Posts by StarryNight9

44

Study Watchtower confirms shunning spiritually weak. How nice!

by Isambard Crater in

it really hurt to hear brothers and sisters commenting about this at the meeting yesterday.. "as in solomon’s case, one of the greatest threats to spirituality is friendship with those who do not understand or respect jehovah’s standards.

some may be associated with the congregation but may be spiritually weak.

others could be relatives, neighbors, coworkers, or schoolmates who are not worshippers of jehovah.

StarryNight9

@sparrowdown

I agree with your assessment 100%. A lot of people (usually at least 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th gen born-ins) have gotten smart about avoiding punishment. It's really blatant where I am. The minority uber-JWs are on the social outskirts while the cool double-lifers party (literally) and don't invite anyone into their circle who would tattle. These double-lifers look like uber-JWs to anyone who isn't in their circle. Other born-ins do just enough to maintain all our family and friend connections. All us born-ins know how to talk a very good game (whether you're a cool-JW or a fringe-JW) if we want to...

Just because our parents fell for some cult-crap, doesn't mean the kids feel the same.

64

HYMNS you will never hear at the Kingdom Hall

by Vanderhoven7 in

do you have examples of hymns you will never hear in kingdom halls in any country.. here are a few of my favorites:.

https://youtu.be/cjivdc-_njs.

https://youtu.be/7gfvl0ef-be .

StarryNight9

I would have sworn Battle Hymn of the Republic would never come out of the KH speaker system... and it did. I was not the only surprised person. I daresay there were more than a few scandalized people (including my JW family). Never say never.

16

wt and charitable works.

by zeb in

my wife (uber) mentioned today an elderly man who comes to the kh and he suffers from a sever stomach complaint which needs surgery and that there is a 'waiting list' at the local hospital.. so i says, "why dont the elders put the $$ together to get his op done privately.

" (ie out of the govt system and 'waiting lists').

her answer was telling.

StarryNight9

We were always taught that the most valuable charity was giving people "the truth". I remember that hurricane recovery volunteers had to spend a good chunk of their time witnessing instead of actually helping people. It was all about how it looked to news outlets (and future magazine covers/articles), but they were mostly just pushing "literature" on potential converts at a vulnerable point in their lives.

4

WT real estate.

by Lost in the fog in

watchtower society continues to hold real estate valued in $millions.

and avoids paying taxes on it because of its religious status.

http://www.recordonline.com/news/20180924/town-of-newburgh-agrees-to-refund-some-taxes-on-2-watchtower-sites .

StarryNight9

@DesirousOfChange

I don't know. $23 million isn't really that much anymore when you're talking about giant corporations. It all depends on if there's more cash flowing in than out. I highly doubt we'll ever have access to those numbers.

90

Is attendance down in your location too?

by StarryNight9 in

jw
friends

i was commenting on another thread about how local kh attendance is down.

memorial attendance was also way down and the circuit assembly had hundreds less people than what is typical.

my jw family has even mentioned it.

StarryNight9

hmm, I like these webpages. Lots of juicy numbers to pour over. The Pew numbers seem to suggest that JWs are getting older and poorer over time.

https://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/statistics.php

http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/jehovahs-witness/#age-distribution-trend

90

Is attendance down in your location too?

by StarryNight9 in

jw
friends

i was commenting on another thread about how local kh attendance is down.

memorial attendance was also way down and the circuit assembly had hundreds less people than what is typical.

my jw family has even mentioned it.

StarryNight9

Thanks everybody! I appreciate all of your observations. I was wondering if my experiences where just a local fluke or if others were noticing the same things. When do the yearly by-country "official" JW numbers get published?

113

EU Court Ruling Against WT on Data-Protection

by cofty in

today's london times reports on the july ruling of the eu court that forces the organisation country to comply with data protection.. the action originated in finland but the ruling will affect every eu country.

the cult tried unsuccessfully to argue that the notes taken by jws in the door-to-door work were personal and not accessed by the congregation.

the court ruled that they are acting under the auspices of the congregation and therefore they must comply with data-protection laws.. keeping lists of do-not-calls also falls under this ruling.. why does the cult always feel that it is above the law?.

StarryNight9

Doubter... what are you doing? You appear to have little grasp of how networks or computers really work, but can't give up on your notebook vs computer analogy.

"the chances it gets compromised by me dropping a notebook with you info in it"

The chances of a notebook you drop getting compromised is pretty high. I'd need to know the percentage of items you've lost or dropped over your lifetime to calculate your "drop" probability, but I'm not going to bother. Especially since the sample size (1 person) is too small to be meaningful. The problem isn't really about "dropping" notebooks (an accident), it's about how the data is intentionally shared in an unsecured manner with no protections (guidelines on how the data is handled and transmitted are part of the protections).

113

EU Court Ruling Against WT on Data-Protection

by cofty in

today's london times reports on the july ruling of the eu court that forces the organisation country to comply with data protection.. the action originated in finland but the ruling will affect every eu country.

the cult tried unsuccessfully to argue that the notes taken by jws in the door-to-door work were personal and not accessed by the congregation.

the court ruled that they are acting under the auspices of the congregation and therefore they must comply with data-protection laws.. keeping lists of do-not-calls also falls under this ruling.. why does the cult always feel that it is above the law?.

StarryNight9

Doubter: The point is, the Bible is a written record, a record about people. No getting around that.

Um... what does that have to do with modern data laws? Laws aren't typically retroactive going back 1000+ years.

What were you saying about strawmen?

113

EU Court Ruling Against WT on Data-Protection

by cofty in

today's london times reports on the july ruling of the eu court that forces the organisation country to comply with data protection.. the action originated in finland but the ruling will affect every eu country.

the cult tried unsuccessfully to argue that the notes taken by jws in the door-to-door work were personal and not accessed by the congregation.

the court ruled that they are acting under the auspices of the congregation and therefore they must comply with data-protection laws.. keeping lists of do-not-calls also falls under this ruling.. why does the cult always feel that it is above the law?.

StarryNight9

Doubter: "Just to reinterate, calculate the chances your information gets hacked on a network with “protections“ against the chances it gets compromised by me dropping a notebook with you info in it"

The chances that someone could read a dropped notebook is close to 100% (some handwriting is just illegible - lol). Most of the population can pick up an item and can also read - notebook hack complete.

The chance of stolen data with appropriate encryption applied being read is much lower. Encryption models are constantly updated to maintain a level of protection that would take more than a lifetime (and supercomputer-capacity that doesn't yet exist) to crack. That's just one of the layers of protection. Hackers have to try for direct access to the data before it's packaged up with encryption for transport (across the network or physically). It takes a screw-up by a human somewhere along the line to create a vulnerability. This is usually accomplished through social engineering, not the mechanics of some genius-hacker attacking a network (Hollywood is sooo inaccurate). I won't bother to calculate the odds for digital data, but I'm comfortable saying they're lower than the odds of someone being able to read a lost notebook.

113

EU Court Ruling Against WT on Data-Protection

by cofty in

today's london times reports on the july ruling of the eu court that forces the organisation country to comply with data protection.. the action originated in finland but the ruling will affect every eu country.

the cult tried unsuccessfully to argue that the notes taken by jws in the door-to-door work were personal and not accessed by the congregation.

the court ruled that they are acting under the auspices of the congregation and therefore they must comply with data-protection laws.. keeping lists of do-not-calls also falls under this ruling.. why does the cult always feel that it is above the law?.

StarryNight9

Doubter: "Well, if that’s your rationale, make it illegal to store information on computers connected to the internet."

It is actually illegal to store certain information on computers without putting specific protections on it (USA laws). Medical data is one type I can think of.

*these laws apply to businesses/organizations, not individuals.