Posts by TallTexan

18

Did I do wrong on skeeping the "fading" stage?

by flag in

up to last month i was a witness in "good" standing in the cong.

i was not from the elite circle but everybody respects me and a lot of people go to me for advice or comfort when they feel left out by "holy ones".

so, i don't know if i made a mistake by cutting all jw activities at once because now i think i'm the topic of the conversation and phone calls already started to come this past weekend.

TallTexan

"you are smart and I know you will comeback"

Tell her your are 'apostate' and you will go from being 'smart' to being incredibly dumb and simply 'unable to grasp the deeper things.'

My friends always talked about how well-versed in the scriptures and JW doctrine I was. My cousin once made the comment "You don't go to meetings anymore and you still know more about the truth than most of us." (Just showing what I learned here...lol).

However, when I began to share some of the things I was finding out with them, I suddenly, in their eyes, became unreasonable and stupid. I was hoping that they would think "well, he's always researched things well before, so maybe there's something to this." Didn't happen. Once you express doubts or disbelief you also lose your IQ in the JW's eyes.

You are smart to stop. Don't ever start again.....

21

Speaking of Texas.....

by lonelysheep in

jw
friends

there's a (small) possiblity that later this year, the dallas/fort worth area will have another jwd member to call the place home.

i'm browsing places in tarrant county, grapevine, & fort worth.

the houses in fort worth have me floored!

TallTexan

I have a theory that much of Texas' aversion to the WTS is an ingrained distrust of anything from a particular (unnamed) region of the country. No data to support this yet, so maybe I shouldn't call it a theory.

AuldSoul......no, we just know BS when we smell it.....

21

Speaking of Texas.....

by lonelysheep in

jw
friends

there's a (small) possiblity that later this year, the dallas/fort worth area will have another jwd member to call the place home.

i'm browsing places in tarrant county, grapevine, & fort worth.

the houses in fort worth have me floored!

TallTexan

Yeah, the housing prices on the east and west coasts are so artificially inflated it's rediculous. Enjoy 'cheap' housing in Texas while it lasts. It's funny watching people come here from the 'coasts' and marvel at the low cost of housing. I know someone who just paid $375,000 for a 1300 sq ft dump in N. Hollywood - what a joke.

35

What is your rating?

by billyboy in

jw
friends

as a bit of a newbie , i'm interested as to the overall viewpoint of site users and spectrum of views.. using a crude gauge , where 1 = completely convinced "stepford"jw ("jhs organisation is wonderful etc") and 10 is a completely rabid "tear down the tower" apostate/ex-witness pathalogically hating the whole jw structure , where do you fit in?

(apolgies to both groups - no offense intended).. i'm about 2.5 - somewhat disillusioned , keen for reforms in certain areas but broadly accepts the teachings and loves the lifestyle.

would never leave.

TallTexan

10+....if I could pull a "Fight Club" ending for the WTS buildings I probably would....

If they would own up to their lies and mistakes and allow people to make a choice knowing those things, then I'd probably drop to a 5.....

34

Are you allowed to fall asleep at the meetings now??

by stillAwitness in

jw
friends

the sercuit overseer gave the expierence about an interested one who would come to the meetings every sunday but admitted he would always fall asleep because he worked a double shift at work the night before.

the s.o said: "and sure enough he fell asleep during my talk.

" but he said that it was so encouraging because even though he worked the night before he still tried to get what little he could of the talk and the guy related afterwards: "i would not want to be caught falling asleep anywhere else but at the hall.

TallTexan

If they allow sleeping at the KH now, all they have to do to boost #'s is recruit some homeless folks. They'd love to have a warm place to nap for a few hours...

I guess they simply don't realize that people who are sick and/or tired will not show up to hear another WTS infomercial. Maybe if they had ANY new information or ANYTHING exciting to discuss that getting people to the meetings wouldn't be so hard....

33

My Sercuit Overseer is a JERK!

by stillAwitness in

jw
friends

well my sercuit overseer visit was this week and this guy is a real a-hole.

apparently our mic handlers are pretty slow.

they always take forever to give the mic to the hand-raiser and sometimes even forget to turn the stupid things on first.

TallTexan

I wonder if I could get on common ground with him so as to anti- witness to him?

You'd probably have better luck getting Al Sharpton to a Klan rally.....

23

I want to say...

by robhic in

i have been reading this forum for a couple of years now and i know this point has been made before but i truly think it needs to be repeated.

i am not, nor ever was, a jw and only arrived here to acquaint myself with "jw-ism" because a friend had joined up.

i needed to study up on stuff so i'd be prepared to (try to) understand where she was coming from with all her new oddball dogmas.

TallTexan

I want to second what you said. I am constantly blown away by the knowledge, the cohesive and well thought out posts, and the thoughtful replies by a number of members. Blondie either has a photographic memory or the best database search tool for the quotes she comes up with. Great stuff.

In response to your thought about how intelligent people could come in the 'truth....

In some cases JW-ism appeal to intelligence because of it's emphasis on 'Bible' study. Even though it's primarily the publications, sometimes intelligent people get so caught up in memorizing dates and absorbing all the Society's deep (but bogus) thinking and convoluted reasonings that they miss the point of it being implausible. You get caught up in the "We know something no one else knows" and so it appeals to the egos that sometimes accompany intelligence. People in general revel in knowing a 'secret'. You generally blow off those that disagree with you as "uninformed" and "lacking an ability to understand the deeper things".This fuels many intellectuals, even in the academic world. Some of them have really dumb ideas, but they strongly believe in them and ignore criticism as the 'disbelief of the ignorant'.

One interesting thing I've noticed. Many times people I know who have 'fallen away' are those who studied the most, who understood things on a very deep level. It's typically those people who, after a time, begin to put two and two together and come up with five, then realize that a lot of it doesn't make sense. Yet the comment made is "I can't believe so and so is inactive/apostate/da'd because they knew SO much about the truth." The people making those comments don't realize that is why that person is inactive/apostate - because they DO know so much about the truth.

41

What will be the next big 'new light'?

by yaddayadda in

it's been a while since the watchtower overlords made any serious doctrinal changes.

wts 'new light' seems to be somewhat cyclical, around every ten years or so.

it's been just over 10 years since the 1995 'this generation' change.

TallTexan

So, while our calculation of the end of the gentile time was based on the best secular and biblical dates avalible at the time it would appear that 1914, though a monumentous year in human history, was not the year that hearalded the beginning of Christ's reign. (You can tell this is from bethel because of the long ass sentance)
Does this mean we are not living in the last days? Certainly not! Our next article will discuss our better understanding of the end of the gentile times and show just how deep in "The Last Days" we really are.

IP SEC, were you ever a Bethel writer? This is great. Maybe they'll use this paragraph in the article when it does come out.

I was talking to a good friend last night who, although not believing, still attends some meetings (for various reasons) and he thinks that with the recent information on elders needing to be 'loving' in reinstatement, that it will be that. I thought maybe they would do away with df'ing altogether, but more likely it will be a 'cap' on the length of time a repentant person must be df'd.

38

Am I a JW or not? Year of Baptisim and year of falling away.

by truth about the last days in

i put this page on just to know how many jws there are on this site.

i am sure that we all will be intrested to know as to who stands where.

i am only requesting if we are a jw or not, the year we got baptized and the year that we decided to leave.

TallTexan

I was born into the "TRUTH" as you like to call it. I was baptized in 1982 (or 83 - I honestly don't remember) when I was 13 at the circuit assembly in Port Lavaca, Texas (for you Bethel-type spies - come find me)

I was regularly active until 1989, then in alternate states of inactivity or attempting to be the 'perfect' witness until about 2000. Tried one more time for about 3 months in 2001 and finally gave up when I realized it was not the Truth. My real awakening came in 2005 when I found freeminds.org and this forum. Suddenly all the things I had doubts about for years I realized were indeed bogus. I've never felt more free or more at peace.

38

Am I a JW or not? Year of Baptisim and year of falling away.

by truth about the last days in

i put this page on just to know how many jws there are on this site.

i am sure that we all will be intrested to know as to who stands where.

i am only requesting if we are a jw or not, the year we got baptized and the year that we decided to leave.

TallTexan

baptized in water in 66, baptized in fire at Bethel 74-77, officially resigned in 82 but was illegally disfellowshipped afterwards unbeknowsnt to me.

Nice of them. What took you so long to come to the boards?? Welcome.

I guess you were there during the 'shake-up'.....