who thought in the early months of 2012 that such a rebranding would take place in only a matter of 24 months?.
they managed to go from an antique looking and boring website (watchtower.org) with hardly any attractive content to go to a fresh looking new website with stuff for everyone, families, children, teenagers.. movies, and short videos about almost everything and new ones added every month.
cartoons, animation video's , interviews, picture activities all kind of projects, many audio files like dramatic bible readings, dramas and music, online research tools, new brochures for kids (off and online) etc.
Whatever happened to showing people scriptures right from the Bible? Isn't using a kindle or notebook the same as showing someone something you photocopied?
Brother, you have missed an important detail. It's not "a Kindle or notebook". It's a tablet.
i've heard about his bombastic, overly patronising, cartoon-ish delivery before, but i'd never actually seen it...until now.
and i should add, this religion bears little to no relation to the one i left 6 years ago.. .
.
I thought to myself, "You've been out a quarter of a century. You can tolerate a few minutes of babble for entertainment's sake." I lasted about 3 seconds before getting goosebumps and nausea. I guess I will never learn to tolerate exposure to people who brainwashed, abused and tried to kill me. Blech, I need to purge that thought out of my head now.
I don't know why, but his pants really bother me. Not a good fit.
I'm sorry but that just cracked me up. I know that's not the main issue here but it looks like a little boy wearing his dad's suit for Halloween and it is so distracting.
I hope they have the least credible, respectable programming to turn off as many people as possible.
removing the obstacles to their coming forward and seeking help, is not only the right thing to do, but it would also advance efforts to protect children from harm
BS. What obstacles? Treatment programs exist and people participate in them all the time.
Society should continue to have the strongest disdain for this behavior and continue to pressure people with these urges to work to eliminate those urges.
Is it sick? Absolutely.
Hermetically sealed, huh. I'm having a hard time thinking of one example of something that was not leaked before the official announcement, including the tv thing. I was on a thread where it had been leaked 2 days before today when it went live as a "surprise".
Just like with the new bible
j-dubs had a wild rumor about a new bible going around months before it was released. I heard about it from relatives in 2 states in different regions of the country.
so it's been about 10 years since i have faded out and have stopped believing in the jw teachings.
since then, i have accepted jesus and have experienced an amazing tranformation in my life and have been freed from the jw prison mentally and spiritually.
a more detailed thread about my journey is here if you are interested.. anyways, my jw family lives in another state so they are unaware that i am no longer "in the truth" since i have not told them.
Saying you are no longer active and you don't care to discuss it is fine, then change the subject each time they bring it up. Nope, not interested in discussing this. Hey, did you catch the game? Still no. How's Aunt Joan's arthritis? Yeah, still no--told ya, I don't wanna talk about this. Did you hear about that accident on Route 10? Seriously, I couldn't imagine discussing this with you, and I mean it--please respect my request.
Why do you feel compelled to tell them you're an apostate, unless you want them to shun you?
omg...I hope they're not going to have a Caleb vs. Sparlock cartoon. Please no cartoons. Think of the children.
They've made billions from "being different". That was always their thang--being different. Now they're retiring to a country estate off those riches. I wonder if they saw a decline and decided to "be mainstream" and make a few trillion on that for the rest of this century.
Right now, the landing page on that URL says "JW.org Broadasting
Coming Monday, October 6th" HYPOCRISY ARRIVES TOMORROW! YAY!
Thx hildebrando for posting that anti-televangelism article. I was remembering all that rhetoric in the 80s. They said they were sooo superior to televangelists back then.
CaptainSchmideo: "If Christendom does something a particular way, then God's people should do it 180 degrees different." I wonder what his reaction will be to this development.
Right. What happened to their fringed garments to show they're separate from false religions?
GHC: I'm fascinated at how the JW logo is white on the wall yet it's blue in the reflection on the floor.
FWIW I'm glad you pointed that out. I wouldn't have noticed it. It gave me a moment's amusement while I wondered if the mirror reflection of demonic things was distorted. ;)
when my son became baptized as a witness at age nine, it worried me that he could now get a no blood card.
i wanted to make sure if blood transfusions were really as disgusting to "jehovah" as i was taught.
i already found out some things about my beliefs that were not true, so it wasn't hard for me to be questionable about this.. i first looked in the reasoning book under blood as to why we don't accept transfusions.
Addicts in recovery often take required medications for surgical procedures, for example, and it does not mean they are not in recovery anymore.
As I posted earlier, see the link to jwfacts.com.
They expected the rapture on 10/1/1914.
Brother Macmillan admitted: “We were highly excited and I would not have been surprised if at that moment we had just started up, that becoming the signal to begin ascending heavenward”Yearbook 1975 pp.72,73
Back then, they taught the Gentile Times had ended in 1874 and The End would come on 10/1/1914. It was not until after that prophecy failed that the wts revised the teaching to be 1914 as the date Jesus began to rule invisibly (end of Gentile kings' rule, or Gentile Times).
"Our Lord, the appointed King, is now present since October 1874, A.D., according to the testimony of the prophets, to those who have ears to hear it: and the formal inauguration of his kingly office dates from Apr 1878, A.D." Studies in Scriptures Series IV (1897) p.621
Is it just me, or does this image sometimes load and sometimes not? I embedded it in this thread and in the other one. Sometimes I can see them, sometimes not. Again:
1914, being the end of the gentile times was to be the very end of human rule on earth, to be replaced by heavenly rule as it had been since 1874 with Jesus on the throne.
So, not an Armageddon countdown card, but still significant.
That's not my recollection of what I read while researching this back in the day. What I recall is they believed the Gentile Times ending signified Armageddon coming. They revised that to mean Jesus came to rule invisibly, once the date passed without them ascending to heaven.
Also, that is not what the card seems to be saying.
Caption on jw.org: "The 'Be Thou Faithful Unto Death' countdown card was used by some in their resolve to remain faithful to the end"
Actual text of card:
BE THOU FAITHFUL UNTIL DEATH
"A little while; now He has come; the hour draws on apace--The blessed hour, the glorious morn, when we shall see His Face."
{calendar counting down the days from October 1, 1913 to September 30, 1914. Each day is numbered in descending order from 365 to 1.}
"As they days, so they strength be"--Deut 33-25
"HE THAT ENDURETH TO THE END SHALL BE SAVED"
