eyeslice

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Posts by eyeslice

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  48

  No more public WT & Awake?

  by mikeflood in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  have you guys noticed, this year 2023 no more public edition magazines...i wonder how they are gonna spin that fact.

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  eyeslice

  Wasn't it claimed that the Watchtower was the most widely circulated magazine in the world at one time? Greater than the Readers Digest?

  In fairness, in the last 25 years, print has fallen out of favour as the internet has taken over.
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  17

  JWs and the constitution of the United States

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  jws will not salute the flag.

  however they will support the us constitution which gives congress the right to establish the military and to declare and to make war.

  isn’t that tant amount to supporting the country going to war?.

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  eyeslice

  Does anyone know if this was just a written pledge? I see that someone, a notary, witnessed some of these.

  So did that involve having to verbally take the pledge in front of an official and even in front of the US flag perhaps?
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  15

  This week's Watchtower Study - don't complain if ...

  by eyeslice in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  don't complain if you get kicked out of bethel after 23 years (it's really a blessing to be assigned back to the field) and don't complain if they sell your kingdom hall even if you have just invested your time and energy renovating it.. so encouraging?.

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  eyeslice

  Don't complain if you get kicked out of Bethel after 23 years (it's really a blessing to be assigned back to the field) and don't complain if they sell your kingdom hall even if you have just invested your time and energy renovating it.

  So encouraging?
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  20

  How do JWs know that millions who were martyred as Christians before the 20th century did not have the heavenly hope?

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as i understand it, jehovah’s witnesses believe less than 145,000 faithful christians existed prior to the twentieth century.

  the other sheep christians did not start forming until after 1914. that means jehovah’s witnesses view millions martyred for their faith in christ prior to the 20th century as merely professed christians.. the question is…how do witnesses know that those millions who perished for their faith in christ were not christians at all?.

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  eyeslice

  Seems strange that two white American men who have spent most of their adult lives in the cosy confines of Bethel can get the heavenly call followed by being made GB members when a frail female slave girl, tortured and brutally put to death, isn't counted worthy of heaven.

  From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blandina)

  She was bound to a stake and wild beasts were set on her. According to legend, they did not, however, touch her. After enduring this for a number of days, in an effort to persuade her to recant, she was led into the arena to see the sufferings of her companions. Finally, as the last of the martyrs, she was scourged, placed on a red-hot grate, enclosed in a net and thrown before a wild steer who tossed her into the air with his horns. In the end, she was killed with a dagger
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  34

  Elders are no longer teachers

  by eyeslice in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  back in the day when i was a young witness lad, you very much got the impression that at least the training as theocratic teachers was good.. even the bible reading back then had a short introduction and conclusion.

  you had to research and prepare your own ministry school talks and then perhaps you would graduate to a half of a 55 minute public talk.

  then later if you were a book study conductor, you got to decide which scriptures to read and highlight.

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  eyeslice

  So true - not much fun or initiative nowadays.
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  34

  Elders are no longer teachers

  by eyeslice in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  back in the day when i was a young witness lad, you very much got the impression that at least the training as theocratic teachers was good.. even the bible reading back then had a short introduction and conclusion.

  you had to research and prepare your own ministry school talks and then perhaps you would graduate to a half of a 55 minute public talk.

  then later if you were a book study conductor, you got to decide which scriptures to read and highlight.

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  eyeslice

  Back in the day when I was a young witness lad, you very much got the impression that at least the training as theocratic teachers was good.

  Even the bible reading back then had a short introduction and conclusion. You had to research and prepare your own ministry school talks and then perhaps you would graduate to a half of a 55 minute public talk. Then later if you were a book study conductor, you got to decide which scriptures to read and highlight. Even assembly parts only had an outline.

  Fast forward to today. Why bother training elders as teachers as in reality they don't do any teaching. All the parts are more or less fully scripted with 'read' scriptures and pre-set questions. The bible reading is just that - get up and read no comments or conclusion about the passage. The school presentations are simply a case of watch a video and parrot off something similar.

  Then the living as Christians is simply watch GB video followed by a few pre-set questions.

  I reckon I could do any Congregation Watchtower study with zero preparation. Just stand up, get the paragraph read, ask the questions, read the 'read' scriptures. Then after everyone would say 'what a great job you did today bro'.

  So what's the role of elders today? Well a lot are sincere people person's but in the end they are simple organizational enforcers.
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  17

  JWs and the constitution of the United States

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  jws will not salute the flag.

  however they will support the us constitution which gives congress the right to establish the military and to declare and to make war.

  isn’t that tant amount to supporting the country going to war?.

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  eyeslice

  Anyone know what year the swearing oath of allegiance to get a passport stopped?

  Some of the current GB are getting on maybe they had passports back in the day.

  Did any of this happen at the time of the Malawi/Mexico debacle?
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  7

  What would Jesus be doing?

  by eyeslice in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  would he be working on the massive audio/visual complex being built at ramapo?.

  i overheard my wife listening to some update broadcast this morning and immediately thought would a true humanitarian such as jesus, mahatma gandhi or albert schweitzer be at all interested in such things?

  these were 'people' persons not interesting in the stupid trappings of life.. if the gb were to sanction the building of hospitals, orphanages, refugee centers and the like, maybe we would have a little more respect for them but this ramapo project seems like a sense waste of time, energy and money.

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  eyeslice

  Would he be working on the massive audio/visual complex being built at Ramapo?

  I overheard my wife listening to some update broadcast this morning and immediately thought would a true humanitarian such as Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi or Albert Schweitzer be at all interested in such things? These were 'people' persons not interesting in the stupid trappings of life.

  If the GB were to sanction the building of hospitals, orphanages, refugee centers and the like, maybe we would have a little more respect for them but this Ramapo project seems like a sense waste of time, energy and money.
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  41

  Pioneer Hours Update

  by Bartolomeo in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  regular pioneers: 600 per year, 50 on average per month.auxiliary pioneers: 30 hours per monthauxiliary pioneers in march and april: fee reduced to 15 hours.

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  eyeslice

  When my was pioneering in the 70s, the requirement was still 1,200 per year. It was pretty tough back then.

  However, no one has picked up on one huge change since then, and that is the change in magazine distribution. Back then, there were two issues of both the Watchtower and Awake each month and the way many pioneers got their time in was with so-called magazine routes. Have 50 people who would take the magazines twice each month and you had massive magazine placements and a return visit for each call. We used to leave the hall with huge piles of magazines under our arms.

  Pioneers would start their time with a 'route call' at one end of the territory, then walk 45 minutes to the next and then back to the other end. If the householder was out, the magazines weren't pushed through the door but another call would be made a few days later. Lots of inefficiencies but that's the way it was.
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  6

  I do not understand why you should be considered bad parents if you do not have your children submitted to you

  by psyco in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  after creating the first human couple, god had 100% of not submitted human creatures (0 out of 2).at the time of the flood, he had 99,9% of not submitted human creatures (8 out of thousands if not even more).. nowadays, he has 99,9% of not submitted human creatures (8 millions jws out of 8 billions humans).. but he is considered a "good" god or father of his human creatures: why then is having submitted children a requirement for christians or for being considered "good" parents as jws?.

  i mean: if he does not have more than 0,1% of submitted humans, how could i do better?

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  eyeslice

  pysco - good point and one I have used.

  I was pressured to step down as an elder over my kids who in reality had never done anything wrong. Nothing like murder or immorality and the like. I gave them a bit of a free reign to go off travelling in Asia and the like. My son was dating an unbaptised publisher at the time and that was seen as unacceptable. So in the end I was viewed as not having children at home in subjection.

  Of course I could have kicked them out on the street and let them degenerate into druggies and alcoholics with mental problems and that would have been fine with our elders. As it happens all my kids left the Watchtower and are doing great.