Apognophos

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Posts by Apognophos

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  22

  My Biography (shamelessly long)...

  by truthseekers2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm embarressed to no end on how long this ended up being, but i felt it all too important to leave anything out (and yes, i did delete some!

  {blush} ).

  my name is shauna.

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  Apognophos

  I did! Thanks for bumping.
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  8

  Is Satan confused? (Persecution™ of Mormons in Russia)

  by fresh prince of ohio in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  no satan, mormons are not the same as jws!

  you're using your invisible yet ever-diabolical influence to turn russian leaders against the wrong 19th-century-spawned american religious sect-cult!.

  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/09/russia-s-anti-mormon-campaign.html.

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  Apognophos

  Nice, guys.
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  63

  My DEATH as an Intellectual

  by Terry in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  i had been a straight a student.

  i had a prodigious memory for facts, dates, quotes.

  i once recited the entire rime of the ancient mariner in english class.

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  Apognophos

  There was no ambition in my family at all that I could detect.

  That just means your family was spiritually strong! Why have ambition when this whole world will be done away with soon? I've certainly seen the same thing in my family. No one thinks more than a month ahead and it's slowly catching up with them as they get older. I'm thinking I need to go back to college and get a better degree -- and take my school work seriously this time.
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  24

  Its All About Them Until We Remember Our First Name

  by AllTimeJeff in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have been told by more then one person of my propensity to use the phrase "...it's all about them.

  " when it comes to the governing body.

  them and their authority that is.

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  Apognophos

  It's also interesting to think that we called each other Brother and Sister [Surname]; we could certainly have used the honorific Brother/Sister with each others' first names (I think some other religions or religious orders do this, right?). My guess is that the brothers at the top would never have stood for younger Witnesses calling them Brother Joseph, etc., so they insisted on using last names. Which seems contrary to the whole idea of a familial relationship. Sure, we call our parents by a title, but we always call our sibings by their given names....
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  8

  The Governing Body - Elusive & Strong

  by the-illuminator81 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  when it comes to cults, jehovah's witnesses have a very strong hierarchical leadership system.

  in many ways it enforces their control on the individual.

  one of the tricks is that the lower levels of followers never get direct contact beyond the circuit overseer level.

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  Apognophos

  On my last job, I worked at a division of an international corporation with thousands of employees. The top leadership was in another country, and I did not know (or could not pronounce) any of the company's most important names. About once a year, the international head company president, who was fluent in English, would come over and briefly speak in front of us on the state of the company. The rest of his visit was spent conferring with management, making sure they were all on the same page, since after all if he were to speak to every employee he would be there until next year came around.

  In the U.S. division of our specific sub-company, the leadership was two states away from my office. My department's regional boss reported to his national boss who reported to his international boss who reported to our sub-company's president. This was all on the American side, thus this American president was still some levels under the foreign CEO. I knew my boss's boss, but I never met my boss's boss's boss, who was two states away. I did know his name and his boss's name. I would not have recognized them if I passed them on the street, however, nor did I know how any of my bosses attained their positions.

  Question: did I work for a cult?
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  47

  Did you ever have to walk out of/shut off a movie when watching with JWs?

  by keyser soze in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i can only recall one occasion.

  it was when my brother and future wife were dating.

  they had dinner at my parents' house, along with her uber-zealous/borderline psychotic parents.

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  Apognophos

  Hehe.... This has been an interesting topic. Man, I had no idea I grew up in such a permissive congregation! No Star Wars! It sounds like a lot of congregations, or at least families, were in a competition to see who could have a more sensitive conscience.
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  34

  Pronouncing it RIGHT

  by Christ Alone in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what rules do you follow when pronouncing foreign names/places/things?

  i was remembering that when we were studying the daniel book for the book study back in the day, someone released a pronunciation guide.

  i remember studying it closely so i could pronounce all the names right (especially on the section of daniel 11).

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  Apognophos

  Haha, that touches on the subject of "words only JWs have in their vocabulary", which probably has its own thread (or several!). It's doubly worse for me because, like NewChapter, I have a lot of words in my vocabulary that come from reading books. I imagine people around me are trying hard not to make faces when I speak, because there's no way I sound normal.
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  47

  Did you ever have to walk out of/shut off a movie when watching with JWs?

  by keyser soze in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i can only recall one occasion.

  it was when my brother and future wife were dating.

  they had dinner at my parents' house, along with her uber-zealous/borderline psychotic parents.

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  Apognophos

  It is rather amazing how divided congregations can be over this and how their opinions differ by region. The opinion in my cong. growing up was that people ought to have strong consciences, not weak ones that would be easily offended by something superficial. PG-13 was fine as long as you were discreet in not blabbing to everyone indiscriminately about seeing it later. One sister openly asked a room of us whether she should see "Lord of the Rings", and she appreciated my advice that the small amount of magic in the movie would not bother her, although the level of violence would (I seriously have no idea how all 3 films slipped by with a PG-13). Another sister was fond of pointing out that the R rating could be undeserved at times and therefore not an obstacle to seeing a movie.

  Then we had a CO come through who informed us that having a strong conscience did not mean that you automatically could watch more objectionable material, and that "weak ones" were not the Witnesses who insisted on G/PG only. He then brought out "Titanic" as an example of a movie that had clearly unacceptable material. Well, let me tell you, our PO was not happy about this. I guess you could say he was POed. At a gathering later, he made a loud point of disagreeing with the recently-departed CO's opinion of the movie, saying it was really a conscience issue and we did not believe in a decreed "movie blacklist". He was open about having seen the movie himself.

  Incidentally, this was a Hall near the headquarters, filled with zealous Bethelites. I still appreciate that, while JWs are indeed Pharisee-like, our Hall was pretty reasonable as Pharisees go :-) I have to say that it did indeed seem to me that the most easily-offended Witnesses were the "weakest" ones. They were usually the first ones to get their feelings hurt over some unintentional slight and create drama in the congregation.

  Sorry, that was slightly off-topic. The only thing I've had happen that was close to a "walk out" was when a friend put on one of his DVDs for the first time and he was totally unaware that the version of the movie he'd seen before had a full frontal nude scene edited out. He fast-forwarded (probably sweating a little, as he was the elder in the room), while I began laughing nervously. Pro tip: Fast-forwarding is much less effective in covering over a scene on a DVD than on a VHS.
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  34

  Pronouncing it RIGHT

  by Christ Alone in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what rules do you follow when pronouncing foreign names/places/things?

  i was remembering that when we were studying the daniel book for the book study back in the day, someone released a pronunciation guide.

  i remember studying it closely so i could pronounce all the names right (especially on the section of daniel 11).

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  Apognophos

  It seems to me that a very small percentage of school overseers were ever qualified to criticize someone's speech. We actually had one of the qualified ones when I was growing up, so I didn't realize how many were making fools of themselves when giving counsel. Good thing the counsel is done privately now -- good thing for the overseer!

  Amelia: That's odd, are you in the U.S.? If everyone at the meeting was saying "I-zigh-ya", I would be looking around like I was in the Twilight Zone!
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  86

  WHAT ARE YOUR MOST VIVID, ODD, or FUNNY Memories of Conventions and Assemblies of Jehovah's Witnesses?

  by Balaamsass in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  share with us memories of the bizarre, funny, strange, what you hated, what you miss...we all have them.

  (question..why the big to do between terms- convention and assembly .

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  Apognophos

  Man, I missed out, I haven't experienced anything interesting at a convention, ever :-\

  But thanks for that story, Open mind, that was great.