Posts by Skimmer

28

Hi, I'm New!

by Ashley in

jw
friends

my name is ashley and i'm 17 years old.

i'm from abbotsford b.c., canada (an hour out of vancouver).

i have blond hair and blues eyes, thin, 5'5.

There are about a hundred regular posters to this board and no two of them have the same viewpoint. Some are JWs, some others have never been associated, and some were JWs for many years but are inactive or have left for various reasons. Also, there are a couple of kooks, but don't mind them.

I'm glad that there is a variety of opinion, just as I am glad that there is a variety of cultures in the world. I for one am grateful that I've had the opportunity to visit Canada many times (Ontario and Quebec, haven't yet been to B. C.) and I've enjoyed the friendly people I've met in our neighbor to the north. Also, I think that Canadian beer is far superior to anything from Europe, although I hope that you don't have too much experience with that particular topic.

You are a young person compared to most of us. Being seventeen can be wonderful as it is a time for exploration and so I hope that you are considering college; too many of us here have had that delayed or deferred. It can still be done when you're thirty or older, but it's better to do it when most of the students are the same age as you so that you can help teach each other. Having an open mind is a big help in this and other things.

28

Hi, I'm New!

by Ashley in

jw
friends

my name is ashley and i'm 17 years old.

i'm from abbotsford b.c., canada (an hour out of vancouver).

i have blond hair and blues eyes, thin, 5'5.

Skimmer

Hello Ashley and welcome to the discussion board.

You may find some who post here will have religious views that differ from the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. But, I hope that you still will spend some time here with an open mind, and also that you further contribute your views. There is room here for all thoughtful persons and we welcome new posters.

272

McVeigh vs Death Penalty

by Amazing in

jw
friends

i am a policitcal conservative, at least a fiscal conservative and sociel moderate.

i support the death penalty, but i agree that our judicial system needs to overhaul how wwe treat criminals to achieve better rehabilitation results.

and of course, withhold the death penalty in cases where there could be doubt.. in mcveigh's case, i believe that he deserves the death penalty.

Skimmer

Hello Amazing:

Your comment about the founding fathers of the United States is interesting; I had heard similar ("let ninety nine go free lest one innocent hang") before but do not know the exact attribution. I note here that the Framers of the constitution on the whole had no problem with capital punishment as being cruel and unusual punishment and as I recall, specifically allowed for it for crimes of treason. Then again, at that time there was no infrastructure for long term imprisonment and so their motivation for expediency is understandable.

In the specific case of McVeigh, I cannot help but think that a lust for revenge was was at least part of the reason that some in the government wanted to see him put to death, and I have most serious doubt that revengefulness is a quality we want to encourage in any government. If we want to have revenge, would it not be better to have McVeigh and those like him locked up in cages? For then in McVeigh's case we could use him as a long term example to those who might want to imitate him: "Here he is, locked away forever, a murderer, and no patriot at all as he took both life and liberty from the innocent; Tim McVeigh, the parasite, the scum, and a LOSER like any who would follow him."

I have thoughts about the concept of a "just war" (the United States against Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany is one such; the United States against Vietnam was not), but I will save these for a later day. I will comment here that I think that conscription is clearly involuntary servitude and the acceptance of the military draft in too many countries makes unjust wars more likely.

18

Pioneer Meeting

by Liberated in

jw
friends

i apologize in advance if this has already been discussed here.. at my daughter's pioneer meeting they were told that leaving literature in phone booths and laundromats is "littering".. since when?

anybody else heard this?.

libby

Skimmer

The combined annual press run of the WT and Awake magazines is roughly two thousand million copies. If about a third of this is kept by JWs, then we can divide the remainder by the number of baptisms to get an estimate of how many pieces of "Bible based literature" are needed for one new convert.

The answer is that it takes about TEN THOUSAND literature placements to produce one new baptism. With an estimate of about US$0.50 per piece, that's five thousand dollars in advertising; perhaps twice as much in revenue given the double donation arrangement in some countries.

If the WTBTS was paying this money out of its own pocket, they would have switched to more efficient broadcast and direct mail a long time ago. Ah, but then how would they have the cash for the Patterson "educational" complex, the Hawaii "educational" complex, or the "travelling" work for the Brooklyn elite?

272

McVeigh vs Death Penalty

by Amazing in

jw
friends

i am a policitcal conservative, at least a fiscal conservative and sociel moderate.

i support the death penalty, but i agree that our judicial system needs to overhaul how wwe treat criminals to achieve better rehabilitation results.

and of course, withhold the death penalty in cases where there could be doubt.. in mcveigh's case, i believe that he deserves the death penalty.

Skimmer

Hello Amazing, and thank you for your well-considered reply to my posting.

I did not mention the McVeigh case in my posting as I wanted to retain a more general scope for objections to capital punishment. I agree that McVeigh is certainly not the first choice for an anti-death penalty poster child. Like you, I have no doubt that he is guilty. But I do have some doubt that he was free from serious mental illness. Is it not possible that he was a borderline psychotic and that the Waco incident pushed him over the edge? Is there room for a reasonable doubt about his mental stability? Did he not refuse psychiatric examination (an almost sure sign that he needed it)?

Extrapolating from this, have you considered the possibility that there might be some borderline nut case out there that is now being pushed over the edge by today's execution?

You repeatedly emphasize the need for justice. I agree. But there different interpretations of the nature of justice, and there are other needs as well. Some of the victims' survivors have stated that justice has today been served. But there are a few of them who have protested against the execution and had preferred a life imprisonment. Have they gotten justice today? Since not all could be satisfied, does that mean that some of them are just plain wrong in what they want? Or could it be that justice is impossible in this instance? Or maybe, does it mean that justice is too complex of a concept to be so easily defined in any specific case such as this?

You and others write that McViegh's crime was so despicable that nothing other than capital punishment could be justified. What if fewer had died? What if only one had died? What if only there were many serious injuries? The idea is that one could construct an entire spectrum of levels of offense. Different people would pick different points on the spectrum for the suitability of the death penalty. Are some right while others are wrong? Is there an objective point that most could agree upon? (Possibly, _lex talonis_, the "eye for an eye" standard; Gandhi was reported to say about this "an eye for an eye, and soon the whole world goes blind.")

As I wrote, I support life imprisonment as the treatment for murderers. Not a life of torture, but not a life of ease, either. In a way it still is capital punishment: death by incarceration.

Let me say here that when I was a younger man (my early twenties), I was a supporter of capital punishment and even voted for it in a referendum. Was I evil to do so? At the very least, I was ill-motivated as the main reason I had at the time was that for the most part the capital punishment opposers were composed largely of slimy, two-faced liberals. I still disagree with the slimly, two-faced liberals on just about everything except this. I am reminded of the adage that a younger man will demand justice while an older man will ask for mercy. I know that I am older; perhaps I am wiser, although I will remian silent on this and let others form their own opinion.

272

McVeigh vs Death Penalty

by Amazing in

jw
friends

i am a policitcal conservative, at least a fiscal conservative and sociel moderate.

i support the death penalty, but i agree that our judicial system needs to overhaul how wwe treat criminals to achieve better rehabilitation results.

and of course, withhold the death penalty in cases where there could be doubt.. in mcveigh's case, i believe that he deserves the death penalty.

Skimmer

I do not support capital punishment.

1) The State which has so much power is ever greedy for more, and the more it gets, the more it wants. There is the very real danger that capital punishment will be extended to more and more offenses if it seen as a solution to what we now consider "capital" crimes.

2) There is no real need for it when life imprisonment is available. If the justice system were more truthful, then a life sentence would really mean no parole, no furloughs, no anything but a life inside a two by three meter cage.

3) The threat of capital punishment can be used to coerce an accused innocent to confess to lesser charges.

4) Capital punishment puts the United States in the company of countries like Communist China and Saudi Arabia that have no respect for human rights.

5) Some innocent may be executed; while I think this is relatively uncommon, it can still happen. As evidence, I point to the numerous persons on death row that have been exonerated by DNA evidence. How many others might have been set free if the technology had been available sooner? What if there is yet undiscovered technology that might save any innocents that are on death row today?

6) It is incredibly expensive. The costs to the taxpayer for all the trials and appeals is something like three to ten times higher than for a life imprisonment penalty. That money could go towards feeding hungry people or helping the homeless. Should the State allow an offender to further victimize others in this way?

7) It is a dubious deterrent at best. To all the guilty on death row, it was no deterrent at all. To the contrary, there has been evidence that capital punishment is a motivator for some killers as a means for public martyrdom.

8) There are very serious doubts about the quality of some of the public defenders used by accused in capital cases. There are few wealthy persons that are on death row.

9) It brings out the worst in some. Seeing video of capital punishment supporters at execution sites makes me think that some of the more fanatic persons would have fit it quite well as joyful and self-righteous spectators at witch burnings. Perhaps there were such spectators for the Crucifixion.

10) It desensitizes society and so moves some people further down on the slippery slope: abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, and involuntary sterilization/eugenics.

The above are secular reasons. For me, the most important reason is religious. The Catholic Church teaches the importance of "wearing the seamless garment" and this means having a consistent and non-hypocritical approach to moral issues. The catechism teaches respect for life and this means for the lives of all persons no matter how vile some of them may be. It is not an easy doctrine, but it is a necessary one. The catechism does acknowledge the responsibility of the State to protect its citizens from those who would do harm, but it also clearly states that capital punishment is a last resort and can only be used when there is absolutely no alternative available. Pope John Paul II is a strong opponent of capital punishment and has stated that it has no place in any civilized nation, and I agree.

A quote from J. R. R. Tolkien's _Lord of the Rings_:

"Does he deserve death? I daresay he does. Yet many who die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be so quick to condemn others, as even the Wise cannot foresee all ends."

46

What Caused Your First Doubt ?

by Big Jim in

jw
friends

for me it was when i was about twelve years old and my best friends dad was disfellowshipped from the congregation.. i could not understand how a god of love would treat someone so coldly.. i used to think what if that was the way my parents would treat me if i had done something wrong, that would be so hard and cruel.. as i got older another thing that bothered me was the beard issue.

it may sound pretty trivial however the society has always refused to make a good arguement as to why they would give you the old cold shoulder if you were to grow one.. two more items; first i could not understand why all the congregations and all the assemblys would give income reports.

and the society never did.

Skimmer

As I've written before, the first crack came while browsing in the Kingdom Hall library when I stumbled across a copy of Russell's _Studies in the Scriptures_ complete with the pyramid chart fold-out. I then checked other older WTBTS literature and it became obvious that the WTBTS had a long history of crank output, and their later attempts at cover-ups further showed that they had no connection with God whatsoever.

Other things:

1) The WTBTS stated (and still states) that the entire world must first have a chance at WTBTS "truth" before the Big A comes. At the time (early 1973), mainland China had about 750 million people and there was no way that that China and some other countries could be covered within the 1975 time frame. I asked about this and got no answer except something like "communal responsibility" that justified the destruction of hundreds of millions of peasants. I was told that this was just a large scale version of "parental responsibility" where children of non-believing parents had only a few months to live unless they somehow came into the WTBTS on their own. I guess that this is still "current truth". How can people believe this?

2) The claim that the entire anointed remnant was providing "spiritual food in due season" where none of thousands of anointed except for a dozen or so in Brooklyn had any input into the WTBTS. Also "current light", I suppose.

3) The many ways, both subtle and overt, in which the WTBTS took upon itself the role of "God's True Channel" and expected all its pronouncements to be obeyed without question.

4) The hypocrisy, cliques, and the complete lack of humility among the elders and most of the ministerial servants; also, the general ass-kissing among those who wanted better position and status in the congregation.

23

ALEXANDER H. MACMILLAN

by bj in

jw
friends

in the book faith on the march by alexander h. macmillan, page 43 it states:.

"in october, 1902, i attended a convention in washington, d.c., where i was married.

my wife and i then spent a year in california, returning in 1904 to allegheny.".

Skimmer

I remember reading Marley Cole's _Jehovah's Witnesses - The New World Society_ many years ago. The first time I saw the title of the book was on a literature servant's WTBTS literature price list back in 1973 during my brief association. The book was published by Vantage Press, a vanity publisher paid in full by the WTBTS. I was told by a ministerial servant that the WTBTS deliberately hid its sponsorship so that the publishers would have a book to place in households where any official WTBTS literature was unwelcome. (Just another instance of theocratic information warfare.) To my knowledge, the book was never distributed to bookstores for sale, but may have been placed in public libraries as donations by JWs acting as agents of the WTBTS.

I remember that the book had a relatively long chapter on the Miracle Wheat scandal that was much more revealing than anything officially published by the WTBTS. It seems like a rebuttal of sorts, but I had not read _Thirty Years a Watchtower Slave_ so I didn't know who they were rebutting.

13

Wouldn't have so many converts huh.

by esther in

jw
friends

ok, so i got my idea from bugeye's wife's thread.

if the wtbts decided to change its doctrine so that the age for baptism was 30 years, the same age as john and jesus, would everyone who was baptised under that age have their baptism invalidated?

if so, what would happen to any disfellowshipped ones whose baptism was invalid?

Skimmer

It is unlikely in the extreme that the WTBTS will ever welcome back disfellowshipped persons with open arms. The Brooklyn control addicts have two big sticks:

1) The Big "A" due real soon now (loss of life)

2) Shunning (loss of associations)

Stick #1 has been looking rather limp lately, so you can count on stick #2 being used to take up the slack.

3

TAKING OUR LIVES BACK - #2

by Amazing in

jw
friends

taking our lives back #2 .

choices of conscience, freedom of thought, common sense, personal taste, individual maturity, accepting consequences of our choices, accountability for actions, personal determination, and the right and need to ask questions, even to question authority are among the cherished features humanity.

when religion, government, business, or other social arrangements interfere with these, they encroach upon our dignity, our self-worth, our most basic rights and the foundation of our existence.. how the wts entrapped us: when someone begins studying with the jws, they are led to understand and believe that religion in general, especially christendom have not properly helped people to understand gods requirements and his expectations to be met in order for us to have a relationship with god and gain his approval.. the process begins with basic issues that are rather obvious to the modern mentality, such as not worshipping idols (a.k.a.

Skimmer

Hello Amazing, and thank you for another excellent posting.

I would like to briefly reply to the slander, promulgated by the WTBTS and others, that Catholics worship statues. Of course, there is no such worship and indeed the practice is forbidden. An authoritative answer complete with references from history, scripture, and tradition can be found at

* http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07664a.htm

The above is from the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia. While nearly a century old, it is still up to date as the real truth does not need periodic maintenance.