james_woods

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Posts by james_woods

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  10

  My First Memorial Experience (From someone who has never been a JW)

  by whyizit in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i told you i would post, so if you are interested, here it is:.

  we were walking toward the building laughing and happy, and i noticed that we were the only ones in good spirits.

  everyone else was dressed to the nines and somber.

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  james_woods

  Thank you for that excellent observation. I have always suspected that an unbiased outsider would find "memorial" more like a wake than the religious holiday that it should have been.

  James
• 
  14

  Dr Gene Scott on a Rampage - YouTube Video

  by VM44 in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  found this over at youtube, dr gene scott on a rampage because someone wrote in about his asking for money.. .

  mad doctor.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0ouk28ckfy.

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• 

  james_woods

  Remember when he would tell everybody to "get on the phones and pledge"?

  Then, if the phones were not ringing, he would just dump that straw hat in his chair and they would play music with just a picture of his hat on the air.

  No use wasting good preaching time on slackers that won't pay the freight for those show horses...and cuban cigars...
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  47

  What's the most exotic vehicle you've ever spotted in a KH parking?

  by JH in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ok, it could be a motorcycle or a truck too.

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  james_woods

  Some may already know me as kind of a car freak, so I will exclude my own long list of untheocratic sports cars and hot rods...

  But to me at least two others which belonged to high ranking JW servants stand out as being extremely weird and cool:

  One was my old friend Marion Dunlap's wallpaper hanging van way back in the early 60's. It was a 1958 Chevy panel van - it was just like a 58 chevy 2 door station wagon, but all the windows were paneled in metal except for the driver and passenger doors. It was also completely painted over in hot rod primer gray. This was future hot rod material - and I knew it even as a 12 year old kid.

  My very favorite Circuit Overseer ever was a really great guy named L.D. Bell (leonard duanne, I think,...). He had a 1960 Oldsmobile flat-top 4door that he used to pull their travel trailer from one Congregation to another. This was in about 1968 and the automatic transmission that came in the Olds had long ago been ground to metal dust by pulling that big trailer. A brother in the auto-salvage business in some former circuit had volunteered to fix this car. It was decided that another HydraMatic would just get torn up again, so they put in a Granny four speed from a GMC 1.5 ton farm truck!!! L.D. was joking with me that he had four-on-the-floor in his olds, and I was saying "no way" until he showed me. He also kept egging me on to drive my 67 Corvair Monza into deep mud while out in rural service until we got it stuck. It took both of us about 2 hours to get it out and we got back looking like we had run the Baja 1000. He was the only C.O. who never gave me crap about having a 2 door coupe - even when the Monza got traded for a 911T Targa. He did give me some good natured stuff about Ralph Nader, however!

  James
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  26

  If you went to the Memorial, what was the attendance like?

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  is the hall half full or half empty?.

  seriously though, last night there were about 20% less than the year before, and the year before that there was less.. the hall was rented, but definitely not jam packed like last year.

  i had no problem finding a seat.. what was your attendance like?

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  james_woods

  I had a thought on these Memorial numbers - lets say the "average" KH pulled in 175 attendees...lets also say we can believe their approx 16,000,000 world wide. This would result in 16,000,000 / 175 ceremonies enacted. This makes about 91,428 or so KHs having the memorial.

  Now, if we also believe about 8500 partakers is true: 91,428 - 8500 = 82,928 (approx) memorial congregations which could not have an "annointed" present. There could even be more, if many congregations had multiple "annointed" members (most certainly some Bethel congregations could).

  So, the point being: In the vast majority of congregations, many of the younger witnesses could be in the position of never having known an annointed person or seeing anyone partake of the emblems. This would probably be most common in third world countries where there is not a history running back into the 1920 - 1930 time frame.

  So, is it possible that the "annointed partaker" is already in the realm of myth for most JWs today? Or, is it alternatively possible that there are actually quite a lot more than 8500 who physically partake - with the numbers being doctored to avoid an obvious upswing in the yearbook report? The latter would certainly be the case if even one out of every three or four halls had a partaker or two...

  James
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  96

  Did Jehovah destroy millions with a flood in Noah's day?

  by fish in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  .

  jesus seemed to believe in the story of noah's flood.

  i wonder if god really drowned millions of people like the bible says for simply eating and drinking and not taking any note?

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  james_woods

  I (for one am so glad fish has been watching and thinking about this thread.

  Here is a "what if" -

  What if the flood mythology is just that - a sort of written morality play which makes us think about God's motives and actions. What if it actually makes us wonder if "God of the Old Testament" is portrayed as behaving in a way in which a modern day christian would?

  This is why the whole armaggedon murder scenario is repugnant to many exJWs. I know when I was "in" I felt a creepy sort of horror at the off-hand way they thought that everybody in, say, communist China was going to get burned up because they were not witnesses.

  Yes, I know - they had a bunch of excuses why Jehovah was righteous in killing more people than Hitler and Stalin combined, but just like our friend fish, it still makes you wonder.

  For that reason, I am happy to have the story of the flood to think about. I for one would not even drown my neighbors pit bull terrier for barking all night or crapping in my front yard. Let alone everything on earth.
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  18

  Street Witnessing

  by parlay in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i've noticed in my area (ny metro) that jw's count time doing "street witnessing".. do you see the same in your area?.

  sitting on benches drinking coffee counting time.

  standing on corners laughing and conversating among themselves as people walk right by.. if they do acknowledge a passerby, it's a last minute casual holding out of a magazine or tract.

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  james_woods

  OK - not JW but still gross-out quality:

  There was a few years back a sort of passing fad in Oklahoma City where a little crowd of Baptist Jesus Freaks would get themselves out on a street corner. They would hold a Bible out waving their arms and just scream out loud at any particular passerby at the top of their lungs. It did not matter if the victim was actually listening or not. It was sort of as if they were trying to embarass both themselves, their Baptist elder leader, and anybody who came within earshot.

  I was once accosted at a red light by about three of these creeps. I have a silver Corvette with the TTops off, and a young underdressed lady riding shotgun who obviously belonged in a silver Corvette with the TTops off.

  I just gave Billy Graham Junior the eye - (he had shut down to check out miss Rhonda) - and handed him a cold 12oz regular Coors. Then, I drove off slowly to the rising sound of a small block Chevy.

  See, having done my time doot-to-door, I kind of knew what he must have been going through.
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  27

  Are the 144000 Virgins or not?

  by SickofLies in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  rev 14:3 and they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders.

  these were redeemed by jesus from among men, the first fruits to god and to the lamb.

  these are they who with women were not defiled, for they are virgin; these are they who are following the lamb whithersoever he may go; these were bought from among men -- a first-fruit to god and to the lamb -- (ylt).

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  james_woods

  If you really think about this - you can mess your mind up:

  The 144,000 are all men. But, they are the bride of Christ.

  But, Christ is a lamb (male sheep?)...

  Ok - now it becomes obvious why they did not defile themselves with women?????

  As the farmer told the horse whisperer, "them sheep are all liars"

  By such logic, the WTS convinces us that 144,000 is a literal number. Obviously.
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  96

  Did Jehovah destroy millions with a flood in Noah's day?

  by fish in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  .

  jesus seemed to believe in the story of noah's flood.

  i wonder if god really drowned millions of people like the bible says for simply eating and drinking and not taking any note?

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  james_woods

  The ARK:

  Everybody knows that Harrison Ford found it, but when the Nazis looked at it, they just melted down into radioactive butter.

  Mr. Kim - I have some thoughts to share, but I really have to get back to work now.

  Good work, slacker - if you are really such a lazy slacker, how can you afford a 911?

  O crumbs - you meant that other Ark, and that other 911?

  Later.
• 
  6

  My way of getting back at "The Man"-What do you think?

  by CaptainSchmideo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i read a little while back about taking postage paid envelopes of junk mailers and sending them back filled with other junk mail.... i had an extremely wicked idea-.

  i have a scanner, and a whole stack of envelopes.

  i can make a very good reproduction of the face of their envelope, and print my own.. now, not only do i get to waste their employees time (and employee time=company's money), now i can waste their postage as well!.

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  james_woods

  Captain, I once had a science fiction book which told a story of a planet which was completely overbuilt with a sort of planet-wide "new york city"...no grass, no trees, not even central park.

  The hero was looking for work, and found a job in the refuse disposal department.

  It turned out that there was a vast overload of TV dinner trays and discarded phone books. (Yes, this was a few years back)

  Our hero solved the problem by programming his robot assistants to take the phone book, look up an address at random, and then slap two TV dinner trays around the phone book, duct tape it together, and mail it to the random address.

  He was quickly recognized as a hero of society and the new environmental savior of humanity.

  James

  So, who says Recycling cannot solve our problems?
• 
  96

  Did Jehovah destroy millions with a flood in Noah's day?

  by fish in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  .

  jesus seemed to believe in the story of noah's flood.

  i wonder if god really drowned millions of people like the bible says for simply eating and drinking and not taking any note?

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• 

  james_woods

  Well, fish - I had another look at those stats after you replied and no, I don't have any proof of the numbers. Maybe I am a little off on the "true believer got to have literal flood" class - probably too high.

  However, consider this: I seldom see a really contraversial subject come up without the full range of opinions coming forth. So, there have to be at least a few from each persuasion. Would you permit me to back up a little and ask for some background - i.e. exJW, still in, just curious? What were your issues particularly with the flood?

  I think I see that this was posting 1-3 of 1-3 for you today. Is "flood" really such a hot topic that nothing else comes ahead of it? After all, if the issue is whether to be or not to be in the JW mindset - then there is literally a full spectrum of other churches and philosophies that let you believe it, doubt it, reject it, (the flood I mean) or whatever.

  My point here is - considering all the unusual & really bizarre belief structures that the WT would hold as doctrine - this one is not really that far away from most of the evangelical protestant churches out there.

  I guess that I am quite intrigued that you picked this one to open here with - but it sure is a fun subject for me. I think I am really more interested in the "morality" aspects of this subject than the "science" issues which are coming out on this thread - but post on and let us hear more from yourself on the subject!

  James