Posts by Half banana

31

Part II: it's time

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

earlier i posted about the call from close family about that the end is expected in very short time.. today i had the opportunity to speak in person.. this is what is told to me:.

- the gb speaks to us personality through broadcasting;.

- the annual meeting was a very clear message from the gb;.

For me one of the best improvements over the last century has been the great increase in life expectancy. In the nineteenth century you could expect a life of say 18 years as a youngster and 30 or so years as an adult if you were lucky-- and didn't get consumption or some other incurable ailment. Today most people in the western world reach 65 and if you do there is also a statistical likelihood that you will reach your late seventies or eighties which is now the average age for death.

That means that we have doubled our adult life span since 1914, i.e.18+60 years. Longevity is by no means the only improvement, the quality of life has vastly altered much of it through improvements in medicine and technology. Not forgetting the dramatic drop in numbers of death by infectious diseases, child mortality rates dropping, education becoming universal, number of deaths from wars and murder also having declined and extreme poverty now speedily being eradicated worldwide.

OK its not paradise, there is a dark shadow on the horizon namely by threats from Muslim fanatics who sacrifice themselves for their Islamic theocracy and refuse to see life from a human perspective.

Overall, it has to be reckoned that the world is nevertheless a far happier and healthier and a more equitable place than in the past and JW curmudgeons have their twisted "theocratic" reasons why they refuse to recognise it.

31

Part II: it's time

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

earlier i posted about the call from close family about that the end is expected in very short time.. today i had the opportunity to speak in person.. this is what is told to me:.

- the gb speaks to us personality through broadcasting;.

- the annual meeting was a very clear message from the gb;.

Half banana

Jehovah's Witnesses live in a paranoid bubble. The end is always imminent for JWs-- that's how the scam works.

After each successive end-time failure the GB shift focus and now: (bugle blast) it's persecution time folks!

A sense of persecution is the significant marker for paranoia. Paranoia is characterised by an intense mistrust of others, (which in the JW case this means the whole world), a sense of being persecuted, being fearful and angry-- and there is no complete cure. It's no wonder so many JWs are on medication.

After 140 years of failure what have the GB got left to play with? They have one big trick-- they hold all the cards in the propaganda game with their captive following who are trained through guilt to remain loyal.

So they are just left with spin, warnings, hype and hope for the imminent end. "Prophecies are being fulfilled" they announce as if they never said it before for an earlier non event. They must be joking! The GB are reduced to cynically using worn out stratagems which have helped, them in the past.

As we on this site know, their promises haven't a snowball's chance in Gehenna of coming true (but for that matter the R+F should have realised it too) so what will happen after a handful more years when the latest white-hot hype fails? I think a big exodus should take place.

HQ will eventually lose all credibility except by the aberrant few uneducated dreamers who actually enjoy the security of a life in a straight jacket.

JWs are already on the bottom rung of the income and education ladder, how much lower can they get?

46

Halls closing

by iknowthetruth in

jw
friends

in my city philadelphia they closed many kingdom halls.

my hall was desolved and most of the publishers were added to a congregation that only had 50 publishers.

.

Half banana

I think they are doing a fine job of killing off their religion!

True eyeused, but as Slimboy said they don't have much choice.

Firstly the GB have never shown any true humanity to the flock, all they were ever interested in were having obedient and loyal followers. They always felt that if you did what they told you to do, you would be blissfully happy and problem free so forget the welfare thing, that's what worldly organisations do. More to the point they have demonstrated historically that they do not care for the well-being of individuals.

Donations are down, I think because JWs are disappointed about everything in the JW org except their friends, they are reacting by not contributing. So all the GB accountants can now do is harvest the capital from KHs to pay their debts and mounting court cases.

Let it be remembered that the KHs used to belong to the individual congregations otherwise they could not rail against those sects called "organised religions" that is religions described as having a centralised control over everything. However with the increasing membership numbers in third quarter of the 20th century things changed. Independent congregations could start to think independently and use their congregation assets as they wished. Cult religions hate heresy above all things because it takes away their authority and therefore the money.

So the Watchtower, reversing long held principles, became an "organised religion" around 1990(?) which meant that they took control world wide of all the KHs and later skimmed off (date anyone?) each congregation's surplus finances. Had they remained with congregation finances operating at the local level, it would have been the "servant body" of the local congregation which would have been financially responsible for child sexual abuse cases and not HQ.

The WT became very wealthy by the 1990s and had confidence to smooth the path of their future growth in politically resistant countries by joining their favourite Aunt Sally the UN. Again treacherously reversing a long held viewpoint.

A lot of Watchtower success rode on the hope of the "1914 generation", like all JW promises it failed miserably. The whole organisation accordingly is failing, intellectually, morally and financially, whatever spin they put on it.

It's come-uppance time for the governing body of JWs.

7

What do you think about this?

by TerryWalstrom in

i find the approach, the reasoning, the dialectic rather fascinating.https://www.jpost.com/opinion/op-ed-contributors/the-exodus-does-archaeology-have-a-say-348464a religion, basically, wrestles with science____did slaves build the pyramids?http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8451538.stm.

____the only reason i bring this up is because i have dear close evangelical friends who are--how shall i say it---.

rather opinionated beyond their pay grade :).

Half banana

There is from a scientific and academic perspective something very wrong with much of Biblical archaeology and Biblical scholarship: the conclusion is already present before the evidence begins.

The notion that the Bible stands alone as a divine creation is at the bottom of both of these areas of 'learning'. To discover contrary evidence would dismiss the whole religious experience whereas that is the very purpose of Biblical research; to prove to one and all that God is behind it.

The real solution in overcoming these defects of bias which is now pursued by the academic researchers, is a deliberately non-partisan investigation of the archaeology and text (epigraphy) evidence but does not use myth as part of that evidence. The archaeologists Silberman and Finkelstein (mentioned above) have done a sterling job in not only demonstrating that there was no exodus but have given a cogent explanation how the myth came about.

I'm sure we are aware that the rewards religious people grant themselves is the pride in their faith. Pride of course is a dubious quality and faith is inherently misapplied to the imagined author of the Bible and its magic stories.

There are two bubble bursters, both historians and epigraphists who to my (limited) knowledge stand out as significant in separating "Bible faith" momentum from the historical viewpoint, they are Thomas L Thompson and John van Seters. I have read extensively Thompson's works on the Levantine inscriptions and early Jewish history, and van Seters was very important in overturning time honoured Biblical assumptions.

Israel today is a secular state, however most Jews still enjoy being emotionally and culturally bound up with its foundation myths justifying its existence. True or not, the stories are given a function in everyday life in Israel.

19

Introducing myself

by Leopold theseconed in

i have been introduced to this site by my new friends that are helping me navigate through the reality of waking up and finding out that i have been lied to my whole life.

i grew up in the truth and have given over thirty years to this organization and the few years i wasn’t there my mind was certainly trapped.

the more i think about it i am really not that surprised there was a lot along the way that should have woken me up but it took till recently.

Half banana

Welcome to the site Leopold II, and well done for waking up even if it did take awhile.

I think many of us here share your regret of not allowing the foibles, follies and crass rules of the org flag up an alarm a lot sooner. This is the way the cult has worked by constant propaganda which developed a loyalty culture among the flock. To disagree was virtually impossible without social punishment.

Anyway all the best to you as you come to terms with the real life outside of the JW madness.

15

When The Truth - is Not -The Truth

by Esau in

is 607bc being a made up, “plug in” date the only thing that invalidates 1914 from being christ’s time of kingly rein?.

i mean, screw the math & bs formulas.

can 1914 simply work as a starting date for “the last days” simply by the events that occurred??

Half banana

Yes Zeb and the WT is pretending to be fortune tellers about a non event. There is no way that an uncommunicative invisible god is going to selectively murder all those who don't believe in him-- at any date in time.

Why should the prophetic words of Jesus refer to a later period? Jesus made it very clear that his prophecy was to be fulfilled in his generation at Mark 9,1, He didn't say there will be a second end times sign the same as the (failed) first end times sign.

The words of the JW organisation are worthless trash.

44

Big Announcement in Montreal

by ZindagiNaMilegiDobaara in

just got the heads up from montreal that 16 congregations will cease to exist from 1 april 2019. also 3 kh are no longer going to be used anymore.

this was a major announcement for many and upsetting.

wonder where the r& f are going to be dispersed with what sacrifices in the way!.

Half banana

and the thousand will grow to become a little one.......

15

Governing Body of JW's - Bare-faced LIARS!

by The Fall Guy in

w11 8/15 p. 22 questions from readers - “we thus have no way of knowing the exact number of anointed ones on earth; nor do we need to know.

the governing body does not keep a list of all partakers.. see this - s-21-e congregation's publisher record (2018-12).pdf

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/6255453529964544/2019-elders-manual-whole-lot-more.

Half banana

The governing body's individual claims to being anointed by God are equally as unlikely as are those of the rank and file.

They are not concerned with the names of those partakers at the memorial but with the number.

And the number now taking the emblems is a contradiction of their promise that a small remnant of "the anointed" would be left to usher the "other sheep'" through the great day of his wrath at Armageddon before the 1914 generation died out.

What a bunch of goal post moving hucksters!

5

A slice of heaven or whatever turns you on.

by Half banana in

in piccadilly in the west end of london there sits a church called st james and most mondays they hold free lunchtime concerts.

i went yesterday and marveled at the coming together of so many cultural wonders.

the church itself was built under the direction of one of england’s most celebrated architects sir christopher wren, who also built st paul’s cathedral.

Half banana

Arrive a bit early say at ten minutes to one so as to get a front seat for full immersion in the performance.The programme of the day is found on the internet under St James, Piccadilly.

Oy vey Phizzy! little of this cultural glory would have arisen if not fuelled by the Church.

The reason being that the church had accumulated wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.Take Bach for example most of his work was for church music. The greatest patrons of the best artists were the Church.

After the Middle Ages the churches were often given as gifts to the community by the land owning aristocracy as was St James.The truth is that society was highly and unfairly stratified in the past, and the Baroque architecture exemplifies it. If you had power then you also had wealth, and with your wealth you had to show just how grand you were. It was a power display but executed in the most refined taste from the best artists and architects of the day. Religious teachings were just a small part of the background noise, their themes of ultimate "salvation from sin" unified the communities of all ranks by common appreciation of "holy" things. Never mind-- we can still benefit from these extravagances of the past.

7

"Romans" added to NWT Study Bible, and one omission.

by Wonderment in

rom.

14:1 says: "welcome the man having weaknesses in his faith, but do not pass judgment on differing opinions.

" (italics added.).

Half banana

We have decided that we are God's anointed, so you've got to think like we tell you to........otherwise we'll punish you!

I guess it is the same unquestioned sanctity given to the Bible which is then transferred to the GB, and this is how JW cult leaders empower themselves.

Your point Wonderment is very good, to read the Bible in its social-historical context is very illuminating and not like the stereotype supplied by the Watchtower. The JW org has carefully honed the conjuror's ability to select only on what they want you to see and avoid all contrary information.