Posts by OneEyedJoe

32

Governing Body Sheep Fleecing - Official!

by The Searcher in

fellow witnesses - do you think the kingdom hall belongs to you, just because you all paid for it and personally finance its maintenance?

think again, sheep!

the "shepherds" have announced the fleecing in black & white for you, in case you decide to question them!.

OneEyedJoe

My son related this story to me that one congregation stood up to the society. Is i true that one congregation challenged the society on ownership and have legal tittle of their Kingdum Hall?

Maybe thinking of the menlo park congregation?

23

A Subtle Factor That Keeps Witnesses Silenced

by freemindfade in

had an interesting thought this morning.

when a witness is 'in' they think everyone else is following and trying there best all in unity.

i believe the reality is there are a lot of us 'in' who know different.

This is why a lack of free speech is key to authoritarian regimes. They can keep control even if only a minority of the people are true followers, because the appearance is that everyone is loyal. If everyone else appears loyal because they're afraid of what you might do if they appear disloyal, then you're going to do the same thing.

In such a situation there's no way to be absolutely sure that someone else isn't loyal to the group/leader without exposing yourself to some risk first. Since most people tend to stick with the status quo, and try to minimize their personal risk, that doesn't happen very often. You usually have to get someone with nothing to lose before they'll do that, which in the case of JWs usually means a new convert or someone who's already estranged from family and doesn't have any close friends in the cult. The folks with nothing to lose, therefore never appear to be credible, so they have little impact even when they expose themselves.

14

Questions about Non JWs attending a JW baptism

by TTWSYF in

i attended my brother and sister in laws' baptism at a kingdom hall a number of years ago.

i was [am] not a jw so when i arrived i was bombarded with attention from the flock to which i politely stated that i was there to see my brother and his wife.

it seemed like the distraction was intentional.

OneEyedJoe

Yeah, once you see how deep a lot of the insane stuff goes, it's easy to start to assume that everything is an orchestrated conspiracy.

14

Questions about Non JWs attending a JW baptism

by TTWSYF in

i attended my brother and sister in laws' baptism at a kingdom hall a number of years ago.

i was [am] not a jw so when i arrived i was bombarded with attention from the flock to which i politely stated that i was there to see my brother and his wife.

it seemed like the distraction was intentional.

OneEyedJoe

Most JWs don't even realize that they're baptized in the name of the organization, so on an individual level I can't imagine that they were intentionally trying to distract you from that. As a JW I never heard any direction specifically around engaging non-believers at a baptism, but there's a constant reinforcement of the need to welcome any new ones and ask personal questions, etc. So my guess is that you just experiences run-of-the-mill love bombing that just so happened to result in your missing the baptism.

Plus, I'm sure any pioneers there were counting their time. Pioneers love to count time when they'd be wasting their time at meetings/errands/etc anyways.

35

Memorial attendance up or down on last year?

by freddo in

jw
friends

as per the title.

and was the one you attended at an early or late time of the evening.. any partakers?.

OneEyedJoe

Everyone said they were shocked at how low attendance was this year, though it may have been due to the 9:00 time slot that we got. Even so, it was easily the smallest group (by probably 20-30 people, down roughly 10-15% from the previous low) I've ever seen at a memorial in this congregation. Previous years in the 9:00 slot have never been so poorly attended.

284

I'm an ABSENTHEIST. Are you also?

by EdenOne in

it just dawned on me.

the existence of god can't be proved, neither is there evidence of god's inexistence.

so, i'm neither theist neither atheist.

OneEyedJoe

I went from agnostic to atheist when I realized that the only way to get to a god that could possibly exist and fit the observable evidence would have to be so watered down that there would be no reason to call such an entity "god."

God is certainly not necessary to explain anything. Even if some entity exists that kicked off our universe, he did little more to earn the title of god than Jacques Clouseau did to earn the title inspector. What's the point in having a god that deserves neither worship, nor respect?

When you add it all up, an absentee god is equivalent to no god. Since no god seems to be much more likely (not to mention the more useful and intellectually honest theory) what's the point in jumping through hoops just to say that god might exist?

19

Thoughts on "Going Clear," the Scientology Documentary

by OnTheWayOut in

jw
friends

i managed to find a copy of "going clear" on the internet.

i won't post a link because most are loaded with pop-ups and you have to be careful about accidental downloads.

mine was no exception, but i managed to keep the computer clean.

OneEyedJoe

I watched it the other day. My wife had actually already watched it and when I talked to her about it she seemed to have made zero connection to her chosen cult. I think she's a lost cause.

The part that hit me the hardest was watching the 4 women going on TV badmouthing their exhusbands. That may well be my future (minus the tv part)

22

The 50 Ways to Be Disfellowshipped

by Wild_Thing in

jw
friends

i was wondering ... what are all of the "official" reasons provided by elders for disfellowshipping someone?

i know the most common reasons are adultery and fornication, but what about the others?

a couple of years ago i traveled back to my hometown` and one of my old jw acquaintances told me that her grown son had been disfellowshipped for refusing to stop associating with another disfellowshipped person.

OneEyedJoe

Well as is often said here - anything 3 elders agree on.

Some specifics - sex, alcoholism/drugs, badmouthing the cult or doctrine, being tangentially involved in fraud (happened to a personal friend of mine - he was innocent), porn, blood transfusion, misc bloodguilt, misc crimes (theft assault, etc), joining another church, joining any political group, smoking, voting, any form of military service... I'm sure there's lots more but I'm drawing a blank now.

59

Worst Memorial Talk Ever!

by The Searcher in

i honestly have never heard such claptrap being delivered in a memorial talk.. the speaker repeatedly put down the way other religions administered the bread & wine, and claimed that witnesses do it exactly as the bible describes.

oh yeah????.

he forgot to mention - when reading aloud 1 corinthians 11:25 - that after passing the bread, a full meal was to be shared, before the wine was passed around!

OneEyedJoe

Sorta like the cultists say "the most important meeting is the next one" the worst memorial ever is always the next one. So far (about 15 minutes in) it's all standard fare, except they got the most monotone elder to do it this year (oh and I'm about 4 bourbons deep haha).

6

Just to see...

by SoJo16 in

i walked by the local double hall this afternoon on my way home from work at about 4:30 pm.

you would never know it's a special night.

no cars in the lot, nothing swept, no flowers or decorations...totally dead.

OneEyedJoe

Makes sense. Memorial can't start till after sundown. What did you expect?