Jehovah's Witnesses Weirdness

No, he's consistent.

Censorship is the imposition by a government entity of limitations on what material people are allowed to have access to and what they can say. People who strive to restrict certain topics or to eliminate the use of particular words or images, without the backing of a government (such as people who steal gay-themed books from libraries), are technically not censors, but they are attempting the same thing - control of communication and limitation of free choice. Those of us who oppose both forms of exterior control concede their right not to read/hear/see material they don't wish to access, but assert that they have no right to impose their tastes and values on those who do wish to have access to the material or on personal creative decisions. And you don't need to have any official standing to create a censorship effect, as I can vouch. The fear of being censored is a creative deterrent.

By shutting the door on the Jehovah's Witnesses, Megadeth is exercising his right of not listening; a right he believes should be more widely exercised by those who try to remove "offensive" content from the internet, print media, art galleries, and so on. There is a world of difference between "I do not wish to hear that" and "You should not be allowed to say that." The first asserts my own freedom; the second restricts yours.

Granted, slamming the door is rude; but so is the Witness practice of proselytizing door-to-door as if God were band candy. He's saving them time and effort by cutting off someone they wouldn't be able to reach, anyway. They can now proceed on their way in search of someone who likes being proselytized.

Oh, and I know someone who did convert after being proselytized by a retail vendor in a mall who gave her marriage advice. It doesn't make any sense to me, but it did to her and that's all that's necessary. Witnessing is like spam. They wouldn't keep doing it if they didn't get some return sometime.
 
flippancy
noun (plural flippancies)

1. a disrespectful levity or pertness especially in respect to grave or sacred matters

The nature of grave or sacred matters to be discussed later.
 
Fair's fair, and flippancy doesn't excuse unfairness.

Actually, flippancy is annoying most of the time and makes unfairness worse. Go for humor, which reveals deeper truths and can make the target laugh, instead.
 
stuneville said:
flippancy
noun (plural flippancies)

1. a disrespectful levity or pertness especially in respect to grave or sacred matters

The nature of grave or sacred matters to be discussed later.
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was that aimed at me ?
 
PeniG said:
Actually, flippancy is annoying most of the time and makes unfairness worse. Go for humor, which reveals deeper truths and can make the target laugh, instead.
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I thought I had...
Megadeth16 said:
was that aimed at me ?
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No, more at me. But, hey ho :).

Apologies all round if anyone found my idle, passing, vaguely puckish, off-the-cuff, light-hearted observation everso slightly offensive. I'll try harder next time.
 
A bit OT but I don't like Stus new avatar. I think he should bring back his Marty Feldman avatar.
 
Totally OT, but i often chuckle to myself when i remember some poster or other thinking Stu's name was Stun Eville, with, i always imagined, the Eville said with a twirl of some particularly hirsute and well-manicured 'tache.
 
'So, what are you orders today, Mr. Eville?'

'Please, call me Stun.'
 
_TMS_ said:
Totally OT, but i often chuckle to myself when i remember some poster or other thinking Stu's name was Stun Eville, with, i always imagined, the Eville said with a twirl of some particularly hirsute and well-manicured 'tache.
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On the other had it could be St Uneville, one of those early saints who lived on a pillar in the desert and was tormented by trolls...eventually martyred in some highly inventive manner by a minor Roman Emperor...
 
Finally, Timble2 manages to lead us back to a religion-themed area. Phew, what a journey! (Flippant or Humourous?, that is the question.)
 
_TMS_ said:
Totally OT, but i often chuckle to myself when i remember some poster or other thinking Stu's name was Stun Eville, with, i always imagined, the Eville said with a twirl of some particularly hirsute and well-manicured 'tache.
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Sorry, been off tying Damsels to railway tracks and getting my topper and cloak dry-cleaned. And do you know how difficult it is getting a piano accompanist who can do peril, these days?
Timble2 said:
On the other had it could be St Uneville, one of those early saints who lived on a pillar in the desert and was tormented by trolls...eventually martyred in some highly inventive manner by a minor Roman Emperor...
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Trolls ain't the problem so much as the scribes, half the time.

There was a Roman procurator in Judea called Felix, who may have followed Dionysus...

Anyhoo, I'll fall back on the humorous, and resolutely back OT, the same JW came back today to continue his animated jabbering about economic meltdown. I told him politely to go away :).
 
I didnt know that jw's could seek out people they wanted to heal based on things like road signs.

why would you go up to someone and say "were does the deaf child live"
you just dont do that
 
I was interrupted this morning by a couple of JWs trying to lecture me on depression. I don't have depression, but I imagine a sure way of inducing it would be to join the JWs.
 
Does Z consider himself to be Deaf (capital D) or deaf (lower case D)?
[/quote]

I dont want to appear ignorant but whats the difference between the spellings?
 
We invited the Jehovah's in once. They were very uncomfortable and very keen to get away. Possibly because we questioned the linguistic roots they gave for 'Lucifer' (they said it meant liar while we argued for 'lightbringer') and satan (they said it meant 'deceiver' and couldn't give an etymology), or maybe because we lived in a big run down old house in the country and lots of unwashed people kept coming through the room and looking at them oddly while they were sitting there.
 
vapidness said:
We invited the Jehovah's in once. They were very uncomfortable and very keen to get away. Possibly because we questioned the linguistic roots they gave for 'Lucifer' (they said it meant liar while we argued for 'lightbringer') and satan (they said it meant 'deceiver' and couldn't give an etymology), or maybe because we lived in a big run down old house in the country and lots of unwashed people kept coming through the room and looking at them oddly while they were sitting there.
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Sounds good!

Maybe play "All Along The Watchtower" when they call round.
 
A woman I know from work is a JW and I found out the other day that she let her mother die from some serious illness when a blood transfusion would have kept her alive, to my mind thats not weirdness thats insanity.
 
That depends entirely on how her mother would feel about it. If she was in a position to make this decision, then it's possible that "alive" would have only been technically true; you don't have to be a Witness to feel that certain levels of disability don't count as "life." The trick is for the person who gets to make the decision to understand the person who needs the decision well enough, and to love that person enough, to make the decision the patient would make, if able to do so, regardless of the decision-maker's personal feelings about it.

I don't know any JWs who have refused medical treatment. That's a Christian Scientist trick. I once knew a paranoid schizophrenic who was also a fundamentalist Christian of some sort whose grudge against her mother included the fact that she sold blood plasma (as I did myself, and wish I still could), but I couldn't make out whether she had a religious objection or if it was a symptom. She wasn't the world's greatest communicator when she was on her meds, and she'd flushed them all a few days before this conversation.
 
PeniG said:
That depends entirely on how her mother would feel about it. If she was in a position to make this decision, then it's possible that "alive" would have only been technically true; you don't have to be a Witness to feel that certain levels of disability don't count as "life." The trick is for the person who gets to make the decision to understand the person who needs the decision well enough, and to love that person enough, to make the decision the patient would make, if able to do so, regardless of the decision-maker's personal feelings about it.

.
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I am well aware of that my own Mom has made a 'living will' due to the nature of her illness and I hope that I never have to make that decision.

However the thing that upset me most about my work colleage was that as she said to me her guilt over it was the reason she drank and did other stuff.I dunno I suppose we all do things that other people would find questionable.
 
Oh, dear. So she blames her religion for her decision about her mom, and her decision about her mom for her self-destructive behavior? Serious non-advertisement for the religion, that! This is the sort of thing that convinces me that what you believe doesn't matter. Who you are matters. We do what we're going to do and stretch our belief system to fit afterward, depending on our true motives. Her chief motivation appears to be to not take responsibility.

Still, none of us knows what we'll do until we do it. May I do better than that in my next trial, and she fight her way out of this one.
 
Yup, I see what you mean. The daughter feels she did wrong and will never forgive herself.

To me, that's what makes JW a cult and not a religion: at a time of crisis when a family needs to be united, they will instead be torn between loyalty to their loved one and their church. I find that manipulative and wicked.

There are of course ways round the blood transfusion dilemma, at least where children are involved, as we've discussed: hospitals have procedures ready to kick in the minute the problem comes up.

Perhaps the JW could learn from the Catholics, who know that in an emergency, they can sin as long as they pray correctly for forgiveness afterwards.
 
In Judaism you are obligated to break all/any commandments to save a life...except shalt not kill...that would be crazy. So an Observant Doctor would be allowed to drive on the Sabbath to save a life, although once he had saved that life he would not be able to drive home (!) No 'law' should be followed if the end result is death.

Edit: There are a few other Commandments you're not allowed to break, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikuach_nefesh
 
There's usually a get-out, though, so that a law can be broken in an emergency and/or the transgression forgiven afterwards. ;)
 
escargot1 said:
There's usually a get-out, though, so that a law can be broken in an emergency and/or the transgression forgiven afterwards. ;)
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Try telling that to some ministers of the Free Church of Scotland in the Western Isles. Speak about fundamentalists. The decision to allow Sunday sailings from Stornoway to the mainland has got them in a right lather, with promises of God's wrath on Caledonian Macbrayne and anyone who uses the service.
 
Yup, you can clearly see the desperate clinging to the last little shreds of power. Pathetic really. :lol:
 
escargot1 said:
Yup, you can clearly see the desperate clinging to the last little shreds of power. Pathetic really. :lol:
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You may mock but just wait until a plague of rabid haggis descend upon the Island. Only the elect shall be spared.
 
ramonmercado said:
escargot1 said:
Yup, you can clearly see the desperate clinging to the last little shreds of power. Pathetic really. :lol:
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You may mock but just wait until a plague of rabid haggis descend upon the Island. Only the elect shall be spared.
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Is haggis singular and plural? Haggis, Haggises, Haggi?
 
Ginando said:
ramonmercado said:
escargot1 said:
Yup, you can clearly see the desperate clinging to the last little shreds of power. Pathetic really. :lol:
Click to expand...

You may mock but just wait until a plague of rabid haggis descend upon the Island. Only the elect shall be spared.
Click to expand...

Is haggis singular and plural? Haggis, Haggises, Haggi?
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I believe the technical term is "The Haggis Massive".
 
I went outside to sit in the sun and read a book. After 30 minutes I came back to my flat to make a coffee, and found a JW leaflet in my door! So I had just missed the chance for an interesting chat... :twisted:

But only tenants are supposed to have keys to get into the building, so I wonder if one of the other tenants is actually a JW...?

The leaflet says that JWs gather to commemorate Jesus' death on its anniversary. They say this year the anniversary is on Sunday April 17th, after sundown. So it seems JWs don't follow the bizarre movable feast that is Easter in other churches. (I haven't checked whether their calculation is correct. But even if it is, it must vary around the world because of time zones, etc. It'll be sundown in New Zealand 11 or so hours ahead of here.)
 
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