Posts by Max Divergent

293

AGM 5 OCTOBER 2013 (UNOFFICIAL RUMORS)

by WatchTower87 in

- 23 day to go .. annual meeting unofficial rumors.

- new bible.

- new nwt (revision).

Max Divergent

I heard (in my heart) the new bible changes may include:

Jesus being omitted and the 'Jesus Class' who represeted the Governing Body / FDS in the first century and up to the commencement fo the 'Jehovah Class'.
The 'Jehovah Class' would includes all past Presidents of the WTS and faithful members of the GB. Other faithfuls since the Jesus Class was completed (possibly in 1874, although there was a movement toward 1914 or 1925) may have been included too.
The bible becoming 168-pages long, hard cover and illustrated. The main bit would be 32-pages and that is all most publishers will need. A 16-page version will be available for the public. New versions come out fortnightly.
A study edition of the bible would be available too. It's online and adjusts as required.

I understand none of this will be explicit in the new bible. Rather, the bible will include all the favorite scriptures and some sections that require the reader to use discenment. Discernment will be provided in the Watchtower.

40

Now I'm not a JW, is it ok for me to...

by Julia Orwell in

jw
friends

...drink a lot?

gosh i love wine.

i like a good bottle of wine each night, and i have a high tolerance to alcohol, though i never drank much (except for a couple of times with the vodka, but i don't keep that stuff in the house anymore, way too dangerous) as a jw because getting slightly happy is a 'sin'.

Max Divergent

Good on any on anyone for thinking about how much they drink.

A 750 ml bottle of wine is considered 4 drinks not 8.

By the Australian standard (10g of alchohol per standard drink) a bottle of wine is around 8 standard drinks depending on the alchohol content of the wine.

Australia's drinking guide is one standard drink per hour for women

One per hour will reduce the chances of having over 0.05% alcholol in the bloodstream, ie: the drink driving limit.

The Australian drinking guidelines are:

For healthy men and women, drinking no more than two standard drinks on any day reduces your risk of harm from alcohol-related disease or injury over a lifetime.
Drinking no more than four standard drinks on a single occasion reduces the risk of alcohol-related injury arising from that occasion.

A bottle a day person is four times over the first guideline to do with long term health and double the second guideline to do with having an accident during or after drinking.

It's all a choice. And nothing to do with the JWs.

65

Gay MS??

by andysmiles in

about me, i am being raised in a jw family.

all of my family expect for one aunt, who had left but not disfellowedshiped thankly, are in jw.

my father is an elder and so is my grandfather.

Max Divergent

Officially, orientaiton is not the issue - sex outside marriage is. A gay man can be an elder, but if he is intimate with a man then he is a fornicator. A celebate single man can be appointed: gay or straight makes no difference.

Unofficilaly, ignorance and prejudice run deep in line with the socially conservative outlook JWs maintian. Probably rural or outer suburban congo members will TEND to hold more gay-unfriendly attitudes, and inner-city congos MIGHT be less unfriendly, just because of the general community views the members are exposed to.

For example, in an inner city congo we had a single (and always busy!) elder who was as close to openly gay as you can be in the JWs: it was hard for him to hide. He was well liked, generally. And a pair of sisters who were flatmates - one a truck driver - were just never asked why they shared a bed sometimes.

12

Serious question: Can a Jehovahs Witness join a democratic non-religious organisation? If it's not political, can they vote?

by The Quiet One in

e.g a nonprofit organisation that helps people, that requires its members to vote.

is all voting evil and wrong, even if it's not a political party?.

Max Divergent

but how about voting for the leader of a nonreligious and nonpolitical organisation, if it is required of members, rather than merely joining it?

Yep, no problem. That has nothing to do with the scriptural basis they cite for not voting in governmental elections.

They used to vote for elders and did away with that on a different (puported) scriptural basis too.

You can vote as much as you like on anything other than a government of the world: voiting was not the problem for JWs, governments were.

40

Now I'm not a JW, is it ok for me to...

by Julia Orwell in

jw
friends

...drink a lot?

gosh i love wine.

i like a good bottle of wine each night, and i have a high tolerance to alcohol, though i never drank much (except for a couple of times with the vodka, but i don't keep that stuff in the house anymore, way too dangerous) as a jw because getting slightly happy is a 'sin'.

Max Divergent

I notice you're refering to JWs in deciding if a bottle of wine a day would be OK. F the JWs. They have nothing to do with your choices now unless you let them. You can select another basis for your decisions now.

On the question you ask, is a 750ml bottle of wine a day OK, assuming its drunk over 5 hours.

1) 5 hours a day of drinking makes drinking a big part of someone's day. 7 days x 5 hours a day = 35 hours a week, or nearly as much as a full time job. Anyone can decide for themselves if that's heathy given all the other things you can do in a day and in a week.

2) A bottle of red wine is usually about 8 standard drinks (where a standard drink is 10 grams of alcohol), 7 days x 8 standard drinks = 56 drinks or 560 grams of alchohol. That amount of alchohol would usually cause long term health effects including irreversable liver disease and brain damage. How you think you feel at the time (eg: no hangover) is irrelevent to your health; what is relevent is how many grams of alcohol enter your body each day.

http://www.drinkwise.org.au

Cheers!

12

Serious question: Can a Jehovahs Witness join a democratic non-religious organisation? If it's not political, can they vote?

by The Quiet One in

e.g a nonprofit organisation that helps people, that requires its members to vote.

is all voting evil and wrong, even if it's not a political party?.

Max Divergent

There was no problem in expressing one's views via a vote.

Votes were taken in the KH over expenditure issues and other points too.

The essential issue was remaining seperate and nutural in the governance arrangements of 'Satan's system of thing', or whatever normality was called. If the vote was to be relevent to government, it was forbidden. If it wasn't, it was OK.

And joining non-religious, non-political groups was OK, except they'd be jelous of the time and engery membership took and would warn anyone who'd listen about the potential 'bad / worldly associations' etc etc.

48

Religious people are less intelligent than atheists, according to analysis of scores of scientific studies stretching back over decades

by besty in

jw
friends

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/religious-people-are-less-intelligent-than-atheists-according-to-analysis-of-scores-of-scientific-studies-stretching-back-over-decades-8758046.html.

study found 'a reliable negative relation between intelligence and religiosity' in 53 out of 63 studies.

a new review of 63 scientific studies stretching back over decades has concluded that religious people are less intelligent than non-believers.. .

Max Divergent

From Quendi...

I suppose such a study glosses over people like Isaac Newton...

No. A regular study takes a random sample from a population. If believers with the mental acumen of Newton or the others you listed were in the sample, they were included. If not, they weren't. No glossing over involved.

In any case, it's not very useful to list a whole bunch of clever belivers: there are a lot of clever non-believers who could be listed too.

I like to think that since I possess two college degrees (one in mathematics) and am involved in public education, I would be considered to have above average intelligence.

Neither has anything much to do with intelligence. Degrees are intellectual endurance tests, not intelligence tests (but few dullards achieve degrees in mathematics). Involvement in public education is meritorous, but again it is not a measure of intelligence.

By the way, you do not seem to be writing like someone with tertiary training in the mathematical sciences could be expected to on a statistical report: you wrote from emotion, not understanding.

If you want to believe that religious people are stupid, you can certainly find all kinds of data to support such a conclusion.

I'm not sure there is any reliable evidence for the proposition 'religious people are stupid' at all. But, in any case, no one has put that idea including the study's authors and those commenting on it. Only you did.

But I think it is equally important to point out that those of high intelligence have also committed atrocities against humanity. Their learning did not stop them from formulating weapons of mass destruction, drawing up plans for genocide, swindling governments, societies and individuals and other crimes.

Intelligence makes it easier to work out how to do things like split the atom, make a nerve toxin or get away with huge crimes. Intelligence is a different thing to good sense or morality. The observation is irrelevent.

This study reminds me of the old saying, “When you point a finger at somebody, it is good to remember you have three more pointing back at you.” Those eager to impugn believers would do well to remember this.

No one is impugning anyone, simply noting the relative level of measured intelligence between believers and non-believers. Folk wisdom has its places. Rebutting a properly conducted survey is not one of them.

25

Why were we so fortunate to escape clutches of the WT?

by jam in

when i came out i knew of very few ex-jw's.

for years i. question my decision.

was i being selfish, couldn't cut the.

Max Divergent

Something happened in our lives one day. That's all.

One day we would not see the reality that was around us. The next day somthing changed in our minds and we allowed ourselves to see it. When we did, we saw the WT rubbish for what it was and left. Maybe it was just a few words from somone that crystalised a thought we had lurking anyhow; maybe it was something that just seemed wrong and needed investigation.

All of us go though changes in our outlook in response to whatever is going on around us. One day somthing will happen to make most JWs receptive to seeing TTATT: if they find the right informaiton for themselves at the right time, they will see reality and may leave the JWs.

It's why we remain persistant in refreshing and renewing how we express the TTATT, including in response to New Truths (is that TTATNT?).

444

The music that moves you....

by FlyingHighNow in

once when i was profoundly sad for too many days, my brother in law sent us a mix tape.

he named each song after a person in our family.

this is the one he named heather.

Max Divergent

A Vietnam war lament.

"Why does the Channel 7 chopper chill me to my feet, and what's the rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means .... God help me, I was only 19"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Urtiyp-G6jY

37

A new DVD for 2013: The Return of the Prodigal Son

by Oubliette in

in another thread, what's new for 2013 - lo nuevo de 2013, jwn member, oppostate, posted news of dc releases at this year's district conventions.

among the releases was this: .

a new dvd for 2013: the return of the prodigal son.

Max Divergent

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu5ltMSj5Dw