Posts by Max Divergent

47

Everybody, I need your help re Daughter

by xjw_b12 in

jw
friends

as some of you know, when cj and i were married, i adopted her daughter, and raised her as my own.

i love her so much, i never referred to her as step-daughter, and never will.

she calls me dad, even though her biological father, somehow found his way out out of the woodwork, when she turned 18.

Max Divergent

Forgive me, but what is the issue? I'm not implying that there's no issue, I just don't know what your concern is for the younger kids. (I take it that they aren't likley to join your daughter and BF for an orgy, or are they?)

If you were a JW, I'd recognise it straight away... by giving a room you'd be condoning fonication under your roof.

But if you're not and you're as cool as you sound about your daughter's varied sex life, what is the message you want to give the children?

Is it that you want to assert a moral view that it's OK for your daughter to be a serial fornicatrix including having lesbian and extra-martial relationships, but it's wrong to share a room/bed with a BF in your house?

Is it that they should learn to review the practices of others against a self-selected moral benchmark, and impose those views oon others when they have the opportunity (like visting their house)?

Both those sound very odd to me, so perhaps it's somthing else?

All I suggest (since you ask) is that you know exactly what message it is that you want to send your daughter, her boyfriend, your partner and yourself.

Maybe you beleive there's somthing inherently more wrong about sharing a bed with a BF, than about creating a charade for kids to see straight through?

Max

102

Witness World Response to Apostates

by DevonMcBride in

jw
friends

below is what was posted on witness world by polly pan.

i took euphemism's advice and others to protect my identity.

about a week ago it was brought to administrations attention that there may be apostates lurking on our board, as a precautionary measure we deleted 107 members who had never posted since they joined.

Max Divergent

Well Sassy, well, no ... I don't recall.... Well, no, I do recall that I certainly did not do such a thing, well not in my presence anyhow.... and no-one under my roof did either, to the best of my recollection .... and the records will support my belief that nothing of the sort happened, it's on file that nothing happened of the nature you describe, the records are very specific about that...

I t's my understanding that if anything like that might have happened, it wasn't me - or can't be proved to be me which amounts to the same thing really... although there might in some quarters be some suggestion that there may be some sort of event that may have been similar to what has been described which would have been perpetrated with skill and guile and with a degree of subtlety that our JW-only site moderator seems to deny could occur, still the record and my recollection speak in unison and full agreement...

M ax D has never ever done any of those bad, bad things you ask about.... never, ever have I been caught posting to a JW-only site which I know you to have moderated or administered

I declare this statement to be true to the best of my knowledge and recollection.

By oath of Max D - a one-time government employee

(Still just joking.... )

really.... just stirring the pot....

15

Anyone from the UK that can help me? by answering some of my questions?

by finger in

jw
friends

i posted here the other day and got a great response.. my bro in law gf is becoming a jw but he thinks it wont effect them as a couple (he doesnt want to become one).

i just want to know if being a jw in england is any different than in other countries?.

me and my husband sense trouble ahead for him this was comfirmed by a lot of the replies i recieved by mainly peole from canada and america.. i f anyone has experiances about jw in the uk i would appreciate hearing them.

Max Divergent

I've been part of one UK and several Australian congos (with many UK people), and visited a couple more UK congos and a couple of US ones. You live there and have lived this experience, so you know better than I. But you've raised a general point too.

As I've expereinced it, there are many British cultures where being sociable, or 'agreeable' is an important thing.

That, I think, comes out in the STYLE of enforcment rather than in the actuality - there's a thing about subtley ('hinting') and not upsetting others in some parts of Britian that seem 'nice', but in my limited experience covers a heart of iron lurking just under the surface.

Being 'unevenly yoked' is not only a rule, but part of the social outlook of JW's. If your wife was an active JW in good standing who and was known to have started a relationship with a worldly person, then it's inconcievable she wouldn't have been counciled and been deemed 'spiritually weak' irregardless of where she lived.

If she was 'on the outer' at the time they may have felt she was not then part of the congregation which is a reason for taking limited action.

The style might well have been 'nice' enough not to have traumatised your wife, and that's your good luck. Maybe she didn't care, maybe she didn't notice, maybe she didn't tell you ... but if it was known, the JW's did treat her differently.

Once you were married and moved on, it's a different story. She was almost certainly be limited in what 'privilages' she'd be alowed to partake in, at least for a period of a few years. For example, if you tell me that she was approved as a Regular Pioneer in the same year she married you, I could not beleive that to be accurate.

As time goes on, the issue will loose currancy - regrdless of where you live - becuase you're married.

They're unlikley to stop your friend's GF becoming a JW, and they will probbaly be polite and friendly to her BF. If they marry, things will settle over time.

But in the meantime she will be treated differently, she will be restricted in what she can do and where she can go (both 'spiritually' and socially) and the motive will be to prevent her being 'unevenly yoked'.

The local elders might be nice about it, or they might be nasty. But they will act that way.

If they don't, let us know and we'll dob them into Mill Hill as likley future apostates... :)

Max

102

Witness World Response to Apostates

by DevonMcBride in

jw
friends

below is what was posted on witness world by polly pan.

i took euphemism's advice and others to protect my identity.

about a week ago it was brought to administrations attention that there may be apostates lurking on our board, as a precautionary measure we deleted 107 members who had never posted since they joined.

Max Divergent

I'm really surprised that you bother to sign up at JW sites still. It's a game that is quite tiresome. As soon as you start to post you reveal yourselves.

...but I've been posting as a JW for years and haven't been detected!!!!

Max - trained in evangelisim and redirecting hearts by the JW's themselves

(only joking )

12

Religious discrimination / judicial precedents?

by Narkissos in

jw
friends

in the context of a current european court trial, i?m trying to collect some international jurisprudential information.

apparently the wt instructions about df?d or da?d people (involving shunning by relatives and personal friends) can be legally questioned on the basis of the existing laws against religious discrimination.

on the other side, the wt might plead that, since its discipline rules are based on an interpretation of bible texts, they are protected by the principle of liberty of conscience.

Max Divergent

that all States [including all sectors of civil society] shall take effective measures to prevent and eliminate discrimination based on religion or belief through:
· Actions in all fields of civil, economic, political, social, cultural life;

So the declaration applies to SOCIAL as well as ecomonic (like employment etc) life... Still, how do you legislate to prevent people being barred by religious dictate from talking to each other in a social context? Also, w hat interest does the state have in how religious comunities interact socially? It's hard enough to get anti-descrimination legislation on economic matters!

DOH!!! Haven't we just gone to war over how religious communites interact? Isn't that the main casue of war? Hate manifested through strict interpritation of religious doctrine has it's ultimate expression in murder and terrorism, and that's certainly an area of life that government's have an interest in...

My wife said somthing interesting about her (former) level of belief in the JW's a while ago. She said that if she'd been asked to do a suicide bombing for the Congo, then there's a possibility she might have. I know she's not the only one who could consider such extreme acts.

I really do beleive there that if someone chose to and succeded in misusing the congregations, that there is the potential amongst some Witnesses to commit murder and acts terrorism on behalf of the organisation.

I think it's unlikley and improbable, but not impossible - these people are trained to exercise z eal and are taught that destruction and killing are part of God's Plan - it's just the belief that god does the killing and not the people that holds them back - and that's easily subjected to secret 'New Light' for a special form of secret 'full time service'.

They've felt the need before to publish in The Watchtower that Witnesses are not to kill opposers and apostates.

Just my thoughts...

14

Some random thoughts on WT pictures...

by logansrun in

jw
friends

in my experience i find that good literature in any field of thought rarely -- if ever -- uses pictures.

watchtower literature, on the other hand, is littered with illustrations.

makes a jw think twice of the quality of their message, no?

Max Divergent

I've always found the best magazines have many articles, and a few well chosen pictures...

alt

7

Hmmm what did i do...?

by medstudent in

jw
friends

my first question on the board... .

well i was browsing through the website of my former high school and i ran into an emailaddress of a former friend.

so i decided to email her.

Max Divergent

I think I define my religious status, not them. But probably a good idea to make sure she knows you're not one anymore. I've said before, 'Oh, I just see things a bit differently now...'.

Take care, Max

4

Doing law...

by Max Divergent in

jw
friends

while in a rare posting mood, may i just brag say that i scored the 99th percentile (top 1%) in the australian law school admission test of all candidates since 1996 recently!!!

i start the 3-year graduate course at deakin uni part-time external in next month.. i think there are some other budding lawyers out there too...whom shall we sue?

cheers, max.

Max Divergent

19

I love you - do I?

by donkey in

jw
friends

rather than participate in the thread asking if people really loved jehovah i have a different question to ask but it requires a contextual setting prior to being considered.

many posters here at one time loved jehovah and we know our concept of jehovah was that which was created as a result of wt teachings - only to find out that the teachings had no factual basis.

we can also observe people all over the world who worship idols or nature or other gods such as allah or vishnu etc and we know that these people are in love with a god who is not true - if their beliefs about who god is are untrue then they are logically in love with a concept as opposed to a real person or spirit being.

Max Divergent

Oh, I would have thought Love is somthing that can exist within oneself without he object of that love being a physical reality, or another entity capable of feeling love in return.

Just because the god turns out to be unreal dosn't cancel out the devotion or whatever a person felt and expressed and acted out while they beleived in that God.

Maybe it was a Love of less practical usefulness that a love of a real entity (of a lover, or your parents or whoever), but it was real while it lasted, I wouldn't devalue that experience in anyway.

Just becuse the object of our affection/devotion proves to be not to our expectation dosn't mean we didn't honour them with our love and experience that as a real thing - I think it'd be a waste of a precious thing if we wrote off good things as a result of disapointment.

There aren't many good things in the world, why write off the goodness in what we experience, even if all our hopes aren't fulfilled?

I say, enjoy the love of god that was experienced, place it high, and move on in seeking out more goodness to love freely, without inhabition, without regret and without second-guessing what was given freely and with joy for a benifit that might have now passed.

19

I love you - do I?

by donkey in

jw
friends

rather than participate in the thread asking if people really loved jehovah i have a different question to ask but it requires a contextual setting prior to being considered.

many posters here at one time loved jehovah and we know our concept of jehovah was that which was created as a result of wt teachings - only to find out that the teachings had no factual basis.

we can also observe people all over the world who worship idols or nature or other gods such as allah or vishnu etc and we know that these people are in love with a god who is not true - if their beliefs about who god is are untrue then they are logically in love with a concept as opposed to a real person or spirit being.

Max Divergent

I'm not sure I see a real link or dependecy between the concepts of God and Love, and find it hard to think that an emotion can be transfered or flow between individuals, as opposed to emotion being somthing developed within as a reslt of nature/nurture/somthing else/whatever... I can't MAKE you feel anything, nor can you MAKE me feel anything ...

You might be loving toward me, but I'll choose whether to be loving back or not... given donkey's aren't to my preference, chances are I'd run like hell whatever sort of advance you made ... but there are others here who might react differently... :-)

Cheers, Max