Posts by Mephis

41

Paradise is going to suck!

by WasOnceBlind in

once you really start thinking about it, the whole paradise idea is kind of depressing.

i remember growing up as kids my sister was the first to tell my parents (admittedly very courageously) that she wasn't sure she wanted to live in paradise, it sounded boring living forever.

i thought she was dumb for thinking that, i mean playing with lions!!!!

Totalitarianism is not only hell, but all the dream of paradise-- the age-old dream of a world where everybody would live in harmony, united by a single common will and faith, without secrets from one another. - Kundera

JWs made it up as they went along when I was in. Holy Spirit substituted for science when required to create a mental image which worked for the individual. But really, if one takes what they are proposing, it's a theocratic, totalitarian state with everyone reduced to the status of drone, where thought crime becomes reality and punishable by death without appeal, and where one faces an eternity of performing on command to the whims of a malevolent psychopathic god without the prospect of parole or appeal and where death via disobedience will be the only escape. How fun.

43

G Losch: child baptised at 5, reg pioneer since!

by fifth.column in

at the end of april, there was a zone visit in france, with tv broadcast in all kh.. g. losch told he received a letter from a girl, 10 years old, baptised at 5, reg pioneer since 4 years !

what a fine example, he said....... let s imagine the faces of the parents in the kh!

i was happy to see i was not the only one to find it crazy.. if you have a child, you know how mature he is at 5. how can a child preach 2.5hours/day after 7hours of school and homework to do??

Mephis

There has been confirmation of the comments made at the French meeting by some in the private FB groups too. Just to add backing to what fifth column has said here. There is meant to be a poor quality audio recording about too, so hopefully that will be passed out from the Francophone ex-jw community at some stage.

59

'Anointeds' Do you know any and if so what are they like ?

by Introvert 2 in

would like to hear about any experiences anyone has had with the so called ' anointed ' .

Mephis

I've known a handful - all women. One lady was what the JWs would call 'spiritual'. She felt demons, reckoned she had her own personal angel bodyguard, would use her stick to hit me or smash a toy if she felt I wasn't being 'spiritual' playing in her presence. Another of that age was really sweet, really quiet and really unassuming. Couple of others from a few decades later were real hard-bitten single women. Pioneered for years, took no nonsense, and would stare down COs who confused conscience matters with doctrine. Those all had died by the early 90s. A lady who discovered that she was annointed in the mid-90s, after a few decades of being a JW was a real piece of work. Once she claimed to be annointed, she started to make the nastiest comments to people and expect them to give her extra special treatment. I was in my late teens and we clashed a lot. People are people really, so mixed bag in spite of them doing the wine and crackers night every year.

14

Secret disfellowshipping

by disillusioned 2 in

i always thought it was ridiculous that when a person was disfellowshipped they didn't tell us why.

everybody would speculate, but we wouldn't know the real reason.

also i thought they were only supposed to be disfellowshipped if they weren't repentant and wouldn't stop doing the wrong thing.

Mephis

I was in when they did use to say. Didn't really stop the speculation. Just fanned it really - "who with?!". To be honest, it was kind of rare in my congregation not to know why someone had been disfellowshipped - small communities and all that fun. And if you were still not sure, local needs was always enlightening after public reproof. All a bit of a farce really. It's not like the PO ever stood up and said "X has been disfellowshipped because he said he stopped with the koolaid and realised it was BS" or "We disfellowshipped Y because we just really didn't like her so decided not to believe her story after asking her inappropriate questions for several hours".

23

Are the writers in the writing department purposely misquoting people?

by paulmolark in

after reading that great post about the june 1 article on science i got to thinking.

although it is great to believe there is this huge group of guys in the jw writing department that are constantly looking to mislead us by twisting the words of scientist etc... i really think it is more likely they are google researchers that do not have the ability to grasp the thoughts that are being expressed in the scientific article they quote mine from.. i honestly believe the reason that this happens is because of the individuals they use to write these magazines.

these are not college educated men.

Mephis

They do it with the bible, so to me it's a carry over from that. Find a sentence which works, shoehorn it into the text, job done. I agree with those arguing that it is impossible for some of the misquotes not to have been done other than with the deliberate intent to deceive. There's just no way one can hack some of their misquotes without it being deliberate. It could well be a reflection of poor writing and editorial standards, an absolute incompetence which allows deception to be published, but I'd be more inclined to think that it is an organisation operating in a way which reflects its absolute contempt for those reading what it puts out. Few will fact check at the time, and even those do so against strong warnings not to do so. And everyone is aware of the penalties for speaking out about errors. One learns to let things slide into a safe blindspot.

22

Everything seems to be changing... why not birthdays?

by StarTrekAngel in

if we look at all doctrines, we see an overall effort to conserve unity and control.

- assuming most birthdays, if allowed, would probably be oriented to children, then that means 40 celebrations per year.

so all in all, this give a total potential attendance to a birthday of 30 families (120 attendance / 4 family members).

Mephis

Yeah, I'm on the this is 'control' view of it too. As Crazyguy says, it forces a split from normal society. It becomes a distinguishing feature which acts as a bond between them all. A loyalty test in its own way. It also helps to reduce any sense of value in oneself - there isn't a day in the year where you are celebrated. Which is the brass tacks behind a lot of Rutherford's fulminations about eg Mother's Day taking away from worship of the great bearded sky daddy. You are worthless. Remember it. Work harder, pray harder, do more. Think you have a good point that the spending of money on a person does feed into that too - life without any luxuries is set as the standard. If one takes something like the principles behind eg Maslow's hierarchy of needs, JWs rarely meet all of them - their doctrines actively operate to prevent it. That's not an accident.

31

German Branch visit talk Mark Sanderson (Parents; don't hinder young children to get baptized)

by Daniel1555 in

jw
friends

the video streaming of the german branch visit program was excrutiating 3.5 hours long.. i just went to see the last 45 min (part of mark sandersons talk).. i think sanderson is quite a sympathetic speaker and he kind of made a loving impression.. he didn't mention controversial stuff (except for one thing i will come to soon).

he mostly talked about how to find joy, even when life is not easy, and how much the gb loves the rank and file.. one point seemed soooo important to him.

parents and children.

Mephis

Hope you don't mind Daniel1555, but I've uploaded the audio file to youtube to allow for easier sharing/listening.

https://youtu.be/lJjWxn3HcKM

37

Seems very easy to leave now, why do people hesitate?

by Xanthippe in

when i see people on here saying they've looked on several sites before this one, jwfacts, jwstruggle, youtube, etc., and then they make friends here, sometimes meeting up with ex-jws, it seems incredibly easy compared to leaving in 1989. .

no internet, no amazon to find ex-jw books, no facebook to link up with ex-jw groups.

still people find it so hard to leave.

Mephis

It seems to me still darned hard for people to leave. Just a lot more access to support and information as you do it now. I left mid-90s and the fundamental issues are still the same for any non-believing born-in leaving in their late teens today. Do you take the shunning (if baptised) or try to fade or keep up the masquerade? I've noticed a definite hardening on the shunning aspect over the past 20 years. The increased ability to remain in contact with people makes fading more difficult (I did a year of coming down with every sickness I could think of trying to do a fade - bit easier with once a week phonecalls). And the masquerade is one I have a lot of empathy for those who feel they need to do it because of their own circumstances.

I found my own personal choice easy to make given the options. But it's never going to be easy leaving a high control group which provides almost every social contact you have.

16

Do you think the 'Rama Singh misquote' situation is uncalled for?

by neat blue dog in

let's be honest with ourselves, even if you have an ax to grind with the wts.

i mean, the quote in question was merely a statement of what he believed to be a fact, or else he wouldn't have said it.

there was nothing in the quote (and everyone has the right to make accurate quotes under the fair use doctrine), that even remotely suggested that he was pro-creationism or anything like that.

Mephis

neat blue dog - I would agree with you, if the WT had included the rest of Singh's original piece. That it's because said people do not understand evolution and so evolution should be taught at colleges. And missing off that key part of what Singh wrote changes the meaning quite radically. Any fool can pull out sentences to make them say what they want them to say devoid of their original context. I remember being taught why not to do it as a 14 year old.

16

Do you think the 'Rama Singh misquote' situation is uncalled for?

by neat blue dog in

let's be honest with ourselves, even if you have an ax to grind with the wts.

i mean, the quote in question was merely a statement of what he believed to be a fact, or else he wouldn't have said it.

there was nothing in the quote (and everyone has the right to make accurate quotes under the fair use doctrine), that even remotely suggested that he was pro-creationism or anything like that.

Mephis

I think every instance of the WTBTS misusing quotes to twist them should be highlighted. What they wanted that quote to say is shown by what they replaced it with. Singh was being perfectly reasonable to ask for an apology. It is exceptionally bad form to do what the WTBTS did. That they did it without expressing any remorse, and have done similar things for years, shows they are either incompetent or dishonest in how they treat academic works. They are not forced to treat their material honestly, nor are they forced to apologise for treating it dishonestly, so the only thing left is publicising that this is the religious version of the National Enquirer. Caveat emptor.