Posts by philo

29

Is There Something Sinister At The KH?

by Englishman in

jw
friends

ever since i departed the jw`s, i have pooh - pooh`d the idea of satan, devils, demons, witches and warlocks and laughed at jw paranoia re smurfs and demonised objects etc etc.. just recently, i have had some thoughts as to why jw`s are so obsessive about this subject, suppose that:.

what if the jw religion were itself of satanic origin?

consider the facts:.

philo

Englishman

I loved the suggestion that 'Jesus plays second fiddle to Paul in Witness teaching'! How illuminating.

You have got me thinking about WT superstitions generally. I have been convinced for years that JWs are peculiarly superstitious (even by their own standards, perhaps). I think they have a very dark, mediaeval mind-set, stressing salvation via one particular orthodoxy, their own. Especially children brought up to view things as either 'from Jehovah' or 'from Satan'; they are bound to be fearful. It's like putting them into a playroom and saying "most of these toys will kill you".

Personally, I lost most of my demons on becoming a JW, although I think this would have happened if I had joined the Young Farmers Club. As I started to gain confidences with brothers and sisters, I was surprised to learn of so many who claimed to have been 'demonised'.

philo

9

Theocratic sex please.

by philo in

this forum is great for my needs because i specifically need more sex.. i realise this might seem a little forward.

but other forums have strict rules about what is allowed and what is not allowed.

so here in a 'sex' forum surely anything goes!

philo

Hi everybody

This forum is great for my needs because I specifically need more sex.

I realise this might seem a little forward. But other forums have strict rules about what is allowed and what is not allowed. So here in a 'sex' forum surely anything goes! This is just perfect for me.

Well, perhaps not quite everything is allowable. After all, I have come here for Theocratic sex not the 'worldly' variety. So I must warn all you hormone-charged sisters that I am no push over. You cannot tempt me away into any perverse or decadent Internet practises. And brothers, don't think that I can not intuitively tell your genders from the way you write, and from your screen names. You see, I've had my fingers burned online before. The experience opened my mind, so I am ready to fend off any brothers with alternative bible texts seeking to challenge my sexuality. Dirty beggers!

The sort of sex I want is in the little green 'family life book'. A whole section between pages 32 and 33 is devoted to the motivations, pleasures and techniques sex. My copy is so worn out, its virtually unreadable. There are inspiring green pictures which accompany the text, providing all a couple might need for conjugal bliss. I am straightforward and honest about what I want: loving, caring, Christian, local, congregational, present-understanding, SEX. But happiness in this world is transient, so I take as my model the Apostle Paul who considered sex a sometimes necessary evil, to be 'got over with' as soon as possible.

Answers please, as soon as possible.

philo

21

WT cultural imperialism?

by expatbrit in

jw
friends

i've been thinking about americans.

specifically about whether the wt, being an american dominated religion, forces american attitudes and culture upon other nations.. now, don't get me wrong, i'm not anti-american.

living in canada i have a lot of contact with many americans.

philo

Bolitho?

He's way too romantic for me. Apart from personal taste, he's out of period. I like to have more 'enlightenment' and less 'romanticism'. If you want to bring in steam power and the Black Prince then lets have the schmultz, but otherwise lets stay dry.

And POB's characters are real in that you sometimes don't like them, but then they win you back. Whereas most of the other authors in the genre write about incorruptible heroes.

philo

21

WT cultural imperialism?

by expatbrit in

jw
friends

i've been thinking about americans.

specifically about whether the wt, being an american dominated religion, forces american attitudes and culture upon other nations.. now, don't get me wrong, i'm not anti-american.

living in canada i have a lot of contact with many americans.

philo

Hello Xandit

Hornblower and Sharpe are great but I love the Aubrey Maturin novels, I've read the lot (I think). And O'Brian is by far the best writer in my opinion. Do you know whether any have been dramatised for TV like Hornblower has been.
There was a radio dramatisation on the BBC of Master and commander. The PO of my congregation put me on to O'Brian's books, and we listened to an episode on the radio together. They seemed to lay particular emphasis on sex 'scenes' (with all the grunting and moaning). And they did a sailor-goat sex scene (with obligatory welsh accent and bleating). He was rather shocked to say the least. He had read all the books, without noticing the grubby side in the stories.

::About beards. This whole deal really runs back to the time of Rutherford. When he took over, a certain number of Bethelites grew beards in protest, ala' Russell. Almost no one knows about the original reason, it's just become a tradition. Ever since that time beards have been virtually verboten

That's new to me. I'd like to read more about it, can you suggest where to look?

Philo

1

Mostly Biographical

by philo in

jw
friends

anyone who feels simple straight talking is the only way to talk, look away please.

if, though, you agree with me that there is often truth in complicated feelings and expressions, you may identify with this.

it sketches some of my attitudes and feeling to being initated and finally excreted from the wts.

philo

Anyone who feels simple straight talking is the only way to talk, look away please. If, though, you agree with me that there is often truth in complicated feelings and expressions, you may identify with this. It sketches some of my attitudes and feeling to being initated and finally excreted from the WTS.

philo

A new-found place Led by angels
Empowered for good
With Reasoning And compassion
Against ignorance I engaged 'The World'

Feeling the forces of darkness and light
Enchanted to be an atom of truth
Accelerated toward Living and dying
For the final cause

Arisen from water
Washed of myself
Subjected to law
Induced into order
Reduced and refined
Defined as of "Us"
18 and a Brother

Raised the curtain
The act begins on qualities new
Line by line
Quantities placed
Step by step, qualifications met

Manifesting spirit for the corps
And door to door
Showing myself
Frame to frame
Contentedly doing and doing again

Seeming my place amidst the compelled
Down, head down
Scriptures to view
Gap-filling reminders
Groaning flat-liners
Gnawing plain chant

Magazines to sell
Creases and collars
Polished pattering
Doubt suppressed
And hours to impress upon the soft terrain
Of the impressionable

Step up, I spoke to the multitude
To the moulded
And manoeuvred,
To approximate that holy shape:
The public speaker

Victories of body were Troubles of mind
And Brought unrequited thought
And I voiced my small voice
And dug calm nails in the listening wall

And I prayed aloud on the stage
And wove loathed acclaim for my name
From the fibres and the formulas
Of model material

United in one
Embodied as one Unit in a column
By hundreds and tens
Adding or subtracting
From the sullied and the saved

A man's icy fall to oblivion,
And I hear low "Resurrection Oh"
Weak platitude,
And all my gain is this loss

So losing came,
And hoping not
I devised my own unjust judgement
And a place with the former things
Not called to mind

How did my brothers
Congenial care
Become as air
As double honours
Stepped heavily from the stage
The announcement made.

What price on love?
There to sacrifice gentle histories
To fulfil the words of he who sighed
"By their fruitage will you recognise"

For my friends
That famous love of yours
Was weak
And I gaped at your cool efficiency
And at your own hearts'
Bloodless surgery

If angels beckon a second time
I will fall upon my face again
And then, I will ask
To be directed
Towards Christian love

21

WT cultural imperialism?

by expatbrit in

jw
friends

i've been thinking about americans.

specifically about whether the wt, being an american dominated religion, forces american attitudes and culture upon other nations.. now, don't get me wrong, i'm not anti-american.

living in canada i have a lot of contact with many americans.

philo

Hello Xpat n'all,

Interesting and diverse viewpoints on this subject. Sorry I can't say that without sounding patronising. Anyway, I enjoyed reading your posts here.

I find that whenever 'culture' comes up, a discussion can go any direction. It’s a difficult subject for me, BUT I will chip in all the same. I would not call it imperialism but cultural insensitivity. Imperialism is way too big a term for the insignificant WT Corporation.

Is it significant that the WTS holds to the doctrine of 'community responsibility' or cultural reprehensibility? I think it might be. In order to feel good about the wholesale annihilation of the majority of mankind at Armageddon, as well as the flood, (even including more local judgements like Sodom etc) you need some heavy justification. This is achieved in WT doctrine primarily with the reaction to the WT preaching work (sheep and goats). But that is not quite enough moral authority even to many witnesses. Why? Many people say 'No thanks, I'm too busy", others learn enough about the 'truth' to fear what the priest will say (who may be socially influential). There are a host of grey areas, which do not provide a happy sense of justice in this matter.

Individual witnesses can reply to this problem quite easily. They can say, "Jehovah will resurrect those who didn't get a fair chance." But the WT society can NOT just say that. The reason why not, is that they have to maintain a sense of urgency among the preachers. And if WT policy plainly stated that whoever missed 'the boat' automatically got a resurrection into a wonderful righteous New World, the preachers would lose all their urgency. Also, the question, "why kill them just to resurrect them back?" would then have to be taken very seriously. The preaching emphasis would probably start to change from quantity to quality (perhaps even encompassing genuine humanitarian good works).

So what the WT does, to keep the status quo, is it blends both these doctrines, providing some sense of urgency AND some sense of justice. That sounds like they have been clever, but it's really more like hard work. The analogy I would use is a salad dressing (mixing oil and vinegar). You can shake the pot and serve the dressing and it's fine, but if you leave it alone in the pot for a couple of minutes, the liquids separate. And of course, close inspection will always show that the liquids have not mixed at all. The 'shaking of the pot' is the reams of dreary holy words which witnesses are suppose to incorporate into their lives. Sometimes the cultural reprehensibility is emphasised, other times they play up Jehovah's mercy and his 'seeing the heart'.

This has been a long way round, in trying to account for WTS cultural insensitivity. Sorry about that. But the basic idea is that the WT cannot afford to be too sensitive to local cultures or it would lose 'urgency'. I have just realised that it would lose this in a number of ways, but I'll stick to this one here. If witnesses were not culturally a 'known quantity' as they are now, and there was appreciable diversity, it would be hard to imagine 'bad cultures'. Soon the doctrine of cultural reprehensibility would have to be buried, and along with it would go the sense of urgency to the preaching work.

philo

1

cd rom research

by Blackcat in

jw
friends

anyone got the cd-rom from the following site..wwwfortunecity.co.uk/jodrellbank/hyperdrive/479/ its information compiled by a witnesses husband(non-jw) and he has got the local elders by the short and curlies with his info.

anyone got the cd-rom?

philo

No I don't have that CD rom. I do have the 95 WT CD ROM but since I updated windows I can't run it. I get floating point errors (whatever that is). Others have started to get this problem. How is a guy supposed to apostacise without the CD ROM, I ask you.

philo

21

Are these men appointed by holy spirit?

by zev in

jw
friends

one of the things that has bothered me for years, in this organization is how appointments are made.

its alleged to be done by holy spirit.

or by men whose decisions are effected or influenced by holy spirit.

philo

Hello Ozzie

>Instead we have a judicial process that is very loosely modelled on the adversarial legal process of "the world".

>"Very loosely"

Is this a case of pommyesque understatement from you? If there is a model at all, she has been painted by Picasso, the canvas has been ripped up and fed to a herd of goats, and then pieced together from the droppings by Sunday-school children. Just my rational approach.

>Except that of course the elders are the prosecutors and the judges.

Yes, and they are also the police force, the defence counsel, AND friends or sometimes family-related of the accused.

>Most unsatifactory

How do you mean? It's beautiful.

philo (nice to hear from you Oz)

21

Are these men appointed by holy spirit?

by zev in

jw
friends

one of the things that has bothered me for years, in this organization is how appointments are made.

its alleged to be done by holy spirit.

or by men whose decisions are effected or influenced by holy spirit.

philo

Hi Zev

This snip from a related topic, WT punishments. It is relevant I assure you. Look out for Thaddius.

JWs dodge such comment by asserting that any legal problems (miscarriages of justice or flawed procedures) are counteracted by the action of Holy Spirit on the three-elder committee. This, they say, overrides prejudices, reveals true ‘heart condition’ and ensures justice. If that is so, then why does an appeal committee sometimes overturn a verdict? Surely, this means that the first committee must have lacked Holy Spirit. And without Holy Spirit were those three men capable of acting as congregation elders to start with - let alone as committee judges? If not, shouldn’t they be removed as elders? Of course, that is not what happens. So the Holy Spirit argument tends to be used as a ‘fudge', and as an excuse for not setting up a better system, the saying is "Jehovah will sort it out". When an elder or committee makes a good decision, then, one infers long afterwards that Holy Spirit was present, when a bad decision is made one infers that it was not present. This is hit-and-miss justice.
The only way out of this for JWs is to say that bad decisions are still Holy Spirit directed, but that they are tests of faith. Here one is asked to accept that Holy Spirit acts on one or more of the elders to positively prejudice him against the candidate for reinstatement’s case, or that it acts to blind him to evidence of ‘true repentance’ . By the same token, this argument concludes that truly unrepentant persons can be allowed back into the congregation through the operation of the Holy Spirit on that committee of elders. It seems ridiculous enough, but worse, it undermines the avowed purpose of judicial action, that of "keeping the congregation clean".
It seems to me, you cannot have your cake and eat it. Either the WT should promote trusting the Holy Spirit fully, and removing all extraneous legal procedures which are only giving a façade of justice. They would then have to pray, "Jehovah, what shall we do with Brother Accused" and cast lots to make a decision, trusting the holy spirit to deliver the result (note: this is how Thaddius the Apostle was appointed). Or else they should reform their botched and inadequate judicial process.

philo

17

Classical Music

by RedhorseWoman in

last weekend i was enjoying a sarah mclachlan marathon, this weekend it was kenny wayne shepherd and any other blues/rock i could locate.. while indulging in the music that i love, i started thinking about the "gold old jw days", and i remembered listening to the rite of spring by stravinsky, as well as many other classical works when i was younger.. i was transported to a magical, mythical place, and i would frequently put together my own dance routines to accompany the music (since i wasn't allowed to go to dance class).

then came the "warnings" from brooklyn about the pagan themes surrounding many classical works.

the rite of spring was specifically mentioned as one that could turn the good jw into a foaming, demon-inhabited monster.. destroyers of dreams, creators of the mundane--how could i have allowed them to strip my life of all the beautiful things?

philo

RHW

I went through a Wagner stage. No, not that W.a.g.n.e.r

anyway, if I could just continue, my mother in law (a dub) told me off for all the demonic themes in his music. So I played her the ride of the valkyries and said "Sounds just like Armageddon, don't you think?"

philo