Yeah, I was always a little wary of living forever in paradise. So many of the things that I enjoy doing would probably be forbidden or impossible in the JW idea of paradise. When they'd say things like "no matter what it's like, we know that we'll all be happy" to my ear it sounded like we'd all be lobotomized to the point that "learning about Jehovah" for eternity would somehow be enjoyable.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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What will cause 1,000 year rebellion in Paradise....veggie diet..constant kingdom songs!
by Witness 007 inimagine you somehow got ressurected in paradise.
oh hell no nooooo!
life is one long convention.
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A question that bugging me
by wheelwithinwheel inwhy it has been deemed appropriate to assign brothers and sisters in each international convention city to spend hours and hours making souvenir grab bags full of knick-knacks.
and to assign other brothers and sisters to spend hours and hours preparing choreography, music, lighting, costumes and props, and practicing and practicing cowboy songs, pop music, dance and jw.org skits.. .
and to assign other brothers and sisters to spend hours and hours constructing giant bibles popping out of jw.org boxes and giant bibles turning into baptismal pools.. .
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OneEyedJoe
there was an article on jwsurvey about this very inconsistency. It's clearly hypocritical of them, but the reason is clear - international delegates pay a premium to the WTS to go to these things, so they have to make sure that they're entertained. Since serve-us is just to keep the r/f busy anyway, they see no problem with redirecting them to helping them make money in a more direct way since it'll still keep them busy.
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Social media strategy to expose JW molestation issues
by JimmyPage inthere are a lot of jws who will never hear about the molestation issues the wt has because all their friends on social media are fellow cult members.. what i'm going to attempt is to create a profile for an alter ego.
it will have a profile pic and banner that says "jw.org" or some other pro-jw nonsense.. then i will attempt to befriend a jw.
when one bites and accepts me the others will fall like dominoes and also accept my friendship.. at first i will post pro-jw things that will get me "likes", subscribers, and promotions in their news feed.. then i will lower the boom by posting the recent news video from the texas molestation story.
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OneEyedJoe
If it's to work, you'll have to be somewhat subtle. I'd say posting one article (like a link to fox news where they talk about the texas 6) accompanied by something like "I don't understand how something like this could happen." If you just post up a dozen links on every court case out there, alarm bells will go off. If they think they're helping a fellow JW deal with something, they're more likely to be strung along a little longer. Asking questions (or implied questions in the case I gave) is the best way of getting someone to think. Just asserting that something is true can easily be resisted (unless it comes from god the governing body) but if you ask a question and you get it to where they actually want to help you find the answer, they'll devote some mental resource to it and a seed might be planted.
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Pope says Big bang and Evolution are correct !
by Phizzy infrom the u.k independent newspaper :.
" the theories of evolution and the big bang are real and god is not a magician with a magic wand, pope francis has declared.. speaking at the pontifical academy of sciences, the pope made comments which experts said put an end to the pseudo theories of creationism and intelligent design that some argue were encouraged by his predecessor, benedict xvi.. francis explained that both scientific theories were not incompatible with the existence of a creator arguing instead that they require it.. when we read about creation in genesis, we run the risk of imagining god was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything.
but that is not so, francis said.. he added: he created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfilment.. the big bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it.. evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.. the catholic church has long had a reputation for being anti-science most famously when galileo faced the inquisition and was forced to retract his heretic theory that the earth revolved around the sun.. but pope franciss comments were more in keeping with the progressive work of pope pius xii, who opened the door to the idea of evolution and actively welcomed the big bang theory.
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OneEyedJoe
He's still wrong about the theories "requiring" a creator, but I do suppose this is progress. Expect all the JWs to pile on hatred for the gay-loving evolutionist catholic church now.
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To Whom Shall We Go You Have The sayings Of Everlasting Life
by frankiespeakin inof coarse any one claiming to be god's son, is pretty heady stuff.
i look at the words that are found john 6:66-70 and picture a delusional person faced with a huge loss in followers because he wasn't able to make his words pleasing to some and he lost them:.
53 so jesus said to them: most truly i say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves.+54 whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has everlasting life, and i will resurrect+ him on the last day; 55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
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OneEyedJoe
Peter (if he and jesus actually existed, as such) was just about as important to the creation of christianity as was jesus. He was, as you say, the loyal follower who'd stick around for anything. Without him jumping up to affirm his loyalty, the other disciples would've had time to think and might've figured out that they were following a new cult leader. Humans, as the social apes that we are, instinctively rely on the valuation of others when we decide on something's value. If a friend is hot after a girl, suddenly she looks better to you too. The same thing was probably in play here, the other disciples may have had some doubts about this new guy coming along and basically throwing their entire religion in the crapper, but Peter was always there affirming his loyalty and indirectly pressuring the rest of them to go along.
Personally this scripture always bugged me. Not just because the way it was used was always sort of said to me "This religion may suck, but everything else sucks a little worse" which was never satisfying, but more because of 2 Timothy 4:3 - "For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the wholesome teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled." Whenever they read this scripture where peter's stated reason for sticking by jesus wasn't because he was the messiah, nor was it because he was backed by god as evidenced by his miraculous works, nor was it because he spoke "truth" nor was it because his "load was light" - it was because he had "sayings of everlasting life." How is that anything other than following someone to have your "ears tickled?" So it's OK to do it as long as you follow the right guy?
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How to make the most of wife not going to service meeting?
by FadeToBlack inout of the blue, my wife told me that after this week's service meeting on friday (co visit) she is not going to anymore meetings during the week at night.
only sunday (am) meetings.
she explained that it is difficult and not safe for her to drive after dark (vision issues: i have the same problem so i couldn't help her if i wanted to).
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OneEyedJoe
dont need to drive at night---take a taxi---go to a restaurant--dress up for it--make it a special night out. not every week--unless you can afford it
That's dangerous since she'll think "if I can take a taxi to do something fun, I should be able to take a taxi to meetings." At least, I'd avoid taking a taxi anywhere on meeting nights for the first few months of the newfound freedom.
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Are you afraid something horrible will happen to you now you have left the Wt.
by Still Totally ADD ini remember many years ago we would talk about those who leave the org.
something bad will happen to them.
because god was mad at them for turning away from the wt.
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OneEyedJoe
Richard - you're missing the obvious thing, for someone to have come to an accurate knowledge of truth, then turn back to worldly ways leaves them as worse than a man of the nations! If you leave the cult, you're worse than anyone who's ever been in the cult, no matter what they did.
It's so disgusting to think that I once thought things like that...
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How to make the most of wife not going to service meeting?
by FadeToBlack inout of the blue, my wife told me that after this week's service meeting on friday (co visit) she is not going to anymore meetings during the week at night.
only sunday (am) meetings.
she explained that it is difficult and not safe for her to drive after dark (vision issues: i have the same problem so i couldn't help her if i wanted to).
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OneEyedJoe
I guess try doing anything that she enjoys. If she's anything like my wife, I'd recomend something more active and involved than a movie, at least at first. My wife feels imense guilt anytime we so much as miss a saturday out in serve-us, so something like a movie that only requires passive involvement might allow her enough time to reflect on how guilty she feels about missing the meeting. Also, if she's a very social person, make sure she has social interaction (preferably with non JWs) so that she won't miss gabbing before/after the meetings.
If you can keep the guilt at bay and satisfy any needs the meeting might be filling for long enough, when she eventually reflects on all the missed meetings and "we miss you" comments from people, she'll have to wrestle with the fact that she's been much happier in the time away. If she gets guilty feelings right away, though, it won't have been long enough to break the indoctrination on how essential the meetings are.
Sounds like you're on the right track. Good luck!
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BU2B comments on "Are you convinced you have the truth? Why?" WT article.
by BU2B ini want to start doing a wt review on certain articles.
i think we need as much discussion as possible breaking down these mind control sessions.
i cannot compare with blondie, but i will do my best.
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OneEyedJoe
Thanks, I enjoyed your write-up.
I'd say that the theme of this article is "typcal WT bait and switch." They ask a question in the title, then present a bunch of answers to unrelated questions, and finally tell you how you should feel about the subject.
I'm with you on the last paragraph...that always made me uncomfortable that they'd ask a question at the end like "how do you feel about X" and in the paragraph it would tell you how you felt about it.
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Awake January 2015: How did life begin? - More misquotes
by Designer Stubble in[quote]some might assume that a scientifically-minded person would pick evolution and that a religious person would pick creation.
but not always.. rama singh, professor of biology at canadas mcmaster university, says: the opposition to evolution goes beyond religious fundamentalism and includes a great many people from educated sections of the population.[/quote].
end-of-quote in awake.
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OneEyedJoe
You guys are so cute getting worked up about this. I find it surprising that you find this so surprising. The WBTS is committing a massive fraud - that is obtaining an advantage through deception. They have been doing it for nigh on 100 years. What you have uncovered up is nothing short of standard practice. That is not to denigrate the good work in showing how brazen it is but my guess is that WBTS publicatioons are riddled with this sort of intellectual dishonesty. If they were a commercial organsation they would have been indicted for conspiracy to defraud a long time ago.
In my case (and I suspect other's) this is useful for a couple reasons.
Firstly, it's recent. You can always point to stuff in the creation book, but JWs are so focused on what's current (new light and all that) that they'll just brush it off as insignificant. Also, with the creation book there's the excuse that it was written before the internet so fact checking was more difficult for them to do, so of course there will be a few errors on quotes, etc. With this new awake, you can find the source of the misquotes in about 3 seconds online, so there's no way anyone can claim it was anything but intentional. Additionally, anything not available on JW.org is immediately questioned unless you have a physical copy. Then, if you have a physical copy of something written before you were born, they'll immediately assume that you only aquired it in order to try and create doubts, which then leads to the assumption that you found out about it in the first place from an apostate website. Once there's a hint that you might've viewed an apostate website, nothing you say is credible to them anymore.
Second, it's not open to interpretation. The WTS has totally taken the place of God to the JWs, so it belongs to them the sole ability to interpret scripture or translate manuscripts in any way that they see fit. In this case, the WTS has (and fairly recently, at that) condemned quoting out of context, and it's certainly obvious that they did just that.
Third, it's handy because this is something that you could plausibly have found and you can show to someone without them immediately asking "Have you been going to apostate web sties?" If you challenge doctrine (especially the blood doctrine or anything to do with pedophiles or a whole host of other things) the first assumption is that you had to have gone to an apostate web site to get your information. In this case, the information is clearly available from a google search and requires no apostate information, so it can get past the charecter assasination that the WTS constantly ingrains.
I'm not getting worked up about it because it's surprising (well it was a little bit, I figured they'd up their game now that we're in the information age...their last two creationist brochures did pretty good at avoiding misquotes and just relied heavily on misdirection and fallacy) I'm excited about this because it's something that might be useful to me in my endeavor to wake up my wife (or at least explain why I no longer want to be a part of the WTS).
Edit: wow that got really long. I guess I am a little worked up. I guess having a clear goal that gets me closer to freedom is exciting.