Posts by Letts Party

20

10 hour basic pioneer provision question

by Letts Party in

jw
friends

i remember hearing about this rumor around the time of the annual meeting.

did this really happen?

i haven't heard anything about it at my meeting yet.

Letts Party

I remember hearing about this rumor around the time of the annual meeting. Did this really happen? I haven't heard anything about it at my meeting yet. Any clarification will be much appreciated.

102

It is official they're selling off Kingdom Halls in Britain

by raymond frantz in

i posted here a week ago some disturbing news for congregations being consolidated in britain.

my goodness that was nothing !

a letter was read today from bethel addressed to all congregations in britain that can only be described as the biggest news for years.the main points:.

My congregation which is constantly in a deficit for its own expenses recently sent over $10,000 to the branch in New York. This was all the money our congregation had saved for the LA Building Fund. Several months back, an announcement was made for the starting of this fund since several kingdom Halls need to be built in the LA area to meet the growth. Contributions to the local KH diminished to meet demand for the LAKH building fund and then it was all sent over in one lump sum never to be seen again. $10,000 may not sound like a lot, but it is to us! (we're barely paying our bills each month).

Imagine how many iPads we could have bought for poor old Sister Appleseed who is saving all her pennies to purchase one.

(EDIT: by LA I mean Los Angeles)

110

What song or line from a song bests describes your time as a JW?????

by karter in

waisted days and waisted nites.. freddy fender..

Letts Party

Not sure if this was mentioned already, but a song that always spoke to me and even planted some of my first seeds of doubt was Bad Religion's "Live Again"...

One of the lines was ... "What good is something if you can't have it until you die? Live Again, Live Again... would you give it all up to live again?"

Rumor had it that Greg Graffin (the lead singer) is an ex-jw aside from being a UCLA professor of life science. He was awesome!

20

The Assembly Experiences - Standard Format

by sd-7 in

jw
friends

matthew 6:1: "take good care not to practice your righteousness in front of men in order to be observed by them; otherwise you will have no reward with your father who is in the heavens.".

"now we'd like to call to the platform brother so-and-so, a [let's face it, capital letters should be used] regular pioneer and elder in the blah-blah-blah congregation.

brother so-and-so, what helped you to put kingdom interests first?".

Letts Party

oh my god!! this made me crack up so hard!!! love it! lol

46

my first post! (long read sorry in advance)

by Letts Party in

long time lurker, first time poster here finally looking to get some things off my chest.

i've always been a very curious person with tons of questions about everything, and i also care deeply particularly about societal issues like social injustice, racism, and homophobia.

that, coupled with how boneheaded all the elders in my congregation are (except for one), led me to ask even more questions that led me to find ttatt.. .

Letts Party

Thanks everyone for your kind words!

Oubliette its nice to know that it's been done successfully. For the time being I just want to make sure no one gets hurt in the process.

Make Lemonade thank you so much, that means a lot to me.

Finkelstein That is so true! and me starting my own religion if I had the resources is something I specifically mentioned to my wife to prove that point! Its really logical!

AlphaMan Thank you sir! good point!

disposable hero of hypocrisy its been a year? I'm afraid of that happening. Is it working out or are you interested in bringing it up again? I'm experiencing what I've seen other posters experience in the past where I would want to yell it from the roof tops and bring the whole thng down. Too bad it's impossible.

DNCall thanks for that! I wasn't sure if everyone was going to catch the name. I was trying to up load a photo of him as my avatar but couldn't figure out how. How has your journey been so far? I'll look at your other posts.

Dagney Thank you!

sd-7 I'm so sorry to hear about this going down so badly. I'll look for your story. Thanks for your kind words.

yadda yadda 2 Thanks for your message and words of encouragement!

Remember, it's a cult illusion. Just humour it. It's better to be happy than right sometimes.

Yes for the time being, I think I'll just be stuck humoring it. Its just sickening to think I have to play by their rules. Very sad. Is your screename a Seinfeld reference btw? huge fan!

clarity thank you so much!! that sounds a lot like me right now!!! I'm really looking forward to interacting with you all more often!

46

my first post! (long read sorry in advance)

by Letts Party in

long time lurker, first time poster here finally looking to get some things off my chest.

i've always been a very curious person with tons of questions about everything, and i also care deeply particularly about societal issues like social injustice, racism, and homophobia.

that, coupled with how boneheaded all the elders in my congregation are (except for one), led me to ask even more questions that led me to find ttatt.. .

Letts Party

DaringHart13, thank you! I cant wait to see how it goes!

Smiddy, thanks! I'm glad you think so.

Giordano, I just look up human secularism, and although I just started, I already love what I see! Afterall, we're human. what better attitude to have than loving other humans for what they are and not causing physical nor emotional harm to them regardless of their beliefs? The way we casually think of billions upon billions of people dying as a result of armaggedon is something I brought up to my wife recently. She has extended family outside the truth that are wonderful people. Truly brilliant, wonderful people: aunts, uncles, cousins. She cares about them very much. They would die in armaggedon. We never think about it! The usual response again from a believing witness is that god sees people's hearts and he'll decide who's worhty of salvation, but that's not what our literature says!

If this were true, we'd be EVERYWHERE! on television, the airwaves, radio, newspapers, EVERYWHERE... god wouldn't relegate it to a relatively small army of people that take it so casually and that pretty much behvaes like any other religion. This message would be literally in every corner of the earth, and in EVERY SINGLE LANGUAGE... not the fraction of the languages we do have and that we're so proud of. It seems that our tracts are translated into more languages than the bible itself. rant over.

FFTruther144, thanks, i hope to post often and soon. one of the first things I think I needed to prove is that the GB is NOT god's mouthpiece on earth. Several failed predictions prove this. The god we know from the Old and New testaments would NEVER use an organization who's predictions fail. Especially a god who's so self conscious about protecting his image as it seems (we can't wear beards, our hair needs to be proper, we can't dress "innapropriately"). How does using an ass crazy organization to preach his message make him look??? An organization that got started with pyramidology. Rutherford building a house for the returning prophets. The god we claim to worship is WAY above that. The GB being imperfect humans is NOT an excuse. Yes we make mistakes, but not mistakes that would set up the true god for ridicule. I pointed this out to her, and it was her first "a-ha" moment. She saw how serious I was (I was very passionate).

galaxie, thank you very much!

46

my first post! (long read sorry in advance)

by Letts Party in

long time lurker, first time poster here finally looking to get some things off my chest.

i've always been a very curious person with tons of questions about everything, and i also care deeply particularly about societal issues like social injustice, racism, and homophobia.

that, coupled with how boneheaded all the elders in my congregation are (except for one), led me to ask even more questions that led me to find ttatt.. .

Letts Party

Thank you everyone so far for your wonderful replies. I wish it was easy to just meet all of you in person. Its like the "international brotherhood" but only twice as better (no irrational dogma, and I doubt you'd ever consider disfelloshiping me).

Freddo, thank you so much! it's really great to be here! Greetings from the US!

Brainfloss, thank you!

Apognophos, that's really interesting. I might be totally wrong, but I think that a possible explanation for that might be that even just 10, 15, or 20 years ago, information wasn't nearly as readily available as it is today (again, thank goodness for the internet). So maybe back then, it really took a certain type of person to be able to sift through hours upon hours of books in the library, and hours and hours of research. Now with a click, you can see a scan of a watchtower page from 1916 and see all the crazy things they used to say, believe, and print. I know for a fact, were I this age 20 years ago and sans internet and readily available information, I might of never seen TTATT.

Humbled, thank you very much! Yes, she does. I can only hope for the best.

Londo111, thank you!

LisaRose, I thought about that. It's true, I realized at the beggining I was really loud (not angry yelling but speaking really passionately) about it with her. I saw that I needed to pump the brakes, because yes, as you mentioned, it took ME forever to even visit a site. How could I expect her to accept everything immediately??? Live and learn I guess, but thankfully I didn't burn any bridges. I pumped the brakes early enough and have been taking it easy ever since.

SuavoJr, thanks so much for the reading suggestions. Interestingly, I recently finished God Is Not Great by Hitchens and that furthered my openess to the very rational possibility that I DONT HAVE THE TRUTH. I promise to check out The God Delusion next. I hear many great things about Dawkins. Hitchens' writing is so incredibly spot-on and amazing. I love that guy. If I may, another book that I found really informative was Zealot: the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan. It paints a great secular picture of who Jesus really was, and how his teachings became the brand of Christianity that we know today.

Comatose, thank you thank you! that's exactly what I'll try to do. I can easily prove that I don't need organizational doctrine and rules to be a fantastic husband! I feel great just thinking about it!

JamieBowers, thank you! I'll try my very best. For now, I feel great about the fact that I can at least talk about it openly with her. I hope that its the first of many steps!

46

my first post! (long read sorry in advance)

by Letts Party in

long time lurker, first time poster here finally looking to get some things off my chest.

i've always been a very curious person with tons of questions about everything, and i also care deeply particularly about societal issues like social injustice, racism, and homophobia.

that, coupled with how boneheaded all the elders in my congregation are (except for one), led me to ask even more questions that led me to find ttatt.. .

Letts Party

Hi everyone! Long time lurker, first time poster here finally looking to get some things off my chest. I've always been a very curious person with tons of questions about everything, and I also care deeply particularly about societal issues like social injustice, racism, and homophobia. That, coupled with how boneheaded all the elders in my congregation are (except for one), led me to ask even more questions that led me to find TTATT.

I opened the door to some witnesses when I was 5 (some decades ago), and unknowingly opened the door to what became the biggest deception of my entire life. They asked for my father, I dutifully called him, and long story short, here I am all these years later trying to figure out what the hell to do.

I was baptized as a young teenager, and although I was always viewed as a great example in the congregation, my closest friends and I were leading what would be labeled as "double lives" by the borg. Drinking, partying, having "worldly" girlfriends at school. Not to say I didn't feel terribly guilty about this. Every time "double life" was brought up at conventions, I knew that's exactly what I was guilty of, but I never had the courage nor the guts to "confess".

I was terribly afraid to disappoint my parents. I love them too much, and they care so much about their reputation in the congregation, that I knew that I would be hurting them immensely if I was ever disfellowshipped. They're very uneducated and the religion seems to give them exactly what they need (status, a good reputation, social events). My father is an elder and it seemed like my mom held this over my head every single time I did something that might besmirch his reputation (things as trivial as coming home late, going to PROM etc).

After high school, I pioneered for a bit and made a concerted effort to get better spiritually. I prepared for meetings, went out to service constantly, became a ministerial servant at a very young age and made my parents proud!

Fast forward to today. I married the most wonderful person in the world recently and I couldn't be happier. To an outsider, she fits the typical JW mold for what a good wife should be ("spiritual", a long time pioneer, modest, and “mature"), but she's also simply an amazing person. She's incredibly funny and witty, very intelligent, hard working, diligent, and persistent. Not at all your typical "submissive" type that feels she is to submit to her "headship" (oh wait, that's me). And I love her so much for that.

From a very young age, I've always had some lingering questions about the truth, and how a lot of it just doesn't make sense. My very first question during my dad's book study (he let me sit in. I was very curious) was "won't we get bored living forever?". Mom was quick to reprehend me for making such a disrespectful question in front of the brother who was conducting the study, and I promised never to ask such questions again. I had to be content with the teaching that God will dispense the answers to these questions in due time, or that the answers are not for us to know.

Despite all the questions, I was 100% convinced that we had the truth growing up. There was no other organization in the world like ours, I rationalized (the only other religion I was familiar with was Catholicism and my religion seemed like a godsend by comparison). My parents viewed first hand many of the atrocities committed by the Catholic church in their home country, and this reinforced their faith in a godly organization that didn't get "mixed-up" in the world's affairs, doesn't go to war, and doesn't make collections. They also found solace in the answers the bible seems to provide to life's questions (something the Catholic church wasn't able to do in their opinion).

My foray into TTATT came rather innocently as I was reading a Wikipedia article (I'm a voracious reader) that linked to the page about the Jehovah's Witnesses. I clicked on the link, not sure exactly what I was getting myself into and what I found scared me enough to close the page and delete my browsing history!!! "It had to be apostates!" I thought (those pesky apostates). Satan had to be using Wikipedia to tarnish the organization's reputation and seed doubt in me.

Some moths later I couldn’t help delving further and what I found was eye opening to say the least (pyramids? 1914? Millerites? Possible links to freemasonry? Beth Sarim??? Rutherford’s crazy rants and antics????? Double –standards to how we’re separate from the world??? Vaccinations and organ transplants??????) What makes us different than the Mormons, the religion we always derided as Batshit Crazy? The bronze era way we handle pedophilia cases??????? Seriously????????

Looking back, I thank god for the internet (yes, I said god… I’m still on the fence about that one).

Now I cringe every time I'm out in service and a poor middle aged single sister picks out a house on the hills for her to inhabit when the new system is here. I cringe every time a bone headed elder makes reference to how disgusting gay people are, how gay designers are the reason for fitted pants being fashionable now, or when they dismiss caring about the environment as foolish. I cringe every time the brother on stage asserts that we have the truth, and that we must obey EVERYTHING that comes from the Faithful and Discreet slave without question and without the application of logic (god himself did many things that would ‘Seem” illogical in the bible, and the Israelites just went along with it after all right?).

I read 1984 as a high school kid and even prided myself as a fan of this masterpiece. Why did it never occur to me? The irony of it all. I prided myself as someone who understood the psychology behind innocent and well-meaning everyday Germans supporting the Nazi party during WWII, regular North Koreans worshipping Kim Yong Un, Muslim extremists blowing themselves up and causing great suffering in the name of their god, and slave owners in the antebellum South rationalizing slavery using the bible. I understood it, and even talked about it at length to anyone that I could engage… but never did it occur to me I was in the exact same position… doing the exact same thing. Believing an organization that claims it is the ONLY path to salvation. Everyone else will be destroyed. That’s what it says in our literature, that’s what we’re supposed to believe! But then we dodge the question or say that only God knows who he’ll spare on the day of judgment if anyone asks. In a disturbing way, we have essentially the same message the Westboro Baptist church has. The only difference is they say it to your face BEFORE they recruit you. We slip it in AFTER using much nicer, and less antagonizing language once it’s already too late, and once you’ve been conditioned to accept the Borg’s word as gospel. (oh the humanity).

My only question now is what to do??? My wife is a long time pioneer and heavily emotionally invested in the org. I love her to death and I don’t want her to be hurt. But I just had to tell her about my finds. I did, and she cried. I felt horrible. She expressed her need for this organization. Its all she’s ever known and to hear about these things (failed prophesies, changes in doctrine) might have been too much for me to share at once. We have this conversation on hold. It’s not a conversation she wants to have now and I totally respect that. I’m just happy knowing that she’s open to these ideas and didn’t report me outright like she’s “supposed to”. She’s open to the possibility that the GB isn’t god’s mouthpiece, she’s open to the idea that perhaps we should be able to interpret the bible ourselves (why would god make it so that humans need an organization to interpret it for them???). She said she would leave it in my hands if we ever have a child and that child needs a blood transfusion to save his/her life (thank goodness!!!).

If you’ve gotten this far, I sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don’t expect anyone to finish since it’s so long, but I just wanted to have it up there in case there’s anyone going through the same thing. I know I sure enjoyed reading countless posts from many of you that came to the same realization I did. I have such a positive outlook on life now.

Writing this feels SO liberating! I JUST gave my first birthday hug in my ENTIRE adult life to a co-worker who’s birthday they’re celebrating in the office. And you know what??? This time around, I’ll be saying YES to cake!!! (what’s up with no birthday’s anyway? I had a graduation party and everyone was in attendance… isn’t that considered honoring a person?)

On another note… apostates (is that what we call ourselves? It still carries a really negative sting, I don’t like it) of the early to mid-nineties really needed to change their strategy. Looking like haggard, bitter, and angry conspiracy theorists outside of the stadium didn’t really help them disseminate their message, and the thought of being like them surely turned away many would-be doubters. My mom would dismiss them as crazy on our way home from convention and little twelve year old me agreed. Again, thank god for the internet.

13

THE ULTIMATE statement which addresses the cult of death: Armageddon obsession

by Terry in

this, in my opinion, is one of christopher hitchens' most concise statements about obsession with armageddon.. i'd love to have a transcript of this and just sit and memorize it:).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj2lehsa1dk.

.

Letts Party

(through death of course)...

on the other hand, with religion, Death is "when the REAL fun starts"

13

THE ULTIMATE statement which addresses the cult of death: Armageddon obsession

by Terry in

this, in my opinion, is one of christopher hitchens' most concise statements about obsession with armageddon.. i'd love to have a transcript of this and just sit and memorize it:).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj2lehsa1dk.

.

Letts Party

"The idea of religion comes down to 24 hour surveillance which you cannot escape, eternal vigilation and a kind of celestial North Korea."

Yes, except that in North Korea, as Hitchens points out in another video, you actually get to leave

(through death of course)...

on the other hand, with religion, Death is "when the REAL fun starts"