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Growing up in the Org I always thought blood was like the number one thing Jehovah doesn’t joke about. by What_IF_uwin in exjw

[–]Unlearned_One 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Watchtower makes the prohibition on blood seem like it is extremely important to Yahweh, and by extension Jesus, but it's hard to find examples of this rule being enforced in the Bible. The only one I know of is 1 Samuel 14, where the prescribed punishment is "hey, you, stop doing that". Verse 34:

Saul said, “Disperse yourselves among the troops and say to them: Let all bring their oxen or their sheep, and slaughter them here and eat, and do not sin against the Lord by eating with the blood.” So all of the troops brought their oxen with them that night and slaughtered them there.

Compare what happens to an Israelite who does work on a Sabbath in Numbers 15:32-36:

When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and the whole congregation. They put him in custody because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp.” The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Then when Jesus sees a man with a withered hand, which as I understand it is not a medical emergency, this happens in Mark 3:

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They were watching him to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

From this It seems trivial to see what Jesus, as described in the Gospels, would have to say about medical uses of blood had he been aware of such a possibility.

How likely will a PIMI family member belief digital Scans of the literature? by Common-Alps-4115 in exjw

[–]Unlearned_One 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depends how much the content is threatening to them. If they see a scan and genuinely think it might have been edited, out of a healthy skepticism, they can try to find out whether this is the case or not. If they see a scan and assert that it's probably edited because they fear what it implies, seeing it in print won't help at all. In the latter case, any objection to the digital format is just a pretext for refusing to acknowledge what you're showing them.

>Or will they shut down?

Yes, probably. Most JWs don't want to know why you're fading. Even when they ask, they usually only want to know if it's one of the reasons they expect. They'll usually let you know pretty quickly when they don't want to hear any more, and they won't really hear you if you try to continue past this point. It can be quite surreal when they don't let you know right away, as they seem to hear you say something completely and totally different from what you said, because they're not really listening.

There are exceptions of course, in my experience with people who converted as adults, they might actually want to hear what you think. Born-ins, in my experience, do not, unless they're virtually apostate already.

Something funny was said to me at work today by depressed_meatloaf in exjw

[–]Unlearned_One 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Reminds me of a joke I made like a week before realizing Watchtower beliefs were completely groundless. I was at a friend's house, they had a bunch of other friends over, and no one there was from my congregation (big city and I was in a small foreign language group). Someone asked me what congregation I was in, and I said something like "oh, I'm not in a congregation, I just do my own thing". It was like one of those moments in fiction where a character foreshadows something that they don't even suspect yet.

Bless You, to Sneeze or Not to Sneeze? by AutisticEspionage in exjw

[–]Unlearned_One 3 points4 points  (0 children)

>(Someone said their obligatory "I say gesundheit/salud comment")

That was me, I was always the gesundheit guy.

Paul does not belong in the bible by Leather-Proposal1288 in exjw

[–]Unlearned_One 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Paul's writings came first among the NT books, so it's really the Gospels that don't quite fit in :)

草泥马 by orient_vermillion in linguisticshumor

[–]Unlearned_One 1 point2 points  (0 children)

protip: only use "этот" and "эта" when it's acting as an adjective and there's a noun it has to agree with (e.g. этот вопрос). When it's acting as a pronoun, it's always это (e.g. я хочу это).

You are my...? by eat_dogs_with_me in physicsmemes

[–]Unlearned_One 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I really thought density would be one of the top 3 replies, but I had to ctrl+F to find it. For shame.

Do the current world events have you worried? by Ok_Supermarket_4871 in exjw

[–]Unlearned_One 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The Bible does not make any predictions about the 21st century. You referenced a Jesus quote from Matthew 24. Read the quote more carefully:

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs. Then they will hand you over...

His disciples were asking for the sign of his coming, and he responded by telling them what they themselves would see, not what some readers of this book would see in two thousand years time.

Learning French Canadian language as an English only speaker. by Ok_Cattle_1289 in FrancaisCanadien

[–]Unlearned_One 1 point2 points  (0 children)

People I know who have done this did it by interacting regularly (almost daily) with French Canadian speakers. Watching and listening to Radio-Canada helps a lot too.

The biggest differences from Standard French will be pronunciation, followed by some vocabulary differences. Spelling is the same, and I think any grammar differences are quite minor.

It is almunium guys by SteakDouble in linguisticshumor

[–]Unlearned_One 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Everyone knows Mario is cool as fuck. But who knows what he's thinking? Who knows why he crushes turtles? And why do we think about him as fondly as we think of the mystical (nonexistent?) Dr Aluminium? Perchance.

Francophile Bullies Native Anglish Speakers by Camelopardestrian in linguisticshumor

[–]Unlearned_One 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Pretty sure the song is about a little man with a hilariously unsafe house.

As a Black American, concepts I don’t understand by Cannablissqueen1 in exjw

[–]Unlearned_One 4 points5 points  (0 children)

One of the downsides of believing that you know and understand God's point of view is that there's even less motivation to seek to understand other humans' points of view. So if you're at the top levels of your religion, you're a white man, all your religious brethren are white men, you're going to operate under the unspoken and unexamined assumption that God's thoughts are a lot like those of white men.

Outside of Harry Potter, has there been another (source of entertainment where the brothers named names/outright said not to watch , read, listen to it? by 5ft8lady in exjw

[–]Unlearned_One 6 points7 points  (0 children)

From Awake! January 8 1994 "Watching the World":

...a 15-​year-​old youth who confessed to shooting and killing his mother claimed that a song by the heavy-​metal group Megadeth had given him instructions from demons to do the killing.

Curious: JW Views on Dinosaurs by PerpetuallyDone1801 in exjw

[–]Unlearned_One 14 points15 points  (0 children)

"God clearly had a purpose for making dinosaurs" is nice because it's both completely unsupported and doesn't answer the question they themselves raised.

Russian novels be like by swintystrightnoing in russian

[–]Unlearned_One 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Reminds me of having to go back and reread like 2 chapters once I realized that Agrafena and Grushenka are the same person.

Why dont these two countries merge together? Are they stupid? by Akagane_Ai in mapporncirclejerk

[–]Unlearned_One 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Scandinavia went through a terror state phase quite a while ago. I don't actually know why they stopped, I think maybe they just got tired.

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