Half banana

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Posts by Half banana

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  12

  What does the JW organisation do for the world?

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  it gives nothing, it only takes.

  it preaches the end but continues to commute its financial ‘winnings’ into bricks and mortar investments and enjoys the prestige of a world-wide portfolio worth billions.

  the constant postponement of armageddon only helps this business model so the administration is happy.

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  Half banana

  You've got me there ttdtt, I've no idea what MEPS is and when looking it up, it's still not clear which version of the acronym you mean...

  It's a horrid religion though! A huge ugly parasite as mentioned by LHG.
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  26

  Are the witnesses really False prophets?

  by MrTheocratic in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  when you read the following statements from the wt.

  organization... do they satisfy you?

  or better stated...... should you be satisfied by there answers?.

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  Half banana

  Outlaw, just wonderin', have you any idea what "braaak" might mean?

  @ Londo, that's an astonishing and foolish statement from the WT, May 1 2014, not recognising its own total failure in the same area. It is the pot calling the kettle black.

  Do they actually realize they are in the same boat but must put on a macho show of superiority for the sake of partizan loyalty? Is end time prediction now a hopeless failure and cynically reduced to merely a game?
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  12

  What does the JW organisation do for the world?

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  it gives nothing, it only takes.

  it preaches the end but continues to commute its financial ‘winnings’ into bricks and mortar investments and enjoys the prestige of a world-wide portfolio worth billions.

  the constant postponement of armageddon only helps this business model so the administration is happy.

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  Half banana

  I agree with you TTWSYF, the Watchtower is the world’s most uncharitable charity. Yes Outlaw it truly is a monumental scam. At least other religions actually have feelings for other people and in the name of God they help others in need.

  The JW org condemn charity yet they are very happy to help themselves to the tax benefits of being called a "charity". What hypocrisy! Take, take, take is the motto of the governing body. Yet it is the psychological harm it does to the born-ins and young followers that must be told to the world.

  We need to let people know that the JW org steals people’s lives, it takes away their freedom to choose their life course and that it stifles the natural human spirit.

  I despair at the undeserved power this corrupt organisation has in controlling its unfortunate and deluded members.
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  12

  What does the JW organisation do for the world?

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  it gives nothing, it only takes.

  it preaches the end but continues to commute its financial ‘winnings’ into bricks and mortar investments and enjoys the prestige of a world-wide portfolio worth billions.

  the constant postponement of armageddon only helps this business model so the administration is happy.

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  Half banana

  
  

  It gives nothing, it only takes.

  It preaches the end but continues to turn its financial ‘winnings’ into bricks and mortar investments and enjoys the prestige of a worldwide portfolio worth billions. The constant postponement of Armageddon only helps this business model so the administration is happy. At HQ all the “spiritual” front men need to come up with each generation; is new propaganda to justify the delay... this difficulty of having to weasel out a credible excuse every thirty years or so for the governing body; is nothing compared to the real sufferings of the true believers in the rank and file.

  The average JW is one who has succumbed to the need to be told what to do, and who feels secure in the Watchtower community shared-hope fostered by its leaders. The fixated vision presented by them is that this global system, controlled by Satan, will soon end in mass slaughter which only Jehovah’s Witnesses will survive.

  In any context this is a prescription for paranoia.

  To hold such views is very unhealthy. It is a recipe for serious mental conflict and is never resolved by the arrival of the promised paradise. The usual accommodation is found by the believer going whole-soul into the shared delusion, putting logic on the back burner and supporting the leaders of the cult.

  It is demanded that JWs avoid higher education, worldly ambition, avoid socialising with non-JWs, and that they shun close family members who disagree with the Watchtower. The result is that millions have led lives stifled by the overbearing, unreasonable and untruthful demands of the governing body.

  I would say that the JW organisation has brought nothing to the world except life sapping, paranoid belief, causing untold harm to millions. What do you think?
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  40

  What Religious Trajectory Are The JWs Following?

  by millie210 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was reading another thread and the comments got me thinking.... https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5656910430732288/pictures-tell-thousand-words.

  comments such as oldskools: more like digital colonialism channeled through one of the weaker and less important institutions western society has to offer.. .

  some have compared the orgs future path to the world wide church of gods.

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  Half banana

  I agree that the pattern of administration in high control groups necessarily share similarities but, the Roman Catholic Church is also the archetypal and preeminent religious cult. It has been working on public relations ever since its beginnings with the superstitious Emperor Constantine and his apologist lackey Eusebius back in the fourth century. It was and remains the very model of religious power and propaganda with the lure of heaven and threats of eternal damnation should you slide from its grip.

  Eleven years after the 1975 debacle, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society moved from being nominally a collective of independent congregations regulated by Brooklyn HQ to become an organised or hierarchical religion just like its arch rival the Catholic Church which it formerly castigated for the very reason that it was hierarchical! The reasons for this assertive turn around, was surely to take control of the money and property rights of all congregations world-wide. The resulting boost in confidence I think led to the overarching ambition of the WT for political acceptance among the responsible players in the religious and financial world. The word hubris springs to mind.

  One clear example of the new mood at the tail end of the last century was in joining the UN as an NGO (non-governmental organisation). This was to facilitate their expansion into countries where the body politic would naturally have barred cults like the WT. The astonishing hypocrisy of publicly condemning the UN for years and then joining it; is almost without parallel even in WT history. The exposure in the British newspaper the Guardian in October 2001 possibly marks a turning point in constraining their worldly ambition.

  Significantly up until this time, the old guard governing body had been in thrall to the religious fantasies of Fred Franz up to the last and 6th president Henschel. At his death in 2003, the power was left in the hands of the governing body which had formerly been a weak force since its beginnings in 1971 but now it had taken hold of the reins of power.

  A couple of years previously, their seventy five year long mantra of “the generation of 1914” had fallen off its pedestal and into the rubbish bin. What was left for the governance of the WT? Their fondness for prophetic ineptitude had been reinforced and not at all helped by the risible excuse that Jesus meant to say “overlapping generations” when the scripture unequivocally says “the generation”. The death of the 1914-generation-hope died with its proponents and left the prophetic credibility of the WT in tatters.

  To survive as a corporation it needed authority which was not dependent on doctrine or disastrous prophesies. Like any business with a mass following they turned to PR companies for help. Even with professionally advised TV presentation and sassy new logo their authority has no tangible basis. Doomsday cults can never deliver and therefore can never be proved right. The RC Church although also waning in influence, only furnishes its mystical blessings to the believers but is never cursed to be dependent on Armageddon’s imminent arrival.

  Also at the turn of the century the demise of printed material due to information technology as well as the prospect of taxing the sales of magazines, began to reduce income which could only force evolution in the business model for the Watchtower. This demanded they get with the revolution and in the last couple of years it has become an electronic religion to the horror of the elderly faithful.

  So here we are...the Watchtower lacks authority because it always fails in its prophetic claims, it therefore shows no special evidence of divine appointment. To overcome this it uses its new electronic propaganda machine called in USA “televangelism”. The Watchtower is an unreconstructed doomsday cult and consequently has to perpetuate the imminence of Armageddon at the forefront of all things to give hope to its followers, without this dangling carrot, the Org will die. Very likely the public will also fail to be interested in Watchtower promises.

  Mille, you ask what direction the WT will take. Well since they are up against declining religious belief even in the USA, the big Watchtower enemy is free information on the internet; along with the rise of education standards, they form a disaster for a doomsday cult. The internet also exposes the unsound foundations of literal belief in the Bible. The JW org is in the public eye for child abuse and its heartless response to the feelings of the abused. The JW org will increasingly look out of step with progress in the Western world where social concerns are greatly improving and personal responsibility and personal growth is encouraged. The Watchtower by contrast is intellectually bankrupt, it gives nothing to society except its false hopes and it is possibly losing its income and wealthy sponsors and is having to sell its capital assets.

  Remembering an illustration from Monty Python, the outline of a sauropod starts off with a small and brainless head at ground level, then rises to a big hump and then declines to a small trailing tail. I think we are now situated just beyond the hips and descending the tail. It’s downhill from here on.
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  42

  DESTROYING the Governing Body’s claim of authority

  by TerryWalstrom in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  destroying the governing body’s claim of authority.

  begin at the beginning.

  what source authority did early christians have?.

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  Half banana

  Thank you Terry for your well researched information on JW governance and the rise of the gb.

  The perception of authority vs de facto authority is interesting. The gb have no track record of any success in the field of divine inspiration, only failure!

  How can they maintain any sense of authority? The way they do it is through the Watchtower's appeal to the religious impulse in the followers, forever demanding the case that obedience to the Org is obedience to God.

  It is a sickening, century long confidence trick!
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  27

  JW TV, this month about evolution

  by bohm in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this month the last segment is about evolution.

  one is with a sister with a university education in biochemistry who (presumably) teaches at a highschool or public school.

  she says that left handedness of amino acids indicates life was created because "if it was a random process half would be right handed and half left handed" (paraphrased).

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  Half banana

  I wonder if one day the Watchtower will take a similar stand as the rest of the worlds religion and acknowledge that evolution is fact and the creation story was a metaphor.
  

  I wondered the same CookieMonster but if they started to dilute the hard edged ignorance there would only be a kind of fluffy pulp left in the Watchtower.

  Both present and new JW victims want something stronger, more radical, to get their teeth into. Perhaps it's masochism at work...like self harming your brain...believe in something really stupid!
  
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  12

  The bigger picture

  by Freeandclear in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've been awake now for a good while.

  about a year.

  in that year i've done a lot of soul searching and thinking about god and religion etc.... as i'm sure most all of us have who've left this cult.

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  Half banana

  Freeandclear, very well said brother...and welcome to the rational world!

  The beautifulful things of life are already heavenly.

  Today has been like paradise in southern England very warm and sunny, the garden glowing in its early summer fullness. I have been elevated to the Elysian fields listening to Brahms Alto Rhapsody, drunk delicious wine and eaten a supremely good lightly smoked barbequed fillet with dried tomatoes and salad (special treat for sharing with friends). The preciousness of life is savoured in the knowledge that it does not last forever. We make way for our offspring to enjoy life as we have done or to better it.

  As we were born; then we also die. The whole conceit of religion is that it is possible to cheat death...we simply can't.
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  26

  Will Bro. Rogers be DF'd posthumously for drug addiction?

  by ShirleyW in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  some have been df'd for suspicion of smoking cigarettes, yet bro.

  rogers death is because of an addiction, fentanyl is what they are saying is the drug that did him in which was reported on the news as being more potent than heroine.

  why is it that some nosy sister can report you because someone who looked like you was in the parking lot the same time as she was, yet bro.

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  Half banana

  The Watchtower cult has a long history of drug use since CT Russell depended on opiates for his life-long affliction with hemorrhoids. Makes you wonder how much the addictive drugs affected his imagination?
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  114

  Evidence for a Young Earth

  by Perry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for additional information:.

  for additional information:.

  for additional information:.

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  Half banana

  Religious belief is a perversion! The religious mind has been persuaded to prioritise feelings above fact whereas common sense tells us decisions for action should be based on knowable things and not mystical ideas, however appealing.

  This is not to say that we cannot enjoy delving into the further reaches of the human imagination...we all love that... and we are all beneficiaries of human creativity. The perversion is in believing certain works to be literally divine.

  If this faculty of creative thinking did not exist we would not feel human but then neither would we need to look at the naturally occurring anomalies of science to defend a creationist viewpoint since the overriding evidence confirms that evolving life has existed on this particular planet at the level of backboned animals for half a billion years...and for many times longer than this whole period at the single cell level. Stromatolites (accretions of fossil bacterial mats) being conservatively dated at 3.5 billion years before present.

  Fundamentalists have placed the imaginative cart before the practical reasoning of the horse and imagine an invisible sky god doing all sorts of unprovable things just like our primitive forebears believed...If you were to take this god notion out of the religiously muddied waters the; clear truth of evolution remains.

  There is pleasure in pursuing imaginative works but great satisfaction in understanding the structural realities of the cosmos.

  What motive do you have to deliberately remain being snagged in the imaginative mode of thinking Perry?