Fifth-genners?! I would think your family JW history would have to go back to Russell's time for that to be possible. I suppose I have heard a couple people here say that they did have roots back that far.
Apognophos
JoinedPosts by Apognophos
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17
2nd and 3rd Genners -- Did the passing of the 1st/2nd Gen. cause doubts for you?
by Apognophos ini can't discuss my family history here in detail while i'm still fading, but suffice to say that i'm a third-generation witness.
my grandparents' generation of witnesses expected the end to come in the middle of the 20th century.
they led spartan lives and largely went without having kids, as they awaited the imminent new system.
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is this weird or is it me?
by sowhatnow ini got here a 1998 awake bound volume and im leafing through it and found the december issue with the cover jesus what did he really look like who is he.. in the photo, there is a scetching of jesus along side a color artists picture .
the hand looks odd.
who would draw a hand like that?.
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Apognophos
Subliminal images are the new "demons"
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2nd and 3rd Genners -- Did the passing of the 1st/2nd Gen. cause doubts for you?
by Apognophos ini can't discuss my family history here in detail while i'm still fading, but suffice to say that i'm a third-generation witness.
my grandparents' generation of witnesses expected the end to come in the middle of the 20th century.
they led spartan lives and largely went without having kids, as they awaited the imminent new system.
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Apognophos
I can't discuss my family history here in detail while I'm still fading, but suffice to say that I'm a third-generation Witness. My grandparents' generation of Witnesses expected the end to come in the middle of the 20th century. They led spartan lives and largely went without having kids, as they awaited the imminent new system. Now they are dying off in their old age, poor and confused. My parents' generation expected the end in 1975, or at the very latest by the end of the century. Now they are retirement age and don't have anything saved up.
For those of you who hadn't learned TTATT yet when you saw your parents or grandparents aging and dying, did it cause any conscious doubts in you?
What's interesting about this is, not only did generations of JWs limit their child-rearing due to expecting the end soon, but if prior generations dying is causing doubt in born-in Witnesses, it means that the religion has a limited timespan when it comes to retention of born-ins. Second-gen born-ins may be more likely to stay in than someone who was not born-in, but third-genners will be seeing a personal family history, as they get older, where multiple generations are dying without seeing the end come. Fourth-genners are now becoming common as people my age have kids, and they're going to see even more disappointed oldsters dying off as they grow up.
That's got to be damaging to the religion's retention rates, no? Surely we humans must learn something from our family history? Surely it causes doubt in kids at the time of life where they are trying to decide whether to go to college or devote themselves to the religion?
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Could the allowance of blood fractions be curtailing the growth of the religion?
by Apognophos inso, imagine that you're just a regular joe who's not familiar with the witnesses and is looking for the answers to life, the universe, and everything.
you hear a knock at your door.
before long, you are studying with a jehovah's witness.
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Apognophos
So, imagine that you're just a regular Joe who's not familiar with the Witnesses and is looking for the answers to life, the universe, and everything. You hear a knock at your door. Before long, you are studying with a Jehovah's Witness. There's lots of clear-cut answers to your questions, straight from the Bible. Sure, some teachings are a bit odd, like this "earthly/heavenly hope" business, but everything has a scripture as its basis, so the study is moving along.
You come to the chapter in the study book that mentions blood transfusions and how they're not allowed. You're concerned about this, but your study conductor reassures you, "Certain fractions are a conscience matter, so you can at least take those if you want." You say, "Really? I can take fractions of this sacred substance, just not the major components? What are the scriptures that say a fraction of something forbidden is okay?" The Witness shrugs. "Can I at least see a list of what I can take?" The JW supplies you with a complicated list.
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What is going through your mind at this point? Isn't just about anyone's BS Alarm liable to be going off at this point?
In the old days, the teaching was very simple: The OT says not to eat blood, and the NT maintains the command to abstain from blood, therefore we don't take any blood into our system. If you weren't inclined to look deeper into what those verses are actually saying, this seemed quite satisfactory. "Hey, I guess these people are just following the Bible more faithfully than anyone else."
That's not to say that there haven't always been Bible students who balked, and ultimately stopped studying, because of this teaching. But I have to think that the teaching is actually making the religion harder to take credibly now that many fractions are allowed. It's just so arbitrary that it seems insane.
We've noticed that it's becoming nearly impossible to find anyone in the first world to convert to the religion if they weren't raised in it. I can't help but wonder if this convoluted fractions business plays any role in that. Eh, maybe not. I would imagine a bunch of other teachings are bigger stumbling blocks for most students, like no holidays, or 1914, etc. I guess I'm just wondering if anyone here has personal experience with this, if they conducted a Bible study after fractions were allowed, and discussed it with the student.
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Did you know about the organ transplant ban when you were a believer?
by Apognophos inback when i was learning ttatt, i was shocked to read on jwfacts about the organ transplant ban from 1967 to 1980. this was a large piece of evidence for me that the society could not be god's organization.
growing up as an earnest witness, and living near the headquarters, i knew a lot of the organization's embarrassing history, and it didn't faze me, but i'd never heard of this ban before, and it shocked me.
it's gotten me wondering why no one i know ever talks about it, when it must have affected many witnesses during that time (or were they getting transplants on the sly?
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Apognophos
Back when I was learning TTATT, I was shocked to read on JWfacts about the organ transplant ban from 1967 to 1980. This was a large piece of evidence for me that the Society could not be God's organization. Growing up as an earnest Witness, and living near the headquarters, I knew a lot of the organization's embarrassing history, and it didn't faze me, but I'd never heard of this ban before, and it shocked me. It's gotten me wondering why no one I know ever talks about it, when it must have affected many Witnesses during that time (or were they getting transplants on the sly? I understand it was not a DFing offense). So my question is a simple one:
Were you aware of this ban when you were an active, believing Witness, either during the time of the ban, or after transplants were allowed again?
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DNA memory
by poopsiecakes inhas anyone here ever researched or thought about dna memory?
there's a lot of weird, esoteric stuff out there concerning this, like you can somehow access your ancestors' memories.
that's not really what i'm talking about - to me, that sounds a little too fanciful.dna is a relatively recent discovery and obviously, there's still a lot to learn.
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Apognophos
DATA-DOG, the subject we're discussing at the moment, the mouse study, concerns epigenetics, that is, the passing on of the "switched" nature of genes (whether they express or not). It's not related to the general subject of evolution or the subject of which genes are passed on to one's descendants.
Of course we all contain traits from not just our parents, but traits which are found in, say, an uncle or a grandmother which are not evident in our parents. So clearly we are not just a product of the precise traits that our parents possessed, but also other traits which are circulating in our family's gene pool. In that sense we can't expect that two physically exceptional parents will have nothing but exceptional children.
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Governing Body at Bethel and their daily routine
by Tenacious ini never had the privilege to serve at bethel .. therefore, community help is greatly appreciated friends.. do the gb members have their own living quarters separate from the average jw?.
does their "busy" schedule permit field service, if yes, how many hours a month?.
how long are their weekly wednesday meetings?.
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Apognophos
DATA-DOG, you laugh loudly but your words carry no weight.
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where was this quote made?
by Truth and Justice inmy parents and i are discussing a quote that was made many years ago.
we know for a fact that it was made.
i have exhausted all of my resources to find it, and so i come here to this fine group to ask you about this quote.. the subject is about money.
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Apognophos
They're not begging for money in the letter, and C.T. Russell is ancient history anyway, so this line of reasoning is not going to be effective on a Witness.
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is this weird or is it me?
by sowhatnow ini got here a 1998 awake bound volume and im leafing through it and found the december issue with the cover jesus what did he really look like who is he.. in the photo, there is a scetching of jesus along side a color artists picture .
the hand looks odd.
who would draw a hand like that?.
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Apognophos
Take your meds and get some rest, sowhatnow.
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What is the point of the picture in this weeks study article ?
by stuckinarut2 ini don't understand the relevance of the first picture in this weeks study article?!?!.
wt week of december 15-21 "cherish your privilege of working with jehovah".
can someone post the pic?.
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Apognophos
I would suggest just the opposite, that the reason they moved out of NYC is that the Society expects the world to get worse. Like the Christians between 66 and 70 CE, they are fleeing to the hills before things get worse (another 9/11). It's not a direct strike from the UN that they're fearing, but rather getting caught up in the death throes of this "old system". Obviously they believe that God will protect them from being wiped out by a direct attack; they've always said this much.