FFGhost

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Posts by FFGhost

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  9

  The Last Day

  by johnamos in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  [7-1-98 wt – martha said of her dead brother, lazarus: “i know he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” (john 11:24) how did she know that?

  …she might even have learned this from jesus himself.

  (john 6:39 - this is the will of him who sent me, that i should lose none out of all those whom he has given me, but that i should resurrect them on the last day.

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  FFGhost

  It's closer than the inside of your eyelid!

  Don't buy any green bananas!

  Everyone, all together......VERY.....SOON....NOW!
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  25

  CO said; “Friends (plural) who’ve been raised in the truth are beginning to have doubts regarding their faith”

  by pistolpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  here is what a co said at the elders and ms meeting.

  it goes to show that no matter how hard the governing body tries to instill fear of apostates, it's just not working on the young crowd of jws.. it's a new generations of born in jws--------and they don't buy this shit anymore.

  it's really over for the watchtower.

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  FFGhost

  Due to the COVID variants spreading around, and the cautious nature of the org., I suspect it will still be at a bare minimum another year, quite probably longer, before in-person Kingdom Hall meetings begin again. And I suspect restarting door to door witnessing will take even longer.

  I think they will be in for a rude shock whenever these things commence again. For maybe a month, the novelty and excitement of meeting in person will prevail....to followed, I suspect, by a precipitous drop in participation, as the reality of "oh, so we're really back to the drudgery again" settles in.

  -- No more "shirt, tie, shorts, and slippers" for the meetings.

  -- No more "turning off the video" while the meeting is in progress.

  --No more "pizza & beer" while the video is off for the midweek meeting.

  --No more "0 commute time" to the meetings, in fact with the sale of Kingdom Halls, commute time for many will have increased dramatically.

  -- No more "taking 40 minutes to write one short letter wile I gab with my buddies and drink coffee". Field service is back to trudging through brutal heat or numbing cold, knocking on doors of people with better houses and better lives than you

  -- No more "pioneers don't worry about your hours, do what you can". No more "even 30 seconds of witnessing lets you be counted as active". Hours, hours, hours, HOURS! Count your hours.

  If there are any at Warwick with a few still-connected neurons, they have to know that restarting everything after 2, 3, 4 years of 100% virtual is going to just kill them.

  But (a) I suspect there are few of such remaining, and (b) the nature of the organization has been and always will be reactionary. Rather than try to figure out in advance what to change to make things better, they'll just sit on their duffs, then be gob-smacked when things pan out as I explained above, then they'll do what they've done for centuries (literally, now): scold the sheep for being ungrateful and unappreciative and try to motivate folks by "fear of being annihilated in the near future". Only slight difference will be that the scolding will come via JW.Borg videos rather than WT articles.
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  28

  David Splane's apostate warning convention talk

  by neat blue dog in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  i know this recent video has been talked about already but i just watched it and here are a few things that got me annoyed as usual:.

  splane says that if a bible student says he saw some negative information from apostates and asks us to explain it, we shouldn't look at it or address anything specifically, but instead we should tell them to go to meetings and hear what we have to say about ourselves and also tell them to befriend people at the hall.

  for any person with integrity and/or intelligence, this is not a satisfactory answer.

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  FFGhost

  Nobody can poison us NOT to believe that the sun or the moon Exists. If that is so, why does an argument against God or the WT so powerful and devastates faith?

  Bingo!

  There are thousands of people who believe the earth is flat and they have written hundreds, thousands, who knows maybe millions of pages of "evidence" as well as websites, videos, etc.

  I can read their literature for hours, days, years on end and it won't change my certainty about the shape of the earth.

  If someone's faith is so rickety, so tenuous, so utterly fragile, that even 15 minutes exposure to a contrary idea is enough to destroy it, what does that say about the viability of whatever that person has faith in?
  
  
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  34

  What Do You Think About Home Schooling?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i knew a few witnesses who were very proud of the fact that their kids were homeschooled.

  years ago, i would raise my eyebrows wondering why these families couldn’t simply integrate their kids with other “worldly” kids.

  at this point in time, with so many theories being pushed on kids and their parents, i can see why parents, if they are qualified, could instruct their kids themselves.

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  FFGhost

  By far, it's not even close, the most thoroughly mentally and emotionally stunted JWs I have known were invariably home-schooled.

  I know that's a pretty unrepresentative sample, but personally it always give me pause when thinking about it in general.

  It could probably work well with fully involved dedicated parents who value "education" rather than "Watchtower's version of education",
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  24

  What Was Your Most Memorable Field Service Experience?

  by Sea Breeze in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  me: selling the wt and awake for 10 cents at 5 years old.

  i don't mean to brag or anything, but i sold 'em like hotcakes.

  i musta been a cutie at 5 yo.

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  FFGhost

  Don't know if this is "most memorable", but it's the first one that comes to mind.

  Early 90's - the Awake cover featured a series of articles on crack cocaine, which was the big thing in the news then.

  Was out in service with an older guy, a few flapjacks short of a grand slam, if you know what I mean. Also had near-zero social grace.

  Walk with him up to a door, householder is working in his yard.

  Householder: "Good morning, how..."

  Brother No-Filter: "WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS CRACK???"

  Householder, confused, begins inspecting his sidewalk for fissures.
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  39

  Vice doc spotlights Jehovah’s Witnesses

  by Rattigan350 in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  https://www.c21media.net/news/vice-doc-spotlights-jehovahs-witnesses/.

  us cable network vice tv will debut an original documentary that claims to uncover corruption and abuse within the jehovah’s witnesses community.. vice versa: crusaders, which will air on july 28, is part of the channel’s vice versa brand, known for docs including fear of a black quarterback and the neglected pandemic.. the project comes from hollywood director aaron kaufman, who was shunned by his jehovah’s witness family after investigating paedophilia within the organisation.. crusaders is directed by kaufman and executive produced by lauren terp, as well as daniel levinson and robert fernandez for us-london prodco moxie pictures, and danny gabai and andrew freston for vice studios.

  executive producing for vice tv is catherine whyte.. kaufman said: “after witnessing first-hand the cycle of abuse that runs deep within the jehovah’s witnesses, i could not rest until the dark truth of this organisation was brought to light.

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  FFGhost

  Maybe this is at least part of the reason why a hysterical screed against "listening to apostates" was plunked into the middle of a convention that ostensibly deals with "building faith".
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  28

  David Splane's apostate warning convention talk

  by neat blue dog in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  i know this recent video has been talked about already but i just watched it and here are a few things that got me annoyed as usual:.

  splane says that if a bible student says he saw some negative information from apostates and asks us to explain it, we shouldn't look at it or address anything specifically, but instead we should tell them to go to meetings and hear what we have to say about ourselves and also tell them to befriend people at the hall.

  for any person with integrity and/or intelligence, this is not a satisfactory answer.

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  FFGhost

  The question I always have about this sort of talk....

  What if the "negative information" comes from a non-apostate source?

  They create this near-hysterical revulsion toward "apostates", then conflate the idea of "apostasy" with "presenting any information that reveals the organization saying or doing something that is wrong or harmful" regardless of source.

  So, the argument becomes "negative information is, by definition, apostate information. If you hear negative information about us, it is always false and it always comes from apostates."

  That is wrong. The really evil part is that they know it is wrong, yet they say it anyway.

  Every time I am inclined to give them "the benefit of the doubt" on the question of "are they evil or just deluded", they come out with a talk or article like this which answers the question in full.
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  6

  A conversation that could have occurred between Jesus and a crowd he taught

  by BourneIdentity in

  1. social
  2. humour

  jesus: "so that is why you all get sick and die, because adam and eve grabbed an apple from the tree that god told them not to.".

  a man from the crowd: "but why are we punished for something we didn't do, we don't even know that man and woman, that was thousands of years ago!".

  jesus: "my father exercises perfect justice, believe me when i tell you when i say you got what was coming to you.

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  FFGhost

  "Blessed are the cheesemakers...."
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  18

  Ralph Walls implausible 2021 Convention field service story

  by RULES & REGULATIONS in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  another implausible field service story told by ralph walls at the 2021 convention.

  get ready for this unrealistic, stupid, dull and boring, made up fiction that is presented at this assembly.. some years ago ( tells a story but doesn't know exact date ), a brother ( doesn't give his name ) in mexico ( doesn't name the town) from the rurals, dressed in a very simple garb ( to show he was not showy ) knocked at the door of a palatial mansion.

  ( a very rich ''worldly'' person must live here ).

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  FFGhost

  I have never heard the expression "the rurals" before, and I am a native English speaker.

  That WT writer from the 80s needed a capable editor.
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  9

  Can a person order a free bible through the JWs?

  by jwundubbed in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i was researching the easiest bible to read (which the jw bible is not) and the best way to buy one online at low cost and it got me thinking.

  the jw.org is doing videos and has a website.

  have they joined the order-online phenomenon that is going on in the world today?

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  FFGhost

  I think you mean, as in send in a request and they'd mail you a Bible?

  No, they don't have anything like that.

  You can read the NWT online, or as Jeffro suggested, fill out the online form to get a JW to visit you. If you manage to convince them you are "sincere" and not an apostate, and request them to hand-deliver a printed Bible to your door, they probably would.

  Well at least they would have pre-pandemic...for now probably the only way to read the NWT is online, if you don't already have a copy.