Posts by jp1692

43

Anyone watching the handmaids tail?

by blownaway in

i thought this was all about the 18th century.

but its current or just post current times.

.

jp1692

SparrowDown: It's called fiction.

And I love it!

Sorry, I tend to get a little carried away with a good story. I love great fiction, especially when the author is able to make important social commentary using a believable fictional world.

35

new JW Online Bible Study Lessons

by neat blue dog in

has anybody seen the new online bible study yet, just posted yesterday i believe?

it's the first thing you see now when going to the home page.

the online bible study lessons on jw.org are free, have no obligation, and are easy to use.

jp1692

How Can I Avoid Dangers on the Internet?

Countless Web sites contain material that is morally corrupt and spiritually destructive.

43

Anyone watching the handmaids tail?

by blownaway in

i thought this was all about the 18th century.

but its current or just post current times.

.

jp1692

The totalitarian, dystopia part of HM is plausible -- the puritanical part - eh, not so much.

Writes a former member of a puritanical cult -- one of 8 million people that bought into just such a whacked belief system!

What the ... ???

A while back, I gave a presentation at an International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) conference in Europe. My particular topic was recovery after leaving a cult. The audience consisted mostly of mental health professionals and cultic studies researchers from all over the world, but there were also a few former cult members and family members trying to figure out how to have an intervention on behalf of their loved ones. At any rate, most members weren't too familiar with JWs or their beliefs.

Midway through the presentation, one participant in the workshop asked if I thought JWs were capable of being radicalized (the presentation before mine was about how many, many teenagers in Spain were being recruited by extremist Islamic groups). I responded by saying that at present JWs were instructed to be non-political, however it was (and remains) my opinion that if the JW leadership ever directed their membership to carryout any kind of terrorist attacks that at least 1% of JWs worldwide would be totally and completely committed to doing whatever they were told. Blind, unquestioning obedience is a potentially scary thing - (see “Seven Shepherds, Eight Dukes—What They Mean for Us Today,” Watchtower, November 2013, paragraph 17).

I then continued, explaining that there are about 8 million JWs worldwide. Do the math. That means that about 80,000 individuals could and would be ready to do whatever they were told by WT leaders. Imagine: 80,000 coordinated acts of terrorism and or violence! (You may or many not agree, but the potential is certainly there.)

At this point in the presentation a young man in the audience raised his hand. (He was not the person that asked the initial question that got this part of the discussion going.)

When I called on him, he said boldly, "You're wrong!"

Taken somewhat aback, I said, "Okay. This is just my opinion, but tell me why you say that."

He replied, "I am very well acquainted with the beliefs and actions of Jehovah's Witnesses and I just think you're wrong. It wouldn't be 1% ... it would be much, much higher. Probably 10 - 20% or possibly even more!"

I found out later he had been a Bethelite for several years in Selters, Germany.

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Returning to the OP. I would think that we, as former cult members, would be the first to acknowledge how easily people can be manipulated and controlled into believing and then doing crazy, even horrible, things.

The Handmaid's Tale is clearly fiction. It is one woman's idea of how a dystopian, totalitarian society could possibly reform out of a post-enlightenment democratic one.

Clearly the story is compelling as evidenced by the lasting popularity of the book, the critical acclaim of the recent television adaptation and the fact that we are discussing it here.

Will it happen here? Probably not; I certainly hope not.

Could it happen here? Absolutely.

Therein lies the cautionary aspect of the tale.

12

Simon, is it possible to add an "Underline" button to options?

by Wonderment in

simon, is it possible to add an "underline" button to the available options?.

thanks again for this site!.

jp1692

I'm no a MAC. I just highlight what I want underlined and hit COMMAND-U.

It works.

43

Anyone watching the handmaids tail?

by blownaway in

i thought this was all about the 18th century.

but its current or just post current times.

.

jp1692

Hi Scotsman, No I have not read Oryx and Crake. I'll have to add it to my wish list on our recommendation!

jp

43

Anyone watching the handmaids tail?

by blownaway in

i thought this was all about the 18th century.

but its current or just post current times.

.

jp1692

It is of course correct that The Handmaid's Tale (THT) was published in 1985 and therefore could not possibly be about Trump. I did not say that or even mean to imply it. In my previous post I was not specifically referring to any particular administration, but rather an ideological worldview that actually goes back decades. Sorry that I wasn't more clear.

Margaret Atwood, the author of THT, has spoken and written at length about her motivations for much of her writing, THT included. Interestingly, she was living in West Berlin when she began writing the book in 1983. This was when it was still encircled by the Berlin Wall.

In The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood writes in the well-established tradition of using her art form, fictional literature, to advance her ideals of social awareness and change. She used a variety of historical scenarios --- from the Puritans of New England to the religious theocracies of Afghanistan -- to provide the backdrop, possible means and motivations for her story.

For example, she has stated that, all of “the scenarios offered in The Handmaid's Tale have actually occurred in real life,” adding that “I didn't put in anything that we [humans] haven't already done, we're not already doing, we're seriously trying to do, coupled with trends that are already in progress... So all of those things are real, and therefore the amount of pure invention is close to nil" (Gruss, 2004).

Expanding on this notion, Atwood stated in a recent essay that "One of my rules was that I would not put any events into the book that had not already happened in what James Joyce called the 'nightmare' of history, nor any technology not already available."

Atwood has explained that The Handmaid's Tale is a response to those who claim the oppressive, totalitarian, and religious governments that have taken hold in other countries throughout the years "can't happen here"—but in this work, she has tried to show how such a takeover might play out (Rothstein, 1986).

Atwood has speculated that a coup such as the one depicted in THT would misuse religion in order to achieve its own ends, positing the question, “if you wanted to seize power in the US, abolish liberal democracy and set up a dictatorship, how would you go about it?” (Atwood, 2012). Handmaid's Tale is her literary answer to that question.

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Works Cited:

Atwood, Margaret (20 January 2012). "Haunted by the Handmaid's Tale". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 March 2016.

Gruss, Susanne (2004). ""People confuse interpersonal relations with legal structures." An Interview with Margaret Atwood". Gender Forum. Archived from the original on 27 April 2016. Retrieved 28 March 2016.

Rothstein, Mervyn (17 February 1986). "No Balm in Gilead for Margaret Atwood". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 March 2016.

43

Anyone watching the handmaids tail?

by blownaway in

i thought this was all about the 18th century.

but its current or just post current times.

.

jp1692

The Handmaid’s Tale is about what could happen if a theocracy took over modern America, kind of a slightly extreme version of MAGA’s goals.

Great cautionary tale by a Canadian author, Margaret Atwood. It’s all based on actual history projected onto the modern world.

58

Download Raymond Franz PDF Books Crisis of Conscience and In Search of Christian Freedom

by Tenacious in

for those who've never read these incredible books by our friend ray franz.. here are links for both.

.

happy reading!.

jp1692

Here they are on Amazon:

Prepare for sticker shock!

53

Bible comes alive if we look for meaning behind the symbols it uses

by Ireneus in

bible contains too much human thinking presented as though from god, thus much of its information brings dishonor to god.. yet it contains great beneficial truths behind the symbols it uses.

let us take the only two cases of miracles jesus performed without any request from anybody which would show the very purpose of his ministry:.

1) jesus healed a woman who “was bent over and could not straighten up at all.” (luke 13:11-13).

jp1692

Ireneus,

Since you quoted an internet source about carbon and it’s allotropes, I’ve a question for you: which form of carbon is more stable, diamond or graphite? Explain your answer discussing Gibbs free energy and the concept of spontaneous and non-spontaneous reactions.

No fair looking it up. If you don’t presently know and can’t explain why one form is more stable than the other then you need to stop talking about things you don’t understand as if you do. That’s what cult members do.

53

Bible comes alive if we look for meaning behind the symbols it uses

by Ireneus in

bible contains too much human thinking presented as though from god, thus much of its information brings dishonor to god.. yet it contains great beneficial truths behind the symbols it uses.

let us take the only two cases of miracles jesus performed without any request from anybody which would show the very purpose of his ministry:.

1) jesus healed a woman who “was bent over and could not straighten up at all.” (luke 13:11-13).

jp1692

Ireneus, so it’s clear you don’t really understand chemistry as a science. I asked you several very specific questions and you ignored every single one. Every one.

Nice attempt at a diversion with the allotropes of carbon but the fact is the periodic table of the elements does nothing to explain that. Why aren’t there silicon based lifeforms, or tin-based? You won’t find an answer in the PTE.

Can you explain the difference between alkanes, alkenes and alkynes? Why does the boiling point of long chain hydrocarbons change as the length of the parent chain increases?

You also made a lame attempt at pointing to the orderliness of protons—1, 2, 3 ... 79, 80. But why stop at 80, there’s so much more. And you never even attempted to explain how or what you think this proves. Tell me, why is every element electrically neutral but the number of neutrons don’t always correspond to the number of protons. Hydrogen doesn’t even have a neutron. Why not? And alpha particles consist of a proton and a neutron without any electrons at all. How does that work?

Are you familiar with leptons, quarks, neutrinos and bosons? I’m thinking you’re really out of your depth and should just stop talking about things you don’t know about.

You can’t possibly know what things MEAN if you do not even understand what they ARE.

Go back and reread my last post and respond to each and every question, then respond to every question in this post. If you can’t, then admit you don’t know and quit pretending to know about things you don’t.