james_woods

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Posts by james_woods

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  6

  Do you have a JW FS over zealous experience?

  by White Waves in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i remember feeling like a must appear rude and crazy to show up at people's doors on christmas morning or new year's day.

  things like these always made me wonder about the sanity of my parents, for one, and the organization.

  why don't jws every get a day off?

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  james_woods

  I deeply relate to those "go witnessing on worldly holidays" horrors. It was almost as if the org was deliberately making us do things to humiliate ourselves and outrage the people in our neighborhoods. I also just quit doing it (even while still an elder and before any serious attempts to leave it all...). With me it was a common courtesy issue -- I always made it a point to be extraordinarily polite in the FS to make a good impression on the people.

  I remember reading an article on Mormonism and their missionary boys in Time or Newsweek years ago that turned on some light about this. It said that it was well known to the Mormon hierarchy that probably only a hundredth of a percent of those missionary boys ever made a convert. They kept doing it as a reminder to the public of their righteousness and as an important "rite of passage" for the missionary boys themselves.

  I now think the WT org is just as cynical - they love to put the R&F into untenable situations to mind condition them to obey unquestionably. Also they love to irritate outsiders and make themselves look as weird as possible. A little "persecution" always comes on true christians - even if they brought it on themselves. Weird is good. Shame and embarrasment for the R&F in door to door is good.

  So, JW pubs - lets go hit em on Thanksgiving afternoon about 12:30 or so and tell them how the pilgrims were all demonized gluttons, then ask for some money for the mags.

  SICK!!!!
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  30

  Is it true? Are adultery or death the only scriptural escapes?

  by Cabin in the woods in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  we have so many wise and well read people here on jwd so i thought that i would just toss this out and see if i could get some new enlightenment on this.

  are there any other references that i have not seen in the scriptures ( and i have looked pretty hard for this) that would allow divorce that are considered 'acceptable' ?

  am i just spinning my wheels in that foolishness still?

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  james_woods

  Well, here is a viewpoint inspired by Blondie and her reference to Judaic Divorce...etc.

  We had a JC case where the wife has an office affair with her boss. She admits it to husband in moment of guilt and he drives to town and cleans the boss''s clock. (you have to understand that this was Okla. City during the Urban Cowboy thing - ) Wife gets a DF for the affair, husband gets a reproof for the fist fight. BTW - that boss was a jerk and needed his ass kicked. However, it was well known around town that husband had been fooling around with an exwife he had before he got baptised as a witness. He was just smart enough to not admit it.

  Now, they both want a divorce - and IMHO needed one and should have had one.

  Committee says no; they had had sex after the affair was known. After that found out that they couldn't get along. (DUHH--) Unless she REDID the affair, all bets were off. So, the sordid little mess went on for many miserable years, numerous JC sessions, and an unwanted kid or two. Final result was numerous (>5 each) affairs, reconciliations, DFs, etc, and only after about 10 more years of agony do they both end up the way they wanted - her married to a nice man who is good to her kids, and him single to play around like he was probably doing in the first place.

  Now, my point is: Did the JC really have a biblical basis to deny them divorce on the question of (sex == forgiveness). I cannot see how they are at all the same thing. I think that the family court in OKC would have made a far better decision: Divorce because of irreconciliable differences, settlement of assets, and get on with life. Yeah, mistakes were made by the couple, but the biggest was by our committee. I am ashamed to say that I got outvoted and eventually forced into the decision to DF her in the first place, but such was the mindwarp at the time.

  Second point: Did the new testament really set aside the husband can divorce law that Blondie pointed up? OR, was this just advice to husbands not to do this willy-nilly? Room for interpretation here perhaps...even Catholic law can get around this when they want to bad enough.

  James
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  30

  Is it true? Are adultery or death the only scriptural escapes?

  by Cabin in the woods in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  we have so many wise and well read people here on jwd so i thought that i would just toss this out and see if i could get some new enlightenment on this.

  are there any other references that i have not seen in the scriptures ( and i have looked pretty hard for this) that would allow divorce that are considered 'acceptable' ?

  am i just spinning my wheels in that foolishness still?

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  james_woods

  Thanks, Blondie on the Miriam thing- see how you can get behind on this stuff when you don't attend meetings and belong to car clubs and apostate websites?

  But let me try again! Wasn't there something about one of David's wives laughing at him because he danced a sort of holy funky chicken and she got sent away over it?

  Seriously, I am starting to sense that there are some deep personal issues going underneath this thread and we should at least try to give some sensible answers on the right vs wrong issues of this divorce thing rather than the WT legalistic ones.

  Respectfully, James
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  30

  Is it true? Are adultery or death the only scriptural escapes?

  by Cabin in the woods in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  we have so many wise and well read people here on jwd so i thought that i would just toss this out and see if i could get some new enlightenment on this.

  are there any other references that i have not seen in the scriptures ( and i have looked pretty hard for this) that would allow divorce that are considered 'acceptable' ?

  am i just spinning my wheels in that foolishness still?

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  james_woods

  Pardon me if I am wrong but didn't Moses ditch his first wife Miriam because she did some kind of false worship thing?

  Also - just hypothetical: If a childless JW couple both mutually wanted a divorce, would it be possible to claim they had never consumated the deed and just back out of the non-marriage like a Catholic annulment?

  Then there was also the issue of non-watchtower legal practices...this has changed over the years.
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  26

  Are people on earth "pawns"in Jehovah and Satan's chess game?

  by booker-t in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  one of my best friends in the world pam who is a non-judgmental born-again christians told me that she thinks that we are only "pawns" in a chess game played by jehovah and satan.

  at first i thought pam was joking with me but she told me she was serious as a heart attack.

  she then started to explain her position.

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  james_woods

  Ok - I screwed up; meant of course that I was agreeing with Lowden on the bible verse Rooster posted. Specifically, that I could not see how that verse really answers the question of this thread. Sort of more like it says shut up and take it the way it got dealt out...

  Another weird thing just occurred to me though - wasn't this the central theme of the SCIFI movie where Mel Gibson was the preacher who lost his faith when his wife died and got it back when the aliens attacked and his little brother knocked the holy crap out of one of them with a baseball bat? Never could figure out this one either; if those aliens were so allergic to water, then how did they eat people when the human body is 90+% water? And why did they need crop circles to guide them to their victims when they had spaceships for crying out loud?

  Oh, well, maybe we were not meant to know everything -

  James
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  26

  Are people on earth "pawns"in Jehovah and Satan's chess game?

  by booker-t in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  one of my best friends in the world pam who is a non-judgmental born-again christians told me that she thinks that we are only "pawns" in a chess game played by jehovah and satan.

  at first i thought pam was joking with me but she told me she was serious as a heart attack.

  she then started to explain her position.

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  james_woods

  Agree with rooster on questioning the motive for such thoughts -

  And, when you think about it - if we take the passion of the Christ with such literal seriousness, then Jesus himself got a pretty raw deal from these two as well...

  And for something equally whacked - how about this:

  I once had a pretty strange thinking born again person try to convince me that Jesus and Satan were really the same being and that Jesus had to die to prove he was sorry about the thing in the garden. Yes, it was during field service and I was probably spouting some stuff to him that must have sounded equally freaked. Wonder if he really meant it?

  James
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  4

  History Channel & Bible Cannon

  by james_woods in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  did others see the history channel programming this weekend on the history of early day christianity?.

  among other topics, they discussed the argument between arius and athanasius which decided the divinity of christ.

  also discussed was the existence of many early christian writings which were eventually excluded from the accepted bible cannon.. so this got me to thinking - the wt society takes the position that the church came down on the wrong side of the arius/athanasius fued.

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  james_woods

  We spell the correct list "cannon" here in Texas because of its cannonicity.
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  65

  Better off Poor in UK than Rich in US!

  by Seeker4 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  national public radio this morning had a story about a study of middle-aged (55-64 yo) whites in the uk compred to the us.

  they were shocked at the results.

  the study was done to try to find out the effects of poverty on health , which is why they just studied whites, to eliminate the effects of race.

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  james_woods

  For what it may be worth -

  I always thought that Graham Kerr pretty much screwed up his cooking show career when he became born again, quit drinking wine, and tried to start counting up grams of fat.

  You didn't ever see James Beard or Julia Child doing such nonsense. Of course, they are both gone past - and maybe the galumphing gourmet is still with us?

  Beef - it's what's for dinner.
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  3

  Man gets a beating!

  by joe_black in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.cnn.com/2006/law/05/02/dominatrix.ap/index.html

  man who stole to pay dominatrix gets real punishment.

  new york (reuters) -- an executive at a heart disease charitable foundation who embezzled close to a quarter of a million dollars over two years to pay a dominatrix to beat him was sentenced tuesday to two to six years in prison..........................i would of beat the living sh*t out of him for half that amount.

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  james_woods

  Thank you, mistress - may I have one more?

  Kenneth Lay?????
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  65

  Better off Poor in UK than Rich in US!

  by Seeker4 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  national public radio this morning had a story about a study of middle-aged (55-64 yo) whites in the uk compred to the us.

  they were shocked at the results.

  the study was done to try to find out the effects of poverty on health , which is why they just studied whites, to eliminate the effects of race.

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  james_woods

  National Public Radio was shocked at its own study which puts US down and somebody else up?

  OK - so maybe most of us are overpaid, lazy, selfish and overweight.

  Guess that's why all our liposuction doctors, litigation lawyers, and cosmetic dentists are scooting around on their Harleys.

  Middle aged crazies - all of them.