Remember Rod Spinks from the Australian Royal Commission?
He had a bus drivers licence back in the day and he used to organise groups of young ones to take on tours. You could only go if you were a pioneer, or he deemed you to be of good character.
i'm trying to remember if these parties were a direct instruction from hq or if this was something on a local level.. i remember i attended at least 2 of these parties and we also would bring them gifts.
i saw them no different than a bday party (elevating someone to idolatry level).. if anyone else remembers these parties please let me know.
if there's a letter out there somewhere from hq that would be even better.
Remember Rod Spinks from the Australian Royal Commission?
He had a bus drivers licence back in the day and he used to organise groups of young ones to take on tours. You could only go if you were a pioneer, or he deemed you to be of good character.
yes, bible prophecies suggest that there would be disasters during “the conclusion of the system of things,” or “the last days.” (matthew 24:3; 2 timothy 3:1) for example, concerning our time, jesus said: “there will be food shortages and earthquakes in one place after another.” (matthew 24:7).
that from their website this morning.. i see how they've morphed (by interpretation) food shortages and earthquakes into virtually all bad happenings today.. i'll bet if the "blue bonnet" (one elder's fractured pronunciation of bubonic during a public talk, using it not once but three times) plague, one of which happened nearly 700 years ago -- was going on today, it would be a sign of the times.
after all, it "caused the death of 60% of the population of europe".. no natural devastation like that seen since..
Religious people get turned on by all the big stuff that is bad in the world and point to any major news event as evidence that the end is nigh.
If Jesus was real, and responsible for creating everything, as JW's believe, why didn't he mention the mosquito?
Some people estimate that malaria has quietly killed almost half the human beings that have ever lived and put the estimated deaths from this illness at 50 billion.
That figure makes the deaths from all the wars ever fought in history look like a footnote.
someone on facebook is claiming to have reliable information that the gb is about to announce new light on the 144,000 -- that it's symbolic, not literal.. one person suggested that they will retain the two-class teaching and just change the meaning of 144,000. his idea was that the change would avoid three problems with the current teaching:.
1. embarrassment over more and more partakers at the memorial when the number should be getting less and less.. 2. embarrassment over 12 symbolic 12,000s somehow equaling a literal 144,000.. 3. solving the problem of running out of "anointed" ones who are old enough to be on the gb.. thoughts?.
Are they still publishing the attendance figures?
Weren't there a few posts here that discussed the abandonment of the yearbook and publishing/ memorial attendance reports?
Not publishing memorial partakers numbers would go a long way to solving this problem for the GB. Out of sight, out of mind. Future JW's will just say, 'wow, we used to know how many partakers there were- how cute'.
so i just finished watching the latest cedars video on spanking children.
i like lloyd, and think that overall he does a good job covering issues in his videos.
but i've gotta disagree with him on this issue, to a point.. i don't agree with beating your children, but i do believe in spanking, when appropriate.
Im not a parent but I was raised in the twilight period of spanking in the western world, the 70's and 80's.
I last got caned across the hands in 1986 at school in Australia.
It must be a little difficult for anyone that was spanked or belted by their parents to adjust now to non-physical discipline.
***this is not my story.
it's a newspaper article.
source follows.***.
many years ago i started a thread entitled 'a religion with nothing to celebrate' (https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/80630/religion-nothing-celebrate).. prior to about the year 2000, our congregation met in what had previously been an old church.
we purchased it and even though we had little cash, made the place beautiful.
it had real character, with beautiful wood work and we even managed to keep some of the stained glass windows as they weren't religious in nature.
Reminds me of an international assembly in 2003 in Sydney. 60000 people packed into a stadium in summer with little shade cover. Sitting on seats for days that became uncomfortable after 1 hour.
The worst part was that even though they speak of a brotherhood, there was no way to celebrate it.
The crowds were so bad it made it almost impossible to meet up with friends and family who had come from all over the country and had not seen each other for years. An elderly relative of mine had travelled 3 days on a bus to attend.
On Sunday the speaker cut into lunch by 20 minutes and this time wasn't added to the lunch break to make up for it so people could catch up.
It took about 40 mins and 2 trains to get to the Olympic stadium from the city and then another 15 mins to walk and find a seat.
We were all told to bring our lunch with us and take our litter home with us as no bins were provided. You can imagine how pleasant it was carrying leftover tuna sandwiches home on the train after a day in the Australian summer sun. We were also encouraged not to eat at any of the restaurants around the venue like McDonald's.
The whole event was a PR exercise for the organisation with no arrangements for anyone to socialise. It could have been an event to fondly remember but of course it wasn't.
even if your fed up with “religion” , i don’t want to see christians persecuted.
it’s happening in many parts of the world and it’s so wrong.
.
Religion has always given the average person courage to act like this life is just a practice run for the real life. With this in mind they will happily kill or be killed for their beliefs.
All religions are the same in the sense that they all offer their members an opportunity to cheat death.
i have been listening to podcasts by dan carlin and his excellent series on persia and the spartans, called king of kings.. its a refreshing way to hear unbiased accounts of history, untainted by religious beliefs.. a part of the podcast dealt with the jews but it put into perspective their place in world history and events.
pretty much just another tribe- sometimes rebellious, allowed to exist under the rule of a major power, allowed to worship their own gods exactly like the other tribes around them.. another part that caught my interest was the account of slavery and it made me think about the way wt and other christian religions have tried to reconcile the idea that it was ok in those days for jews to own slaves because they had laws to protect the slaves.. the podcast made me realise a lot of apologists of slavery obviously forget how a person becomes a slave in the first place.
apologists like wt say it was ok because it was part of the economy and the way life was, which totally skips over the important part.. after a war, when most of the men were killed or wounded on the battlefield by the winning side, whoever was left, men, women and preferably young virgins, were taken back to the homeland of the victors and sold at the slave markets.
Sea Breeze, I read as much of your link as I could but I have to admit, as soon as I noticed it came from a site called 'the Christian think tank', I knew it was going to be biased. A bit like Jewish researchers writing a paper defending the relevance of male circumcision in the 21st century.
I understand that being a slave in the ancient near East didn't mean you spent your life in chains and got a whipping every other day. Slaves in a lot of cases were like employees but without the same rights as their owners. I'm sure some slaves had it better living in a big town working for a nice family than where they grew up.
However, armies of the day depended on capturing slaves to help finance their war campaigns. Slaves were sold like donkeys or chickens for gold. The capturing of slaves was a brutal and traumatic event.
i have been listening to podcasts by dan carlin and his excellent series on persia and the spartans, called king of kings.. its a refreshing way to hear unbiased accounts of history, untainted by religious beliefs.. a part of the podcast dealt with the jews but it put into perspective their place in world history and events.
pretty much just another tribe- sometimes rebellious, allowed to exist under the rule of a major power, allowed to worship their own gods exactly like the other tribes around them.. another part that caught my interest was the account of slavery and it made me think about the way wt and other christian religions have tried to reconcile the idea that it was ok in those days for jews to own slaves because they had laws to protect the slaves.. the podcast made me realise a lot of apologists of slavery obviously forget how a person becomes a slave in the first place.
apologists like wt say it was ok because it was part of the economy and the way life was, which totally skips over the important part.. after a war, when most of the men were killed or wounded on the battlefield by the winning side, whoever was left, men, women and preferably young virgins, were taken back to the homeland of the victors and sold at the slave markets.
I have been listening to podcasts by Dan Carlin and his excellent series on Persia and the Spartans, called king of kings.
Its a refreshing way to hear unbiased accounts of history, untainted by religious beliefs.
A part of the podcast dealt with the Jews but it put into perspective their place in world history and events. Pretty much just another tribe- sometimes rebellious, allowed to exist under the rule of a major power, allowed to worship their own gods exactly like the other tribes around them.
Another part that caught my interest was the account of slavery and it made me think about the way WT and other Christian religions have tried to reconcile the idea that it was ok in those days for Jews to own slaves because they had laws to protect the slaves.
The podcast made me realise a lot of apologists of slavery obviously forget how a person becomes a slave in the first place. Apologists like WT say it was ok because it was part of the economy and the way life was, which totally skips over the important part.
After a war, when most of the men were killed or wounded on the battlefield by the winning side, whoever was left, men, women and preferably young virgins, were taken back to the homeland of the victors and sold at the slave markets. Sometimes their cities or villages were destroyed after being plundered, their livestock taken or killed. I imagine this must have been hell for the losers. A young girl for example might have just lost every male relative she had on the battlefield and whoever survived were probably separated and sold and ended up scattered. If that wasn't bad enough, she has just seen her entire village burned and destroyed. All of her life taken away, all her friends and family gone.
At this point she is now at the slave markets waiting for a new owner, maybe a Yahweh worshipping Jewish guy, to buy her. Such a loving arrangement.
there’s now a measles outbreak.
there is a jewish sect in new york that refuses vaccines.
some parents do not want their children vaccinated..
Anytime someone in the family has a baby these days, we are all banned from getting too close in case we pass on measles, mumps or whopping cough.
The millennial parents seem to forget we all caught these diseases as kids and are immune.