I thought it was a very good paper, you don't find much material of this nature about JWs. Seems to be completely objective to me. Don't know where some of you are getting this apologetics nonsense. I think your own bigotry, or maybe just prejudice, is over-riding your judgement.
Pork Chop
JoinedPosts by Pork Chop
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15
Rodney Stark's paper on JW growth
by VM44 inrodney stark was featured briefly in the short watchtower video exposing the benificial nature of "disfellowshipping" (which is a made up word that does not appear in the bible!).
i found a 1997 paper that he wrote with larry iannaccone entitled, "why the jehovah's witnesses grow so rapidly.
a theoretical application" and which was published in the journal of contemporary religion.
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38
Did John Denver hate the Witnesses?
by writerpen ini remember hearing stories as a kid that john denver would ask all the witnesses present at his concerts to stand.
and, then after they stood, he would play the national anthem.
any truth to this?
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Pork Chop
Y'all are confusing John Denver and Don Ho. Ho pulled the please stand thing and then played the national anthem when there were District Conventions in town, and Carson called him on it when he was on the show.
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Pork Chop
Once again we can see how someone can make an absolute fool out of themselves by playing math games. It's always amazing to me that some people actually sign on for this nonsense.
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30
Can owning/reading apostate material get me DF'ed?
by PandaJ inhello, first time poster, long time reader.. i was wondering just what my title asks.
if i own/read/admit to apostate material, can that get me df'ed?.
i know better then to admit that i believe the apostate material to the elders, or that i disagree with the society's teachings, but will simply admitting to owning and reading them get me df'ed?.
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Pork Chop
Obviously there's a wide range of response here. It probably depends on the local congregation, there might be a few that would disfellowship just because of some books you owned but probably very few. It's difficult to think of what you could be charged with, I can't really think of any heading that it would fall under.
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7
Another spin on the "2 witnesses"
by Lady Lee in16 but if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
ok you go once and try to talk to him and he doesn't listen.
then you go back and "take with thee one or two more".
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Pork Chop
Everyone seems bent out of shape about the two witnesses issue so that raises a quesation. Are you suggesting that an accusation by one individual means that the accused is guilty, full stop, or what? I don't think you can run a railroad that way.
Of the abuse cases that I'm familiar with exactly half turned out to be false charges. From what I've seen here it seems like there's an automatic assumption of guilt, if not, how do you proceed when there's only one accuser?
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44
JARACZ: What Did He Really Mean?
by Englishman inbp: tell me about the database.
how do you justify keeping a list of paedophiles, men in some cases who have confessed to paedophilia but you have not reported them to an authority.
what justification is there for you to keep that?
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Pork Chop
There is a 'privacy' law in the UK, call the Data Protection Act I believe. It governs fairly tightly the information that can be kept on anyone. I'm no expert but from what I've heard I doubt very much if they can keep any detailed records on any allegation or judicial action. You'd think an "Englishman" would know that.
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33
What's the deal with not needing Bethelites?
by blacksheep inas a disclaimer, i am an ex-jw (da'd) for about 15+ years, so i really haven't kept up on what's going on in bethel (come to think of it i wasn't really interested in it when i was a jw!
recently, however, one of my relatives (current jw) commented that, although my nephew had applied to bethel (oh what a privilege!
), he was basically told he wasn't needed at this time because they aren't "mailing out the publications" there like they used to.
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Pork Chop
This Kingdom Hall ownership thing is certainly not the case in my area. The local corporation owns the Hall. I keep hearing this story about the Org owning the property but I've checked in more than one place and it's just not the case, at least not where I've checked.
I do know two guys that went to Bethel during the last year so apparently the intake hasn't completely dried up.
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27
WOLVES IN SHEEPS CLOTHING
by QUANTUM ini just read a remark that joining the jw's was no different than any other church.
people join because thay find the people are nice and sociable.
i'm also sure that their intent is to be honest and forthright.
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Pork Chop
Is this place a magnet for the delusional or what?
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Top STUPID criticisms of the WTS
by JanH inthere are certainly enough valid criticisms of the wts and the jw religion, but a significant number of often-repeated criticisms of the religion are, imnsho, just ludicruous and serves to take attention away from the real issues.
significant problems with the wts includes, but are not limited to, the shunning policy, the blood issue and of course the corporate policy of hiding child molestors.. here is a list of criticisms of the wts that i find particularly annoying to see:.
russell was a freemason (or, even worse, the wts is part of some other large-scale conspiracy like the illuminati).
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Pork Chop
Wow, never thought I'd agree with JanH but this is good stuff. In addition to Jan and Hillary's items one thing that chaps my nether regions is "The Watchtower Wanted My Daugter, Wife, Son, Great Dane, etc. To Die!" statements.
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10
Can anyone substantiate?
by Olympiad incan anyone substantiate?
i heard from a very reliable source the following regarding the dateline episode that aired on nbc: j.r. brown was the guest speaker at the convention that i attended two weekends ago in albany, ga. and he stated to a close friend of mine who always has parts on the convention that dateline clipped and changed things around so much that a negative light was cast on jehovahs witnesses and that it was not reflective of what the society was led to believe would be presented.
he also said that at some point the society requested a live interview with dateline but they refused.
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Pork Chop
I've heard from pretty reliable sources that the Organization is vastly relieved that the Dateline program wasn't much worse. Makes you wonder.