konceptual99

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Posts by konceptual99

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  24

  Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

  by shepherdless in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  time for some more stats, for your interest and comments.... it has been well documented in the past that, as a group, incomes for jws are lower than virtually any other religion, in australia.

  rather than repeat that exercise here, i set out some detail about the gap between jws and ordinary australians.. 1. jws typically earn much less.

  here is a bar chart of income brackets, comparing jw incomes against other australians.

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  konceptual99

  what if there are only low paying jobs/or very few high paying jobs in an area. wouldn't that be a cause of an income level for that area?

  Depends on the area. In most metropolitan/urban areas you can have low and high cost housing within small geographic areas with common access to both higher and lower paying jobs.

  On top of that low paying jobs are always present within higher wealth housing areas through service industry jobs like cleaning, maintenance, shop work etc.

  People don't tend to live directly where they work.
  
  
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  51

  I was impressed by part of today's symposium entitled ' Safeguard your children from what is evil'

  by UnshackleTheChains in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  well i have to give credit where credit is due.

  it was the part of today's symposium - build a house that will endure.

  the part i was most impressed with was 'safeguard your children from "what is evil".

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  konceptual99

  I sometimes wonder if some people might be happier if the WTS never changed so they could continue to hate them for being evil ...
  We should applaud any improvement and any movement toward doing things better. Whatever is more likely to protect than risk children is good, yes - even if it's the WTS that is doing it.

  I agree with the principle of what you say and no one can say the talk at the convention or even minor progress with their child protection policies are bad things.

  What is crying shame however is how slow they are to make meaningful change. It does not take much lateral thinking to come up with a strategy that pulls the rug from under the vast majority of criticisms, leaves in place the need to follow their interpretation of biblical requires over two witnesses for congregation action, infuses an air of transparency and openness whilst still minimising the risk of opening up the legal flood gates.

  Don't say they are a organisation slow to change. This is the organisation that pulled the rug on millions, if not billions of $ worth of construction overnight. This is the organisation that changed it's brand and it's communication methods in a matter of months.

  The BBC radio interview, posted elsewhere, with the head of the Charity Commission was telling. Whilst they are getting improved cooperation from the WTS in the UK they made the point that they have never had to face the amount of obstructive litigation from an organisation until they engaged the WTBTS of Britain and the trustees of the New Moston congregation. The organisation only stopped when they no longer had recourse to the courts and when it was going to hurt them more and more when taken in context with the ARC and other negative publicity worldwide.

  Regardless, they cannot seem to get out of this mentality of everything actually being OK. Any change for the positive is good but it remains simply incomprehensible as to why the organisation is incapable of a far more proactive approach to progressing the child protection policies.

  The question of their real willingness to take on board advice and make appropriate change has to be raised.
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  51

  I was impressed by part of today's symposium entitled ' Safeguard your children from what is evil'

  by UnshackleTheChains in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  well i have to give credit where credit is due.

  it was the part of today's symposium - build a house that will endure.

  the part i was most impressed with was 'safeguard your children from "what is evil".

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  konceptual99

  Whilst it was a good reminder to parents it was clearly a cynical attempt to put a smoke screen up and enable claims to the authorities that the WTS does not shy away from advising parents on the matter.

  What they failed to do was mention anything about congregation procedure or what responsibility and proactive action to support or initiate the reporting of allegations to the authorities the elders will take.

  They failed to detail what the child protection policies are in the congregation.

  They failed to explain the limitations in congregational situations that parents should take notice of.

  They had a perfect opportunity to explain where things had gone wrong before, apologise and detail what has changed to prevent future problems.

  But they didn't.

  Parents must be the ones to protect their kids. They cannot do it in an environment where they feel they must defer to WTS rules and hierarchy. The WTS must also recognise it cannot avoid it's place in protecting children whose parents are complicit in abuse.

  The talk was ultimately fluff and avoided any mention of the part the organisation has to play.

  Shame on them.
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  35

  Question for those who went to the RC

  by joe134cd in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i'm just curious with all the happy clapping that is now going on with the singing at the conventions.

  what has been the reaction to it with the r&f.

  has anyone ever commented that it reminded them of a pentecostal revival meeting.

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  konceptual99

  I do note that the latest WT has an article on singing which is pretty much the same content as every other time that they have trotted it out.

  https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/watchtower-study-november-2017/singing-essential-part-of-true-worship/

  It makes no mention of clapping but does mention that the use of screens enables the song to be sung out.

  For the time being at least clapping in time to the songs does not seem to be something that the GB wish to encourage at congregational level.

  Perhaps some of us who still have to attend should try it and see if it catches on...
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  38

  Dunkirk.

  by zeb in

  1. social
  2. current

  i have just seen the film "dunkirk".

  do yourselves a big favour and go see it.

  (not for kids).

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  konceptual99

  Just seen it. Brilliant film which brought tears to my eyes. It might not be as close to the real events as possible but it tells the story in a really evocative manner.

  The only thing which bugged me was the internal shots in the rail carriage. Those open plan carriages simply were not around in the 40s AFAIK. Even into the late 80s compartmentalised carriages were the norm.
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  31

  What in the flying F....????

  by ILoveTTATT2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  https://www.facebook.com/tupuebloesmipueblojehova/videos/578539175868967/?hc_ref=arrvbqq6myd5outlusr6zufmvffwsvr_duxl_fdriuhhniiuesiylhi43gybtziknxwthis video gave me cancer..

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  konceptual99

  We need an Onion headline in the manner of...

  
  

  and...

  
  
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  16

  Happy birthday Watchtower!

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  just before the month ends i would like to congratulate the watchtower magazine for completing its run of 138 years of publication.

  the first copy was printed july 1st 1879. well done watchtower!.

  as a reminder, let people remember that in its time this magazine has one of the world’s largest print runs for a periodical.

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  konceptual99

  Interesting that I recall a certain fanfare being associated with anniversaries of the WT publication. I don't see any fanfare for this 138th anniversary let alone build up to the 140th. It's almost as if they don't want people to think about the length of time associated with the heralding of the Kingdom.

  I think they only made a meal of 2014 just to try and pour water on apostates laughing at them.
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  28

  JW Parents and kicking out their children

  by NJ501 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  is it a common practice for jw parents to kick their children out of the home, if the child doesn't want to be a jw.

  (even though their not disfellowshipped they will still get kicked out for not going to meetings etc.??).

  do other religions encourage kicking family members out this as well?

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  konceptual99

  Depends on the parents and the behaviour of the kid.

  In my experience it's not common for a child to be kicked out unless the relationship has really broken down to a large degree. Where I have seen it I have to say that the child has often been behaving really badly but I am sure this is not always the case since much depends on the attitude of the parents.

  Sure, religious differences and having a DFed child does cause conflict and family disruption but I think it would be stretching things to suggest that children are summarily thrown out of the family home for relatively trivial things or simply for saying they don't wish to attend meetings any more. It can and does happen but is not the norm in my experience - usually the opposite. It's not until a child is DFed that their living arrangements are called into question.
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  13

  DNA analysis establishes modern-day Lebanese to be ancient Canaanites

  by jwleaks in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  wcontinuity and admixture in the last five millennia of levantine history from ancient canaanite and present-day lebanese genome sequences.

  the american journal of human genetics .

  july 27, 2017. summary.

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  konceptual99

  Can't wait for this to be in whatever the current version of "Watching the World" is.
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  9

  The craziness of Christianity

  by Normalfulla in

  1. social
  2. current

  so i was reading thru a fb feed about poor chester bennington and in relation chris cornell, there were some rather heated and unusual (or usual whatever you may think ) comments... no disrespect to believers but since leaving the jws i just see this type of discussion as lunacy.

  ... "chester is going to hell ,he killed himself so it's black and white in god's word ."..

  "why would a loving god send a person who suffers from mental illness to hell?

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  konceptual99

  Second point. Even if medical science is wrong and she was actually dead, how does she know the guy opposite her husband was Jesus? It could've been Muhammad, Thor, Baphomet or some other undiscovered deity.

  Because her mind would have shown Jesus looking exactly like how she has been conditioned to think Jesus looks. A Muslim would see Muhammed, a Buddhist would see a typical image of Buddha and so on.

  The mind is an incredible echo chamber of confirmation bias.