slimboyfat

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Posts by slimboyfat

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  146

  Maybe I'm Just Ignorant About the New "Anti-Gay" Video

  by turtleturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  homophobia (m-w.com):.

  : irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.

  can someone tell me, specifically, was homophobic about the new "anti-gay" wt video.

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  slimboyfat

  There is a difference (to them) as someone can abstain from sex, you can't abstain from your race.

  There are two things wrong with this statement that a JW might make.

  1. Gay people aren't simply being asked to abstain from sex the way unmarried heterosexual JWs are. They are told to renounce any possibility of a satisfying intimate relationship on pain of being branded a sinner fit for destruction. This is in no way equal to an unmarried JW who may hope and aspire to an intimate relationship even if it never happens.

  2. People modify their race all the time. Unless they conceive of "race" as some fixed genetic category rather than a socially costructed marker of identity. In which case I think we are in different centuries.
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  146

  Maybe I'm Just Ignorant About the New "Anti-Gay" Video

  by turtleturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  homophobia (m-w.com):.

  : irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.

  can someone tell me, specifically, was homophobic about the new "anti-gay" wt video.

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• 

  slimboyfat

  Strawman once again SBF.
  Nobody is defending the video as being objectively right

  Huh? Where did I say that?
• 
  146

  Maybe I'm Just Ignorant About the New "Anti-Gay" Video

  by turtleturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  homophobia (m-w.com):.

  : irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.

  can someone tell me, specifically, was homophobic about the new "anti-gay" wt video.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  Russell suggested that black people would turn white in the new system.

  This video says gay people can change if they want to get to paradise.

  One day (already here for many) we'll view those two statements as equally offensive and (perhaps crucially) equally bizarre.
• 
  146

  Maybe I'm Just Ignorant About the New "Anti-Gay" Video

  by turtleturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  homophobia (m-w.com):.

  : irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.

  can someone tell me, specifically, was homophobic about the new "anti-gay" wt video.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  Of course that is the point. They say the OT doesn't apply because it's been replaced.

  The NT teaches hell fire. It doesn't stop JWs claiming the opposite. And texts on homosexuality have arguably more wriggle room than hell fire texts. They only refer to certain kinds of relationships which aguably don't apply if gay people get married.

  Personally I never thought gay marriage would happen at all ten years ago. It seemed like a contradiction in terms to my brain then. I've seen veteran gay activists interviewed say even they never dreamed it would happen. Funny how things change!

  JWs can change too. In fact the Pew suvey suggests they are already changing because 50% more JWs accepted gay people in 2014 than 7 years earlier. At that rate it won't take long!
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  146

  Maybe I'm Just Ignorant About the New "Anti-Gay" Video

  by turtleturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  homophobia (m-w.com):.

  : irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.

  can someone tell me, specifically, was homophobic about the new "anti-gay" wt video.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  They routinely call the Old Testament out of date over things like the sabbath. You were a JW weren't you?

  Plus they readily ignore a great many texts in the New Testament. There are a dozen or more New Testament texts that talk about hell fire, torment, forever and ever and so on. They explain away every single one.

  Of course they can reinterpret the text to suit themselves. They are masters at it. The question is not can it be done. It can be done. The question is when the pressure for them to change will become sufficient for them to do it.
  
• 
  146

  Maybe I'm Just Ignorant About the New "Anti-Gay" Video

  by turtleturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  homophobia (m-w.com):.

  : irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.

  can someone tell me, specifically, was homophobic about the new "anti-gay" wt video.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  It depends what you mean by "should do". There are lots of things I think they should do, like stop shunning, report crimes, allow transfusions, promote education, promote civic involvement. But at the end of it they wouldn't be JWs any more I suppose. And no bad thing some might say.

  But perhaps by "should do" you mean "what realistically can they do while maintaining their organisation?" At the moment probably not a lot, realistically. It would cause major problems if they suddenly accepted gay marriage right now.

  They can shut up about it however. No one forced them to make a video on this topic.

  Plus we can't assume the pressures will always be the same. If societal trends continue, time may come when 90% of the public support gay marriage, and increasing numbers of JWs support gay marriage too. What then? It may reach a point where it's more painful to stick to bigotry than it is to change. At that point, or knowing JWs a few years after that point has already been reached, then they will change policy.

  The rationale for,doing so has been tried and tested by other religious groups. Simply endorse the idea of stable relationships of all sorts, categorise married gay couples as conforming to a conventional stable framework, and bless away. Say the Old Testament is out of date, Paul didn't refer to gay sex inside marriage, and hey presto. You got yourself a formula for gay JW couples.
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  146

  Maybe I'm Just Ignorant About the New "Anti-Gay" Video

  by turtleturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  homophobia (m-w.com):.

  : irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.

  can someone tell me, specifically, was homophobic about the new "anti-gay" wt video.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  Put it this way. Imagine the video said black people can't get into paradise. Imagine it then said "people can change". It doesn't matter how polite you make that message or if you avoid direct insults. The message itself is simply out of order.

  Like it or not, the next generation of young people think bigotry based on sexuality is just as unacceptable as racism. It doesn't matter if it's tradition (so was racism) or commonplace (so was racism) or supported by reference to the Bible (so was racism) or a matter of religious freedom (so was racism).

  Ultimately none of those excuses cut any ice because we are all human beings and for 95% of humans to say to the other 5% that they must have no prospect of any intimate life or else they will be branded sinners for destruction is just simply unacceptable. It is hate speech. End of story.
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  18

  Mexico ends use of House-to-House Record & Please Follow Up

  by wifibandit in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in a letter to all congregations dated april 27, 2016 the central american branch (mexico) has ended the use of s-8-s and s-43-s.

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  slimboyfat

  We were given similar instructions to stop using S-8 forms in the UK around about 1997. They cited UK data protection law.
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  40

  New Article - Watchtower View of Homosexuality

  by jwfacts in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have thought about writing this article for many years, and the awake!

  2014 no.4 was the final straw.

  there it states that jehovah's witnesses show no prejudice towards homosexuals, and "they neither mock nor mistreat people whose practices differ from their own.

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  slimboyfat

  Well done, some of those quotes are really shocking. Especially the Awake! From 1995. I had never seen that before.

  Is that Brokeback Mountain they're watching at the cinema? 
• 
  160

  Beliefs About What Caused the Universe

  by Perry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the universe can be observed to be expanding.. an expanding universe must have had a beginning.

  whatever begins to exist had a cause.

  therefore the universe had a cause.

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  slimboyfat

  Why is there something rather than nothing?

  The Question that won't go away.

  There's something deeply mysterious at the heart of existence.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein [...] wrote, in typically cryptic fashion, "Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is.

  http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/science-will-never-explain-why-theres-something-rather-than-nothing/