how do the gb micro-manage people's lives today?one example is their micro management in dress and grooming.
eg their view of beards.
elders in most congs will take a brother to a corner and remind him why jws don't grow beards.
Millie210: Then there is the birth control policy. No IUDs and no morning after pill. You are not supposed to use any contraception that could interfere with implantation. During this same time period, vasectomies were a no-no if you wanted to be a Pioneer or servant.
I stand corrected.
how do the gb micro-manage people's lives today?one example is their micro management in dress and grooming.
eg their view of beards.
elders in most congs will take a brother to a corner and remind him why jws don't grow beards.
How does the GB micromanage the lives of JWs?
Answer: Any way they can.
A better question might be: In what areas does the GB not micromanage their lives?
Despite the oft quoted phrase "matter of conscience" that you occasionally find in the Watchtower, there are precious few areas where those crochety old men don't intrude. Diet. The consumption of alcohol. The decision to use contraception. These are the only places I can recall where JWs are actually allowed to think through an ethical dilemma using their own brain; though I anticipate that the GB will eventually get around to shoring up these holes in their net of control (it's not like they have anything better to do). Even completely non-ethical issues, like dress and grooming, are decided for JWs in advance. Everything not forbidden is compulsory.
this was partly discussed in this thread: https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/4853755331739648/these-common-jw-beliefs?page=2#!#5701815683252224 but i wanted to delve into the topic of yoga even further.. it seems watchtower have no clue what yoga actually is, or what it can achieve.
i myself dont practice yoga, but i do meditate and see the benefits of that.. here is an artical from watchtower 2002 with my commentary:.
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2002565#h=1.
So one religion, Hinduism, has taken the practice of yoga and used it. That doesnt make yoga exclusively a Hindu thing though does it? Just like JW's have taken the wedding ring, wedding cake and ear piercings and used them.
Yes it DOES. These are all pagan customs that I'm sure the GB wil get around to outlawing soon. Just because the GB has made some concessions over the years to worldly customs does not give JWs permission to practice demonic rituals like yoga!
I'll have to disagree with you there and say YES! Many people of no religion practice yoga and use it to control their diet, blood pressure and mental disposition.
Yeah, and they are using the power of the demons to do these things even if they don't know it.
I call bullshit on this one. It is true that the human body is amazing and capable of doing remarkable things such as withstanding heat and cold under the proper training. But as for transmitting thoughts and super hearing this has NEVER been proven under scientific conditions. If it had it would be a world wide groundbreaking discovery that science would use for the advancement of humanity. So far, no proof has ever come forward.
Demons don't want scientists to discover their existence, as this would convince them that Jehovah exists too. Demons only reveal themselves to those who already believe so they can either harass them or tempt them away from Jehovah.
Not so amazing. Lying on a bed of nails is pure physics. Anyone can do it. The weight of ones body evenly spread over the bed of nails in the correct way is no great feat. As for hot coals, hell, Tony Robbins does this at the end of every seminar with his students. Again, pure physics.
No, pure spiritism. Tony Robbins is demon possessed!
I've seen Penn and Teller do this trick too. Then they shown you how they did it. No major feat there either.
Top magicians like Penn & Teller get their powers from demons! Haven't you ever watched their HBO show 'Bullshit'? These are vulgar, demon-possessed men who seize every opportunity to mock Jehovah and his followers. They HATE God!
No it isnt. That's just the hindu take on it. Go speak to a Buddhist, a Jain, a Trantic or any other school of yoga. There are many!
Moksha, Nirvana and all the rest are just synonyms for demon possession. I can't believe how stupid and naive you are about this! Satan CREATED these religions. Open your eyes!
there's a jw 'sister' at work, lovely girl in her mid twenties.
anyway, on monday the union (cwu) called a one day strike in support of colleagues and all union members supported the action as far as i'm aware, except the sister.. she claimed it was 'against her religion' to strike.
bare in mind, she's a fee paying member of the union.. now, a few of my workmates know of my past and asked me if this was really true, that jehovah's witnesses aren't allowed to strike.. we'll, i like this girl and i didn't want to make her look silly but what was i supposed to say after i stopped laughing?
I'm not aware of any explicit prohibition on striking, but it's consistent with the WT's emphasis on not getting involved with the world and passively enduring hardship. If this girl went on strike she would become more than a JW, she would be a union member and would inevitably start to feel some comraderie with her worldly coworkers. For this reason, I think it is wise of her to abstain. Getting involved with wordly people for any purpose, even a temporary one such as a strike, is just asking to become demon kibble.
i saw this recent account on youtube recently and wondered if anyone had any good spook stories?
haunted books?
ouija boards?
Heathen: I prefer that people stay on topic of which is about ghost stories
Sorry, but stirring up fundamentalists has always been an irresistible temptation for me. But I do have a ghost story for you. Like most true ghost stories, it's not scary at all and actually fairly mundane. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was just a flight of imagination, but here goes...
When I was 14 my great uncle, who was legally blind, drove off a cliff with my great aunt in the driver's seat. My uncle walked away with some minor injuries, but my aunt ended up in a coma. I visited her in the hospital the following day and, while her condition had seemed to have stabilized, the doctor didn't know if she would ever wake up.There wasn't anything to do, so we left the hospital.
On our way home, my mom and I stopped at Walmart to pick up some groceries and when I was walking through the aisles I distinctly saw someone who looked exactly like my aunt. To my surprise, she made eye contact with me, smiled and said she loved me but she was dead, then literally vanished before my eyes. I dismissed it as a hallucination until we got home and found a message on our answering machine. It was the hospital. Apparently my aunt had died while we made our way home.
While this had a strong emotional impact at the time, looking back I think it was probably a hallucination brought on by stress. If she had died instantly after the accident and appeared to me before I even knew anything, I would be less skeptical. Still, I suppose it could have been her.
i saw this recent account on youtube recently and wondered if anyone had any good spook stories?
haunted books?
ouija boards?
cofty:
There is nothing for parapsychology to investigate apart from fraud and delusion.
LOL!
So anything that falls outside of your experience or puny preconceptions is either fraud or delusion? How convenient! Yours is just the sort of cognitive rigidity that I was criticizing in my OP. You remind me of Victorian era astronomers who would ridicule people who said they saw rocks falling from the sky (meteorites) because these educated men just knew that there are no rocks floating around in the atmosphere despite what those chicken-little laymen thought they witnessed.
Man, I know you're sincere, but there are times when I can't help but suspect you are a bigger troll than me.
i saw this recent account on youtube recently and wondered if anyone had any good spook stories?
haunted books?
ouija boards?
There is nothing to address. Parapsychology failed as a way to explain something that has been explained by normal science/psychology. That isn't to say parapsychology failed in and of itself because it did prove that it wasn't ghosts or whatnot i.e. found no reasons to support the notion of anything supernatural; it just failed as an explanation.
I think we are defining 'parapsychology' differently. Genuine parapsychology does not argue for the existence of ghosts or anything else supernatural; rather parapsychology studies phenomena that others interpret as supernatural and attempts to come of with a rational explanation for them; which is something that science has been doing all along since its inception.
The only difference between parapsychology and most other branches of science is that the phenomena studied by parapsychologists are so rare that progress is very slow when compared to branches of science that focus on more mundane subjects like physics and biology. Nevertheless, the basic idea is still the same: come up with rational, quantifiable and falsifiable explanations that don't require some supernatural agency like gods or demons.
This ain't Ghost Hunters. If anything, it's more like Scooby-Doo.
i saw this recent account on youtube recently and wondered if anyone had any good spook stories?
haunted books?
ouija boards?
Susan Blackmore dedicated half her career trying to prove everything you claimed in your post. She concluded it was all fraud, deceit, Delusion and superstition.
I have not read Susan Blackmore, so I cannot comment specifically on her findings; but I don't see how this refutes the entire field of parapsychology any more than incidents of fraud refute any branch of science. Scientists in all disciplines have sometimes resorted to deceit in order to substantiate their theories, but that says nothing about science as a whole.
If paranormal phenomena cannot be examined using the scientific method, then what does that leave us? Religion? Witchcraft? Philosophical conjectures? If you are so certain that parapsychology is a failed venture, then what method would you suggest be used? Oh, I know that's a rhetorical question for you since you don't believe in the existence of the paranormal to begin with; but what about those of us who have either experienced it first hand or believe those who have?
Simply ignoring the paranormal does not address it; it simply evades it. Scientists may come to erroneous conclusions in their search for knowledge, but simply ignoring anything only perpetuates ignorance. As difficult as it is to study such an elusive subject using the scientific method, I think it's still the best available solution; if not the optimal one. To do less or to discourage others from doing research in this area is, in my opinion, to actively hold back scientific progress and to aid and abet charlatans who are all too happy to exploit people's superstitions for their own personal gain.
i saw this recent account on youtube recently and wondered if anyone had any good spook stories?
haunted books?
ouija boards?
WhatshallIcallmyself: Show me some proof or supply some theory as to what these things are that we can test and let's go from there.
That would be a waste of time for both of us. There is an overwhelming volume of evidence for the existence of poltergeists and other paranormal phenomena. There is so much evidence, both experimental and anecdotal, that an entire branch of science is devoted to collecting and studying such evidence; it's called Parapsychology. If you are sincerely interested in Truth rather than scientific orthodoxy, then go to your local library and dig in.
But of course, for fundy materialists, none of it is valid evidence. And parapsychology is a pseudoscience at best. All 'evidence' for psychic phenomena has been deliberately falsified, or there was some flaw in the experiment, or bias in those who were conducting the experiments.
Parapsychologists regularly get dismissed and ridiculed by orthodox scientists who fear that acknowledging the existence of paranormal phenomena could legitimize the claims of religions, which, ironically, is a great boon to religious and occult charlatans of all stripes because it means that the realm of the paranormal will remain the last refuge for mysticism instead of being de-mystified like all other natural phenomena have been.
so i was wondering what book is the nuttiest they ever printed?
i know there are several in contention for first place but which is your vote for no 1?
also if you don't mind post a bit of what is in the book you pick to show why you picked it.
I really can't decide between the Revelation book and Life: How Did it Get Here. These were both my favorites when I was a kid: Revelation I liked because of the bizarre, apocalyptic imagery and Life contained just enough pseudo-science to satisfy my doubts and my affection for real science. However, soon I was reading worldly books that trumped these on both points. Compared to The Book of the Subgenius, Revelation is pretty tame; and Richard Dawkins exposes Life for the simplistic straw man argument that it is.
