NotBlind

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Posts by NotBlind

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  9

  STRATTON Mayor Pissed Off

  by MadApostate in

  1. social
  2. current

  march 23, 2002. town take its no-door-to-door pitch to the top.

  by francis x. clines.

  stratton, ohio this village's wariness of the door-to-door solicitors denounced locally as "flim-flam men" has drawn the scrutiny of the u.s. supreme court, a fact that turns out to be a cause of local pride rivaling the steak dinners at abdalla's tavern.. "but we'll have even more pride if the court finally agrees with us," said john m. abdalla, the mayor, magistrate, steakhouse host and tireless factotum in this village of 277 residents.

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  NotBlind

  Who the hell are "Jehovah's"? I thought it was Jehovah's Witnesses...

  It makes an otherwise great letter look very hokey.
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  5

  There's as many inactive JW's as actives....

  by TheApostleAK in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  joelbear said:.

  the news report posted in the news section indicates about 1% of americans identify as jehovah's witnesses, that is about 3 million just in the us.

  so even though they are inactive, 2 million people still adhere to the beliefs enough to identify it as their religious affiliation.. in australia we just had a consensus and the number of people in this country that say they're jw's is 95,000 (can't remember the number exactly).....the only trouble is that there is only about 58,000 active jw's according to the wt..... anyone know their countries story??.

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  NotBlind

  Perhaps the JW's will take a hint from the Freemasons and have 'degrees' of service.

  Half-degree JW - Only hates JW's mildly
  1st degree JW - Takes the mags
  2nd degree JW - Return visit/ Bible Study
  3rd degree JW - Unbaptized pub
  4th degree JW - Inactive
  5th degree JW - Apostate / JWD Visitor
  6th degree JW - Baptized Newbie
  7th degree JW - Pioneer
  8th degree JW - MS
  9th degree JW - Elder
  10th degree JW - CO/DO
  11th degree JW - GB/Christ/God/Branch Overseer/Bethelite

  This way, if they count all degrees, they can count just about EVERYONE!!!
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  8

  The future for the WT...

  by TheApostleAK in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  sociologically speaking as a religion, the jw's are at a threshold of continued cultishness and obscurity, or re-oriontation to a more 'mainline' christian religion with its own unique distinctiveness.

  i say the wt will take the middle ground....

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  NotBlind

  Topic: The future for the WT...

  You mean the WTS has a future?
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  5

  memorial season

  by sleepy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  well memorial season is upon us again.

  (the witnesses like to think of one day as a season).

  the jehovahs witnesses have by and large bypassed crazy ceremonies, but something that started off as almost sane has turned to the bizarre.. on the 28 march around the world groups of witnesses will be passing a glass of red wine , and a plate of unlevened bread amongst each and every person in attendance .if you are lucky, you may spot a witness nervously sip the wine and nibble the bread, but most likely the wine and bread will be left untouched.. what a crazy thing to do.. does the bead and wine really need to be passed between all people present (sometimes numbering into the hundreds) when the witness belief is that only 1444,00 have ever been able to partake?.

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  NotBlind

  Well memorial season is upon us again.(the witnesses like to think of one day as a season)

  I always thought this term "Memorial Season" was rather weird. I tried to avoid it. Season, season, season!

  'Tis the Season! Christmas Season. Memorial Season. Baseball Season. Get my drift?
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  12

  Memorial Scrabbling

  by Demitrius in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  well they are scabbling around to find as many people to attend the memorial again this year.. i walked out 3.5 years ago and have not heard anything since from the elders.

  i have one that lives about 50 metres away and he is one that has not even telephoned me in all that time.

  .. just the other night he turns up on my door step and hands me the usual invite!

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  NotBlind

  we need to invite EVERYONE to the Memorial.
  Workmates. Classmates. People we see in the supermarket. On the bus. On the train. EVERYONE!

  Hmmm, sounds like they're getting desperate, because as little as 10 or 15 years ago, they specifically said that JW's should take some time to explain the Memorial & emblems to the poor dupe so they would know not to partake. I guess that's out the window, since they're supposed to invite every Tom, Dick, and Harry they find.

  New light on the Memorial maybe??
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  37

  A suggestion for discrediting the Society

  by RunningMan in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in this forum, we often wonder what we can do to make the society look bad.

  we come up with ideas like picketing assemblies, mail campaigns, legal action, and many others.

  although these ideas are laudable and i would not want to discourage anyone, they sometimes create sympathy for the witnesses, and make us look bitter and fanatical.

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  NotBlind

  Running Man,

  These points are very good and very true. In other words, just give the Society about six feet of rope, and they'll hang themselves.

  And, of course, a little publicity never hurt, either.
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  51

  Pet Peeves

  by patio34 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  anyone have any pet peeves they'd like to air?

  here's one that just happened at work that is an annoyance for me: when you are speaking and the person interrupts the conversation with a corny play on words or the like.

  for example, "i had to sit on the phone on hold for about 5 minutes, waiting .

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  NotBlind

  My pet peeves:

  *Wrong numbers who call me on the phone then hang up. If you don't have the decency to at least say something, then get rid of your damn phone!!

  *Dumb people who can't seem to stay in their lane on a two-lane road. Don't drive on my side of the double line!! Aarrrgh!!
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  32

  Kingdom Ministry School for Congregational Elders

  by Kent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  kingdom ministry school for congregational elders.

  for the 2002 service year .

  hi folks!.

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  NotBlind

  Good job, Kent.
  I'd like to consider making CD's of this meeting available to those who are interested when I get it all downloaded.
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  24

  questions about obtaining Higher Education for JWs

  by AjaxMan in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have read a couple of threads the last couple of days that dealt with what you have to give up when becoming a jw.. most posts that i read said they have to give up getting a higher education.

  my question is this: is that still a trend today?

  that elders frown or discourage young jws from going to college or university by telling them to put kingdom's interest first?

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  NotBlind

  Although the WT publications meant for the public (Asleep! and Watchtower) have lightened up on higher education in the last 10 years, very rarely have they actually used the words 'university' or 'college'. Instead, they use the term 'supplementary education'. I tend to think they use this term to encourage some type of limited vocational course, as opposed to a traditional university education.

  The Society has never ENCOURAGED university learning though, as INTERNAL publications (Kingdom Ministry & talk outlines) strongly discourage, even condemning it. Therefore, the Society gives the public the impression they are pro-education, where the facts speak otherwise.

  In addition, as I know from personal experience, most who are a full-time college students will have a VERY HARD time in the congregation, and will most likely be alienated or left out of the social scene. (At least this is my experience.)
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  17

  Are there any scholars in the society?

  by sleepy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was having quite an intense disscussion (ok, argument )with some of my family last weekend.. my brother said in answer to some points that i raised , that the society has scholars who do research and will have the answer to my questions.. i said i know of no sholars in the society, he said thats because the world does not recognise them as such.what i ment (but did not continue saying as the conversation changed direction , again) was that the people who do research and study for the society arent really scholars as they are not free to look for the real truth only to confirm what the society says.their skills are really knowledge of the societies beliefs.. well it is true that a scholar is just someone who has a great knowledge of a particular subject.so you could argue that the society does have scholars as they are people with great knowledge of the organistaions rules .but what must people would mean my scholars are people who put a great deal of time and effort into research and study of an issue as to whether it is true or false, real or make believe.. can the society have scholars in that sense?.

  well a recent watchtower article stated that we could not even have private opinions on bibles matters.. in order to research whether a certain witness view point was valid or not you would have to entertain the idea that a certain viewpoint could be wrong.

  but this would put you at odds with the society , as you cannot think differently even privately your own opinions on bible matters.

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  NotBlind

  Are there any scholars in the WT organization? I'm sure you mean BIBLE or RELIGIOUS scholars. Of course, if there are any at all, there are not many, and they do not have the scholarly freedom to research or discuss doctrine that REAL religious scholars have.

  On the other hand, there are many scholars in other field in the WT, or at least those who nominally claim to be JW's. For example, I am working on a Ph.D. in chemistry and perform research in my desired field. I consider myself a scholar (but not a Bible scholar).

  But again, are there any Bible scholars in the society? Not really.