please post any examples of clear cut watchtower deception.
my wife does not believe that the watchtower would purposely decieve her.
i need clearcut examples of deception of by the wtbts.
...oh, one more thought.
Lots of JWs hold that members of the governing body are imperfect men who are infallable in matters of doctrine. That's a fun topic. They will tell you that this is true for the WTB&TS and untrue for the Roman Catholic Church. Mix that with the theory of "new light" and you have a real wrasslin' match on your hands.
please post any examples of clear cut watchtower deception.
my wife does not believe that the watchtower would purposely decieve her.
i need clearcut examples of deception of by the wtbts.
JWs are taught to accept any change as a progressive revelation (new light). What would your wife accept as proof that would not cause the "new light reflex" to kick in? I think this varies from person to person; some are completely incapable of admitting they've been deceived. This is not an uncommon psychology - it is very common for investors to ride their "hot stocks" right down to $0.00 rather than cut their losses, admit they were wrong, and live to see another day.
Maybe it would be helpful to find out what she believes the WTB&TS has that makes it "The TRUYH". Some think that the WTB&TS is the faithful & discreet slave." Some think the WTB&TS "predicted" 1914. Some think that the JWs aversion to war makes them special.
NONE of those claims are legitimate.
First find out your wife's key concepts about the Watchtower, then find out what her definition of PROOF is. Then make your case and hope that she has the strength of character to accept that she has been duped.
The book CAPTIVES OF A CONCEPT does a marvelous job bursting the "FDS" myth, by the way.
our friend, oompa, has passed away.
just recieved the news a couple of hours ago, and have almost no details.
it happened today or yesterday, he took his own life.
Damn.
I didn't know OOPMPA; it was here that I learned that his name was Eric, that he lived in North Carolina, that he was 51 years old and that he hanged himself.
He sufferred greatly by being associated with a mind-control cult, but his own most recent posts suggest that it was perhaps the economy that drove him to this irrevocable tragic act.
About a month ago he wrote:
"...i am finding the adjustment to the real world far more difficult than i ever imagined... HOW have YOU done at replacing lifelong friends and family? to make things worse i have no siblings nor aunts uncles nor cousins as both my parents were only children too...and of course i never kept up with high school friends like most jws...so i have a TINY support system going here... and is anybody now way too afraid of getting old??? IT SUCKS!!!... so much loss and pain...that i even thought of a last dich effort to save my marriage by going back to the...gag...kindom hall! so now u know i am really really struggling...ugh..it would kill me just to try and i would wear the purple H deservedly...but my life would be soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much easier and wealthier and omg would get a wonderful wife back....in case nobody rememers i have always said she walks on water...but stubbon and unreasoning...omg...
this is more than just a whine...i am increasingly challanged and am having serious thoughts about going back for some stability i need in my life....but part of me thinks i would die inside...i may be at a crossroads....amazingly an old jw childhood friend who went to bethel and came a few years later and became a ragin apostate (johnny held)...he has been out like 30 years and has ome back....now i hear he was attending for THREE YEARS before they let him back in....mine would be five at least lol....actually i am crying inside..
and talk about bad luck i just lost my biggest customer and had to lay off four good employees today....im lower than low..."
I don't know what business he was in, and it is clear that he needed a larger group of friends and family than he had.
well if someone came to you saying they were going to sacrifice one of thier children to god because god spoke to them telling them to do so what would you conclude?
would you tell him to be faithfull to the voice and do it so they can become god's friend like abraham was?.
http://www.voiceofdharma.org/books/pp/ch2.htm.
People are best judged with conideration of their TIME And PLACE. I do not believe a historical "Abraham" ever existed. I believe he is a fictional character created by the real and anonymous writers of the Bible. However it may be, Abraham is supposed to have been born about 1900 BC according to people who like Usher's (not the musician, the theologian) chronology.
The Bible story tells us that in Abraham's world, child sacrifice was not uncommon. Baal and his crew like baby back bbq.
Abraham was not a modern post-renaissance man, he was a wandering goatherder, with a goatherder's grasp of the world and his place in it.
So I would not say he was crazier than his neighbors who gave their children to "the gods." Death in that sandbox hellhole was paradise compared to the realities of day-to-day survival.
Another view is that just as the story of Cain and Abel showed the dawn of agriculture over a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, so the story of Abraham showed that man moved from sacrificing his children to "the gods" to sacrificing animals. This small change in mindset made it more likely that mankind would persist on earth, otherwise known as Deathworld.
That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it unless Leolaia or Farkel can convince me otherwise.
i talked about this on gophers post about you cannot live forever on paradise earth, but thought i would start a separate one as i need an old timer who can remember attending a witness wedding in the 1950s.
gopher asked
: what happens if the earth (in such a paradise) reaches the point of overpopulation, meaning there are not enough food and other resources available for continued growth?
From 1932, Bible Expert Judge Rutherford discourses on "HOME AND HAPPINESS" in paper or as e-book:
it was made by a women who in later years wore crotchless panties and bras which had holes in the nipple areas.
he not only knew the woman in question (she's now deceased), he has met her numerous times.
up until recently this secret of her year's long sexual affair with rutherford was kept by the family.
Is it un-theocratic to be a member of "the Pepsi generation?"
i talked to duane and he mentioned that due to the abundance of damning material he has on file that can be used in a court against the society....it is not uncommon for the society to coerce the "believing" parent into signing it.
it is basically an injunction that says that the "believing" parent is not allowed to take the kids to any meetings or discuss any society based beliefs with them at all until the children are of "legal" age.
based on the litany of info against them......evidently the society gladly coerces the "believing" parent into signing it.....even though they know it means that the "little sheep" (the children) will be kept away from the meetings.
James Woods asked, " BTW - who exactly is this Duane Magnani?"
Duane Magnani was a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses for eighteen years. After he became a Christian (Roman Catholic) in 1974, he founded Witness, Inc. He has also published a book, THE WATCHTOWER FILES, which can be purchased used on Amazon for as little as $0.01. He has an ENORMOUS collection of Watchtower publications and WATCHTOWER criticisms. He is extremely knowledgable but prefers that anyone dealing with him fully agree with and support his opinions and choices, in my opinion. If you choose to work with him, agree with everything he says, and do not dare suggest that you might be an atheist.
A google search on his name will reveal so me of his more recent activity and some photos.
i dont remember the date.
or the year or if it was a district or circuit.
what i do remember is that we rode up with a car full of other female witnesses.
ShirleyW said, " NN - You must've been at either Yankee Stadium or Shea Stadium, the Polo Grounds were looonnngg gone by the 70's."
Pardon me. my lapse is showing... probably it was the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens then. My old mind fails me.
i woke up and nearly put my foot on a 2ft long snake that somehow got up to the 2nd floor.
i screamed and ran out of the room and started crying.
i hate snakes and am terrified of them.
Garter snakes are harmless. They do have teeth and can bite you, but they have no venom. A bite should be cleaned well with antiseptic.
It is more likely that the snake will be afraid of you, and if you were to pick him up, he would demonstrate his fear by evacuating his bowels. i know this from personal experience and it smells pretty bad.
Lastly, I feel there has to be some kind of pithy saying we can derive from this. I'm thinking of something like, "Lie down with _____, wake up with serpents."
one possible scenario for future manned exploration of mars is that the astronauts would be given what amounts to a "one-way ticket" with enough fuel and supplies to get them there and keep them alive but with no plans to return them to earth.. this may strike our modern sinsibilities as an absurd requirement for a mission, and yet it is not much different from what prospect was faced by ocean voyagers during the "age of exploration" right here on earth.
comments?
if you were able to qualify, would you be willing to do this?.
To elaborate a little on the conditions of my fantastic voyage: I am assuming the development of a sufficiently advanced "bio-dome" technology that would allow the Martian Explorers a sustainable environment "to time indefinite" assuming no catastrophic system failures. If there was a catastrophic system failure, assume everyone dies, just as they do in our terran environment.
I kije cedars' response since it is close to what my own would be. For a crew with "the right stuff" psychologically, this would assure a place in history.
If I met the prerequisites for such an adventure, I think I'd do it. Of course the "me" of here-and-now does NOT qualify in many ways, so I'm pretty sure no-one from NASA will be knocking on my door anytime soon.
