em1913

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Posts by em1913

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  15

  Terry's Editorial on the Pledge of Allegiance

  by TerryWalstrom in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  terry's editorial on the pledge of allegiance_____.

  can one child in a thousand actually define the word or give the meaning of "allegiance?

  " can you--without stumbling around about it?give me a moment of your time, will you?first, in medieval times, wealthy landowners allowed peasants to cultivate their property as long as these pitiful souls made a pledge of fealty or allegiance to become a soldier for that lord of the manor if he needed to go to war against some imagined enemy.

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  em1913

  There were plenty of neighborhoods in New York in the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s that were strictly defined along ethnic lines -- if you were Irish you knew to stay out of the Italian neighborhoods if you knew what was good for you, if you were Polish you avoided the Hungarians, if you were Jewish you avoided the Irish, and so on and on. You could spin the radio dial in the years before WWII and hear a Tower of Babel's worth of different languages -- Yiddish, German, Polish, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, you name it. And meanwhile "race suicide" crackpots wrote long, hand-wringing articles in the Saturday Evening Post about how all these unassimilable immigrants were going to be the death, oh, the utter DEATH of God's Own Country.

  And yet somehow, the world spun on and the children of those immigrants grew up to become splenetic senior citizens -- whose own "whiteness" doesn't extend back more than a century as such things were once understood -- fulminating about what all these new Others will do to God's Own Country. It's an old song, just one with a new arrangement.
  
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  54

  What JW habits do you still have?

  by Exelder in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  since leaving the jw's after over 4 decades, i can see exactly what it is and hate everything it stands for.

  however, there are still some jw habits and traits that i can't get rid of:.

  1. i can't swear in general conversation (i'd have to be really angry).

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  em1913

  I still hang things on the "information board."
  
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  15

  Terry's Editorial on the Pledge of Allegiance

  by TerryWalstrom in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  terry's editorial on the pledge of allegiance_____.

  can one child in a thousand actually define the word or give the meaning of "allegiance?

  " can you--without stumbling around about it?give me a moment of your time, will you?first, in medieval times, wealthy landowners allowed peasants to cultivate their property as long as these pitiful souls made a pledge of fealty or allegiance to become a soldier for that lord of the manor if he needed to go to war against some imagined enemy.

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  em1913

  The pledge issue was one thing the Judge got right. Swearing an oath of allegience under compulsion to the state, or any symbolic representation of the state, is pure, unalloyed Fascism.
  
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  17

  Did You Ever Think You Would Be A Member On A Site Like This?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  when i first started looking at “apostate” sites , i was always watching over my shoulder, hoping no one would catch me viewing “spiritual pornography”.

  i found these types of sites mesmerizing but i never thought i’d join one.... look at me now.😈.

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  em1913

  When I left, there were no sites like this, and there was no internet. So there's that. I did, however, used to sneak looks in unauthorized books about the Witnesses at the puiblic library, things like "Visions of Glory," which fueled my curiosity about the actual history of the movement since the "official" accounts in the Yearbook, and that dopey "Divine Purpose" book just didn't cut it for me.

  I'd long been out when the Internet came along, but "watchtower" was one of the first things I ever entered into a search engine just out of curiosity to see what would come up. I used to read the old H20 site in the 90s, and I've actually been reading this site on an off-again on-again basis since it began but only recently figured I'd throw in my two cents here and there. I used to really enjoy the serious pieces on WTBTS history such as the stuff Farkel came up with on the Judge, and I really really enjoyed JT's posts on the inside stuff at Bethel. Miss those guys a lot.
  
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  31

  Jehovah’s Witnesses Really Have No Power Over You Unless YOU Let It Happen!

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  should i go to a judicial committee and perhaps get disfellowshipped?

  should i talk to the elders just because they say they want to talk to me?

  should i simply disassociate myself and have nothing to do with the organization?.

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  em1913

  Walked away thirty years ago this March. An elder tracked me down by phone three years later -- I'd moved out of the congregation territory -- and said he'd heard I was celebrating holidays. I said "I'm sorry, you must have the wrong number" and I never heard from any of them again.

  I don't have any bitterness toward them -- some of the elders in my congregation were kind, decent men. One was a real dickhead, and he's the one who called, no doubt because the CO was breathing down his neck about loose ends in the file. No love lost there.

  I didn't leave because of him, though, I left because it was time to leave. Simple as that. I don't know what my current status in the Org is, nor do I care. That's a chapter of my life that came to a close in 1988, just like other chapters that have come and gone. I'm not the person I was in 1988, or that I was when I started studying in 1980, and the person I am know just looks back on that time of my life as something someone else did.
  
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  242

  Do You Think President Trump Will Be Impeached?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  whether you like him or not.... it doesn’t matter.

  do you think he will be impeached?

  ?.

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  em1913

  He's a man who's declared bankruptcy repeatedly. He'll resign when the heat gets too hot.
  
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  23

  Has Politics Hurt Your Friendships?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  if you want to believe that jehovah’s witnesses have the truth, that’s your right.

  if you want to believe in global warming being the most horrific thing we have to face,that’s your right.

  have you been adversely affected by political stands and beliefs?

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  em1913

  One of my closest friends was raised a Bircher. I'm at the rather far left end of the spectrum. We get along just fine. She's the way she is because of how she was raised, I'm the way I am because of the way I am. She isn't going to change me, and I'm not going to change her. So we don't talk about politics -- we have more than enough we agree on in other aspects of life that we get along just fine by leaving that off the table.
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  29

  I’m Sending You My Thoughts and Prayers

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  how many people here can sincerely say those words to someone?

  i take it most here do not say prayers, right?

  ?.

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  em1913

  I do pray. But I would never say something so superficial as "you're in my thoughts and prayers" to someone in trouble or in pain. I'd say "what can I do to help?"
  
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  42

  Liberal vs. Democrat in the U.S.A.

  by OnTheWayOut in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it seems that many believe that a liberal in the usa must be a democrat, pretty much following the party core teachings and some even think it means approving the party history of, during the 19th century, supporting or tolerated slavery and opposing civil rights reforms after the civil war.

  some even insist that a liberal loves anything and everything obama did..

  balderdash!!.

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  em1913

  America is a one-party -- the Capitalist Party -- state, and has been since the end of World War II. There are merely two wings to that party that differ very little on the main purpose, but these wings, and the personality-oriented bickering they create, produce an effective illusion of two-party democracy. Any party or group that disagrees with the real status quo is suppressed by ballot-access laws.
  
  The Judge was right about one thing: politics, commerce, and religion, all in bed together, really do rule the world to the detriment of humanity. And they will continue to do so until enough people get fed up and tip the bed over.
  
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  22

  Do You Typically Accept The Press As Being Unbiased And Honest?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  there is more “ yellow journalism “ than ever before!

  newscasters and writers that you thought were trustworthy often miss the mark.. do you generally accept the “news” as being honest?.

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  em1913

  The idea that "the biased press" is a new and recent thing, as many people believe, and that once upon a time the press was "unbiased" is ridiculous. Eighty years ago the journalist/critic George Seldes, after careful study, concluded that there wasn't a single truly honest newspaper in the United States. *All* of them were held in thrall to advertising and the corporate interests behind that advertising, and only the ad-free New York PM and the tightly-controlled Christian Science Monitor, in his view, came even close to an honest, factual presentation of the news.

  The media today is every bit as corporate controlled as it ever was. That's the real bias, not the petty squabbling of political parties over which corrupt crypto-fascist oligarch is going to run the country.