BBC don't allow reader comments on most articles. Otherwise many Scots would have a lot to say on their abysmal political commentary.
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
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34
BBC News "The ex-Jehovah's Witnesses shunned by their families"
by snare&racket inbbc news website has this linked on front page.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40704990.
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34
BBC News "The ex-Jehovah's Witnesses shunned by their families"
by snare&racket inbbc news website has this linked on front page.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40704990.
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slimboyfat
I can see how it happened. This person probably had doubts, started expressing them to family and friends, and it was bubbling away for a while. Then he missed the memorial, it brought things to a head and the elders confronted him. So it was probably part of a complicated story.
The BBC presentation of the situation that he was DFed "after he missed a memorial service" is pretty abysmal whatever way you look at it. Members of the public are going to think it was a funeral service and JWs are going to think it's a load of rubbish.
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BBC News "The ex-Jehovah's Witnesses shunned by their families"
by snare&racket inbbc news website has this linked on front page.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40704990.
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slimboyfat
Mmm... the article says one was DFed for going to the police about a violent partner and the other was DFed after missing the Memorial.
If I'm skeptical of those claims I don't know what active JWs will make of them.
JW shunning is bad enough, no exaggeration is required.
It's not necessarily the fault of the former JWs. Don't underestimate the ability of the BBC to misstate basic facts and mess up a story.
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The old "Book Study Group"
by The Fall Guy inin the june 2004 kingdom ministry, the self-appointed "faithful slave" published this spiritual exhortation as a q&a item - "the congregation book study—why we need it.
three years later, in 2007 - in the august kingdom ministry - the same "slave" issued this reminder - "how the congregation book study arrangement helps us.
but surprise, surprise - within a few short months the "slave" decided that jehovah had had a change of heart, and now decided that the book study in homes - with all of its alleged benefits - was superfluous: .
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slimboyfat
Yeah there was even a book that was published, apparently before the decision was made, but was studied after the announcement. One of the questions was something like,"why is the book study group vital?" Awkward.
It shows the decision, for whatever reason it was taken, was pretty rushed.
Yet years later Splane claimed it was the result of years of deliberation.
Well maybe it was, in the sense that the idea had been floated for a long time. But there's no doubt the final decision was rushed, and they couldn't get their story straight.
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A WTF Moment While In the WTS
by Searching inhas anyone else had a moment, while still within the organization (and before learning ttatt) that caused them to stop and go, "this is kind of messed up.".
for instance, back i believe in the early 2000's, i was attending a dc with my family.
it was announced at the beginning of the convention that there was going to be a special announcement at the end, so for everyone to please try to remain until the very end of the meeting.
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slimboyfat
In the 1990s a pioneer couple came back from Kenya and said the JWs over there still paid the cover price for the literature while it was being offered free of charge in the UK. How come? They charged poorer countries for a few years longer than western countries. I never heard a good excuse for that.
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Is there any humor in the bible?
by Normalfulla inhumor plays a big part in a lot of humanity and we all like a good laugh but as far as i'm aware god's supposed word has no actual humor ,of course apart from being a joke itself ,why wasn't there a passage or something like "jesus farted and giggles broke out among them " or something, is anyone aware of any notations of humor ?
all to.serious really.
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slimboyfat
When the prophets lf Ba'al couldn't convince their God to consume an offering, Elijah suggested:
Perhaps he is deep in thought or he has gone to relieve himself.
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Gaslighting
by mann377 inever heard of it?
i have but never realized the full meaning.
this is the tactic the wtbs uses to control people.
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slimboyfat
The point is that, having changed their mind about being passive, for whatever reason, the WT didn't say "we've changed our mind, brothers" for this or that reason. Instead they acted as if it was the Witnesses who had got it wrong, when actually they were following WT instructions.
That's gaslighting.
"Did you think I said buy milk? Oh that's a shame, actually I told you to get bread."
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Had twin babies with a married JW?!?!?!?!?!?! advice & thoughts
by Gokumonkey inbefore i begin i just wanna say, im not proud of what i did, it was wrong but it happened now im just trying to do the right thing.. ok so im a "worldly" person and i meet a jw women at my job.
i had no idea she was married due to the fact that she hid her wedding ring.
i even ask if she was in a relationship and she denied it.
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slimboyfat
She sounds like a piece of work, and treats everyone pretty bad. Shame your life is inextricably linked to hers now.
She probably went back because of the shunning.
Insist your children don't get baptised until they're adults. If JW children delay baptism until adulthood they invariably put it off altogether. That's why the GB are desperate to get children baptised as young as possible.
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Aust Census: JW's and Divorce Rates
by shepherdless inthis post is actually in answer to a question i got from jwfacts.
i think the issue was also raised on a recent thread.. first, some data from the 2011 and 2016 censuses:.
(a) 1,751,733 (7.5% of population) reported being in a de-facto couple on census night, but .
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slimboyfat
Shepherdless your presentation of the figures is very good and you obviously know what you are doing. My comments are intended to be supportive.
I wonder if you've come across a book called Sects and Stats by James R. Lewis. He's a religious studies scholar who uses census data to study small sects in anglophone countries. So very similar territory, except he doesn't discuss JWs. But his work may be helpful in terms of methodology.
https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/sects-stats/
When I read this book I was initially excited about applying his methods to JWs - until he said that the data are very expensive to access.
Also I suppose you know of the work of Ryan Cragun and Ronald Lawson on JWs, Mormons and Adventists.
Cragun is good with stats on Mormons in particular, and responsive to emails.
Plus there is that essay by David Voas on JWs, I will send to you if/when I find that book again!
In fact David Voas is a very interesting sociologist it may be worth you following up, because he supports the secularisation thesis in a particular form that is supportive of some comments you've made on the subject.
Years ago I had a conversation with scociologist Steve Bruce about religious decline and JWs in particular. He said that his latest work (this was around 2006) was in collaboration with David Voas and they were working with evidence that the mechanism of religious decline is largely the failure to transmit religious affiliation from one generation to the next. In other words, people who are accustomed to attending church/KH tend to keep on doing so. Religious decline is not usually a result of people leaving church en masse. Rather what happens is that, at a certain juncture, the children of the devout are not fully socialised in the church, so they don't continue affiliation as adults. Decline therefore results as the devout age and die, and their children don't replace them in the pews/KHs.
This may seem obvious actually, but it's the subject of much debate among sociologists. In fact even the very fact of religious decline is (amazingly) in dispute among some prominent sociologists.
Another excellent book on religous decline is Religion and Demographic Revolution: Women and Secularization in Canada, Ireland, UK and USA since the 1960s by historian Callum Brown.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Religion-Demographic-Revolution-Secularisation-Religious/dp/1843837927/
He argues for a cultural and gendered explanation of religious decline.
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6
McEnroe Puts Serena at About 700 on Men's Tour
by cofty injohn mcenroe was challenged by npr reporter lulu garcia-navarro to amend his comments about serena williams in his new book in which he rates her as the best women's player of all time.
lulu suggested he should not call her the best "women's" player but simply the best player of all time.
mcenroe was taken aback and explained that the men's and women's tours were very different and that serena would be around 700th on in the men's game.
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slimboyfat
Strange times we live in when people are not allowed to say things that are obviously true.
Whereas it's become routine to accept the president of the United States will say things that are demonstrably untrue.