Posts by shepherdless

50

The New terroists That The World have To Confront What is the Answer ?

by smiddy in

this latest attack in manchester u.k. targeting a venue attended by mainly children and teenagers who go to a concert by their favorite singer and then to be attacked by a terroist has to be the last straw... surely ?

22 dead at last count mainly young girls enjoying a concert of their favourite singer ?

and at least 50 others suffering injuries ?.

shepherdless

Freemindfade: Anti-ISIS is not = to anti-jihad

Well, I don't want to oversimplify things, but basically the only groups doing or encouraging violent random attacks on Western civilians (essentially ISIS and Al Qaida) are Wahabbi Sunnis.

There are Shiite groups on international terror lists, such as Hezbollah, but they don't attack Western civilians (except Israelis). They have used suicide bombers in the past, against military targets, but to my knowledge, not in the last couple of decades.

I am only mentioning this, because it is a mistake to lump them all together. ISIS would absolutely LOVE it if we were to tar all Muslims the same, and make over a billion people our enemy.

50

The New terroists That The World have To Confront What is the Answer ?

by smiddy in

this latest attack in manchester u.k. targeting a venue attended by mainly children and teenagers who go to a concert by their favorite singer and then to be attacked by a terroist has to be the last straw... surely ?

22 dead at last count mainly young girls enjoying a concert of their favourite singer ?

and at least 50 others suffering injuries ?.

shepherdless

Thisismein1972: Yemen, being bombed on a daily basis by Saudi Arabia by the bombs Britain and the US have provided.

I partially agree with some of your post, but that first part is wrong. To the extent ISIS would care, ISIS would be cheering each bomb KSA dropped on Shiite "infidels". The war in Yemen is to a large extent a war between Sunni and Shiite. Similarly, the war in Syria is primarily a war between Shiites and Alawites on one side, and various Sunni groups including ISIS on the other (with Kurds taking the opportunity to carve out some territory for themselves).

50

The New terroists That The World have To Confront What is the Answer ?

by smiddy in

this latest attack in manchester u.k. targeting a venue attended by mainly children and teenagers who go to a concert by their favorite singer and then to be attacked by a terroist has to be the last straw... surely ?

22 dead at last count mainly young girls enjoying a concert of their favourite singer ?

and at least 50 others suffering injuries ?.

shepherdless

On page one of this thread:

Stan livedeath: bearing in mind most islamist terrorists in the UK are " home grown", can anyone tell me what they are trying to achieve ?

It doesn't seem anyone answered Stan's question. This is also what I struggle to understand.

Some terror campaigns are successful in persuading an occupier of a region to leave, or a minority in a region to leave where that minority has somewhere else to go. There is no hope of this terror campaign achieving anything like that. It can only harden resolve against the terrorists.

If there is any logic to why they do it (beyond the logic of the individual who believes he is going to get rewards in heaven), I think it is more a political statement to the world, that they exist and that they are powerful and frightening.

As for the answer? I don't have a simple one at the moment. A lot of terrorist movements in the past have eventually just petered out. For example, in the 1970's there were a few Marxist terror groups around, all of who have disappeared, and some Arab nationalist terror groups that disappeared. (The only ones that lasted were ones that were also acting like mafia, using their network make financial gain.) So maybe continued thorough law enforcement will wear it down; I don't know.

The other thing I notice is that virtually all recent Islamist terror seems to be from one sect of one branch of Islam. The second biggest branch of Islam (Shia) is every bit as anti-ISIS as the west is. Same could be said for other groups (Ibadi, Kurdish, etc). It is worth bearing that in mind.

31

Have Jehovah's Witnesses Become Boring?

by David_Jay in

okay, that new video about 1975 has got people talking, and yes, the child abuse cases will always require us to remain vigilant...but after my having left in the late 1980s/early 1990s, it seems all the real "exciting" stuff is gone.

when i left the witnesses were still preaching that the "generation that was old enough to understand the events of 1914" will not pass away before armageddon comes.

no blood cards were our badges (not that stupid jw logo) and that card meant what it said, "no blood"!

shepherdless

I agree with David Jay's first post and Sir82.

Even in the relatively short time I have been closely following this religion, there seems to have been a collective mental retreat by JW's. For example, I remember my wife would claim Russell predicted the start of WW1, and that was clear evidence for her for the Borg being the one true religion. Now I doubt she would dare mention it. A whole bunch of other stuff (eg child abuse in Catholic Church) is no longer that relevant. It is as if the dissonance has caused the mind to retreat and find new defence lines to hide behind, and most intellectual arguments have been abandoned as too hard to defend. I think that this mental retreat is a large part of why the literature is now so dumbed down.

The other thing I have noticed is that the criticisms of the Borg are somehow leaking through to its most ardent adherents. Just recently my wife said "people might say we [JW's] are just mindless drones, but... [blah blah blah]". I couldn't help but wonder where she heard that; it must have been from someone else in the Borg.

20

Watchtower Library Won't Run

by sfbayarea in

jw
friends

i have 4 computers that are all running windows 10 version 1703.. 1. laptop that came with windows 10 was updated to version 1703 - watchtower library runs fine.

2. laptop that came with windows 8 was updated to windows 10 for free - watchtower library runs fine.

3. laptop that came with windows 7 64 home was updated to windows 10 for free - watchtower library does not run.

shepherdless

Did you buy computers 3 and 4 at a yard sale? They could be demon infested.

15

Elder "D": Catholics No Longer Believe in a Trinity

by Saename in

so in this topic, i mentioned i had a conversation with an elder "d." this elder said that the catholic church admitted the trinity is unscriptural.

i'm pretty sure this is not true.

the doctrine of trinity is the most fundamental belief in the catholic church.

shepherdless

Most Catholics would agree that there is no express reference to the trinity in the bible. (A typical knowledgable Catholic would probably say it is inferred from Matthew 28:19, etc.)

My guess is that Elder D views a Catholic admission of no express biblical reference to trinity, as the same as an admission of it being unscriptural.

Why did Elder D raise this anyway? It is fallacious reasoning to try and support one theology by finding fault in another.

8

Please track baptisms with attendance numbers at 2017 Regional Conventions here. (U.S. locations) Thx

by Gayle in

jw
friends

i always like to hear baptism with attendance numbers at rcs.

observe if the bigger amount baptized are jw children?.

convention.

shepherdless

Yes, dropoffyourkeelee, I follow it for the same reason. I am hoping this religion will be in serious decline by the time my kids become adults.

The numbers are consistently pretty low, so even if only 1/3 of baptisms occur at regional conventions, they would barely be covering the loss of publishers due to mortality.

Further, what little data there is on the average age of JW's shows them as now being older than the population average, and getting more so. So the general rubrick of assuming that 1% of membership is lost each year due to death, is probably too low now. My prediction is for a very slight decrease in av publishers in almost every Western country this year.

8

Please track baptisms with attendance numbers at 2017 Regional Conventions here. (U.S. locations) Thx

by Gayle in

jw
friends

i always like to hear baptism with attendance numbers at rcs.

observe if the bigger amount baptized are jw children?.

convention.

shepherdless

According to posters on reddit:

Belleville MI had approx 2400 in attendance with either 7 or 9 baptised. 3 of the baptised under 18.

Southern California Qualcomm Stadium (Spanish) had over 12,000, with 60 baptised.

11

The Amazing Andamanese People

by LoveUniHateExams in

i recently watched a documentary about andamanese people on youtube.. the andaman archipelago is officially ruled by india and lies in the bay of bengal, between the eastern coast of india and burma.. the indigenous people are or were stone age people, hunter-gatherers.. they have the general appearance and stature of african pygmy people.. there are 4 main surviving groups: great andaman (made up of several tribes, although the remaining people are few in number and have discarded tribal boundaries), jarawa, onge, and sentinelese.

i've read a bit about their languages (only on wikipedia - tsk!

tsk!

shepherdless

my late mother could tell time to the minute just by observing the sun

I found that if you spend a lot of time working outdoors in a rural environment, where you would finish each day at sunset, and fences and buildings aligned north-south or east-west, after a while you know the time from the position of the sun (and shadows) to within a half hour, if not better, almost without thinking. Not to the minute, though.

162

2017 Convention Video To Be Shown Regarding The 1975 Failure

by pale.emperor in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go3arnnsfkk&feature=youtu.be.

no mention whatsoever that it was watchtower themselves that strongly hinted towards this date.

instead they blame those who "put their trust in a date, not jehovah".. let's recap... .

shepherdless

Someone could make a great parody with this video.

Change that date at the start from 1997 to (say) 2027. Grandpa is wearing outdated clothes from a goodwill bin, because their choices had left them poor. Grandpa explains that they kept me in with emotional blackmail, saying I would only see grandma again if I continued to do the Borg's bidding. Then change the oblique references to 1975, add references to "overlapping generation", insert Splane's whiteboard before grandpa says "but something just didn't seem right" etc. Finish up with grandpa saying "I am so happy I am out of that stupid cult. Now kids, how are you going at college?"

There are other possibilities, of course.