shepherdless

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Posts by shepherdless

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  16

  Daughter joining JW

  by gary in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  my fifty year-old daughter is studying to be a jehovah witness.

  i am her catholics father.

  just wondering because they are not allowed to associate with worldly people.

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  shepherdless

  Gary, yes I am in the same situation, although you are a couple of decades ahead of me. We also have 4 kids, so there are 6 of us under the one roof. I intend to do a new post on how this is all playing out.

  Just to add to what I posted above, there are lots of very good intellectual arguments that should in theory persuade a JW to leave. You can see lots of them at jwfacts.com

  However, most JWs are immune to intellectual arguments, because (unbeknownst to themselves) they are there for emotional not intellectual reasons. Further, a non-JW trying to persuade a JW using scripture etc will inevitably fail, as the moment a non-JW does not use the exact correct word or theological terminology, their credibility is shot.

  As long as you don’t actively discuss religion with your daughter, you are not a threat. In fact, you are a potential “Bible student”, yourself, in their eyes. And keeping in contact with your daughter is probably the best thing for her, as it would keep her grounded to reality. She may one day suddenly work it out for herself, or she may not.
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  8

  Parents of Different Spiritual Persuasions

  by Thehermit05 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i escaped the cult many years ago.

  as a result, i have an eye for cultlike thinking, whether in terms of religion, politics, centrist thinking, etc.. last december my fiance and i had a baby.

  she is black and i'm white.

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  shepherdless

  So, taking it from an angle I'm familiar with, how did/do non-JW parents who have a JW spouse, make sure that their kids get exposure to more than just one form of "spiritual food," while keeping things peaceful?

  I was never one to encourage any other form of “spiritual food”. I always encouraged logic and reason, and rational responses to events, instead of superstitious nonsense.
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  16

  Daughter joining JW

  by gary in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  my fifty year-old daughter is studying to be a jehovah witness.

  i am her catholics father.

  just wondering because they are not allowed to associate with worldly people.

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  shepherdless

  My advice to Gary would be that, given he has already provided his daughter with info, and the daughter is still studying, then there is not much else that can be done, apart from keeping in contact.

  Why would a 50 yo lady start studying? Probably lonely, or in need of some company, or being manipulated. Such a person will not pay much attention to intellectual arguments.

  I think Gary should just maintain contact, agree not to discuss religion, if need be, and hope his daughter works it out.
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  13

  The parable of the trees! (Judges 9:8-15

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  do you recall reading this passage before?

  i came across this it yesterday while preparing a bible presentation on trees.

  i had no idea this passage existed.

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  shepherdless

  I had heard or read of that passage ages ago. I see from Earnest’s post above, that Rutherford (as usual) came up with a pile of pseudo-mystical nonsense, in interpreting it.

  An interpretation in “Christendom” would likely be along the following lines. The first and most obvious point is to look at the context. Someone called Jotham gave a speech that included the tree allegory. It is clear in context that Jotham was not reporting an event; he was just being allegorical. Further, Jotham was speaking in order to persuade a crowd that Abimelech (who had just made himself king by force and murder) should not be accepted as king. The idea of brambles (a low-lying plant) offering shade is a joke, and brambles being a plant of no virtue, and also flammable (ie dangerous) is part of the allegory.

  Thus, the explanation and interpretation of the passage is relatively simple and straightforward; ie don’t choose a morally corrupt person as your ruler. (Also, notice how the least worthy tree/plant is the one to demand to be the ruler, or else.)
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  7

  More bad press for the Borg, in Australia

  by shepherdless in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  more bad press for the borg in australia.

  this is on the webpage of the national broadcaster:.

  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-13/austraila-talks-trust-religious-figures-dropping-covid-pandemic/100202940.

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  shepherdless

  More bad press for the Borg in Australia. This is on the webpage of the national broadcaster:

  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-13/austraila-talks-trust-religious-figures-dropping-covid-pandemic/100202940
  
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  112

  Are You Concerned About Inflation?

  by Simon in

  1. social
  2. current

  i saw a statistic the other day that something like 25% of all the debt that the us has incurred since 1776 was created in the last 12 months.

  that's because they have printed so much currency and instead of letting that stop them, they are going to continue printing more to go on a spending spree on crazy green-new-deal schemes and union handouts.. does anyone think that this can be anything other than inflationary?

  they are effectively stealing the wealth of everyone to then hand money out to people.

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  shepherdless

  Interesting question, and an interesting discussion. I generally agree with Simon. Others have already said a lot of what I would say.

  I see someone referenced Modern Monetary Theory. Under MMT, quantative easing doesn’t necessarily lead to inflation. However, according to more traditional economic principles, quantative easing is very inflationary. Most economists do not have any faith in MMT. It has been labeled “Magic Pudding” economics by some.

  The way that all the major governments in the world have increased their debt, printed large amounts of money (via quantative easing) and held interest rates incredibly low, is extremely worrying. It can only end in one of 3 ways, all of them bad, with rampant inflation being the least worst outcome.

  So why isn’t inflation already rampant? I think that that is because (a) workers everywhere aren’t in any mood to demand higher wages at the moment, and (b) colossal amounts of capital are being destroyed by zombie companies at the moment.

  Finally just a note about this all being “a plan by a Lefty cabal”. It is true that Irresponsible economic management more often than not comes from left of centre governments, particularly far-left governments such as Venezuela. However some supposedly conservative governments are just as irresponsible. There is no plan; there is no mastermind; there is no secret meetings. It is mostly about politicians acting short term to match election cycles, doing things that give short term sugar hits and long term damage.
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  7

  Wanting articles on statistics for the incidence of csa between the Catholic Church and JW

  by joe134cd in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  had an ultra jw relative say to me the there are only a few examples of csa in the jws.

  the catholics are significantly worse.

  i’m after statistical information that proves him wrong.

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  shepherdless

  The ARC gives some figures. Here is a link:

  https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/religious-institutions
  

  I was going to extract the relevant sections, but copying and pasting is not working for me on this little device. You will see that from 1980 to 2015, for the Catholic Church, there were 4444 victims, the majority of whom had had their claim acknowledged and had received some compensation. For JWs, there were 1800 victims.

  Doing a back of envelope calc, comparing the different sizes of the religions, a JW child would have been around 16 times more likely than a Catholic child to have been abused.
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  23

  Did The Witnesses Mess Up Your Sex Life?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  most of the witnesses i knew never really talked about sex.

  whatever couples did was pretty much kept quiet.

  every once in a while a wife might complain to the elders or a friend that the husband is too demanding or even immoral because of the sex practices the husband wanted.

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  shepherdless

  Question: Why do Jehovahs Witnesses oppose sexual foreplay?

  Answer: It might lead to women handling microphones.
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  17

  Google threatening to pull search engine from Australia

  by joey jojo in

  1. social
  2. current

  government is saying google should pay fees to news media for aggregating news.

  google says they will geo-block australia from search if forced to.

  raises some interesting questions about how dependant we have all become and how entangled google is in our lives.

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  shepherdless

  To give an idea about how much Aust Govt is now at odds with Facebook and how there will be no backdown:

  - The current Aust fed Govt is Centre-Right.

  - What do their arch enemies in the Centre-Left and far left think? The following gives a hint. This is an image I have just received (ironically via Facebook) from Adam Bandt of the Greens:

  
  
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  17

  Google threatening to pull search engine from Australia

  by joey jojo in

  1. social
  2. current

  government is saying google should pay fees to news media for aggregating news.

  google says they will geo-block australia from search if forced to.

  raises some interesting questions about how dependant we have all become and how entangled google is in our lives.

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  shepherdless

  I disagree, SBF. I think that online platforms need to be appropriately regulated, and not allowed to buy up potential rivals and create monopolies. (Eg Facebook should never have been allowed to buy Instagram or WhatsApp.)

  Oh, and pay for the content they steal from others.