Posts by Crazyguy

12

Watchtower Now Considers Elders to Be Clergy Class

by Roger Kirkpatrick in

my father's uncle and spiritual mentor, benjamin ray kent, had been a deacon (ministerial servant) in watchtower founder c. t. russell's home ecclesia (congregation) in brooklyn, and also served as russell's personal secretary at brooklyn bethel.

after attending university my father served a 5-year prison term during world war ii, supposedly for his loyalty to god.

while his mother's proud and patriotic family disowned my father for his decision, it was his uncle ray who regularly visited him in prison.. that is the culture in which i was raised, and for much of my life, i took great pride in the belief that my father was a man of integrity to god.

Crazyguy

They’ll claim clergy class in one case then turn around and say their not when they loose and have to appeal.

14

The Apprentice - Watchtower version

by catchthis in

jw
friends

being a fan of the tv show the apprentice, i love to "play along" to see if my ideas would work with what the teams are tasked to accomplish.

many times, their ideas are totally off.

other times, the executives they are tasked with providing a presentation to feel that they had 'hit a home run.

Crazyguy

This guy was pretty right on, bumping since it was mentioned in another thread.

56

Mo Money ... $$$

by loneranger in

jw
friends

the money grab continues!!

at a very recent circuit assembly (usa), the accounts overseer gave the typical accounts report for the ca in the early afternoon.

there were 2100 people at the assembly.

Crazyguy

So they’ve decided to push for about $15 per head. That’s definitely up from the 5-10 just a couple years ago. I also think they figure out what demographic their in when they come up with these numbers. Example LA California higher then Tulsa Oklahoma.

25

JW elders stumped by Watchtower Publications

by Roger Kirkpatrick in

i was approached by two jehovah’s witness elders who handed me a pamphlet advertising the jw .org website.

each man carried a bible and an apple ipad.

they told me that they enjoyed visiting with people about the bible, and asked if i was a bible reader.

Crazyguy

I doubt this really happened but is an illustration to show how another one of their teachings can be proven wrong. In all reality once someone starts getting to technical or asks elders to start turning to the scriptures or their own publications the elders would of been shutting down the conversation, they can not use their brains that much it forbidden.

70

The Reasons for Cart Witnessing

by Simon in

whatever we think of it, you have to admit that it's quite "genius".. the door to door ministry as done in western developed countries where the jw quirky religion has probably reached their saturation level was a complete and utter waste of time in terms of the effort expended to recruit people.. at the same time, it was rarely something that anyone enjoyed which led to people being labelled as inactive, being pressured to doing more and maybe ultimately deciding jwism wasn't for them and leaving.. there was also the issue that many jws are actually pretty bad at knowing and articulating their beliefs so were pretty incapable of getting any meaningful message across.. they solved all this with the cart witnessing.

the real point isn't to recruit, it's to make life easier for jws.

now they can stand and chat with their friend, have a coffee, not talk to anyone or make eye contact and still act as a walking billboard for jw.org.

Crazyguy

Wasn’t it Pliny that wrote to the Emporer asking what to do with theses Christians because he didn’t know who they were even though he held posts all over the empire of high cop and prosecutor , etc. Then when he wrote the letter he was I believe governor of what we call Turkey today? Maybe I thinking of someone else but this was I believe several centuries after Jesus time and the Christian movement was still so small he didn’t know anything about them.

It seems to me that this religion was irrelevant until after Constantine started to support it and then was made the state religion by another empower.

70

The Reasons for Cart Witnessing

by Simon in

whatever we think of it, you have to admit that it's quite "genius".. the door to door ministry as done in western developed countries where the jw quirky religion has probably reached their saturation level was a complete and utter waste of time in terms of the effort expended to recruit people.. at the same time, it was rarely something that anyone enjoyed which led to people being labelled as inactive, being pressured to doing more and maybe ultimately deciding jwism wasn't for them and leaving.. there was also the issue that many jws are actually pretty bad at knowing and articulating their beliefs so were pretty incapable of getting any meaningful message across.. they solved all this with the cart witnessing.

the real point isn't to recruit, it's to make life easier for jws.

now they can stand and chat with their friend, have a coffee, not talk to anyone or make eye contact and still act as a walking billboard for jw.org.

Crazyguy

I don’t know, yeah easier ways for the elderly to het hours maybe but the cult is really interested in getting new suckers. So I think as they were toying with new ideas they decided to go back to the old days and bring back the plaguereds.

Same with showing videos at the door and at the carts, it’s a throw back to the record player days.

yeah the whole thing is a big joke. I remember listening to an interview of an exjw who was a pioneer at the time these carts first got going. He said they had a big gathering to celebrate the first years success. It came out in that meeting that in the entire US this being only a city campaign at the time that a whole whopping 8 people came into the truth via the cart witnessing.

Being such a huge success the program went nationwide and is done now even in small communities.

11

The Dinosaurs.

by I Faded Twice in

was anyone else taught that dinosaurs even old t rex was a vegetarian ?

i remember as a kid my parents contradicting what school taught.

they reasoned that meat eating was not allowed before the flood.

Crazyguy

Yes and they died out at the flood, my mother still believes this to this day.

26

Jesus Christ: Invented by the Romans to subvert the Messianic impulse in Judaism into Pacifism?

by TerryWalstrom in

of course, there are many crackpot theories about all sorts of things.

we hear about them,look into them and laugh.however, once in a great while, somebody presents a cogent and feasible thesis backed up by scholarship and history.watch this video presentation and present your rebuttal (or agreement) for discussion.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uqg8w7ezuq&t=268s.

Crazyguy

I believe that Jesus was a created god modeled after Serapis. Ptolemy made up this new god by combining Greek and Egyptian gods. He also saw himself and the Egyptian Pharaoh and savior of the people in his empire. The Jewish early ideas of a messiah was a scapegoat (sheep) that was sacrificed every year a clean one and the one that depicted their sins was sent off in to the wilderness to be attacked by demons. Early writtings of Jesus showed pictures of him as a sacrificial lamb not even human.

Later as the Christian religion evolved the worship of Marry was replaced with the worship of this god man named Jesus and then the gospels were written. Early Christian and Gnostics writting don’t have Christ on earth even the writings of Paul the ones not considered forgery’s were all about Heaven , nothing about Christ being on earth were mentioned. Many of these ideas were stolen from the Osiris cult.

Again the Jews never saw Jesus as a messiah their idea of a messiah was a god king that would save them like Cyrus did in 539 BCE. Writtings from the Dead Sea scrolls confirmed this and the reason Jesus was placed in the first century is as confirmed again in the Dead Sea scrolls, jews playing around with the book of Daniel messed with the numbers and came up with the idea that a messiah was coming in the 1 century. That’s why we see so many Jewish messiah mentioned during that time.

15

Is there a surge in "Upwakers"?

by Phizzy in

the stupid word in the topic title is a piss-take on the bloody silly jw word "needgreaters" that i have seen them use.. but my question is genuine, i know it is a cyclical thing, we get what seems to be a lot of newbies, and then things quieten down, but not just on here, elsewhere on social media i am seeing stories of people finding the courage to leave, having woken up for a variety of reasons, but usually the child abuse scandal, and the spiteful, judgmental nature of many jw's, who, though supposedly friends, will run off to the elders to snitch on you, not talk to you.

is their a real increase in those leaving ?

i do hope so, so many more finding real freedom and happiness !.

Crazyguy

There was an uptick in those that left after the change in the generation teaching in 1995 . There was again after ARC and now with the child abuse. Also the fact that one can do research online is helping to make the leavers not only increase but less are going back.

As more and more child abuse gets reported I think the leavers will continue to increase. What really helps is JWs talk to their families and more leave do to this despite all the GB are doing to try and stop it.

26

Jesus Christ: Invented by the Romans to subvert the Messianic impulse in Judaism into Pacifism?

by TerryWalstrom in

of course, there are many crackpot theories about all sorts of things.

we hear about them,look into them and laugh.however, once in a great while, somebody presents a cogent and feasible thesis backed up by scholarship and history.watch this video presentation and present your rebuttal (or agreement) for discussion.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uqg8w7ezuq&t=268s.

Crazyguy

The guy that wrote that book had to do some crazy jumping through hoops to make his ideas work. Look up the meaning of Catholic, I think they took ideas from many religions i the empire to finally come up with the Bible then it was changed and changed again. They took ideas from the Osiris cult, Dyonisus cult, Persian religion , the worship of the Cesar etc to come up with Christianity. Also before the Romans the Greeks were trying to stamp out the Jewish religion ie and they put together the Septuagint.

The Bible is a Greek and Roman invention and the writings came from all over the Levant and were changed to reflect the new god they worshipped. The Greeks for example had no problem keeping the word El in the Hebrew Scriptures because to them it represented Zeus and when they conguered Egypt they had no problem with the worship of Amon because they also saw him as Zeus. Same with Osiris he was Dyonisus to them.