one thing that surprised me shortly after joining this site was the number of individuals who, after experiencing the deception of being a jw and the hypocrisy of the “truth”, switched to being catholic or “born-again” evangelists.
it seemed to me like jumping from the hot pan into the fire.. i don’t want to piss anyone off for his or her choices.
i feel everyone is free to believe what they may.
Wanton: (I assume you're not yanking my chain) How can you assume He "endowed us with the tools to to succeed" when the world is replete with failures and enough misery to make Him go away? I can think of a lots of cases where the bounds of creation simply screwed people. It may be obvious to you but not to me. At least not based on any observable rationale. How do you demonstrate that?
Etude.
ok, so i've just put myself through another months broadcast so i can see what bull they're feeding my still in relatives.
all was going fine... well, i say fine, i mean the usual cheesy videos, rehearsed reactions from jeffrey jackson (you remember him, the one who told half truths and lies at the royal commission) and propaganda from jw land.. the last feature brings up 9/11 and the paris 2015 attack at the bataclan.
just as im thinking "how are they gonna spin this in their direction" i hear these words:.
Yes, I'm outraged but not surprised. As a whole, Witlesses can be down-right callused and judgemental. I was guilty of that as well on a couple of ocassions. I guess it's that feeling of superiority for being on "the right side" and surety of survival that makes them smug.
Etude.
http://watchtowerdocuments.org/did-you-know-having-children/#comment-474.
here's the short article found in the "did you know?
" series found on watchtower documents, and, underneath it, is the unusual comment:.
It's ironic. My one JW sister told me years ago that the main reason for sex (according to the infinite wisdom of Jehovah) is solely to procreate. I was marveling in a conversation how nice it was for Jehovah to give us that extraordinarily delicious pleasure. She had resented my mention of all the sexual references in the O.T. contrary to her perception of Jehovah as a husband and father, rather than a cheated person whose wife spread her legs at every opportunity. "She lusted after them like the concubines of men whose male members are like those of a donkey and whose genitals are like those of a horse." Ezekiel 23: 20 NWT
My sister had 3 kids. Before all of this, I was newly arrived at Bethel and wondered why a married couple was "checking out", leaving Bethel. Thinking that there must be some hardship for leaving, when I asked them why, they simply told me that they wanted to start a family. That was back in 1974! Obviously, some people just didn't buy it, including my sister.
Etude.
one thing that surprised me shortly after joining this site was the number of individuals who, after experiencing the deception of being a jw and the hypocrisy of the “truth”, switched to being catholic or “born-again” evangelists.
it seemed to me like jumping from the hot pan into the fire.. i don’t want to piss anyone off for his or her choices.
i feel everyone is free to believe what they may.
Thanks waton:
As I mentioned before, we can believe deeply and in a great deal of things. But my idea of belief is not to contemplate what could be and only consider what can be known. Deism seems a contradiction to me because the very idea that God exists and just simply abandoned everything (especially us humans) seems to deny His very own existence. He offers not explanations and He doesn't indicate via His creation the reason for his indifference. I can "reason" the Universe just fine without attributing its existence to a Supreme Being.
I also realize that there is much more we cannot know than we what we seek to find. But, in those cases, I'm perfectly willing to remain ignorant and say: "I just don't know." We do that in Science constantly.
Etude.
i had to work with an elder in fs today.
there was no way out.. this elder is from africa somewhere, right off the boat.
how do they view children?.
"You can guess what I called Bro B" -- biblexaminer
What? A bullshitting beeotch? Bumbling butthead? Ball-busting bastard? I realize that there are people with different temperaments. And, I don't judge you for sticking in there while trying to stick it to them. But I would have been out in a heart beat because I would have laid into that guy like gangbusters. Normally I'm very tolerant when people from an entirely different culture. I tend to excuse them for not knowing the social graces we depend on. However, that was a teachable moment. Perhaps not for other JWs who would have excused him. For sure, I would not have. I don't have your kind of patience. That was shameful. What an asshole!
Etude.
today, i received a paper letter in my mail.
since i left at the second half of 2016, i never received something like this.
it is a one and a half page hand written letter that is written by an elder pioneer (i guess he needed some easy way to get his time in).. it is not written in english, so i will translate it:.
I'm having a hard time deciding how I would respond if I were you, so I'm not recommending any particular course. The letter could have been a fulfillment of a requested campaign on the part of the Witlesses to get people back. That shows a level of desperation on their part. It could also be a way to trap you into admitting something they can "get you" for.
One thing sounds familiar to me: the tone of the letter. It is a bland, non-specific and detached way of addressing someone. It's not just because there's no mention of anything really personal about you. It is also because it follows an outline which could easily have been filled with blank lines captioned "Insert-name-here." I got one of those from the Service Department once and it left me agape.
What you reply should also consider were you want to end up with them (in case you are ostracized and shunned by family) or whether you care so little as to use them (and the letter) as toilet paper. Good luck!
Etude.
the following is a txt message i just had with a jw about why i decided not to attend meeting.
i fully realize that this will get me blocked.. jw : you dont want to answer me why you dont go to the meetings.. joe : ok.. (1) the 2 witness rule in the handling of a accusations of child sex abuse.. (2)the covering it up and out of court settlements that they are making to victims of sexual abuse.
unfortunatley the brothers and sisters are totally unaware of what is going on and the magnitude of it.. (3) the comments of geoffrey jackson when testifying before the australian royal commision on its handling of child sex abuse.
Excellent response, joe134cd ! That you haven't received a counter answer may mean the JW on the other end might be a loss for words, given the list of items you mentioned. Let's see what happens. Keep us posted.
Etude.
says it all really.
total hypocrisy once again..
"I'll give these 'old boys' a little credit. At least they weren't self aggrandizing attention whores to the degree of the current crop of Governing Body members."
sparky1
Except for Knorr. He walked around like he was hot shit, being president and calling almost all the shots. About the time the "Elder" arrangement came about and the "Governing Body" surfaced, he went on a tirade realizing he was going to lose power. I saw this happen one morning before the prayer at the 124 Columbia Heights dining room.
Etude
i'm currently cleaning up our bookcase and need to decide what goes into the trash.
i'll keep the watchtower books that are not available online anymore (e.g.
the brown "reasoning" book).
Hmm...This made me think about the extent of copyrights by the WTBTS. Can one, for example, copy a book, since it was "given" or "donated"? Can we digitize a book as a part of reference work? My guess is: probably not, since copyright tends to be specific. Are there many books from the WTBTS that are now out of copyright?
one thing that surprised me shortly after joining this site was the number of individuals who, after experiencing the deception of being a jw and the hypocrisy of the “truth”, switched to being catholic or “born-again” evangelists.
it seemed to me like jumping from the hot pan into the fire.. i don’t want to piss anyone off for his or her choices.
i feel everyone is free to believe what they may.
One thing that surprised me shortly after joining this site was the number of individuals who, after experiencing the deception of being a JW and the hypocrisy of the “TRUTH”, switched to being Catholic or “born-again” Evangelists. It seemed to me like jumping from the hot pan into the fire.
I don’t want to piss anyone off for his or her choices. I feel everyone is free to believe what they may. In addition, I’ve always been an advocate for the apparently innate need of individuals (to one degree or another) to feel “spiritual” and to yearn for some of the things religion purports to offer (a sense of awe, inner peace, respect for morals, etc).
So, when I say “jumping from the hot pan into the fire”, I mean that in the sense of going from one illogical set of ideas to another demonstrably illogical set of ideas. Perhaps it is because of my personal experience with both Catholicism and Protestantism that gives me little confidence in them as better alternatives to the JWs. Yes, the JW construct seems more devastating to individuals and families. But the other Xtian sects have the same or similar foundations for their beliefs and have a very rich history of deception, killings, money grubbing and contradictions in their tenets.
I personally know some ex-Witnesses who are now devout Catholics. But besides my being born into it, judging from history, it’s obvious how fabricated that old religion is. Protestantism inherited most of the same tenets and ideas about God and Jesus and even liturgy from the Catholics. Some people just need a place to hang up their hat. Therefore, a label or religious identity provides that for them.
For me, I think that given the manipulation of the “Scriptures”, first by the Hebrews (the O.T.) and later by the nouveau-Christians of the Roman Empire (the N.T.) puts into question many or most of the beliefs Christian sects hold. For some people who can “see through religion”, feeling religious (having the need to believe) leaves the fundamentals of God and Jesus standing but divorced from the traditions and rites of religion. But that is not more reassuring in my mind than swallowing the entire religious gamut. For me, believing has to be more profound. It has to be tenable in some explanatory and reproducible way. And so, what I have deemed the “ultimate conversion” is a total departure, not just from religion, but also from the idea that the concept of God is somehow sustainable let alone inevitable.
The more I found out about the foundations of religion and belief in deities, the more “eroded” ideas about a Supreme Being became. I remember having a much extended conversation here with another member (for which I was praised due to my beyond-the-norm patience) a few years ago in which I feel I established to her that, no matter what she believed in and how fervently; she could not sustain it beyond herself, beyond her own brain. She could not teach it to me, point to it, give directions or demonstrate how to “receive Christ” or “heed the calling from the Lord”. However, I understood her need for devotion and her sense of dependence on believing that there must be a God.
So, to everyone else who chooses to “believe” in a deity, go ahead if it makes you feel better. I guess that’s a good thing. But at least consider that it may be temporary. I remember being so sure I had finally found right religion in the JWs I could not imagine anything shaking my resolve. Man, I was so wrong!
Etude.
