two wt pictures of an adult child leaving home, one to be a jw, and one to leave the jws.
in one, the caption says his family are 'opposing' him, but in the other he's apparently hurting them.
depends on where you're standing.. .
That's been the approach for as long as I can remember. When you are not a JW, they urge you to 'have an open mind' and 'willingness to listen to other/new ideas.' When you are a JW, they warn you against the threat of 'worldly thinking' and the dangers of listening to 'false information.'
Be as independent and free-thinking as you need to be, to allow the JWs to lure you in. After that, think only approved thoughts, or risk being removed from the group (an action which will be blamed on you!).
original reddit post (removed).
One can scubadive in warm tropical waters and see sex workers in the same trip.
If he'd just said "I'm going to be doing some snorkeling," he might have avoided so much angst!
the law of diminishing returns states: the law of diminishing returns is an economic principle stating that as investment in a particular area increases, the rate of profit from that investment, after a certain point, cannot continue to increase if other variables remain at a constant.
as investment continues past that point, the return diminishes progressively.. from 1900 through the 1980s, the more witnesses that got baptized and pioneered, the more bible studies that could be had and the more additional witnesses that could join and then congregations would get bigger and they would divide and form in other areas.
but in the 1990s the law of diminishing returns kicked in, particularly in the bigger cities.
I think the internet has had a large impact, which might be why things began to change in the 1990s. It has gotten progressively harder to keep membership away from dissenting views and damaging information, as the internet went from a large and sloppy repository of information to a much more streamlined and accessible medium for learning anything you want. It is almost impossible to keep the sheep ignorant of your past when there are websites where you can read actual scans of original books and magazines. The dirty laundry is everywhere now.
And for prospective witnesses, it's a quick web search and suddenly you know a lot more about the JWs than they would like you to know. How many interested people became disinterested after a couple of hours of research?
https://rcbizjournal.com/2022/03/22/watchtower-urging-ramapo-to-act-on-its-application/?fbclid=iwar2akhf6eq1rrmhihrz4fqdqmf99l_jmkh7pcx70p6olunqfrvuspomer-e. by tina traster.
march 22, 2022. over the past eight months, the watchtower bible and tract society has reviewed public and other comments on its proposed development for 155 sterling mine road in ramapo and has revised its plans.. on monday, the applicant was prepared to present its feis (final environmental impact statement) and hoped the ramapo town board would accept its submission as “final,” to move on to review by the rockland county planning department.. instead, the board deferred making decisions, seemingly because they did not have enough time to review some newly submitted documents by the activist group rosa.. “we’re asking the board to take action on the ‘feis’,” said attorney ira emanuel.
“if you don’t like it, change it.
They have said how they have seen Jehovah's hand in this project. Wouldn't it be great if they were denied the permit to build after going through all this time and expense!
New light!
jws believe that today, the time we live in is the worst time ever in history.
i know cause i just had a jw tell me yesterday this was the case.
he pointed to covid, the russian-ukraine war, the high gas prices and the food shortage happening.
I don't think most JWs could explain what makes these the worst times, aside from pointing to a few current events and claiming that we simply cannot sustain our current course. But complaining about how bad things are is a human pastime, and there are examples going back centuries of people wondering if they were living in the last days, as the problems of the world had gotten so out of hand as to be unresolvable.
But if you are part of an end-days cult, every day seems worse than the one before. You ROOT for things to get worse, because that's when you know god will finally put his plan into action. After all, why destroy the world when things are looking up? I'm thinking that god is sitting there, watching the price of a gallon of gas. "At $15," he tells his army of angels, "unleash hell. Err, I mean, unleash heaven. You know what I mean!"
leviticus 10:1-3. .
the death of nadab and abihu.
10 aaron’s sons nadab and abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the lord, contrary to his command.
I find most of all of Jwism is about made up BS on the fly.
Rutherford was apparently the biggest BSer, his desire to take over for Russell lead him to make a lot of changes and additions to JW beliefs (including the name Jehovah's Witnesses). He really got the ball rolling on the habit of JW leadership finding "new light" everywhere and making stuff up. I can see why Fred Franz was upset when they pushed for an actual governing body; just imagine how many crazy ideas he was ready to run with after Knorr passed away!
leviticus 10:1-3. .
the death of nadab and abihu.
10 aaron’s sons nadab and abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the lord, contrary to his command.
The OT god is over-the-top in his brutality. In 2 Samuel 6:6-8, he kills a guy for the crime of reaching out to keep the ark of the covenant from falling over. Intent didn't matter. Who this man was, didn't matter. He touched the ark. He died on the spot. Killed by a being that personifies kindness, mercy, goodness, and love.
original reddit post (removed).
Wow 105 pages devoted to this guy...
He's the gift that keeps on giving.
original reddit post (removed).
I think the bigger impact is admitting that he was cheating on his wife, repeatedly over a period of at least 3-4 years. I would guess that most people feel that he was being as self-serving as he could, and the actual numbers are much, much worse. That he was using prostitutes to do it just makes it that much worse, and his admission (both previously and in his video) that he lacks self-control and felt that his wife could not keep him satisfied makes it worse still.
This is not about a guy who visited a call girl a couple of times. This is about a husband who betrayed his wife, willfully and cynically, for a very long time. And who seems more upset that people are judging him, than he is that he did this to his own family. You could understand someone staying a Patron over a couple of trips to a brothel. His actions are on a whole different level, and most people cannot make excuses for it in good conscience.
I would not be surprised if his subscriber numbers keep sliding until the only ones left are the absolute die-hards and people who aren't aware of what is happening and/or aren't keeping tabs on their $1/month contribution.
original reddit post (removed).
Yes, the WTS encourage the membership to eschew higher education and lucrative jobs where they may have to spend extra hours working. The time that is saved is available for study and preaching work. So they promote lower-wage jobs and then they wonder why financial support is down. Not the best thought-out plan.
As for the crime of insult, it appears to be their version of defamation. There appear to be a few countries that treat defamation as both a civil and criminal matter. I guess it would work out well for a person who has a talent for exasperating the people around him... they can't tell him how they really feel, for fear he might call the cops.
