{"id":3679,"date":"2012-07-28T16:44:59","date_gmt":"2012-07-28T21:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=3679"},"modified":"2012-08-06T08:12:24","modified_gmt":"2012-08-06T13:12:24","slug":"more-sparlock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2012\/07\/more-sparlock\/","title":{"rendered":"More Sparlock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Thursday, 26 July 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re tired of hearing or reading stuff about the Witnesses, then you should probably just ignore this blog post altogether. If not, here we go&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>First, the Humanists of Minnesota just uploaded their June episode to YouTube. That, as you may recall, was the episode in which I was the guest. Here it is:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Hjt-f-Q0wBM\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t be freaked out by the unfortunate still image. Mr. Lohman&#8217;s hands are not, in reality, smeary blurs.<\/p>\n<p>Second, my wife pointed me to <a href=\"http:\/\/girlsguidetohomelessness.com\/2012\/07\/21\/bad-year-jehovahs-witnesses-anonymous-hacking-watchtower\/\">THIS WEBSITE TODAY<\/a>. Until this morning, I&#8217;d never heard of this website, or the woman who maintains it. She&#8217;s an author, so that&#8217;s cool (wink). The blog post I link to here is her argument that the Watchtower Society is having a bad year. I agree. The first two items she discusses are nothing new. First is a well-written rehash of the Sparlock idiocy. <a href=\"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2012\/06\/sparlock\/\">I wrote about Sparlock back in June.<\/a>\u00a0However, I hadn&#8217;t realized the extent to which\u00a0loyal Witnesses were proclaiming that\u00a0Sparlock was merely a fake to make the Watchtower Society look bad.\u00a0For examples of\u00a0loyal Witnesses denying thevalidity of\u00a0Sparlock,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.atheistgeeknews.com\/was-the-sparlock-video-really-made-by-the-watchtower-society-2732.htm\">check out the screen shots at Atheist Geek News<\/a>.\u00a0When the Witnesses learned it was real, the cognitive dissonance, as the blog says,\u00a0&#8220;was deafening. \u00a0Many rank-and-file JWs had declared the video to be a fake full of lies about their faith\u2026and then it turned out that it was OFFICIAL JW TRAINING MATERIAL, and they didn\u2019t know how to reverse gears and defend it without making themselves look absolutely asinine.\u00a0&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ha. Pretty funny. For those who don&#8217;t know, the Watchtower Society generally releases two or three new books, brochures, or videos every year. They release them at their conventions, which take place worldwide over the course of a year. The conventions are held first in the US and Canada, beginning in May. Here in Minnesota, the conventions are held in mid-summer. The Witnesses don&#8217;t share the info even with fellow Witnesses. So, what happens is, a new book, brochure, or video is released at one of the first conventions, then some closet non-believer posts it online, making it available to everyone&#8230;but Witnesses (who, of course, refuse to look at such things). So, the Sparlock video has been available and talked about since mid-May, but most American Witnesses are only finding out about it now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Friday, 27 July 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My wife and I finally know the answer to the question: &#8220;How long does it take for Witnesses in our area to come around and knock on our door?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The answer is: 11 months and 1 day.<\/p>\n<p>They came a-knocking this morning. I of course, was busy multi-tasking and otherwise kicking butt at work. My wife was home; she answered the door and discovered they were offering the brochure &#8220;Was Life Created?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Oh man, I wish I had been home. That is pretty much the exact brochure I was hoping they&#8217;d offer me. My wife took the brochure&#8230;so now we have two. I, in fact, have owned a copy longer than probably anyone else in the state, having been sent a copy back in May 2010, about two months before the local-JWs got their very own (see above for an explanation on that). In fact, I even made a video about it:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zut4JVfjXFg\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Oh &#8211; wait! I actually made THREE videos about it. Here are the other two:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J81Xjjq30AM\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3DKdmgTXq6o\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>When Jennifer told them she doesn&#8217;t beleive in creationism, they said, &#8220;Oh, well you might not want to show this brochure to your kids, then.&#8221; This, of course, is hilarious for two very excellent reasons, and I&#8217;ll break them down for you&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>1) What sort of seriously inept Jehovah&#8217;s Witness succeeds in placing a brochure with someone, but then suggests they <em>not<\/em> share it with the others in their home? Ha!<\/p>\n<p>2) Um&#8230;don&#8217;t they know we&#8217;re not Witnesses? So we don&#8217;t have this terrifying fear of exposing our kids to differing opinions and belief systems. In fact, while my wife was on the phone speaking with me about her visitors, Owen was in the other room reading the brochure. Oh my god! He&#8217;s going to become a Witness now! Aaaaaaaaaaagh!<\/p>\n<p>I won&#8217;t provide an entire transcript of the conversation. I&#8217;ll leave that too my wife, if she&#8217;d like to. But I will mention one other thing: My wife asked the two Witnesses how long they thought humans had been on the earth. They two women pussyfooted around, dodging the question, and didn&#8217;t really give an answer (they said something about the &#8220;six creative days&#8221; of Genesis, which doesn&#8217;t answer the question at all).<\/p>\n<p>Why didn&#8217;t they answer my wife like good Witnesses? I suppose it&#8217;s possible that, when faced with a non-believer, stating the answer would be too embarrassing. Or, it could be that they don&#8217;t agree with their religion&#8217;s doctrines on this point, in which case they should confess their &#8220;sin&#8221; of dissenting to the elders. Or maybe they just didn&#8217;t know the answer.<\/p>\n<p>Here, let me help you Witnesses out with that: You believe &#8211; or at least you better say you believe\u00a0&#8211; that humans have been on the earth for 6,036 years. And I&#8217;ll go ahead and back that up for you with documentation from your literature:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;According to reliable Bible chronology Adam was created in the year 4026 B.C.E., likely in the autumn of the year, at the end of the sixth day of creation.&#8221; (that&#8217;s from the April 1, 1968, <em>Watchtower<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, congratulations to my wife on being a return visit now. I hope her friends come back and show us the truth some more. I mean, if there&#8217;s time. I know Armageddon will be here any minute.<\/p>\n<p>In other Witness news, while searching for something completely different, I discovered that my acquaintance and fellow ex-Witness Anthony Mathenia is releasing a romance novel online. I&#8217;ve read exactly zero e-books, and I don&#8217;t expect that total to change anytime soon, but if it tickles your fancy, go ahead and read <a href=\"http:\/\/curiosityquills.com\/published-authors\/anthony-mathenia\/happiness\/\">Happiness &#8211; How to Find It<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday, 26 July 2012 If you&#8217;re tired of hearing or reading stuff about the Witnesses, then you should probably just ignore this blog post altogether. If not, here we go&#8230; First, the Humanists of Minnesota just uploaded their June episode to YouTube. That, as you may recall, was the episode in which I was the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3679"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3689,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679\/revisions\/3689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}