88JM

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Posts by 88JM

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  7

  Shepherding textbook in digital format 2012 Printing

  by hildebrando in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  "the watchtower is butchering the 2010 elders manual, and has released this new one to all elders.

  to many court cases involve exposing the 2010 elder manual, so now the watchtower is changing a few things with this new one".

  (authorized).

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  88JM

  Told you so.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/207300003/re-shepherding-textbook-digital-format?size=10&page=4#206720002
  
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  39

  Re: Shepherding Textbook in Digital Format

  by suavojr in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  after years of leaked info, the gb has finally decided to publish their own shepherding textbook in epub format.. dear brothers:.

  we are pleased to inform you that the shepherding textbook is now available in epub,.

  mobi, and pdf format.

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  88JM

  If they eventually do away with the paper versions of the textbook, they will be able change their policies just with a few clicks, just as they change the online versions of other publications.

  Of course they've been sending revisions to the sheperding book via paper letters to the elders for years (insert this here, ignore this bit etc.) but soon they will be able to change things like their disfellowshipping policy worldwide overnight.

  They will also be able to make different policies or wording depending on the laws of a particular country and get around regulations in one particular country without watering stuff down for other countries.
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  62

  25 YEARS of compiled yearbook statistics

  by 88JM in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hello again folks - as promised in my last thread here, i've been working on turning yearbook statistics into excel spreadsheets.. coincidentally, today is my 25th birthday (spare a thought for a fader).. i've now updated the spreadsheet with yearbook data all the way back to 1988 (the year i was born), therefore it now contains 25 years of statistics.. there were a lot of countries changing around and for some it was possible to create a continuation of data.

  some are a simple change of name like south-west africa to namibia.

  others, for example - in 1993 with czechoslovakia splitting into two countries (czech republic and slovakia) i have added an extra row that provides a continuation of the data, combining czech republic and slovakia back together as if they were still one country.

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  88JM

  Hey folks - just noticing this got bumped - did I miss something happening? Was there a reason?

  I can't remember if I uploaded a new version with the 2014 data, but I did do the spreadsheet for that too so I'll get that up when I'm back from work today.

  Thanks to wifibandit (and Atlantis) for the reminder:

  Now that Yearbooks 1927-2014 in PDF (Thanks Atlantis!) are available for download via bittorrent, Can we organize a way to include ALL data?

  As I might have tried to explain before, the difficulty is not so much getting the data into a spreadsheet, but it's the wonderful world of international politics and countries changing names and borders that takes time to work out.

  Things have been pretty stable for the past 15 years or so, but working back to 1988 things start getting really complicated in the 80's, especially with the Soviet Union in Europe. It can certainly be done, but it just takes time and patience. If someone else wants to have a go, then by all means go ahead.

  Maybe I'm just going about it the wrong way and making a mess of it - but I just think if you want actual useful data for individual countries going back as far as possible then you need to work out the country changes. You could ignore them and just dump everything into a messy spreadsheet, but then for some countries (like Russia etc.) you would only have data going back as far as those countries existed in name.
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  8

  Thought provoking articles / videos

  by Simon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i came across this site and love it, just full of interesting things to read.

  this one is particularly good about whether we are alone in the universe (as intelligent life) and what different scenarios could play out:.

  http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html.

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  88JM

  If you enjoyed those, are you familiar with the VSauce channels and Veritasium on YouTube?
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  35

  Memorial attendance up or down on last year?

  by freddo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as per the title.

  and was the one you attended at an early or late time of the evening.. any partakers?.

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  88JM

  Same here (also UK) - same number (and the same people!) as last year. I was expecting it to be more with it being an evening before the weekend (though as you say it was also Good Friday), but it seems to not have made any difference.
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  59

  Worst Memorial Talk Ever!

  by The Searcher in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i honestly have never heard such claptrap being delivered in a memorial talk.. the speaker repeatedly put down the way other religions administered the bread & wine, and claimed that witnesses do it exactly as the bible describes.

  oh yeah????.

  he forgot to mention - when reading aloud 1 corinthians 11:25 - that after passing the bread, a full meal was to be shared, before the wine was passed around!

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  88JM

  I know it was the same outline, but the fat sweaty elder didn't even bother to change his notes from last year - he just pulled out the same folder and gave his version almost word for word the same.

  It was also pretty much the same people as last year too, and even cheaper wine (the sister who bought it was concerned that it didn't have a screw cap!)

  I noticed this year that they don't go near any verses in Revelation to talk about the great crowd, only to John 10 to talk about the "other sheep" which is blatantly just referring to non-Isrealites.
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  8

  JWs as described by Cracked

  by Vidiot in

  1. social
  2. humour

  http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-religions-youve-got-all-wrong-because-hollywood/.

  the article describes four different religions (rastafari, jws, amish, and scientology); jws are #3.. the jw entry is pretty accurate (and as usual, funny), but surprisingly doesn't mention the two-witness-rule-related legal troubles the wt has been having lately.

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  88JM

  The writer discusses it being pulled here:

  http://www.cracked.com/forums/topic/199423/scientology/20#msg3383057
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  3

  Don't You Wonder?

  by Atlantis in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  don't you wonder sometimes who these "others" are, the watchtower claims they are helping with spiritual and material needs?.

  .. "promoting the christian religion by helping congregations of jehovah's witnesses & others with their spiritual & material welfare.".

  .. exactly who are these others that are being helped with their spiritual & material needs?.

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  88JM

  Funny in the activities section how one bit is described as "obtaining and giving away religious literature" - why didn't they just say "printing"?

  I wonder if they get the US branch or some other shell company to "sell" them the printed literature at a hugely inflated price so it doesn't look like they're doing a straight transfer of money but buying literature instead?
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  6

  Age of "governing body" members

  by MacHislopp in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  carey barber ..................b 1905. lyman swingle.................b 1910. albert schroeder.............. b 1911. john barr ..................... b 1913. daniel sydlik...................b 1919. milton henschel ...............b 1920. theodore jaracz...............b 1924. and.

  guy pierce .....................b 1934 (b.

  1 year before end of h.c.)*.

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  88JM

  Mark Sanderson - born February 4th 1965
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  9

  Regional Conventions 2015 - theme

  by Elisa1966 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i came across this website: http://www.ministryideaz.com/2014-jw-regional-convention-notebook-p/cu15dcgr.htm .

  there it reads: note taker for 2015-2016 "imitate jesus!

  " regional convention of jehovah's witnesses.

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  88JM

  GB says: "IMITATE JESUS!"