I read this in my own language some years ago - it kind of makes me want to go out and find someone to hit - hard ......
It is so stupid! By all means, disagreements to the doctrine is "allowed" 100 % - but this! Oh!
TheOldHippie
JoinedPosts by TheOldHippie
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Forcing Kids to Say Pledge Is the Type of 'Patriot
by TheOldHippie inbagley: forcing kids to say pledge is the type of 'patriotism' hitler insisted upon
by will bagley .
the salt lake tribune .
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TheOldHippie
BAGLEY: Forcing Kids to Say Pledge Is the Type of 'Patriotism' Hitler Insisted Upon
By Will Bagley
The Salt Lake Tribune
Mormons still recall the suffering that haunted much of their church's early history. The realities of this persecution seems to have been lost with one state senator.
Societies so obsessed with conformity and enforced patriotism that they passed laws requiring citizens to swear fealty to a symbol like a flag include Nazi Germany and Singapore. And, if state Sen. Chris Buttars has his way, Utah.
The Romans destroyed the Jewish nation twice because its people would not worship Roman icons. A modern religious minority also suffered for refusing to bow down before a false idol.
Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to swear allegiance to anyone or anything but God. They consider pledging to a symbol like a flag as great a sin as worshipping idols with the heads of cats and the bodies of reptiles.
One of Adolf Hitler's first acts upon seizing power was to ban the Jehovah's Witnesses. Members had to wear purple armbands and thousands were arrested as "dangerous" traitors because they refused to serve in Nazi armies or pledge their loyalty to the Third Reich. Ultimately, 203 of them were executed and 635 died in concentration camps.
To show support for German Witnesses in 1935, 12-year-old Lillian and 10-year-old Billy Gobitas of Minersville, Pa., refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. For this, the children were ridiculed and stoned, expelled from school. The town's largest church boycotted the family business.
Their father sued, and the Gobitas' case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which made one of its worst decisions. "National unity is the basis of national security," Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote, and "the flag is a symbol of our national unity."
Remarkably, the high court agreed to hear another case raising the same issues only three years later. What had happened?
Many Americans did not say the pledge with their hands over their hearts in 1940. Instead, they raised their right arm just as Nazis in giving their palm salute while chanting "Sieg Heil." Pearl Harbor and images of thousands of Nazis worshipping the swastika and pledging loyalty to Hitler gave the Supreme Court a chilling new perspective on totalitarianism.
The Gobitas children returned to Washington to hear the arguments in West Virginia v. Barnette, which still sets the limits of compelled speech.
"Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good as well as by evil men," wrote Justice Robert Jackson. Such efforts had proved futile ever since the Romans tried "to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity."
In a reference to events in Germany, Jackson warned, "Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. . . . If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism [or] religion."
Letting dissenting high schoolers in Utah sit out the pledge might appear to make salute-or-else legislation fair, but consider the Texas children who recently refused to join in Baptist prayers and faced "persistent verbal harassment, with pushing and shoving, over issues of religion in the public school."
Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court had to protect the rights of these young Mormons.
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Will Bagley's ancestors were cobblers who were boycotted by their English neighbors after joining the LDS Church. -
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"Help at the right Time" KM February...
by frogit in10 min: talk by elder.
"help at the right time" highlight that the special effort being made to assist those who are inactivate reflects jehovahs loving concern for his people.. .
help at the right time.
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TheOldHippie
gopher, thatis correct, of course. There are many examples of people who have simply faded away, but then years afterwards have been df'ed because they have started being politically involved or something like that. A one-time "member" here, who has not been seen at meeting for 25 years, is well-known as gay, and it is a more or less constant discussion every second year or so, if he is to be df'ed.
I know of a guy (not gay but guy - better be carefull with the letters here ....) who had not been at meetings for 10 years or so, not since he was a teenager, but then started attending because he wanted to "get back". Because he was co-habiting with a girl, he was then df'ed. Not the best of welcomes, perhaps ............
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The 2300 Daze of Daniel
by refiners fire inas many of you would know, the 2300 days of daniel in daniel chapter 8 verse 14 have been a significant prophetic period in watchtower history.
pastor russell held certain interpretations of them.
later abandoned.
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TheOldHippie
refiners fine, I never intended to defend or justify any attempts of explaining the attack during WWI, I just said that the explanation has been given, or that the verse has been commented on, what you said had not been done. There is no need to try to make me defend something I am not interested in defending. OK? Greetings.
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The 2300 Daze of Daniel
by refiners fire inas many of you would know, the 2300 days of daniel in daniel chapter 8 verse 14 have been a significant prophetic period in watchtower history.
pastor russell held certain interpretations of them.
later abandoned.
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TheOldHippie
Refiners fine stated that " Notice it says That the Anglo American power sought to "change times and laws" but it never tells us exactly HOW they did this."
This is commented upon in the literature as the attempts to destroy the Bible Students and their worship during WWI, so whatever one might feel about that explanation, it HAS been dealt with.
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Being a Jehovah's Witness
by Pepper inbeing a jehovahs witness, and why i had to back away for five years of a life long membership.
the improper handling of my daughters abuse by the leaders.
being required to shun family members or you will be disassociated.
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TheOldHippie
I wouldn't use the same language as you, Dacke, and I do not want to be viewed as having no compasion, but the numbers 2,6,7,8,10,11 are not "valid"; there is nothing to "prevent" you from this, and one should be careful not to mix personal reasons with valid, objective reasons and untrue statements.
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The never ending saga.the anointed
by MacHislopp inafter reading from "the watchtower" february 15, 2003
"by the 1930's , then, it was becoming clear that, in general,
the heavenly class had been chosen.
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TheOldHippie
(Just a side-note; these four new ones were not serving at Bethel when they were made members - they were called to Bethel and given training for a period before made members, but evidently, they had been chosen out before they were called to Bethel. Another side-note: Why is it that almost only US citizens are to be trusted, and not Nigerians or Japanese or Malawians or Bolivians?)
Your point is the same as I tried to make some time ago. Let us look at your numbers: In 1945 there were 22,324 anointed. In my country, 2.3 % os a population aged 40 and upwards die annually. I will for simplicity's sake use this figure, as I make the guess that the ones of the remnant in 1945 all were aged 40 and above. OK, 2 % is 446 a year. In 57 years, that means 25,422. Leaves us with 3,098 BELOW ZERO, MINUS. That is to say, that all of today's 8,760 are replacements, and that 3,098 are double or triple replacements. 8,760 and 3,098 is 11,858 - and that is 53.1 % of the original 1946 number. It means, therefore, that of the remnant in 1945, 53 % has had to be replaced because they left - and that is not a rare occurence - it means the members of the remnant are more likely to leave than to stay!
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Has anyone played a JW song backwards?
by Pleasuredome insome modern music has had subliminal messages encripted into it.
some people may or may not believe that, but i'm sure the wts has written of the 'danger' of subliminals in rock music etc.
has anyone ever tested the wts kingdom melodies to see if that has any subliminal messages?
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TheOldHippie
And an LP on my turntable?
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Has anyone played a JW song backwards?
by Pleasuredome insome modern music has had subliminal messages encripted into it.
some people may or may not believe that, but i'm sure the wts has written of the 'danger' of subliminals in rock music etc.
has anyone ever tested the wts kingdom melodies to see if that has any subliminal messages?
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TheOldHippie
No, but a member of the branch committe (a bit "remote-from-the-world type of guy) made this - in my eyes - very straightforward comment, once the question of these backwards-messages was raised: "But - I cannot understand that anybody is playing records BACKWARDS?"
And in a way, that pretty much sums it all up, does it not?
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No parole hearing for alleged Geoghan victim
by TheOldHippie inno parole hearing for alleged geoghan victim
by john ellement, globe staff, 1/14/2003
former boston man who alleges that sexual abuse by a pedophile priest indirectly led him to savagely murder an elderly roslindale woman in 1981 will remain in prison after the state parole board rejected his commutation request.
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TheOldHippie
No parole hearing for alleged Geoghan victim
By John Ellement, Globe Staff, 1/14/2003
former Boston man who alleges that sexual abuse by a pedophile priest indirectly led him to savagely murder an elderly Roslindale woman in 1981 will remain in prison after the state Parole Board rejected his commutation request. Acting as advisers to Governor Mitt Romney, the board voted 7-0 Friday against holding a public hearing to consider whether James M. Costello should be eligible for parole. A public hearing is the first step in the lengthy commutation process. He is serving life in prison without parole for first-degree murder.
Now 37, Costello was 15 when he and an older friend murdered 80-year-old Palmira Piciulo in her Hyde Park Avenue apartment, where she lived alone.
Costello alleges that he was abused by now-defrocked priest John J. Geoghan while serving as an altar boy at St. Andrew's Church in Jamaica Plain. Several of Costello's siblings also alleged that they were abused by Geoghan, and they and their mother have settled claims with the Archdiocese of Boston. Costello has a civil suit pending against Geoghan and the archdiocese.
While still a priest, Geoghan testified for Costello in 1981 when Costello's lawyer tried unsuccessfully to have him tried as a juvenile. Geoghan, according to Costello's current attorney, Helen Holcomb, could have helped Costello if he had acknowledged molesting him.
Holcomb said Costello must now wait a year before again seeking commutation.
She said Costello, in recent years, has had a clean disciplinary record, works as a Spanish translator for inmates, and has become a Jehovah's Witness. ''I can't believe the board decided his fate without granting him a hearing,'' she said.
In a four-paragraph letter to Costello, the board said his prison behavior had improved, but ''you do not appear to have made exceptional strides in self-development. You have had very poor institutional behavior up until the last few years.''
The board also said it was swayed by the viciousness of the crime. ''This was an extremely atrocious crime, which involved the beating and murder of an 80-year-old woman as she screamed.''
former Boston man who alleges that sexual abuse by a pedophile priest indirectly led him to savagely murder an elderly Roslindale woman in 1981 will remain in prison after the state Parole Board rejected his commutation request. 