Island Man

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Posts by Island Man

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  27

  DEATH: How have you prepared? Funeral, cremation, donate body to Science?

  by TerryWalstrom in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  well, hell!.

  i had dizzy spells and near-fainting and nausea for a few days, so why wouldn't i start thinking about death, ya know?.

  am i just very lax in my responsibilities in having no plans at all?isn't that irresponsible?

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  Island Man

  Have you visited your doctor? Have you been taking any new medication recently, perhaps an antacid?
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  8

  Belgium does first doctor assisted suicide of child.

  by Chook in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  they are 70 years behind wt assisted suicide by refusal of life saving blood..

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  Island Man

  "The request will then be assessed by teams of doctors, psychologists and other care-givers before a final decision is made with approval of the parents."

  Wow! With all that red tape to approve the child's request, the child might wind up suffering to death before there is final approval for being euthanized.

  If a person is completely beyond saving with current medical technology and they are in agonizing untreatable suffering and they request to be euthanized - what's there to decide/approve? They're definitely better off being euthanized. Is there really an upside to not approving their request? I mean what valid reason could there possibly be for refusing to end their agonizing pain in the face of no hope of recovery? The parents should have no say in this matter. What gives them the right to prolong the suffering of their terminally ill child? It should be purely up to the sufferer once his condition is definitely terminal and he's suffering.
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  4

  "Child of Rage" Beth Thomas in a WT publication?

  by neat blue dog in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  here's her picture:.

  is it me, or was her image used out of context in a wt publication?

  i could've sworn it was, just can't place it..

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  Island Man

  Was she on the cover of an older brochure that had to do with JWs and education?

  Maybe it's just the pose. I remember seeing a child give a similar pose in a JW publication.
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  583

  What is the purpose of life?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

  because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

  i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

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  Island Man

  There is no THE purpose of life. We each have the choice to give A purpose to our life. Asking what is THE purpose of life is like asking what is THE purpose of the bubbles that foam up when a wave crashes on the rocks.
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  22

  Update: Got my Judicial Committee cancelled

  by Sanchy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  original thread here.

  update: so, after the meeting i had with elders a few weeks ago as outlined in my original thread, they met as a body and once again called to tell me that after considering my case they still thought a judicial committee should be held against me and asked to be there "thursday at 7:30".

  all of this, i remind you, because of posting coc on facebook.

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  Island Man

  "I asked them again: Shouldn't they have "admonished me once and twice BEFORE proceeding to a JC, as per the instruction in their elder manual?"

  And this is why Watchtower wants elders to keep the Elder's Manual hidden from rank and file JWs. When you know their rules it's easier to defend yourself against witch hunts that contravene their own rules.
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  25

  RC 2017 Rumors

  by wifibandit in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  source: http://www.extj.com/showthread.php?28321-asamblea-regional-2017 (for a more literal translation) here is the gist, edited for formatting/chronological order/correct minor errors:.

  regional convention 2017 rumors.

  theme: the bible and the divine name.. 3 dramas and 2 dramatic bible readings.. .

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  Island Man

  Any rumors about the annual meeting 2 weeks away?
• 
  25

  RC 2017 Rumors

  by wifibandit in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  source: http://www.extj.com/showthread.php?28321-asamblea-regional-2017 (for a more literal translation) here is the gist, edited for formatting/chronological order/correct minor errors:.

  regional convention 2017 rumors.

  theme: the bible and the divine name.. 3 dramas and 2 dramatic bible readings.. .

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  Island Man

  The title "Jehovah's organization behind the name" makes absolutely no sense from a linguistic standpoint. Are you sure that's the actual title? It sounds like it should be something else, like: "Jehovah's Witnesses - the organization behind the name.".
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  11

  interesting question

  by jayjay78 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  firstly i'm a df'd witness.. i was in the org all my life.. vividly remember out witnessing as a kid in the 80s with my mum and having apostates jumping houses before we could get to them ..all the way up the street.. remember it because the guy looked like tom baker from dr who - frizzy hair and long colourful scarf.. i think the people at the doors were made more curious by them actually, so when we knocked ,they were inclined to have a listen.. anyway i'm out and cant see myself ever going back,because my family has fully shunned me..and even if i was to go back and be a member..i don't think i could forgive them...totally scarred me.. anyway my question is :.

  if you were head of this religion and you wanted to keep it clean and pure etc..how would you deal with people who delib broke the rules?.

  no shunning of course..but whats the alternative?

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  Island Man

  The best way to keep the religion clean would be to simply terminate the membership of unrepentant sinners, revoking their status as a JW so that they are now viewed as any other never-JW member of the public. JWs don't shun never-JWs. They just see them as bad association and are supposed to avoid having close friendships with them. There is even a little more leeway given if the never-JW is a flesh and blood relative.

  Shunning is a bad way to keep the religion clean. Why? When members know the punishment for their secret sin is shunning, they just keep their sin secret and continue in it. So shunning deters many sinners from going to the elders with the result that there is much sin going on in secret within the congregations worldwide.

  The act of shunning is not needed to keep the congregation clean from the defilement of unrepentant sinners. All that is required is that the person's membership in the religion be terminated. One of the greatest contradictions in JWs claim that shunning is needed to keep the congregation clean, is the fact that they allow never-JWs who are known practicing fornicators to participate in their meetings by commenting. So a failure to shun an expelled member tarnishes the congregation, but Jehovah is A-OK with a practicing fornicator participating in congregation meetings by commenting, just because he was never a JW? Really?!! Explain that logic to me. If they were genuinely concerned with keeping the congregation clean they would not be allowing non-JWs to comment at the meetings - especially non-JWs who they know are living immoral life-styles according to their teachings.

  The real reason for shunning is control - controlling the members with fear and controlling (preventing) the flow of information from ex-members to current members. Shunning also serves to keep serious sins hidden.
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  44

  The 1914 doctrine: How long it will last?

  by opusdei1972 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  one hundred years have passed and the society still supports this lie, which of course, is the basis of their other lies, like that of the unfaithful and not discreet slave appointed in 1919. however, i wonder, what will happen after 50 years, when the overlapped generation will pass?.

  and if you want, what will happen with this religion in 2100?, could it survive with the same lie??

  ?.

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  Island Man

  Here's how I think it's going to go down:

  They will keep the same 7 gentile times invisible presence teaching only changing the year from 1914 to 1934. They'll dump the erroneous 607 date and accept the 587 date for the destruction of Jerusalem. They'll move forward by 20 years, all their other date teachings that are anchored in some way to 1914. The appointment of the FDS will move from 1919 to 1939 - the year that WWII started. They might even say that Watchtower teaching their members not to fight in WWII and their early exposing of Nazi oppression of the Jews, were two of the primary reasons their leadership was chosen and appointed as FDS.

  This will be a plus for them in many ways. First it will mean that they get a cleaner FDS that was teaching less error at the later time of appointment in 1939. For example, I think they rejected pyramidology by then. Secondly there's a neat chronological window of time between Jesus' appointment with Satan being cast down to the Earth, and the subsequent woe to the Earth manifested in part by the outbreak of WWII which started just 5 years later (a very short time in the spirit realm where a thousand years is like one day) and which was much bigger in scope than WWI. The current 1914 teaching has Satan anachronistically stirring up WWI in August before he's even cast out of heaven by Jesus on or after October. And of course, finally there's the extra 20 years of time that it buys them.

  They'll go this route first to stretch the overlapping generation out further when it's nearing it's end. Then about 20 years later when the 1934 overlapping generation is becoming untenable, they'll drop the 7 gentile times 2520 count altogether and adopt a more mainstream eschatology, saying that presence and coming are synonymous after all and no one knows when christ's presence will be and that Jesus' words about "this generation" had only one fulfillment - the 70 CE destruction of Jerusalem.
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  8

  Iconic 9/11 photo taken by bethelite

  by pbrow in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/man-shot-iconic-9-11-photo-doomed-fire-truck-article-1.2786008.

  l118 crossing brooklyn bridge.

  mid-article says he was a volly at jdub "book-making factory" .

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  Island Man

  The article captions a photo of him thus:

  Aaron McLamb struggled with survivor’s guilt and couldn’t talk about what happened that day for 10 years.

  I wonder if the inadequate help that Bethel offered traumatized people early on; and the way JWs were ecstatically hoping this tragedy was a springboard to the end, had anything to do with his survivors guilt, considering that he wasn't in any of the towers at the time. (Survivor's guilt usually affects those who were in the same immediate danger of death as those that died. He clearly wasn't)

  Maybe it's not really survivor's guilt. Maybe he's just calling it that to avoid having to speak badly about how the JW organization crushed his dream to become a career firefighter, how Watchtower policies and practices prevented him from doing more to help others on that day. Maybe he doesn't want to make waves with JW family still in.