Posts by OneEyedJoe

12

There is no God.

by nicolaou in

it had been raining and i could smell the pine trees nearby.

god wasn't necessary.

the clouds cleared and the sunlight blazing from above paid out a bonus in the puddles at my feet.

OneEyedJoe

Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite authors - Douglas Adams

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

25

All quiet on the western front

by campaign of hate in

recently it seems very quiet in jw land.. jw broadcasting has been in full swing for months now, nobody bats an eye lid at that anymore.. so the question is, what is next?

the next organisation change, the next doctrine change.

it seems like this is the quiet before the storm.. the way things are going, it's almost like they try and one up their last change, things in jw land get that bit more crazy every year.. i'm hedging my bets toward a monthly public talk broadcast straight from new york.

OneEyedJoe

I still expect a "you must tithe, although we won't actually call it tithing, if you want privileges in the congregation" article some time fairly soon.

That's a tough call...I don't think they could do it. They're already having enough trouble getting men to "reach out" as it is, and I suspect that there would be at least a few that would step down if they did this. They're already milking the R/F dry, I don't think there's a whole lot more mileage there - I think their only option to increase margins is to cull the flock of the deadwood and consolidate.

Isn't there always some noo-lite at the convention? What was it this year? Though I guess saying that the number of toes on a statue isn't important or coming up with some BS new explanation for what third heaven is probably doesn't qualify for what we're looking for in this thread.

I could see them announcing inactive ones as no longer a JW, but to be honest I don't think that'll happen. If they had to go back through their records and announce all the inactive ones at once it would create quite a stir...though I guess they could just do it going forward or only for cases when they hear of an inactive person that's still associating with JWs.

69

Thinking of Going Full Disclosure With Wife. Sorta

by freemindfade in

jw
friends

soliciting any and all opinions.

as some of you may know, wife is full in pioneer.

my fade has gone from us fighting.

OneEyedJoe

If you're the social one, you have a huge advantage. Just start making non-cult friends. It'll show your wife how wrong the cult is about worldly people and help her see a way out if there's already a social group outside of the cult waiting for her. Obviously it's not just that easy, but you're going to need non-cult friendships sooner or later no matter what happens.

69

The 1995 Generation Change

by sloppyjoe2 in

jw
friends

i was just a teenager and have a vivid memory of sitting in a chair doing a microphone for the sunday meeting.

everyone was commenting that it didn't mean the end was far off, and it didn't change the condition of the dead, or the 144,000, or the trinity so we should still remain faithful.

this is my first memory as a kid being just a teen that i ever had a single doubt.

OneEyedJoe

I was 9 when it was changed, I think, so I didn't notice it at the time...but the strange thing is that even well after that, in my area the generation of 1914 was still often talked about as if they never changed the 1995 teaching. I think this happened from the platform, but it definitely happened in comments (i.e. "those born in 1914 are really old now...") without being corrected from the platform. I guess a lot of people either missed it altogether or just couldn't accept it. They definitely didn't do nearly as much to push that change as they have the overlapping generation nonsense.

10

How to get JWs to talk about disfellowship?

by datto in

i have heard a lot about disfellowship from forums, blogs & youtube clips.

and all of them are real experiences from ex-jw.

however i have never physically met an ex-jw before.

OneEyedJoe

I also strongly suggest that you look into Steven Hassan's books on cult mind control. This will help you avoid some of the common mistakes that people make when a loved one is first entering a cult. The first thing cultists typically do is prime the potential recruit to expect family members to object and/or call it a cult because Satan is using them to test their faith. If you do that, you'll only drive them further in. It looks like you've done a good job thus far, but it would probably help to understand fully the psychological mechanisms at play here.

Good luck, sir.

10

How to get JWs to talk about disfellowship?

by datto in

i have heard a lot about disfellowship from forums, blogs & youtube clips.

and all of them are real experiences from ex-jw.

however i have never physically met an ex-jw before.

OneEyedJoe

You might get a little better help if you relate some of your situation and what you're after. If you ask why people are disfellowshipped you'll probably get "unrepentant sin" as the answer, or sometimes a more specific answer being something to do with fornication, since the cult does a lot to sell this as the default reason for being DFed.

It also depends on who you ask and how much they know and how honest they are with themselves and with you. Most elders are probably aware on some level that being DFed isn't exclusively about unrepentant sin, and unrepentant sin doesn't always result in being DFed. But they're not likely to tell you that.

As for where to start, that really depends on where you want to end up. Like I said, if you're comfortable giving more information, you'll likely get more useful advice.

69

Thinking of Going Full Disclosure With Wife. Sorta

by freemindfade in

jw
friends

soliciting any and all opinions.

as some of you may know, wife is full in pioneer.

my fade has gone from us fighting.

OneEyedJoe

It seems to be a common flaw in JWs that they can't separate arguing against how a point is made and what point is made. I have the same problem when I question the use of misquotes and lies in their argument against evolution. Although I agree with evolution, that has no bearing on my problem with their use of deliberate deception to argue against it. When I've brought this up with my wife and father in law, they both automatically assume that I'm arguing for the fact of evolution. They just cant separate it in their minds - though to be fair once you weed out all the deceptive arguments against evolution, it does become the clear winner in the debate.

Because of that, pointing out the failed logic and deceptive statements from the WT puts you at an immediate disadvantage. I think the only topic I've discovered that I can attack this way is on their ban of higher education, since there's nothing morally wrong about going to college and no doctrine hangs on the ban. Everything else puts you on the side of immoral or godless people in their minds and immediately poisons anything you might say.

69

Thinking of Going Full Disclosure With Wife. Sorta

by freemindfade in

jw
friends

soliciting any and all opinions.

as some of you may know, wife is full in pioneer.

my fade has gone from us fighting.

OneEyedJoe

Like the others have said - it's totally up to you where you go, but I'll offer you a data point:

I regret not coming clean to my wife much more early on after my discovery of TTATT. I think it's probably important to take a few days or maybe weeks to really let it sink in, but it seems I entirely lack the skillset required to wake someone up if their connection to the cult is social and emotional. I had been in because of all the "proof" (which towards the end I realized the only thing holding me in was that they got lucky with 1914) and the proof that it was a cult was plenty to do the trick for me. So because of my inability in that respect, the year I spent trying to plant seeds was entirely fruitless and only damaged our marriage. When I "came out" to her at the end, it didn't go any better than it would've from day 1, and in a lot of ways it went worse precisely because I'd waited so long. I think if I had been open from the beginning I could've made it a somewhat more collaborative process of discovering whether it's the truth and even if I hadn't won her over that way, I think our marriage would currently be in a somewhat better place. Furthermore, since that happened I haven't had to sit through a single meeting, which is definitely a nice payoff. It's amazing how much more like yourself you begin to feel after being away from the mental stress of sitting at cult meetings.

It sounds like you've already eased into it and your wife is learning to come to terms with it in her own way. Not sure what your relationship is like, but in my case my wife was holding a lot of fear and distress inside and the uncertainty about my fate was eating away at her. At least now that she knows I'm destined for death at armageddon she can try to deal with it instead of being in limbo. It's possible that your wife might be doing the same, and releasing her from that, while initially painful, would be a kindness if that's the case. Since there doesn't seem to be any great risk of your wife leaving you, making the first move and being open and honest may actually serve you well.

Again, all this is said without any warranty, and is coming from someone that probably handled everything with his wife about as poorly as possible, so do with it what you will. I wish you the best of luck in whatever you choose to do.

30

What started me on the path to waking up about the lies the WT teaches?

by oppostate in

it was a simple question: isn't jesus my "mediator" if i put faith in him like the scriptures say?

the research to that answer, from the w79 4/1 p. 31, was mind blowing.

how dare they deny me a belief firmly stated in the scriptures?

OneEyedJoe

The overlapping generation got me started and the misquotes in the creation book solidified my doubts.

17

Vacation Time! Going To A Regional?

by millie210 in

this is the first year i have not been at a summer assembly.. the friends here locally just got back from the regional in our area.. they mostly took their vacation time from work to attend.. while they were gone i had an epiphany...... why is it that the rank and file take their summer vacation time to attend an assembly (we have all heard this hammered in from the platform) whereas the governing body attend as part of their "work".. it cant be as simple as "well, they are giving talks" because there are many brothers that give talks from the rank and file also who have used up precious vacation hours and drug their entire family there plus give their parts.. or what about other brothers and sisters who volunteer and clean at the assembly.

on vacation.. so the pubs.

travel at their own expense, pay for their own rooms and food, and give parts and it is supposed to be viewed as their vacation.. the gb and c.o.s travel to the same assembly and stay in provided for accomadations, give a talk or two and they are "working".. what is that about?.

OneEyedJoe

To be fair, the life of a GB member is pretty much a non-stop vacation of living on manicured grounds (that they neither mow nor pay for) with all their needs met and plenty of trips to scenic locations world-wide. In comparison, trudging through 3 days of a convention is definitely hard work.