Posts by Bungi Bill

23

Does the borg really produce great readers? How much did you actually read when in?

by likeabird in

jw
friends

i've been reading a lot and learning even more (project deadlines to meet), getting this overwhelming satisfaction and feeling good.. and then i stopped and realised that i never got that feeling when reading borg publications.. i also realized that i have probably read more non-fiction books in the last month than i did during my whole life in the borg.. for all my reading (and i was fully in) i read no more than two wt books cover to cover.

none of my study books were studied cover to cover and wts were usually quickly underlined and rarely properly studied.

magazines were usually flicked through and resolutions to read them cover to cover rarely lasted more than a few weeks.. i did manage to read the bible through once - but that was because i was always afraid someone door to door would ask me if i had, so i figured i should just crack on with it.

Bungi Bill

I have always been an avid reader, and this is what played a large part in getting me into trouble:

- i.e. when my newly converted JW grandmother started supplying us with WTS literature, I read everything I could get my hands on. That is what then led me into the JW religion.

For 28 years, I read everything that the WTS printed. During the majority of that time, Fred Franz was the writer of their hard-bound books. Whatever has been said about the reading skills required to understand the current WTS books, this wasn't the case back then (when Mad Freddy used to come up with seldom-used words of the English language such as "revivify"). While the content of his books was straight out of Cloud Cuckoo Land, you would have struggled to read these with only Grade 5 reading skills.

I also once read the bible from cover to cover - and a lot of good that did me, too! I only did that for exactly the same reasons as already been stated by Likeabird.

So, in answer to your question about whethe ror not the borg makes us into good readers, with me it was the opposite:

- it was my already being an avid reader that brought me into the borg. (Unfortunately though, I had yet to learn critical reading skills).

Bill.

14

Double standing on higher education

by KSFernando in

jw discourage higher education through conventions magazine etc.

in kindom ministry 2011 july they considered higher education as date, and use alcohol or drugs.

however if you look at the front page of the brochure "jehovah's witnesseswho are they?

Bungi Bill

Julia Orwell

- Good one!

Yes, when it comes to the matter of higher education, JWs have freedom all-right:

- the freedom to do as they are told!

(Which, in the broader sense, is the JW attitude to Christain Freedom as well).

I would have gone to university at the end of Grade 12, only the elders had some pull over my father, and stopped it

i.e. while some would like to argue that "it was my father's choice", had that elder not interfered in the process, I know what my father's choice would have been!

Bill.

PS: Incidentally, I have never known the WTS to give bibles away, as some here have claimed.

9

Article on Religious fundamentalism may be a mental illnes

by sherry11 in

the table turned.

found this article in regard to religious fundamentalism may be a mental illness which can be cured.. "someone who has for example become radicalised to a cult ideology we might stop seeing that as a personal choice that they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance.".

http://refreshingnews99.blogspot.in/2013/05/leading-neuroscientist-religious.html.

Bungi Bill

Having had rather extensive dealings with the mentally ill, this comes as no surprize at all.

Bill.

1

Climate Change: A Very Hopeful Development

by metatron in

jw
friends

http://singularityhub.com/2013/05/02/allan-savory-to-reverse-desertification-solve-global-warming-feed-worlds-poor/.

there is a very interesting ted talk about overcoming desertification.

while there has been criticism of the idea, it nevertheless offers hope for changing the earth for the better.

Bungi Bill

Allan Savory may well have a point.

That national parks project he was involved with is not the only example of a land management practice, introduced to advance "conservation", but which instead only made matters worse.

(For example, the capital city of Australia, Canberra, suffered disastrous fires in 2009. These, ironically, resulted from the rigorous suppression of the naturally occurring bushfires in the surrounding forest areas. Left to themselves, these fires kept the undergrowth down to a safe level, in which fires could and would occur - but never reached a very destructive level. Conversely, if vegetation growth is left unchecked, the inevitable "fire of all fires" - when it finally occurs - is not only just merely destructive. Rather, if there is a word somewhere for a state much worse than disastrous, that would accurately describe the results!)

However, the writer of that article was quite correct in the cautionary remarks of his conclusion:

"Silver bullet solutions are rare. Silver bullet sales are commonplace."

Ain't that a fact!

Bill.

31

Who/what is more responsible for you becoming a JW?

by minimus in

jw
friends

is it family, friends, idealism???

what????.

.

Bungi Bill

Mostly family, with a touch of curiosity to boot:

- all added together with early adolescent rebellion against a parent, who was trying to make me go to church!

At a rather impressionable age, I was introduced to the JW religion by a grandmother who had converted a year or two earlier.

Bill.

45

Disgusted with JW Funeral Today!

by time2keepmoving in

my son grew up with one of the young brothers in the kingdom and after graduation both him and my son left the kh.

the young man who left the hall fell into the wrong crowd and i mean a really dangerous crowd and as a result of him getting involved in illegal activity he was murdered.

i really feel for this young man, because he was a decent kid.

Bungi Bill

The hypocrites!

I have heard JWs roundly ciriticize "worldly" funerals for just the same things as you describe.

You are also right on the mark about them not caring about their youths, and in no way trying to make it attractive to young people. Statistically, two out of every three of those raised "In The Truth" give it away.

That in itself ought to rate as a miracleL

- i.e. that they can even hang on to as many as one third of those born into their #$#%^ religion!

Bill.

33

Why Does The Watchtower Dis-fellowshiping For Smoking and Not Gluttony and Alcoholism?

by ÁrbolesdeArabia in

health care studies are showing obese body weight index is worse than smoking "death sticks", so how is the tower going to address their growing problem of overweight elders and elderettes?

if a organization is able to disfellowship a member for smoking, why not do the same with other vices and crutches their people use to hide stress, emotional disorders and depression?

employers are asking for a bmi test a their potential employees to create a diet to get healthy.

Bungi Bill

rjastrow,

Some very good points. Once you try to legislate (read "Compile your own Talmud"), where do you stop? How do you stop - and who has the authority to start making rules over other people, anyway? Certainly not a committee of eight self-appointed #$%*s in New York.

(I seem to remember Murphy's Law No.7 having something to say about this, to the effect that "Each new solution brings its own set of problems.")

By the way, welcome!

Bill.

31

THE REAL REASON WHY THE WATCHTOWER NEVER WRITES ABOUT ISLAM OR MUSLIMS IS FEAR!

by ÁrbolesdeArabia in

for a religion that claims to be "fearless and bold" the watchtower has avoided writing about islam and muslim practices and how they are part of babylon the great.

the attacks on christendom are not a bold move because the "tower" and "gb" know the christian church is not going to send a suicide bomber into a kingdom or district convention.

it's not fair to christendom to receive all the hate speech from the "leaning tower of brooklyn", why don't they write the truth about islam?

Bungi Bill

It is a sad fact that all religions have produced more than their share of fanatics, continue to do so - and, regrettably, will forever do so.

Even the so-called "Christian" churches are not exactly squeaky clean in this matter, with such events as the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, forced conversions and the infliction of the Dark Ages on Europe by the effective banning of education, research and scholarship.

Conversely, Islam has not always been about the fire and sword / forced conversions / suppression of knowledge etc. that it has recently got a name for. Under Moorish rule in Spain, scholars were not only tolerated, they were warmly welcomed. During those years, the three centres of learning in the whole world were Baghdad, Constantinople, and Cordoba - two out of these three cities being under Moslem rule. This was at a time when the Roman Catholic Church suppressed learning (like another religion we are all here familiar with!)

Also, when the Ottoman Empire was at its peak under the Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent (i.e. during the 16th Century), he had himself instructed in Christianity, so as to better understand those of his subjects who were Christians. Under Turkish rule, the Greek Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe was permitted to continue as before - something the Roman Catholic Church would not permit in any of the lands in Western Europe.
What I have just said will stick in the craw of some who post here, but it does need saying, anyway!

It is not just Islam that needs villifying for its production of fanatics, all religion - without exception - is just as guilty.

Bill.

16

How Has the WT's False Predictions Damaged You Personally?

by Perry in

how has the wt's false predictions damaged you personally?.

i was 12 in 1975. i never believed i'd "make it".

after i made it, i never really trusted adults again.

Bungi Bill

In those years leading up to 1975, those of us who had even entered into an apprenticeship were pressured to give it up and go "pioneering." I secumbed to that pressure (actually, in my case it was more like a direct order!).

It took many years afterwards to catch up, entering into an adult apprenticeship when I (by that stage) had a young family to support. The real victims were my three children. So much for Making your Family Life Happy (TM).

Bill.

33

Why Does The Watchtower Dis-fellowshiping For Smoking and Not Gluttony and Alcoholism?

by ÁrbolesdeArabia in

health care studies are showing obese body weight index is worse than smoking "death sticks", so how is the tower going to address their growing problem of overweight elders and elderettes?

if a organization is able to disfellowship a member for smoking, why not do the same with other vices and crutches their people use to hide stress, emotional disorders and depression?

employers are asking for a bmi test a their potential employees to create a diet to get healthy.

Bungi Bill

Tobacco became a disfellowshipping offence only in the early 1970s. Prior to that, more than a few JWs used to smoke a cigarette or two on the sly! Likewise,too, with the chewing of betel nut in certain S.E. Asian countries, and in Papua New Guinea.

The rationale for this (if you could call it that!) was the use of both these and similar substances in spiritism:

- American Indians used to light up a pipe of tobacco to send a signal to the "spirit world" that they wished to enter into communication.

- In other regions of the world, the chewing of betel nut was carried out to serve a similar function.

Interesting now that the JWs have quantified what they consider to be "drunkeness":

- i.e. The consumption of more than 4 to 5 standard drinks in a one hour period, together with the wearing of ones "Wobbly Boots."

During my time with the JWs, capacious drinking of alcohol (principally apple wine) was commonplace. By "capacious", I mean demolishing a whole 2.25 litre flagon of the stuff in one night. All the culprit had to do afterwards was claim that they "had not been drunk." Then, as long as the said booze-artist was not completely legless, or they were not doing it "too often", no action was ever taken against them. This culture of heavy drinking was so heavily steeped in to the congregations that one of the most capacious of all the capacious drinkers was also a very prominent elder.

I do not in any way claim to be squeaky-clean here. Intorduced to drinking by the brother who "brought me into the lie into the truth", I was a very good student!

Bill.