My suggestion to you is that you fix your focus on doing what you do best-- and that looks like playing the tuba--not yawning at JW mind-bending sessions.

Tell your aunt you love her all the same!

13

Exposing the Core Premise of JW False Teaching

by TerryWalstrom in

poison is at work in any argument with jehovah's witnesses.

this poison has little to do with the beauty of watchtower logic or the tasty morsels of jw reasoning.. the poison is odorless and tasteless and it has absorbed into their core premise: scripture interpretation directed by jehovah.. if you buy into the core premise (somebody possesses a divinely granted access to an infallible source of truth) you are already dead in the water.. that is the deal breaker.

false premises lead always to false conclusions.. stop right here.. the core misrepresentation of christianity solely rests in accepting the bible as the inerrant word of almighty god.

Half banana

Dweather; "the Bible says that the word of God would be preserved". Such a statement is characteristic with the craft of the scribe who is compelled to do the work of his master. Manuscript copies are fundamentally flawed in their ability to clinically transmit the text of the original writer.

The very reason why so many stories were concocted to plead the fidelity of copyists is because it was impossible to keep texts free from alteration with the human instinct to modify one with personal or sectarian biases.

One would be naive to imagine that there is an original Bible other than the first compilation of selected texts sacralised by the Roman Catholic bishops in the fourth century. Much of which was then recently syncretized or adapted to conform to the imperial demands for an orthodoxy of belief in the Roman world. This was, after all, the very meaning of catholic, i.e. a universal all encompassing belief system, which later emperors enforced on pain of death.

"Knowledge is power" but it has always been the powerful who determine what the knowledge should be.

13

Exposing the Core Premise of JW False Teaching

by TerryWalstrom in

poison is at work in any argument with jehovah's witnesses.

this poison has little to do with the beauty of watchtower logic or the tasty morsels of jw reasoning.. the poison is odorless and tasteless and it has absorbed into their core premise: scripture interpretation directed by jehovah.. if you buy into the core premise (somebody possesses a divinely granted access to an infallible source of truth) you are already dead in the water.. that is the deal breaker.

false premises lead always to false conclusions.. stop right here.. the core misrepresentation of christianity solely rests in accepting the bible as the inerrant word of almighty god.

Half banana

What is written here in this post is from God.

You have to be pretty stupid to believe such and yet that is the level of intellectual acceptance used as the final proof of the Bible in the minds of those who have come under its spell.

Terry I like the way you are seeking a definitive illustration for the pitfall for those hungering for a divine answer to everything; the tasteless and odourless mind poison, the false premise that the Bible is inerrant and interpreted by Jehovah.

There is so much harm which comes from basing one’s life on any false premise and one of the worst is trusting a dodgy cult who claim a monopoly in Bible interpretation on God’s behalf.

Life can be hard, not all people are up to the challenge of coping with the real world without a lot of help.

Seeing the market opportunity, JWs peddle a comprehensive account of how existential worries can be overcome; firstly by the assumption that there is a God then the assumption of faith in the Bible as God’s revealed word and third the assumption that the only true interpreters are the governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Assumptions built on false premises only confuse people and make them more dependent on others, they do not cure their original problems.

All of these religious premises promoted by the Watchtower without sound evidence are so far removed from logical thought that it is not surprising the gb condemn serious education.

The new JW is egged on by other victims and having swallowed the poison, is promised a smiley life in a Valium haze which ignores common sense, logic, having to think or work hard. The crunch comes when trying to shake off the JW drug. (To start with many try milder brands with fewer side effects to wean themselves off the habit).

77

North Korea threatening to bomb Guam...

by mikeflood in

crazy kim again....could happen?

thoughts?.

Half banana

Outlaw, it would only rhyme if Guam was pronounced Gwom!.............at least in the UK

7

How appealing is this?

by Half banana in

would you join a religion which says everyone who is not a member will be killed by god?.

would you join a religion which you know that statistically if you stay in it long enough, there is a high chance that it will split your family apart?.

would you join a religion which demands that you preach to your neighbours that they are soon going to die if they don’t believe your message?.

Half banana

Would you join a religion which says everyone who is not a member will be killed by God?

Would you join a religion which you know that statistically if you stay in it long enough, there is a high chance that it will split your family apart?

Would you join a religion which demands that you preach to your neighbours that they are soon going to die if they don’t believe your message?

Would you join a religion which actively discourages education and thinking analytically? Or one which promotes faith and obedience to a group of cult leaders who have no credentials in anything, only a very long track record in failed promises?

Does the prospect of living in a utopia controlled by these seven governors of the religion appeal to you? Men who assert that their religion is the only one chosen by God in 1919, a subject with no basis in any fact. Also with the beliefs held back then, if you believed them now, would bizarrely disqualify you from membership today!

How would you view a religion which prohibits examining scholarly information and only permit research from its own hopelessly biased publications?

How about the prospect of being a member of a group who will punish you if you change your mind or try to leave it, even if those who shun you are your own children or your own parents or family?

Would the idea of eventually losing your gender identity appeal to you?

Would you join a religion which promotes the Iron Age politics of a primitive tribe in the Levant as the best guide for modern living?

Would you?

2

The Time To Be Happy Is NOW!

by pale.emperor in

a video that i wish i'd seen before i was baptized.

i think you'll all get something out of this:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvz0mmf6nw4.

Half banana

Quite right Pale, humanistic values are realistic, based on what is--

not on ethereal hopes stumped up by the collective imagination to avoid the hard truth about mortality.

77

North Korea threatening to bomb Guam...

by mikeflood in

crazy kim again....could happen?

thoughts?.

Half banana

Trump is just taking the bait and making matters worse, he could after all turn to diplomacy instead.

Kim Jong Un is different, he is so thrilled and confident now that he has developed a giant phallic firework to frighten the neighbours. He is like the Watchtower leaders; the more terrifying the rhetoric, the stronger and more god-like they will appear to their fearful subjects. Kim and the gb are both saying "Armageddon is imminent" so keep united behind us and we will save you!

21

Jehovah's Witnesses and the Picnic Extinction

by TerryWalstrom in

jehovah’s witnesses and the picnic extinction.

(“those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end…”).

it was another world back then; another time and another place.. you had to have been there to have any sense of it--as a young, impressionable jehovah’s witness under the watchtower presidency of nathan h. knorr--social gatherings (backyard bbq’s, swimming parties) among the ‘friends’ consisted of having a great time at a get together or a picnic.

Half banana

Terry, I like your 180 degree turn on oral sex! I concur that the hormones boiled away under the veneer of religious devotion but from a UK perspective I never heard of or actually knew of chaperones in the sixties (which was fortunate for advancing my education in the matter of the opposite sex!) Perhaps it had been mentioned by the org, but nobody of my acquaintance practiced having chaperones back then. USA was different?