The story of the creation of the Mormon church is pretty interesting and entertaining. Joseph Smith seemed to have been as clever as he was insane. Not a good combination, but a lot of fun to read about.
TonusOH
JoinedPosts by TonusOH
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TonusOH
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49
Jehovah's Witnesses: remembering the weird and wacky!
by Vanderhoven7 indo you remember some of the weird and wacky stuff emanating from the watchtower society?
let's make a list from memory that we can use to inject a little humor into our discussions with jehovah's witnesses.
- venus may be an enormous jurassic park.. - germs don't cause disease.. - no beards allowed.
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TonusOH
I think a stupid thing is to not do jury duty.
I agree. And the excuse about being on a possible death penalty case doesn't hold water- it's very easy to get out of a particular petit jury by explaining how your personal beliefs or conscience would affect your decision-making.
This issue resonates for be because, for some reason, I get called to jury duty with annoying regularity. Never served on a petit jury, but I did do a month on a grand jury. Learned a lot, it was a good experience.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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TonusOH
I wouldn't be surprised if he was underpaid, since as a college student it's not unusual to work as an intern or for a lower-than-market wage. He gets valuable experience while building an online resume of real-world work that can be checked and critiqued. With something like a YouTube channel, there is the added benefit that it can serve as a timeline, letting prospective employers see his progress over time.
Until recently, he would also have been able to take advantage of the recommendation of a content creator who was doing important work and had made a name for himself, even if it was in a relatively small pond. Now that Evans has set fire to the pond (and burned his reputation to a crisp in the process), the recommendation won't be as useful, but at least the body of work is still there.
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Elders hounding members to quit their jobs due to missing too many meetings
by RULES & REGULATIONS inhow many times did you see elders hounding congregation members to quit their jobs due to missing meetings?.
my brother worked at a grocery store at 16 years old.
he would miss tuesday's ministry school due to his work schedule.
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TonusOH
Convincing members to quit good jobs that conflicted with the meeting schedules creates a version of the sunk-cost fallacy. Having given up something of value, it will be much more difficult to leave the JWs if they happen to have doubts or issues with the organization. The fear of having given up something and end up with nothing can cause us to mentally imprison ourselves.
It's no accident that the weekly/monthly schedule of a JW is kept busy with meetings or field work. Plenty of time to keep an eye on people, and plenty of ways to make sure they are conforming.
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Jehovah's Witnesses: remembering the weird and wacky!
by Vanderhoven7 indo you remember some of the weird and wacky stuff emanating from the watchtower society?
let's make a list from memory that we can use to inject a little humor into our discussions with jehovah's witnesses.
- venus may be an enormous jurassic park.. - germs don't cause disease.. - no beards allowed.
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TonusOH
Didn't they once print that organ transplants were the equivalent of cannibalism?
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UPDATE: Wife Pretty Much Knows That I Don't Believe
by JW_Rogue inwe had a nice long talk and i brought up some things that make me think that this isn't the "truth" and she somewhat agreed with me.
i stuck with things i personally experienced or had knowledge of plus all the changes in recent years.
she agreed on a lot of the points but still believes in god and the bible.
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TonusOH
My family is ignoring me except for when they need something or to post passive aggressive FB messages.
This is the damage that the doctrine of shunning does. It destroys families and relationships. It's evil.
Best of luck with enjoying the freedom that comes from getting away from hyper-controlling nannies on a power trip. It takes time and you'll have some downs to go with the ups. But it's worth it in the long run. -
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Resistace to going back to meetings
by truthseeker inlot going on.
i had a covid divorce last year over zoom.
not pretty but i got a good deal.. anyway,.
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TonusOH
My friend who is still active said there is unconscious resistance towards going back to meetings.
"I'd rather stay home than go to church" is not a good sign for a relatively small group like the JWs. I'm sure that there is also quite a bit of "I'd rather stand next to these pamphlets than ever knock on a door again" attitude out there.
They need to keep the membership active and donating, because they have too many expenses to recover from a significant decrease in followers.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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TonusOH
Me too.
I'd rather treat any pro-lloyd posts seriously and with tact. If they post here in the hopes that they get attacked, so they can claim that it's just a mob out to get him, they'll be derailed if the response is to ask direct and uncomfortable questions instead. Then it will start to look as if his closest followers are just trying to disrupt the thread instead of trying to get at the truth of the matter.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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TonusOH
The thing is, *HE* isn't capable of doing that work. He's keeping all the earnings generated by the work of multiple other non-paid volunteers.
Yeah, he sounds like a grifter. I think it would help for anyone who was working for him for free (or for low wages) to speak up about it. He can keep pretending that all of the negative attention is due to a "green screen controversy" or people making accusations that he never admitted to. There's already enough stuff --that he confirmed as true-- to make it clear he's not a nice or good person. Some of his supporters will brush off the evidence that he's a world-class jerk, but it's clear that a lot of people aren't comfortable financially supporting him, even if the worst accusations aren't true.
'I'm not a killer or anything, and I do super important work! So I humiliated my wife and set an atrocious example for my kids? Who cares! I use people for my own selfish ends? So what! I'm a big shot activist! I make videos! I matter! I matterrrrrrrrrrr...'
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Pandemic as part of Bible prophecy?
by truthseeker ini was thinking that since russell started the movement in 1879 which became jehovah's witnesses in 1931 never has there been a period in time when all their activities just - stopped.
especially the preaching work.. do you think they will find some obscure verse in daniel that talks about this period of time and try to make a greater fulfillment?
like the 70 weeks of years or the 42 months?
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TonusOH
Any major event gets turned into "part of the sign of the last days." A global plague is pretty much guaranteed to get played up by the WTS. The increase in crime, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the volatility of the economy... all of these are signs that we're just moments away from the end. I'm sure there will be another video soon, with Stephen Lett telling us that we are now in "the end of the beginning of the midpoint of the beginning of the end."
And if things start to get back to normal, or the world situation begins to improve, they'll find some way to make that a sign that the war of Armageddon is about to begin.