Posts by OneEyedJoe

29

Could the allowance of blood fractions be curtailing the growth of the religion?

by Apognophos in

so, imagine that you're just a regular joe who's not familiar with the witnesses and is looking for the answers to life, the universe, and everything.

you hear a knock at your door.

before long, you are studying with a jehovah's witness.

OneEyedJoe

I suspect that most anyone who makes it that far in the "study" is already sufficiently indoctrinated that the relatively remote chance that they'll need a blood transfusion allows them to dismiss any questions they might have regarding the implementation of the blood ban. They've already invested so much time into the cult that their CD will prevent them from raising questions at that stage. Combined with the social pressure of having 2 JWs explaining this to you like it's the moist rational thing ever it's probably only going to raise questions of they or a family member has needed blood in the past.

The blood ban in general I'd probably losing them recruits, but nowhere near what they're losing just by being exposed for what they are on the internet.

21

Did you know about the organ transplant ban when you were a believer?

by Apognophos in

back when i was learning ttatt, i was shocked to read on jwfacts about the organ transplant ban from 1967 to 1980. this was a large piece of evidence for me that the society could not be god's organization.

growing up as an earnest witness, and living near the headquarters, i knew a lot of the organization's embarrassing history, and it didn't faze me, but i'd never heard of this ban before, and it shocked me.

it's gotten me wondering why no one i know ever talks about it, when it must have affected many witnesses during that time (or were they getting transplants on the sly?

OneEyedJoe

I was the same as you...I never heard an inkling about the transplant thing. To be fair, it wasnt in effect during my lifetime, but I had heard whispers of 1975. I think that it's likely that the only people that knew of the ban were people that needed a transplant ( and thought to investigate 'mother's' thoughts on the matter) and some elders. When I found jwfacts I actually ignored the section about organ transplants because I assumed it was ancient history - in my still somewhat indoctrinated mind, I assumed it was a relic from the 40's or something because transplants were too risky at the time. When I finally looked at it, I was shocked at how recently the ban had been in place.

9

priorities

by drawcad_1 in

jw
friends

is it just me or is the focus on building projects.

i read through the study for this weekend and all of the focus was on new building construction.

i was waiting for them to talk about the ministry, and it was in there, but not as the main priority.. i am amazed after visiting an old congregation of mine back in new england just how few (none) of the publishers had helped out on the new headquarters.

OneEyedJoe

There's good money to be made in real estate, so of course that's top priority.

21

Period of time from crack to avalanche

by NeverKnew in

jw
friends

i know, people are very different and have different levels of holds to the organization, but i'm insanely curious about how long an exposure to ttatt may marinate before culminating into an action to research further.. from your earliest memory of a planted seed due to an event, challenge from another person, accidental website hit... whatever... (the crack) to the time the ttatt became a reality, (the avalanche), how much time expired?.

i guess we have to remember that everyone here is a success story and that for many, it may be never.. .

OneEyedJoe

Echoing phizzy and vidiot, I always knew there where things that weren't quite right, and for the last 15 years or so I was an atheist trying to convince myself that good existed.

The last crack was the rehash of the overlapping doctrine early this year. The time between that and me looking online was about 3 months. Once I went online and found jwfacts, I was mentally out inside of 3 days.

5

Did you piss on their parade? Christmas?

by jambon1 in

jw
friends

when you were a jw and someone mentioned 'have a nice christmas' or 'have a nice holiday' did you just say 'thanks, enjoy it yourself' or did you piss all over their good mood and bore them to death about why you don't celebrate it?.

OneEyedJoe

For most of my JW life, I usually said something intended not to stand out as unusual, while technically not saying "merry christmas" or whatever. "You too" or "back atcha" type stuff. A couple years ago, though, I just decided that it didn't matter if I wished someone a merry christmas, because I genuinely wanted them to enjoy their christmas. Same for new years or whatever. I wasn't afirming their belief system, just wishing them well in the traditional way. Of course I was careful not to do that around JWs...

40

Governing Body new Branch letter begging for donations !

by ToesUp in

jw
friends

i just want the governing body to know how "happified" i am today.

keep sending those branch letters to the congregation(s) about sending your donations in.

not only did you humiliate the rank and file with your tony morris tight pants talk but now you are begging the same people you humiliated for money.

OneEyedJoe

I read this letter four times when it came in. I cannot for the life of me understand what they are saying. This looks like a letter that got washed through a dozen committees and ended up saying nothing.

That's a good way of putting it. At first it reminded me of many of the emails I get at work this time of year, where they basically say 'thanks for all the hard work, we've got a big year ahead next year!' The primary difference, though, is that those emails always actually provide something of some substance. This letter, on the other hand, was just a bunch of fluff about nothing and says 'give us more money unless you're unhappy with the way god's been treating you.' The bit about giving in proportion to your blessing almost has the same attitude as AMIII in his zone visit: "Take it up with god!"

I'm so glad that I stopped giving money to this cult years ago. Ironically, I stopped giving them money when I saw the over-the-top and unneccessary renovations that were taking place and I determined they had more money than they knew what to do with. The reality, though, was that those renovations where a symptom of the exact opposite.

40

Governing Body new Branch letter begging for donations !

by ToesUp in

jw
friends

i just want the governing body to know how "happified" i am today.

keep sending those branch letters to the congregation(s) about sending your donations in.

not only did you humiliate the rank and file with your tony morris tight pants talk but now you are begging the same people you humiliated for money.

OneEyedJoe

There is ample evidence that Jehovah is speeding up the work.

They keep saying this, but never actually cite any evidence.

40

Governing Body new Branch letter begging for donations !

by ToesUp in

jw
friends

i just want the governing body to know how "happified" i am today.

keep sending those branch letters to the congregation(s) about sending your donations in.

not only did you humiliate the rank and file with your tony morris tight pants talk but now you are begging the same people you humiliated for money.

OneEyedJoe

When was this letter read? Any more details on the contents beyond it begging for more money? I haven't been to a mid-week meeting in a while (yay!) so I may have missed it if it came in recently.

32

What's with this "no windows in kingdom halls" thing?

by Trapped in JW land in

jw
friends

i hear many people on this forum say that kh's don't have windows.

but i have never been to one that didn't have windows.

is this only in a certain area or something?.

OneEyedJoe

Kingdom halls in my area used to be built with windows - one of the older ones I've been to had windows last I was there, but that was probably 15-20 years ago, now. I haven't seen a new kingdom hall in the last 20 years that was built with windows, but that may vary depending on climate and local culture. I've often heard from the platform that it is because people sometimes would throw rocks through them. Sometimes this is mentioned in the context of "angry appostates" or "protesters." Litterally every time I've heard it, though, it follows the script below nearly verbatim:

<discussing questions/objections people might have regarding JWs, things like "you don't believe in Jesus" etc.>
"Some people even wonder why kingdom halls don't have windows. 'What are you doing in there that you don't want people to see?' they ask. Well there's a simple answer - we don't have anything to hide, but at one time when kingdom halls had windows there was often a problem with vandalism. Sometimes people <sometimes this is changed to appostates or something similar to fuel the persecution complex> would throw rocks through them. So, after a while, it was decided that new kingdom halls would be built without windows. We can also assure people that are meetings are open to the public, and invite them to attend."

85

Mormons getting hollowed out: The tipping point has occurred.

by Qcmbr in

ever since mitt romney turned the spotlight on the lds church a growing tsunami of disaffection has been accelerated and brought to a head.. the lds core faithful members are leaving in increasing numbers such that growth has not simply stagnated in the west but it has actively reversed.

to their credit the church is responding aggressively but not only is it too late, it is an impossible task.

you can only paint sh*t so many ways.

OneEyedJoe

I think were both right new halls will be built for mutiple congregations and ownership issues but at the same time this allows for them to quietly delete congregations with out anyone knowing the numbers are down. Some one posted here that they know a co in a circuit near Seattle Wa, and he was told by this co that there lossing half a dozen people per circuit per assembly. No way to know for sure but the last few circuit assemblies I attended seemed down in numbers as well as the District assemblies. But there always changing things around so it hard to tell. Maybe that's the reason why so people won't figure out that the numbers of people attending are down.

On the topic of anecdotal evidence for decline, I'll add my observations: The last CO visit we had, in his final talk he said what boils down to - the elders have expressed concern to me about meeting attendence, but I don't think it's a problem because your congregation has some of the best meeting attendence in the circuit. Our meeting attendence is probably 70-80% on sundays and 50-70% on the mid-week meetings. That was never passable when I was a kid (we'd get local needs talks if it dropped below 90% for sundays) in the same area so something must've changed. I think the trend is that meeting attendence is dropping everywhere and they've switched from trying to recover the ones that are leaving to trying to put on a good face so that the ones who are still there don't leave too.