talesin

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Posts by talesin

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  40

  Terrorist attack in Belgium

  by ILoveTTATT2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  check the news.

  there was a terrorist attack in brussells, couple of bombs detonated in the brussell airport and the metro.. 36 dead so far.. i send my sincerest condolences to the people of belgium.. the motive seems to be revenge for the capture of the last surviving member of the paris terrorist attacks..

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  talesin

  I remember the IRA, and did quite a bit of reading on the history before the 60s. It's the only war of terrorism that I lived, watched ... in the end, what was it proven to be about? Not religion, but oppression. It just so happened that the ruling class was CofE and the oppressed class was RC - for centuries! Was the Church involved? Yes. But the root cause? Oppression of an entire country, an indigenous people, by an outdated colonial ruling class.

  It's all about money and power - religious fanaticism does not exist in a vacuum. There is a reason people turn to it, just as they do to any fanatical ideology. Sound familiar? We know that cults recruit the weak.
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  40

  Terrorist attack in Belgium

  by ILoveTTATT2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  check the news.

  there was a terrorist attack in brussells, couple of bombs detonated in the brussell airport and the metro.. 36 dead so far.. i send my sincerest condolences to the people of belgium.. the motive seems to be revenge for the capture of the last surviving member of the paris terrorist attacks..

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  talesin

  smiddy, one of the problems (in my pov) is that the US is no longer dependent on OPEC for oil. Lessons were learned during the earlier crisis (late 70s, early 80s, line ups at gas stations, etc.). The USA gets 25% of its supply from Canada, which is its largest current supplier. ME countries no longer have that control. The balance of power with 'oil' has, once again, shifted. This has been going on since the mid-20th Century. OPEC was formed when the Arabs got sick of being treated like they were stupid, and raped of their profits. They spent decades paying 'us' back. Now, the tide is turning, and the days of fossil fuels are numbered. I think that the USA and the Saudis are partnered in the next phase of suppressing greener energy's availability to the public (we have the viable technology) in order to squeeze every last cent out of the oil business. *shrugs*

  hahah, "You'll take my [oil profits] when you pry them from my dead, cold, fingers." ah, memories
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  29

  Watchtower is cashing in on China

  by nakanozzi in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  japanese brother in china recently revealed thatmany wealthy chinese are interested in watchtower’s teaching and donating money.ex-cos and ex-district os are now preaching undercover in china,and, numberes of special pioneers in china are growing !

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  talesin

  Wow, check out these excerpts from an exJW blog, telling her story, about her missionary work, first in Vancouver, then in China. Very credible. It's a *must-read*, so here's a good taste:

  http://www.believermag.com/issues/201302/?read=article_scorah
  

  ... When I got to China, things were really different, by necessity. Pro-selytizing is illegal. Religious meetings are banned. The preaching work and congregation meetings have to be conducted underground. This means that the handful of Witnesses in Shanghai can meet only covertly, which makes seeing each other more than once a week next to impossible. Preaching in the usual structured, door-to-door fashion is also, obviously, out of the question. For me, a Witness accustomed to a life of uniform routine, this seemed like an unprecedented adventure.
  A couple of weeks after I arrived in Shanghai, I received a cryptic text message from a man who called himself James (some of us used fake names; we knew the Chinese government monitored electronic correspondence). He proposed meeting in a noisy local restaurant in the French Concession. I called his number when I got to the restaurant and he waved so I would know him. We chatted a few minutes, then he immediately got down to business. With a practiced manner, he explained the instructions from the branch office of Jehovah’s Witnesses as to how to conduct my missionary work. I was to find a job, perhaps teaching English, as a cover. Then I was to start cultivating relationships with worldly people, both Chinese and Westerners. These friendships were to be made with the sole purpose of religious conversion.
  This sounded crazy to me. Every day of my life I’d been taught to stay away from these people, and I had. I was the person who made excuses not to lunch with coworkers. Who never kissed the boy who loved me in high school. I was the one who didn’t join after-school sports or attend birthday parties or my prom, all for fear of contamination. But I had my instructions; there was no other choice.
  ...
  Brother James recommended that before bringing up anything about the Bible with one of our new friends, we find out if that person or their family was affiliated with the Communist Party. Anyone who was a party member posed a potential danger, and contact was to be cut off immediately; a party member might turn in a Witness out of loyalty to the regime. On the other hand, it was also said that some people became party members simply to qualify for certain jobs, meaning they were communist in name only, and thus not as risky to befriend. I tried to casually return the conversation to Jean’s family.
  ...
  When I hung out with these worldly people, it was hard to shake the feeling that I was doing something wrong. They swore, they smoked, some of them drank a lot. They often made references to things I didn’t get. I didn’t understand their innuendos, and I hadn’t read their books or seen their movies. But I was a quick study. I had to play along; I didn’t want to blow my cover, and besides, it was interesting to learn about their lives. I was following my orders to a tee, and all of this could be done guilt-free.
  In addition to my new school friends, I scheduled time each day to look for Chinese people to talk to. I’d sit in restaurants, hang out in Huaihai Park, read books in public squares, or hop on subways and buses, offering fast friendship to anyone patient or chatty enough to put up with my broken Chinese. I prayed for God’s help, but it was easy to find people who were interested in a foreigner, especially one who knew some Chinese.
  Jean became my first Bible student.
  ...
  I realized I was leading Jean down a path that was potentially criminal and that would mean, if all went well, that she would become an underground enemy of the state, have to limit ties with her family, cut off her friends, and likely not marry or have children—Witnesses could not marry outside their faith, and there were very few Witnesses in mainland China—but I felt this was a small price for Jean to pay to have the truth. If I could convert her, she could survive Armageddon.
  I still had to be careful. I wasn’t supposed to tell her where I lived. At first we would meet for our study sessions in public parks, until one humid day when I noticed two men in polyester suits vigorously snapping photos of us. We separated, and I took the subway in the wrong direction home, just to be safe. After that, I treated Jean to coffee at various Western cafés, but never the same one two weeks in a row. I taped gift wrap over the covers of our Watchtower publications so people couldn’t see what they were.
  ...

  This newspaper article from The Glasgow Herald, 1960 ... re 2 JWS arrested and imprisoned for their subversive activities:

  https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19600815&id=cYRAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qZsMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3321,6260441&hl=en

  
  

  
  
  
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  18

  We can now donate by credit card in canada on jw.org

  by hoser in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what a fine privelege to support jehovah with our valuable things.

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  talesin

  I wonder if a person donates one cent at a time it will cost them money.

  As a merchant, the credit card companies kept a percentage off the top, based on volume of sales (eg. 3% for <$25K, and 2% for >$25K but <$100K). I know religions pay business service fees for bank accounts and telephone bills, so I would think it works the same way with paying the credit card companies for their services. They are, after all, bank cards, and not government-run, interest-free handouts like zero taxes.
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  4

  Christopher Hitchens Revises the Ten Commandments

  by Finkelstein in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  i saw this on youtube and enjoyed it for its content , have a peek .

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9wexgtck7c.

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  talesin

  That was great vid. I loved the part about not killing, then sent them off to kill a bunch of people. He gave a balanced and reasonable critique.

  It's the first vid of his that I've watched. Loved his new 10. Thanks for sharing that, Fink.
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  18

  We can now donate by credit card in canada on jw.org

  by hoser in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what a fine privelege to support jehovah with our valuable things.

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  talesin

  
  

  

  
  

  
  
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  84

  I COLLECT QUOTES. . . Here are some of my favorites

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  please post your favorites too.

  my favorite quotations:.

  you cannot change what you refuse to confront.. sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.. don’t think of cost.

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  talesin

  May you have an interesting life.

  ~ traditional Asian curse (not sure if it's Chinese or other ethnicity/nationality)
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  18

  We can now donate by credit card in canada on jw.org

  by hoser in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what a fine privelege to support jehovah with our valuable things.

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  talesin

  Holy jumpin's! I was planning on giving my MC a workout at the mall, but this, this is like, Memorial time. Truly, we are privileged to support Jehovah's loving arrangement.

  ; P
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  38

  Have you ever had your oven door explode?

  by Ucantnome in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  the other day the glass in my oven door exploded and sent glass into the next room, fortunately i wasn't peering in at the time.

  about a year go the previous oven door shattered one morning.

  the oven was cold.

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  talesin

  I typed it into Google, and top article, 2015, from CBS Chicago, says it's common (previous results from 2013 and earlier have similar reports). I found this quote particularly interesting. Sears products' quality has declined. I had 2 Kenmore fridges that had compressor problems (heat emanating from the freezer of my new, expensive fridge), and a quick online search showed this was endemic in the Kenmore line. House fires and insurance claims were rampant. [bold is mine]

  :http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/07/08/2-investigators-glass-oven-doors-shattering-without-warning/
  

  
  In just the past year, the Consumer Product Safety Commission received 123 complaints of oven glass breaking. Kenmore received the most complaints with 52. Some consumers complain about repeated breaks. One said the same oven door exploded three-times. Another complained it happened four times. Other complaints include 20 for Frigidaire and 20 for GE.
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  84

  I COLLECT QUOTES. . . Here are some of my favorites

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  please post your favorites too.

  my favorite quotations:.

  you cannot change what you refuse to confront.. sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.. don’t think of cost.

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  talesin

  Terry, there are so many good ones in your list, I picked a section, but it's by no means inclusive of *all* the ones I really liked. Thanks, some are real keepers. x

  This one:
  
  

  __________
  You will never become who you want to be if you keep blaming everyone else for who you are now.
  People are more what they hide than what they show.
  Don’t listen to what people say, watch what they do.
  Being alone does not mean you are lonely, and being lonely does not mean you are alone.
  ________