Athanasius

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Posts by Athanasius

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  11

  Watchtower can be greatfull they gave Michael Jackson the flick when they did

  by joe134cd in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i was just thinking how greatful wt can be that they dfed him when they did.

  could you imagine the hammering they would be taking now from the ex-jw community, in light of the recent documentary.

  i’m by no means sticking up for them i’m just saying, that’s all..

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  Athanasius

  I think that Jackson disassociated himself from the JWs and avoided being DFd. But I could be mistaken.
  
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  31

  Jehovah's Witnesses Called At My Door

  by Roger Kirkpatrick in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  last saturday morning, i answered a knock at my door to see a man standing next to a young boy who handed me a pamphlet posing the question, "how do you view the bible?

  would you say it is (1) a book of human wisdom?

  (2) a book of myths and legends?

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  Athanasius

  I don't recall if the OP invited the JW dad and son inside and sat them down in his living room for the discussion. If so, the story is believable.

  As a JW I remember back in the 1960s canvasing a neighborhood on a cold Saturday morning and being invited inside for a Bible discussion by a religious person. It was so nice to get in out of the cold that we didn't mind losing a religious debate with a friendly person. Plus we got to count easy time for an hour or so and avoid having to knock on other doors and irritate householders in cold weather.
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  21

  Why NO bibles??

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i know we have all said it before, but it simply blows my mind that the jws doing cart work do not have bibles on the cart to give out to interested ones!.

  how can they say they are "bible students" trying to share the "bibles message" and not give out bibles!?.

  other christian groups take the commission to share the bible seriously!

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  Athanasius

  Perhaps the JWs in Northern California are different, but when I asked the trolley JWs if they had the Book Of Mormon, they said no. But they did have the Bible. And so they gave me a copy of the new Revised NWT with the gray cover. A few months later I approached another JW literature trolley and they gave me another Revised NWT. They didn't ask for a donation so I got both Bibles for free.
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  40

  After leaving the JWs - Has anyone stayed with Christianity?

  by rulehayl in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i recently made the decision to stop studying with my study conductor, due to a situation i found myself in that led to a high possibility of my unbaptized publisher "rights" being taken away from me.

  i have since told my study conductor i have joined a new church (to which she dropped me like a hot rock, of course).... last time i posted on here, i was progressing nicely towards baptism, and was well into it.anyhoo, i like my new church, very hillsong-esqe.

  so just wondering if anyone else has stayed the course of christianity after leaving the jws, and if so - where did you go?

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  Athanasius

  After leaving the JWs, I attended Unitarian Church services for a while. Then a classmate invited me to Anglican Church services, which I found more to my liking. Later I was baptized and confirmed in the Anglican Church.

  While I remained a Christian after leaving the JWs, others have followed a different path. This may lead one to Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, or Secularism. Whether one chooses religion or non-religion, that is their choice and it's not my place to criticize their decision.
  
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  19

  How were you 'outed' ??

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  many of us here have been "outed" as ones who no longer believe that this is "the truth".. many didn't have the chance to do it in our own way, and in our own time, but rather someone "found out about our apostasy" and "reported" it to the spiritual police (elders).

  would you like to share your stories?.

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  Athanasius

  My non-JW grandmother innocently outed me to a JW elderette customer of hers. At the time I was living on my grandmother's ranch and the JW elderette had noticed my second wife leaving our house. So she asked my grandmother who was the woman living with me. Grandmother told her that I'd remarried and the woman was my new wife. However, according to JW rules, my marriage was "unscriptural" as my ex-wife had remained celibate and had not remarried.
  

  Since it had been over five years since I'd resigned as an elder and stopped attending JW meetings I figured that the statute of limitations had run out. Moreover, I'd established a new life and had no intention of returning to the borg. So I could care less if they formed a JC and DFd me.

  Anyway a couple of weeks later I get a call from an elder in my old congregation. He asked if I'd remarried, which I answered in the affirmative. Then he asked the usual JC question, did I believe that God was using the "faithful slave" as his earthly organization, or something to that effect.

  Instead of making their job easy and giving NO as my answer, I decided to have some fun with them. So I told him that I'd been under a lot of emotional stress due to the breakup of my previous marriage, and didn't feel that I could answer that question at the present time.

  They did form a JC and asked me to me to meet with them. Instead I had my attorney send the JC a letter requesting that they not harass me. A month later he got a 16 page letter from MCabe, the Watchtower lawyer, saying to forget about suing them as Uncle Sam was on their side. The letter was mostly a boasting about all the legal cases the Watchtower had won. Actually I had no intention of taking legal action against them. I just wanted them to know they had no power over me.
  

  A year later an announcement was made at my old congregation to the effect that the JC had determined that I had disassociated myself and was no longer a JW. This was in 1989 and the announcement must have been limited to just the local congregation as JWs in nearby congregations still greeted me whenever we met as if I was just an inactive JW.
  
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  14

  When did JWs begin.

  by Lost in the fog in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  " the contestant was useless as he said the 1700s.

  the correct answer the quiz master gave was the 20th century.

  and then he added, "they only began in the 1930s believe it or not.

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  Athanasius

  The Bible Student groups still in existance claim that C. T. Russell was not the founder of the JW religion. In fact if one examines today's Bible Student doctrinal structure it is basically the religion that Russell taught. So the JWs are actually a break away from Russellism. Just like Russell's religion was a break away from Second Adventism.

  What makes it confusing is that Rutherford won control of Russell's printing corporation, the Watchtower. Then Rutherford dumped many of the Russellite doctrines and replaced them with his own, creating a new religion. This resulted in over 75% of the original Bible Students leaving the Watchtower to reorganize independently and restore Russell's religion in their congregations.
  
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  29

  Has Watchtower taken the joy out of 'the good news of the kingdom'

  by UnshackleTheChains in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i ask this question for the following reason.

  i was sitting at the kingdom hall thinking about all the rules, procedures, policies, teachings that each member must follow ......or else!.

  at the watchtower study we are reminded of the paradise earth where we will all be the same and happy.

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  Athanasius

  I don't recall the JW religion as being anything joyful. However, growing up in the 1950s and 60s, JWism was more intellectually stimulating back then. Of course that's only comparing pre-1980 JWism with its 21st century version, and not to say that there was ever anything intellectual about this religion.

  However, during the 1970s the GB enacted several reforms that gave some of us hope that the religion would cease being legalistic and become more mainstream. Locally we even had a few independent Bible study groups where we studied the Scriptures without using Watchtower publications. But when Ray Franz was booted from the GB and the liberal wing silenced, locally independent Bible study ceased and the witch hunts began.

  So while there may have been a few joyful moments during my 30 year sojourn in JW land, for the most part it was a sorrowful experience.
  
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  22

  Lack of young people in the congregation?

  by IAmJustMe in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  been baptized for two years but being in the truth for longer.

  one thing i have always noticed is the lack of young people in the congregation.

  does anyone feel the same ?.

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  Athanasius

  This isn't a recent phenomenon. When I was a teen growing up in the 1960s the majority of kids raised as JWs left the religion as soon as they graduated from high school and got out on their own. Of five of my close friends, today only one is still a JW. Four were gone by the 70s and I left in 84.

  I remember adult JWs bemoaning the fact that so many of the young adults were leaving, and most of these came from supposedly devout JW families.
  
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  37

  Thank you, George Couch!

  by charonsdog in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i just thought i'd share this story from my past.. back in the 80s i remember the big problem seemed to be about music.

  (today, it's tight pants, i guess) the organization, society, whatever they were calling themselves, were always going on about the music we listened to.

  disco, heavy metal, the whole "backwards masking" thing...couldn't escape hearing or reading about how satan was corrupting us unless we were listening to kingdom melodies or elevator music.. i was assigned to wtf in the late 80s and remember one of the articles stating that "young people know that the rhythm of rock music is the rhythm of sexual intercourse.

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  Athanasius

  I remember a CO railing against "worldly music" at a CA back in the late 1970s. In addition to modern music he also condemned classical music, as he claimed that some of the composers were homosexuals. No doubt that was why the bethelite mentioned by the OP got rid of the Tchaikovsky tape after George Couch's tirade.

  But being a classical music fan, I kept my classic collection as I could care less about the composer's sexual preference.
  
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  17

  Whatever happened to them??

  by jeffory1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just talking to someone recently about former co's in our area.

  it went as follows,,,,george cook,saw that he was now in princes congregation or should say the former prince.. brother gwaltney,,nw usa area now drives a school bus his wife sold cosmetics at a nordstrom.

  brother spangenberg had to leave co work as his wife was sick ,,went to low paying menial job.. brother ---- cant remember his name but he is now working a a waiter in a italian restaurant,,singing as requested by customers.

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  Athanasius

  Hi Jeffory,
  

  Not sure if we're talking about the same CO Baxter. However, back in 1963-65 we had a Bill Baxter as our CO. He and his wife were in their mid to late 30s back then so he would probably be close to 90 now,
  

  Before he was assigned to our circuit in northern California, he had served somewhere in the mid-west.

  Athanasius