TonusOH

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Posts by TonusOH

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  19

  Normal people don't give a darn if you're a witness

  by XBEHERE in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this was posted on exjw reddit, check it out if some of you never have.

  https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/13q6k5l/normal_people_dont_give_a_darn_if_youre_a_witness/ .

  i find this to be the case, people in general are so not interested in religion that they really could care less about jws.

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  TonusOH

  Most people only know JWs as the people who knock on doors to preach, or who are next to the stands with WT magazines and tracts. JWs tend to be pretty mild and approachable in general, so people who know a JW or two will usually tell you that they're nice people.

  The other stuff --especially about birthdays and holidays-- probably seems weird to them, but since it doesn't affect them directly, it's not a big deal. At my old job, they actually offered to change the name and description of the annual Christmas luncheon and office party, because they felt bad that I would not take part. I explained that it was still, in my mind, a holiday occasion. I think they admired my willingness to take a stand, but also it did not affect them-- they were able to enjoy both, whether or not I was there.
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  17

  What would Watchtower Corporation(tm) do?

  by punkofnice in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  what would watchtower corporation(tm) do in compromise of their 'north korean style rules' if by publicly removing them, they could get more money and power?.

  if each governing body(tm) member (pee be upon them), were offered a few million quid/bucks each to rescind the barbaric 'no whole blood' rule?.

  i know what i think these fake religionists would do.

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  TonusOH

  Cognitive dissonance also plays a part. I've known brothers who were definitely 100% in, even though they knew things that should have made them at least stop for a moment and question themselves. I don't think that they were faking it, I think they were genuinely convinced, and were willing to bury anything that might cause doubt. When we want things to be true or false, our minds can work hard to help us fool ourselves.
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  14

  For those following the JW headquarters reaction to the UK documentary - Rebekah Vardy: Jehovah's Witnesses and Me

  by jwleaks in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in addition to the jws false and misleading denial that rebekah vardy was ever a jehovah's witness, a few other interesting developments occurred that are worth noting:.

  1. an article in the last days newsletter reporting on how the jw[.

  ]org website scrubbed clean its jw 'news' page and produced an entire new glossary of jw terminally meaning for the media:.

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  TonusOH

  There are times when they can defend a controversial or unpopular practice, such as refusing to serve in the armed forces. Even for people who disagree with the stance, they can admit that there is a rational explanation for why they take that position. Shunning is very difficult to defend. It's a pretty extreme practice, plenty of religions do not practice it, and there are always going to be examples of how it harms families and friendships.

  I think they are trying to have it both ways- keep the practice, but imply that they don't really do it. So they won't just come out and renounce the practice of shunning. They might hope that it fades from public attention so that they won't get hassled over it anymore, while they keep doing it.
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  8

  Meaning of Elder from the horses mouth as contrasted with Clergy

  by Longlivetherenegades in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  meaning of as captured in one of their publications.... .

  elder: a spiritually mature male witness appointed to teach and to provide pastoral care for the well-being of congregation members.

  an elder must meet the scriptural qualifications as outlined at 1 timothy 3:1-7; titus 1:5-9; james 3:17, 18; and 1 peter 5:2.. elders are not paid ministers and are not employees of their respective congregation or any corporation associated with jehovah’s witnesses.

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  TonusOH

  When I was in, turning down an opportunity to become an MS or elder would have been a red flag, unless the man in question had a really good reason to turn it down. But back then there wasn't a shortage of people available, so the ones who were invited were people who clearly wanted to serve. I can't imagine being in a congregation where the atmosphere was that apathetic!
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  15

  And the lion shall eat straw like the ox

  by Anony Mous in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the above verse is often quoted by jws both in general as a response to the idea of a deathless paradise and/or those promoting vegetarianism or veganism.. a letter in animal frontiers co-signed by nearly a thousand scientists is now warning that meat is crucial for a healthy lifestyle and livestock farming is too important to 'become the victim of zealotry'.. they stated the fact that most humans require the nutrients from eggs, meat and dairy and that plant based alternatives are at least 4x more expensive (which implies much higher energy consumption in the process) and not scalable and outright dangerous to global health to support a large population shift towards them.. they also called out several recent papers for misleading information and even called for the outright retraction of one that said meat substitutions are a viable alternative.. not sure what the modern jw view on this is, i know many people in the borg promoted it back in the day.

  just goes to show that science does not support the notion of a global vegan diet..

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  TonusOH

  Almost any concept regarding the origin of the universe is unintuitive. Can something come from nothing? No one intuitively thinks this, it makes no sense. Could the universe have no beginning, and always just existed? I don't think this makes intuitive sense to us either, the notion that there wasn't a beginning and that the universe extends forever into the past.

  Same for god. How could a being simply always exist and never have a beginning? We can comprehend the notion of something existing forever into the future, once it has begun. We cannot comprehend the notion of something existing forever into the past, with no beginning.

  And yet, here we are. Something (or many things) that is unintuitive to us has to be the case, because the universe exists and we exist. If we give more weight to one of the options without any logical reason to, then we might end up ignoring or rejecting information that gives us reason to assume the other options are possible. Wanting god to be real isn't a path to discovering god, it's a path to inventing him.
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  5

  Do you agree with this?

  by vienne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  new post to the history blog: https://truthhistory.blogspot.com/2023/05/typical-nonsense.html.

  i agree that in the russell and rutherford eras there was little actual scriptural refutation.

  fine!

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  TonusOH

  There was a site that detailed a lot of Russell's business dealings, and those did not put him in a good light. I wish I could find it again, it was pretty detailed. It did cover his divorce proceedings as well. It was jarring to find that he was so different from the person the WTS makes him out to be, in that it is difficult to believe that he was as sincere in his faith as I once thought.
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  11530

  It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

  by Newly Enlightened in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  original reddit post (removed).

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  TonusOH

  LMsA: Lloyd even admitted this in the end when he said he was panicking because only 11 people were viewing.

  Someone should remind him that his followers don't owe him an audience.
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  15

  S Club 7 star died of NATURAL causes.....

  by BoogerMan in

  1. social
  2. current

  “a spokesperson from dorset coroner's office told the bbc that due to the nature of his death there would be no inquest.

  no further details were given on cause of death by the coroner.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65633872.

  no "further" details were given?

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  TonusOH

  https://www.health.com/mind-body/dying-of-natural-causes-meaning

  "Natural causes" is a broad and not specifically-defined term. Based on what the site says, all you can deduce is that it wasn't something acute, such as a heart attack or accident (or homicide).
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  32

  Who are the 144,000? Considering the immediate context of Revelation chapter 7

  by raymond frantz in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  who are the 144,000?

  a critical examination of the teaching of the 144,000 from the perspective of an ex jx considering context and other references .this is from a series of videos called new light where i scrutinise all the major teachings of the watchtower.. https://youtu.be/aaseuzr-sxs.

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  TonusOH

  8,835 words, 49,281 characters. Copy/pasted to two other topics.

  If walls of text were actual walls, we could've closed the border with Mexico and the border with Canada.
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  50

  To All Those Keen To Tell Us About Their Beliefs

  by Simon in

  1. forum
  2. announcements

  we seem to have had an influx of religiots - the people who want to tell us all about how we / the wts / whoever are wrong, wrong, wrong about everything and how right they are.

  they obviously have special insight, or voices (probably voices, right?

  ) telling them the real truth.. as proof, there is inevitably a wall of random scripture references and quotes.. sorry, but we're not here for that.

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  TonusOH

  The only difference is that some of those "Nigerian prince" letters were worth reading, lol.