Alan F 's articles were a big reason why I was able to sort things out in regard to the Watctower's teachings. They were revelatory to me. Best wishes Alan!
rocketman
JoinedPosts by rocketman
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**MUST READ** AlanF's email to Knocking.org
by sf inthis is a must-read that, hopefully, will stay an "active topic" for all seekers and lurkers, by bumping it to the top as often as possible.
alan wrote it in randys {dogpatch} thread regarding knocking.org documentary and in reply to the email mr. engardio sent to barbara anderson.
however, it is so vital a read that it indeed needs its own thread:.
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Watchtower Talk Removed From YouTube As "Shocking And Disgusting Content"
by DT inthere was a youtube video that contained an excerpt of ciro aulicino's talk "you will be with me in paradise".
at some point it was removed by youtube.
it now shows the message, "this video has been removed as a violation of youtube's policy on shocking and disgusting content.".
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rocketman
I listened to the first several minutes, and the audio sounds legit to me; it's in line with Watchtower teachings. The line about 'all the gays will be gone, and no more lesbians' is appalling, but that is what their Armageddon scenario includes, so I don't see any signs of fakery with that.
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Thought Reform and the Psychology of the 'Safeguard Your Heart!' 2012 Convention
by breakfast of champions into make attendance at my second district convention "mentally out" both a little more bearable and meaningful, i decided to take some notes of key points as if i were an outsider studying the thought reform methods of jehovah's witnesses.
at first, i was only going to share these notes with my therapist, but inspired by the "parsing the watchtower double-speak" thread, i figured i would share my amateur analysis with everyone.
here are some of the highlights:.
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rocketman
do not murmur about organizational adjustments
"-do not even secretly doubt the organization's view of disfellowshipping
-higher education is unnecessary to find 'acceptable' secular work
-spiritual food comes only from the Faithful Slave; independent study groups are not necessary
-God's sole channel of communication is the Faithful and Discreet Slave
-do not doubt the validity of theocratic appointments"
Pretty much sums up everything that is wrong with the religion.
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Planning an Escape: Truth Triumphs Over Lies!
by 00DAD inoften during wt/book studies and/or public talks i would be following along and note little discrepancies and inconsistencies.
perhaps it was a scripture that didn't really support the point being asserted in the paragraph or maybe it was an illustration that sounded good but wasn't completely parallel or maybe it was a line of reasoning that wasn't as conclusive or solid as the speaker/elder/co/wt publication made it out to be.
or maybe it was the excessive use of weasel words like, "evidently," "perhaps," "must have" and so on.
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rocketman
Interesting story, thanks for sharing it 00DAD.
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How the Shrinking of the Awake! has Affected Many!
by God_Delusion inthe watchtower society never thinks things through.
the halving of the awake!
magazine has had an adverse affect on many.. http://www.jehovahswitnessblog.com/awake-bloopers/awake-magazine-cut-to-16-pages/.
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rocketman
In my experience, few Witnesses read the mags. Also, when conducting the book study, it was readily apparent that few had bothered to read the material (after all, it was read at the study anyway, so why bother?).
There's also hypocrisy at work, though not of the sinful kind, when someone goes to doors offering magazines that they themselves have not read. This never seemed to deter many Witnesses.
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What biblical support is there for the belief that a creative day is 7000 years long?
by JWB inwhat biblical support is there for the belief that a creative day is 7000 years long?.
as most folks here are probably well aware, the wts teaches that humankind has lived for about 6,000 years and that there will be a 1,000 year reign of christ to restore humans to perfection.
they teach that the end of 'this old system' must be coming very soon since everything must fit into a 7000 year 'creative day'.
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rocketman
Flat Accent pretty much answered it.
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rocketman
Farkel's link takes us to this topic, which he started 7 years ago. 7 x 360 = 2,520 days. A day for a year and, bingo!
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"Blunders that led to World War"
by Jeffro inon the watchtower.org site at the moment, they are featuring a link to an article that first appeared in the august 2009 awake!
that purportedly talks about how world war i began.. in jw make-believe land, world war i began suddenly, and was essentially a big surprise.
so it's interesting to note that the one of the most significant things that led to world war ithe first and second balkan warsare completely omitted from the article.
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rocketman
One thing I will add is that there has been unquestionably over the decades an effort to make 1914 into a marked year, and that is something that distinguishes them doctrinally, and nothing has changed. So, while I mentioned that the article doesn't appear to say that WWI happened out-of-the-blue, there is always that attempt to cast 1914 as a special year, in line with the Watchtower's teachings concerning the End Times. In no way am I assuming that the Society is suddenly becoming more accurate their assessment of what those events indicate.
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"Blunders that led to World War"
by Jeffro inon the watchtower.org site at the moment, they are featuring a link to an article that first appeared in the august 2009 awake!
that purportedly talks about how world war i began.. in jw make-believe land, world war i began suddenly, and was essentially a big surprise.
so it's interesting to note that the one of the most significant things that led to world war ithe first and second balkan warsare completely omitted from the article.
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rocketman
The article hardly seems to intend to be comprhensive. I stated that from what I read from the current article, they do at least suggest that there were events that led to the war, not that it just occured almost from nowhere. OK, they don't mention the Balkan Wars, but they do mention the 'tensions' in that region and in other areas of Europe as well. I just don't see a smoking gun in this article. I'm sorry. And at least one other post by another member, transhuman68 commented similarly.
Justitia: I was not commenting on past articles. My comment was confined to the current article cited in the original post. I'm hardly a jw apologist, but I just can't see much to attack in this instance.
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"Blunders that led to World War"
by Jeffro inon the watchtower.org site at the moment, they are featuring a link to an article that first appeared in the august 2009 awake!
that purportedly talks about how world war i began.. in jw make-believe land, world war i began suddenly, and was essentially a big surprise.
so it's interesting to note that the one of the most significant things that led to world war ithe first and second balkan warsare completely omitted from the article.
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rocketman
The article that Jeffro mentions at the outset does in fact suggest that there was a buildup to the War, that it did not just happen by surprise. I don't see how this can be interpreted as the Watchtower saying that the war just happened, with no run-up...
"By 1914, long-standing rivalries among European powers had stretched nerves taut and produced two opposing alliances"
"At the time, the area called the Balkans was a politically volatile region chafing under the sovereignty of the bigger powers, and it was rife with secret societies scheming for independence." - No mention of Balkan Wars, but it's not like the article passed the Balkans off as inconsequential.
" Furthermore, in the prewar years, “a great tidal wave of hypernationalism swept over Europe,” says the book Cooperation Under Anarchy. "
“Once the [Schlieffen] plan was set in motion, the system of military alliances almost assured a general European war,” says World Book Encyclopedia."