Posts by 88JM

55

Meeting for not paying assembly fees???!!!!

by Kool Jo in

jw
friends

hey folks......has anyone else heard of, or experienced this before?.

i visited by parents over the weekend and accompanied them to their assembly....same rubbish spoken about since ive been born....obey the gb, donate your last penny, no education and be a pushover.. anyways, our assembly hall has lush vegetation and scenery, so i was more focused on that....i started dozing off after lunch, so got up and went walking, saw some older folks from the congregation i grew up with.. upon the conclusion of the assembly, wed normally leave out right after the prayer ends so as to avoid the traffic.

however, for this assembly he told me that hes gonna be a few minutes with the elders and branch representatives...so a few minutes turned into an hour..

88JM

If your circuit is selling the ASS Hall and reverting back to using secular facilities, why would JWs be donating to an Ass Hall fund?

Is this tied to the new "donation" (tithing) arrangement? Or is WT continuing to maintain a local Ass Hall fund for a future project?

As I understand it, there is now a "worldwide assembly hall fund" that most congregations (in the USA and U.K. at least) are paying either a lump sum and/or what used to be their KH loan into monthly as well. That's what the big fuss was mostly about in September - to the JWs, it's sold to them as "the society has written off your Kingdom Hall/Assembly Hall Loans" when what it actually is instead "give us any spare money you had in the bank" and "while you're at it, make a monthly pledge for a fixed donation" - a.k.a. tithing.

It looks like in this post we are seeing the sharp end of the stick and what happens when those payments aren't kept up. Expect more of this in future?

17

Singapore: The Religious consequences of Tim Cook coming out as gay

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

as if we needed any further evidence that the minds of christians are not all that they should be, the shenagins in the christian segment of the christian segment of the singapore population once again demonstrated that each time they fart, they blow some of their brains away, and sadly they fart so much that there's not much brain left.. i guess most people have heard that time cook (boss of apple) publically stated this week that he was gay and proud of it.

in most of the western world, it barely caused a ripple, but not so in singapore where christians are always lobbying the government against sin.. but, tim cook as a gay man provoked the ire of the singaporean church leadership.. i have not heard that anyone claimed that using an apple iphone would make you gay, but prominent church leader lawrence khong, was commissioned as an apostle by dr. peter wagner, of the international coalition of apostles, in 2000. .

on hearing the news about tim cook, lawrence khong stop using iphone and even denounced technology altogether.

88JM

It's funny that GB member Tony Morris hates tight pants because they're supposedly made by homosexuals. Does this mean he will not be using his iPad on stage any more?

4

Theocratic "Apostate" WarFare

by mana11 in

there are many things that can be done to make others aware.. perhaps in the following comments it would be good to have suggestions of "direct actions" that everyone can do to have an impact on the wtbts.. .

i suggest as an idea the following if you havent already done so;.

google play app's.

88JM

I could be wrong, but I think the strategy proposed by mana11 is more for the benefit of non-JW's who see the app and think they should install it because it's a "5-star" app with gushing reviews, so it must have something amazing in it. You're correct that most actual JW's will install it regardless though.

48

Posters do you know of any cases where a devout JW was DF'd for Lesbianism?

by booker-t in

i think this is a hush hush topic among jws but i remember years ago at an assembly i saw two sisters(i am only assuming they were jws they could have been studies or relatives of jws) walking arm and arm like a married couple.

some of the jws looked at them like they had horns.

some of the jws moms were covering their small children's eyes and those two women were stared at like they had the plague.

88JM

Okay, if we are going to go there...

I don't doubt that many child abusers have homosexual or bisexual orientations. At the same time, I'm sure other child abusers are entirely heterosexual too.

I also don't deny that the orientations of child abusers may even be far more often homosexual or bisexual than the general population distribution. I think there are valid arguments that their environment, upbringing and attitudes of society around them and towards the feelings they held could partly be to blame for their choices later in life to abuse children, or have a view that there is nothing wrong with sexual activity with minors. There are studies that support the idea that many child abusers were abused themselves when they were younger - again, I'm not saying we should start suspecting the parents of all child abusers, but it could be a contributing factor in some cases.

Along with many people though, I'm just uncomfortable with the implication that putting ALL homosexual and bisexual people always in the same basket as child abusers gives - that it implies ALL homosexual people are just potential child abusers who haven't had the opportunity yet, and also that all homosexual or bisexual people have an "unusual view of sex". Child abusers may happen to be homosexual, but it wasn't their homosexuality by itself that caused them to abuse children.

38

Jeptha's Daughter- what actuallyt happened??

by Kudra in

hi all, especially the scholars amongst you ;)a .

i was listening to richard dawkin's talk at lynchburg va and he was tlaking about how horrible the god of the old testament was- and he mentioned this: .

that when jeptha's daughter came out (and jeptha had promised god he'd sacrifice the first thing out of his house) that he had to sacrifice her as a burnt offering.

88JM

what if a dog had come out to meet him? To offer up an unclean animal would be an affront to God, so Japtha most likely dedicated her to service to the Lord

It seems there's a couple of flaws in that reasoning.

I haven't read the LDS source (I'm on a bad connection right now) but what justification does it have for suggesting that the Jews at that time would be keeping unclean animals in their houses? Even many muslims today do not keep dogs in their home for similar reasons. Would Jephtha really be expecting an unclean animal to come running out of his house to greet him? I know there is reason to believe he was the son of a prostitute, but still? Even in the account of Jezebel, she had to be thrown outside before the dogs could get to her - they were not invited into the house to kill her (yes I know it was supposedly a "prophecy" so it had to happen that way but...).

Assuming that Jephtha could have expected and conceivably there had been a dog running out of his house and such an animal would not have been an appropriate burnt sacrifice, are you then saying the same dog, still an unclean animal, would instead be an appropriate servant around the tabernacle?

Judges 11:31 in the Jephtha account (apologies that it's the NWT) says: "whoever comes out of the door of my house" - I can't look up a Strong's Dictionary right now, but it seems apparent that he was limiting it to a person ("whoever") and it was not something running down the garden path, but definitely 'out of the door of his house'.

48

Posters do you know of any cases where a devout JW was DF'd for Lesbianism?

by booker-t in

i think this is a hush hush topic among jws but i remember years ago at an assembly i saw two sisters(i am only assuming they were jws they could have been studies or relatives of jws) walking arm and arm like a married couple.

some of the jws looked at them like they had horns.

some of the jws moms were covering their small children's eyes and those two women were stared at like they had the plague.

88JM

The judicial commitee meetings in these cases must be even more bizzare than usual. I know with male-female "fornication" they interrogate and pry into every detail to determine whether they think "porneia" was committed (and even then it's still mostly arbitrary), but with female-female... how do they... umm... draw the line? When does a Victoria's Secret party become "porneia" to them?

"Hey some Gay guys got promoted to the governing body."

I could be wrong, but I think Balaamsass2 is perhaps referring to Ewart Chitty and Leo Greenlees - one an alleged child abuser, and one reportedly homosexual or at least bisexual. And it's been said before, but I do agree it's important to draw a distinction between the two cases, but I don't want to start an argument about sexual orientation and child abuse - that's for another thread, and perhaps even another forum, considering rule #2 on this particular forum.

13

NEW LEVY FORCED ON WITNESSES?

by The Searcher in

have i missed a previous posting on this?

sorry if this is old news.. just heard from someone whose meeting is on a tuesday evening; basically, 3 per publisher is to be levied to "replace" the kh insurance payment.

the money will be used for damage, vandalism, & disasters, but also to protect any of the societies' entities.. .

88JM

Yeah this happens every year - nothing new here. Can't remember how much it has been in previous years though - I seem to recall it being only £2 not long ago...

36

Pope says Big bang and Evolution are correct !

by Phizzy in

from the u.k independent newspaper :.

" the theories of evolution and the big bang are real and god is not a magician with a magic wand, pope francis has declared.. speaking at the pontifical academy of sciences, the pope made comments which experts said put an end to the pseudo theories of creationism and intelligent design that some argue were encouraged by his predecessor, benedict xvi.. francis explained that both scientific theories were not incompatible with the existence of a creator arguing instead that they require it.. when we read about creation in genesis, we run the risk of imagining god was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything.

but that is not so, francis said.. he added: he created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfilment.. the big bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it.. evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.. the catholic church has long had a reputation for being anti-science most famously when galileo faced the inquisition and was forced to retract his heretic theory that the earth revolved around the sun.. but pope franciss comments were more in keeping with the progressive work of pope pius xii, who opened the door to the idea of evolution and actively welcomed the big bang theory.

88JM

If evolution is real, in what sense could it be said that we were "made in god's image?"

Maybe God is evolving too?

I'm sorry - I'll get my hat...

27

WT Study 26th Oct. '14

by BluesBrother in

i could find another thread so i thought i might add a few comments here - not a full critique though.

"hear jehovah's voice wherever you are".

http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/w20140815/hear-jehovahs-voice/.

88JM

I'm sure you'll forgive my taking a bit of poetic licence. He obviously hasn't progressed to a double-skinned instrument just yet.

Of course I should have mentioned the girl next to him has a lovely set of bongos, and the chap on the right is checking his g-string.

27

WT Study 26th Oct. '14

by BluesBrother in

i could find another thread so i thought i might add a few comments here - not a full critique though.

"hear jehovah's voice wherever you are".

http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/w20140815/hear-jehovahs-voice/.

88JM

Yes - because a night at home spent beating your bongos is so much better than a nice evening out with a good looking workmate who actually might be interested to get to know you personally.