Posts by neat blue dog

15

My JW-Related Musical Experiences

by Roger Kirkpatrick in

looking back over my life, the only thing that i can say i truly enjoyed as a jw was meeting and becoming friends with a number of jws who were fine musicians and had experienced various measures of success in what used to be called the "music business.

tommy reynolds, from the vocal group hamilton, joe frank & reynolds ("don't pull your love out on me, baby" and "baby, baby, fallin' in love, i'm fallin' in love again") recruited me to play drums in his dallas circuit assembly orchestra in the 1970s.

in 1977, i became friends with legendary jazz composer/arranger/band leader benny golson, whose life story appeared in the oct. 8, 1980 awake, and who appeared opposite tom hanks in steven spielberg's "the terminal.

neat blue dog

Wow that a pretty fascinating read! Had no idea of the people you mentioned being JWs, and not sure others did either as I don't think that info is on the 'celebrity JWs' page of JW Facts.

16

Memories from the Edge

by neat blue dog in

when waking up it often isn't an instant switch, there's a period of time when your conflicted feelings are heightened and most uncomfortable.

can anyone remember specific instances in the time before you fully woke up that made you uncomfortable or guilty, despite you still being a 'believer'?.

i can think of two right now, both about a year or two before i woke up:.

neat blue dog

The time we kept rehashing the "Revelation" book at the book studies over and over and over again. The way they, the WTS, kept talking about themselves in the book.

Looking back at that, it was like something close to the Rutherford era, so outlandish. Not sure if they could get away with that today. Then again . . .

16

Memories from the Edge

by neat blue dog in

when waking up it often isn't an instant switch, there's a period of time when your conflicted feelings are heightened and most uncomfortable.

can anyone remember specific instances in the time before you fully woke up that made you uncomfortable or guilty, despite you still being a 'believer'?.

i can think of two right now, both about a year or two before i woke up:.

neat blue dog

Was it them trying to drum up funds?

16

Memories from the Edge

by neat blue dog in

when waking up it often isn't an instant switch, there's a period of time when your conflicted feelings are heightened and most uncomfortable.

can anyone remember specific instances in the time before you fully woke up that made you uncomfortable or guilty, despite you still being a 'believer'?.

i can think of two right now, both about a year or two before i woke up:.

neat blue dog

True 😅 It's ironic though how most JWs are convinced that their every belief is based on air-tight logic. If that were really the case, there would be nothing to fear from "apostates", even those who only use the Bible.

16

Memories from the Edge

by neat blue dog in

when waking up it often isn't an instant switch, there's a period of time when your conflicted feelings are heightened and most uncomfortable.

can anyone remember specific instances in the time before you fully woke up that made you uncomfortable or guilty, despite you still being a 'believer'?.

i can think of two right now, both about a year or two before i woke up:.

neat blue dog

When waking up it often isn't an instant switch, there's a period of time when your conflicted feelings are heightened and most uncomfortable. Can anyone remember specific instances in the time before you fully woke up that made you uncomfortable or guilty, despite you still being a 'believer'?

I can think of two right now, both about a year or two before I woke up:

On one I was on a "Bible study" at the part in the Teach book that talks about blood transfusions, and the student expressed some concern. Of course my partner and I went all in espousing cell salvage, volume expanders, risk of disease yada yada. At the time I had no idea of the extent of harm and deaths that had resulted from it, but even then I felt a little guilty afterwards for down playing the dangers.

The other was when I gave a talk about the "earthly hope". It was just about the time that I began noticing the lack of evidence for it in the Bible. While writing the talk I realized how flimsy and superficial the whole thing needed to be out of necessity, as there were no scriptures that could be used without being partial quotes and/or out of context, and emotion/humor was relied on heavily over substance to carry the thing. I felt guilty afterwards, even though I was getting pats on the back all around, because I knew it was deceptive and intellectually weak. Still, I wasn't fully convinced and chalked it up to that maybe there was something I was missing or just didn't understand.

Any stories to share?

29

A recent antiwitnessing experience

by john.prestor in

i shared one of these before in which my approach left something to be desired, and i got some flack for that, and rightly so.

so if this story doesn't go over well i won't share another... but given how it ended, i just had to share.... a few days ago i took a trip to a nearby city by bus.

in the about 20-30 minute window between my connecting buses i walked over to a mcdonald's and got a cup of coffee, and when i came back to the little bus station i saw a literature cart sitting unmanned near the doors.

neat blue dog

"Answer my question first and I'll answer yours." He said, "I don't have to answer your question." I replied, "I don't have to answer yours either."

I wonder if later it hit him that that's exactly the way Jesus' conversation with the Pharisees went down.

25

Jehovah's Witnesses and the Great Crowd

by Meshech in

as jesus christ was preparing to go to his death, he encouraged his disciples with these words:.

"in my father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, i would have told you.

i go to prepare a place for you.

neat blue dog

Amen, epic breakdown!

It's ironic, JWs will say 'the word Trinity appears nowhere in the Bible', but neither is the phrase 'earthly hope'. As a matter of fact it's explicitly contradicted as you've shown, as well as many other scriptures there weren't room for. The burden of proof is really on them to prove an invented doctrine, and all this research into Greek words shouldn't even be necessary as the scripture's meanings are self evident in this regard, but it just goes to show how weak their foundation is.

61