Yeah I definitely did this and I'm certain it was instrumental in preparing me for eventually waking up. Paying attention from the perspective of someone that hasn't had the layers of thin explanations and scripture-hopping justifications for clearly controlling, restrictive, and poorly-justified doctrine left me with the realization that had I not been born a JW, there's no way that I would've ever converted to being one. Initially, I thought this lucky. Later I realized that if god is loving then such luck surely was either not deserved or ought to have been extended to everyone else like me that would never convert, but this was obviously not the case. I started to wonder often if maybe it was the case that I was unlucky to have been raised in a religion that otherwise would have failed to captivate my thoughts for even a moment.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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14
Listening to the meetings from the perspective of a "newly interested" person?
by stuckinarut2 injust wondering how many others (when you were still in the org) would try and listen to the meeting programmes from the perspective of a newly interested person visiting for the first time?.
i know that i did this, and most times i did, i found it disturbing!
it was not just the "in-house" language and terminology that was odd, but also the actual doctrines, and method of 'teaching' that was odd!.
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Trivial stuff about the AGM
by sir82 inlots of good comments already about the content of saturday's agm broadcast.. i just thought i'd add my (trivial!
) comments about the magnificent 7:.
-- loesch - was he intentionally trying to be boring?
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OneEyedJoe
Re: Lett turning orange - he always reminded me of Marshall Applewhite (of heaven's gate mass suicide fame) with his facial ticks. It sounds like he's trying to hit a color match now too.
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2017 Annual Meeting
by Jules Saturn inthis just in from the 2017 annual meeting:.
1. watchtowers and awakes won't be released regularly, at least three watchtower and awakes per year.
6 magazines a year.. 2. a new book is being released: remain in god's love, more of an update like how they did for the what does the bible really teach book.
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OneEyedJoe
Also if they go up 6 magazines a year it's actually an 88.5% reduction since the good ol' days since they went to 16 page magazines instead of 32. (maybe the watchtowers will be 32 still? In that case it's a 82.25% reduction - still huge)
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130
2017 Annual Meeting
by Jules Saturn inthis just in from the 2017 annual meeting:.
1. watchtowers and awakes won't be released regularly, at least three watchtower and awakes per year.
6 magazines a year.. 2. a new book is being released: remain in god's love, more of an update like how they did for the what does the bible really teach book.
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OneEyedJoe
Well many here have been predicting for a while that they'd stop printing stats. It's finally come true. Kinda a bummer, though, I was looking forward to watching them slowly fade into oblivion.
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The upcoming protest at Warwick on November 5th
by UnshackleTheChains inhey all.. just saw this video about the upcoming protest at warwick on november 5th.
it looks like some momentum is building up to it.
but what i really want to know is will it have much impact?
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OneEyedJoe
I hope this protest will wake up the leadership of Watchtower so that they realise enough is enough and that they need to change, they need to reform their policies and teachings that have brought about so much pain and hurt.
HA! HAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
*wheeze*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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Leah Remini: Scientology & the Aftermath TV Show.
by Black Man inhave started watching this show and wow!
so many similarities and parallels with jw's.
this is the model to follow in articulating and exposing the jw experience.
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OneEyedJoe
How do we make this happen?
Sit back and wait?
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We missed you at the meetings...
by punkofnice inhow many times have you heard that trope?.
i found it more irritating than a dose of farmers on the bum.
i've even said it when i was a brainwashed jobo drone.
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OneEyedJoe
They say that because they're specifically told to say it from the platform. They're not putting any thought into it, they see someone that they haven't seen at the meetings and their little JW program kicks in and out comes the words they're programmed to say.
Even better, though, is when they actually set themselves up by pointing out that you've missed a few meetings lately. Back when I was still going to some meetings infrequently, this almost made it worth it. I'd just quote one of the best lines from office space:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E2w4sTLKtA
The resulting uncomfortable silence anytime I did that was wonderful.
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When is the last time you saw an educated middle class family become Jehovah's Witnesses?
by xjwsrock inwe know from casual observation that if anybody does respond to their preaching/recruiting work it is usually someone that is a social misfit in some way or a person that was indoctrinated early in life.. think about all the nicer neighborhoods witnesses preach in.
if a family of four with a father that is an engineer and a mother who is a medical professional ever walked into a kingdom hall for the first time and said they were studying, people would faint.
lol.... this of course isn't what you would expect from a religion backed by the ultimate intelligent creator.
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OneEyedJoe
The last one I saw (bearing in mind I've been out for 2 years now, I guess it's conceivable that another family was brought in to my former congregation) was shortly after hurricane Katrina. A family was displaced and moved to our territory. I don't know the full details of how they got first contacted, but I can see how it happened - a family of 5 living in a new city where they know no one, recently lost a large percentage of their possessions...prime targets for a cult.
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Baptism statistics from CO
by neat blue dog injust went to the assembly yesterday and during the final talk the circuit overseer said:.
'sure, there are some adults baptised here and there, but do you want to know something wonderful?
the vast majority of those getting baptized are teens and preteens!
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OneEyedJoe
SBF - What makes you think that they wouldn't fudge the number of congregations? Just because it's theoretically independently verifiable (though it would be a tremendous undertaking to make an attempt at counting congregations based on public information) doesn't mean that they wouldn't lie about that if they're willing to lie about other stats. It's not like they've ever been shy about publishing things that can be easily shown as false via outside information. I'd say they're less likely to have someone dispute a false count of congregations than they are of having someone dispute their anti-evolution propaganda.
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2017 Memorial Partakers
by NashvilleTele inwhen does the number of memorial partakers get released for 2017. i was wondering if the number will surpass 20k.
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OneEyedJoe
Sometimes they announce memorial stats at the annual meeting, so we may find out next weekend. I doubt they're particularly proud of this one, though, so probably not. Reasonable chance we'll find out the total number that attended.
