i'm talking about the new posters, like kitten whiskers, who started posting today (hope this works: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/120817/1.ashx).
and it seems like we're getting a few like this nearly every day.
people who were raised jws, really worry that they are doing the right thing in leaving, yet who have been made to feel not good enough by the wts, who felt they never measured up, who struggled with it, but came to realize that what they'd been brought up to believe was just not the truth.. the same stories are told over and over again, and they come from sincere, good people - not whiny, fault-finding apostates like the rest of us riffraff around here!
Quandry :
There is still much more, if you are still interested.
Yes, very much so. You should consider posting the entire account in its own thread as it is difficult rummaging for all its parts in this lengthy one.
My heart aches for what your family suffered. It sickens me that I once promoted and defended an organization that would sponsor such barbarism. As much about it as I came to abhor, it seems I still did not know the half.
AMNESIAN
i have been doing some analysis on the declining growth rates of the watchtower society and they are very encouraging for all ex jws.
i will try to link to some of them below, but for the firefox users or anyone wanting to see the source table they can all be seen at http://jwfacts.com/index_files/statistics.htm.
number baptised compared to increases in publishers and number that have stopped publishing.
What you have to take into account is that publishers can put in 15 mins(is that right) a month now, so there are a lot that they are counting now, which puts their no`s up.
dido, I believe this is permitted only for those officially designated as elderly or infirm (!). Nevertheless, you raise a good question as to the validity of any of the WTS's publisher numbers: besides the "15 minute" stat-inflater, there is also the very real likelihood that most people do not quit reporting time the very month they actually quit putting in time. Most probably submit bogus reports for some period of time before giving up the charade altogether. Arguably, the situation is even more dismal than these dismal stats would indicate.
Justitia Themis:
Everyday on average over 200,000 people are born, but the number of active Jehovah’s Witnesses increases by only 224 (2005 daily increase in average publishers). That would mean that each day Armageddon is delayed there is an extra 200,000 people that Jehovah will be required to destroy.
Brilliant.
And in the words of the erudite TMS conductors I suffered during my JW existence, "...thank you for that informative information, jwfacts.
AMNESIAN
i came home to find two sisters standing in my driveway.
they looked at the signs on my car (i do house watching for snow birds here in fl) and wanted to know how to get into the business.
and after i explained all that i said "its a really good business if you are pioneering.
Sharp volley, LovesDubs. And good on them for being willing to engage, however sadly misguided their reasoning. Still, you never know what good effect your words may eventually realize.
The one said she understood my frustration and she too had seen the "mess" and tried to live her life around it. I said the mess INSIDE or OUTSIDE the Kingdom Hall walls? And she said..."Definitely INSIDE but I have left Jehovah to handle it...he sees it and he will take care of it."
My standard comeback to every JW who invariably offers the above self-righteous justification for their :::cue mournful music::: sitting among wicked men of lies and loving the company of those who truth despise:
"And when churchgoers you encounter in field service offer you that exact same rationale for their remaining in their religions amidst the sin and lawlessness --code-named, when practiced by JWs, "imperfection" -- do you commend them for waiting on God to set matters straight or do you zealously warn them, referring them in your NWT to Rev. 18:4, to "get out from among them if you don't want to ... receive part of her plagues"???"
Never fails. Deer in headlights.
It was just this past weekend I had my most recent opportunity to snap a "whole-souled" pioneer's lips shut with that challenge after she offered up the same boilerplate justification for continuing with the organization despite the "imperfections" she acknowledges are apparent around her. To her credit, after staring at me speechless for a few moments, she quietly conceded something to the effect of "...well, uh..yeah...uh..."
Well, yeah, uh...right.
AMNESIAN
if you are a loyal, zealous witness, please listen to me.. i'm going to tell you straight from my heart, right out of.
my hard-won personal experience, how to avoid unhappiness.. here it is:.
don't bet on games you can't win.. let me illustrate.
BTTT
if you've ever studied authoritarian regimes, you may understand that since access to honest truth is carefully rationed,.
all sorts of "reasons" for doing things may appear, that take the place of hard fact.
even worse, the leadership may .
I've wondered for some years now why the Society hasn't [...] bothered to change their most stupid doctrines - or bothered to write a new book against Evolution... [...] but there are subtle changes going on in the Watchtower that signal internal weakness, a lack of defense in depth. This area is one in which I trust that the internet is draining them.
I've often considered this very predicament in which the leadership currently finds itself. Now that the founding luminaries with their wild-eyed "insights" and prophetic spew have all passed from the scene, leaving promoted into their chairs at HQ those with not a bit more spiritual or scholastic qualification than long years of lockstep servitude in itinerant regional sales manager positions and education in corporate practices and procedures, it's little wonder that there is simply no chef on board, so to speak, to concoct and spread the spiritual feasts of the past in which JWs once took such preening self-righteous delight --delusional though we now realize they were, still, at the time, appetizing and certainly exciting enough to keep us tittering "in expectation of it" and "aglow with the spirit."
Today the malaise and apathy are palpable. Any tittering excitement is of the forced, artificial variety mainly on the part of grey-headed ones who are fighting disillusionment, desperate to keep hope alive. The pantry's bone dry, all the culinary wizards are taking dirt naps.
What a sick joke it all seems now looking back. But, briefly, back to the subject of the Internet:
Just as with everything else it affects---and it now affects everything---the Internet is forcing all commercial, social, corporate, religious, political, medical, media, etc., etc., etc., entities to radically and irreversibly restructure their business models or perish, it is having its comparable devastating effect on the WTS: 1) undercutting recruitment; 2) hastening the departure of young ones; 3) shutting the checkbooks of those who must remain in the organization despite having been enlightened about its misdeeds.
No organization need recognize, understand, discern or address this phenomenon for it to wreak havoc. Failure on the part of an organization in these regards merely facilitates the process. It spells doom for the WT religion.
AMNESIAN
Universal Music to Offer Free Downloads
Music fans for years have been telling record labels what they want to pay for downloaded songs: nothing.
Now the labels are starting to agree that free might work for them too.
Universal Music Group announced Tuesday that it would license its digital catalog to a website offering free legal downloads. The two-year deal marks a significant shift in an industry long criticized for fighting, rather than harnessing, the Internet's potential.
if you've ever studied authoritarian regimes, you may understand that since access to honest truth is carefully rationed,.
all sorts of "reasons" for doing things may appear, that take the place of hard fact.
even worse, the leadership may .
Someone will correct me if my recollection is faulty, but wasn't there posted on this board the audio clip from a demonstration at one of this year's DCs (the old 'birdcatcher' scriptural analogy, I believe) wherein during a brother's search to locate info on how the WTS's Katrina relief efforts were proceeding a site was returned on which he spotted some criticism---disingenuously innocuous, I might add--- of the pace at which emergency supplies were reaching victims? His horrified response was that such comments were intended to undermine confidence in the 'slave.' He dutifully clicked out of the site with some comment to the effect that he was one bird Satan would not catch...or some such blah...---to raucous applause.
Anyhow, if I'm recalling it accurately, this example and their relentless harping in talks and KMs strongly indicates that HQ's anxiety over the eroding effect of the internet ---and, thus, their need to characterize all critical Internet commentary on them as evil apostate machinations---is likely considerably north of little-or-none.
That said, it's always all about the benjamins.
AMNESIAN
have you ever seen a congregation not raise enough hands to make a resolution pass?
During my last several years as an active JW I'd become so disillusioned and disgusted with the whole crock that one of my several passive-aggressive protests was to permanently stop voting on absolutely everything---fake "resolutions," fake "q&a" (i.e., "how many of us love Jehovah and desire to please him, let's see by a show of hands?"), whatever. The sound of my not voting became deafening over the years as nearly everyone in the congregation and beyond came to notice my heresy. All of the elders' and nearly everyone else's eyes would invariably turn toward me to see if my hand was up during any "vote" being taken---as often as not by my husband, the Presiding Overseer!
I told him that I was done with the charade that "publishers" have any say in matters affecting the congregation when nothing could be further from the truth.
AMNESIAN
i've been reading for days and wanted to finally introduce myself.
i'm swamboozled's husband and i thought it only appropriate to make my name hamboozled.
i think our names pretty much reflect how we feel in being mislead for so many years.
What about the gathering of yourselves together?
Ah, so, the old Hebrews 10:24, 25 lob: "And let us consider one another to incite to love and fine works, not forsaking the gathering of ourselves together, as some have the custom, but encouraging one another, and all the more so as you behold the day drawing near."
This is the one with which I am most often confronted--most recently 4 days ago from a dear and well-meaning questioner. My kneejerk response never fails to render the questioner dumbstruck:
Does Hebrews 10 or any other scripture mandate: 1) the required number of fellow believers with whom we must gather? 2) or how frequently this specific number of believers must gather? 3) or the precise day, time and location at which this specific group of believers must convene? 4) or the length of time the specific group of believers are required to spend together, once gathered, in order to satisfy Hebrews?
After posing these questions in methodical succession--adamantly, yet in abundant calm and mildness, pause. Stop talking. Resist the impulse to keep talking. Make and keep pleasant, non-confrontational eye contact.
Allow your subject a few moments to process the significance of your questions.
You'll find yourself amazed at how often, after only a few seconds pondering, without any prompting on your part, your subject will concede- "...the Bible does say 'f or where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.'”
I will occasionally then drive home my conclusion by suggesting that my spouse and I are in compliance with Hebrews 10 whenever we share a scriptural moment of whatever length--even "grace" before having a meal, just the two of us, in the privacy of our home, at whatever time we choose for whatever amount of time it naturally requires or we desire, with no need to adhere to some rigidly pre-determined schedule or format.
My personal experience has been that, although this will not likely staunch all future efforts to "encourage," it completely undoes their toolbox staple that Christians are required to report to pre-formatted "meetings" at specifically-scheduled, -designated, and -assigned times and locations in order to satisfy Paul's exhortation.
Best of luck to you and your family.
AMNESIAN
even if the watchtower survives recent legal reverses unscathed, i still find it likely that they will react in some fashion, to further protect.
the question is how?.
whatever they do, they need to distance themselves from the congregations.
It would seem the potentially disastrous legal and organizational dilemma in which the WTS finds itself now is how to manage to maintain its iron-fisted control over the congregations and their respective publishers via agents and instructions to whom/which they must have no apparent or documented connection. If their exhaustive and meticulous written instructions and other communications with agents (who must not be provable as such in a court of law), i.e., DOs, COs, POs, elder bodies, are replaced with verbal directives one can only imagine the ensuing chaotic helter skelter that will masquerade as "caring for kingdom interests." I would think it virtually impossible to maintain even the illusion of either organization or unity.
Further, it's bound to dawn on even the dullest clods conscripted as local overseers that their own meager livelihoods could become seriously at risk if they are forthrightly forbidden to invoke direction from HQ as justification for any actions on their part toward a congregant. The appeal of reaching out might diminish even further if men, upon accepting appointment, become obligated to fall on the sword, as it were, to swear to profess to have deliberated, decided and acted as free-lance agents if called to testify regarding their service as elders and specifically as a member of a judicial committee.
If the complainant ultimately prevails in the Napa case, I cannot see but how it will force the "fds" to mutate into some vague incarnation of its present self that can hardly be identifiable to any already thinking and troubled JW as God's anointed who are placing their full trust and confidence in Jehovah.
Iimo that we are presently witnessing the hugest potential yet for the WT's foreseeable collapse.
AMNESIAN
excerpt #1 .
excerpt #2: (semi-verbatim, highly-reliable paraphrase)
but whats coming out of their mouths is still from jehovahs table, its still food we need.
bttt
