Rivergang

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Posts by Rivergang

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  135

  Rumour 144,000 literal number teaching to be abandoned at Annual Meeting

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  say it ain’t so!

  .

  in one sense it’s a no brainer because the figures just don’t add up any more.. in another (negative) sense it’s a no brainer because it’s been fundamental to jws since year dot and might undermine the whole thing?

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  Rivergang

  There is, though, the problem of rumours.

  A bit like the one which did the rounds a few decades ago now about the warehouse that the WTS was said to be building - specifically being constructed to store all the rumours in!
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  53

  Half hearted JWs compared to past generations

  by JohnR1975 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  is it just me or has there been a massive change in jws of late?.

  when i grew up in the cult they had a real sense of urgency and would do an hour minimum, these days it’s not even ten mins before coffee break.. same goes for everything else, it’s half hearted .

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  Rivergang

  As WC Stevenson noted in his 1968 work The Inside Story of Jehovahs Witnesses “No other religious group would demand as much from its adherents, in return for so little”.
  
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  53

  Half hearted JWs compared to past generations

  by JohnR1975 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  is it just me or has there been a massive change in jws of late?.

  when i grew up in the cult they had a real sense of urgency and would do an hour minimum, these days it’s not even ten mins before coffee break.. same goes for everything else, it’s half hearted .

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  Rivergang

  These days, they give an appearance of being what the South African Defence Force used to describe as "N.A.A.F.I"

  i.e. "No Ambition And #&ck-all Interest"
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  13

  Witnesses after Covid shut down are increasing their calls around my neighborhood

  by wozza in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hi all , i just had another call by a an elderly jw ,let's call him ian.. only about 3 months ago i had a young jw call and trying to talk to him i had to tone it down a bit because he did'nt seem so theocratically bright as he only offered a tract and not much else , and i've had others call since covid.. so it seems around here they are making regular calls but not like back in the day when i used to auxillary pioneer where we would go over this turf every 1 to 3 weeks in the 80's.. but back to my caller ian ,on his own , but out with a group of jw's he was quick to get around the pleasantries and and so i interrupted him tactfully to slow him down.

  started with a bit of my history easing into the fact that i had my first contact with jw's with my soon to be mother-in -law who was an invalided jw ,we had many good talks about her beliefs in the early 70's.. at this point he jumps in and wants to know if i would want a study again because i told him that i once did a study with jw's back.

  i carefully steered him into telling me about those days ,what was he was doing back then.

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  Rivergang

  They have not been too active around where I live (in SE Queensland). It is so long ago since any of them called at my door that I can barely remember it. Their only sign of activity since the pandemic has been the apathy literature cart, which was operating for just one single day the other week. In fact, we now see more of the LDS than the JWs.
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  37

  NO SUPPORT FOR EXJWS DRAFTED IN UKRAINE

  by raymond frantz in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  https://youtu.be/ulan2hhagz8?si=jpedzunzb5o_6axd.

  here’s a cautionary tale for anyone counting on past ties with jehovah’s witnesses to dodge conscription: they’ll throw you under the bus faster than you can say “conscientious objector.” a man in ukraine learned this the hard way after refusing military service and hoping his old religious connections would save him.

  spoiler alert—they didn’t.

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  Rivergang

  Personally, anyone conscripted should start shooting their commanding officers as soon as they are given a weapon.

  I finished high school during the days when this country still had compulsory military service, and the Vietnam War was still going. That was exactly the advice my Dad gave me, should my number have been called!
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  37

  NO SUPPORT FOR EXJWS DRAFTED IN UKRAINE

  by raymond frantz in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  https://youtu.be/ulan2hhagz8?si=jpedzunzb5o_6axd.

  here’s a cautionary tale for anyone counting on past ties with jehovah’s witnesses to dodge conscription: they’ll throw you under the bus faster than you can say “conscientious objector.” a man in ukraine learned this the hard way after refusing military service and hoping his old religious connections would save him.

  spoiler alert—they didn’t.

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  Rivergang

  RB

  You are quite correct in that during all the wars that have ever been fought, there was always some dirty β@$t@ЯÐ who made money out of it.

  This country is by no means immune - it was the boom in wool prices during the Korean War which led to the transformation of Australia's economy from agricultural to industrial.
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  37

  NO SUPPORT FOR EXJWS DRAFTED IN UKRAINE

  by raymond frantz in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  https://youtu.be/ulan2hhagz8?si=jpedzunzb5o_6axd.

  here’s a cautionary tale for anyone counting on past ties with jehovah’s witnesses to dodge conscription: they’ll throw you under the bus faster than you can say “conscientious objector.” a man in ukraine learned this the hard way after refusing military service and hoping his old religious connections would save him.

  spoiler alert—they didn’t.

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  Rivergang

  The most important lesson which should have been learned from the Vietnam War is that wars are seldom won by military means alone. We should never ever underestimate the role that propaganda plays in securing a military victory.

  Both Hitler and Stalin well understood this, and they each treated language as serving just one purpose and one purpose alone - that of being God's gift to liars.

  For example, in the time of the Soviet Union, the KGB actually devoted 75% of its budget - not to espionage - but to propaganda and disinformation.

  From the old USSR, the Russian Federation inherited a highly effective propaganda machine; against which the likes of the New York Times, BBC and similar aren't even in the hunt!

  Stalin's successors (of whatever stripe) have continued to this day making full use of what is sometimes referred to as "Hybrid Warfare" - of which the targeted use of sometimes blatant propaganda is an essential part. (And no matter how outrageous the content of such propaganda may be, there are always sufficient people around who are foolish enough to believe it). In the doctrine of hybrid warfare, propaganda rates as simply another arm to be made use of, alongside tanks, artillery, foot soldiers and aircraft.

  So copious and unrelenting has the Russian propaganda effort been (ever since the time of the Soviet Union) that one commentator has described it as being, to quote, "A firehose of falsehood". This is a battle which Vladimir Putin is so far winning hands-down!

  Another lesson which should have been learned from the example of Vietnam is that there are two ways of winning a war. You can either destroy the enemy's means to fight (i.e. his forces), or you can destroy his will to fight. This is another battle in which Vladimir Putin is holding all the advantages.
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  95

  Are you glad you got the Covid Vaccine? Did it help?

  by liam in

  1. social
  2. current

  i didn’t get the covid vaccine, but i admit, i was scared as shit i made the wrong decision because there was so much confusion out there.

  practically all my family and most of my friends took the vaccine because everyone was depending on those in charge to speak the truth.

  now a lot of them are sick, and they can't figure out why.

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  Rivergang

  Hi Raimundo,Polio predates DDT by many thousands of years. There is evidence that it was present in ancient Egypt, while such famous persons as the Scottish poet Sir Walter Scott had also suffered from that disease (Which in those times was known as “Infantile Paralysis”).However, epidemics of polio only started to appear from the 1880s and onwards. Note, though, that this still predated the introduction of the insecticide, DDT, by some sixty-odd years.(DDT first saw widespread use during the second half of World War Two, when it was used to prevent such insect- bourne diseases as typhus and malaria).Prior to that, epidemics of polio regularly occurred in countries which had achieved a low level of infant mortality - such as the Scandinavian lands, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the N.E. parts of the USA.It was very much a “Disease of Civilisation” - for example, during the early part of WWII, allied troops in Egypt came down with it by the dozen, yet it was unknown amongst the local population).(And that was before the widespread use of DDT as an insecticide).It was noted that once a population’s infant mortality rate had been reduced below a certain level, then it became much susceptible to “Infantile Paralysis”, and epidemics of polio began to occur every ten years.The use of DDT was not banned until the year 1972. However, the last polio epidemics in the developed world occurred ten years before that - coinciding with the mass immunisation campaigns, which used the orally - administered Sabin vaccine.
  If the eradication of polio was the result of the withdrawing of DDT as a pesticide, we would not have expected an eradication of polio until well into the late 1970s (given the time it would have taken DDT to have worked its way out of the ecosystem).I’m sorry, but those who blame heavy metals, DDT and similar for outbreaks of polio are more than a little off-beam!
  
  
  
  
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  95

  Are you glad you got the Covid Vaccine? Did it help?

  by liam in

  1. social
  2. current

  i didn’t get the covid vaccine, but i admit, i was scared as shit i made the wrong decision because there was so much confusion out there.

  practically all my family and most of my friends took the vaccine because everyone was depending on those in charge to speak the truth.

  now a lot of them are sick, and they can't figure out why.

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  Rivergang

  LV101

  Ref. Polio vaccine

  I well remember the very last polio epidemic in this country being stopped dead in its tracks by the widespread introduction of the Sabin vaccine. Coincidentally(!), the last death in this country from polio occurred in 1961, just before that mass-immunisation campaign.
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  95

  Are you glad you got the Covid Vaccine? Did it help?

  by liam in

  1. social
  2. current

  i didn’t get the covid vaccine, but i admit, i was scared as shit i made the wrong decision because there was so much confusion out there.

  practically all my family and most of my friends took the vaccine because everyone was depending on those in charge to speak the truth.

  now a lot of them are sick, and they can't figure out why.

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  Rivergang

  I received the full course of vaccinations, primarily for employment reasons.

  The electrical engineering firm which I work for was largely sustained through the pandemic by a major refurbishment project at one of the biggest gold mines in the world. This was an offshore project, and so desperate was the mining company to have these works completed that they agreed to pay for the work force's hotel quarantine time - both before entry into the host country (Papua New Guinea) and before repatriation back into Australia. At that time, vaccination for COVID-19 was compulsory for all persons entering either country.

  To the extent that I was pleased to continue working through the pandemic and beyond, I guess I am "glad" that I received the COVID vaccine.