i'm half listening in on my wife's zoom meeting.
in my decade+ in the org, i don't remember ever getting into such minutia about jw hunting rules.. apparently, it's ok to kill an animal to use its skin as a clothing accessory, but it's not ok to kill an animal to use its antlers as a wall decoration.. not mentioned in the talk: whether or not its ok to kill an animal to wear its antlers as a hat.. .
I'm half listening in on my wife's Zoom meeting. In my decade+ in the org, I don't remember ever getting into such minutia about JW hunting rules.
Apparently, it's OK to kill an animal to use its skin as a clothing accessory, but it's not OK to kill an animal to use its antlers as a wall decoration.
Not mentioned in the talk: whether or not its OK to kill an animal to wear its antlers as a hat.
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.
What a true religion would do: Provide higher quality evidence, shore up any holes in its arguments, listen intently to criticism and attempt to make proper changes for the better, encourage people with doubts to look at a wide variety of sources vetted for accuracy and ultimately let God be the one to enact any kind of judgements.
What a not-so-true religion would do: Tolerate no sort of disagreement or questioning, label critics and unbelievers as despicable, dangerous, and dishonest agents of Satan, cruelly punish any member who changes their minds about their beliefs and extort them into silence with public shaming and shunning, bribe people into agreement by offering paradise and threaten people against disagreement with brutal execution and eternal death.
the light really is getting brighter, but what kind?
i can think of three types of figurative light in this context:.
1) that which jws refer to and they base on pr 4:18. light on a path... light that gets brighter.
"The way of the Watchower is like the gaslight that gets brighter and brighter."
Kudos to @Fadeaway1962 for beating me to it 😂
since this pandemic, especially, are witnesses fine with never having to go to another meeting or assembly again?
?.
As for meetings, most around my parts are saying that they can't wait to return. I believe them. We need to remember that PIMIs view the religion differently. It's not just a heirarchy and a set of rules, it's their community and social support system. Of course they want to see their people again. Also, your typical JW has deliberately limited their focus on every other aspect of their lives for the sake of the religion and don't have much else to do with themselves. In some respects, it reminds me of children who are excited when school is out for the summer. By the end of summer they get bored and realize that they have nothing else going on in their lives so they can't wait to get back. Then they get sick of school again and can't wait to get out, in a cycle that doesn't end until they graduate and spend the rest of their lives wishing they could relive their schooldays.
As for the ministry. Some people, like my wife, absolutely love it and aren't just pretending. Many (most?) JWs aren't like that and do it out of a sense of duty. Of course, The Watchtower Society shames and defames Witnesses who don't preach cheerfully or who express any bit of dislike for the ministry. I can see that portion of JWs dreading having to go back but being too intimidated bor ashamed to actually admit it.
regarding what some have said here about the wt being a false prophet.. i would like to make my point regarding the wt not being a false prophet... so please, if you can be patient enough to read this, at least try to understand what i am getting at.. a false prophet is one who, according to deuteronomy, makes a false prediction of the future and claims that the prediction came from god, or in other words claiming that 'god has said he will do a certain thing at a certain time' etc.. for example, hypothetically speaking, if someone had claimed: "god will bring about the end of the world in 2010", they would have been proven to be a false prophet, obviously.
but, as an example, imagine a man who claimed the position of a prophet of god, (as moses did, because although he was not the type of prophet that predicted the future.. he was still a prophet or spokesman for god) and that he had publicised worldwide, according to his interpretation of a (for example) prophecy found in the book of isaiah, that the world would end in 2010.. and he had also stated that he was not saying that god will end the world in that year.. but only that there was biblical evidence that god might do so.
that would clearly have been a mistake.
I've seen this topic dissected in almost every possible way. Here's one more to add to the pile.
Consider the following trope: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne
Skeptic: Watchtower is a false prophet!
Watchtower: Hey, hey, hey, I am NOT a prophet!
Skeptic: Well, at least you don't deny being false
kim and mikey made a youtube yesterday claiming that a business called watchtower property co. was connected to the watchtower.
they used a recording done by youtuber smurf girl of a call she made to a julie at the company.
i believe the call was doctored as it has her saying that (no) "we're connected to the jehovahs witnesses directly.
20 years ago, before I was baptized into the JW religion, I took a look at what some apostate websites had to say. Unfortunately, they were the wrong kind of apostates that fell right into the Watchtower stereotypes. I learned not to take detractors seriously and it was a LONG time before I honestly revisited my beliefs and was willing to see what others had to say.
In what turned out to be a really embarrassing lack of judgement on my part, I ended up being stumbled into the truth. I take responsibility for my own bias blind spot, but I'll never know how differently my life would have turned out if the first thing I saw when I typed "Jehovah's Witnesses controversies" into Yahoo! search was something along the lines of jwfacts and JW Watch, rather than some barely coherent conspiratorial ravings.
There's a time and a place for righteous indignation, but it should never get in the way of high quality research and accurate reporting.
lloyd has a reminder set for a "leaked" video that he will be reviewing tomorrow, but it lacks details in the description.
does anyone know what video he is referring to, or is this an upcoming loyd evans exclusive?.
i find leaks exciting, especially if it's something that was never meant to be public and puts some serious egg on the faces of the blundering body..
I typed a comment here that was meant for another thread. If there's any way to delete a post, I haven't figured it out.
kim and mikey made a youtube yesterday claiming that a business called watchtower property co. was connected to the watchtower.
they used a recording done by youtuber smurf girl of a call she made to a julie at the company.
i believe the call was doctored as it has her saying that (no) "we're connected to the jehovahs witnesses directly.
So, none of this makes any sense unless you're familiar with "Exjw Smurf Girl". Let's just say that this is par for the course for her.
lloyd has a reminder set for a "leaked" video that he will be reviewing tomorrow, but it lacks details in the description.
does anyone know what video he is referring to, or is this an upcoming loyd evans exclusive?.
i find leaks exciting, especially if it's something that was never meant to be public and puts some serious egg on the faces of the blundering body..
@pistolpete
Thankfully, the GB aren't eduated enough to understand The Streisand Effect. They're shooting themselves in the foot.
lloyd has a reminder set for a "leaked" video that he will be reviewing tomorrow, but it lacks details in the description.
does anyone know what video he is referring to, or is this an upcoming loyd evans exclusive?.
i find leaks exciting, especially if it's something that was never meant to be public and puts some serious egg on the faces of the blundering body..
It turns out that this is a convention talk that was just leaked a bit earlier than WT had planned on releasing it. It's the absolute most blood boiling talk I have ever had the displeasure to listen to.
If Watchtower were to release this talk in "Simplified English", it would translate as follows:
"We... are a cult.
We're a cult. We're a cult. We're a cult, cult, cult.
A cult, we are."
