oldskool

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Posts by oldskool

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  24

  The Watchtower's method to show that it was appointed in 1919 CE

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  please note that when you tell me of the corrections i need to make that this is a simplfied, minimalist presentation dealing with the society's appointment in 1919.. it is available as a powerpoint show: http://www.jwstudies.com/appointed_in_1919.ppsx .

  and as a pdf: http://www.jwstudies.com/appointed_in_1919.pdf.

  doug.

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  oldskool

  I'll be honest, I haven't been up on this topic in a while. What you laid out is a bit daunting and not easily readable.

  Also, I see no reference to the Jonadabs. While I agree there is no direct connection to 1919 chronology, I feel it is a critical piece of the appointment puzzle that WTS writers/leaders heavily rely on. It is the emotional part of the story that believers can latch on to, and is critical to how their theology and worldview remains up to the current period.

  I once discussed in depth the 1914/19 chronology and selection information with an Elder that attended ministerial training school and was taught under a governing body member. Faced with the documentation that the 1914/19 chronology was incoherent, he immediately transitioned the conversation to the Jonadab "miracle". This point was communicated heavily to him during his training, and I believe it remains in the background as the "backup" evidence to 1914/19 JW leaders rely on to define their divine appointment.

  The reality is no Jonadab miracle occured. With Rutherford at the helm of the Bible Student movement, membership in the group began to shrink because of opposition to the direction he was leading the group. Rutherford responded to the self induced loss of membership by saying it was part of a divine plan. The group would continue to shrink until the end, he predicted.

  However, the great depression occurred creating an opportunity for the groups message to find a wider audience. Faced with explaining the new contradiction that membership was no longer occuring, the creation of the Jonadab class fixed the issue.

  Simply relying on Watchtower publications, especially post 70s, it is easy to see how the context to these events was lost in favor of reliving the "miracle" of a "great multitude" unexpectedly entering the faith. The mythic origins help soften the 1914/19 scenario, the birth of the Jonadabs, 144,000, two classes of christians, ect.

  On the whole, I feel that the 1914/19 discussion is far less important that the mythologization of the Jonadab class and the Watchtowers history around this time.
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  39

  Why do witnesses feel the need to put JW ORG on all their social media sites?

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  have you all noticed the obsession witnesses have of putting jw.org on all their social media sites like facebook, twitter, instagram etc?.

  so many put it in their bio section...like some sort of loud proclamation to other witnesses that they are righteous and spreading the message.. it's also very lazy.

  now with no personal effort at all, they can just say jw.org and be "witnessing".

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  oldskool

  I am guilty of this in the past. I used to put jw.org in the little website section of the Instagram bio. I never counted it as witnessing but I had a lot of followers, many of them from when I was in high school and college. I always hoped that they'd see the great life I was living through my pictures (although much of it was staged happiness) and be curious enough to click on the link. Pretty silly thinking back on it.

  @stephanie61092 I am curious of your age. This is a very interesting comment, which illustrates the impact of the Watchtowers embrace of digital/social media.
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  33

  Field Service Privilege Can Be Taken Away Due to Hairstyle and Tight Pants???

  by Wild_Thing in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  millie2105 hours agohere is something i just found out this week.former belief - field service is a publishers inalienable right new belief - field service privilege can be taken away if person styles hair or wears clothing in a way that is deemed metrosexual.i was pretty much dumbfounded.. this was posted on another thread, so i decided to start a new topic about this.

  i think this is amazing!

  i wish this was in place when i was a kid.

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  oldskool

  Field service classified as an "inalienable right" is quite bizarre. Apologies for the generalization, but it sounds like common mainstream millennial social media jargon channeled through a JW context.

  As I recall field service was classified by the WTS as a privilege, responsibility, and duty. Failure to be allowed to participate in this activity resulted in a loss of salvation for those either to lazy to participate or prohibited from participation.

  Dress code enforcement within the JW community always extended into personal "off the clock" behavior. I see nothing new in this whatsoever.
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  38

  Please sum up the last decade in JW history

  by oldskool in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i used to be a member of this site, but jumped off a good number of years ago (08?).

  i don't have access to my old email, so i'm using a new account.. anyway, i was baptized jw in late 90's.

  da'd mid 2000s.. when i left there were three meets a week plus field service.

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  oldskool

  I just started watching some of the tv.jw.org videos

  The norm within the group, a norm I sensed stretched back many decades, was that the governing body were "out there" somewhere, doing magic behind the scenes and shouldn't be given glory. Helpless warriors of the cause, not to be put on too high of a pedestal. Not reality, but that was the perceived norm.

  My first reaction is shock at the teaching videos with GB members in them. Gone is the anonymity associated with the leaders.

  Having GB out there publicly speaking in this manner is a radical change in my opinion. A true return to form, as the JWs now rely less on exegetical extrapolations and more on easily digestible videos and media. JW lite for sure.

  I wonder how many older ones appreciate this change? Any nostalgia out there for the way some things used to be, like longer more wordy prophecy books and the like? Or has decades of wishy washy content made this transition mostly benign?

  One thing is for sure. This media stuff is the next step past the Fred Franz era. It transitioned through the early 00's, and from what you've shown me the old order is out. Things ain't like they use to be.

  All the more reason to start a JW restoration movement. We are the true christians that meet in private homes for bible study, and use print based material instead of videos. Brown song book only!
  
  
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  38

  Please sum up the last decade in JW history

  by oldskool in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i used to be a member of this site, but jumped off a good number of years ago (08?).

  i don't have access to my old email, so i'm using a new account.. anyway, i was baptized jw in late 90's.

  da'd mid 2000s.. when i left there were three meets a week plus field service.

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  oldskool

  Sounds like I left during the changing of the guard.

  If there was one dominant theme to mark the witnesses from Franz era up through 95' it was the generation doctrine. With time eventually rendering the concept incoherent, the religion was bound to change as a result.

  My gut feeling before I left around 04/05' was that witness leadership was quickly facing tough decisions about the future. Sounds like the changes have been made.

  The JW movement, including the Bible Students for that matter, were always print oriented. Written publications were the center of their religious experience.

  Being publication/print oriented, from my perspective, offered two distinct selling points for the faith:

  1. Access to intellectual pursuits for the "common man", cultivating the concept of the armchair bible scholar. The JW publications of up through the 70s reek of Pseudo-intellectual jibberish. For anyone who found it convincing, it would be seen as an attractive alternative to Christianity's theologians, higher education, ect. The style provided the appearance of giving theological power back to the masses.

  2. Comfort through simplicity. From the very beginning Russell's books were packaged as a set. The simplicity of providing "all your bible study needs in one location" makes selecting what to read a non issue. As an added bonus for the org, accepting the Watchtower as God's channel is the built in outcome of this convenience. Humans in general gravitate towards simplicity, so once you decide one of these books is true why not just accept the entire boxed set into your heart as your lord and savior.

  From what everyone has written, it appears that there appears to a shift going on regarding the experiential features of group membership. The written word content is still there, but it appears the trend of simplifying the content continues. The tone of the magazines/books definitely got progressively generic from the 1980s through the 1990s compared to their historical material (founding through 60s). By the mid 2000's I was starting to think the content was just laughable. What does the Bible Really Teach? was the last publication I remember, which almost played as a joke publication of what a satirist would make pretending to be a Jehovah's Witness.

  The cut in the quality of printed literature isn't all that surprising. The repetitive nature to what the Witnesses published from the 70s up through the 00s was staggering. I doubt even most devout JWs were reading those magazines regularly, as they had basically already read them hundred of times before.

  With an inability to write new and exciting content, given the risks associated with eschatological speculations, the move to video and media is also not surprising.

  What I am most curious to know is when will they start including some form of worship service that is not media oriented. At some point that is probably their next big leap, adopting generic worship elements from mainline protestant churches.

  My guess, anyway.
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  90

  New DNA Study Confirms Noah

  by notsurewheretogo in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  http://www.icr.org/article/9325/.

  amazing read...go on , have a laugh if you want to.. new dna study confirms noah.

  by brian thomas, m.s.

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  oldskool

  Hold up yall, they have an unreadable chart. The truth is on their side.

  
  
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  1

  Internet 1.0 EXJW Site?

  by lambsbottom in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey yall,.

  just was curious what the 90s exjw boards & forums looked like (web 1.0).

  any screen shots?.

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  oldskool

  use https://archive.org/ you can see ALL versions!
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  38

  Please sum up the last decade in JW history

  by oldskool in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i used to be a member of this site, but jumped off a good number of years ago (08?).

  i don't have access to my old email, so i'm using a new account.. anyway, i was baptized jw in late 90's.

  da'd mid 2000s.. when i left there were three meets a week plus field service.

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  oldskool

  I used to be a member of this site, but jumped off a good number of years ago (08?). I don't have access to my old email, so I'm using a new account.

  Anyway, I was baptized JW in late 90's. DA'd mid 2000s.

  When I left there were three meets a week plus field service. Book study was in somebody's home, theocratic school, service meeting, weekly talk, watchtower study. Four magazines a month I believe? Service time silps. AUX pio was 50 hours, maybe 40? Pioneer school, yeah I did that. Brooklyn was still a thing for WTC. Only computer thing going on was the Watchtowers CD-ROM, plus a dinky website nobody looked at.

  I haven't even looked at their website now, would rather hear your take. Let me know what's changed.
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  6

  Can anybody explain this?

  by neat blue dog in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i know i can't.

  if it helps, i'm on a public school's wifi:.

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  oldskool

  probably a banal tech security thing, i don't think the watchtower hosts its data in the people's republic but I could be wrong
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  38

  Newspaper article on Conventions—why so glowing?

  by Londo111 in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  every year in dozens of cities where conventions are being held, newspapers typically write an article about the event.

  there are exceptions, but usually it is like the articles above.

  i would love to see more newspaper articles that did some actual objective reporting, rather than puff pieces.

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  oldskool

  The internal language that JWs use among themselves is very nuanced. Add in that a great deal of what they write and preach is monotonous and pedestrian, which makes it that much harder for any outsider to catch the meaning behind what is being said with so much generic babble sandwiched in between.