siegswife, did you know emily rafalski? I knew a few people from reading/pottstown.
thinkers wife, do you know matt knap?
Teirce
JoinedPosts by Teirce
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10
Take sides now
by chappy ini spent a couple of hours today with jw relatives and of coarse the usual subjects came up.
based on our conversation and after leaving, a couple of the old questions came to mind.
i'm curious about the rest of the boards thoughts.. now this may be conjecture but what if: god made it known,in no uncertain terms, that h/she exists and is finally going to put an end to all the evil in the world.
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Teirce
A world ban on religion didn't seem far-fetched when the Society first mentioned it. That was just a logical (one logical thing they do) projection of the rational conquering the irrational. Our cave ancestors did it, Joseph Campbell cites it, it's a reasonable "prophesy"or hope for a group which depends on such to fulfill their martyr complex. The reason the Society can chain up so many minds is not because they have any divine inside scoop on the future, but because there's a number of sociologic geniuses there who have researched Orson Wells and know a Stalin when they see it. Eh, Comrade? Eh? Being that they have political-religious genius sufficient to control millions, they have a grasp on the dichotomies between religion and politics, and can make predicitons.
#1 prediction. Religion is so blindly full of itself that government cannot always run effectively. Bad religeon ruins it for good religion, and the JWs are counting on that. Recent events are justifying their desire.
#2. The Witnesses themselves are so uniquely annoying that it is elementary, dear Watson, that they will be singled out for informal persecution, but they cannot yet be persecuted formally in free society.
#3. They are within the law because their crime has to do with violating people's right to privacy and insulting their intelligence. These are crimes which are tolerated or not articulated in free society, and are much less visible than those "felonous" or misdemeanor crimes committed in most other denominations, although it appears the JWs are beginning to catch up..
#4. Since they could not be held accountable foremost, they will be held accountable last-most. Logically, only after most of the visibly criminal religion has been sanctioned.As for whether or not Jehovah God Hisowndamnself showed up and endorsed Jehovah's Witnesses, I would categorically side with the nations, just like they'd want, because an organization that declares to inhabit a spiritual paradise, while still totalitarianizing spiritual thought, cannot be anything other even in a physical paradise. Thus, why the hell did Jehovah God Hisowndamnself make brains or his creatures, when all he needed was bees?
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Cult Fighters are short sighted fools
by proplog2 inthe anti-cultists are narrow minded and uninformed to say the least.. you see a lot of this here.
it is mostly a cover for irrational hatred.
most religions organized in a way that they expected their members to take their beliefs seriously.
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Teirce
I'll support Proplog2 in this way: Witnesses who exit experience a spiritual revolution similar in some ways to midlife crisis and in other ways to a near-death experience. It reinforces that life is short and it propells them the examine their true potential. In this sense cults are dream-maker factories, but the person has to be born from them first, a difficult, time-consuming process. Up to that point, what exact potential is being contained that is not in essense already free elsewhere in the world, outside of the JWs? If there is a talent of note and formidible value, it cannot really stay locked up. Therefore, concern for those inside the JWs is more of a humanitarian sentiment than a concern that the world is losing the advantage of rare genius.
As for the personal cost, for those with family and beloved ones still in it, it's hard to seperate the diversity issue; they "Need our help" quite apart from any big issue.
Happy to be wrong..
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Witnesses instructed not to harbor private ideas
by cyberguy intoday's watchtower lesson instructs witnesses not to think for themselves when it comes to bible understanding:.
augest 1, 2001, p. 14, par.
first, since "oneness" is to be observed, a mature christian must be in unity and full harmony with fellow believers as far as faith and knowledge are concerned.
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Teirce
Deep stuff. From this, it looks like they're trying to cut thought off at the source, that being ideas. An idea springs upon anyone, yet these are often raw and unpolished, in need of refinement which can only come from concentration and varied perspective. So "to not harbor" clearly means that a Witness should not allow a passing thought, the kind that are likened to birds, to land on your head and build a nest. Harboring/nesting would mean allowing that passing idea to be dwelt upon several times, turning it over and fashioning it into something conveyable, communicable. If the raw idea has been harbored long enough and smelted into a useful implement/instrument of thought, and has been reviewed and agreed upon by the mind's members, then it may well become a personal opinion. Some opinions are so very well researched, constructed and communicated that they are dangerous to other opinions. The personal opinion that emerges from an idea can be neutrally advocated, showing respect for the listener, or adamantly insisted upon, showing less respect. Generally, people advocate upwards along the heirarchy/chain of command, and insist downwards. Imagine then a line of millions of points, a continuum, stretching from the basement of obedient custodial artists to the heights of white, crinkly anointed decree, and that each of these points on the line has the capacity to form an idea, and to harbor it, and to then form an opinion. If an opinion is formed, it can be advocated upward or insisted downward. This is an insidious and elegantly simple network of thought terrorism, so the WTS is engaging in their own war against it. Opinions that are already formed are the terrorist disasters/fires that need stamped out pronto, as these are already usually fashioned into a streamlined medium of exchange, and can move about freely if one is greater than another. (It being rare that any two opinions are equally stupid so as to settle against each other, but it being common that most opinions are of a substance not greater than their neighbor, and so also settled against each other. It is the insightful and sagacious opinions that are most dangerous.) The second edict to not harbor private ideas is the attempt to strike closer to the root of the problem, the root being that ideas occur 'at all' in a Witness. As yet, the WTS still cannot get at the Idea itself. They cannot prevent the Idea from being born. But they are still working round the clock towards a theocratic NewSpeak, where Ideas become impossible. (1984)
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Anglo-American Dual World Power
by Amazing inthe wts use to speak a great deal about the seventh head of the wild beast in revelation as being the two-horned dual anglo-american world power of great britain and the usa.
also, the society applied the symbolic two-horned lamb beast to the uk and usa.. now, considering this .... .
just who has proven to be the wild beast on tuesday, 9-11?
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Teirce
<off topic> I wish they'd make a secular Clash of the Titans movie using Biblical monsters, variously ranked angels, Ezekiel's chariot and New Jerusalem, Revelation's heaven, etcetc, Leviathan and Bohemoth cameos, etc. Visually and subconsciously they're pretty darn cool all on their own little lonesomes. Depict Satan as having more scruples than capricious, Dionyssic Jehovah, and a shamed Jesus trying to pick up the pieces. Godly angels and demons go back and forth vying with their chosen champions a la the Illiad.
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39
Do Not Call List
by anglise indo not call list.
an ex-jw in the uk has come up with a brainwave!!.
he canvassed his local area and came up with a signed list of several thousand householders who did not wish to be called on again by jehovahs witnesses.. this list was then handed to the local congregations and the london bethel who were then obliged to list all those households as do not calls.. has anyone else tried this?
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Teirce
Would there be some burden of proof on the part of the address resident? (If I say house holder I'll hurl. Who the hell can hold a house.) As in, if a signature made it to Brooklyn, yet the Brooklyn office pleaded that it didn't, what proof would be required to prosecute? Does the resident maintain a signed and dated duplicate? Keep it with their tax stuff? I'm wondering if it's possible to underestimate the WTBTS' ability to play stupid, as they instruct their bees to do. The term 'class action' springs delightfully to mind.
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THose stupid bloody afgans
by ballistic ini said "watchtower" not "twintower" those stupid bloody afgans got it wrong again!!
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Teirce
Next time say Patterson instead of Pentagon. Doofus
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Why Don't They Just Come Clean?
by ballistic ini'm sure that many of us exes are angry with the watchtower because you feel like you've been lied to.. for years you are told to believe in them implicitly, not to question, not to look else where for answers.. i think the governing body would gain a lot more respect and credibility if they simply came clean and stated the truth, i.e.
look guys, we get things wrong, we've changed our beliefs time and time again, and we expect that some of what we believe now to be incorrect.. keeping up this charade of being inspired by god into this century is going to give them more problems than ever.
several threads on this site have allready predicted certain doctrinal changes and these are rapidly becoming over-due.
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Teirce
One question I've always had: I've always known it was a money organization. That was clear from 13fuckingyo. But I never clearly saw where the money went. Being at Bethel, I still couldn't see and grand palatial suites where the powerholders might really live in the lap of luxury. Just yesterday I learned that the Society works the stock exchange, and that helped a bit. But, where do their millions of dollars actually GO? What greedy person or persons actually GET the nectar, the distillation, the creme, the top notch of all that money, after it's laundered and helped in stocks? Are there a handful of star chamber types who aren't even GB, but pull Their strings?
I've been forced to think them kind of zany to steal all this moeny, and then not do anything terribly interesting with it. What kind of evil frontman is that? It's lame.
So what do they do? I'm sure there's something juicy..
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You're Anointed? Nooooooooo!
by Englishman ini hear stories that jw's really hate it when someone suddenly claims to be of the "anointed" class.
apparently, such new claims are strongly discouraged.. my jw mum says that the reason for this is that when someone claims to be anointed, it can only mean that they are replacing someone else.
in other words, an anointed person has "fallen away from the truth".
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Teirce
I had a virtually identical experience to SaintSatan. Reached a plateau, the universe opened up to me, it began to make sense that self-originating spirituality was sustainable.
The fact that the partaker numbers never broke below 8K was one of the most blatant slaps..
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just wanting to talk to someone...
by airwlk149 inok- this isn't going to be very interesting.
just wanting to talk without speaking words.
but i am not talking about the "friend" who is really an issue.
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Teirce
hehe..
Well played, JW72. Well played.