Posts by kaik

6

Strange people you have studied WT and Bible with.

by kaik in

when i look back into era when i conducted bible studies i recall several nice people, but also weird and strange.

my last bible study was with couple who were the new capitalists; people who earned a lot of money often by illegal means.

i am sure they were dangerous, but i have not perceived that way.

kaik

Interesting picture from media. After Slovak election week ago, hard core fascist party will be sitting in parliament in Slovakia. The scariest thing is that one in four people under age 30 voted fascist party. This is fascist rally pic from Slovakia and this dude will be leading one of the largest party there into European parliament.

20something years ago, I studied with guy whose grandpa was dressed in such uniform and saluting with German's SS groups in Slovakia. I just could not studied anymore with such family, and they really liked WT publications.

56

Did any of us ever enjoy meetings?

by stephanie61092 in

this is a legitimate question.

did any of us ever find real joy in being at the meetings?

did any of us ever finish a meeting and think "i feel so enriched"?

kaik

I disliked assemblies. I like the first one I have ever attended because it was new to me. But the enthusiasm evaporated after the assembly. Meetings were alright, depending on who conducted them. We had one very motivated elder who was excellent orator and was like father-type middle aged man. Not much totalitarian and dogmatic. However, when you got some of the brainwashed fanatics to control the show it was boring to outright terrible. But at leas there was family so it was a lot of eye to eye communication. My mom insisted to sit at the last row so we could not be watched by rest of the KH.

8

How the Churches got the ‘End of the World’ wrong in 1492.

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

in 1453 constantinople (also known as byzantium), the last remnant of the once mighty roman empire was a christian island in an islamic sea.

the city had been seriously weakened during the holy fourth crusade (1202-04), when fellow christians of the catholic brand had besieged the city, captured it, and savagely sacked it.. ( who needs enemies when you have christian friends?).

a miniature of the siege, artist unknown.

kaik

In 1419, Catholic preachers from Dominican monastic orders, excommunicated by Rome, predicted the end of the world. They identified several places where people would be saved while rest of the humanity will die in the Armageddon. First, nobody took them seriously, it was just after Council of Konstantz that dealt with Schism, but as the deadline approached, mass panic hit Kingdom of Bohemia and some places in Holy Roman Empire. People as far from France, England,and Belgium arrived into Bohemia to survive. When the day approached tens of thousands people flocked in hot July days into selected placed to watch the world burn. One place had 40,000 to 60,000 people crammed up to the hill to get a better view. Day came and went and no Armageddon on sight. Hundreds of thousands people abandoned their properties, fields, farms, castles, and businesses for nothing. Subsequent fighting devastated much of Central Europe in war lasting till 1434, where Dominican monks were the prime target of revenge.

Medieval Europe had many dead-end visions. After Frankish empire collapsed, there was hysteria as well around 843. When Goths sacked Rome, the world thought the end was near. St. Augustine wrote his monumental book, City of God under the influence of the event. Many people calculated their prophecy year from the bible. The event from 1419 was also calculated from the Bible.

13

The changing world - The Chinese in the west.

by fulltimestudent in

i was hosing the garden at the front of our apartments earlier this morning, and this large gang (20-30 people) of elderly chinese went past, picking up rubbish in the street.

it suddenly clicked that this was 'clean-up australia' day.

what interested me was the involvement of this group of elderly chinese, and i assume that this is likely happening across sydney in all the many suburbs that have become 'chinese' in the last 35 years.

kaik

My experience with Chinese and generally Far East people is positive. There are some things I do not understand culturally, but in school I was very good friend with Chinese/South Koreans who were extremely gifted in math and computer science. First they were distrustful but when I helped them with humanities and philosophy classes, we did study groups together and helped to get through college. I worked with several Chinese who studied in USA and were excellent workers. However, my neighbors.. different story. They are extremely unfriendly to rude and they loiter into my backyard. In Czech Republic and Hungary there is a lot of Chinese and Vietnamese and they are well assimilated and considered as ideal immigrants.

6

Strange people you have studied WT and Bible with.

by kaik in

when i look back into era when i conducted bible studies i recall several nice people, but also weird and strange.

my last bible study was with couple who were the new capitalists; people who earned a lot of money often by illegal means.

i am sure they were dangerous, but i have not perceived that way.

kaik

I am Czech born. Slovakia was German ally and was independent during WWII from what happened in the Czech lands. Slovakia had own guards Hlinka which was fascist military organization that killed thousands of people in the countryside. Slovakia itself was not occupied by Germany until August 30, 1944 when the government attempted to switch side once Red Army arrived. In occupied Czech territory, there was no Czech SS due personal order from Adolf Hitler. Of course there were Nazi sympathizers and wanted to create their own Saint Wenceslas unit, but they were kicked from Berlin because Hitler insisted that no Czech will ever wear SS uniform. At the end of the WWII he changed mind, but by then, they were not enough people interested to join. These who wanted to be in SS generally joined Slovak or Ukrainian units.

The guy I studied was hard core Nazi as was his entire family. It was weird to sit at family table with bible and WT publication while his grandpa was in armchair with picture of him in his youth in Nazi uniform. I had about four bible visits, but I got spooked out, because the guy I studied with (he was very interested in WT and liked the prospect of mass genocide in Armageddon) was too dangerous. It was just really weird experience, and I really liked Jews; and they were dreaming that they will get rid of them once for good (with the rest of the undesirables). My father served in military and was stationed in Slovakia in the 1950's and 60's, and he told me that some of his senior staff there were former Fascists and one was ex Arrow from Hungarian speaking part of Slovakia (part that was ceded during WWII to Hungary). All of them became a good communists in the 50's under Stalin, but a few were exemplary executed in 1958 once their Nazi past came out at the time my father was stationed there.

What hit me at that time with that family was how close were JW mentally in antisemitism with them. In my hometown there was once thriving Jewish community. Once I was with sister doing field service and we walked by former Jewish ghetto. This sister points to the cemetery and she said not of these MF will get resurrected because they are Jesus-killer and were eternally condemned to death. That moment I wanted to slap her, because in my life, I met many great Jews and I eventually married one.

4

Spring has sprung!

by GrreatTeacher in

though not officially spring, the past two days in the mid-atlantic have been gorgeous!

it's been over 70°f and sunny.

i've opened all the windows in the house and have sunshine and fresh air pouring in.. i walked outside today and noticed that my tulips are pushing through the ground.

kaik

Here is pic of my snowdrops from couple days ago:

I was successful to get them propagated and planted them around the house. I think in next five years they will fill entire area by my neighbor tree.

6

Strange people you have studied WT and Bible with.

by kaik in

when i look back into era when i conducted bible studies i recall several nice people, but also weird and strange.

my last bible study was with couple who were the new capitalists; people who earned a lot of money often by illegal means.

i am sure they were dangerous, but i have not perceived that way.

kaik

When I look back into era when I conducted bible studies I recall several nice people, but also weird and strange. My last bible study was with couple who were the new capitalists; people who earned a lot of money often by illegal means. I am sure they were dangerous, but I have not perceived that way. The couple eventually helped me to move away from WT cult, and was able to get a job through them in international corporation that was opening office in the capital city. I stayed friends with them for couple years afterwards. I kind feel funny now when I told to them that Armageddon will be arriving shortly. That was more than 20 years ago.

I also conducted study with politically active Nazi sympathizer. His family were right wing extremists where grandpa was a member of Slovak Nazi guard or SS unit during WWII. I felt rather uneasy to deal with self confessed Jew-hater, and I ended the study. The most beneficial study I had was with my Jewish coworker. It started accidentally as I was careful never discuss religion with people I work(ed). Once in the local business trip, we due weather ended in small countryside monastery take cover from the reign. There was a mass, and I and my Jewish coworker stroke conversation on religion. We eventually studied together and he brought me several interesting, antiquated books on OT. Nevertheless, we did not get anything and my elder told me that Jews are cursed and thus condemned to die in Armageddon. Several people in my KH had deep antisemitic convictions as the Nazi guy I studied at the same time and shared their universal dislike toward Jews.

To you, who was the strangest person you ever studied Bible/WT publication with?

4

Spring has sprung!

by GrreatTeacher in

though not officially spring, the past two days in the mid-atlantic have been gorgeous!

it's been over 70°f and sunny.

i've opened all the windows in the house and have sunshine and fresh air pouring in.. i walked outside today and noticed that my tulips are pushing through the ground.

kaik

So far, my crocuses, daffodils, snowdrops started to boom past several days. I am ready for spring, I need to be outdoor.

55

How many of you are health nuts?

by Harvard Illiterate 411 in

jw
friends

there was/is a sister in my old hall who was a pharmaceutical sales rep and she was a huge proponent of anything in the drug industry.

when someone had a headache, she was the first to say "take an asprin.

" now my husband and i are what you might call old hippies.

kaik

I am very health conscious, I never smoked and trying to live healthy lifestyle, but holistic approach is BS. My father thought that he can cure a cancer this way. Once he was given by healer a herbal medicine that landed him in ER where he was fighting for his life. Eventually cancer metastasized, and it was too late for chemotherapy or radiation. Question is if it would even help him to survive. My father died just over 50 years old. My spouse is a cancer survivor and listen doctor to the last word. So far 18 years later, the cancer had not returned.

Organic food is BS. I had grandparents who lived on medieval farm surrounded by vineyards and peach orchards that my grandmother inherited. But it was my granduncle and his family who took care of the property and they supplied entire family with food product they grew. We had wine, butter, goat cheese, sausages, goose, bacon all from the farm. It was natural, produced without chemicals and tasty. My granduncle died couple years ago 101 years old. My grandparents were almost 90. Now, when I see organic food, it is something that would be force fed to war enemy. Butter is white, sausages stuffed with soy flour, etc, bleah.. I will take all the products made in the past over the organic food BS.

83

what buzz word from the jw's do you hate & why?

by Sabin in

jw
friends

so my hubby has been on a bit of a roll about the jdubs, we were talking a lot about them & he said the buzz word he hate's the most is "worldly" why?

because he say's "with that one word they have condemned (according to their believes) a person as being worthy of nothing but death.

".

kaik

imminent arrival of Jesus.
Armageddon is just behind the corner
marrying in the lord or truth
lifestyle of the world
out in the world
It is written in ...