It's funny, I always thought it was a handy book to have, but I didn't use it very often. I'd been raised in and so I knew most of the basic talking points. The book might seem like a waste of time, but you'd be surprised at how many people --JWs and Christians of other denominations alike-- know very little about their religion or their religious books. The Reasoning book made it easier for unprepared JWs to deal with other unprepared people.
TonusOH
JoinedPosts by TonusOH
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40
The Reasoning Book
by Magnum inthe book reasoning from the scriptures was released in the 1980's, and it was used at virtually every meeting for service, every service meeting, and every theocratic ministry school meeting thereafter.
many jws had copies bound together with their bibles.
it was huge in jw land back then.. at that time, with the reasoning book, jws were trained to keep conversations going in spite of objections, to almost stick their feet in people's doors to keep conversations going, to defend "the truth," to argue doctrine, etc.. compare the situation today with that of the 80's.
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Lloyd Evans Patreoff Pool February 2024
by DerekMoors inhappy new year!
time to give us your vote for lloyd's fall from grace this month.. december 6th he was at 406. as of today, january 3rd, he's at 388. that is exactly, on the dot, where he was january 3rd of last year!
he's lost all gains from his begging videos and reminders and tin cup waving and etc.. so, fire up the shrooms and let us know where you think flab boy will be on february 2nd.
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TonusOH
JW watchdog, lol.
Have them link to jwwatch.org, which is finally back up after months being offline, but which still hasn't been updated since August 2021.
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Can you openly express doubts in the congregation these days?
by Elena ini know of a lovely old sister who has been a jw for several decades now who openly expresses doubts about jw interpretations.. she does it in such a lovely way and everyone loves her.
she is such a sweet old soul, makes everyone happy around her.. she has said things like- even if we have got it wrong about this and that i still believe the bible is gods word”.
she answers up regularly and she goes on ministry groups but like most of us she is definitely jwlite, we don’t really do door to door work anymore.
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TonusOH
It is during times when they have messed up that they are more likely to want to crack the whip. This is what happened after 1975-- they had a witch hunt that ended with the removal of several people (including Ray Franz) because they wanted to clean up the org from the inside. Maybe the recent removal of Morris and the new additions to the GB are part of a strategy to clean things up again, and possibly to distract the rank and file from getting rowdy.
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Can you openly express doubts in the congregation these days?
by Elena ini know of a lovely old sister who has been a jw for several decades now who openly expresses doubts about jw interpretations.. she does it in such a lovely way and everyone loves her.
she is such a sweet old soul, makes everyone happy around her.. she has said things like- even if we have got it wrong about this and that i still believe the bible is gods word”.
she answers up regularly and she goes on ministry groups but like most of us she is definitely jwlite, we don’t really do door to door work anymore.
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TonusOH
If they allow people to undermine their authority like that, they will not have authority anymore. Some congregations may be laid back about it, but I bet that most will deal with it quickly and emphasize the importance of being good little JWs and obeying the GB without question.
By all means, though, go ahead and express doubts as freely as you want. The more that their authority is weakened, the worse it gets for them. And if it means you get DF'ed, then count it as a blessing.
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The Next Big Thing In WT World
by NotFormer inthings got a bit lively after the agm leaks in october.
there was a lot of discussion going on on this board for a few months.
now that all the leaks have been more or less confirmed as policy, and we've had lively discussions at length concerning the changes, things seem to have slowed down here.. a few suggestions have been raised as to what might be the next changes, such as women being allowed to wear slacks (in the usa, anyway), decoupling from 1914 as an anchoring date and others.. so, what changes do you think will be announced this year?.
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TonusOH
careful: would Witnesses flock to blood banks to donate?
I don't think they would. The prohibition against beards had the flimsy justification that brothers wouldn't take time to groom properly. But they built up the scare tactics around blood transfusions and I bet many JWs see transfusions as a terrifying and highly-dangerous risk to take. They would be less likely to want to give blood if they still see it as something bad.
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The Next Big Thing In WT World
by NotFormer inthings got a bit lively after the agm leaks in october.
there was a lot of discussion going on on this board for a few months.
now that all the leaks have been more or less confirmed as policy, and we've had lively discussions at length concerning the changes, things seem to have slowed down here.. a few suggestions have been raised as to what might be the next changes, such as women being allowed to wear slacks (in the usa, anyway), decoupling from 1914 as an anchoring date and others.. so, what changes do you think will be announced this year?.
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TonusOH
ExBP: Second they try and say Jesus was enthroned about 1914 but hasn’t yet sat down in the thrown, that will be in the future sometime.
LOL, really? I look forward to the next change in 20-30 years, when they tell us that Jesus has finally sat upon the throne, but he has not made himself comfortable yet.
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For the Disillusioned
by no-zombie ina problem for all who come to realize that our faith is just another manmade religion, is that we start questioning everything we've previously believed.
where ultimately its possible to spiral down past believing in the bible, to the point of questioning god's actual existence.however while some may be happy to think of themselves now as atheists or agnostics (which i doubt that most really are, as living with the full mental and emotional consequences of being one is a lot harder than most understand), i don't think it is necessary to abandon being a spiritual person.
while others might like the idea of drifting into a modern animistic philosophy (which rather conveniently excludes personal accountability), the keeping of the core teachings of jesus has historically proven to give many people a balanced and practical moral code to live by.but what is meant by the term: 'the core teachings of jesus'?interestingly many thinkers from the enlightenment period of the late 1700s, had similar a question.
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TonusOH
There's a third option: admitting that you don't know.
I think that many of the discussions about the existence of god assume a specific god, and not just the possibility of a being that is responsible for the universe but does not care to inform us of its work. And why would it? Do you ever stop to explain yourself to a microscopic dust mite when you are admiring a personal accomplishment? Maybe our universe is just another in a long line of experiments, or maybe the creator does not want to interact with us. Or maybe it doesn't even know we're here. And so on.
But we get a sort of bait-and-switch, where the atheist is asked to account for the probability of the existence of any god, and then confronted with belief in a specific god. And that's not the same thing. And if the specific god being put forth doesn't make sense, it's even less convincing. I don't have to explain how or why a godless universe exists, because I am not even sure that is the case. But the gods that humanity has put forth over our existence? None of them make sense, and I can dismiss those as an option.
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The Reason Behind Recent Watchtower Changes
by Vanderhoven7 ineric wilson's video is worth a view.. https://youtu.be/iil4fryuczk?si=f566n0tdqgpqc2ok.
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TonusOH
I wonder if we're underestimating just how much money can be squeezed out of poor families and poor communities. It's the poorest people who learn to get by on as little as possible, allowing them to have something left over to try to buy their way into paradise. There are also a lot more poor around, so the collective amount to be made can be significant. And, let's face it, those who have money are sometimes the stingiest with it.
Maybe targeting the poor --and keeping them that way-- is working better than it logically should.
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Have I Drifted Too Far?
by sinboi ini was shocked, really shocked.
what i am doing now is so acceptable to the friends around me.. my friends are all doing it.
it is so normal in the society,.
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TonusOH
When I saw this topic, my spidey sense was tingling pretty fiercely. Looks like my instincts still get it right occasionally.
Someone pretending not to understand why they were treated so harshly by a forum community and burying the horrifying lede (that he took part in the violent gang-rape of a young gay person, with the description of this person as the obnoxious cherry-on-top) is a kind of first-order level of trolling. My advice for the OP: go away. Please.
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Patterson New Visitor Centre & Museum Announced
by raymond frantz inhttps://www.jwupdates.com/post/new-patterson-visitor-center-and-first-century-museum.
january 1, 2024, marked the official opening of the patterson visitor center, located at the watchtower educational center in patterson, new york, u.s.a. the feature museum of the visitors’ center is entitled “first-century bible village.” brother isaiah miller, who works in the museum department at bethel, said: “the bible village was designed to provide everyone with a realistic and educational experience.
studies show that interactive learning has a powerful effect on people of all ages.” after her tour, one visitor exclaimed: “this museum made me feel like i had been transported back to the land of ancient israel.
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TonusOH
Vidiot: Taking a page from Ken Ham’s playbook, huh?
That was my thought as well. And an ominous one. I don't think the Ark Encounter has done very well financially, even with significant tax breaks. And they only made of those, not 38!