OrphanCrow

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Posts by OrphanCrow

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  72

  Is the preaching work, no longer the number 1 priority?

  by ToesUp in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have been observing a pattern in recent wtbs publications and events.

  is the importance of the preaching activity no longer the number 1 priority?

  are not billions of lives still at stake?.

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  OrphanCrow

  a meeting that is entirely about material assets, building and maintenance

  Exactly.
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  17

  An anthropologist visits a JW community in Santa María Zapotitlán, Mexico

  by OrphanCrow in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  dr. jena barchas-lichtenstein is an anthropologist who received her doctorate through ucla.. https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jena-barchas-lichtenstein/43/427/702.

  in 2013, barchas-lichtenstein submitted the paper "when the dead are resurrected, how are we going to speak to them?

  ": jehovah's witnesses and the use of indigenous languages in the globalizing textual community as a partial submission for her doctoral dissertation..

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  OrphanCrow

  roberto: OrphanCrow, I am reading the doctoral dissertation of Dr. Jena Barchas

  I look forward to your feedback, Roberto.

  Jena's paper is lengthy and dense in parts, but, overall, it is an accessible read. I have read several parts a few times now and I am finding her research to be thorough and precise. Her body of research is timely and relevant to many areas of study including the Watch Tower Society. She has an amazing ability to take the reader easily through social spaces - from intimate personal encounters with the local JWs to the spaces of the world headquarters of a corporation and into political and linguistics analysis of a highly charged geo-political community.

  I have been watching the Society's recent interest in language revitalization for some time now and was more than pleased to find Dr. Barchus-Lichenstein's research into this very phenomena. Language revitalization is different than just language translation. The interest in the revitalization of indigenous language, in the larger community beyond the WTS, got its legs sometime back in the 90s. Global initiatives into indigenous language revitalization projects appeared in all levels of culture around that time - from Unesco right down to grass roots community organizations.

  The discussions that I have participated in concerning indigenous language revitalization, at local levels, were concerned with language as a way to revitalize culture. As a way to re-connect and heal wounds from the colonial practice of taking away the voice of indigenous people through the banning of their language. The WTS' rationale and motivation for revitalizing language has a far different mandate to it than what other cultural groups are using to propel language revitalization.

  I have been puzzled for some time as to why the WTS has recently jumped on board with language re-vitalization and why they are making attempts to recruit from the local indigenous groups within Canada, and I was very interested to encounter an anthropologist who identified this as a phenomena that is not exclusive to my country. It is interesting to see the similarities and differences that are occurring simultaneously between two very different cultures, and yet identical cultures in a sense, in that the cultures are bound by one over-riding one - the culture of the Watch Tower Society.

  Roberto, I am interested in any comments or feedback you (or anyone else) may have on Dr, Barchus-Lichenstin's research.
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  21

  What person/persons/group is behind the rebranding of Jehovahs Witnesses

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  with the jw rebranding program in full swing, who do you think is behind all this?

  i'm not certain the governing body came up with these ideas.

  at least not the old guard which died off around 2009.. given the fairly recent articles in the kingdom ministry and watchtower about the dangers of the internet and having the latest gadget, this rebranding effort can't have been in the works for much more than three years.. the makeover is slick...very slick...and very clever.

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  OrphanCrow

  They copied the Mormon / later day saints website.

  Uuuummm...there is a multi-media company, based in Salt Lake City, that is owned by a JW. The company does re-branding, market analysis, website-building, etc.

  Jus' sayin'.
• 
  72

  Is the preaching work, no longer the number 1 priority?

  by ToesUp in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have been observing a pattern in recent wtbs publications and events.

  is the importance of the preaching activity no longer the number 1 priority?

  are not billions of lives still at stake?.

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  OrphanCrow

  It seems like the WTS' focus is on recruitment rather than preaching or converting.

  Actual 'conversion will take place inside those walls of those fancy dancy Kingdom Halls being built.

  The term 'publisher' should actually be changed to 'recruiter'.

  
  
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  26

  If you are single and have married friends, . . .

  by compound complex in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  is your sense of loneliness (if you are lonely) heightened when you see what they share?

  how do cope (if you are coping) with a sense of isolation, of not having a significant other?.

  i know some single persons who are very happy as they are.

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  OrphanCrow

  When i see what they share, i'm pretty happy being single and independent. 

  I can relate to that. Spending time with couples often makes me want to go home early from social events. I attend very few social events. They bore me.

  How do i cope with any loneliness now? I like to have a few hobby's, and having a long term plan/goal on the back burner really helps.

  Whenever someone asks what I do all alone by myself, I tell them, "whatever I want."

  
  
• 
  17

  An anthropologist visits a JW community in Santa María Zapotitlán, Mexico

  by OrphanCrow in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  dr. jena barchas-lichtenstein is an anthropologist who received her doctorate through ucla.. https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jena-barchas-lichtenstein/43/427/702.

  in 2013, barchas-lichtenstein submitted the paper "when the dead are resurrected, how are we going to speak to them?

  ": jehovah's witnesses and the use of indigenous languages in the globalizing textual community as a partial submission for her doctoral dissertation..

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  OrphanCrow

  interesting details. with the jws in the simple majority, what good is that if they do not vote, participate in government?

  Prologos, you may be asking that question without understanding the structure of their local government or the political climate of the region. The culture and politics of that region are unique and complex. In fact, a town of a majority 'pacifists' could be quite beneficial for some people besides the JW community.

  Barchus-Lichenstein's work was done prior to 2013 but she does give detail on the geo-political characteristics of that region.

  At this moment, the area of Mexico that Dr. B-L was in, Oaxaca, is blocked to the president of Mexico. He is not allowed in. 

  You should read Dr. B-L's account of being in the village when a celebratory day was happening - how the revolutionists were treated by the JW majority when the parade happened. Interesting.

  The president is not allowed in the region right now. I wonder how much free travel the Watch Tower still has through that area?

  roberto: my first reaction is ; " How the hell can she be so smart and skilled and still be a Jw?"

  The author of the paper, Jena Barchus-Lichenstein, is not a JW.

  She self-identifies in her research paper as Jewish. I was so impressed with her depth and broadness of knowledge about the JWs and the WTS, that I searched her out and asked if she had any connection to the JWs in her background. She replied:

  In terms of my own interest, it so happens that I grew up directly across the street from Brooklyn Bethel. In fact, I can see into their gym from my father's apartment. But Bethel coexists with its neighbors largely by *not* engaging in much publishing in the immediate neighborhood, so we received fewer visits than most! I'd received visits in other places that I lived, and of course the literature tables are unavoidable on college campuses and in public transit, but quite honestly I knew very little at the time I started my research.

  
  

  
  

  
  
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  6

  The marketing of sin.

  by sparrowdown in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  big pharma has been accused at times of "marketing madness," and that's a whole other topic, but isn't big religion guilty of marketing sin, after all there's no money in "normal.".

  there's no guilt induced donations to be had in ok-ness.. if we were taught that consenting adult sex is normal, enjoying your life, celebrating your milestones and achievements are all normal.

  making mistakes and occasionally swearing like a sailor - yep all normal.

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  OrphanCrow

  Big Religion guilty of marketing sin

  Yeah. There is big profit in Sin. It costs nothing to make, and every cent they squeeze from it is pure profit. The raw material is already there - religion just has to milk it.

  And then religion takes Hope, packages that up as a commodity, and sells Hope as the cure.

  .
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  303

  The best reasonable, rational, intelligent discussion on religion I've ever seen

  by TerryWalstrom in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl6e4emx-4k

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  OrphanCrow

  No, I was suggesting being imprisoned and/or fined for the offense- not a polite request. A cop doesn't just pull you over and politely ask you to stop speeding.

  Whooooaaa.

  Totalitarian control.

  Thought crime police.

  Imprisonment.

  "Don't think like that...other people are thinking like that."

  Group think outlawed.

  Are you really proposing that, JD? Seriously?
• 
  303

  The best reasonable, rational, intelligent discussion on religion I've ever seen

  by TerryWalstrom in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl6e4emx-4k

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  OrphanCrow

  One way or another, by force or, as others have stated here, just by time- religion will soon not exist. It's inevitable.

  Or maybe, JD, we will learn to re-define 'religion' and understand it for what it really is - a vital part of political movements and political power structures. The template of 'religious' versus 'secular' has to disappear. 

  Politics and religion is one and the same - there needs to be an 'enlightened' view, if you will, as to what 'religion' really is. A political tool for government regimes.
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  15

  Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe 'planning his own Jehovah's Witness funeral' at Broadmoor

  by jwleaks in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  yorkshire ripper peter sutcliffe 'planning his own jehovah's witness funeral' at broadmoor.

  10 february 2015. while charles manson is busy avoiding being displayed in a glass coffin by his now ex-fiancee, peter sutcliffe is managing his own mortality within the confines of broadmoor hospital.. .

  the yorkshire ripper apparently met with funeral directors to plan his own send-off.. sutcliffe, 68, contacted holmes and family funeral directors, whose office is three miles away from the high security hospital in berkshire.. he apparently wishes for the ceremony to be performed in line with his jehovahs witness beliefs.. sutcliffe was handed 20 life sentences for brutally murdering 13 women in the north of england between 1975 and 1980, and attempting to murder seven others.. police believed his killing spree started after he was conned out of money by a prostitute and her pimp.. however, sutcliffe later claimed the voice of god had commanded him to undertake the killings.. the independent (lots of photos of broadmoor psychiatric prison).

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  OrphanCrow

  And here is another thing: the JWs have promised a serial killer madman that he will return in a physical body, with fresh victims ready and waiting, outside the confines of an insane asylum. 

  Why wouldn't you take that promise if you were Sutcliffe? Especially as the JWs have promised that the 'bad' people will be killed first. Bad people, in Sutcliffe's mind, are all those who put him where he is right now and are guarding him. He will LOVE the JW Paradise - no policemen, no lawyers - just those gullible JWs to deal with.

  And...the JWs have promised that the Paradise, after resurrection, will be drug-free. Imagine - not even psychotropic drugs to hold him back! Truly the doctrine to tug the heartstrings of a madman. And he will be perfect. A perfect madman.

  *maybe the JWs are only 'fulfilling prophecy' - Sutcliffe could be Satan - "let loose at the end of a 1000 years to roam this earth..." The JWs must be like Judas Iscariot..."just fulfilling Jehivah's will for them". You know how it goes when Jehovah calls..."it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it..."