Posts by seattleniceguy

28

AHA! Moments. When you were a JW; what struck you the hardest counter?

by Terry in

sooner or later every jehovah's witness encounters an intelligent person with facts at their disposal who can unload something that causes a doubt.

naturally, you defend against it.

but, the wind has been knocked out of your belief-system however briefly.

seattleniceguy

I was a good debater. I knew my doctrine, and I knew the Bible. And I was pretty tactful, so I enjoyed a "good conversation" at the door because I could usually come out on top. This was especially the case if the householder accepted the Bible.

But I always dreaded the intelligent, informed people who did not believe the Bible and could illustrate why plainly. Talking to those people really did feel like getting the wind knocked out of you.

I remember calling on a guy named Patrick. He was a couple years older than me, and looked like the kind of person I imagined I'd be if I weren't a Witness. I can remember trying to explain the issue of universal sovereignty as it related to the issues raised in Eden to him. He just listened with a kind of smile that said, "Can this guy possibly believe this fairy tale?" And I started slipping up telling the story. I consistently called the fruit on the tree "an apple," and then corrected myself. It was like my subconscious was trying to emphasize the storybook nature of this account.

Patrick had solid arguments and books to back him up. I came back to visit Patrick one or two times, but I remember how I dreaded it. I knew that if I were to allow myself to consider what he had to say, I would be easily defeated.

I didn't leave the organization right away after that, but this experience helped me along the path.

SNG

31

IMPORTANT IDEA! Petition the Society and embaress them for their hubris

by Terry in

jw
friends

i may have an important idea!

(beginner's luck).. what if we all (and i mean every last one of us; big numbers of people) wrote a scathing and precise petition or letter of protest (as an open letter) to the governing body of jehovah's witnesses and released it to the press on a slow news day with lots of fanfare?.

we would "call out" the rascals in no uncertain terms citing our grievances (like the founding fathers to george iii) and enumerating our personal suffering under the policies we want changed.. the list would include setting themselves up as little dictators speaking in god's name and issuing papal decrees upon penalty of excommunication.. we could demand apologies for stealing the future of children born to jw families who lose the happiness of childhood through worthless pharisaic adherence to blind rules such as no birthdays, christmas, easter, holidays in general, etc.

seattleniceguy

Terry,

For Witnesses on the brink, the articles on beyondjw.com are exceptional. I would like to copy that tone, but perhaps include more articles for non-Witnesses, and give the site a better presentation layer.

SNG

31

IMPORTANT IDEA! Petition the Society and embaress them for their hubris

by Terry in

jw
friends

i may have an important idea!

(beginner's luck).. what if we all (and i mean every last one of us; big numbers of people) wrote a scathing and precise petition or letter of protest (as an open letter) to the governing body of jehovah's witnesses and released it to the press on a slow news day with lots of fanfare?.

we would "call out" the rascals in no uncertain terms citing our grievances (like the founding fathers to george iii) and enumerating our personal suffering under the policies we want changed.. the list would include setting themselves up as little dictators speaking in god's name and issuing papal decrees upon penalty of excommunication.. we could demand apologies for stealing the future of children born to jw families who lose the happiness of childhood through worthless pharisaic adherence to blind rules such as no birthdays, christmas, easter, holidays in general, etc.

seattleniceguy

Hey Shamus,

That's funny you mention the campaign area. I've asked a couple people about getting in. I always thought really cool stuff was going down in there and they didn't trust me yet or something. I thought the UN campaign would have been my ticket in, but.... :-)

Not to mention that the Watchtower is reading your thread right now.

That doesn't matter. What are they going to do, write an article? Anyway, it wouldn't be published until next year. Those guys are so slow on the draw. Sheesh.

But yeah, I've been slightly discouraged by the low turnout on this thread. That's another reason that we have to think of something that a small core of dedicated people could accomplish. Like it or not, we're not going to have a Million Man March on Brooklyn.

SNG

31

IMPORTANT IDEA! Petition the Society and embaress them for their hubris

by Terry in

jw
friends

i may have an important idea!

(beginner's luck).. what if we all (and i mean every last one of us; big numbers of people) wrote a scathing and precise petition or letter of protest (as an open letter) to the governing body of jehovah's witnesses and released it to the press on a slow news day with lots of fanfare?.

we would "call out" the rascals in no uncertain terms citing our grievances (like the founding fathers to george iii) and enumerating our personal suffering under the policies we want changed.. the list would include setting themselves up as little dictators speaking in god's name and issuing papal decrees upon penalty of excommunication.. we could demand apologies for stealing the future of children born to jw families who lose the happiness of childhood through worthless pharisaic adherence to blind rules such as no birthdays, christmas, easter, holidays in general, etc.

seattleniceguy

You know what we need? A web site aimed at the public, not JWs or XJWs, that explains clearly and calmly why their teachings are harmful. It should look solid and composed, with little or no advertising. It should look authoritative, and not in any way fanatical. We need to be able to refer people with no background to a site where they won't get lost or confused and where they can get solid info, concisely.

Or does one already exist?

I'm thinking maybe the thing to do is create a new site that has articles that have been sourced from the variety of good sites that already exist. WatchtowerInformationService.org is good, but I worry that uninitiated viewers might have a hard time seeing the relevance of some articles. I'd like to make it absolutely clear what articles are important, and make them readable and concise.

Thoughts?

SNG

31

IMPORTANT IDEA! Petition the Society and embaress them for their hubris

by Terry in

jw
friends

i may have an important idea!

(beginner's luck).. what if we all (and i mean every last one of us; big numbers of people) wrote a scathing and precise petition or letter of protest (as an open letter) to the governing body of jehovah's witnesses and released it to the press on a slow news day with lots of fanfare?.

we would "call out" the rascals in no uncertain terms citing our grievances (like the founding fathers to george iii) and enumerating our personal suffering under the policies we want changed.. the list would include setting themselves up as little dictators speaking in god's name and issuing papal decrees upon penalty of excommunication.. we could demand apologies for stealing the future of children born to jw families who lose the happiness of childhood through worthless pharisaic adherence to blind rules such as no birthdays, christmas, easter, holidays in general, etc.

seattleniceguy

You make a strong case, Terry. And your writing is great! I especially liked the term "cosmocrats."

jgnat had some good points to make as well:

I think government interference makes them stronger. I kind of like the idea for a call for a public apology, similar to what protesters are asking from the Catholic Church for the pedophile coverups.

Agreed. Any group with a persecution complex only sees goverment interference as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Demanding a public apology turns the tables in a shocking way: suddenly they are the bad guys, in a way they have never considered.

People read sound bytes these days. They dismiss lengthy rants as crackpot.

I think this is the biggest challenge: making people care, without requiring a major commitment from them.

If we do go for a public campaign, I figure it would be great to have ten letters sent to Bethel for every one sent to a media outlet. Don't let them off the hook, just because we know we will get a lame answer.

Interesting idea, jg, but don't you feel that the Bethel boys would simply choose not respond to confirmed ex-JWs? Now, if we could get a groundswell of non-JWs to write, that would be cool. But again, we have the problem: how can we make an unaffected party motivated enough that they actually put a pen to paper? Some people will, but it seems like that would be a relatively small proportion.

This is dicey, too, because if we're not careful it might appear that we're attacking a minority group. Anyone can attack the Catholic church because they're huge. But if you have issues with a smaller group, no matter how legitimate, you risk coming across the wrong way.

Maybe we should make this a multi-stage plan. Start with letters to the editor and opinion pieces about the human toll of shunning and other bad policies. Get into the public consciousness. Perhaps stage protests in cities where there are enough willing XJWs to put a formidable group in front of a single KH. I'm thinking 20 people with picket signs in front of the Main Street KH. Call the local news channel. Get some TV coverage.

I can see that working out really well. We could have a web site ready and give a good interview. If the newspeople go to talk to the Witnesses, they will undoubtedly get an angry-sounding, dismissive, inarticulate answer. I can totally see some PO making a buffoon out of himself on TV.

I liked the idea about advertising the date of the big campaign, too. "JWs: Armageddon is coming on 12/15/2004...are you ready?" That's effective in creating interest in the general public. Of course, with a buildup like that, we had better be damn sure to deliver! :-)

Also, I wanted to say that I think jgnat is right that we need to have a simple, clear message. We know that almost every single thing about the Witnesses is damaging, but we need to distill that to a clear message with a few major points, and be able to stay on message. It seems like shunning is an important one. Perhaps blood is another. Anything else?

SNG

27

Why do some here refer to themselves as "Apostates"?

by Netty in

jw
friends

the only real definition of apostate i ever had was from being raised a witness.

so, i have this idea that it is an evil, wicked thing.

because of that i dont like to call myself an apostate.

seattleniceguy

So I'm an apostate. Big F'in deal. At least I don't call people names!

LOL.

Exactly. Years of ad hominem attacks and conditioning have made Witnesses believe that "apostate" is by far the most evil word, the most evil type of person around. It's precisely that reason that I find the term empowering. Using "apostafest" is just hillarious. It's like showing straight out that their word has no control over us: "I'm a good person, and I don't care if you call me names. In fact, I kind of like that name."

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31

IMPORTANT IDEA! Petition the Society and embaress them for their hubris

by Terry in

jw
friends

i may have an important idea!

(beginner's luck).. what if we all (and i mean every last one of us; big numbers of people) wrote a scathing and precise petition or letter of protest (as an open letter) to the governing body of jehovah's witnesses and released it to the press on a slow news day with lots of fanfare?.

we would "call out" the rascals in no uncertain terms citing our grievances (like the founding fathers to george iii) and enumerating our personal suffering under the policies we want changed.. the list would include setting themselves up as little dictators speaking in god's name and issuing papal decrees upon penalty of excommunication.. we could demand apologies for stealing the future of children born to jw families who lose the happiness of childhood through worthless pharisaic adherence to blind rules such as no birthdays, christmas, easter, holidays in general, etc.

seattleniceguy

Hey Terry,

I like your style. You seem quite motivated, and I'm right there with you. I have been wondering for a while now what we could do to accomplish something effective by means of print media, and this may be a good start. After our successful letter-writing campaign to the UN, I have learned never to be pessimistic about the possibilites.

There's only one suggestion I have. In any group of people, you have a core that is willing to work extra hard, and a majority that supports the cause but can't do as much or has some reservations. In the UN campaign, which I thought seemed pretty sure, we had only about 20 people actually write letters (that we know about). I think if we are to make an impact on the media, we will need to have a larger constituency act.

To that end, we need some way to make it easier for people to get involved. Maybe we could print the petitions and somehow distribute them so that people could sign and send them easily. Or simply make them available in PDF format online or something. If we talked about it on several boards for several weeks, and prepared correctly, we could give the word and have, say, a thousand people send them to a couple media outlets simultaneously. I bet that would make a pretty good splash.

I think we need to make it more newsworthy, too. Aren't open letters usually paid advertising? I don't know if a for-profit organization like a newspaper will print something like that out of the goodness of their hearts. But if we can find a way to actually make the campaign into a news event, then I think we stand a better chance.

Anything can happen with drive and creativity. Let's get some more ideas in the discussion!

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45

The Internet and Apostasy

by CakeMonkey in

has the internet and forums like these caused an exodus from the j-dubs?

when i left in the early 1990s i met support groups through the yellow pages but it still felt like i was the only one in the world who was an apostate.

i've come to this forum in the last year to browse because my brother has now left.

seattleniceguy

LOL @ XQs...field service is right.

I really believe that we are seeing the beginning of the end for the WTS. The free availability of information greatly inhibits their ability to make new converts, and intelligent people continue to leave. Growth is now zero or negative in almost all western lands (when you consider the effects of the 15-minutes-equals-publisher change), and I think that as people begin to see more and more people they respect leave, it will reach a critical mass and more people will be able to see the sham for what it is.

Carry on! And pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

SNG

7

hi guys

by mordenukboy in

jw
friends

.

ok im a brother from morden they threw me out , i didnt do it, they were forbidding me to get married, unreporterd child abuse could be in the area, they tried to get clever and threw me over the side of the ship.

anyway bethel have no record of my demise it seems that wasnt reported, lets be friends nobody else will talk to me.

seattleniceguy

Hey there UK,

Glad to have you around!

SNG

95

EVIL LOUTION? Why do you still resist? Science doesn't work?

by Terry in

jw
friends

i resisted it for years.

i was dragged kicking and screaming into the evolution theory camp.. i would rather have had my arm lopped off at the elbow;but, facts are facts.

i had to be intellectually honest.

seattleniceguy

Hooberus, you are sort of our local archetype for the Witnesses who lurk here. In that sense, I think you serve a very useful purpose. The Witnesses reading your posts will be grudgingly forced to identify with you, and hopefully come face to face with their own refusal to be honest.

When will the hooberi out there break down and get honest?

SNG