I suspect that the biggest role that the internet plays is less about demonstrating that god doesn't exist through some debate or something and more about just a greater exposure to other ideas and people. More exposure to other religions seems likely to make an atheist out of anyone as you can use the other religions as an analog for your own and discover the flaws in your own thinking.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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Using the internet can destroy your Faith.
by James Mixon inthat's the conclusion of a study showing that the dramatic drop in religious affiliation.
in the u.s since 1990 is closely mirrored by the increase in internet use.
of the u.s population had no religious preference.
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A First Stepping-Stone For Bethelites & Lurkers?
by The Searcher infor potential new-arrivals: .
if you are one of the many who are facing expulsion from bethels around the world in the near future - or simply a sincere j.w.
acts 13:31 - "who are now his (jesus') witnesses to the people.
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OneEyedJoe
I'm kinda with DOC on this one...I know it wouldn't have mattered to me one lick while I was in (probably would've gotten a "that's odd" and then I would've moved on) and I don't see how it would matter to anyone. Especially with how the JW bible's NT is so bastardized with the insertion of Jehovah all over the place it really muddies the water.
But my journey was my own and since I was essentially an atheist for my last decade in the cult, it makes sense that it wouldn't matter to me whether I ought to be worshiping Jesus or Jehovah, because my main issues were more foundational than that. I think the best first stepping stone would be something like jwfacts where someone can go through a quick index and find a topicthat most affects them personally and explore it. Trying to advertise any single issue as a universal first step for people waking up (not that that's what's being done here, necessarily) is folly. Everyone's path out is unique in some way, and each step has to matter to that person on a deeper level than cold facts.
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Overlapping generation pushed me to the brink
by Anator inhello, i haven't posted for a number of years.
i've been struggling for years of wrestling in my mind regarding the organization.
i guess the big thing for me to push me over the edge is the generation overlapping thingy.
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OneEyedJoe
Yeah, the latest FDS=GB change essentially demoted the 144k. Now they're just regular people that occasionally eat some really dry crackers and expect to go to heaven when they die. -
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Overlapping generation pushed me to the brink
by Anator inhello, i haven't posted for a number of years.
i've been struggling for years of wrestling in my mind regarding the organization.
i guess the big thing for me to push me over the edge is the generation overlapping thingy.
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OneEyedJoe
Franz was pretty young by today's JW standards to have been "anointed" in 1914. Such a thing would never fly today. Just sayin!
There was a kid in my former congregation that was claiming to be anointed by 19 or so. Super pretentious "spiritual" little prick. Everyone made fun of his partaking anytime someone even tangentially mentioned him.
But back in 1913 (I think that's when franz was baptized) everyone was partaking, so they assume franz was anointed upon his baptism
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Overlapping generation pushed me to the brink
by Anator inhello, i haven't posted for a number of years.
i've been struggling for years of wrestling in my mind regarding the organization.
i guess the big thing for me to push me over the edge is the generation overlapping thingy.
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OneEyedJoe
The overlapping generation is what finally pushed me hard enough to do some research online - it pushed me over the edge too.
My problem wasn't with the whole anointed thing though - just with the fact that there's absolutely no scriptural support for their current definition of the word "generation." Furthermore, even if they didn't specify a hard end date, their prediction that armageddon would be here before the end of the 1914 generation qualifies as a false prophecy.
As for the issue of the anointing taking place in 1919, that's not really a problem for the overlapping generation the way I understand it. There are now two different 'anointings' - there's the anointed 144k, which have been around starting after Jesus' death, and then there's the anointing of the FDS. These are two different events that really don't have anything to do with one another other than the use of the word anoint/anointed. The overlap is supposed to be between generations of the anointed 144k, not generations of anointed FDS members. Though in their example they're confusing matters by using franz and other GB members to explain the overlap.
That said it's still all a pile of rubbish.
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Are JW's preaching God's Kingdom throuout the entire world?
by Big Derp injust a quick question for anyone who can answer.
i know jw's are not preaching in certain middle east countries because of the "danger".
yet i know for a fact catholics are there despite the danger, and many are being slaughtered and raped.. i have also travelled to many arctic and sub arctic inuit and cree communities.
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OneEyedJoe
JW's are just accepting everything they hear as 'truth,' because they are truthful...
And wouldn't the people who taught them to be truthful be truthful?
Very well put. This is exactly what prevented me from waking up for a very long time.
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It must be a concern of all the information that is now been leaked
by joe134cd ini have put up previous posts about this in the past, but i just thought that it was worth mentioning again.
it has to be of concern to them with how quickly information is getting leaked.
hell it even surprises at just how slowly information spreads by offical means.
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OneEyedJoe
If we didn't have people up the chain leaking info, we would still hear about the announcement and still be able to suggest afterward to our Dub families that the reason is not for the sake of the "preaching" so close to the end but for dire financial reasons of a different sort.
I don't think that'd be nearly as effective, though. If we got the information only after the JWs, they'd already be working through all the excuses for why they've cut magazine production, etc and they'd have a defense built up by the time you mention it. If you mention it in advance, their default defense is "That'll never happen! Jehovah would never allow that!" and then when it happens they don't have that same level of defense built up. It also becomes more personal because the cult just made a liar out of them.
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It must be a concern of all the information that is now been leaked
by joe134cd ini have put up previous posts about this in the past, but i just thought that it was worth mentioning again.
it has to be of concern to them with how quickly information is getting leaked.
hell it even surprises at just how slowly information spreads by offical means.
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OneEyedJoe
There are probably dozens if not hundreds at Bethel who were aware of the change by the time the leak happened so it doesn't have to be someone of high status who leaked the information.
While I'm sure you're correct that many at bethel would've known, is it true that this letter could've come from any one of them? The leak wasn't that the TMS was going away or that the magazines were getting downsized again, it was the entire letter, verbatim. I wouldn't think that everyone at bethel that's aware of the changes would have access to the letter necessarily. That said I'm privileged to have never worked at bethel so I could be completely wrong on this.
My theory is that the leak came from someone in the IT department. They've probably got folks in IT that haven't been in very long, and a background in computers is probably something that primes people for waking up (more likely to explore doubts anonymously online). It would make sense that they'd want to get the letter ready to post ahead of time (especially if it's been translated and is going to link to a video, etc) and this would be a much more likely (to me) candidate for the source of the leak than someone on the service committee or something like that. Another possibility is that it could've come from someone in translation, as they sometimes take people that haven't been in the cult long due to their qualifications, from what I understand.
I would consider a good 'leak' to be something that can potentially be damaging to them. Just leaking information ahead of the official scheduled release date or 'elders only' leaks can help 'if' they expose them for something illegal, unethical, or not biblical. Otherwise it's just getting information ahead of time.
IMO every leak is a valuable leak. Just proving time and again that their own elders and bethelites aren't as devoted as they'd like everyone to think is worth something in and of itself. Even if that only means that we get information a little early.
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It must be a concern of all the information that is now been leaked
by joe134cd ini have put up previous posts about this in the past, but i just thought that it was worth mentioning again.
it has to be of concern to them with how quickly information is getting leaked.
hell it even surprises at just how slowly information spreads by offical means.
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OneEyedJoe
As for the notion of their deliberately preparing false information to see who leaks it, how would that work? Leaking by definition is difficult to pinpoint. If they cannot pinpoint who's leaking official letters, they won't have any greater luck with "false" letters.
I've got a family member that works for Apple - they do (or at least have in the past) something along these lines in order to identify leaks, but not quite to this extreme. Basically everyone gets a slightly different version of the product - no major differences, but there might be a slight difference in an icon or in layout, etc - if something gets leaked they're able to tell what the source was based on the identifying differences.
They could easily use a method like this to try to suss out the source of the leaks, but if they did and it became known the leakers could just resort to re-wording things to convey the gist of the letter without giving the content verbatum. The only way for them to find the leak then would be to distribute various false letters to different people/departments and see which ones get out, and then withdraw the letters. That's when the leaks really start to hurt their internal operation - when people start getting jerked around like that it will really hurt morale and their ability to have an effective flow of information.
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It must be a concern of all the information that is now been leaked
by joe134cd ini have put up previous posts about this in the past, but i just thought that it was worth mentioning again.
it has to be of concern to them with how quickly information is getting leaked.
hell it even surprises at just how slowly information spreads by offical means.
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OneEyedJoe
Leaking information is actually a very effective way of bringing down authoritarian regimes. By their very nature, they hate to be shown not to have complete control which typically causes them to try to put a stop to the leaks by various means. They may leak false data, compartmentalize information even more strictly, or merely up the penalties for leaking something and stress the importance of secrecy. All of these undermine them long-term, either by making it difficult for them to effectively communicate to their own people or by revealing them as the paranoid control freaks that they are. So even a leak of insignificant information is a step towards the cult's regression.