Unless something has changed, the equation when I left in 1999 involved two truths: All non-JWs were as good as dead. Not all JWs were as good as saved. So to answer the OP the first JW to be killed at Armageddon would be some flavor of deceitful, etc, you name it, you know plenty of them, and the last JW to be killed, the one who just didn't have enough merit, would probably be along the lines of, 'yes you're ill and yes you say you do all you can for Jehovah but did you really need to miss that one meeting that one time when you did factually have the medical capability of relocating your body into a vehicle, into the Kingdom Hall, but you did not.' Or, 'you did have the medical capability of intruding yourself into someone else's day based on their conversation you overheard on the subway, that one time, but you did not.'
Those shades of choice are the sword of Damocles hanging every day over JWs who might believe in Armageddon. I personally suspect that the greater number of JWs do not believe in Armageddon but do completely fear the social Armageddon of leaving the cult, and so it is faintly comparable.
Posts by rmt1
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19Has anyone else ever wondered this ?
by scary21 ini know the jw's are wrong but if they were right, this is my question...... when the big a comes, there has to be the best person who dies.
the one who lost out on life by a fraction.
the very best one who still did not make it.
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rmt1
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33
How can I stop hating the JW religion?
by marriedtoajw inhaving this spiritual division between my wife and i over the years has been very draining in many ways.
so much so that i find myself more and more hating everything having to do with the wtbts especially when i just see watchtower literature.
i've kind of always felt that way but it's getting worst.
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rmt1
Caveat: This may be of zero use but it's my response to the phenomena of hating this cult. I'm 40yo and I've been out since 25, and DID at that time have bile like the OP says. I can only say I'm thankfully fortunate to have landed near opportunities for education, but it did help with the bile. Oh, did I have bile... Anyway:
TWS >depends< on you hating it, the TWS, and by collateral association, occasionally JWs.
A cathexis is an emotional investment, which is the basis of a love/hate relationship. The very worst thing you can do to any conscious thing, whether it is a person or corporation, is to un-exist them. One Could just get out, stay out, and never look back and forget anyone still behind bars. You can do that and have no love or hate for anything TWS related. Another option is to get out, stay out, and be purposefully mindful of either helping people get out of their chains, or warning people that there are bear traps that will clamp down on their leg once they get dunked, etc, etc. I don't actually have to hate the TWS, which is what it wants. I can treat it as a naturally occurring virus, infestation, malignancy, cancer, pestilence, famine, catastrophy, accident of history. (Tornado or earthquake would be giving them a lot of credit). For all these things you have passionate physicians, humanitarians, emergency medical responders who do not take the impersonal, unconscious enemy personally. Treat the TWS as an unconscious beast that feeds itself on the lives of its adherents, and is an unfortunate accident of history to be contained, like an epidemic, and don't take it personally. I contend or claim that you can still have an altruistic mission in life where you do something for reasons greater than the personal, where you do not take the problem personally. Such as, 'this is not an offense against me, now, where I am in my mental place, but I recognize it is an ongoing offence against others'. -
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Theft of Reminiscing
by rebel8 inso i'm now at the developmental stage of adulthood when my peers and i are beginning to reminisce about our childhoods.
if you've ever taken developmental psychology, you know the importance of reminiscing.
yesterday i went to an event about something retro and participants were really nostalgic and just really enjoying themselves.
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rmt1
"I towed the dub party line as I was commanded to do (and subjected to corporal punishment and verbal abuse if I came close to not pretending I loved dubbery). I was rightly terrified to say anything but, "I love being a jw and want to go to Bethel.""
One day I was pioneering in a car group in Halifax PA cong, with another male pioneer in the back seat sitting behind his girlfriend/fiance. His father was a Halifax elder and his father's father was PO in West Virginia. This guy's girlfriend said something mouthy - not the kind of comment that might have defamed him in front of other males, just kind of… mouthy. The next thing I knew he had reached up and was clamping his hand - he worked construction - around her trapezius, she was sort of immobilized, and he was warning something to the effect, 'Don't you ever say that again.' I have no excuse for not reacting. I can say that as a matter of fact, I had never conceived of witnessing wife battery inside a car group, so I do have the defense of not actually believing what I was seeing.
As for childhood memories...
I'm sure many would object to drawing any parallels between the JW stance on truncating, amputating, nay, castrating an ordinary pre-adolescent suite of experiences and, say, female genital mutilation in the third world. But there you go. I just drew the parallel. There is no getting it back. You cannot hot-swap a new hard drive of memories. You can start building up your own set of experiences as fast as humanly possible, you can try to figure out who you are, what you want from life and how you can participate in the things you crave. Those are your options. -
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New watch for all of us exJWs trying to move on with life
by confusedandalone ini am definitely not selling this product, but i just saw an advertisement for this and thought it is the perfect watch for the exjw who is trying to really just enjoy life and not try to have every second of everyday plotted out.. https://www.slow-watches.com/.
for instance my typical monday was:.
5:30 - 6:00 read text with wife and "meditate" on it.
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21
The Fake "Joy" Of Jehovah's Witnesses
by minimus indo you observe this "joy" when you see witnesses going from house to house, in the kingdom halls, out working, or during theocratic wholesome recreational activities?.
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rmt1
In central PA there was a Mount Joy congregation. There was also a blonde girl named Joy who thought I was ok while I was pioneering. Then my best friend at the time would meaningfully inquire if I was going to Mount Joy. I've still never been to Mount Joy, but I'm sure it's a swell place.
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31
Protest at district convention in Budapest, Hungary
by cedars inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihncqunkq94.
whatever your thoughts on the shouting, displaying a simple web address is an extremely effective and non-confrontational way of getting the message across - and in this case it looks like hundreds if not thousands of witnesses saw it.. .
cedars.
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4
JWs made the news next to dinosaurs
by rmt1 inhttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/02/seattle-officials-call-for-ban-on-potentially-offensive-language/.
seattle officials call for ban on 'potentially offensive' language"dinosaurs, for example, conjures the topic of evolution, which could rile fundamentalists and birthdays are not celebrated by jehovahs witnesses.
halloween, meanwhile, suggests an affiliation to paganism.
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rmt1
Seattle officials call for ban on 'potentially offensive' language
"Dinosaurs, for example, conjures the topic of evolution, which could rile fundamentalists and birthdays are not celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Halloween, meanwhile, suggests an affiliation to Paganism."
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More troubling than any Watchtower scandal...
by chapstick inwhile we all spend time attacking the wto, something even worse is hanging over our heads.
this is scary as hell folks.... http://gulagbound.com/40177/republican-leaders-approve-america-as-a-one-party-state/.
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50
Really enjoyed the CONvention....why?
by punkofnice ini remember when i was a mind cleansed(tm) jw i would listen to the talks when i wasn't napping.. on the long tiring drive home i'd say how i ''enjoyed(tm)'' the sessions and felt ''encouraged(tm)''.. .....and yet i couldn't recall a single ''point(tm)'' made.
i couldn't remember what it was that actually made me feel good.. on one occasion i asked the family what they found ''encouraging(tm)'' or interesting.. tumble weed.
no examples.
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31
Baffling comment by my JW parents about non-witness funeral
by joyfulfader inmy parents attended the funeral of an elderly family member today.
being out of state i was unable to attend.
i asked how it went and was told that "worldly" people don't care enough about anyone to mention anything personal.
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rmt1
"I always thought, even when mentally in that it is a more comforting thought to believe that your dead loved one is happy, and pain free in heaven, and you can join them later, and they are with you, still loving you. To me this is more comforting than the JW teaching that the dead are not concious, rotting in the ground, to maybe be ressurected (really re-created) at some unknown future date, and maybe you can see them if you listen ond obey the GB well enough!"
Pre-apologies for the capitalizationitis, but it is a very subtle distinction I will attempt to make: This was absolutely one of my disconnects when I was 14 years old. The party line was that the person's person-hood, potential of conscious self, potential for continuity of memory, resided in some absolutely unspecified way with a deity, yet there was no immortal soul. Had there BEEN an immortal soul analogous to a data record, or a file, it would be no trouble to imagine that this soul was dormant, unconscious, in god's memory. But the JW line was that nothing continued of the person, by itself and in and of itself. ONLY god's memory retained the imprint, the impression, the reception, the notion, of their existence. But it was not THEM. But SOMEHOW, you were still supposed to get back the very same identical individual that died, yet who did not persist in some Independently Contiguous form of organized information like a soul. The JW version of resurrection defies common sense from an Information Technology perspective. A MEMORY of a thing is NOT that thing. If you clone yourself and you die, it is not YOU, the continuous conscious session of your own life experience. It's someone else who looks like you and talks like you. There are so many texts about this cloning or copying principle. I'd suggest Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow, The Prestige ( Hugh Jackman ), Moon (Sam Rockwell), Oblivion (Tom Cruise), Caprica/BSG (tv shows), to name the first things to mind.