locally, in northern california i have seen/heard a drop in jw and mainstream church attendance especially in person attendance.
(exception: a new creepy local new-age charismatic/pentecostal group: "bethel church" 11,000 and growing mega church(kundalini yoga/sex combined with prosperity gospel, trumpism, guns, rock music, dancing, glitter, speaking in tongues, and faith healing).. for me this paragraph sums it up regarding jehovah's witnesses: " ...smith described organized religion to me as having become a “polluted” idea in the american mainstream, because of the publicity around sex abuse scandals and financial malfeasance in many different faiths in the ’80s and ’90s as millennials came of age.
“the scandals violated most of the virtues believed to make religion good,” smith wrote.
Sea Breeze,
That has got more to do with fertility rates than anything else
The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050 | Pew Research Center
Islam is by far the fastest growing religion in the world, simply because Muslims out-breed everybody else by a long shot! (Assisted, too, by the fact than in at least 13 of the world's countries, it is a capital crime to be an atheist).
locally, in northern california i have seen/heard a drop in jw and mainstream church attendance especially in person attendance.
(exception: a new creepy local new-age charismatic/pentecostal group: "bethel church" 11,000 and growing mega church(kundalini yoga/sex combined with prosperity gospel, trumpism, guns, rock music, dancing, glitter, speaking in tongues, and faith healing).. for me this paragraph sums it up regarding jehovah's witnesses: " ...smith described organized religion to me as having become a “polluted” idea in the american mainstream, because of the publicity around sex abuse scandals and financial malfeasance in many different faiths in the ’80s and ’90s as millennials came of age.
“the scandals violated most of the virtues believed to make religion good,” smith wrote.
"Bethel church" 11,000 and growing mega church(Kundalini yoga/sex combined with prosperity gospel, Trumpism, guns, rock music, dancing, glitter, speaking in tongues, and faith healing).
Crikey!
Upon reflection, I think I will stay on as a paid-up member of the Reverend Harley Davidson's Church of the Righteous Hog!
the wts encouraged us to have one, i alway found it funny when people would desplay it where everyone could see it to show how busy they are in the lords work.. karter..
the one skill I benefitted by from JW "training" was public speaking in front of a crowd.
I know there are many around who disparage the "Theocratic Ministry School", but it did work for well enough for me. As a young person, I was plagued by a terrible shyness, but the Ministry School helped me overcome that. (It did, though, prove to be a bloody expensive course in public speaking!)
https://youtu.be/ro6q_osgkns?si=hyxualluhruwvjnb.
—colossians 1:15 from the nwt says it plain as day: “he is the image of the invisible god, the firstborn of all creation.” that’s not vague; it’s got a punch.
“firstborn” and “creation” sit side by side, and in greek, that second word is “ktisis,” which means the physical stuff—trees, stars, you name it.
sloppyjoe2,
Precisely!
This is a stoush which has been raging for over 1500 years, and unlikely to be ended anytime soon.
new german chancellor merz has won the election.
trump congratulated his victory but the response was not what trump expected.
merz condemned america, saying that america seemed to be aligning with russia.. he also expressed doubts about nato’s future.. he is now advocating that germany must gain independence from usa.
There is one thing for sure: when Trump speaks of putting America first, he is doing so honestly and unapologetically.
Then it sounds like he has been studying the foreign policy methods of former French President, Charles De Gaulle. Whenever he was engaged in diplomacy, De Gaulle's approach was brutally simple, and able to be summed up in a single phrase:
"I'm all-right Jack, £µ€₭ you!"
(A stance the Royal Navy used to refer to as "belonging to the Jack Club").
the wts encouraged us to have one, i alway found it funny when people would desplay it where everyone could see it to show how busy they are in the lords work.. karter..
After my wife of the time nagged and nagged and nagged and nagged about having a "skedule", I finally relented and gave it a try. Very quickly, though, I gave up in pure disgust!
Interestingly, one of the body of elders who had much to say about the matter of schedules / timetables privately admitted that the only one which worked for him was "strike while the iron is hot".
That was the modus operandi which I had already adopted, so he was telling me nothing at all.
yb71 p. 97 country reports (part one) - "in malta there is a monk reputed to have the powers of a seer, in the confessional being able to know a person’s sins before they are even confessed.
a woman in one of the villages was having family trouble, and made a journey to this confessor in the hope of getting some hidden information by the monk’s psychic powers.
after being told of the problem, the monk said: “don’t worry about it, my dear, the end of all things is very near!” another woman in the same village, somewhat opposed to the truth, told this to her husband, who is having a bible study.
Then there is the old one about the Ouija Board. Story has it that a ouija board was asked what was going to happen in 1975, and in response the bloody thing exploded.
@Blondie
Of course, the “Ah buts” will protest that the demons are “in Tartarus”, a place of spiritual un-enlighenment, and so are incapable of putting two and two together. However, as one of the much maligned “Clergy of Christendom” once pointed out, the angels were there at the time of Eve’s creation - and if it were a simple matter of adding 6000 years to a certain date, then they should have been able to figure it out!
i know as a jw i concluded several times that i was not brainwashed as i was not some unautonimous zombie and had not experienced anything akin to.... .
but in reality, brainwashing is a control of thought and ideas over a person and changing the way they think.
in normal life such sentences are not used, in fact they are highly discouraged... .
As summed up by a reviewer of Joel Dimsdale's recent work Dark Persuasion: A History of Brainwashing from Pavlov to the Social Media
"The term has always had more political explanatory power than actual psychological basis".
"Brainwashing" is most usually used like it was some sort of swear-word, rather than being an accurate description of anything. All too often the accusation of "brainwashing" forms just another type of ad hominem attack - and frequently used to bully the other person during discussions about (typically) religious or political matters.
That was certainly the case in the household in which I grew up, anyway!
(And as was noted in another recent thread on this discussion board, ad hominem attacks only begin when the other side "has nowhere left to hide").
i know as a jw i concluded several times that i was not brainwashed as i was not some unautonimous zombie and had not experienced anything akin to.... .
but in reality, brainwashing is a control of thought and ideas over a person and changing the way they think.
in normal life such sentences are not used, in fact they are highly discouraged... .
Rather a loosely used term - a bit like "fascist".
The term "brainwashing" first appeared during the Korean War (1950-53), with reference to the way in which Allied prisoners of war were treated. That brutal treatment included extreme physical torture, as well as more subtle "mind control" techniques - which included (but was not limited to) indoctrination. 70 years later, the jury is still out on exactly how effective this was in permanently turning a person's political (let alone religious) persuasions. Using that description of "brain washing", then no, Jehovah's Witnesses are not subjected to it.Of course, the expression "brain washing" is often more loosely applied the general process of indoctrination - which let's face it, we are all exposed to through the advertising industry. (Furthermore, the $733 billion which the world spends per year on advertising indicates how effective this must be). To that extent, then yes, JWs - along with most of the world's population - are brainwashed.
hope everyone near to the region affected in california is ok. it's shocking to hear of the destruction.
these affected areas are some of the places i visited when i came on a tour of the us.
malibu, santa barbera, la, santa monica, hollywood and so on..
If there is a loving God who intends to bring to ruin those ruining the earth then it’s about time he did something about these deplorable conditions that each of us has to deal with daily.
Yeah, well we were asking that very question 50+ years ago - with a resolution no closer now than it was then!
