omigod, you CAN'T be serious.
this is funny. and it IS cool. have a canadian sense of humour.
mox
i guess this idiot will be ex-cuclist.. canadian cyclists become jehovahs witnesses.
blood tests against our religion, praise the lord.
it's cool to say i'm a jehovah's witness - and we can't get caught in doping!.
omigod, you CAN'T be serious.
this is funny. and it IS cool. have a canadian sense of humour.
mox
i have been thinking about a situation that happened some years ago prior to my becoming a jdub.
i had met a man in a hospital in san diego who was an invalid, he had no family there, and if it wasn't for a couple of local sisters, he wouldn't have had anyone to visit or talk with him.
he was to remain in the hospital until his death some months later.
yeah, stuff like this happens. ive certainly seen lots of counter-examples tho too. people in old age homes who are the envy of their room-mates because of all the friends they have visiting, thanks to the elders keeping informed on these individuals. in fact, generally speaking, one elder on the body is supposed to be assigned to Special Needs, and he keeps track of all these situation in the territory. that makes sense to me and i dont see it as negating the individual responsibility to 'look after windows' to have a structure in place.
one interesting story:
an elderly sister with no family in the truth was housed in one of these homes for a long time. in the city, people come and go a lot and so after a while, not many people in the congregation even now who she is. people like this can fall thru the cracks, for sure. well, anyways the family has a minister of some other church come by for encouragement and the elderly sister, in her state, doesnt really know the difference. ("Oh Welcome brother. How nice of you to visit...") This continues for a while, the elders only later became aware. Turns out when the sister started towards the end, she asked for the funeral to be conducted by this 'nice young brother that comes to visit' and so it was. elders could hardly object, they hadnt been there nearly as often.
mox
let's discuss solutions for a second regarding the pedophile issues.. how do you feel the society should handle things?.
should the society be entitled to 'ecclesiatic privilege' as are other religions?.
should such a loophole be allowed when it involves protecting children?.
ok, so some old naive elder who doesnt even know what child abuse is talking to some sister's young daughter, maybe has her sit on his lap (ok, he shouldnt do this but he doesnt know any better, say) or just touches her or something, totally innocently. this kid knows all about abuse from her over-protective mom and 'reports' him.
so now who's ok with a scenario where this guy gets removed as an elder, reported to the police and the details of the problem are circulated and embelished (as all JW rumours are) thru-out his entire circle of friends and family? think it thru from this guy's perspective.
im tired of quick and easy and absolute answers to this. sure, the WT's approach leaves a great deal to be desired, and changes appear to be coming. the fact is this is a very difficult situation to deal with everywhere. show me a legal or religious system thats come up with something satisfactory to everyone involved.
mox
"this good news will be preached for a witness to all the inhabited nations and then the end will come" nobody else is preaching any good news as far as i can see?
what do you think?
there are certainly other fundamentalsit groups that would claim, nearly to a man, to be actively preaching, im sure.
what i want to see are results. take a random sample of the earth's population. ask them if they have heard of jehovah's witnesses. what kind of numbers would you get? hard to say. ill guess 30-40%. how close does that sound? but NOW, ask them what JWs preach and believe. how many mention the kingdom, the THEME of the preaching work and the basis on which they will be judged. whats the number now. under 10%? probably well under i think. any comments?
mox
this little item from the 08 sept 2001 awake!
caught my eye, making me think that as the "generation" ages and the tower becomes more and more mainstream, the need for armageddon to come soon "to bring to ruin those ruining the earth" may not be so urgent:.
'overpopulation' a myth?.
hmm, my first thought is that this is info that could be used to update the terribly out-of-date resurrection speculative calculations from the Aid book. the 3%/per annum of 20 billion, acre per person one (something like that)
of course, we all know from the paradise pictures that each house will be seperated from any other house by something like 100 miles in all directions...
mox
suppose a big organization gets into trouble with.
corrupt, stupid leadership and needs to make big changes.. one way to fix the mess is to round up a bunch of.
scapegoats in the leadership, imprison them (executing.
'Gang of Four' being a reference to the four politburo members that vied for rule after the passing of Mao Tse-Tung, including his wife, Madame Mao. (i just finished reading Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min. Its frightening to think that people as manipulative as her could exist.)
But, to the point, this seems like a likely scenario on some level, tho it seems like it would just serve as a forestallment rather than a precursor to major reform.
mox
hello folks,.
there is much work taking place behind the scenes, away from this board, that relate to a number of issues that are presently of acute concern to the wts.
some of these concerns are obvious, and are presently being dissected ad nauseum on this board this morning.
welcome back hillary, id been wondering how things were going with you. hope you're getting along ok.
mox
why oh why are you going to the elders for advice instead of to the police?
i was raised in the truth, but if my child was molested by a 'jw' there isn't a mountain high enough to prevent me from filing charges and prosecuting.. why please tell me, are you contacting the 'congregation elders' for advice?.
you are abusing (albeit unknowingly) your child for the second time.
congrats jedi lisa
mox
disinformation, noun.. 1. deliberately misleading information announced publicly or leaked by an organization, government or especially by an intelligence agency in order to influence public opinion or the government in another nation: he would be the unconscious channel for a piece of disinformation aimed at another country's intelligence service (ken follett).. 2. dissemination of such misleading information.. attributive.. often used to modify another noun: disinformation operations; disinformation experts.. [possibly translation of russian dezinformatsiya.].
maybe we need a reminder from time to time that the fds manual includes a proviso to "be wise as serpents" in their war strategy.
maximus
isnt that 'cautious as serpents?'
mox
how many remember the accounts of the tract campaigns in nazi germany?
remember the distribution of the society's tracts to thousands of householders which thoroughly irritated hitler and made it appear that the general public was participating with bible students in distributing literature?.
i ask this because i am struggling with a decision.
sounds fraudulent - is this legal?
mox