JW OPPOSERS GROUPS

[Srecko Sostar]

5 hours ago, Arauna said:

Bring me a doctor of theology that understands that Jesus is not God, that the soul of jesus died at his death, that keeping parts of the law such as sabbath and tithes are incorrect....... and I can go on and on........

Yes, but this what you are talking about, going to theology, philosophy, interpretations ..... and not to science in strict way of what science is. Something that scientist can prove with scientific methods.  

[Equivocation]

On 11/4/2019 at 7:44 AM, TrueTomHarley said:

Pretty much like this verse, from this week’s Bible reading:

“They originate with the world; that is why they speak what originates with the world and the world listens to them.” (1 John 4:5)

Seconded. 

[Witness]

10 hours ago, Arauna said:

if you have the idea that God did plan for a financial system in this wicked world to exist

God never had plans for a financial system to exist in this world.  Mankind was plunged into darkness because of Adam and Eve's sin. The "ruler of this world" has aided in our development of a financial system.   God has offered us "riches" in Jesus Christ that we either accept or discard for earthly riches instead. Eph 2:1-5

It depends on the cravings of the individual.  

Tell those who have the riches of this world not to be arrogant and not to place their confidence in anything as uncertain as riches. Instead, they should place their confidence in God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.  1 Tim 6:17

“Listen! Whoever is thirsty, come to the water!
    Whoever has no money can come, buy, and eat!
        Come, buy wine and milk. You don’t have to pay; it’s free!
2 Why do you spend money on what cannot nourish you
    and your wages on what does not satisfy you?
Listen carefully to me:
    Eat what is good, and enjoy the best foods.
3 Open your ears, and come to me!
Listen so that you may live!
I will make an everlasting promise to you—
    the blessings I promised to David."  Isa 55:1-3

“Come to me, all who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. 29 Place my yoke over your shoulders, and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble. Then you will find rest for yourselves 30 because my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”   Matt 11:28,29

 

 

[Arauna]

3 hours ago, Witness said:

God never had plans for a financial system to exist in this world

Exactly my reply...... that is why it is called "unrighteous riches". 

[Witness]

1 hour ago, Arauna said:

Exactly my reply...... that is why it is called "unrighteous riches". 

"Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?"  Luke 16:11

Greek meaning for "unrighteous" - unjust; by extension wicked; by implication, treacherous; specially, heathen:—unjust, unrighteous.

Now, your WT quote again, deceptively explaining the meaning for unrighteous riches as physical, earthly - 

"Only Jehovah God and his Son can receive someone into the heavenly Kingdom or the Paradise on earth under that Kingdom. We should diligently cultivate friendship with them by using what material riches we have in supporting Kingdom interests. Our everlasting future will thus be ASSURED when gold, silver, and other material riches fail or perish."

You believe that your use of wicked, treacherous, heathen, unjust...material "riches"/"treasures", to support the organization's "Kingdom interests", will ASSURE YOU ETERNAL LIFE in the Kingdom, where "righteousness" will dwell. 2 Pet 3:13

"Who can bring what is pure...

(eternal life in the "righteous" Kingdom of God

from the impure?

("heathen, wicked" treasure having its source in the world of Satan)

 No one!"  Job 14:4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JW Insider]

23 hours ago, Arauna said:

On 11/6/2019 at 2:08 PM, Matthew9969 said:

[So the engineers and such who planned . . . ] were dropouts who just read a lot of awake magazines?

Definitely not dropouts...... one can keep learning without going to university.  One can get very talented people who have NO degree.......in science or art but still attain an extremely high level of competency. 

Did I mention that my youngest son was accepted to each and every Ivy League university in the United States? Just wanted the excuse to mention that again if I didn't state it before. 😊 His final choices were between MIT, CalTech, Harvard, and he chose Harvard because he also writes/performs music and studies history.

He graduated with his degree in theoretical/engineering physics (with a minor in music) and was almost immediately contacted by another Ivy League university graduate who has worked at each Bethel site in upstate NY. Through this particular circumstance I have come to learn of several more university graduates working at NY Bethels. The engineers and environmental specialists, even IT specialists at various Bethels, have become more and more "infested" with Ivy League graduates. These are not always full-time positions, but are persons added to the team. At one time they were given only a consultant role, or advisory role, and often ignored, but the Society has learned through very expensive mistakes, to give them leadership roles in these teams.

When I was at Bethel in Brooklyn many years ago, a flailing Computer/IT department was just starting up and a lot of expensive mistakes were being made when a couple of brothers with a lot of "spiritual" seniority were chosen to lead the new department. After about a half-million dollars worth of mistakes, they started to ditch the "decision by seniority" paradigm and gave more decisions to a brother who had a high position at IBM, but who was also arrogant to a fault.

And they brought in a new bunch of fresh college graduated kids from around the country. One was a sister that my brother knew from Missouri, and one was a brother I had known from Missouri. (A brother who had not pioneered or even been very active.)  We had a four person room at Bethel and he became one of the four roommates. My roommate would commiserate with the sister and another member of the Computer department about the ridiculous arguments and decisions of the day.

As it turned out, Arauna, you were right. A lot more practical progress was being made from a small team of computer hobbyists from up at the Wallkill Watchtower Farm in upstate NY. My roommate and the sister thought this was hilarious because there was a lot of prejudice against the "farm boys" even though the difference between who got assigned to the farm and who got assigned to Brooklyn was often just as random as a name in a hat.

The "untrained" farm boys actually finished a home-made computer that started to computerize typesetting flawlessly through the APS5. This was a huge breakthrough project that Brooklyn had already wasted half-a-million on.

 

[Arauna]

4 hours ago, JW Insider said:

The "untrained" farm boys actually finished a home-made

Thanks for that personal experience and viewpoint.  I have seen (especially in computer field) many brilliant kids. One of my nephews also played music while teaching  himself programming.  He is a firewall programmer (or something very saught after in protection field) without a degree.  

I marvel sometimes at kids who turn out technical machines in poor countries (especially central Africa) where the intellectual and technical landscape is barren. They somehow find books and teach themselves.

My best friend in Africa has a son who manufactures feeding machines for factories (including car factories). He designs and makes them.  I knew him as a boy.  She raised him and his 2 sisters alone and did not have money for secondary education.

I wish all stories turn out like this but unfortunately we do know reality - not all people are innovative.  Some have to go to vocational school to learn how to do a job in order to become employable. 

To be an entrepeneur one needs a skill (self-taught or acquired during secondary education) to provide something of value one can sell.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

College Educations are NOT for the best and brightest, although they can be.

They are for the average Joe and Joanna who has to make a living ... and MUST have degree, or advanced degree to even get INTO their chosen field of endeavor, and out of grinding, soul killing, corrosive, abject poverty that never will end.

The choice for the average person is get a college degree, and LEARN what is necessary, and get a recognized document that PROVES they are proficient, or in most field that are not just low wage, slave labor, grunt work ... they cannot EVER get employed.

Most people on this planet are just average people, and that includes Jehovah's Witnesses, who make it a source of pride to be "humble".

No one EVER gets hired BECAUSE he is "humble".

They get hired because they have marketable skills.

AND CAN PROVE IT.

For those NOT highly motivated and have an aggressive attitude, say the top 15% of humanity ... the ability to get a job and keep a job  not limited to the expression " ..you want fries with that? ..." at subsistence wages or less depends on FORMAL, accredited, and documented education.

Consider the fact that if you are driving your car on a city street, and you have every skill necessary to be a good driver ... all the skills needed ... but you do NOT have a valid driver's license.

There is a word for that.

Pedestrian.

I HAVE BEEN BLIND, TWICE, AND YET WITH MANY THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FOR EACH EYE, I HAVE 20/20 VISION CLOSE UP, AND FAR AWAY, AND IT MAKES LIFE A GREAT JOY.

ALL DAY!

EVERY DAY!

It is no shame to be poor, or on the ragged edge of poverty ... but it is NOTHING to brag about.

... and when someone asks me "you want fries with that ...", I usually reply "Yes, two LARGE orders"

Tankyou berry much.

Much is said about the desirability of a "Simplified Life" ....

Want a simplified life free from stress, fear and constantly scrabbling to survive?

It's EASIER for those fully competent ... and can prove it.

 

[Arauna]

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

minor in music)

Just wanted to add - it is I interesting that many smart kids also are good in music. Music lights up many parts of the brain in scans.  It is also the last skill to die off in Alzheimers.

I think that training in music teaches discipline and focus and this benefits children in other fields. All children should learn music for a while if possible.  It is remarkable that so many Jews learn music and many play in ensembles (it teaches people to listen to others and work together to produce something with esthetic value).  It is not surprising to me that they have a higher average IQ than other nations.

[Arauna]

2 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

It is no shame to be poor,

Agreed. No shame to be working and providing for yourself. The person is taking responsibility as best he can. All work is honourable. 

There is now a new phenomena: Children who are addicted to internet and  games. They still live with parents at age 34, refuse to work or look at a girl etc. No other interest in life than waste away in matrix style fantasy. Met a woman in field service with this problem.

 

[Evacuated]

3 hours ago, Arauna said:

It is also the last skill to die off in Alzheimers

Too general a statement and not necessarily true. A personal friend of mine who was a highly talented musician developed Alzheimers. He soon became unable remember any words to songs, then to differentiate chords and how to play instruments. This was soon followed by an aversion to music altogether, although he will communicate in song. There is a difference between skill and talent.

11 hours ago, JW Insider said:

a flailing Computer/IT department

Allan Boyle showed me round the IT workshop when I visited Brooklyn in 1980. I have to admit it was rather like visiting a computer graveyard with electronic carcasses all over the place.

It must be quite a challenge to apply Acts 6:3 in a modern, technical setting. But, somebody appears to have got something right.

[JW Insider]

5 hours ago, Outta Here said:

Allan Boyle showed me round the IT workshop when I visited Brooklyn in 1980. I have to admit it was rather like visiting a computer graveyard with electronic carcasses all over the place.

Wow! Then you were one of very few who saw it back in 1980 when it was a makeshift "9th floor" of the 8-story factory building at 117 Adams. I only saw it because I would sometimes give special request tours. I seriously don't believe that more than 50 brothers out of 3,000 New York Bethelites had ever seen it. It was even left off the route of those who did night guard duty, and they provided their own janitorial services. It was not really even gaining traction yet by 1980, and ultimately would not be end-to-end testable until 1985.

Also, back in 1979 and 1980, persons from the Home Art Department got a tour of the APS5 machine that would someday hook up to Wallkill's MEPS system for typesetting. As early as 1978, artists could go down to the "Photoplate" department's large camera darkroom, where they could use a small manual machine to "set" headline type, one letter at a time, exposing it from a negative strip of letters and shining it down onto a piece of film below. This way one could use a calligraphy font for example, and get the letterspacing just right, and then use other darkroom cameras with exposure tricks to produce special effects, to create an outline font, Gaussian blur and drop shadows, for example.

By 1985, it was well tested, and before they declared a success, they wanted to make sure that any of the machines could produce disks to work on any other machine. They had every conceivable accent mark for all languages that the Watchtower was printed in by then, and made a big splash in 1986 by setting several of these machines in branches all over the world. The small team of brothers in Wallkill had a huge success, and all training on the machine would be handled up at the Farm. It was delicious irony that all the experts had been down in Brooklyn for most of this time.

The most important thing is that it "got the lead out." For many decades, all typesetting for the publications had been done with small metal blocks that were lined up the way newspapers had done it, and these columns of blocks created a "mold" that was dipped in hot molten lead, then electroplated with zinc to last a bit longer. Some factory floors literally contained a ton of lead. The presses also were fitted to run with these lead plates, so that probably 25 percent of the factory workers handled lead during some part of the process.

The new typesetting machines could now use a computer keyboard, and film could now be moved directly to "offset" plates made out of film for offset presses. By the early 1980's, no more new letterpress presses would be purchased. Offset was closer to a mimeograph process, but so accurate that you could line up 3 and 4 colors onto the same rolls of paper. (Playboy had been using 5 colors, I learned from one brother in charge of an offset process.) 

5 hours ago, Outta Here said:

It must be quite a challenge to apply Acts 6:3 in a modern, technical setting. But, somebody appears to have got something right.

Sometimes "spirit and wisdom" was deemed to be the equivalent of the "number of years managing a small corner of a factory bureaucracy." Ultimately, a world-class typesetting solution was delivered, by volunteers, and it still works today, 35 years later.