Posts by fugue

19

My 6 year old seen sparlock

by twinkle toes in

jw
friends

so, sparlock and the other video's have been a topic of conversation around our house these days.

my 6 year old has been around and evesdropping every chance he can.

he keeps asking to see the video and i keep saying that even though it's a cartoon, it's not suitable for children.

fugue

twinkle: how long have you been out? Was your 6-year-old ever exposed to meetings, service, etc.?

I'm just curious, because my oldest is 6, and we were fully "in" as witnesses until he was about 4 1/2 years old. When we stopped going to meetings, he wanted to know why we weren't going. Same with Saturday morning service. It's been about a year and a half since we stopped, and we explained to him early on that we just didn't go to that church any more because we didn't agree with the things they taught. He's completely fine with it... but every so often, he says things like "Did jehovah make trees?" etc. We answer with something like, "Some people believe that. Other people aren't sure." Or something like that.

But I'm wondering how long his memories of his jehovah indoctrination will persist. I keep hoping he'll outgrow it and forget about it. I would LOVE to have an experience like yours, where he doesn't know who jehovah is... maybe it's my boss, etc.

My younger two kids won't know who jehovah is... one was 2 1/2, the other was six months old when we left.

19

Is the new brochure cover a ripoff of a Lord of the Rings book cover?

by fugue in

jw
friends

this was actually first spotted by a good dub over on jw talk.

i find it amusing, to say the least.. .

fugue

This was actually first spotted by a good dub over on JW Talk. I find it amusing, to say the least.

14

Sparlock Returns? A Clue To The Fate Of Sparlock From The Video

by DT in

jw
friends

i apologize if someone already pointed this out.. at the end of the wt sparlock video, we find that sparlock has been dumped in the garbage bin, seemingly with no means of escape while caleb is distracted by his evil nonstepmother's invitation to go ride bikes.. however, something happens at the very end to provide a subtle clue that the story is not over!.

here is the video.

i suggest watching from 2:12. pay special attention from 2:39. .

fugue

41

Clueless Attempt at Information Control In New Brochure

by LostGeneration in

on page 28 of the "who are doing the watchtower's will today" brochure they outline their website, and how great and grand it is.

then down in the lower right corner they print this:.

a note of caution:.

fugue

Imagine you run "Bob's Burger Shack." A rival restaurant, "Bill's Grill," spreads negative information about you: "Bob's Burger Shack uses cat and dog meat in their burgers", "Bob's Burger Shack employs illegal immigrants," "Bob's Burger Shack failed their health inspection because they have dead rats in the kitchen."

IF THOSE RUMORS WERE UNTRUE, wouldn't Bob be wise to specifically address them and give evidence to prove that they're wrong? "It has been alleged that we use cat and dog meat. However, we buy our meat directly from Smith Cattle Farm on Highway 11. Also, the other allegations made against us are false. Our Health Inspection certificate is on display in our dining room, and all of our workers are documented."

BUT... what would you think if Bob just refused to address the allegations, instead posting a sign in his dining room: "There are many false accusations about our restaurant on our competitors' websites. We should avoid those sites."

Wouldn't that make you feel like there was something Bob didn't want you to see? Wouldn't you wonder if the "false allegations" were actually true?

So... why won't the washtowel actually address the "false information by opposers"? Why try to intimidate everyone into not even looking?

(Of course, we all know the answer to that question: because the information that's out there is TRUE, and the most damning information was written by the wtbts!

27

Success with the Holocaust Museum!

by rebel8 in

jw
friends

background: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/134406/1.ashx.

i just got a letter from the museum saying they have added all documents i donated to their archives, and they have m. james penton's book in the archive as well!.

activism does work sometimes!

fugue

Bumping a 4-year-old thread....

Can someone point me to a more complete discussion of this? The link in the OP is broken. What documents were added and/or removed? I'm really curious.

36

Today's wt study article quotes a Nazi mass murderer as a reference

by fugue in

today's study article, "do not look at the things behind," from the 3/15/12 study edition, which was reviewed by blondie in her thread, has a footnote on paragraph 12.. the original-language word here translated refuse.

also meant what is thrown to the dogs,.

dung, excrement.

fugue

@dgp: That's actually a tough call. Just because he held extreme political views doesn't necessarily discredit his scholarly work as a theologian. Apparently the wtbts doesn't have a problem with the ethics of using his work, despite the fact that he was a Nazi. I would think the wtbts would reject the work of Nazi party members, since they are so proud of the fact that they stood their ground against the Nazis (according to their rewritten version, anyway.)

BTW I searched the WT Library CD ROM and they have been quoting Kittel for years now. So I did some more Googling, and I found a couple of sites that claim that the wtbts misquotes and misrepresents the actual views of Kittel. This site: http://www.bible.ca/trinity/trinity-Kittel.htm asserts that the wt's "Trinity" brochure misrepresents Kittel as someone who didn't think that the trinity had a scriptural basis.

That's standard protocol for the wtbts. They have always misrepresented the views and beliefs of their sources.

But going back to your post... no, there is no direct correlation between the man's political life and his religious writings.

It just seems to me that j-ho and the holy spirit should be able to find quote-worthy sources who were NOT Nazis. I mean, they're the ones directing the writing of this stuff, right?

36

Today's wt study article quotes a Nazi mass murderer as a reference

by fugue in

today's study article, "do not look at the things behind," from the 3/15/12 study edition, which was reviewed by blondie in her thread, has a footnote on paragraph 12.. the original-language word here translated refuse.

also meant what is thrown to the dogs,.

dung, excrement.

fugue

Today's study article, "Do Not Look At The Things Behind," from the 3/15/12 study edition, which was reviewed by Blondie in her thread, has a footnote on paragraph 12.

The original-language word here translated “refuse”
also meant what “is thrown to the dogs,”
“dung,” “excrement.” One Bible scholar says that
Paul’s use of this word denotes a “resolute turning
aside from something worthless and abhorrent with
which one will have nothing more to do.”

Blondie pointed out that the wt, as usual, refuses to tell us the name of the bible scholar. But as Blondie pointed out, the scholar was someone named Gerhard Kittel, and the book was the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament .

So... who was Gerhard Kittel? Wikipedia doesn't have much on him, but what's there is very enlightening:

Gerhard Kittel (September 23, 1888, Breslau—July 11, 1948) was a German Protestant theologian, lexicographer of biblical languages, and open anti-Semite. [1] He is best known in academic circles for his Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament).

The son of acclaimed Old Testament scholar Rudolf Kittel, he married Hanna Untermeier in 1914, but there were no children from the union. In May 1933 he joined the National Socialist German Workers Party . A Professor of Evangelical Theology and New Testament at the University of Tübingen, he published "scientific" studies depicting the Jewish people as the historical enemy of Germany, Christianity, and European culture in general. From 1940 to 1943 he actively assisted in the mass murder of Jews in Poland .[citation needed]

In 1945, after Hitler's Third Reich capitulated to the Allies, Kittel was arrested by the French occupying forces, removed from office and interned at Balingen. William F. Albright wrote the International War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg in early 1946, "In view of the terrible viciousness of his attacks on Judaism and the Jews, which continues at least until 1943, Gerhard Kittel must bear the guilt of having contributed more, perhaps, than any other Christian theologian to the mass murder of Jews by Nazis." Nonetheless, in 1946 Kittel was released pending his trial. He was forbidden to enter Tübingen until 1948, however. From 1946 to 1948 he was a Seelsorger (soul carer) in Beuron. In 1948 he was allowed back into Tübingen, but died that year before the criminal proceedings against him could be resumed.

Kittel was a Nazi who was responsible for murdering Jews.

Good source to use in a study article.

44

Latest WT: "Facebook = a powerful medicine"??

by cedars in

ok, i think the writing department has well and truly lost the plot now!.

on page 14 of the august 15th watchtower, there is an extensive section on the perils of the internet, with the caption "do you heed bible-based warnings about the internet?

" in large intimidating letters.

fugue

The wtbts never lets facts get in the way of a good story.

"For decades, the faithful slave class has warned us about such sites. How grateful we are for these spiritual health alerts!"

I searched the CD ROM, and the first time the word "internet" appeared is 1995:

*** g95 11/8 p. 29 Watching the World ***
Computer Porn Available to Children
As Australian schools connect up to the Internet global information network, they are also linking up to what amounts to a moral minefield. According to The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, they can access “X-rated photos of nude children, orgies, video clips from on-line brothels, a ‘bill of rights’ for people wishing to have sex with animals—and information on how to join a masturbation ‘chat-line.’” The article adds: “Passwords or proof of age were not required—just an ordinary dial-up connection.” Experts say it is impossible to censor the network “because its structure was designed . . . by the US Defence Department to survive a nuclear war.” The data is not tidily located in one spot but is mirrored on thousands of data bases around the world. Recently a Swedish researcher counted 5,651 messages or postings about child pornography in just four news groups in one week.

So they have been warning about such sites for 16.5 years, not "decades.

I thought they had a research team that spends countless hours fact-checking everything they write.

32

Pioneers and Their Way of Counting "Time"

by Eiben Scrood in

jw
friends

in the congregations in my area there was an expression to the effect that 'there's counting time and then there's the way pioneers count their time'.

the watchtower's guidelines were pretty strict on when time could be counted.

some pioneers followed it and others didn't.. on particularly motivated young man comes to mind, he would work full-time or close to it and pioneer.

fugue

I learned lots of funny stuff from older, long-time pioneers. Another trick I learned was "The Pioneer Shuffle." One morning, this other pioneer and I were doing walking territory. As we would walk along the sidewalk to the next house, I kept walking faster than him and I would have to slow down. Finally he said: "You need to learn The Pioneer Shuffle. You have to walk reeeeeaally slow, like this. If you're doing The Pioneer Shuffle correctly, people will have to compare you to the mailboxes to see which one is moving faster."

Soooooo... I learned The Pioneer Shuffle. If you walked slowly enough, and stopped between houses to "make notes" and talk enough... you could drag out your time considerably. A block that should have taken 20 minutes can take an hour or more.

32

Pioneers and Their Way of Counting "Time"

by Eiben Scrood in

jw
friends

in the congregations in my area there was an expression to the effect that 'there's counting time and then there's the way pioneers count their time'.

the watchtower's guidelines were pretty strict on when time could be counted.

some pioneers followed it and others didn't.. on particularly motivated young man comes to mind, he would work full-time or close to it and pioneer.

fugue

When I pioneered, I was friends with an older sister who had been pioneering for ages. One morning, she and I were discussing how difficult it was for me to make my time. She gave me this advice: "Come up with your own way of counting time... whatever works for you." Then she lowered her voice and said: "Never discuss your way of counting time with other pioneers." I got what she was saying, and I followed her advice. By the time I stopped pioneering, I was VERY liberal with my method of counting time. Some mornings, I would start counting from the moment I woke up, and not stop counting until I came home and took off my dress clothes. I just knew to never, ever talk about it with other pioneers.