by cedars 87 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
hoser -
Whether this experience actually happened? Who knows. It is a tool used to shame people into obedience. nothing more nothing less
I agree 100%
Experiences(TM) simply feed into the JW 'we alone are special and chosen' mentality. It adds to their confirmation bias.
Sadly, they ignore that similar tales are told throughout religions.
What the... cluck???
Let me guess... that's the plot for Caleb's next adventure?
Julia Orwell:
Why didn't Jehovah protect my quails when I went to the DC? A cat got into their pen and killed all but one.
No, no, no, you've got it all wrong. 'Evidently', Jehovah saved one of the quails. Because you were 'faithful'. Praise Jeebus.
It looks like we've found the source of AM3's chicken anecdote...
Not Forsaking Christian Gatherings
After the 1988 uprising, the economic situation in Burma steadily worsened. Even so, the brothers and sisters showed deep faith in God by continuing to put Kingdom interests first in their lives.—Matt. 6:33.
Consider, for example, Cin Khan Dal, who lived with his family in a remote village in Sagaing. “We wanted to attend the district convention in Tahan, a two-day journey away by boat and truck,” he explains. “But no one would watch over our chickens while we were away. Still, we put our trust in Jehovah and attended the convention. Returning home, we found that we had lost 19 chickens —a serious economic blow. Yet, one year later, our small flock had increased to more than 60 chickens . And while many villagers lost their chickens to disease that year, none of our chickens died.”
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/302013001
It seems GB members are so short on original material for their talks they are now recycling experiences from the Yearbook, and hoping the audience doesn't notice.
Cedars
Using the above information from the Yearbook, I've been doing a bit of digging.
I typed the places mentioned into Google Earth, and was surprised to find the distance between the convention and the approximate location of the village is only 140 miles. (The place referred to as "Tahan" is actually Kalewa).
This led me to wonder why it took the family a round trip of four days to attend a convention so relatively close.
I checked on Google, and surprisingly it produced an estimate of the driving time...
The above information puts an entirely new light on the story for me.
Here we have a family so poor that a journey that apparently should have taken a morning or afternoon took them two days. If they'd had a car and fuel they could have made it to the convention and back again in three and a half days - instead they had to set aside double that time.
Such is the pressure exerted on Witnesses by the organization to attend ALL meetings and assemblies that a destitute family in Myanmar felt compelled to abandon their livestock and livelihood just to listen to three days of propaganda.
And the Governing Body praised them for it.
Cedars
Cedars,
Say they walk at a brisk pace of 3 miles per hour, 140/3=46.6 hours or running 6 miles an hour 140/6=23.3. So to go 140 miles in 2 days is quite a feat by any ones standard. One wonders if they got anything from the pep rally after walking 46.6 hours in 48 hours with no sleep and barely any rest time.
There is a lot of information missing to flesh out this tale of two cities. They are getting desperate and grabbing at straws when it comes to experiences.
The writting department knows how to make a story even where there is no story. This proves they are scraping the bottom of the barrel if this is all they can come up with.
I feel sorry for these poor people who lost so much in order to attend a worthless pep rally where the CEOs couldn't give a shit if they starved to death on the way home.
Nice research Cedars!!!
Apparently they had to walk. You can't ride a chicken, you know!
Oubliette
Apparently they had to walk. You can't ride a chicken, you know!
Indeed you can't, at least not the chickens I'm familiar with.
Doubtless there was a lot of walking involved, but the Yearbook specifically mentions that they did it "by boat and truck."
I'm obviously no local expert on the route in question, but looking at Google Earth it seems likely they might have hitch-hiked 85 miles south-west to Pakokku, and then caught a boat northwards along a 190-mile stretch of river (I think it's the Chindwin?) between Pakokku and the convention venue. It's pure supposition and they could have done it differently, but however they did it they embarked on an epic journey at great personal sacrifice to attend nothing more than, as frankiespeakin calls it, a pep rally.
Cedars
I'm thinking the whole chicken story is really just a load of BS!
So chickens that died through neglect 25 years ago are still providing a bounteous spitiual feast eh?.
Cussing Swearwords.
