AMOS

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Posts by AMOS

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  33

  To all snipers and bombers

  by Norm in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the approach of ex-jehovah's witnesses towards those still witnesses has been debated since the problem first occurred.

  personally i joined the ranks of ex-witnesses in 1988 and found myself more or less thrown into the fray appearing in media like newspapers, radio and tv.

  one of the first things i noticed was the interest bestowed upon me from competing churches, particularly from the pentecostalism camp.

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  AMOS

  Delighted to hear from you again Norm. Cheers
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  26

  how have YOU changed since leaving?

  by idaho in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it's obvious that the sense of freedom is a dominant.

  feeling among most persons here, but it would be .

  interesting to hear in what way(s) you feel you .

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  AMOS

  When my dfd sister said to my family (all hot head dubs) that I had changed so much for the better,that I was a different person now, I understood about change from within and not from external pressures, losing my heart of stone and replaced with a heart of flesh. Like the rest, a lot less judgmental, less critical, less thinking that I'm right but also much more sensitive to other's feelings including my own. It really cut to the quick when I heard my mother was visiting locally last week, and my only daughter asked to see her (she was 5 when we resigned 20 years ago) my devout JW mother was "too busy" to see her and her 3 great-grand sons whom she has never seen. Are they punishing generation after generation as well now?
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  23

  Weather Forecast for Sydney BBQ

  by ozziepost in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  fine and windy.

  around 20 degrees celsius.

  (not bad for mid-winter, eh?).

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  AMOS

  ozziepost!
  I'm no apostate - I am a true believer. But a barbie (BBQ for our American brethern) before the summer solstice sounds great.
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  23

  Weather Forecast for Sydney BBQ

  by ozziepost in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  fine and windy.

  around 20 degrees celsius.

  (not bad for mid-winter, eh?).

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  AMOS

  Hi Mr & Mrs Ozziepost
  Trust you had a good and encouraging time glad the gale force winds toned down for you, otherwise you would have had a bonfire under those prawns. Did you marinade them first? By the way, what are you and your missus doing for Xmas? If we have another before Harmagedon, that is.
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  23

  Weather Forecast for Sydney BBQ

  by ozziepost in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  fine and windy.

  around 20 degrees celsius.

  (not bad for mid-winter, eh?).

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  AMOS

  JW83
  Welcome Gong girl. I grew up down there as well. Hope to catch up with you some day. Laughed over the sickie, where else but down under?
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  23

  Weather Forecast for Sydney BBQ

  by ozziepost in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  fine and windy.

  around 20 degrees celsius.

  (not bad for mid-winter, eh?).

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  AMOS

  thanks for the early notice Ozzie. Some of us have to work! Cheers. Have a great time.
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  13

  Why did he do it?

  by ozziepost in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  have you wondered why god allowed the watchtower organisation to start in the first place?.

  is it really god's organisation, that's just got corrupted?.

  was it ever god's organisation?.

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  AMOS

  Dear Had enough,

  Strangely enough, the only two things I am thankful to the org for is that I believed in God and believed in the Bible which helped me no end in the depths of darkness and loss. I was 3rd generation WT brainwashed. No other exposure to anything. My husband was "high up", both had been in Bethel, etc etc. Ultra devotion was our scene. As a teenager I read a book by an ex JW, and whilst agreeing with his exposures of the organisation, where else do you go? It's like saying, the earth is bad, rotten, no good to live here, but where do you go that can sustain life? The moon? Mars? I did not understand the author’s concepts about Jesus or about the real "good news". The JWs in their wisdom, put out Byingtons Bible, and being a good JW bought it and used it as my reading Bible. I came across Ephesians 2:8,9 and asked my most learned husband "What does grace mean" and from that point my JW world started falling apart. One thing I am grateful to the JWs for is my deep belief in God and his Word, but now I didn't trust the WT version of the Bible anymore and started using a Hebrew and Greek interlinear. I also had thousands of why's and how come's? Stuff I started finding out about the translation, about the organisation was horrific for me. My husband was very angry because I was reading Christian literature as well - The Fight by John White, (I actually found out that eternal life is free – you cannot buy it, you cannot work for it, you cannot earn it) - Basic Christianity by John Stott. Whilst I have multiple comments in the margins about doctrine (after all I didn't know I was brainwashed) I learned about the love of God and dared to think that He might actually love me. With all the organisational work, never being sure whether or not I was going to survive Armageddon anyway, (I might sin fatally just the day before) I had started to come to view Jehovah as some sort of volcano, and here we were as JWs - as poor villagers at the foot of the volcano, running up and down the mountain with our vegetables and trinkets, selling our magazines, trying to make an offering to this angry mountain and stop the lava flow coming down to destroy us all. Even my dear devoted JW father used to say that the organisation was full of "redbacks" - lethal spiders in Ozzie land!

  I also recall when I was trying to fit and box everything in my mind, rationalise all the answers, that I had this experience where I saw myself witnessing at the door to a Roman Catholic. Here I saw myself trying to "prove" the JWs were right, and the RC saying to me" Oh yes, I am looking for the truth and deeply searching for it but I know the Roman Catholic church is right and the Pope gives us direction". It hit me like a slap in the head that this is exactly what I was doing as a JW. I had set my parameters when searching for the truth - parameters set by the WT organisation so that one CANNOT find the TRUTH because we are using JW guidelines. It was at that point, in total terror - I thought the earth was going to swallow me up that scenes of that horrendous brainwashing episode at the last convention I had been to about Dathan and the rest being swallowed up for questioning Moses/Aaron? washed over me. But up until that time I had never asked the ultimate question - Is it God's organisation and what evidence do I have? I was physically ill thinking that Jehovah was going to strike me down for this thought, but that's when I told Him, "I want to serve you, I want to follow you, I want to find the truth from you, I don't know what to do, I don't know where to go, I don't know whom to trust, if it's your organisation, then show me, if it's not then show me so that I cannot misinterpret." Strangely, the two "tests" I put to Jehovah to show me if it was his organisation or not came to reality within 24 hours. Very merciful of Him. Then I rested, went to the meetings like a moron (true sense)just listening.

  My suggestion is GO SLOW. Read a different version of the Bible. Some of the answers (your major ones) will be answered, some never will this side of eternal life. After all, if we are truly dealing with God, then his subjects can’t possibly interpret and predict His every move. When we box God – it might make us feel better with false answers for a period – but then we are not dealing with the God of the Universe, only one of our own making, which ultimate is an image and hence idolatry.
  Keep knocking and keep searching. Anything too difficult just put into the “too hard basket for the time being” and just keep going. There are thousands of supporters here for you.
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  17

  U can leave the truth but the truth cant leave U

  by skeptical 1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  forgive my brutal honesty but thats my take on this site so far.

  thats not to say that it serves no useful purpose.

  but it does seem that many of you are totally consumed with proving to yourself and others that jw's don't have the truth.

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  AMOS

  skeptical 1
  What initially makes the organisation's interpretations easier to swallow is that it is more concrete than spiritual. eg. After WWII in Europe with intense hardship, tremendous loss of life, why wouldn't the concrete concept of no more war, no more money problems, no more hunger, no more death, seeing your loved ones who just died in bombings appeal to you? The lovely doctored pictures in various books now providing visual support to the concrete dream. It is everything you want and need to hear. If someone had come along and said "I'd like to share with you how to come into a relationship with Jesus and the Father", this is a spiritual concept and relationship and not particularly appealing, dare I use the word, to our sinfulness. Why JWs and other man religions make so much sense is because so much of it is of human origin - mind you under the guise of God's Word. Jehovah is put in a box, JWs and others have disected him, know all the answers, and we certainly want answers and guidance in life. When you ask "what is the alternative" you immediately mention other cults or organisations. Until you wait for God (Jehovah) to show you the "way" or "the truth" (Jesus) you could be shopping from one religion to another, but always based on your expectations and your predetermined (brainwashed)concept of the truth. On hyprocisy, every sinner is some way displays hypocrisy at some time in their life. We know the right way to go, especially for other people, but when it comes to me, well... I believe the apostle Paul had this struggle, knowing the right thing to do but....and we would hardly call him a hypocrite. When you mention you have to "look long and hard" to find hypocrisy in the JWs, it all depends on what glasses you are looking through. I recall the struggle after being raised a JW in trying to find the truth - it is there alright - but until we say, as I experienced "I don't know what is the truth anymore, I don't trust anyone anymore, I don't trust any version of the Bible and I'll go back to the Hebrew and Greek Interlinear and asking Jehovah that "whatever, whereever the truth is" you want to be part of that and Him, your mind is still closed because you have set parameters around your search for truth. It causes great pain to those of us who have left and indeed found the TRUTH in Jesus, not some organisation, so see our former brethern caught in the barb wire on their way out of the organisation. It causes even more pain, that their stories are duplicated millions of times through the same issues with other religions or cults. Keep searching - the TRUTH is out there but just not in the form you have been brainwashed to believe.
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  65

  The dim people

  by Norm in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the dim people.

  the new world society.

  the chosen, brain dead, scared people.. the watchtower's obedient parrots.

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  AMOS

  Norm, surely one can only choose if you have the ability mentally, emotionally, physically to make a choice and act on it. If you have choices put before you that you can "see" - if you are blind you can't see, if you are deaf you can't hear. If your neural pathways have been so programmed - there is not much room for lifting the lid and as you say so correctly, the paralysing fear. The lucky people are those who deep down, never accepted the Borg as THE truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - they had some reserve of free thinking. As for the rest of us.... I also acted on silent thinking, asking big J why, why, why. Paid a heavy price, but the freedom was worth it.
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  65

  The dim people

  by Norm in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the dim people.

  the new world society.

  the chosen, brain dead, scared people.. the watchtower's obedient parrots.

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  AMOS

  patio34. Thanks for your quotes from Smith. What I was originally trying to say was that all beliefs (or even unbeliefs)are influenced by others. Where there is an unwillingness to challenge the belief or unbelief there is a mindset that is almost impervious to logic. For example, you quote from Smith as an authority just as JWs quote the WT as some sort of authority, or Muslims quote the Koran as some sort of authority, so you displaying an external influence on your thinking. Smith's argument that babies are born atheists makes as much sense as saying that children are born not believing in the USA. A baby is born with not much more belief than in its mother's breast! All knowledge is gained from external sources. Logically, what a baby is born either believing or unbelieving has little bearing on reality, such as the existence of USA. Be as open to challenge your unbelief as believers must be open to challenges of their beliefs. Cheers