Posts by princecharmant

14

JWs Message: ``How Great Are We?"

by Room 215 in

jw
friends

with their chronology in tatters, jehovah's witnesses have taken to preaching about their favorite subject: themselves.

i was taken to task when i made this suggestion in a thread not too long ago, but the october km furnishes abundant evidence in its list of available videocasette.. (as an aside, it seems that the society no longer objects to using the television as a medium to spread its message, now that technology's given it a way to make the viewer pay for tapes, rather than having to spend money on paid programming).. notice the titles: .

``united by divine teaching''.

princecharmant

There's nothing wrong in blowing your own trumpet; every religion does it all the time. There's nothing wrong in WTS depicting themselves as the best there could ever be. It may repulse your taste buds and sense of modesty. If that's the case, don't watch any of the videos. I long stopped attending meetings where the videos are shown or TMS discussions when every silly detail of the video is discussed. I just don't think it's any of the WTS' fault that they want to show to the world that they have everything and the world nothing. Most self-promotionals go that way and one would be stupid to buy it all.

The comparison with Acts of the Apostles: there is a lot of self-promotion of "the Way"; you only need to read between the lines as you get along. You may say the adherents of what was yet to be defined as Christianity were promoting Jesus, and I would agree with you. But they were also promoting their conception of who they were and what they believed, and showing it up to be the best. If we go even further back in time (the Old Testament), Isreal was a "chosen nation" that stood head and shoulder above all the others (or so they proclaimed, Bible book after Bible book).

Religious fanaticism, nationalism, inordinate personal pride, all these things are driven by the same ingredients. They make the world a worse place for all of us, but that won't make religious bigots stop blowing their own little trumpet. It's more like brand trumpeting - mine's the best, yours is the least. The WTS is caught in the same process. The WTS is part of the world and cannot run its empire without borrowing that very vain and human style of chest-thumping pride.

14

JWs Message: ``How Great Are We?"

by Room 215 in

jw
friends

with their chronology in tatters, jehovah's witnesses have taken to preaching about their favorite subject: themselves.

i was taken to task when i made this suggestion in a thread not too long ago, but the october km furnishes abundant evidence in its list of available videocasette.. (as an aside, it seems that the society no longer objects to using the television as a medium to spread its message, now that technology's given it a way to make the viewer pay for tapes, rather than having to spend money on paid programming).. notice the titles: .

``united by divine teaching''.

princecharmant

So they should go make tapes about the Mormons and Islamic Jihad?

12

What will it take to really change the WT Society?

by Mindchild in

jw
friends

for many ex-jehovahs witnesses there is a disconnection between what we wish we could be doing in terms of making pronounced change in the ideological structure of the watch tower society or the dissolution of it, and what we actually find ourselves doing.

at some level we sense there are incredible potentials just waiting to be realized in the collective struggle to bring down the tower not just because it is fundamentally wrong and harmful to millions of lives but also for the changes it will make in our lives.

over the years though, i think a lot of us kind of feel that we are stumbling around in the dark trying one thing or another without anything serving as catalyst that starts an energetic chain reaction.. in a way, it reminds me of a phenomenon i learned back in my college days about termites.

princecharmant

It's all wishful thinking. Luther's breaking away from Roman Catholicism did not bring down the Catholic Church. People leaving the WTS will not make the WTS any less attractive to those who want to stay. If destroying the WTS is your agenda, you may as well own up that you've failed and will continue to fail. The WTS will survive even if it is severely weakened. As you well know, people associate with a religion or practice a faith for a myriad number of reasons. Your reason for leaving may be some other person's reason for staying.

Forget about coordination among ex-Witnesses. It will never happen. Your best bet is to get on with your life, "help" those who welcome your advice individually. Given the time most ex-Witnesses spend discussing witness-related issues, nit-picking WT publications, writing critiques on them, etc., they show they never really left the Watch Tower. They may believe they have a noble cause for putting themselves through that grind, but the bottomline is that most seem to want and need the WT even though they claim to be out, almost like a drug addict needs a regular fix. For whatever cause and albeit all proclamations to the contrary, most ex-Witnesses are more WT slaves now than they ever were when they were regulars at the KH/knocked on doors every weekend.

You battle, if indeed you initiate one, is doomed.

pc

66

Why My Wife and I Have No Kids

by JT in

jw
friends

*** g74 11/8 ***9 is this the time to have children?there has always been a positive attitude about childbearing.

*** g74 11/8 10 is this the time to have children?

what does imminent mean?

princecharmant

JT,

Too many complicated circumstances. I have checked out - mentally - but I haven't left. In some thread last week where you and I commented, I wrote a little bit on my current status. But I feel like you're a close friend I've known for years, well down the road from H2O when it was the board to read and participate in.

Regards to you and your wife.

pc

66

Why My Wife and I Have No Kids

by JT in

jw
friends

*** g74 11/8 ***9 is this the time to have children?there has always been a positive attitude about childbearing.

*** g74 11/8 10 is this the time to have children?

what does imminent mean?

princecharmant

JT (formerly known as "1"),

In Africa we read those articles and laughed. Not having children because of the grand tribulation approaching!!! We looked at the missionaries, COs, DOs, all childless, as a curiosity. Of course, like good old JWs that we were (hey! I'm still one, by the way),it was again "food at the proper time", even if indigestible. When I got married, we decided we were going have kids come grand or little tribulation, and didn't we go for it!! Man now writing has four of 'em.

And man, don't make your "planning to ..." phase too long though. I remember you saying so two/three years ago (time you started college or something). I'm glad you're still looking ahead....

pc

46

I NEED ADVICE DESPERATELY!!!

by concerned fiance in

jw
friends

here is my situation: my fiance is now 27 years old.

he was raised as a jw from the age of 2 through 18. at that time, his whole family left the "truth" except for his older brother who had already married another woman from the faith.

for the past 9 years, he has been living his life to the fullest, but still loving god, praying often and he is a truly honest and moral person.

princecharmant

Concerned,

I am sorry indeed for misinterpreting your intentions. I know this must be a very sensitive subject to you, and I want to apologize for being rather callous in my remarks.

You've received a lot of good and sensible suggestions, even offer to help. I wish you the very best in untying this knotty issue.

pc

46

I NEED ADVICE DESPERATELY!!!

by concerned fiance in

jw
friends

here is my situation: my fiance is now 27 years old.

he was raised as a jw from the age of 2 through 18. at that time, his whole family left the "truth" except for his older brother who had already married another woman from the faith.

for the past 9 years, he has been living his life to the fullest, but still loving god, praying often and he is a truly honest and moral person.

princecharmant

Concerned Fiance's post strikes me as totally insincere (note her almost faultless quote of the scriptures). Her first post, it so happens that it takes on an issue that has been discussed repeatedly on this board over the past twelve days. If she's been lurking, she would have read it all by now and would not need anyone's advice.

It sounds too much like a clever trick by someone to re-stir the pot.

6

The US has "targeted three such NGOs"

by biblexaminer in

jw
friends

from todays's newspaper we read.... bush's order targets bin laden's al-qaeda network and includes a list of 27 organizations and individuals identified as front groups that raise money to support his international terrorist network.

he conceded most of those on the list, including known terrorists and non-profit organizations, operate outside the u.s. .

"they often times use nice-sounding, non-governmental organizations as fronts for their activities.

princecharmant

Bx,

You're becoming delusional again!!!! You're still locked in the WTS mode of making predictions. So the Government is going to hit hard on the Watchtower - in what way pray thee?

- freezing WT assets after finding the Org. is linked with Osama Bin Laden?
- ramming Witnesses into prison?
- banning their door to door preaching?
- turning Brooklyn bethel and Patterson into arm producing/storage facilities?

What you fail to realize is that the WTBTS has for decades preached the scenario of persecution. None of that would surprise the rank and file. They'll simply find solace in suffering and further "proof" that they're the true religion after all.

Wake up, Brother. The WT will go under more as a result of its own internal contradictions than of a hammer from the authorities.
-

6

The US has "targeted three such NGOs"

by biblexaminer in

jw
friends

from todays's newspaper we read.... bush's order targets bin laden's al-qaeda network and includes a list of 27 organizations and individuals identified as front groups that raise money to support his international terrorist network.

he conceded most of those on the list, including known terrorists and non-profit organizations, operate outside the u.s. .

"they often times use nice-sounding, non-governmental organizations as fronts for their activities.

princecharmant

Bx,

Keep dreaming.

38

Need help locating WT destroying U.S.Buildings

by Tallyman in

jw
friends

i am in need of references to watchtower publications that contain images.

of united states government buildings, especially the white house-.

depicted as being violently destroyed by the watchtower society.. i have much of the wt literature pre-1992, and a bit of the post-1992 stuff,.

princecharmant

Tallyman,

The so-called facts you summon in your defense could be used by any one else, including the terrorists who struck those blows.

You fire too cheap a shot by pointing accusing fingers at the WTBTS; what in those images makes you so uncomfortable?

They are nothing more than artistic impressions of what you may read from your own Bible:

When Lot moved out of Sodom with the urging of the angels and, from the “mountainous regions”, saw the smoke rising out of the doomed city, what do you imagine he felt?

When the Isrealites saw the armies of Pharoah go down in the Red Sea with their chariots and officers, did they just sit down and weep? No, they sang praises to their God for drowning Pharoah and his horsemen.

When Jeremiah talks about those that Jehovah will kill as littering the earth from one end to the other, do you see a picture of serenity and not of carnage?

When Jesus spoke of the great tribulation, did he use words like "never occurred since the founding of the world and will never occur again?" Do you figure the proportions?

Those artistic representations are a reflection of what could happen if Armageddon happened in our time (or would you rather they depicted horsemen and chariots?. Armageddon may never come in our lifetime, but if it were to come, those are the images of total destruction you and I and everyone else will witness. What is so difficult for you to make out?

You are so consumed by your own blind hatred that you have to condemn more than SIX MILLION people announcing a message that is not theirs but (as they believe) God’s. You once announced the same message and would very likely not have gone they way you did had you continued to announce that message (someone commented that the WTC/Pentagon/Pennsylvania disaster would never have happened if everyone were a Witness). Where, in any of those pictures you so love to scan (and you’ve scanned and posted them everywhere, even on the old H2O) was there ever a suggestion, the faintest of them, for JWs to go ahead and attack established structures to bring about a fulfillment of God’s wrath? You are busy unfairly and most unethically condemning people who for no reason merit such vitriol.

You are quick to abuse others for telling you to your face who you are - an uncouth fellow, who would stop at nothing, not even the most horrendous tragedy, to pour venom on those you once called your “brothers”. Yet even now you proclaim your great love for humanity for making available tonnes of bytes to expose the WT. What joke!!!!!!!!

You know the epithets I could heap on you - but since you so well know who you are, I will not.

-----------------

Noidea:

Tallyman hates Witnesses, period. He's shown it more than once that he wants them all dead. Do you justify that?

I don't owe this walking ball of hatred any apology. He owes more than six million human beings and the whole of humanity apology for consistently expounding hatred.

People like Tallyman give ex-Witnesses too bad a name. I have seen him on H2O and I have seen him on this board. His message is despicable and indefensible.

pc