Posts by Chariklo

31

JW World Record - Youngest Baptism

by soiledumpling in

jw
friends

please let me know the age of the youngest child getting baptised.. i knew of a girl of 11 years.. .

Chariklo

There is an elder here who was baptised at 6. He's a nice chap, actually.

Thanks, Talesin, for your explanation. Would I be right then to think that the effect they can have is only on family, so it really has that effect who are JW's as part of a family group, network even taking into account friends?

If that's so, then one person "getting the truth" as some say wouldn't be so badly affected (though of course the longer they're in the bigger effect as the more friends they'd have.

have I got it right?

40

Fox News: bias anyone? (gas prices and the presidency)

by gubberningbody in

jw
friends

with gas prices on the rise the republicans and fox news are blaming it on obama.. .

but wait, back in 2008 when gas hit $4.11 a gallon they said just the opposite about bush: the president has no control over gas prices.. .

sure, "we report the news, you decide".

Chariklo

I'm now paying £1.46 a litre for diesel at the petrol pump. Plus, here in the UK, we pay an enormous fuel tax to the government on every litre we buy, yet fuel tax is going up again in August.

Scarcely Obama's fault.

http://www.petrolprices.com/the-price-of-fuel.html

This will give those of you across the Atlantic some idea of what we pay over here.

31

JW World Record - Youngest Baptism

by soiledumpling in

jw
friends

please let me know the age of the youngest child getting baptised.. i knew of a girl of 11 years.. .

Chariklo

There is no way to free yourself from the control that one little action gives the WT over you for the whole of your life, even if you are DF'd or DA'd they still call the shots.

Phizzy, how do they do that?

I think it was a faint awareness of something like this that made me refuse baptism last month, but for me it was only a vague feeling. I still don't see how it can be so, yet I see daily on this board that people feel like that.

How do they do it? How does it work?

Please excuse my ignorance.

7

When did JWs start saying that rejecting blood was a "main tenet" of their faith

by Shawn10538 in

i have been preparing to reply to dr. mark galantowicz's comment on kabc channel 7 for a few days now.

and it seems to me i read somewhere that it came out during some trial that for jws to be able to sue doctors over the blood issue, it had to be a "main tenet" of their faith.

but if anybody knows off hand it would be great.. growing up a jw pioneering and being at bethel, i would never have said that rejecting blood is a "main tenet" of my faith.

Chariklo

My study conductor taught me that soul=life, and that the blood carries the life, so it carries the soul.

40

Fox News: bias anyone? (gas prices and the presidency)

by gubberningbody in

jw
friends

with gas prices on the rise the republicans and fox news are blaming it on obama.. .

but wait, back in 2008 when gas hit $4.11 a gallon they said just the opposite about bush: the president has no control over gas prices.. .

sure, "we report the news, you decide".

Chariklo

Well, Fox News is yet another Rupert Murdoch, so what can you expect?

12

Why do JWs think God would kill these people?

by MrMonroe in

this article from the guardian is one of the most harrowing pieces of journalism i have read in a long, long time.

north koreans raised like rats in a cage, forced to work seven days a week, scavenge for food in cow manure, inform on family members to gain a tiny increase in their rations, tortured, starved, degraded .... which raises two big questions.. 1. why do jehovah's witnesses believe that these people would die at armageddon because they have not joined them in "god's organization"?

how can jehovah's witnesses think god would be so legalistic, so small-minded, that he would deprive those people of life in a peaceful paradise ... just because no brother in a shirt and tie has ever knocked on the door of their barracks and offered them a chance for a bible study?

Chariklo

My thoughts exactly, MrMonroe.

How this silly group of people can feel entitled to reduce God (assuming he exists) the Creator of the Universe, an all-wise, all-just, all-merciful and all-loving being to the small-minded, vengeful, easily offended, petty monster they portray him to be simply beggars belief.

It's more than ridiculous, it is culpably, wickedly cruel.

29

I am so confused by the JW's saying the UN is the 8th king

by booker-t in

jw
friends

has jw's always taught this that the un is the 8th king?

i just happen to stumble across the june study watchtower at my aunt's home and glanced throught the mag and saw this teaching.

i don't remember the jw's teaching this back when i was in.

Chariklo

bookmarking

13

An interesting twist on shunning - would they ever do this?

by therevealer in

the watchtower ?

february 1, 2012 11. making the needed changes in our lifestyle.

was not easy.

Chariklo

THE WATCHTOWER ? FEBRUARY 1, 2012 11

Making the needed changes in our lifestyle
was not easy. I had stopped growing tobacco
because doing so conflicts with Bible principles.
(2 Corinthians 7:1; James 2:8) It took
some time before we found acceptable employment
that provided a steady income.
Also, for many years after that, some of our
relatives refused to visit us. We tried to treat
them according to Bible principles by showing
them love. Eventually, the barriers came
down, and now our close relatives no longer shun us

Well spotted, therevealer!

I have a feeling that they are aware that the world, i.e. everyone else apart fropm JW's, are increasingly criticising this horrible practice. So they've turned fact on its head and are deliberately using the "shun" word to imply that it''s the world that does the shunning; the good Christians following the WT are merely seprating themselves from Satan's influence.

Propaganda, pure and simple.

21

Do they realize how stupid they look?

by jam in

jw
friends

a few years ago my aunt(my mom only living sibling).

invited me my brothers and sister for dinner.

my mom had.

Chariklo

This shunning is so very sad. I have a friend in her eighties who can't have anything to do with two grandsons because they were disfellowshipped when they were in their teens for the mildest of misdemeanours as students. In fact, only one did it...smoked a bit of pot I think...his brother just wouldn't condemn the older sibling and both were out. Neither wants to return.

That means too that their mother and father also have nothing to do with them and yes, the father is an elder. And yet these are nice people. How can anyone choose to have nothing to do with their children? I couldn't.

jam, that was a really funny story. Incredible, made good reading. I sawe it almost set out as in a situation comedy...had me chuckling away in front of the computer. Thanks!

48

Memorial - Why do i keep going?

by maisha in

every year i attend, missing only 5 in 50 years.. i do not attend meetings nor active in anyway, my family shun me,(all devote believers) but i do feel drawn to attend each year.

i am out for sure, but i no longer have faith, or a belief in any religous body as being approved by god.. i am so screwed up now i not sure if i believe in a creator!, let alone who or what that may be.. i was born into the truth, married into the truth and my ex is devote.. i could never return to the cult now seeing it for what it is.. i served, donated, slaved for years happy to do so as has all my family.. i went out of my way to get df, sort of a wanting to die act, of rejecting the society.. i used to sit in a movie in my youth and think, wow i am so lucky, all these people are going to die and i will live forever.. even just typing this gives release to my emotions,, lol,,, yea i have many emotions,,, many regrets, basically the organisation i followed and the instructions destroyed my life in every possible way.. the power plays that i witnessed within are what first woke me up,,,at first i let it go, forgiving those involved as brothers do.

but again and again power and position is and was the thing to have, you got the power you got everything.

Chariklo

OK, Eggnog, this is the last time I'm going to feed you by answering you in detail. FYI, I am writing at this moment in patient mode.

but I wrote only 26 words -- count them:

(1) The (2) Roman (3) Catholic (4) Church, (5) for (6) example, (7) who (8) has (9) its (10) own (11) beliefs (12) regarding (13) the (14) Eucharist, (15) teaches (16) the (17) Eucharistic (18) bread (19) to (20) be (21) a (22) symbol (23) of (24) the (25) church (26) community....

Please note that the passage I quoted from you in my previous post above contained 83 words. It ended with "...operative towards them". Hence my point, which perhaps you had difficulty understanding.

I wsas not so much concerned with defining Catholic doctrine, which in itself is of only passing interest at best to those on this forum, but to defiine it accurately to expose the ignorance in which you referred to it while presenting yourself as an authority to others. That is a feature of your posts in this thread and elsewhere, and has been commented on by others.

Jehovah's Witnesses, which is the denomination with which I am affiliated,

You think Jehovah's Witnesses are a denomination? They don't. They think they are a religion. Are you sure you are a JW and member of a JW congregation? (Many of us here think they are a cult.)

I don't know you very well and I haven't read all that many of your posts, but those I have read are very loud in telling people what the facts are.

You should really take the time to read my posts and if you should do this, you might want to read them carefully. I never stutter and I always mean what I say, even if I should throw in a few typos from time to time.

Rest assured, Eggnog, I had no thought that you stuttered. And be assured that I always read everything carefully. I've now read many more of your posts, far from all but quite as many as I choose to.

This is Maisha's thread. Most posters here have written with empathy and concern for him. Empathy and concern for others are a feature of this forum, one of its great strengths. I do not detect those qualities in your posts, such as I have read.

Within this thread you have been conspicuously lacking in kindness to other posters including those who are troubled, and maybe less tough than others. This is not the first time within this thread that posters other than myself have brought you to task for your attitude.

They seem to me to have it right.

Maisha, I apologise for allowing myself to be sidetracked within your thread. What I wrote to you before atill applies, and maybe these later posts, especially anything typifying the WT approach, will confirm for you that this year you might do well just not to turn up at the Memorial. Basically, anything but that could be a better option!