Posts by OneEyedJoe

17

Another "reaching out" guilt trip this weekend, apparently.

by OneEyedJoe in

i just got word that the brothers of my congregation is "encouraged to attend a special meeting" this saturday.

i was told to bring the od book, and the 9/15/14 and 4/15/15 study wts.

judging by the articles in those, it's going to be another guilt trip to get all us dead-beat kids in our 20s and 30s to "reach out" to be jr. cult leaders.

OneEyedJoe

5/6 hours - run a microphone, be an assistant to an assistant on the hall dept
[...]
I don't know about now but they are pretty desperate - I'm sure some of the guys used are hardly regular.

Ahh, those were the days. The congregation that I was in from 6 to 18 years old this was the rule - 6 hours a month to touch a mic, 6 month rolling average.

I haven't turned in more than 2 hours in a year, and they'd still try to stick me with the mic nowadays. They're clearly getting desperate. No one's even mentioned the possibility of removing me from mic duties because of low recruiting time. I do think I might be blacklisted now, though. What crime could be worse than turning in such a low monthly report? I've stopped shaving and instead use clippers that leave me with the look of roughly a day's growth. Apparently, in their world, allowing your god-given facial hair to be slightly visible is a much greater sin than being lax about recruiting (which they view as being blood-guilty because god might blindly kill someone if you don't warn them!)

17

Another "reaching out" guilt trip this weekend, apparently.

by OneEyedJoe in

i just got word that the brothers of my congregation is "encouraged to attend a special meeting" this saturday.

i was told to bring the od book, and the 9/15/14 and 4/15/15 study wts.

judging by the articles in those, it's going to be another guilt trip to get all us dead-beat kids in our 20s and 30s to "reach out" to be jr. cult leaders.

OneEyedJoe

I had those sort of meetings a couple of times, it is either pre or post CO visit by a few weeks i reckon, it's just the local BOE trying to show or take some initiative in "encouraging" i.e guilting the dick swingers to reach out.

Hmm. CO was maybe 6 weeks ago. Maybe it took them a while to get to it because of the memorial. This last visit was the last one with this guy, so maybe they're trying to look like they got their s**t together for the new one. From what I understand the departing CO gave the elders a reaming for not doing enough harassment (excuse me, shepherding) calls on people. They probably want to avoid that sort of thing this next time around.

17

Another "reaching out" guilt trip this weekend, apparently.

by OneEyedJoe in

i just got word that the brothers of my congregation is "encouraged to attend a special meeting" this saturday.

i was told to bring the od book, and the 9/15/14 and 4/15/15 study wts.

judging by the articles in those, it's going to be another guilt trip to get all us dead-beat kids in our 20s and 30s to "reach out" to be jr. cult leaders.

OneEyedJoe

I only show up to these to keep everyone happy.

That's more than I'll be doing. When I got the text from my father-in-law it was all I could do not to reply with something super snarky indicating that I'm not going to be there. That'd probably be a bad decision at this stage though.

Last time they brought pictures of some of the geezer elders from their pre-cult days to show everyone. "Look at this douchebag! You'd never think he'd be the shining example of an elder you see before you, would ya!" That was the approach they took with it. I guess in their mind it must be some excess humility that keeps the kids from wanting to have anything to do with the cult beyond the bare minimum. They just can't fathom that the younger ones just don't see the point or *ghasp* have made a contentious decision not to get more deeply involved.

17

Another "reaching out" guilt trip this weekend, apparently.

by OneEyedJoe in

i just got word that the brothers of my congregation is "encouraged to attend a special meeting" this saturday.

i was told to bring the od book, and the 9/15/14 and 4/15/15 study wts.

judging by the articles in those, it's going to be another guilt trip to get all us dead-beat kids in our 20s and 30s to "reach out" to be jr. cult leaders.

OneEyedJoe

I just got word that the brothers of my congregation is "encouraged to attend a special meeting" this saturday. I was told to bring the OD book, and the 9/15/14 and 4/15/15 Study WTs. Judging by the articles in those, it's going to be another guilt trip to get all us dead-beat kids in our 20s and 30s to "reach out" to be Jr. cult leaders.

Anyone else hear of this, or is this just my congregation? Our congregation's BOE is getting pretty elderly and only like 1 in 10 of the eligible men below the age of 40 are doing anything beyond passing mics and occasionally running the sound booth. So I wouldn't be surprised if this is just a local thing. They did this a few years ago, though, and I was told on here that that one wasn't an isolated occurrence.

One thing is for sure. With the current rate of attrition of the youth and complete failure to bring in new converts from elsewhere, this cult is headed for some shakeup in the not-too-distant future.

11

"Neither can salt water produce fresh water." - James 3:12, RNWT

by 88JM in

i noticed this verse the other night and thought it looked so obviously ridiculously provably untrue that there must be something more to it.

surely even a bible writer must understand that desalination isn't witchcraft?.

new american standard bible:"nor can salt water produce fresh.".

OneEyedJoe

It's funny how people will claim the bible is completely and utterly scientific, and if you point out something like this you always get "It's just a metaphor!" "It's meant figuratively!" or similar. Special pleading at it's finest.

56

Who REALLY believed in the idea of living forever on earth??

by stuckinarut2 in

seriously.....even when you were 100% in "the truth", did you really believe in living forever?

?

OneEyedJoe

Obviously as a child I believed it. As an adult I really wanted to believe it and tried hard to. At that point I mostly wanted to get to paradise to be free from all the JW nonsense.

The parts that made it difficult to believe (or at least difficult to be excited about) was that the current life-supporting capability of the earth and indeed the universe would only be sustainable through constant divine intervention. It just seemed too inelegant for a supreme being to have set it up this way. Then there's the issue with the fact that essentially everything that I enjoy would be in direct conflict with the image of paradise that we're sold. Many things I enjoy pollute (either directly or indirectly) and couldn't be allowed, eating meat would be a thing of the past, etc. I hate menial work, so the 'build and have occupancy, plant and eat the fruitage' thing never seemed like the great scenario that people acted like it was. With the promise that we'd all be happy, I often wondered just how much of a lobotomy god was going to have to give me to achieve that.

To those wondering why you'd do it if you don't really believe - it's all I knew. Plus, it may have been the carrot, but even if you don't like carrots, you still have to worry about the stick.

12

Satan was right

by sloppyjoe2 in

from the draw close to jehovah book in chapter 11 paragraph 10 it says this:.

10 to find out why god allows suffering, we need to think back to the time when suffering began.

when satan led adam and eve into disobeying jehovah, an important question was raised.

OneEyedJoe

Hadn't thought of it that way but you're right. Also, the serpent never lied to eve. He may have used hyperbole, but he didn't lie.

26

What Things Did You Not Talk About as a JW?

by minimus in

jw
friends

you have to lead a secret life as a jw.

you're not supposed to over drink, go to night clubs, enjoy worldly concerts, etc.....sex, though is really taboo.

you could never freely talk about your sex life.

OneEyedJoe

My ever growing doubts about the organization being what it claimed to be.

Well if you're going to go with the obvious....

26

What Things Did You Not Talk About as a JW?

by minimus in

jw
friends

you have to lead a secret life as a jw.

you're not supposed to over drink, go to night clubs, enjoy worldly concerts, etc.....sex, though is really taboo.

you could never freely talk about your sex life.

OneEyedJoe

For me, the worst thing was/is that I can't talk about science openly. I love learning and I hate that I can't share so many of the things I've learned with anyone without a skeptical look and some question about where Jehovah fits in.

56

Question for atheists and nonbelievers

by pressman in

i profess to teach the truth to you all and get you to all to think and believe.

believing in christ through his words and not through evil religious cults, like hoj and jw, can and will save you.

do you all realize that every time you are victorious and receive something of value through your hard work and sweat, it was our holy god who blessed you.

OneEyedJoe

Eh, I'm not going to read all that when it starts out as arrogant as it did, so I apologize if my answer misses the point or doesn't acknowledge some caveat in the word fort you built.

I'm not inclined to worship god because I see absolutely no evidence for the existence of any god-like entity, and plenty evidence that no such entity exists. Also, if any such entity existed, he's a total asshole and deserves no worship.

In the end, though, you seem to completely misunderstand the issues in play for the typical rational atheist. Sure, there are people who are atheist because it's convenient and they don't care, but there are also many who arrived there after considerable thought and even fought against it. The issue isn't whether or not I want to serve a loving god that would take care of all my needs and provide me with infinite happiness in the future if only I adhere to a few rules. The issue is whether or not such a god exists. Sadly, he doesn't.