Posts by Syme

18

Help, got JW in home....need details on how to answer question

by skeeter1 in

jw
friends

"the world is much worse off today then yesterday .

.

i know the basic answers, but give me some more ammunition.

Syme

If you have time, read Steven Pinker's book, the Better Angles of our Nature, which deals with the decline of violence over the centuries.

Generally, the world is getting BETTTER than yesterday. You can point the following facts:

- The violent deaths (by war and crime) are lot less in the last 50 years than any other time in the past! We're talking about relative deaths, i.e. deaths as to the world population. 20th century wars claimed less lives/world population than the wars of the past centuries.

-Diseases? The 20th century deseases are NOTHING compared to the past centuries. The Spanish flu was nothing compared to the Plague of 14th century. Modern medicine has eradicated/reduced significantly most of the diseases that plagued humanity for thousands of years.

-Greater life expectancy, greater quality of life, decreased child mortality rate, and lots more.

You may use an illustration(jws are illustration junkies): If your JW believes we live in the worst era ever, you may ask him "In which era would you rather live if you had a choice, then?" What can he answer? None. Because we live in the best (or less worse) era of mankind since its dawn. If you lived, let's say, 300 years ago in Europe, this is what your life would have been, in average: You would be part of a family with 10-15 kids, most of them who would die in infancy. If you were so lucky as to survive, you would spend your childhood and your entire adult life working from dusk till dawn like a dog, every day, in misery and semi-starvation, and would be lucky if you lived more than 40 years. The most probable is you would die between 30 and 40, due to a combination of diseases, fatigue and ill-nurishment. And THAT era would be better than ours??

37

Shared some TTATT with my wife and now she wants us to have a weekly personal bible study

by suavojr in

jw
friends

here is the situation.... a young 19 year old in our congo had a fallout with his parents because of all the restrictions and jw dogma and moved out of the house last wednesday.. to make the story short, the parents went running to the elders and what was the comfort?.

coe said: i saw that coming!

your son never reached out to get baptized.. then the other elder said: don't worry, you still have one left that will be saved.

Syme

It depends on where you want to push things to: If you want her just to stop believing in the WTS, you can choose scriptures that contradict the Borg's regulations and practices -the jwfacts.com site is the reference site with regards to this.

However, if you want her to go one step further and become an atheist, start from scratch. Start with the Genesis account of creation: Notice the 2 different stories of creation that are presented in chapters 1 and 2. Read about the preposterous ideas of seperate creation of animal kinds: e.g. why on earth would God create the whales family as mammals and put them in so much trouble living under the water? Continue with the hilarious account of Noah's flood, note that God said 'all' living things would be destroyed: what happened to the fish?

Then go on to the Bible's main theme. What is that? Love? God's Kingdon? Er, no: it is KILLING. Murder, manslaughter, execution, you name it. See all the transgressions of the Law that brought the death penalty. See God killing in an instant poor guys just because they happen to do something bad, such as giving 'inappropriate' offering of sacrifice. See the complete slaughter of all the first-borns of Egypt, just to 'give a lesson' to bad Pharaoh. See the Levites slaughtering their fellow nationals because they made an idol. See God giving food to Israelites and then killing them just after they ate the food!

Then continue with the UBER-Genocide account of Joshua and Judges, starting with the annihilation of poor Jericho: See how Jehovah instructed the Isrealites to slaughter EVERY human being (and livestock!) of Canaan, men, women, INFANTS, just because they happened to be born Canaanites. Read the exact instructions, read carefully the whole chronicle as an outside observer, and feel your stomach get sick.

See how God rejected Saul; why? Beacause he was a murderer? No! Because he was not murdering enough! He hesitated to slaghter the Amalekite king, and so the pious God-fearing Samuel (yes, that sweet Samuel who served in the temple from infancy) cut the king's head with a huge sword. See then king David cut of the foresking of 100 Philistine penises and bringing it as a bridal price. See God killing 70.000 Israelites beacause of a mistake tha David made! (which was the terrible sin of census taking). See Solomon becoming known as a king of Peace, only after he had all of his potential rivals slaughtered.

Read the account of sweet Esther. See how Jews in the Persian empire came close to suffering a genocide by the 'bad' Aman, but then see how triumphantly THEY killed every one (and their families) whom they considered an 'enemy' for their nation.

The list is endless. Plenty of material for ''Bible study"...

7

Just suppose the GB decided.........

by Phizzy in

now, i know this is preposterous, in fact totally an unbelievable hypothesis, but what if the gb decided that to go more mainstream and pick up more suckers, sorry, converts, they had received new light that the basic idea of the trinity was true.. obviously they could not be as blatant about it so as to say something like the various creeds say, but i can see a way that they could teach something that was more akin to mainstream christianity, and would make them seem less wacky-weird in comparison.. how on earth would the old-school dubs react ?

it would shake them up so much !.

i know this is far-fetched, but i do see them doing something similar eventually, some years down the line, when they are running out of cash.

Syme

YES, Phizzy, the old-timers would react, but the new generation would chew it up and swallow it like anything else!

That's exactly the difference between old-timers and newbies, and that's why the old ones are really, really disposable to the GB: The new generation is SO much simple-minded, while the old-timers (most of them) actually had a personality of their own. The new ones are indoctrinated in a much different way than the old ones: the Bible study they have is of much lesser quality, they enter a much more centralized organization, and in fact their thinking skills are equal to that of an infant. So, everything that comes down from the GB, they WILL swallow it. The old-timers, on the other hand, will have the dignity to raise some objections.

That's why the old-timers are a liability. When they pass out, all the JWs in the world will be simple-minded caricatures. Now, that's something to creep you out. I'm sure I don't want to be a part of THAT group that is forming.

19

The End of Circuit Overseers

by wisdomfrombelow in

i am sure that the term "circuit overseer" will be gone soon.

they seem to be changing vocabulary and the presiding overseer is now the "coordinator of the body of elders" and all "district overseers" will be gone in a few months.

they used to be called "circuit servants" but they will never re-hash an old term so they will make a new term.

Syme

It doesn't have to be a significant change, just trivial word-playing, such as:

-Circuit representative

-Regional overseer

-Visiting overseer

-Visiting representative

-Travelling representative

-Circuit coordinator

-Regional coordinator

And a more fancy one: Circuit slave

[P.S. To the Service Committee: if you use any of these, I want credit]

42

BOE: Kaboom to DOs

by pixel in

to all congregations re: district overseers.

dear brothers:.

march 20, 2014. we are pleased to inform you of a significant decision made by the governing body that will affect the work of traveling overseers worldwide.

Syme

Well, at least where I live, the 2 DOs we have hold at the same time a circuit office, (in a small circuit), so they are CO & DO at the same time. So this will not be a great change for them, in that aspect. However, they *were* a little bit superior than the other COs; they counselled and graded (via a written form submitted to the Branch) their suobordinate COs every 6 months; they were the ones to be preferred for instructors at MTS-and-like schools; becomning DO was the natural eventuality for charismatic COs. So much for their ambitions, now.

Of course, if the current DOs continue to hold the same small circuit they held until today, it will be a discrimination of a sort. I mean, some COs have circuits covering hundreds of miles, including remote islands. The circuits the DOs have are small areas near the capital.

Anyway, the answer to all this 'organizational' shifting is one: who cares.

24

Do any ex JW' s/ God believer's, Agnostics or Atheists believe in Karma? And WHY?

by rip van winkle in

just reading a thread and the mention of karma popped up.

( it happens, lol).

a lot of people believe in karma: what goes around comes around.. some months ago, while on another exjw site, karma was mentioned and i thought it a little odd, as they are atheist.

Syme

There is a scientific 'Karma', so to speak: every life is destined to give life. And then die.

22

Idiotic Statement in Today's Public Talk

by piztjw in

"some though say, 'but you need to be balanced.

you need to work, pay bills, provide for your family and so forth.

' but think about a bicycle.

Syme

Yeah, piztjw, that is a classic illustration. I used it myself some years ago, as another MTS graduate punk elder. What a coincidence, huh?

Illustrations are the closest JWs have to a proof. They don't know (because they don't read science), that an illustration is used AFTER you've proved a point, in order to explain it, not to prove it. They do it the wrong way, and think they proved something just because they brought up an illustration for it!

14

THE TWO BABYLONS as a template for Watch Tower dishonesty in history

by Terry in

proof isn't proof at the watchtower.

"proof" is a reconstruction like frankenstein's monster kept alive by flashes of "new light" made up as needed to revitalize a quivering monstrosity.. at first glimpse it looks like science.

when the smoke clears it is madness and obsession riven with fierce contrarian nincompoopery.. ****.

Syme

Terry, very interesting thoughts.

I have this book, and have read it thouroughly. Back at that time, I thought it as a masterpiece, failing to see its pseudo-scientific method.

You say at a point that " Alexander Hislop published a pamphlet (later enlarged into a book) THE TWO BABYLONS* and promoted it thru the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society." So was Hislop aware of the existence of the WTS? And did he actually used it as a channel for his ideas? Would you happen to know if there's any evidence for that statement, and if yes, where can we find it?

Thank you.

44

Hello - mentally out, physically in...

by Bluefluff in

i have been lurking for a while but was encouraged to sign up by a user on the ex jw reddit forum.

i'm a still in jw but i've been mentally out for about two months.

i'm an ms and i'm also gay so i have two lots of 'coming out' to do very soon!.

Syme

Welcome Bluefluff!

16

Where does the need to worship god come from?

by Socrateswannabe in

where does the need to worship god come from?.

this is a question that i asked myself repeatedly when i used to believe that god exists.

i struggled with this because i have never had the urge, and i imagined myself an ingrate because of it.

Syme

Very good topic, Socrates.

There are, of course, lots of theories trying to explain that need for worship.

I think the basic reason was self-awareness, as Giordano placed it; specifically, the awareness of our own certain eventual death, as well as the fear of the unknown. The fear of nature's forces may had played an additional role.

Maybe the first segments of worship had to do with death rituals and buryings. The awe, and fear, in the face of death is clearly depicted in every burying from the beginning of mankind.

That could be the start, but how was it propagated thereafter? Dawkins (yeah, I know, some of you think of him as the Devil; he's not), has this theoy about memes which tries to explain that.

I would try it with an example: Dreams comprise of things that leave an impression on our daily life return in our dreams exaggerated, just like a curved mirror depicts an distorted idol. Our fears may come on us at nights distorted, seeming like monsters. Those monsters, may return again and again in our dreams. This is not worrying, it's natural. However, one may find himself so deep in those dreams that he confuses reality with dream; he may come to think that those dreams have a higher meaning, maybe a supernatural one. What if he decides to pass on the content of those dreams in his offspring or his tribe? Those who listen to him may believe that those monsters are something more than contents of a dream. With enough time passing, future generations who preserve this 'knowledge' may feel there's a need to ease the mood of those monsters by worshipping them. Thus, a method of worship appears, with rituals, rules and of course, priesthood. After enough generations, a cult is established, worshipping something that people are SURE is real, but in reality, it is just a monster from some guy's dream in the past. The oral tradition may be put in writing, when writing is invented, and so we have a written form of this cult. Those writings, plus the oral tradition, now serve as EVIDENCE for the existence of monsters (gods, demons, you name them); it will take centuries and the invention of rational, scientific method of thinking, for (some) people to realise they are not.