Posts by neverendingjourney

89

Trump Voters, Is This What You Voted For?

by Village Idiot in

all that talk about hillary clinton's unsecured e-mails?

read the following:.

"deagazio posted additional photos from the weekend, including one of his dining companions kissing trump on the cheek, a selfie with white house strategist steve bannon and another selfie identifying a man named rick who he says is responsible for carrying the nuclear “football,” which allows the president to authorize a nuclear attack while away from the white house.. "“this is rick,” wrote deagazio.

neverendingjourney

Trump's core supporters represent a small but vocal faction in this country who have absolutely zero interest in living in a country with Democratic (with a big "D") leadership. Call it Obama's America for short. They'd rather see the country burn than see an emerging multi-ethnic, socially liberal, international American society. We're talking about 25-30% of the voting public.

There has also been an effort over on the Right over the past 30 years to delegitimize any governmental body or institution controlled by Democrats. For example, we've seen screeds against "liberal, activist judges," the Clinton impeachment, lock-step opposition to anything Obama proposed, that has culminated in the rise of a right-wing entertainment-media complex that has supplanted traditional news among that crowd.

For those core Trump supporters, it was never about Hillary's emails or local control of government versus control at a national level. It's about the changing face of the nation. They would rather see the country burn than see themselves lose the culture wars.

The reasons for Trump's victory are much more complex than that. These core Trump supporters alone could not get Trump elected, but the Right in America has been responsible for the delegitimization of our political institutions over the past few decades that has resulted in traditional Republicans completely losing control of their party. Has it been worth it? A lot of my Republican friends are torn on this issue, but these are people who didn't vote for Trump or who voted for him despite serious reservations.

When you go scorched-earth, you get to rule over exactly that: a country whose political institutions have been scorched to the ground.

35

"would you drink a glass of water if it had just a tiny bit of poison in it?"

by stuckinarut2 in

no doubt we have all heard that well used "illustration" in public talks etc over the years:.

"if you were handed a glass of water that looked pure, but were told it has just a tiny drop of poison in it, would you drink it?".

the society has used that illustration at length to say we should avoid all influences of every part of the world.. but, as we know, the society has had a track record of errors, false ideas and doctrines.

neverendingjourney

On a side note, always be skeptical of wise old sayings and analogies. They often ring true but can be contradictory and can be used to fit whatever point the speaker is trying to make.

For instance:

Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

35

"would you drink a glass of water if it had just a tiny bit of poison in it?"

by stuckinarut2 in

no doubt we have all heard that well used "illustration" in public talks etc over the years:.

"if you were handed a glass of water that looked pure, but were told it has just a tiny drop of poison in it, would you drink it?".

the society has used that illustration at length to say we should avoid all influences of every part of the world.. but, as we know, the society has had a track record of errors, false ideas and doctrines.

neverendingjourney

If a rival denomination has flaws it's like a drop of poison in a glass of water you wouldn't want to drink.

If the witnesses have flaws it's like a minor imperfection in a diamond that you need a special tool to see.

It's utter shite.

33

Apparently, William Tyndale was an early J-Dub?

by My Name is of No Consequence in

my wife and son were watching the january broadcast and one of the segments was about william tyndale.

william tyndale was a bible translator in the early 16th century.

i always knew that the org held men like tyndale, john hus and john wycliffe in high regard.

neverendingjourney

No, since 2013, the Faithful Slave was appointed in 1919 and is essentially the Governing Body, not the "anointed remnant". The anointed and the "other sheep" are now together the "domestics".
Matthew 24:45 has now been disconnected with the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds

Got it. I know the FDS is now only the GB and the anointed have been relegated to a place of unimportance.

But do they have a new position on whether or not there have always been anointed throughout time?

I know in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, but they used to point to the limited number of anointed as evidence of the nearness of Armageddon. If 1,500 years passed without there being any anointed, the present number of anointed could grow much larger and still sort of make sense within the confines for their crumbling theology.

33

Apparently, William Tyndale was an early J-Dub?

by My Name is of No Consequence in

my wife and son were watching the january broadcast and one of the segments was about william tyndale.

william tyndale was a bible translator in the early 16th century.

i always knew that the org held men like tyndale, john hus and john wycliffe in high regard.

neverendingjourney

Back in the olden days, when they use to teach that there was "always" a "faithful & discreet slave", even in the dark ages, Renaissance, etc.

Is that not the official teaching anymore? What about the parable of the wheat and the weeds Matthew 13 (or whatever it's called in English)?

41

Witnesses really hate it when you appear to leave.

by schnell in

i have a certain customer, whom we will call sally.

i know sally only by face and only through work.

i am a truck driver on a local dedicated route, and i often deliver to her work.

neverendingjourney

If people can leave at will, live normal lives, and suffer little fallout (or aren't affected by JW-manufactured fallout), the whole house of cards will rapidly come crumbling down. Deep down inside the Witnesses know it and are infuriated by success stories such as yours.

Fear keeps JWs at meetings. Fear keeps JWs going out to service. Without that fear, you'd only be left with a smaller group of people who use the religion to satisfy their own ego and power cravings only with a greatly reduced flock whom they can exploit.

17

Has 1919 been abandoned? Is the sky falling?

by FatFreek 2005 in

i copied the following two items from jw dot orgs site entitled “dates of prophetic significance” at site below:.

http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200271564.

once held to be year when ‘true lord and messenger of the covenant’ came to spiritual temple (mal 3:1): w10 3/15 23; w07 4/1 22; w07 12/15 27-28; jd 179-182; re 31-32, 55-56; w92 12/1 13; w89 4/15 7; w89 7/1 30; w87 6/15 14-15. .

neverendingjourney

In 1995 they completely changed the significance of "this generation" and hardly anyone at the KH noticed or cared.

No, the sky isn't falling.

10

Forever Young

by AllTimeJeff in

jw
friends

hey everyone.

so this is what 10 years out feels like.

employed, paying bills, and watching the slow demise of planet earth.

neverendingjourney

I'm five years younger than you, but I can relate to the experience of your youth. I was raised "in" by inactive parents who nevertheless expected that I follow all the rules even if they couldn't explain basic doctrine to me. I wanted nothing more than to become an adult so I could move out of my oppressive household.

Then a weird thing happened. My oldest brother who'd shouldered more of a psychological load than he could bear from my mother who used him as a shoulder to cry on started becoming really active. Before I knew it he got baptized in high school and then fell under the wing of an overzealous elder in his 20s. This guy pushed my brother hard and he became a regular pioneer after graduation and a few months later he was shipping off to Bethel.

It all happened so fast that I couldn't really process everything. But our no-name household all of a sudden became a buzz of activity as people from all over the circuit flocked to shake the hand of this anomaly, this kid who'd been raised by inactive parents who somehow rose to the rank of Bethelite. He became something of a rock star and looking back on things, I think on a deep, emotional level I kind of wanted to get in on the action even though I would have never consciously admitted it to myself.

I was always a curious kid and had learned enough of science to understand at a basic level that Genesis was nonsense. One day when I was 15 I picked up the old blue Creation book and within a few days I was a changed person. All of a sudden I wanted nothing more than to "serve Jehovah." The book had convinced me that (a) there had to be a God, (b) science didn't contradict the Bible and (c) the JWs had it as close to right as any other religion.

I graduated a year early to become a regular pioneer and was on the same path as my brother. I was young, naive, and completely full of myself. At 16 I had figured out all of life's great mysteries. Isaac Newton had spent a lifetime trying to understand the mysteries of the bible and here I was having it all figured out in my teens!

Thankfully I fell for a beautiful JW girl when I was 18, fondled her boobs, went to the back room, and started on a road to decline that eventually would lead me to wake up in my early 20s. I haven't been to meetings since 2005.

The JWs were manipulative, but I wanted to be manipulated. I was a fat, brainly, unpopular kid in his freshman year in high school and by the time I was 17 I was something of a star in my own little world (kind of like my brother was).

I don't know that there's any remedy for that. It seems to me it's an ingrained weakness in mankind and there will always be people who devise ways of exploiting it.

The internet helps. I didn't have it either when my "conversion" happened. Now kids are used to searching all over the web and discussing any and all subjects on reddit. It'll be increasingly harder to manipulate youth, but I don't see it coming to an end either.

32

Beardless Jesus. Why?

by UnshackleTheChains in

beardless jesus in watchtower publications between 1930s and 1960s.

a simple detail 'deliberately' left out.

the question is why?.

neverendingjourney

I read a while back that it had to do with the huge cultural changes that went into effect when Rutherford took over in the 1910s.

There was a cult of personalty around Russell and his followers tended to dress and groom in his style (beards). Rutherford was clean shaven and his sycophants in turn groomed themselves accordingly in order to show their solidarity with Rutherford (and not with the many Russell followers who were defecting in droves).

In other words, wearing a beard became associated with loyalty to the prior regime, which was being lambasted in the publications as "the evil slave."

Eventually the hippie movement got underway and the antagonism against beards was further solidified in JW culture. There was a tremendous amount of growth in the 1950s and 60s to where the cultural norms of that era calcified with little change with the passage of time. Hence, the desire to see sisters wearing flowery dresses and having men with cheap suits "sell" literature door-to-door like vacuum cleaner salesmen of the era.

35

How long did people like Methuselah really live?

by dubstepped in

i was working today and my brain was working in circles like it often does and i started wondering about what i was always told about people like methuselah in bible times, and their incredibly claims of longevity.

i've tried researching things but have a hard time getting through all of the bible thumpers to some real evidence, and figured that some here may be more informed or have done the research previously.

so, did people really live longer way back when?

neverendingjourney

Less than half as long as Gandalf, who roamed Middle Earth for 2,019 years.