It's a true cannibalistic organization. They eat their young. They eat their old. They eat the weak and they eat the eaters in the end.
I think it's terrible that they get your relatives to shun you and then they get the relatives to tell you it's their own personal decision. What a crock!
Great post Willyloman, Thanks! GaryB
The message has changed . . . or am I wrong again?
by garybuss 46 Replies latest jw friends
-
garybuss
-
zugzwang
I remember noticing the Witness people encouraging my wife to leave the family because we were not believers. I did not realize this was an organizational movement until I researched the doctrine of "absolute endangerment of spirituality".
That is the exact excuse that my ex wife used to divorce me. I always believed that no matter what she did or what I did neither of us would leave the other on any grounds other than fornication. Well, there was no fornication and she still left. Thanks to the WTS teaching that organizational loyalty is more important than marital vows. But hey, who wants to be married to someone who doesn't want you around anyway? It's still a bunch of crap how much control the WTS has over it's members.
zugz
-
Corvin
Garybus;
The fun times and social emphasis was why and how new recruits were made and how we endured the unfun parts. The message was, come join us because it's fun.
LOL, I was born into the cult in 1967. I don't remember those days of fun you mention at all. Must have been sometime before I was born, for I only remember the fear and dread of the impending battle of Armegeddon where kids just like me were going to fall into a big hole in the ground. The only fun I remember was when we would walk around the District Convention grounds after the day's program and sneak into the baseball players' locker room to pilfer baseball gloves, balls and bats.
Corvin
-
garybuss
Corvin, In this area outsiders were recruited mostly from coworkers and backyard fence neighbors by inviting them to social things. There were lots of large picnics and group get togethers where no one was left out that I am aware of. The atmosphere was friendly.
Assemblies were kind of fun. We had orchestras and they played music programs sometimes a half hour before the start of the sessions. Some of them were professional quality and they brought a degree of credibility to it all. The food kitchen was fun to be involved in. The pyramid of power extended right into the food kitchen and the women who were real good cooks, were peeling potatoes and making brown bread sandwiches for the snack stand while the janitors and painters were in the kitchen doing the cooking. I thought it was hilarious.
One guy who (a truck driver in real life) was a company servant owned a chef's hat and snagged the kitchen job, decided to mix up pancake batter with a huge electric drill and a drywall joint compound mixing paddle. He liked the sound of that drill running and he mixed that batter into a sort of plaster. 350 people got the toughest pancakes in the history of the world that morning. We floated them in syrup and they were completely waterproof, sort of like chore boots. They were so tough we had to get out the steak knives out to cut them and they still were like chewing cardboard. He saved the leftover batter for the next day.
We bought an old school bus to haul and store the circuit cooking equipment. We had huge commercial stoves and steel trays like they use in the military that weighed a ton. There was so much weight behind the rear wheels that the bus bent in half. There was nothing we had that was light. Even the coffee pots were heavy.
Some times we did all the cooking right inside of the bus parked in some city street in back of an auditorium. At bigger assemblies we set up tents, one for cooking and another to set up the standing up eating tables. At meal times we would take a utility knife and cut a loaf of bread in half and set them right on the tables. I must have went years at assemblies and never sat in on one session.
Locally we had quite a few jam sessions. My brother and I played guitar and we got together with other Witness jammers often. Lots of times there would be a housefull. There were some professional grade JW musicians and some would travel several hundred miles to jam with us. For a long time, the social stuff and the chaos work like the assembly food service mostly defined my Witness involvement.People who collected junk for a living or who had been cow kicked liked what we had to offer and they fit right in. Most new members had three parts cars on blocks in their side yards and didn't have any front teeth. Lots of us saved "stuff" for use after armageddon, like rope and used wire and old washing machines. Those things made sense.
-
Sunspot
**the women who were real good cooks, were peeling potatoes
I remeber pretty much all that you spoke of, Gary, especially the full orchestra that played. I was also a top-notch "potato peeler" too!! LOL!
A short time before I left the WTS, the few small gatherings that were "approved", must have Elders present---its like telling the JWs that they can't be trusted to have a good time without being supervised like unruly children who are apt to "get into something" the moment they are left alone.
There appears to be a big change in "behavior" versus "solid bible message". This inability to stand by the teachings, dogma and doctrines that prove to be in error,(and revise them as necessary),has taken its toll and understandably so.
hugs,
Annie
-
wednesday
I remember some of the things u describe, Gary. The orchestra at the assemblies. people seemed a lot nicer then. I sarted noticing a change in the ealrly 70's. They were DF people right and left. The end was of course coming in 75. People became less friendly in the 70's and more suspicious of others in the org. We were warned all the time our real enemies may be in the org. The changes were so gradual that it's hard to "see" them unless u look back or have been out a while. We were just told to keep moving with God's chariot or get left behind. (from ezekiel i think) We were told the message would change as the end grew near and we must always do whatever the org tells us. example we were told once that we may actually we told to go door to door and tell people that God had closed the door to the ark and no one else could come in. (wer'e just stopping by to tell u to kiss your arse goodbye) I really remember that. I did not believe it then.
-
blondie
I can remember when JWs were encouraged to verify things in the publications using the scriptures, like the Beroeans in Acts 17:10,11.
You would read statements like this:
w80 3/15 p. 22 Living Up to Our Choice(Acts 17:10, 11) They made these things their own, not merely listening with agreement but also examining the firm Scriptural basis for the things they eagerly received into their minds and hearts. We should follow the course of those sincere Beroeans. Why? Because we may hear the truth preached or taught by human teachers, but when we read it in the Bible it becomes a fully founded, permanent motivating force in our hearts.
w77 12/1 p. 723 Is Your Advice Hard to Take?When we advise others we should use reason and scriptures, not demanding compliance because of a position we might have. (Phil. 4:5) We should be like Paul, who did not use his position as an apostle to pressure people. Instead, he commended them for checking to see whether his teaching was based on the Bible. "They received the word with the greatest eagerness of mind, carefully examining the Scriptures daily as to whether these things were so. Therefore many of them became believers."?Acts 17:11, 12.
Then this ominous statement was made in the midst of the "apostate" era at Bethel.
w81 2/15 pp. 18-19 Do We Need Help to Understand the Bible?
How shall we view the spiritual food provided by this "faithful and discreet slave"? Should it be viewed critically??Oh, well, it might be true but then again it might not be and so we have to scrutinize it very critically?? Some apparently have felt that way about it. To support their way of thinking they have quoted Acts 17:11, which says of newly interested persons at Beroea: "Now the latter were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with the greatest eagerness of mind, carefully examining the Scriptures daily as to whether these things were so."
But does this mean that those Beroeans were looking for flaws in the message they were hearing, or that their attitude was one of doubting? Does this set a precedent for regarding critically the publications brought forth by the "faithful and discreet slave," with a view to finding fault? Not at all!
First of all, let us note the setting of the statement about the noble-minded Beroeans. Paul, accompanied by Silas, was on his second missionary tour. Due to persecution that arose, the brothers at Thessalonica sent them on to Beroea. In Beroea they met sincere Jews who had strong faith in God?s Word. These were not Christians yet. They were simply interested persons who had to satisfy themselves that what Paul was telling them had the support of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Up to this time, these devout Jews in Beroea may never have heard of Jesus Christ. What Paul was telling them was entirely new. So those noble-minded Jews in Beroea searched the Scriptures daily to make certain that the references that Paul gave were really part of God?s Word. And with what mental attitude did they pursue their studies? With a skeptical attitude, trying to prove Paul wrong? No, they were altogether unlike Paul?s critics on Mars Hill, for we read that they heard Paul?s testimony with "the greatest eagerness of mind."?Acts 17:11, 32.
These Beroeans listened with a readiness, yes, an eagerness, to believe. Thus not only were they open-minded, but they were wanting to have this "good news" proved true. In fact, for a person to acquire faith he must have "the will to believe." If he is determined not to believe, then no amount of evidence will convince him; for if a person looks for them he can always find excuses, plausible reasons for not accepting the accountability that belief will bring upon him. As the apostle Paul well said: "Faith is not a possession of all people." (2 Thess. 3:2) But the Beroeans had the will to believe. They considered what they heard with a receptive frame of mind. As a result, "many of them became believers, and so did not a few of the reputable Greek women and of the men."?Acts 17:12.
Jesus? disciples wrote many letters to Christian congregations, to persons who were already in "the way of the truth." (2 Pet. 2:2) But nowhere do we read that those brothers first, in a skeptical frame of mind, checked the Scriptures to make certain that those letters had Scriptural backing, that the writers really knew what they were talking about.
-
Sunspot
**We were just told to keep moving with God's chariot or get left behind. (from ezekiel i think) We were told the message would change as the end grew near and we must always do whatever the org tells us. example we were told once that we may actually we told to go door to door and tell people that God had closed the door to the ark and no one else could come in. (wer'e just stopping by to tell u to kiss your arse goodbye)
THIS is SO true!
"We must always do whatever the org tells us" WAS the theme! I'd have to say---it still IS!
We were also told that as "the day" grew nearer, that the message WOULD be more hard-hitting and blunt. I haven't seen a Watchtower mag since I left, but from what I gather on different boards---the message (AND the WTS) have gone "softer", if anything. No more negative pictures about the horrible, disgusting UN, no more bashes at the Catholic church, etc, and less urgency as compared to the "message" that we delivered years ago. As I said, the message to JWs to do what the org says....has been somewhat strengthened, IMHO.
-
garybuss
Wednesday, I remember well the mean spirit that came into the organization in the 1970's. For a time I thought it was me, but now after comparing notes with a few hundred other former and current Witnesses who went through the era, I see it was them and not me.
Annie, why did the cooks peel the potatoes and the janitors cook at assemblies? I think the miracle of it all was the food actually was usually pretty good. They changed us sixty five cents for a meal for years and showed enough profit to pay the expenses for the assembly and sent some hard cash off to the publishing corporation in New York City.
Blondie, Thanks for the documentation. I notice your newest quote was 1981. That was the year of the Bethel purge and the HUGE tightening up of the shunning doctrine wasn't it? Now the message seems to be, "If you check anything. you're in trouble.". -
cyber-sista
Gary I came in in 82 and and in the congo in that area--at that time--there was at least a sense of comradery (I would never have come into the Organization if it was the way it is today). There were lots of parties--get togethers at parks--things were very family oriented--one of the reasons I was attracted to join up in the first place..
It all changed since then and when I left last year the "spirit" in the congo was one of distrust and paranoia. Avoid those who are weak in the congo--they are dangerous. View those in the world not as potential brothers and sisters, but as evil beings not worthy of our time and attention. Focus on the Organization--don't think --but just obey, obey, obey what they say.