Posts by Magnum

19

weird: passing around literature fragments in prison

by Magnum in

i dont have any specific references, but over the years i remember reading in the mags and hearing in talks stories of imprisoned jws who would somehow get a piece of a page of a jw magazine or an article or something like that and pass it around and get spiritually nourished by it as if it almost had a magical or supernatural nature.

does anybody else remember such?.

i always thought it just didnt make sense.

Magnum

AnnOMaly:

I don't think it's weird. The fragments being smuggled in would only contain what was deemed faith-strengthening or doctrinally important. The act of taking great risks to smuggle in this stuff gives the message:

- Jehovah/the Org. has not forgotten you;

- Keep your resolve to serve Jehovah/the Org;

- We're sticking it to the 'man' who bans us and our preaching and even locking us up won't stop us, so nyah!

'Dissident' groups of all flavors have done similarly when being oppressed and imprisoned.

They could send such a message by simply writing a note and saying such. Wouldn't that be more personal? Wouldn't that be more effective than smuggling in an article written by somebody thousands of miles away who doesn't even know they're imprisoned?

Also, one of the main reasons I say it's weird is that they pass around this fragment and read it over and over as if it has some supernatural quality to it - as if it's feeding them. If their God is so powerful, why can't he sustain them with his so-called holy spirit? It makes no sense to me that a piece of cheap paper with some writing on it could be so important and be treated in such a way. It's almost like idolatry.

And as to your first point, "The fragments being smuggled in would only contain what was deemed faith-strengthening or doctrinally important", the stories I remember don't indicate that someone specifically chose a part of a magazine that he thought would be appropriate. It was more like they just came across or happened to get a mag or a page or two of one, so the material could have been about anything.

33

Rutherfordian Science

by AlanF in

jw
friends

the wise man j. f. rutherford wrote about the "cause of the flood" in his 1927 book creation (pp.

here he informed us of "jehovah's" view of the scientific "annular flood theory" of one isaac newton vail, which the watchtower society had been promoting for decades:.

annular means that which has the form of a ring, or ring-shaped.

Magnum

Thanks for resurrecting this. Making a note to read entire thread later.

38

"We Love You All Very Much"

by Apognophos in

i'm not sure if this has been discussed before.

you guys might recall that when the 2013 yearbook came out, the letter from the governing body ended a bit unusually:.

we love you all very much.

Magnum

Apognopos: This brought to mind a talk I heard at the last RC. Brother Splane gave a talk about youths, and he emphatically, at least once, said a phrase like, "We love all you children very much."

I just saw this on another thread:

never a jw (Post 622): Now that the numbers are dwindling, there is no question that a major target for the GB is children. Almost from the very beginning of the speech, in minute 6:15 of the second hour, G.L. thanks people for bringing their children, thanks children for being there, mentions that Jehovah and Jesus are happy for children being there. Then he cites the Bible regarding how Jesus asks to let children approach him because the Kingdom of heaven belongs to those that are like children (Mark 10:14), then he says "Jehovah loves children, the Governing Body loves children too"

That's two different GB members saying the GB loves children. So is this a planned, deliberate ploy by the GB to focus on keeping young ones in their grips since they seem to be losing momentum in gaining new members?

19

weird: passing around literature fragments in prison

by Magnum in

i dont have any specific references, but over the years i remember reading in the mags and hearing in talks stories of imprisoned jws who would somehow get a piece of a page of a jw magazine or an article or something like that and pass it around and get spiritually nourished by it as if it almost had a magical or supernatural nature.

does anybody else remember such?.

i always thought it just didnt make sense.

Magnum

Yeah, good point, prologos. Just think, that piece of a Watchtower that somebody cherished and passed around and read over and over again probably contained material that's now considered to be out of date and for which one might be disfellowshipped for actively teaching.

38

"We Love You All Very Much"

by Apognophos in

i'm not sure if this has been discussed before.

you guys might recall that when the 2013 yearbook came out, the letter from the governing body ended a bit unusually:.

we love you all very much.

Magnum

steve2, that's exactly what I was thinking when I read the opening post.

19

weird: passing around literature fragments in prison

by Magnum in

i dont have any specific references, but over the years i remember reading in the mags and hearing in talks stories of imprisoned jws who would somehow get a piece of a page of a jw magazine or an article or something like that and pass it around and get spiritually nourished by it as if it almost had a magical or supernatural nature.

does anybody else remember such?.

i always thought it just didnt make sense.

Magnum

I meant to say, too, in the OP that it was made to seem that just reading some lines in the Watchtower would have a spiritually invigorating or rejuvenating effect.

19

weird: passing around literature fragments in prison

by Magnum in

i dont have any specific references, but over the years i remember reading in the mags and hearing in talks stories of imprisoned jws who would somehow get a piece of a page of a jw magazine or an article or something like that and pass it around and get spiritually nourished by it as if it almost had a magical or supernatural nature.

does anybody else remember such?.

i always thought it just didnt make sense.

Magnum

I don’t have any specific references, but over the years I remember reading in the mags and hearing in talks stories of imprisoned JWs who would somehow get a piece of a page of a JW magazine or an article or something like that and pass it around and get spiritually nourished by it as if it almost had a magical or supernatural nature. Does anybody else remember such?

I always thought it just didn’t make sense. For one thing, most of the material in the mags was (and, of course, still is) fluff, so what are the chances that if you got a magazine fragment, you would get anything of substance? What if you were imprisoned in Nazi Germany and you were spiritually starving (as JWs say) and somebody smuggled in a piece of a mag for you, and you happened to get the page with the article “Let’s Send a Greeting Card!” or “An Interview with Mr. Water Buffalo”? Wouldn’t that be spritually nourishing?

It was just so odd to me the way they made the literature seem so critical to one’s spirituality - as already mentioned, as if one was in extreme danger or was extremely deprived if he couldn’t read at least a fragment of a page of the Watchower mag.

I think I heard stories about smuggling in Bible fragments, too, but it was the stories about the literature that always seemed so odd.

Any thoughts?

38

"We Love You All Very Much"

by Apognophos in

i'm not sure if this has been discussed before.

you guys might recall that when the 2013 yearbook came out, the letter from the governing body ended a bit unusually:.

we love you all very much.

Magnum

It seems weird to me. It sort of puts them up on a pedestal as if they're so important that others would or should be concerned about whether they love them. Even when I was an active JW, such a statement would have been of zero importance to me. I would have thought "The GB members don't love me; they don't even know who I am, and I couldn't care less."

Are JWs supposed to feel better knowing that seven paunchy old men say they love them? Are they supposed to feel better or be comforted knowing that David Splane says he loves them? He thinks too highly of himself. Somebody ought to say "Who the hell are you? I couldn't care less about whether you love me. I want you to keep true to your word and quit failing in your predicting the future. I want the paradise and eternal life and end of sufferng you promised. I'm not concerned about your love. What the hell does that do for me? Not a damned thing."

35

The Reason Why JWs Won't Leave The Cult Is Because They Won't Think!

by minimus in

jw
friends

they simply refuse to think, to reason, to ponder.

they are lazy!.

even if they might feel that something isn't right, they won't research an issue or a question.

Magnum

The Reason Why JWs Won't Leave The Cult Is Because They Won't Think!

Actually, many can't think; they simply lack intelligence and reasoning ability. My mother falls into that category.

I think JWs fall into one of four categories:

1) The lazy

2) Those who lack thinking ability. They're deficient in intelligence. They're so lost that they're not even aware of a need to question and research. For example, they don't even know that the issue of who chose the books of the Bible they use exists. They don't even think to question JW history. They're blissful, satisfied, and happy in their ignorance.

3) Those who feel that something's wrong, but think it must be their own fault that it seems that way because the all-knowing and all-wise and super-intelligent GB can't be wrong.

4) The intelligent, reasonable, discerning ones who know something's wrong, but can't say it because they know what will happen if they do.

9

Read rare, historic letters about the draft from WT attorney, Hayden Covington, written to a young JW man.

by AndersonsInfo in

for those who are interested in this subject, especially researchers and historians, i posted on my website extremely rare material dealing with one man's struggle to avoid being drafted into the us military for religious reasons.. this is a huge downloadable collection of correspondence between richard rawe, his draft board and government officials after he was ordered to report for military duty.

richard saved every letter and even the envelopes from the time he was called up for military duty when he was 18 in 1952 until 1960 when he was 26 and too old to be drafted.. what makes this collection unique and special is that there are many, many important private letters from watchtower attorney, hayden covington to richard containing instructions and advice.

this is historical material that allows us to peer into the legal mind of covington with regards to the draft situation during that time period.

Magnum

Thank you. I'm very interested in the subject.