To answer your question, outoftheorg, almost 5000 new people signed up over the last year. To read my annual report, check out this thread:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/81850/1.ashx
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seattleniceguy
JoinedPosts by seattleniceguy
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75
We Should Encourage "Lurkers" To Post Here!
by minimus ini would like to say that any of you that read this board are more than welcomed to be a part of this group.
i know some of you are afraid.
some of you are unsure.
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seattleniceguy
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75
We Should Encourage "Lurkers" To Post Here!
by minimus ini would like to say that any of you that read this board are more than welcomed to be a part of this group.
i know some of you are afraid.
some of you are unsure.
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seattleniceguy
Hey BornAgain, why don't you tell us a little about yourself?
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WTS Official Spin on monthly Awake: 'More emphasis on the Bible!'
by Neo inthe march 2005 kingdom ministry brings up a full article about the awake only being published once a month, starting january 2006. .
but the fun thing is the roundabout way this change is announced.
knowing that the news would be a bitter pill to swallow (there should be a 'speeding up' of the preaching work, not a downsizing), the watchtower only announces the move to monthly publishing by the end of the article.
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seattleniceguy
Nice work, Neo. So you have this on solid sources? You mention you did not have a copy of the actual printed material.
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75
We Should Encourage "Lurkers" To Post Here!
by minimus ini would like to say that any of you that read this board are more than welcomed to be a part of this group.
i know some of you are afraid.
some of you are unsure.
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seattleniceguy
Welcome to both zeroday and holly!
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seattleniceguy
Hey Jericho,
You may want to step off your crusade horse for a second and take a look around. I don't think you are where you think you are.
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Awake = college education?
by seattleniceguy inwe've all heard the jw claim that a lifetime spent reading the awake!
magazine is equivalent to a college education.
is this really true?
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seattleniceguy
LOL...Hey Poztate,
YES...Without a doubt..It is true. Remember the claim is a LIFETIME of reading the Awake is equivalent to a college education.
I was actually thinking of addressing that but then forgot when I wrote the post. I was thinking the same thing as you - that maybe a LIFETIME of Awakes might be able to match four years in college.
Actually, though, now that I've given more thought to it, I really do think that even a thousand years reading the Awake could never come close to a college education. Even if we grant that the Awake has totally unbiased reporting on a complete range of topics (which we know is not true), their articles can never build on one another. You never get to All About the Cheetah -- Part 2. It would be like reading the first couple pages of every book in the library. You'd know a tiny amount about a lot of subjects. But that's not meaningful knowledge. That's trivia.
College is all about learning and thoroughly understanding a subject. Awake is about giving you two or three pages of facts and trivia and then tying it in to the New System somehow. I just can't believe there was a time I bought into it.
And it's amazing how strongly the anti-college propaganda works. I was talking to my cousin, who is kind of on the fence about what to do with the Witnesses, and he seemed interested in studying Math and Computer Science. I encouraged him to go for it. But he started talking about how professors just rant about their own opinions, and they're not really interested in the students, and so on and so forth. I was shocked - I mean, here's a guy who has never even been to college, and somehow he has all these opinions.
So for any JW lurkers out there, let me tell you, college is a tremendously powerful educational experience. It is nothing like what the Witnesses describe. Go down to your local community college, sign up for a course or two, and check it out. Education is one of the best things you can do for yourself.
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Awake = college education?
by seattleniceguy inwe've all heard the jw claim that a lifetime spent reading the awake!
magazine is equivalent to a college education.
is this really true?
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seattleniceguy
We've all heard the JW claim that a lifetime spent reading the Awake! magazine is equivalent to a college education. Is this really true?
First, let's consider what you'll get from a typical mainline course at your local community college. In most college courses I've taken, the following were pretty standard:
- A 200-300 page primary textbook.
- Many hundred pages of supplementary reading (in one 10-week course I read about 3000 pages once!).
- Weekly "seminars," which are moderated class discussions of the material. Kind of like the WT study, but in a circle, and you can express views that don't agree with anyone else's. Just be prepared to back them up with references.
- Weekly response papers and essays to show that you understand the material fully.
- In science classes, weekly labs to prove the material experimentally.
- Daily lectures.
When I took my first college courses, I was totally blown away by how much I learned. After one short quarter, you will know immensely more about a subject than you knew just 10 weeks before. And you will be a stronger, critical thinker, since you will be expected to provide convincing arguments in your discussions and essays.
In the space of a 10-week college course, you would read about five copies of Awake! How does that break down?
- 160 pages (= 5 x 32).
- Some brief overviews of various African animals.
- Perhaps a 4-page history of the Fur Trade in North America.
- Five cover stories about current events, which will be almost exactly the same as every other cover story you have ever read in Awake! before. They will be replete with references from "a newspaper in Ukraine," "one famous actor," and "a Christian youth named Tony* (*names have been changed)."
Don't get me wrong - I always liked the articles in Awake! that contained real content, like the ones on the animals. But the fact of the matter is, reading a 3-page gloss about cheetahs is nothing, nothing like taking a zoology course at your local college. By design, articles in Awake! must start from a position that the reader knows nothing on the topic. Therefore, no depth can ever be achieved, because you're starting from scratch every time.
This is the precise opposite of college, which focuses on giving you depth and clarity regarding a single topic of interest. If you take a biology course, then you are going to learn a lot about biology, my friend. And this is something that Awake! can simply never give you, no matter how long you read.
Anyway, I just thought the comparison was interesting. Comments, anyone?
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Lines lines and more lines
by truth_about_the_truth inon the train yesterday on the way home from work, i saw someone sitting in front of me reading a km.
apparently a sister studying for the service mtng.
the funny thing was that i noticed that she was underlining every word in the article she was studying.
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seattleniceguy
Man, that used to make me laugh, and also kind of cry on the inside at the same time. I mean, look, if you're highlighting every word, what is the purpose of highlighting? To remind yourself that you already read that line?
It's kind of like my graphic designer always says: All bold is no bold.
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The Slow Death of the WTS (from the WT 15 Feb 2005)
by ezekiel3 ini will defer the details of this gem to blondie when she sinks her teeth into the wt study articles scheduled for march 21-april 3. until then sample this:.
watchtower 15 feb 2005 "christians - be proud of who you are!
" (pg 12-16) .
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seattleniceguy
self-examination that prompts us to look for our "identity"
(Said in a faux-concerned voice with finger-quotes)
Yes, brothers, some have fallen into the trap of being "introspective" and giving serious "thought" to what they are doing with their "lives."
Sheesh.
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Stumbled Across the Forum
by UncleI ini stumbled across this forum today as i was looking for information online as it relates to johnny carson and the whole john denver thing that was spread around years ago.
it's no surprise that i cant find a single thing on it on the web as i always thought it was an urban legend.
just angers me that things like that spread around and so many people just accept it as truth because a brother or sister told it to them.
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seattleniceguy
Hello and welcome, Uncle! Glad to have you on board!
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