insidetheKH :@Orphancrow look at the number of witnesses that were counted in the bunch of countries that were not specified by name in the 1990 yearbook and compare that with the number of Witnesses that popped up in all of the east european countries during the 90's
OrphanCrow
JoinedPosts by OrphanCrow
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42
Mormon view of JW.ORG
by konceptual99 indoes anyone have any links to how the mormons (or ex mormons for that matter) view the changes that the wts has made over recent years, especially the growth of jw.org and characters like caleb & sophia?.
have they noticed?
do they see similarities?
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OrphanCrow
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Measles, Cults and Vaccinations
by OrphanCrow inhttp://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-rushes-to-vaccinate-against-measles-in-joliette-1.2991904.
a member of the esprit-saint mission told cbc news reporter thomas daigle that vaccinations are against the community's beliefs and that their prophet warns them vaccines result in illness.
the member confirmed the first cases of measles in the region originated with the community.the esprit-saint eugenics group was founded by eugene richer dit lafleche in 1913. the community purports to live by and work toward spreading the message of the third member of the trinity, the holy spirit.a former member of the community said it believes vaccines compromise people's immune systems, and that they feel protected by the spirit of dit la fleche, who died in 1925.public health officials said wednesday they believe the number of infections will continue to climb.. this article sounded interesting - i was reminded of how similar this cult's views on vaccinations are to the jws view, especially back in the 1920s to the 1950s.
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OrphanCrow
A member of the Esprit-Saint Mission told CBC News reporter Thomas Daigle that vaccinations are against the community's beliefs and that their prophet warns them vaccines result in illness. The member confirmed the first cases of measles in the region originated with the community.
The Esprit-Saint eugenics group was founded by Eugène Richer Dit LaFlèche in 1913. The community purports to live by and work toward spreading the message of the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.
A former member of the community said it believes vaccines compromise people's immune systems, and that they feel protected by the spirit of Dit La Flèche, who died in 1925.
Public health officials said Wednesday they believe the number of infections will continue to climb.This article sounded interesting - I was reminded of how similar this cult's views on vaccinations are to the JWs view, especially back in the 1920s to the 1950s.
So...I did a search on the founder, Dit La Fleche. And, lo and behold...a thread on this forum popped up in the results.
from that older thread:
blondie10 years agow76 11/15 p. 695 I Found Something Worth Fighting For ***
A unique experience was encountered in 1975 when I met some of the influential members of a small French church group of about 1,500 people called "La Mission de l’Esprit Saint" (The Mission of the Holy Spirit). After a long talk with one of these men, he asked if he and some friends could come to see me. "Of course," I said. A few days later he arrived with other members and their wives—forty in all!
In time, they locked up their church, closed their school, and all their "servants" resigned. Then they told their members to start studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Suddenly, a thousand people wanted Bible studies!
In a space of two months I placed 1,300 Bible study aids among them. Many of the studies ceased later, but close to a hundred of this former church group have been immersed as Jehovah’s Witnesses, and four hundred others are either studying or attending meetings at the Kingdom Halls. More are expected to be immersed shortly.tigoyo12 years agoJust for your information, "The Prince" was the surname of the second leader of "La Mission de l'Esprit-Saint", Gustave Robitaille (d. 1965), sucessor of His Majesty the Master Eugène Richer dit Laflèche. The thing that happened is what some would call a "cognitive dissonance". The Mission servants (equivalent of the elders in a JW Cong.) announced the End of the World (called the Warning) around 1975 too. But the thing is that it never happend (DUH!) and the group falled apart and many offshots grew up from that incident, there's 2 of them remaining nowadays. The "church" that they closed is still there on Everett near Papineau in Montreal but it's almost vacant (1 servant left and maybe a dozen of "consecrated" coming for the weekly meetings. And indeed a good part of the flock of the Mission went to the JW as there is a great similarity in many aspect: worship (3 meetings of 2 hours each week) ,classic music (piano, violin,etc.) , hierarchy (God, The Master (Eugène Richer dit Laflèche) and the Servants (Elders), hate toward the World (avoidance of social activities, pagan fests, home schooling) , a similar 6000 year chronology, importance of the religious litterature over the Bible, modesty (no makeup, no jewels, no hair tint), family (no superior studies, getting married young and no contraception allowed) and alot of similarity in the slang of the two religions (Armagueddon, system of things, a unique definition of the holy spirit).
tigoyo12 years agoCO's Eugène Pothier and Richer Pothier are from La Mission de l'Esprit Saint
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Asshole Atheism – Not for me, now or ever.
by donny into start off with let me clarify that by asshole atheism i am not referring to strong atheism or any other type of upfront atheism.
what i am referring to is the belligerent, hateful atheism that smacks of trolls and other types who want to derail conversation or comments at any cost..
i enjoy hearing comments from both sides of the subjects of theism, nationalism or politics, especially from those who have intense opinions.
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OrphanCrow
clambake: Real science is being a doctor, curing diseases, being an engineer, working on the electric car etc etc.
Not really. You have only described some professions that rely on scientific knowledge.
'Real' science requires that knowledge produced by the scientific method is 1.)valid and 2.) reliable. Validity is dependent upon the method of measurement being accurate. Reliability is dependent upon consistent results over time.
Problems arise when the scientific method is not followed correctly. The method itself is infallible. It is the scientists and those people who exploit scientific findings, or promote/practice non-scientific methods, that are fallible.
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jw.org cart days numbered?
by jookbeard inreading a report of an elder in a friends cong has been hiding and spying on the pioneers who seem to have a practise of dumping the cart and finding a local coffee shop, i've noticed that they do this in my local high street as well but this week they seemed to be all huddled around the cart, they've clearly been warned, a vast percentage of the time i see they seem to be more interested in fiddling with their mobile phones and gossiping, is just seems these carts are a means for the pioneers to turn in "easy time" i wonder what sort of figures show how much literature is being taken by the public?
i bet its very minimal.
naturally the gb would say they are a phenomenal success , we clearly know they are not.
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OrphanCrow
neverendingjourney: The magazines were extremely popular with the homeless, who, as I later discovered, used them as rolling papers for their tobacco. You'd also see them lining a lot of their cardboard box homes.
I have often wondered what has happened to the mountains and mountains of printed material that the WTS is responsible for littering our planet with.
Just think of how proudly the WTS trots out how many magazines, books, and tracts the have distributed since Zion's Watchtower started publishing back in the late 1800s. (136 years of paper production)
I try to imagine how big of a mountain all that paper would make. How many acres would all that paper cover if it was laid out at a foot deep? Or, maybe 50 feet high...how big would that mountain be?
*and...how much profit does that much paper represent? - all the way from the cutting down of the tree, selling off the by-products of the paper making industry (turpentine, for one), the mining of the kaolin to make the paper white, etc, etc...and then...shipping it all over the world. To be used to roll tobacco and line cardboard boxes to sleep in (they do contribute to charity after all!).
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Mormon view of JW.ORG
by konceptual99 indoes anyone have any links to how the mormons (or ex mormons for that matter) view the changes that the wts has made over recent years, especially the growth of jw.org and characters like caleb & sophia?.
have they noticed?
do they see similarities?
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OrphanCrow
insidetheKH: reporting 29% growth in 1993 for the countries of the former Soviet Union in 1995 50% growth in the 10 countries of the former Soviet Union
I don't think that those numbers reflect actual growth.
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and it was that event that revealed the numbers of people inside the Soviet Union who still viewed themselves as JWs. They were not new converts to the religion - they just became visible to the rest of the world.
And, some of those congregations that had self-identified as JW in the early 90s, later 'defected' because the doctrinal stance of the Watchtower had changed so much in the years that had passed by without contact from the Watchtower.
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jw.org cart days numbered?
by jookbeard inreading a report of an elder in a friends cong has been hiding and spying on the pioneers who seem to have a practise of dumping the cart and finding a local coffee shop, i've noticed that they do this in my local high street as well but this week they seemed to be all huddled around the cart, they've clearly been warned, a vast percentage of the time i see they seem to be more interested in fiddling with their mobile phones and gossiping, is just seems these carts are a means for the pioneers to turn in "easy time" i wonder what sort of figures show how much literature is being taken by the public?
i bet its very minimal.
naturally the gb would say they are a phenomenal success , we clearly know they are not.
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OrphanCrow
Perhaps that's why insidetheKH likes cart witnessing so much
Cart witnessing...and...forum witnessing.
It is so cool that I don't have to open my door to talk to JWs or stop at one of the carts. I just have to come here and I get all the apologetics I want by reading insidetheKH's posts.
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Memorial Date this year, why so far out ?
by Phizzy inwe have debated for many a long year on jwn about the "proper" date for the passover/memorial and my conclusion is that jw's get it all wrong for a number of reasons, but as the gospels are contradictory, nobody can say for sure.. most years they are close to the time by a day or so, signalled by the full moon occurring about then.. i believe this year they have chosen saturday april 11th.. this is a full week, near enough, away from the full moon.. what has gone on with their calculation ?.
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OrphanCrow
Maybe the WTS still uses the 'Calendar of Jehovah' to figure out the memorial date.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/124676/calendar-jehovah-god?page=1&size=20
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BART EHRMAN answers my question
by TerryWalstrom inas a member on bart ehrman's blog, i am able to ask him direct questions.is jehovah in the bible?.
question:.
how firmly grounded in reality is the claim of jehovahs witnesses that the divine name (jehovah) belongs in the new testament?.
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OrphanCrow
Finkelstein: Did Rutherford use the KJV of the bible when he took over the WTS ?
A bit more about the history of the Bibles used by BibleStudents/JWs over the years:
(from http://pastorrussell.blogspot.ca/2008/08/new-world-translation.html)
In 1884... At first Bibles were purchased from other Bible societies for redistribution .... The King James Version of 1611 in English was used as their basic version for Bible study.
From the time that the magazine The Watchtower began to be published in 1879, the publications of the Watch Tower Society have quoted, cited, and referred to scores of different Bible translations.
In 1896 .....printing rights were obtained from the British Bible translator Joseph B. Rotherham to publish in the United States the revised twelfth edition of his New Testament. On the title page of these printed copies, there appeared the name of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, the Society’s headquarters being located there at the time. In 1901 arrangements were made for a special printing of the Holman Linear Bible, containing marginal explanatory notes from the Society’s publications of 1895 to 1901. The Bible text itself presented the King James Version and the Revised Version of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. The entire edition of 5,000 copies had been distributed by the year 1903.
The Emphatic Diaglott. In 1902 the Watch Tower Society came to be the copyright owners, sole publishers, and distributors of The Emphatic Diaglott. This version of the Christian Greek Scriptures was prepared by the English-born Bible translator Benjamin Wilson, of Geneva, Illinois. It was completed in 1864. It used the Greek text of J. J. Griesbach, with a literal interlinear English translation and Wilson’s own version to the right using his special signs of emphasis.
A Bible Students Edition. In 1907 the Watch Tower Society published a “Bible Students Edition” of the Bible. This volume contained a clear printing of the King James Version of the Bible and included excellent marginal notes, together with a valuable appendix designed by Jehovah’s Witnesses....
For 30 years the Watch Tower Society engaged outside firms to do the actual printing of its Bibles. However, in December 1926, The Emphatic Diaglott became the first Bible version to be printed on the Society’s own presses at Brooklyn, New York. The printing of this edition of the Christian Greek Scriptures stimulated the hope that a complete Bible would someday be printed on the Society’s presses.The King James Version. World War II underlined the need for independent publication of the Bible itself. While the global conflict was at its height, the Society succeeded in purchasing plates of the complete King James Version of the Bible. It was on September 18, 1942, at the New World Theocratic Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses, with key assembly point at Cleveland, Ohio, that the Society’s president spoke on the subject “Presenting ‘the Sword of the Spirit.’” As the climax to this address, he released this first complete Bible printed in the Watch Tower Society’s Brooklyn factory....
The American Standard Version. Another important Bible translation is the American Standard Version of 1901. It has the most commendable feature of rendering God’s name as “Jehovah” nearly 7,000 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. After long negotiations, the Watch Tower Society was able to purchase, in 1944, the use of the plates of the complete American Standard Version of the Bible for printing on its own presses. On August 10, 1944, at Buffalo, New York, the key city of 17 simultaneous assemblies of Jehovah’s Witnesses linked together by private telephone lines, the Society’s president delighted his large audience by releasing the Watch Tower edition of the American Standard Version. The appendix includes a most helpful expanded “Concordance of Bible Words, Names, and Expressions.” A pocket edition of the same Bible was published in 1958.
The Bible in Living English. In 1972 the Watch Tower Society produced The Bible in Living English, by the late Steven T. Byington. It consistently renders the divine name as “Jehovah.” -
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IDENTITY and Fairies; The Salem Witch Trials and JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
by TerryWalstrom intwo ball bearings manufactured at the same time, in the same factory, by rigorous engineering standards, and produced to serve the same function inside a particular machine.. question: are they identical?.
answer: no.
there is one on your left and there is one on your right.. these do not occupy the same space.. you can remove one and the other will not follow.. _________________.
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OrphanCrow
Terry:
They are easily defined by what they DO NOT do.
They do NOT celebrate holidays.
They do NOT believe in hell.
They do NOT believe in immortality of the soul.
They do NOT believe in the Trinity.
They do NOT teach the way of the cross.
They do NOT salute the flag, sing the anthem, vote or do community service.
The list of "Do Not's' is endless.
In this, there is a unity of negative energy.Yes. Good description, Terry.
The rules to belong to the group are heavily weighted on the "Do Nots".
They are an inclusive club - everybody can join. All nations, all tongues, all colors, all ages, but...once you join, you MUST behave as one.
And that 'unity' is achieved by restricting movement - once inside the group, their hands are tied and their Achilles tendon is severed. One big herd of people, not able to walk or feed themselves. Totally disabled and totally dependent upon a leadership that starves them.
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Similarities between JW leadership and totalitarian org.
by Bugbear insimilarities between, jw:ism, stalinism, putinism, and mullahism, popeism and maoism..
all these leaders has been elected by un elite group controlling big values in form of real estate, bank account, enthusiastic voluntary working task forces, almost willingly to die for their leaders.
the workers (slave class), is never ever supposed to question the leaders decisions.
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OrphanCrow
Bugbear - About Foucault. His metaphor of the panopticon power structure is one of my favorite ways to conceptualize political power relationships and positioning.
Your list is comprehensive. Something that might add to your exploration are the similarities concerning the use of 'rules' and the consequences for breaking the rules.
Within each politco-cultural group that you mention, the more totalitarian the regime, the more 'micro-managed' it becomes. Stringent and numerous rules, sometimes ones that make little sense, are put in place - like a net around the power base - and the consequences for those who get caught in the net, become more dire as the control tightens.
*to add - the rules act as the cell walls in the panopticon - the rules serve to divide and keep the 'inmates' under control
Good luck with your Phd - I wouldn't mind getting one of those before I die, too. :) I could then change my name to Dr. Crow. Lol!