Skimmer

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Posts by Skimmer

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  29

  Rutherford's Parting Shot

  by Farkel in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  anyone who's informed about the honorable joseph franklin rutherford knew what a jerk he was in life, but the creator in his infinite humor also wanted his death to remind us that whenever we fondly think of da judge, one word will always come to our mind: that word is "asshole.".

  here's "indisputable" proof: http://farkel.0catch.com/index.html.

  farkel

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  Skimmer

  Is there any chance someone could post copies of the death certificates of Russell, Knorr, and Fred Franz?
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  64

  Another Elder is toast

  by jst2laws in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  jst2laws is toast!.

  after 29 years i am officially no longer serving as an elder.

  those who knew i was still serving would only be surprised that i took so long.

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  Skimmer

  Hello jst2laws and thank you for your posting about your decision.

  May you have the satisfaction that rightly belongs to all courageous persons. And may more elders and others under the sway of the WTBTS also come to know courage as you have.

  I have read a number of reports of JWs, including elders, disassociating themselves by announcing it (without warning, of course) from the platform. That must be a sight to see! It's only fair as the WTBTS has no problem humiliating others publicly; let the Society have a taste of its own medicine.

  There was also a report of a speaker at a district convention disassociating himself from the platform. That would be one great video to put on the web, that's for sure.
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  205

  HELLO? HELLO? "ALL" SIGN IN???????

  by waiting in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  simon did away with the sex forum - so i must take the tradional route and post under "make new friends.

  " how mundane!.

  fyi ---- for all of us, please take the time to write a sentence or two about yourselves, and encourage new ones to do the same.

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  Skimmer

  Hello pearljan and thank you for posting your story.

  It is sad but true that the friendship of the JW "friends" is conditional and so not real friendship at all. And it's even harder that a person finds out about this usually at the worst time.

  Last week my stepfather (not a JW) passed away unexpectedly and my mother has been much upset as you can imagine after a 23 year marriage. Although my mother is not a JW she did once study with them; she really could have used some consolation from the JWs in her family but none will talk to her, probably because they won't talk to me. I arranged the funeral myself (hadn't even done this before) and it would have been very helpful to have some assistance or at least an expression of sympathy. But none came from the the JWs in her family and knowing what I know, I wasn't surprised. Although my stepfather was not a Catholic, I am and so I got a very kindly Catholic priest to perform the funeral service as I figured it was the best send-off I could manage.

  I hope you have good fortune getting a kidney. I signed up as an organ donor years ago when I got my first driver's license and I recommend the same to all. My mother had my stepfather's organs donated; it is important to us as a family as my sister is near death now waiting for a new liver. Organ transplantation is a wonderful thing and I hope that all reading this might consider it for themselves. The donation process is handled with great respect and and the gift of life is the most awesome gift of all. It is unfortunate that the WTBTS banned transplantation for thirteen years; it's saddening to think many JWs died as a result and also how many non-JWs died because JW organ donation was also banned.
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  28

  Why does the WTBTS survive?

  by Skimmer in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  back in late 1973 when i got my fatal doubts about the wtbts, i was sure that the society would crumble soon after 1975 when yet another prediction failed.

  i was not alone with this thought; a british author by the name of stevenson (an exjw that had written an expose) allocated an entire chapter in his book about the likelihood that there would be a very major falling away in 1976 or soon thereafter.. but it didn't happen.

  yes, there were several years of consecutive worldwide declines.

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  Skimmer

  Hello esther:

  In the two congregations I attended back in 1973, there was a big deal about 1975, both from the platform and from informal talk among the members. There were plenty of warnings (or threats, depending on how one looks at it) that no one could count on making it through and so regular meeting attendance and plenty of field service was the only hope (but not a guarantee). Absolutely no one thought that the Big A would wait until after 1975. Indeed, some were saying that it could be a year earlier, so there was a great emphasis on getting people baptized before it was "too late".

  The elders used the nearness of the date and the associated fear at every opportunity to get the congregation's numbers up. Disfellowshipping took on a more ominous tone when it was suggested that the traditional six month repentance period for many offenses could extend into the Big A arrival and so all hope would be lost for the unfortunate victim.

  Ah, if I had only had a tape recorder. No doubt that the widespread availability of miniaturized audio and video recording equipment has been a reason for the WTBTS to be a little more circumspect nowadays.
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  19

  Why Japanese become JWs

  by JWD in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have posted some of the following info in various other threads i`ve.

  started which touch on the matter of jws in japan.however,people continue to ask me `why japanese become jws?`,so i thought i`d put.

  down a few of my observations for anyone who might be interested.. as you may or may not have noticed,japan has(had) the fifth largest number of jws in the world.

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  Skimmer

  Hello humble:

  You do not realize the slander you've made when you accuse any of us of being Satan or an agent of Satan. Tell me, if I were in Satan's hire, don't you think he would give me something better than an old 28.8 Kbps modem to do his evil work? If you are really interested in tracking down the Devil, why don't you try starting in Brooklyn from where more than six million people are being lead astray from Christianity?

  You say that Jehovah does not control every single thing done by the WTBTS. Tell me, how much of it does he control? Ninety percent of it? Fifty percent? One percent? How badly must the WTBTS misbehave until you will admit that they have nothing to do with God? How many years must go on before you will finally admit that they have never gotten a single prediction correct?
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  21

  Get a life - stop posting. Why?

  by philo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  newbies and others are often saying, "move on", in other words, get a life, remove yourselves from the influence of wtism completely.

  there are many good answers to this, but i think there is one answer, which has not been much considered.

  the international 'apostate' world, to which we contribute, has mushroomed in the last 10 years in: numbers, public profile, influence on the wts policies (and in jws awareness), and in all areas of knowledge about the wt.

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  Skimmer

  Hello AlanF:

  I remember you from talk.religion.misc back in the early 1990s. Do you remember that fellow Andreas from Norway and how some of the other JWs were trying to get him to cool down? He was a kind of a mixture of two parts Fred Hall and one part You Know.

  I was the fellow who brought up, if not for the first time, at least very early on, the Russell/pyramid connection. It was a bit entertaining to see the JWs try to defend that one.

  I also was the guy who made the TRM post "A tract for your friends" warning about the WTBTS practives hidden from the public. I wish I still had it, although now I'd have to change the part about forbidding higher education. I was very pleased to receive a good number of e-mails from JWs who responded positively to my postings; that made it all worthwhile.

  I understand that one of the first WT articles critical of the Internet (then mostly called bulletin board systems by the WTBTS) came out a few months after the TRM JW posting storm, and it was almost as if the WT was reponding personally to some of us while omitting the names. A scolding by them is an honor to me.
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  47

  WT & Awake Subscription Procedure

  by Gopher in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i moved into a new area several months ago, and my subscriptions to the watchtower and awake magazines expired.

  (note: i'm baaad, not attending meetings in my new area.).

  so it'd be easy to renew my subscription, right?

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  Skimmer

  Hello wasasister:

  Hah! Whenever I hear the phrase "simplified arrangement" coming from the WTBTS it can only mean more cash for them and less for the unfortunate rank and file.

  Mostly the WTBTS is afraid of having to pay postage. But they are also a little afraid of opposers as well as they know that few outside of a Kingdom Hall would want to subscribe for the reasons of friendly (to the WTBTS) knowledge acquisition. So I'm sure that they have suspicion about subscription requests from unattached persons.
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  28

  Why does the WTBTS survive?

  by Skimmer in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  back in late 1973 when i got my fatal doubts about the wtbts, i was sure that the society would crumble soon after 1975 when yet another prediction failed.

  i was not alone with this thought; a british author by the name of stevenson (an exjw that had written an expose) allocated an entire chapter in his book about the likelihood that there would be a very major falling away in 1976 or soon thereafter.. but it didn't happen.

  yes, there were several years of consecutive worldwide declines.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Skimmer

  Back in late 1973 when I got my fatal doubts about the WTBTS, I was sure that the Society would crumble soon after 1975 when yet another prediction failed. I was not alone with this thought; a British author by the name of Stevenson (an exJW that had written an expose) allocated an entire chapter in his book about the likelihood that there would be a very major falling away in 1976 or soon thereafter.

  But it didn't happen. Yes, there were several years of consecutive worldwide declines. And I believe that the WTBTS had to postpone numerous infrastructure improvements and real estate acquisitions because of a cash shortfall. But it looks like more than half of the persons who were JWs in 1975 were still JWs in 1980. Perhaps a good part of this was the general economic and political uncertainty of the time.

  The abandonment of the 1914 generation doctrine in 1995, long predicted by opposers, is something I also would have expected to cause a couple of years of worldwide drops. It certainly had an effect, but not as much as some would think.

  I now believe that the WTBTS could say just about anything nowadays and the majority of JWs would believe it. Why? That is the central question here and until there is a good answer, the Brooklyn printing presses will continue. "Millions now living will never have a normal, self-directed life."
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  10

  Accepted 66 books of Canon

  by SharonUT in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  considering an apostacy that was well into swing by 100ad, and worse yet by the time the nicene council was held in 325ad... how are jehovah's witnesses sure about the basically protestant canon they initially accepted which was canonized about 376ad at earlist and still even then, many christians didn't agree upon that and still don't today!

  i could go into more detail if desired... but upon what basis to jw's accept this canon from an apostate generation?

  how do they know that other books such as the book of enoch originally held to be scripture and quoted frequently in mark or the shepherd of hermes should not be included as inspired?

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  Skimmer

  It's been reported that First Corinthians is an edit of two epistles (both to the Corinthians) because of its length and also because of some internal evidence.

  In the first few centuries AD, there was significant doubt about having the Revelation of John as part of the canon; there were numerous other revelations also circulating. There was lesser but still significant doubt about the canonicity of the epistle to the Hebrews.

  There was also a Protoevangelicum of John the Baptist which was accepted by many but not the majority of the early commentators.

  Many of the original disciples are credited with books (Gospel According to X, Acts of X, Revelation to X), but nearly all of these are well established as pious but unauthentic writing from the second century or later.

  The epistles of Clement are thought to really have originated with Clement and are in general agreement with the New Testament.

  In his book about the New Testament many years ago, Issac Asimov included First and Second Maccabees with the conventional NT because they were circulated in Greek unlike the rest of the Old Testament. The issue of those books being in Greek was also given as a reason for their exclusion by Protestants in their canon. Since then, some very ancient Hebrew versions of the Maccabees have surfaced but it doesn't look like any Protestants are going to change their canon.

  In the Old Testament, many scholars believe that Isaiah is the result of an edit of two books written about forty years apart by different authors. Some think it is a combination of three authors and there is some support for this. I wonder what the WTBTS thinks about this? I think they are sticking to the idea that it is all one book by one person written at one time.

  Also, the WTBTS came out against the four source theory of the Pentateuch long ago. One of their arguments was that if one tried to read any of the purported accounts on its own, then it wasn't complete. Well, of course!
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  14

  Asembly security questions

  by Skimmer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've been reading the comments on the recent district assemblies and i've got some questions about the wtbts convention security teams.. 1) is it a given that anyone who tries to get in without a convention badge is going to be carefully scrutinized?

  questioned?

  tailed?.

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  Skimmer

  A large pentagram would no doubt draw attention, as would any heavy metal rock group t-shirt.

  A more serious idea would be to pick up a large batch of the current issue of the WT and do a little corrective surgery on them. Like, remove all the interior pages and insert a more accurate text including web site URLs. There could be innocently left around the stadium and some just might bear fruit.