Posts by Oubliette

32

No Soliciting signage and JW Policy

by Oubliette in

does anyone have a copy of the boe letter directing publishers to not go into apartment complexes and/or condominium complexes with no soliciting signs?

i ask because yesterday and buttheaded jw (that obviously had no idea who i am or my past) was knocking on doors in our condo complex.

he would have had to drive past a sign which clearly states "no solicitation or material distribution.".

Oubliette

Our condo complex is private property so a No Soliciting sign DOES apply.

About ten years ago I was on the other side of this debate with a property manager in a similar complex in the same municipality. The manager asked me to leave pointing to the "No Soliciting" sign which we were standing in front of.

I, being the typical pig-headed, self-righteous elder that I was, insisted that this did not apply to us. So, while the property manager stood there fuming, I called the police department.

The dispatcher informed me that I was wrong, and that if I did not leave post with they would be there shortly to arrest me.

Discretion being the better part of valor, I decided to leave.

Later, I shared the incident with my fellow elders. As I recall, we called Bethel, read the relevant "direction" from the Society and discovered that the police and the property manager were right and we were wrong.

It's nice to be not the other side of the door for a change!

32

No Soliciting signage and JW Policy

by Oubliette in

does anyone have a copy of the boe letter directing publishers to not go into apartment complexes and/or condominium complexes with no soliciting signs?

i ask because yesterday and buttheaded jw (that obviously had no idea who i am or my past) was knocking on doors in our condo complex.

he would have had to drive past a sign which clearly states "no solicitation or material distribution.".

Oubliette

Does anyone have a copy of the BOE letter directing publishers to NOT go into apartment complexes and/or condominium complexes with No Soliciting signs?

I ask because yesterday and buttheaded JW (that obviously had no idea who I am or my past) was knocking on doors in our condo complex. He would have had to drive past a sign which clearly states "No Solicitation or Material Distribution."

When I politely asked him to leave because of this policy he responded, "I'm not soliciting. I'm a volunteer." (As if the two have anything to do with each other.

When I suggested we call the police and he could explain it to them he said, "It's ok. I'll go."

To which I responded, "Oh, so you DO know!"

I want to have our HOA send a letter to the local congregation and it might be nice to cite their own rules and regulations to the elders. (This particular body of elders are all real company men).

Thanks in advance.

31

Request for Research Help: WTS Views on Intersex Individuals

by Oubliette in

request for research help: .

several recent threads have gotten me started on an essay and i need some research help.

does anyone have access to anything the wt has ever published on intersex people (they might have used the now-outdated term: hermaphrodite)?

Oubliette

Kate, you got it!

14

Do you believe in a personal God?

by StephaneLaliberte in

there may be a god, but i doubt he has anything to do with us now.

i cannot reconcile concentration camps such as auschwitz, which i have visited, and people praying before their meal, thanking him, who did nothing.

here is an example: frank has a kid named johnny.

Oubliette

No. Of course not. The idea is repugnant to my mind.

What kind of "god" would allow this to happen:

-

While also allowing this man to claim to represent him:

56

What made you turn atheist or agnostic?

by LevelThePlayingField in

if you were a jw and are now an atheist or agnostic, what was the tipping point that made you turn to it?.

the reason i ask is i have noticed that many who leave the jw's seem to turn to atheism, versus still having some form of a faith.

have many of you given up on god first or have you had atheistic views first and then found atheism to be true.

Oubliette

done4good: I am a big fan of Sagan, but he is just plain wrong here. He does atheism an incredible disservice with this statement.

I believe you are making the same mistake that Landy made in reading the two Sagan quotes I posted. Please see my comments to him above.

d4g: Atheism concerning belief in a desert god is no different than non-belief in the Easter Bunny.

Yes, but that's not the context of the Sagan quote you commented on.

His first quote is addressing the desert god of the Old Testament, the second one is addressing the possibility of a "creator/god" that is now uninvolved, indifferent and unknowable, aka the "god" of deism.

You also seem to have ignored my comments introducing each quote. His quotes are explanatory of MY statements and not the other way around.

BTW, I did not post his quotes as "an appeal to authority" (which are not, incidentally, fallacious in the way I presented them).

I just like the way he said worded his arguments, very eloquent and clear. Forget WHO said it and consider the logic of the statements. They stand on their own.

Perhaps I should have given more context.

56

What made you turn atheist or agnostic?

by LevelThePlayingField in

if you were a jw and are now an atheist or agnostic, what was the tipping point that made you turn to it?.

the reason i ask is i have noticed that many who leave the jw's seem to turn to atheism, versus still having some form of a faith.

have many of you given up on god first or have you had atheistic views first and then found atheism to be true.

Oubliette

Landy: So in one statement sagan says a belief in a theist god is ludicrous then the next one goes on to say 'well, we can't prove it's not there'??

Not so. Sagan is addressing the idea of the god of the Abrahamic religions in the first quote. This is what he calls ludicrous.

In the second statement he is addressing the idea that there could be some other kind of "god," an impersonal being more akin to the detached, indifferent god of deism. It is impossible to say such a being does not exist.

How does one disprove the hypothetical existence of null space?

There is no contradiction as he is discussing two very different conceptions of "god" and the subsequent likelihood of their existence based on an examination of available evidence. In the first instance, there is no tangible evidence proving the existence of the desert god of the OT and plenty of evidence against that belief. In the second instance, there is--by definition--no definitive evidence either way, nor is there likely to be with the available tools we have at present. There is the possibility that may change in the future, but it is only a speculative possibility.

29

Latest, SHOCKING JW Paedophile case.

by Phizzy in

http://www.stratford-herald.com/45973-jehovahs-witness-jail...

Oubliette

Wow, very disturbing indeed.

And again, the congregation's covering-up the matter is part of a systemic, institutional pattern in this religion.

The GB's failure to deal with this problem, or to even ackknowledge it, is disturbing in the extreme.

It's been said before but bears repeating: When accusations against the Roman Catholic Church began to receive wide publicity in the late 1980s, we JWs would point to that and say, "See, there's proof that they are a false religion, part of 'Satan's system.'"

Now the proverbial shoe is on the other foot.

There is no way to word it strongly enough. The culpability of the WT leaders, past and present, is criminal. They need to be held accountable.

Let's review: It's a cult, a cult with criminal leaders!

31

Request for Research Help: WTS Views on Intersex Individuals

by Oubliette in

request for research help: .

several recent threads have gotten me started on an essay and i need some research help.

does anyone have access to anything the wt has ever published on intersex people (they might have used the now-outdated term: hermaphrodite)?

Oubliette

Anders,

I wasn't actually expecting that I would be able to interview her, I was just musing that it would be really informative and interesting to interview her and learn more about her experience if I could.

As I wrote on the previous page, a few quick calculations show that there should be thousands of such individuals in the organization, tens of thousands over the last century!

15

Need advice on fade...

by StarTrekAngel in

the elder that was the coordinator of the boe has just left town to attend one of those infamous schools with this wife.

the view is that he will most likely return to be appointed co. not sure he is going to stick around here for a lot longer.. i am saying this because, despite them knowing he will return when the school is over, they removed him from the coordinator position and appointed someone else.

it was announced last night that the biggest jerk of the group of elders is now the coordinator of the boe.

Oubliette

Doing nothing is probably your best play. You're not necessarily even on his radar. Why doing anything to remind them you exist.

I know it can be hard on the ego, but "out of sight, out of mind."

21

Pictures in the Watchtower

by Sour Grapes in

jw
friends

after sitting through last sunday's watchtower i got so sick of seeing the bobbing/nodding heads when talking about the pictures.

they act like god himself took the picture.

there must have been 10 comments about the group in service and the one brother was looking at his phone with a smile, which is a dead give away that he was reading something interesting.. what got me was how the older brother in the posed picture had a bible in his hand had a stern look on his face looking at the young brother.

Oubliette

Those pictures are powerful pieces of propaganda, especially when we consider the way JWs are trained to interpret and discuss them at meetings (as many of the above comments observed).

Although they are academically only one step up from a "Where's Waldo" picture, the way the congregation members will dissect them looking for "hidden meanings" (which are generally painfully obvious) in ways that of course only reinforce and confirm their existing beliefs is remarkable.

It's actually a very informative, if not also somewhat frightening, lesson in the power of manipulation: Cult Manipulation Tactics 101.

Let's review: It's a cult!