The world is a better place because of The Life of Brian.
Are there fans here from North America or is it a UK thing?
i was a younger dub at the time of this release, and stopped watching this movie near its beginning, when john cleese was stoned with the huge rock for saying jehovah.. this was despite having been (and continuing to be) a major john cleese (and monty python) fan.. any fans of this film?.
The world is a better place because of The Life of Brian.
Are there fans here from North America or is it a UK thing?
boondoggles and preppers watchtower style!
a religion of doom and luxury!.
in 1866, the times of london wrote:.
I wonder if the Welsh Assembly have funds to give to organisations prepared to translate their material into the Welsh language? This is what money grabbing organisations would be interested in...
To my knowledge, and I would happily be corrected, all Welsh speakers also speak English. So why bother?
To translate religious propaganda into a virtually dead language is a waste of effort. To translate the useless rubbish from the columns of the Watchtower which nobody reads except those who do it out of misplaced duty into a language which nobody needs to speak........................ is bonkers!
it's become clear that very few from outside the religion are joining anymore.
if only the kids of the people that are already in are the one replacing the members as they die off and 50% let's say of the kids leave then how long can they realistically last before the downturn becomes obvious?.
@ Crazy guy,It is premature to declare that all is lost for the JW org but indeed it looks like the publisher increase is now done through breeding new JWs and not from field service.
Calling from door to door is now so unpopular that even the men at the top must be acknowledging it. Carts are not what they were hyped to be and the art of avoiding calling on people has developed in such a way that it's still possible to do next to nothing and technically call it reporting time. Of course there are those who are awake who in good conscience count time they didn't do.
The whole ritual of being a JW is becoming a hollow show of outward conformity but inner resistance...may it increase enormously!
My big hope is that the GB will realise that the Watchtower has had its day and that the internet and free information has won.
I hope that this will translate into acceptance that it is over and that the Watchtower will morph into a social club with the bar for joining lowered. Those with a flicker of intelligence will flee from its mindless paranoia.
humans are classified as apes.. apes don't have tails.. except when they do.. we used to have tails.
i don't mean "we" as a species; i mean you and i as individuals.
we all had tails.. embryologists divide the development of a human embryo into 23 "carnegie stages" based on multiple physical features.
Thanks for info Cofty.
There is never found irrefutable evidence for direct and independent creation.
Your subject of tails in primates is a solid evidence for us being placed on the evolutionary continuum. Even in the improbable event of an example found of a creature which had no connection to the phylogenetic tree; it would still not invalidate the truthfulness of evolution.
There is simply no sensible evidence for an invisible being making all things, it is just silly puerile thinking distorted by religious programming.
great news!.
we are free!.
as of the 9th of june, me and my dear wife mrs. eden handed over our letters of disassociation at bethel in portugal, thus making official our departure from the jehovah's witnesses.
Well done Eden, the whole (close) family free...what a joy!
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.
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.
when you read the following statements from the wt.
organization... do they satisfy you?
or better stated...... should you be satisfied by there answers?.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.