TonusOH

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Posts by TonusOH

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  77

  How would you define RELIGION, and why?

  by Fernando in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  "judge" rutherford defined or classified all religion as "a snare and a racket" in his books "religion" and "enemies".. after rutherford's death in 1942, his protege, watchtower vice president, and aclu darling, hayden c. covington, in the early 1950's, for reasons of legal expedience and supremacist aspirations, suddenly converted the watchtower into a religion.. this was done alongside one of the most audacious, spurious and longstanding swindles of the us legal system.

  this involved twisting philippians 1:7 and misrepresenting the watchtower's true nature, objectives and activities.. .

  this meant that it became necessary for the watchtower to suddenly reclassify and redefine religion (w51 1/15 p. 43 new legal booklet well named; w51 8/15 p. 511 questions from readers; yb75 p. 161 part 2 "for gladys bolton...").. two new watchtower classifications were suddenly created: "true religion" and "false religion".. now "true religion" meant "true beliefs" whilst "belief" in ever changing watchtower doctrine was equated with the one "faith" of scripture.. all this while the watchtower increasingly and maliciously truncated, obfuscated and hid the liberating full "good news" (or unabridged gospel) of scripture, which it lyingly claimed (in court) that it was actually "defending and legally establishing".. how would you have defined religion before learning ttatt?.

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  TonusOH

  I agree that atheism is counterintuitive. Think about how long it took humanity to develop a structure for things like logic and reasoning that could work for more than just simple and immediate problem-solving. Even now, we are still mostly emotional beings. This is why I do not expect religion or spirituality to go away anytime soon (especially the latter).

  Indeed, it is so hard-wired into our nature that atheism is treated by many as a religion, and not just by religious people as a way to create an equivalence. Many within the atheist community work hard to politicize it, which is just another form of tribalism. The fact that there is an atheist community is a humorous reminder of how trapped we are in that kind of behavior.

  I doubt I'll live long enough to see whatever the next phase of religion will look like. My fear is that it will become less about spirituality and mysticism and more about political power and domination. We might actually long for the good old days, when religion was only mostly misused by power-hungry opportunists. But that seems to be one of the curses of humanity, that we embody the old saying that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
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  39

  Faithful Slave Appointment: What are the assumptions of Watchtower Matthew 24:45-47 Eschatology?

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  text: matthew 24:45-47.

  45 “who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time?

  46 it will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.

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  TonusOH

  If anything speaks to our gullibility, it's the way we accept "it happened invisibly" as an explanation for why something didn't happen, after it was predicted to.

  "This thing you were expecting didn't happen."

  "Oh, it did happen! It's just that no one saw it."

  "Works for me!"
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  77

  How would you define RELIGION, and why?

  by Fernando in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  "judge" rutherford defined or classified all religion as "a snare and a racket" in his books "religion" and "enemies".. after rutherford's death in 1942, his protege, watchtower vice president, and aclu darling, hayden c. covington, in the early 1950's, for reasons of legal expedience and supremacist aspirations, suddenly converted the watchtower into a religion.. this was done alongside one of the most audacious, spurious and longstanding swindles of the us legal system.

  this involved twisting philippians 1:7 and misrepresenting the watchtower's true nature, objectives and activities.. .

  this meant that it became necessary for the watchtower to suddenly reclassify and redefine religion (w51 1/15 p. 43 new legal booklet well named; w51 8/15 p. 511 questions from readers; yb75 p. 161 part 2 "for gladys bolton...").. two new watchtower classifications were suddenly created: "true religion" and "false religion".. now "true religion" meant "true beliefs" whilst "belief" in ever changing watchtower doctrine was equated with the one "faith" of scripture.. all this while the watchtower increasingly and maliciously truncated, obfuscated and hid the liberating full "good news" (or unabridged gospel) of scripture, which it lyingly claimed (in court) that it was actually "defending and legally establishing".. how would you have defined religion before learning ttatt?.

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  TonusOH

  Fernando: Two new Watchtower classifications were suddenly created: "true religion" and "false religion".

  WTS did not create those categories; they were always part of religion. Every religion considers itself the true religion, which means the others must be false. The WTS emphasized it because Rutherford seemed to revel in being a contrarian (and an asshole).

  As for how to define religion... Google the word and you'll get a whole bunch of different answers. No one seems to know for sure how to define it. I think it's just another form of tribalism, a way in which humans form us/them groups to foster a sense of belonging and to build strong social bonds (the irony being that those bonds come at the expense of enmity with 'them').

  These groups form organically because they are so intrinsic to how our minds work. And we join them almost by force of habit. We 'belong' to groups based on ethnicity, nationality, geographic location, color of our skin, color of our hair, dominant hand, favorite sports teams, and so on. Religion and government are the ultimate forms of this behavior, as they can justify the most extreme acts taken in their 'defense'. Human history is an ongoing effort to mitigate the dangers of both, a battle we seem to be winning, albeit very slowly.
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  3073

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

  by Simon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

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  TonusOH

  Amazon does have price caps on books submitted through their Kindle ePublishing system. The max price is pretty high, actually. But that's obviously different from charging a reasonable price. I assume that Evans either understood that his market was small but dedicated, or he figured that he could release it at a high price and then lower it as time went on. The third option is that he's a self-absorbed narcissist who knows jack-shit about marketing and sales and tried to rip off his audience because that's what he does. Who knows?

  I do think that there is a bit of karma in knowing that so many people got the book as a free download. Maybe Deborah Dykstra could have offered bootleg copies of it for a small fee?
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  48

  2024 when will Witnesses admit they are wrong???

  by Witness 007 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  1914 generation is long gone.

  1975 was a joke 40 years ago.

  i know of many witnesses still hanging on for armagedon but when will they give up?

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  TonusOH

  skin: Right at the beginning of this special talk we were told no audio recordings to be made

  I'm with them on that. The fewer people who hear whatever he had to say, the better.
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  22

  Oh boy: 1,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses reach out to Super Bowl fans in Las Vegas

  by Tahoe in

  1. social
  2. current

  https://www.fox5vegas.com/2024/02/09/1000-jehovahs-witnesses-reach-out-super-bowl-fans-las-vegas/ .

  1000 lit-up carts at 50 strategic locations near the stadium and on the strip.

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  TonusOH

  On the other hand, I'm wondering how many JWs will be tempted to places bets on the game...
• 
  3073

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

  by Simon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

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  TonusOH

  Bought? lol
• 
  3073

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

  by Simon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

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  TonusOH

  That was the sense I got from his telling of that story. Out of everything that happened, the thing that he was most concerned about was that Geoffrey might get the last laugh; he might feel vindicated. The thought of that brother getting the better of him, and feeling like his moral superior, just ate him up inside. If he could not hide his behavior, then he preferred to run away in shame. As long as he didn't have to face a triumphant Geoffrey, he didn't care.
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  11

  are men more compliant than women

  by enoughisenough in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i watched a video once of men being trained ...it was a study.

  they had the men doing the most rediculous things-can't remember quite what now.

  so between that video, the letter to elders to keep their mouths shut about the koolaid, and to go along with the csa protocol, and what i will call insurance fraud by the jw, and who knows what other things the men in positions in the org go along with-these things prompt the question.

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  TonusOH

  Cults work hard to build up a reliance on the leadership, especially for guidance and for a sense of purpose. They encourage and reward obedience and discourage and punish assertiveness. JWs do this differently for men and women- men are teased with the opportunity to become leaders themselves, while women are exalted when they are humble and submissive.

  Those men who do not show the ambition needed to become leaders are sidelined and treated as lost causes unless they get their acts together. Women are expected to be quiet (if they are single) or submissive and supportive (if they are wives). If it seems that the ambitious men have it good, remember that their entire value lies in how submissive and supportive they are of "the organization."
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  18

  The ORG'S "foundation" name............

  by BoogerMan in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  .........jehovah.. the bible's foundation name - (1 corinthians 3:11) "for no one can lay any other foundation than what is laid, which is jesus christ.".

  the org's chosen name for christians - "jehovah's witnesses.".

  jehovah's chosen name for christians - acts 11:26 - "...the disciples were by divine providence called christians.".

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  TonusOH

  Diogenesister: (perhaps because they often get challenged that they are not?)

  That was my experience. When I was a JW, I didn't understand why people thought we did not believe in Jesus. Once outside of it, it was pretty clear. The WTS will insist that it places proper emphasis on Jesus, but it pushes him aside and replaces him with the GB as the intermediary between Jehovah and humanity. So it's no surprise that they always seem to be fighting an uphill battle to convince Christians that they belong in the club.