Posts by OneEyedJoe

33

Slip Sliding Away :I went to a 1 day assembly-Why?

by MissFit in

jw
friends

i have not attended anything jw related for over a year.... until last week when i went to our one day convention.. why you ask?.

i can do what i want i'm a grown adult.. ok...ok...so my jw childhood friend who i have not seen forever, came by for a visit.. i mentally went through the check list:.

is she pioneering and need extra time?.

OneEyedJoe

My goodness this is me. I started waking up a few months ago and ours is Saturday. I considered an excuse to not go and realized hubby was going despite. I figure it's better I'm there to hear and have good critical thinking questions for after. Ya know... So I can ' be on the watch' ha. Also... I'm going to play some games in my head, like a last days counter, Jesus mention, school is bad mention.... I can have some fun, that's what I'm trying to convince myself of. I really am curious to let you know the $cost we are assigned.

One suggestion you might be able to use as a critical point/question afterwards:

The closing talk discusses the recent QFR "noo-lite" on whether ressurected ones will be able to marry in paradise. For years they dogmattically asserted that they would not be able to, and now they're going back on that saying that Jesus' comments on the topic 'evidently' applied only to the 144k annointed. My current CO (who gave the talk) recently lost his wife, who he clearly loved very very much. When he was talking about this topic, he went on for a bit about how distressing it was to think that he wouldn't be able to be married to her in paradise. He gave lots of things he had to tell himself to reduce his grief at this fact (I know we'll both be happy regardless, etc) and it was very sad to listen to. Now, all that was unneccessary heart-ache, since ressurected ones can remarry apparently.

On the car ride home, I said to my wife "I feel really bad for xxxx (the CO)." When she asked why, I said, "He clearly suffered alot of grief and heart-ache that all could have been avoided if the society hadn't been so dogmatic about ressurected people being unable to remarry." She didn't much know what to say to that...

15

How did the term "The Truth" come about?

by FeelingFree in

i just wondering how this vile term came to be used in constant referral to the org, i really, really hate it!

it's only since coming out that i have realised how much the jdubs use it.

everything is the truth this and the truth that.

OneEyedJoe

I suspect it's probably an evolution of some scripture ("you will know the truth and the truth will set you free" or "worship in spirit and truth") and has been in use for well over the 30 years I've been in the cult. I suspect it started sometime in the rutherford era, since that seems to be when most of the super-culty stuff started coming into play, but it could be older than that.

It's definitely not unique to JWs, though. Many cults as well as some of the less insidious religions refer to their body of doctrine as "truth" in a de facto sense. In all cases, it's not only arrogant, but false.

38

The Present Truth is the Truth and the Old Truth is the Truth, even if they contradict.

by garyneal in

that is the conclusion you must accept if you are a jehovah's witness as my wife tries to explain to me that even if what they are teaching today contradicts what they were previously teaching, they had the truth then and they have the truth now.

the difference is, they (the witnesses and the governing body) simply believed that what they were teaching at the time was the truth but when they discovered new information they adjusted their thinking.

so since they formerly believed it to be the truth, they were in the truth.. an example she gave involved people who once believed the earth was flat.

OneEyedJoe

There was an elder in my congregation (who, sadly passed away before I learned TTATT, so I can't be 100% sure on this) that I think MUST have been awake to TTATT because of, among other things, a talk he once gave on this very topic. He made it sound so outlandish (at least to me, even while I was still indoctrinated) that I now think he was trying to wake people up. He brought up a lot of the contradictions over the years and insisted that the previous belief and the current one were both true, even though only the current one is true. That was the last talk he gave before he stepped down as an elder, citing his health.

He was a voracious reader and a genuinely intelligent man, if a bit stubborn. Another elder once told me that "he was almost appostate" and apparently he went through a period where he was very "down on the organization." I think he had an awakening about 10 years back, but stayed in because he was dependant (poor health and old age) on family. He could always be counted on to contradict the WT in his coments any time it started to take too much of a hard-line stance on anything.

27

How To Be Subversive While Knowing TTATT And Stuck Inside The Watchtower Corporation Confines?

by frankiespeakin in

jw
friends

so you found out it is all bs but due to family and friends you don't want to be disfellowshipped and shunned.

you have to go to these rediculous meetings maybe even engage in corporation sponsored magazine drives to get the propaganda into the homes of your neighbor in hopes of making another corporation zombie mystified by childish magical thinking, of a jealous deity that wants you to work for the corporation finacial interest or else die for your lack of corporation loyalty.. it is a stressful sitiuation with all kinds of trip wires one has to beware of in order not to be heading into some back room kangaroo court where obediance to the almighty corporation is the bottom line, and a fair hearing of the facts is last on the list of importance.. one consolation is that one may eventually get friends and family out of this demanding and destructive cult with patients and passage of time.. so what ideas would you like to pass on to readers?

what are some of subversive activities one can engage in while stuck in this nasty bit of mandatory corporation exercises of preaching, selling, and building?.

OneEyedJoe

Bumping this since the thread about the 1914 service meeting video seems to be going off topic a bit.

I've started taking magazines (as many as I can get away with) and throwing them away at home. There's already been a lot of frustration in my congregation over the new magazine arrangement (in which the congregation only gets a set supply, no set number for each individual publisher) because they're always running out, so I figure I'll try to make that a little worse. I've also heard of some congregations getting sternly written letters if they don't count as many placements as their magazine order on a regular basis, so between my throwing away magazines and not reporting any even if someone takes them to get rid of me, I might help some in the congregation see what happens when you cross "mother."

I also look for oppurtunities to give comments that are directly contrary to the WTS stance on something - the best time to do this being the oral review, since there's no written material readily available for the comment to come from, so everyone will be following along with your comment, nodding their heads only to have it contradicted by the school overseer or the next comment. The best example of this that I can think of was when they had something about Lev 5:1 in the review. The official answer was that if you find out about someone's secret sin and you don't rat them out to the elders then you're just as guilty, but that's not what the scripture was about. My answer gave an accurate interpretation of the scripture - it was saying that if someone was wronged and was asking who it was that did it and you don't tell then you're just as guilty, but if the wrongdoing wasn't publicly known, then it didn't apply. I also referenced Matt. 18:15 where it says to privately talk to your brother if you become aware of a secret sin. The school overseer kinda stumbled for a second and didn't know how to react (presumably because he was looking at the WTS answer that directly contradicted my well-reasoned scriptural answer) and called on an elder that went on to talk about how important it is to let the elders know if you find out about someone's secret sin.

Of course, if you give answers like this, you must be prepared to be sickened by the number of people who come to you after the meeting to congratulate you on how much research you put into it, etc. I just hope that some might be nudged a little out of their slumber.

Any other ideas on how to keep sane and sabotage the cult while I'm still in for the wife?

22

Mormon Church Founder had 33 wives

by designs in

we know russell, rutherford franz and knorr wer kooky but joseph smith takes the cake.. the salt lake tribune of all newspapers has run an article on the lds founder's 33 wives, most of whom were teenagers.. http://www.sltrib.com/news/173364-155/plural-smith-joseph-marriage-lds-says.

would you stay an lds after knowing this, how would you rationalize staying with this knowledge.. .

.

OneEyedJoe

I can't speak to what I'd do had I been raised a mormon. It would probably depend heavily on what the church taught about ol' Joe Smith. I suspect in mormon circles you'll hear things like "This one guy on the street the other day told me that Joseph Smith had 33 wives! Can you believe the lies that people will make up just to test our faith?" When you're raised in that type of environment, it would probably be easy to see that headline and thing "Poor writer, some appostate tricked him with lies about Joseph Smith" and move on without looking any deeper.

Such is the insidious nature of cults. They tell you little bits of the real truth, and convince you that it's so fantastical that it must be a lie. So when you encounter the truth somewhere else, it just seems silly.

33

Slip Sliding Away :I went to a 1 day assembly-Why?

by MissFit in

jw
friends

i have not attended anything jw related for over a year.... until last week when i went to our one day convention.. why you ask?.

i can do what i want i'm a grown adult.. ok...ok...so my jw childhood friend who i have not seen forever, came by for a visit.. i mentally went through the check list:.

is she pioneering and need extra time?.

OneEyedJoe

if I'd been able to get away for a year, there's no way I'd go back for anything. You're just giving her false hope that you're going to start being a cultist again. Once that hope is shattered, you'll probably see less of her.

64

one last step..Is being mentally out the same as being emotionally out?

by MissFit in

jw
friends

we talk here about the importance of being mentally and physically out to be really free.. what about being emotionally free?.

i realized for me, i had to be emotionally awake first.

i had been yo-young back and forth for years.

OneEyedJoe

I'm cold and dead inside so once it became obvious that "the truth" was a lie I no longer had any connection or desire to remain in the cult. I was indoctrinated as a youth during the tail end of the period of pseudo-rational analysis of the scriptures (and at that time didn't have the critical thinking skills to recognize the rampant fallacy) so I always believed that my religion should be based on sound evidence. In the last 10 or so years I began to notice the rampant fallacy, but just calked it up to them simplifying things because it seemed that many in the congregation were of below average intelligence (or "humble" as it was once rationalized to me). During this period I was in denial and was using my own logical fallacy (appeal to consequence) to tell myself that it had to be true because if it wasn't it'd mean that the WTS had been lying to me and everyone I know for decades.

Once I finally got pushed far enough to do my own research and found concrete proof of their lies, it was all over. I never had any emotionally tramatic experience in the cult, it was all a rational decision for me - if they're right, then it's worth it to stay. Once I knew they were wrong it wasn't worth it any more.

Your point is definitely well taken, though. My wife's attachment to the cult is purely emotional. I've shown her a few things that affected me the most, but she just sorta brushes it off. It's not important to her to understand everything....it's just about doing "what's right" (what she's told by the WTS is right) and gabbing with her few friends after meetings. The sad thing, though, is that all her "friends" are really terrible people and she knows it. All but one has pretty obvious emotional or mental problems (bi-polar, hypochondria, etc) and the one that doesn't is possibly the most selfish person on the planet. But it's all she knows and she's driven by guilt to be at meetings and she needs the socializing that she gets there. What wakes her up (if anything) will be completely different than what did it for me.

19

Has growing up as a JW affected my ability to forgive ?

by troubled mind in

jw
friends

i really don't understand the concept of forgiveness .

lately in my life several people have thrown that term around so easily ,and i am confused .

is it because we were taught to cut people off so easily as jws that i find it hard to forgive ?.

OneEyedJoe

BTW: Forgiving someone doesn't mean that you have to then welcome them with open arms. In the examples in the OP I think it would be quite reasonable for someone not to be angry and to forgive someone but still not want to have anything to do with them.

This is a good point. There are lots of different things that people might mean when they talk about forgiveness. In my case I'm quick to forgive in the sense that I don't harbor resentment, but I'm also very slow about giving someone additional oppurtunities to require my forgiveness. I guess it's more the restoration of trust that takes a very long time (if it happens at all) for me.

The phrase "forgive and forget" always seemed too simplistic to me. Sure, I'll "forget" someone's past trasngressions in the sense that I won't throw it in their face the next time I'm wronged, but I won't forget in the sense that I will recognize when there's a pattern and decide that it's no longer worth dealing with them.

19

Has growing up as a JW affected my ability to forgive ?

by troubled mind in

jw
friends

i really don't understand the concept of forgiveness .

lately in my life several people have thrown that term around so easily ,and i am confused .

is it because we were taught to cut people off so easily as jws that i find it hard to forgive ?.

OneEyedJoe

This is an interesting topic. I'm a born-in as well, and I think I'd agree with your feeling that there's no reason to forgive someone who's just going to keep being a terrible person. But then, I'm also an extreme introvert and I take pride in my self-sufficiency. Combining those two things means that I get very little from relationships (I don't connect well with people, and I almost never ask anyone for anything) and so I find it very easy to move on if people treat me poorly.

On the other hand, my mother-in-law (also born-in) is basically a doormat. Litterally all of her friends take advantage of her constantly, only to treat her poorly later. They're happy to ask her to host a party (and then assume that she's going to cater it as well) but then a week later they'll exclude her from something else. She continually forgives everyone only to have it happen again. She needs the social interaction, and is willing to put up with a lot to get it.

So, while it's hard for me to be 100% objective as a born-in myself, I'd say that it's probably more to do with your individual personality type than anything else. If you have a strong inner need for social interaction, or if you're sentimental and place intrinsic value on relationships based on relatively arbitrary qualifications (i.e. you'd forgive your estranged father for something that would cause you to cut ties with a mere aquaintence) then you're more likely to see a high value in forgiving people. If you're already at or above capacity on social interaction, and you have no sentimentality (like me) you place a lower value on relationships and are therefore less likely to forgive. It's all about the comprimises that strike the right balance for you personally, do you often feel lonely or socially deprived? Then you need to lower your standards a bit. If you tend to always feel exhausted from the pressures of having to interact with too many people? Then you can afford to cut off the folks that treat you the worst.

Edit:

I should probably add that I mean none of this to say that I (nor should anyone) continue to harbor ill-will toward anyone. I tend to be quick to forgive in that sense, as there's no point in dwelling on anything that you're not going to act on. Since I know I'm not going to seek revenge, why dwell on it? I'm also not talking about cutting people off entirely like the JWs do when they shun someone. But I won't seek out association with someone if there's not a high likelyhood that it'll be a positive experience.

73

This weeks service meeting! More craziness.....

by stuckinarut2 in

so this weeks service meeting is so full of "crazy".

a whole 15 min part devoted to trying to indoctrinate everyone on how to "explain our beliefs on 1914".

then another 15 min part called "a tool to help us explain our beliefs about 1914".

OneEyedJoe

I can confirm that the video isn't available in the UK. I am actually meant to be doing the demo this thursday so I was hoping the video might make it here. If not I was planning on emphasizing the type/antitype nature of the chart (without using those terms of course) and generally making it seem as silly as I can get away with.

This sounds fun. Report back how it goes. I predict, though, that you will be sickened by the number of people that come up to congratulate you on how well you handled the part and how obvious it was to them after your explanation.