Ozzie!!!
How are you??
i know they're panicking and trying to gain favor with governments, former members, prospective converts & those who are teetering, all for financial worries.
still, the latest update in some ways made things worse, and if there's any jws watching it who are beginning to wake up it should be very disturbing.. starting with dress codes: they say that suits, ties & skirts are no longer required, but in so doing they admit that they were required, something not often appearing as an explicit command in print.
(similar to how lett referred to the "policy on beards" in his video, even though this direct policy wasn't made available to rank and file.
Ozzie!!!
How are you??
you heard me correct, this is not a joke, and it is not april fools day!
the asl portion of the governing body updated #2 (march 2024) has been released a bit early and someone caught it.
summary: .
Halcon:
I predict birthdays, mother's Day and Father's Day will be next. The blood thing is tricky bc there is explicit rules on it in the scriptures.
If I recall correctly the explicit rules in the OT were against partaking in blood for nourishment, as was the case in groups other than the Hebrews. I can still see that being a thing, making sure that your sausage doesn't contain any "meat by-products", which (in the 70s) was my job when going food shopping with my mom.
Blood transfusion as a medical treatment, though, is not - as former WT Publications™ falsely stated - a nutritional thing, and as such, cannot be interpreted to be a practice that is prohibited in the bible.
When your blood volume is severely and/or decreased (as in a trauma like a GSW or MVA, or a postpartum hemorrhage), you will die if you are not replenished. Also even if you survive, the loss of red blood cells takes a long time to naturally return to the level it was before the blood loss occurred. You need the red blood cells to feed the the body from the inside, providing oxygen, removing carbon dioxide and other waste materials, sometimes with the help of the lungs, other times with the digestive system. The brain cannot function properly with oxygen saturations below normal levels (92-100%); we can adapt and survive, but we can't thrive the way we should.
When a woman has a postpartum haemorrhage and her hemoglobin level drops to 70-80% of what is normal, she won't be able to produce milk for her newborn, because her body is severely occupied with keeping her alive. It can take months to recover from that. (been there, done that)
If anything, the GB can use the example of David pouring out water that his men had risked their lives for to acquire on David's behalf, as if the water was a blood sacrifice, to show the value of blood - what is now a very renewable resource in the field of medicine - to save lives. Ecclesiastes 9:4 "a live dog is better than a dead lion" conveys the meaning that it is always better to live when you have an option to keep yourself alive.
In the How Blood Can Save Your Life booklet, they came up with some cockamamy rationale that because Jesus gave his life for others, that JWs can only respect that sacrifice by being willing to sacrifice themselves in the face of death. It's just another lame control tactic by men in suits. I'd be willing to pay for a ringside seat when (not "if") a class action lawsuit for wrongful deaths happens brought forward by people who lost loved ones for coerced (or else DF) refusal of blood transfusions. The number of deaths around the world probably outnumber those of Jonestown by at least a factor of 20.
you heard me correct, this is not a joke, and it is not april fools day!
the asl portion of the governing body updated #2 (march 2024) has been released a bit early and someone caught it.
summary: .
All I can say is that Farkel and alanf must be spinning in their graves.
i know they're panicking and trying to gain favor with governments, former members, prospective converts & those who are teetering, all for financial worries.
still, the latest update in some ways made things worse, and if there's any jws watching it who are beginning to wake up it should be very disturbing.. starting with dress codes: they say that suits, ties & skirts are no longer required, but in so doing they admit that they were required, something not often appearing as an explicit command in print.
(similar to how lett referred to the "policy on beards" in his video, even though this direct policy wasn't made available to rank and file.
I notice with a huge eyeroll, that nothing was said about Sisters™ being allowed to wear pant suits or slacks to the KH or other JW functions.
Just saying.
i’ve not been paying close attention to watchtower developments, but talking to a jw yesterday it occurred to me the society (yes, still use that term - old school) have been sending out mixed messages in recent years.
from what i gather, a few years ago the gb announced that during the great tribulation jws would be required to preach a “hailstone message of judgement” which involved telling people it was too late for them to repent and they were definitely going to be destroyed.
there were hints that this could be very soon, “any day now” preaching could stop and the hailstone message come in, kind of thing.
Vidiot:
Maybe they phrased it the way they did on purpose to leave enough wiggle room for either possibility.
😏
O M G Vidiot! You know they would *never*, *ever* do that! PUH-Lease!!
i’ve not been paying close attention to watchtower developments, but talking to a jw yesterday it occurred to me the society (yes, still use that term - old school) have been sending out mixed messages in recent years.
from what i gather, a few years ago the gb announced that during the great tribulation jws would be required to preach a “hailstone message of judgement” which involved telling people it was too late for them to repent and they were definitely going to be destroyed.
there were hints that this could be very soon, “any day now” preaching could stop and the hailstone message come in, kind of thing.
If you know that WT is spewing nonsense while simultaneously creating a sense of urgency among its followers, why give it ANY of your precious time and mental resources.
Sure, it's nice to know what my JW relatives are being spoon-fed in the Publications™, but should it have any effect on my life? I don't think so.
It's just another shovelful of crap on an already heaping, steaming, smelly pile of crap.
https://jws-library.one/?file=data/1943/w_e_19430701/w_e_19430701.html#bookmark2.
https://jws-library.one/?list=publications&pubid=w_e_19430701&year=1943.
these expressions of god’s will by his king and through his established agency constitute his law or rule of action for the “faithful and wise servant” and for their goodwill companions today who will dwell upon the earth for ever in the new world.
I bet they can cook the books in terms of hours spent going Door-to-Door™ or Publications™ Placed™ etc, even better than the average JW could do on their own. They've just streamlined the process.
Their website counts how many visitors click in, how many Publications™ are downloaded, how many visits look up where Meetings™ are, how many people log in to the Zoom meetings, etc. They don't need individual JWs to file reports, or have Elders™ tally the numbers and send reports to Bethel. It doesn't matter any more, because J-W dot bOrg is doing the counting for them.
i got the internet in my house and realised it's all lies....but as a pioneer/ministerial servant i chose to fade.
see i had family and friends who were fully strict witnesses.
so i played the poor lost soul brother who is not sure what's happening.
Started my fade in mid 1990s by going to college across town. Moved to different Congregation™ and Circuit™ (and, as it turned out, District™), where nobody knew us and nobody would be looking for us (Mr. Scully & our kids).
Nobody from our old Congregation™ bothered to keep in touch. We all made new friends. I got a great job after graduating. Mr. Scully had started his own business and was doing very well. The kids loved their school, loved that they could participate in school activities, and celebrations.
It was a fairly painless process overall, until we moved house to the part of town where we lived before... that's a story that is featured in the archives.
Still very much worth the minor headaches at the time. I'm neither DFd nor DAd. Both sides of the family (the JW parts) have come to realize the damage shunning does within a family. My RC in-laws gave the JW brother in law (former RC) a 'come to Jesus' talking-to, and told him that when he became a JW none of them shunned him and his family, so if he was going to shun us, they would do the same to him. "Family is family" is their motto. He actually apologized to us at the last family reunion.
a department in bethel wants to try to make money from regional conventions by asking local hotels if they will give a special rate and a coupon code to give to jws.. .
they should just keep it simple and not be greedy for dishonest gain.. .
this year some convention sites the hotels said no thank you i think the jws are going to book with us anyway.
This has been a practice for decades - the WTS tells JWs not to book at hotels that have not entered a pricing agreement with the WTS; JWs do whatever they want.
From what I recall being told is that the hotels will offer additional complimentary rooms which were then booked by people who were in the know - Elders™, HLC members, visiting GB, DOs and COs.
When I was still in my late teens, one hotel had "lost" our booking and gave the room to someone else, so they gave us a *suite* for the price that we booked and reserved with a deposit. Best hotel *suite* EVER. The following years, my dad reserved the same room for us. We weren't allowed to tell any of the Friends™ about this room.
It was one of the only things that was a perk for going to the DC.
with what is arguably the biggest change to jw life in recent decades (the scrapping of publishers counting hours) what does this lead to?.
in my mind these are the results;.
1) a massive decrease in 'preaching hours'.
Having left over 25 years ago, I can proudly say that so many of us were ahead of the times!
Cheers to Circling the Drain!