OneEyedJoe

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Posts by OneEyedJoe

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  6

  Questions About Jehovahs Witness

  by JehovahsWitnessResearcher in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hi, i am doing a research project on jehovahs witness and wanted to understand it better from people who practice the religion.

  i have a few questions and it would really help out if you could answer as soon as possible.. .

  what are your main beliefs?.

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  OneEyedJoe

  I'm no longer a believer, but still understand the religion so I'll be happy to help.

  1. Main beliefs are that we are currently living in the foretold "last days" that began in 1914. Jesus commanded that his disciples preach door-to-door so that's what JWs do. There is a group of 144000 members of the covenant with Jesus that will, upon death, be transported to heaven to rule with Jesus (those that died prior to 1914 were raised to heaven at that time). The remaining JWs expect to either survive armageddon or be resurrected after armageddon to live on earth and transform it into a paradise. Armageddon is coming soon (JWs are encouraged to live like it will be the day after tomorrow) and will entail the violent death of all non-JWs. People who die prior to armageddon (even non-JWs) may be resurrected at Jesus' discretion into paradise. Those that die at armageddon will be permanently dead. There is no hell - death is just a sleep-like state of inactivity and unconsciousness. The most important belief, though, is that god is guiding the watchtower bible and tract society (and through them, the JWs) as his organization and they, via their governing body, can make changes to any of these doctrines at any time and all JWs must fall in line.

  2. Jesus is god's son, a lesser spirit-being that god created before anything else. Jesus is the archangel micheal and was used to create everything else by god's side. The trinity is a false doctrine.

  3. JWs view their religion as a return to first-century christianity. They will tell of their high moral value, expunging the congregation of sinners, and of their main doctrines (described above) as their differentiating factors. In addition to this, JWs are required to preach door-to-door in order to be considered members of the faith.

  4. This one is hard to answer as a JW. When I was a JW I think I probably would have referred to the 1914 doctrine and the nearness of armageddon. As an ex-JW I now realize that it's more about loyalty/obedience to the governing body than it is anything else.

  5. Prayers must be made to Jehovah and no one else, in the name of Jesus.

  6. Death is a sleep-like state of nothingness. As described above, some may be resurrected to heaven or paradise earth while others will remain dead and unconscious

  7. The kingdom of god is a literal government that will be established after armageddon.
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  39

  JW marriages: “They” looked good on paper.

  by Londo111 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i applaud anyone, male or female, who overcomes shallowness and looks at a person’s deeper qualities, especially in regard dating and marriage.

  the movie and fashion industry does much to institute shallowness to the point that, in my opinion, it promotes outright discrimination and judgmentalism even as they give lip service to tolerance..

  on the other hand, among jehovah’s witnesses, there seem to be a preponderance of incompatible marriages.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Londo - you make another really good point about dating when young being an important learning process. The issue with dating that you describe, wherein friendships with the opposite sex is forbidden as is dating before you're looking to get married right away, were big factors in my nearly leaving the cult in my late teens. In the end, I let my father manipulate me into doubling down and ended up in the cult for another decade.

  Another thing I would add regarding the so-called "casual dating" that is so vilified by the cult is that it can teach you what sorts of feelings and desires you will have and how to handle them before you are actually dating someone with the intent to marry them. Kids can easily confuse lust and hormone driven feelings for love and it has been shown that in this period a person's ability to plan long-term is significantly compromised. As a result, many JWs find themselves dating for their first time in their very late teens or early 20s, and without any past experience to show them that they may not be thinking especially clearly, they get married after 3-6 months of dating while still in the honeymoon period. They believe that no problem will be insurmountable for them, and all those other romantic notions and they have no experience to keep these thoughts in check. Reality, though, is not usually so idealistic.
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  26

  The diabolical plan of the WTBTS.

  by DATA-DOG in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  diabolical, or just really dumb, desperate and grasping for control; either way, the devil is in the details of the january 15, 2016 "study edition" of the watchtower tractazine.

  so, we have two intertwined articles concerning "anointed" individuals within the sect of the wtbts inc. "the spirit bears witness with our spirit.

  " and "we want to go with you people.

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  OneEyedJoe

  That's one thing I don't get about the overlapping generation idea, they do realize that this will also have to be changed again at some point? Why not redefine generation as the general group of anointed on earth? As long as anointed ones still exist (and that number is actually rising) they could still say the interpretation is correct. Instead they come up with another explanation with a sell by date. Don't they learn their lesson?
  

  That's what they put in place in 2008, only to be changed 2 years later. My guess is that it was insufficiently motivating because the deadline for armageddon was no longer certain. What's the point of a doomsday cult if there's no reassurance that doomsday will even come in your lifetime? So they had to put another deadline in place, and apparently they went with the first idea they could come up with - it seems that 1+1=1 makes perfect sense to these guys. And the math works out just fine. The potential timeline of the new overlapping generation will almost certainly outlast every current member of the governing body. So why shouldn't they set another deadline? They won't have to deal with the fallout of it's failure, but they can revel in the success it has in motivating JWs to pay for their lifestyle and give them the adulation, praise and worship that they think they deserve.
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  39

  JW marriages: “They” looked good on paper.

  by Londo111 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i applaud anyone, male or female, who overcomes shallowness and looks at a person’s deeper qualities, especially in regard dating and marriage.

  the movie and fashion industry does much to institute shallowness to the point that, in my opinion, it promotes outright discrimination and judgmentalism even as they give lip service to tolerance..

  on the other hand, among jehovah’s witnesses, there seem to be a preponderance of incompatible marriages.

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  OneEyedJoe

  You implicitly touch on it, but another major factor is just the severe limitation of one's options due to the requirement to only date JWs. In my view, JW women are often forced into a very limited role - they are not allowed to develop interests or ambitions, not even to the already reduced extent that JW men are, because they can't progress in the organization beyond spending a lot of time recruiting. This is all well and good for the type of misogynistic, controlling and overbearing men that want a submissive wife that will simply obey him (this is also the type of man that does extraordinarily well in the org, it seems) but for men who truly want a partner and someone who thinks for themselves, it leaves few options. I'm sure women in the cult face similar difficulties finding a husband, probably in the opposite direction - I imagine it's difficult to find a JW man that really wants to treat his wife as an equal.

  The dating requirements that ensure, if followed, that you will not be able to adequately evaluate compatibility prior to marriage (requirements of a chaperon and that sex is off the table during the dating are not healthy ways to find a marriage mate, in my view) further compound the problem that is caused by starting with the "on paper" requirements for a spouse that you described.

  Then of course hormones tend to cause JWs to marry young when the rules are followed (or coerced to marry young when the rules are broken). Even if a JW can fight the hormones and not get in trouble, the fact that the culture is to be married before 25 results in a sense of urgency to find someone. You don't want to find yourself at 30 with your only dating prospects being 18 year old girls (creepy) or divorced women with kids (nothing against single mothers, but when you're 20 and looking at the future that seems like a prospect that should be avoided).

  All this adds up to people marrying too young (before the brain is fully matured at around 25, the personality can continue to change drastically) and getting married to people they're often not compatible with. And this is all before one of them wakes up to TTATT.

  My wife and I definitely had our share of common interests, as I was luckily smart enough not to restrict myself to someone that was super zealous and really look for some common ground. Of course that only goes so far, and we certainly have some pretty big incompatibilities. But upon waking up I'm finding that there's two major difficulties to the marriage that don't have to do with incompatibility that was apparent while I was a JW. For one thing, after waking up as a born-in, there is a normal (at least I hope it's normal) desire to reclaim your lost adolescence and really explore the world and life outside the bounds of the cult. They kept me so repressed for so long with so many rules and now that the arbitrary rules are gone, I want to explore and find my own rules and limits. If only one spouse is awake, this is a process that the still-in spouse is likely to be threatened by and resent. And, speaking for myself, its difficult not to be displeased with my wife's efforts to slow this process of discovery and growth.

  Another issue that I have in my marriage due to waking up is my disgust at the cult that my wife remains involved in. It feels to me almost like I was raped by one of my wife's friends or family and upon telling her of this she only digs in and pursues a deeper connection with my attacker. It's difficult to get past her affiliation with the cult after I've given her every chance to wake up and see it for what it is. She values it more than me, and that's not supposed to happen in a marriage (to be fair I may be coming to the conclusion that I value my escape from the cult more than I do her). My wife is certainly loving and has made some effort...but I don't think she will ever leave and I'm not sure that anything short of that will be enough.
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  7

  A Conversation with my Mom about Anthony Morris, Spanx, and Tight Pan

  by Brokeback Watchtower in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  you get them ac.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhj4vyo6myu.

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  OneEyedJoe

  I often wonder just how many dyed-in-the-wool JWs are actual bona fide fans of guys like Morris and Lett...
  

  My father in law is a big fan of AMIII. He (my FIL) is a raging homophobe, so the message of a homosexual conspiracy to get men in tight pants in order to have more eye candy is appealing to him. He's a confrontational person, so he likes it when he has someone who's willing to say controversial things (assuming that they're in line with what he thinks) because it's what he'd do.
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  54

  So... Are they done printing the number of partakers?

  by thedepressedsoul in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  during the wt study yesterday i had a confused look on my face the whole meeting.

  more of a, wtf, face.

  one paragraph says, "therefore,the number of partakers does not accurately indicate the number of anointed ones left on earth.".

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  OneEyedJoe

  It seems that they often lay the groundwork for a planned change years in advance so that when they make a change, all the JWs think "It's about time they did that!" and their faith isn't rattled. They think they thought of it first and that this is a sign that they are connected with god because they anticipated a change that his organization eventually made. If someone were to get wind of an organizational change that they don't expect, they want to understand why - they look for a reason for the change. If they have a reason for a change ahead of hearing of the change, they're more likely to accept that the reason they already have is the true reason for the change.

  In this case, they print an article or two that elicits answers talking about how the stats are wrong, then they stop printing the numbers and everyone says "that makes sense" and not "they're trying to hide something." Instead of people looking for the reason they stopped printing the numbers (which might entail looking at the past numbers and causing them to question things) they'll just accept the reason given.
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  26

  The diabolical plan of the WTBTS.

  by DATA-DOG in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  diabolical, or just really dumb, desperate and grasping for control; either way, the devil is in the details of the january 15, 2016 "study edition" of the watchtower tractazine.

  so, we have two intertwined articles concerning "anointed" individuals within the sect of the wtbts inc. "the spirit bears witness with our spirit.

  " and "we want to go with you people.

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  OneEyedJoe

  8) How many are left of this "invited" group? Nobody knows. The number is unimportant.
  

  I've been saying for a while that they're going to discontinue reporting (and possibly counting) the memorial partakers in the near future. Maybe they're working up to doing this. The rising number of partakers (even after they remove from the count any worldly people or people the elders don't approve of) is embarrassing for a couple reasons - they can't possibly let it continue.
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  9

  What's the difference between 'works' and 'fruits'?

  by TTWSYF in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  my uber jw elder brother used to use jesus's quote "you know a tree by it's fruit" and then would speak about how jws are the only ones going door to door and restoring god's true name.. my niece was the first to point out that those were works and not fruits.

  my brother retreated for a few days to contemplate the difference between works and fruits and when he returned to address the comment, he stated that works are fruits.

  what's the take from the jw apologist?.

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  OneEyedJoe

  I would say that the fruitage would be the result, not the effort. Someone could spend a lot of time in a soup kitchen making soup and filling bowls, but if no one comes in to eat then they're working but not yielding any fruitage (or the fruitage they do yield is wasted soup - not something to brag about).

  The point is that the fruitage is somewhat out of your control. Going back to the "I planted, apolos watered, but god kept making it grow" concept - the fruitage is evidence of divine blessing because it's not entirely in the hands of the ones doing the work. That's my interpretation of it, at least. So applying this to JWs - they spend a crap ton of time in the ministry, that's their work. Their fruitage is that they grow at roughly the rate of population growth, which does not indicate to me any sort of divine blessing. By their fruit you know them - they're a waste of time.
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  26

  What was jesus doing for the first 30 years of his life?

  by atomant in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  30 years is a long time in the life of a human yet little is written about this time frame,l wonder why?

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  OneEyedJoe

  All I know is that if I'd wandered off and when found asked my mother "where'd you think I'd be?" I would've gotten the shit slapped out of me for being a smart ass.
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  5

  July 2016 study watchtower more materialism bashing and the end is nigh!

  by hoser in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  wowsers!

  they are really hitting it now.

  don't strive for a cell phone or a motorcycle.

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  OneEyedJoe

  They're encouraging everyone to buy a tablet and watch and preach using JWtv and JW.BORG but theyre discouraging buying cellphones?

  They get ya coming and going. The rules are, by design, impossible to follow. Everyone always has a reason to feel guilty.