the three hebrew boys chose death over bowing down to lifeless idols.
early christians refused to sacrifice to the emperor's genious.
jws in nazi germany refused to sign a document that will result in their release or spare them from execution.
Well said. I like the analogies you used - that really gets to the point. It seems that the only conclusion you can come to when examining the evidence is that god does not love mankind, he only loves himself. He doesn't care about our suffering and simply wants more people to worship him. That's why martyrdom is important - if people worshiped privately and silently then they would not spread their religion and that's the real goal.
I'm glad that asshole doesn't actually exist.
i never really knew any until recently.
as a witness we all thought they were weird.
but the two faiths are a lot alike, except the mormons are really so much nicer than the jws!.
here in the uk new drinking guidelines have been issued which suggest "no more than 14 units a week - equivalent to six pints of beer or seven glasses of wine.".
another piece of the advice which is getting a lot of attention is that "if people drink, it should be moderately over three or more days and that some days should be alcohol-free.".
already people are making cries of "nanny state!
as i mentioned in another post i used to serve as an elder for 2 decades.
i was involved in a number of jc.
some i dealt with are good friends now.
There's good and bad in any arbitrarily defined group of people. Try not to define the whole by the actions of one or two. Furthermore, the trauma of living as a JW and then being DFed (vs waking up while still in and leaving after, which is traumatic in itself) is enough to make some people go off the rails in their anger at what has been unjustly done to them. Is it right? Probably not. Are they acting angry/bitter just as the WT says they are? Probably. Is there a completely justified reason for them to be angry/bitter? Absolutely yes.
One of the bigger realizations that allowed me to wake up was seeing that even if apostates are angry/bitter and that drives some of their more objectionable behavior (latching on to false rumors about the organization, protesting at conventions, being insulting to believing JWs, etc) that maybe they're justifiably angry. Maybe they are bitter apostates, but if what they say is true (i.e. the cult has systematically lied to us to our detriment) then I should be one too.
so, all of us have probably heard a lot of urban miracle legends over the years in the org.here's one from outside the org.years ago, i worked with this lady.
she was my supervisor.
we liked having discussions on god and the bible.
I was once told by a "brother" how jehovah had protected him from a dog attack. He was going up to a house but didn't notice the pit bull sitting on the porch. The dog charges at him full speed and he cries out to jehovah and suddenly its like the dog hit a wall and fell down and sulked back to the porch before he ran away.
Even as a believing JW I was pretty sure that this was a case of someone with a fear of dogs (confirmed) failing to notice that the dog was chained to the porch. He was terrified of dogs so he didn't notice minor details and didn't stick around to realize that it wasn't, as he claimed, an invisible angel that stepped between him and the dog, but a perfectly ordinary dog chain.
i wonder how many active members would like to leave but are held hostage by the shunning policy?
it's probably a very large number and growing every day.
the membership is artificially larger then it would otherwise be.
I've previously theorized (and Vidiot seems to make similar points frequently) that the org might benefit by intentionally pushing out the fence-sitters for this very reason. They won't do it by relaxing shunning, though. It does seem almost like they're trying to do this through their increasingly absurd doctrinal changes, appeals for more money and increased control at a local level.
Others have observed that the R/F are becoming increasingly polarized between the fence-sitters and liberal JWs vs the hard-core pioneers/elders/need-greaters. I see this as being in the long-term best interests of the cult - slowly shed the fence-sitters that aren't assets to them at all (slowly so as to prevent a large splinter group from forming that might attract some of the more zealous ones) and this will allow them to liquidate assets to solve their apparent financial problems.
if warwick .... tiny theocratic village, would have been designed long before the beginning of its construction partly made by jw volunteers, for being sold after its achievement to one or more worldly organizations, how should be the reaction of the average jehovah's witness anxious to remain attached to the seven holy ones already sitting on their heavenly thrones ?
well they would have no other choice than to rejoice and to meditate on the following new light:.
at that time, the lifesaving.
..to think about how the congregations actually function....even down to the individual level.. the biggest bully on the boe (or his wife), controls the show.. ones within the congregation are treated like they're dirt and still they return.
stockholm syndrome?.
i've heard ones say that 'jehovah(tm) will sort it all out.
What am I trying to say? I wonder why more don't just say, 'fe6k you eejits!' and just walk away. I should have but the pull of family and mind cleansing(tm 1953) kept me thinking it was the right religion.
Looks like you answered your own question.
It is amazing, though, that you've got 8 million people all under the assumption that the problems they see are merely local aberrations and not characteristic of the whole.
does anybody remember a rumour or maybe it was a truth?
?...something about hidden pictures or symbols in the artwork of the watchtower.
was it one of those urban legends?
I would tend to think it is either crappy artwork, or some bored Bethelite seeing what he could get away with, before jumping to the conclusion that the WTS is endorsing the black mass.
This.
There's just so much that's demonstrably wrong with this cult that focusing on some perceived "demonic" images in the artwork seems to be not only a waste of time but could possibly steer someone away from learning TTATT when they see that us apostates are insane and obsessed with pointing out every minute perceived imperfection. If you want to complain about the artwork, there's still plenty to complain about - like a little girl falling into a pit at armageddon because she clung to her dog.
does anybody remember a rumour or maybe it was a truth?
?...something about hidden pictures or symbols in the artwork of the watchtower.
was it one of those urban legends?
Cappytan - in these cases its more specifically pareidolia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
Turns out that humans have an entire subsection of the brain that's dedicated to recognizing faces. Its much better, from an evolutionary perspective, to see a face where none exists (false positive) than to miss a face that was real.
