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by sacolton 14 Replies latest jw friends

  • zoiks
    zoiks

    Oh boy...

    Hello,

    I have lurked around this board for a while. I just joined and now feel that I should introduce myself to the group. My name is Paul* and I am currently serving in an appointed capacity in my local congregation. That will probably not be the case for very much longer! I have had my doubts for years and years but always pushed such “independent thinking” out of my mind so as to stay loyal to Jah’s Organization. Several developments in my life and in the lives of several of my friends in the congregation over the past few years have forced me to step back and take stock of what I truly believe. I have done much research, and against the express instructions in the Watchtower, I have researched ALL SIDES of many issues. It has been and continues to be a very difficult personal journey, but I have recently concluded that I do not believe in a god or gods. Furthermore, I feel that some of the teachings and policies of the organization are not only incorrect but actually harmful to many.

    So this brings me to a bit of a dilemma. I cannot in good conscience keep serving, so I will step down. My friends and family have no clue what is coming – most are Witnesses who would absolutely stop speaking with me if I were to disassociate myself or was disfellowshipped for airing my opinions. My wife is in no way going to leave the organization. I believe my only option is to try to pull off The Fade, as it seems to be called by those in the know. I have read the threads on this board dealing with fading from the organization, and I am hopeful that I can pull it off. I know that I am risking much by doing this.

    I recently confided in a non-witness friend and his advice was to “fake it” for as long as possible. I believe that I have done this for as long as I can. I am considered a very good speaker and am often assigned to give public talks around the circuit. I hate the sound of my own voice as I deliver these discourses. I hate standing up on stage during the school or service meeting, saying things that I no longer believe to an audience that has no idea. It is horribly dishonest of me, and I cringe when I think that some argument of mine based on faulty logic, delivered in a convincing manner from the platform, might be responsible for inhibiting someone else’s ability to think.

    In any case, there is as much of my story as I can share at the moment. I apologize if my thoughts are in a bit of a jumble – this is a big and frightening step! If anyone has any suggestions or encouragement, I would really appreciate it! I will attempt to log in and contribute to this group as much as I am able, but the opportunities are few at the moment. Thanks for reading…

    *Name has been changed.

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    From September, 2002:

    So the article claims Paul rejected apocryphal tales like Tobit? JWs believe Paul wrote the pastorals and Hebrews. What's with the allusions to Jannes & Jambres and possibly to Isaiah getting chopped in half? How 'bout the let's-see-how-many-apocryphal-and-pseudepigraphal-allusions-we-can-cram-into-a-short-letter epistle of Jude?

    Leolaia

  • darth frosty
    darth frosty

    Am I the only one who finds it fitting that Leolaia's 1st post was an acute disection of biblical history?

    My 1st post a response to 'do you think the WT lit is like idols?'

    yeah I thought they were holy too till I got to bethel and saw "recycle" bins filled with them.

  • troubled mind
    troubled mind

    Hi, I am new to the db ,in fact this is the very fist time I've given voice to my inner conflict . Let me explain, i am a JW lifer ,now at 44 I feel it is time to begin some serious thinking for myself .This past summer I began searching the forbidden land of internet "apostate" sites , and low and behold people that had some of the very same feelings and thoughts I've stuffed down for many years .Okay some things I've read are a bit whacked, but alot seem to be honest sincere people sick of stiffling their own consciences. At times I think I am going to go crazy......I still attend meetings most of my family are jw and my poor children have embraced this religion because of me . I sneak around on the net when no ones around afraid of what they will think ....God isn't that sad ! I don't have a clue to what i am going to do I am slowly trying to fade with out upsetting my family to much . I can't bring myself to go door to door anymore though , think that would be to hypocritical . If you don't mind I need a place to vent and I thought your sight would be a safe haven.Thanks for any input ,support, or advice I can get ! Hopefully I will be able to post more details of my troubled mind soon. thanks......... WOW ,alot has changed in four yrs and 2400 posts later ! My husband and Every one of my kids have now faded. None of us attend meetings anymore . We openly discuss the forum in our home .

  • Terry
    Terry

    This was my first post:

    Botchtower and Herald ofJove's Witness Protection Program

    August 15,2004

    Should Christians Answer Rhetorical Questions?What does the Bible Say?

    Asking questions is an excellent way to make honest inquiry for the purpose of satisfying a healthy curiousity, educating our minds with accurate knowledge and increasing our awareness of facts about our planet, daily life and how we can improve our ability to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the ravages of disease, threats of terror and even the pitfalls of run-on sentences! (Matthew 24:14)Yet, Christians must be aware that exercising their freedom to make such inquiries, while seemingly innocent, can lead to their ultimate destruction at the battle of the great day of God the Almighty! How so? Let us examine, in a spirit of humility and submission, exactly what the holy scriptures and, more importantly, Jehovah's 'faithful and discreet slave' at the Governing Body of his clean and happy fruit-filled organization rightly view the subject while simultaneously avoiding the pitfalls of running ahead of His 'mighty ones' who seemingly pull these things out of their body cavities! [Matthew 24:14]

    The Dangers of Understanding Why You are being controlled

    Worldy people, ravaged by goat-like stubborness and reeking with the stench of Satan's visible organization's harlot-like influence, have many facts at their command because of higher education and listening to propaganda-filled onslaughts of Public Radio and the wicked-spirit filled influence of unrighteous Internet based blogs and apostacy-laced websites who wrongly expose the false prophecies and feckless date-setting of Jah's slave class.[Matthew 24:14]But, does this lead to true happiness? The members of Jehovah's ark like organization of Noah-type family members who 'wait on Jehovah' and avoid such secular pollution all answer "NO!" because they are instructed to answer thusly by their extensive exposure to the 'Truth that leads to eternal life"and the threat of disfellowshipping. (Matthew 24:14]While the dying old system of things around them promises a bright future if they work hard, get a "good" education and plan for a brighter tomorrow by careful investments and the cultivation of a network of savvy financial consultants, worldy people seem to have much easier lives than Jehovah's Happy people! But, do they really? [Matthew 24:14]Jehovah's happy, contented, sheeplike proclaimers of the joyful news about the established kingdom of God which has been in place since 1874, 1914 and perhaps other times, all realise that having a pot to pee in and a Watchtower magazine are all an honest-hearted Christian really needs for genuine happiness! [Matthew 24:14]The reason for this is most obvious to any bible-trained, sheep-like hypenated Christian seeker of indoctrination at the hands of the anointed class of corporate bully boys and aging, latter-day anti-types of Old Testament servants of old who were foreordained from the "foundation of the world'. [Matthew 24:14]Jonadabs, other sheep and Betty Boop publishers who follow their slave master Jesus' instruction to "Go therefore and preach the good news of the Watchtower (New World Translation] for a Jehovah's Witness to all the nations".[Gnostic Gospel of Marvin 2:13] have learned to ask, "How high" when instructed to "Jump", by their owner and operator, aka Michael the Arch Angel, alias Immanuel, formerly known as Prince.

    How Much?

    Wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? What does the Bible say? Does it matter? It is what the Brooklyn cadre manage to invent that really matters, isn't it? Sure! [Matthew 24:14]

    How Long?W hen will all the madness end and Paradise begin? Only Jehovah's wife knows the answer to that one! And what do all the scriptures from Genesis to 2nd Macabees reveal to honest inquiry? Depends on what you mean by "what?"Only Jehovah's happy, sappy, goofy people have the accurate knowledge from their examination of the Great Pyramind of Cheops! Yes, that's right! NEW LIGHT, brothers! More NEW LIGHT! [Matthew 24:14]We know it looks like 'Old Light" which was "Present Truth" but passed into disrepute and vanished for awhile--but, it is so darned fascinating we brought it back for a six week run off Broadway (which the Society recently purchased along with the NY Stock Exchange] and here is what a careful measurement of the passages tells us.

    The Witness in Stone

    From the base of the pyramid to the prefrontal lobe on a tangent to the Caesarian section of the conical, we find a distance of 2004 cubits, one bushel and two pecks. Quite naturally this reveals in the spirit of truth at the direction of the big guy in the sky that we are living in END TIMES! Does this shock you? It does us! This is just too freakin weird not to be true! How appropriate if it were true! We need it to be true! We all do! The collections have been down since the 1975 debacle and we sure need something to juice up the brothers! And speaking of juice; did you know prune juice can cure cancer? But, don't cook it in an aluminum pot!

    Beware of Apostates!N aturally there are going to be a bunch of Satan inspired apostates out there in goat-land who will scoff and ridicule the New World Society for yet another wacky prediction based on nothing more than flagging revenues and a lame premise; however, true Christians won't allow mere common sense to intrude into the holly jolly protective fart-bubble that the Watchtower brainiacs have concocted out of whole cloth. [Matthew 24:14] No. "No way", Jah say.But, what is an Apostate? Why, anybody who pisses us off by asking embaressing questions, that's who! Former walkers in the light who have forsaken the shining path of righteous and traded it in (with a $200 rebate] for the darkness of khaki'-colored Satan-dom, know they have a 'short time left' and seek to destroy the multi-billion dollar empire of Gawd Amighty! They point out our inconsistencies, our feckless chronology, our doctrinal changes, our crackdown on honest-inquiry and our Wal-Mart fashion stylings for the sole purpose of making us look like false prophets! But, we cannot be False Prophets! False Prophets loose face because they are always wrong. Jehovah's Anointed slave forbids brothers and sisters all over Spaceship Earth to acknowledge our errors, or else! Brothers and sisters of the true faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Freddy, join hands, turn away from such facts and, instead, do the Hokey Pokey to the somnolent strains of synthesized Kingdom Tunes on midi-files available at your local Kingdom Hall literature counter for a love-offering of $195.

    Now is the Time!

    For every good man to come to the aid of his corporate sponsor! Give generously of your time, your talents, your youth and especially your estate as we enter the last few seconds of this wicked, dying old system! Obviously this means there is no time to waste on activities of the flesh such as buying groceries, clipping toenails or visits to the potty! No! Now is the time to preach, teach, declare, proclaim, inveigh, prod, poke, cajole, incite, bugger, flip-off, eat a bug, and take a flying leap for the King of Jehovah's new transitional, money-back guranteed, no-nonsense, low-carb, high octane New Order of Jehovah-bots. [Matthew 24:14]

    Will You Be There?

    On the day all the birds of heaven gather to munch eyeballs and pick the rancid flesh of those slaughtered gleefully at Armageddon by the loving, sword-weilding killer angels of Jah, will you be one of the rotting corpses of putrefying flesh; or, will you be doing the Lambada with the buxom Kingdom babes in God's new paradise arrangement where all the Governing Body will live like kings with 24 virgins, caviar, and a crate of the bubbly?Did Jah fire six shots; or only five? Well, seeing how'z his Abbadon with the sword is the most powerful assassain angel in the world and can cut your head clean off....you've gotta ask yourself a question! Do you feel lucky? Well, do you punk? If you don't, then maybe you need to scoot your worthless butt down to the local Kingdom Emporium of Bible babble and shell out some hard cash for our life-saving literature. It might mean the difference between life and death! But, remember, no facial hair! It could stumble the weaker brothers. [Matthew 24:14][Questions for Watchtower study]1.Who is John Galt? How did the prophet Jeremiah pre-figure his shrug?2.Why do diet drinks taste so artificial? Does this tie look okay with this shirt?3.In view of the admonition in James 2:14, how should Christians do the Funky Chicken?4.Will the United Nations ever send back my bookbag I left there while doing research in their Satanic library?5.Wrongdoers in the congregation of God--how do we keep them out of the newspapers?6.Brother Fugbutton has a sloping forehead; does this mean he'd make a good Presiding Elder?7.If an elder predicts that a sister will pay for breast implants; does this make him a Falsie prophet?8.What's good on TV tonight after the Westwing?

    B otchtowerAugust 15,2004

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