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sweet pea

Last night I had a phone call from a concerned friend who knows we face a JC.
He means the world to me and is like my second dad. He is a loving, intelligent wonderful man (a little opinionated, but aren't we all?)

We had a long conversation and I won't bore you all with the details :-) but the highlights were as follows:-

I mentioned the CHILD ABUSE SCANDAL -

Him: "where did you get that information?" (classic - as if that's relevant!)
SP: "it doesn't matter, the newspapers actually"
Him: "oh, well you can't believe the newspapers, they are lying"
SP: "but you can't and criticise the Catholic Church because you believe the stories about them, when your religion
is guilty of the same thing!"
Him: SILENCE

I mentioned 607 -

Him: "I will believe the Bible's chronology over secular chronology any day"
SP: "You can't have secular chronology without biblical chronology, I can prove Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 from
the Bible and from the Watchtower.
Him: SILENCE

I mentioned the FLIP FLOPS on ORGAN TRANPSLANTS -

Him: "I've heard all this before, everything can be explained away, its like when the society changed their view
of the secular authorities, at the end of the day it doesn't really matter"
SP: "When it involves people lives, it does. It's not good enough to say "oh, I'm sorry those ones died when we
threatened to disfellowship them if they had a transplant and then we changed our minds"
Him: SILENCE

I mentioned the ALTERNATIVE SERVICE issue -

Him: "What's that then?"

I ended up suggesting he read CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE -

Him: (Laughs) "I don't need to read Crisis of Conscience"

I think he does but he is afraid to - his whole world will fall apart, withoutu going into detail he has too much to
cope with right now.

My aim wasn't to win an argument but to try and help him understand those of us that leave due to intellectual reasons and hopefully to plant some seeds. Who knows what will happen next.....

sweet pea

Oops, my proof reading's not that great (my emotions cloud my vision sometimes!)

Under Flip Flops on Organ Transplants it meant to read -

"its not good enough to say "sorry they died as a result of old light - they'll get a resurrection though, so everything's ok" "

AlphaOmega

Sounds like a good conversation... When mine take similar directions I would love to know what is going on in their heads during the silence

"its not good enough to say "sorry they died as a result of old light - they'll get a resurrection though, so everything's ok" "

Please tell me that they don't actually imply this.

drew sagan

My aim wasn't to win an argument but to try and help him understand those of us that leave due to intellectual reasons and hopefully to plant some seeds. Who knows what will happen next.....

Arguments cannot be won with JWs my friend. They are the masters of argumentation.

There are those who leave for 'intellectual reasons' but I will add that there are so many other factors to these ones finally being able to muster up the courage to do so. Usually leaving is a 1,2 punch. People see all kinds of things in the congregation that makes them question the truthfulness of many claims. This then mixes with all of the questions about teachings they might not have fully felt comfortable with. Eventually the person finally has enough and starts to their process of questioning the org.

You can be a part of helping the person start to think for themselves, but you'll never 'win' an argument.

jgnat

Arguments cannot be won with JWs my friend. They are the masters of argumentation.

I would call it rather, "masters of deflection". I don't see good arguments from JW's, I see excuses.

drew sagan

I see excuses.

Quite True. First they will take you through all of the arguments they have, and then move on to the excuses.

The excuses of course are just a way for the JW to get through the conversation and still believe in the WT. This is how most JW conversations end up.

Thanks for adding that jgnat

sweet pea

"it's ok they'll get a resurrection"

AO - Not only do they imply this, I have had 2 friends, at least, say those exact words!

unique1

Sounds like you did well. WAY TO GO Sweet Pea.

Lady Liberty

Dear Sweetpea,

Thank you for sharing that experience with us. When reading his replys to your comments, it was almost "verbatum" the same replies I recieved over and over from different family members and friends who I talked with before our complete exit. It is like they are all literally programmed the same way. Then when the logic doesn't compute to them they are like robots that hiss and steam and heads spin because logicical reasoning cannot compute with their programming!! Sad but true!! Maybe some how some way something you said will work on him.

Sincerely,

Lady Liberty

AK - Jeff

It is like they are all literally programmed the same way.

LL - May I adjust your sentence? Just drop the first three words.

They are all literally programmed the same way.

They are.

Jeff

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