I can't really speak on the quality of leadership in the congregations now as I haven't been a Jdub in decades, but I would think that it varies a lot from area to area and from congregation to congregation. I did go to one congregation in the early seventies where one of the elders was a college professor. Thinking back, I'm amazed that someone of that educational level would buy into the JW fantasy world.
I quit!
JoinedPosts by I quit!
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Do you recognize this?
by Gorb inthinking sometimes about my youth days and the stories my grandfather told me about our jw congregation.
do you recognize that your congregation was full of somehowe strange folks, very low educated, poor and simple?.
the po was an elder with some distance, with some personality acting intelligent and following the rules strict.. there was always a kind of scandal.
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First Church Service at 55 years Old
by SouthCentral ini went to a christening at a church today, a black church.
it was an incredible experience!!
women were an active part of the service, and the people were very welcoming.
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Even Richard Dawkins recently referred to himself as a cultural Christian. He doesn't believe in the claims, but he is comfortable with it and seems to enjoy singing carols and participating in some Christian events.
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Jehovah's Witnesses came by today.
by 3rdgen inthis morning i was in our front yard sitting down pulling weeds when i saw 3 people slowly walking on the sidewalk in my direction.
2 of them were young, handsome, clean shaven, wearing nice crisp white shirts and perfectly tailored black slacks.
they could have been mormons except.... there was a 60ish portly woman wearing a frumpy dress and ugly sandals.
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I never heard of the Menlo Park situation till now so I looked it up. Wow, I'm surprised I missed that one.
By her expression it looks like you may have touched a nerve. I wonder if she would be comfortable speaking with you again if she has any doubts. It seems like leaving the organization at 60 could be very difficult for a lot of people.
BTW I used to spot them all the time by the slow walk. I didn't know they were still going D to D.
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Disfellowshipping and Excutions
by blondie in*w60 2/1 80 - 17 there may be rare instances where a child is so hardened in its stubbornness that even the rod of correction cannot drive it out.
in the days of israel parents were instructed by jehovah to take such a rebel to the city fathers and they, in turn, took the incorrigible one out and stoned him to death.
there were no juvenile delinquents under such a system.
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In those quotes from the Watchtower, they do seem a little bummed out that they're not allowed to kill apostates. I guess they just had to settle for being as mean as they could be within the law if the land. Kicking your 15-year-old daughter out of the house and into the streets would give you a pretty good chance of getting her killed or having her die young.
I guess I should mention that I can't think of anyone in congregation where I spent most of my time as a Jdub that would have approved of kicking a 15-year-old out of the house and into the streets, but I did meet Jdubs along the way that I think would have found it quite easy to do.
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The "Baby Boomers" are starting to die off, and the effects
by Captain Schmideo2 ini was born in 1964, so, i was 10 when the buildup to 1975 was happening (and watched the subsequent failure of that).then, when i was a teenager, i got to see the fallour of the big apostacy events in the 1980s.during all of this, i was told by my parents and by people of my parents' peer group that "this old system won't last much longer, and won't the new system be great!
"it is now 2024. i am going to be 60 years old in a few months.
over half a century.my mom died two months after her 80th birthday last year, after suffering for years of chronic poor health (some of it brought on by a very sedentary lifestyle, but also plagued by emotional and mental issues and family drama which did not help overall.
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Great post. Off the top of my head, I came up with the names of almost 20 witnesses that went to the first hall I attended that are now deceased. I sure that by now there could be at least double that but I have no way of knowing. My mother-in-law just recently passed away at 102. She became a witness in the 1960s and spent the rest of her life waiting for the arrival of the kingdom that promised eternal youth no more death. Because she lived so long, she saw almost all of her close JW friends and quite a few JW family members pass away from old age or horrible disease and still no sign of Jehovah and his magic kingdom.
I still don't understand how they can be in it so long and never catch on to the scam. Maybe they do but can't bring themselves to facing up to the consequences of admitting that they'd been duped so they just trudge along brushing all doubts aside.
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Jehovah's Witnesses PIMOs: Beware Of This Great & Present Danger!
by Golden4Altar injehovah's witnesses pimos: beware of this great & present danger!.
to see the video that covers this topic, please click here:.
https://jehovahstruth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=102.
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I quit!
I watched the video and thought it was very well done. Like him I also realized that I had to make clean break from the witnesses no matter what the cost. I knew I'd go crazy if I tried to sit in a KH pretending to believe the BS they were teaching. I know for various reasons some have to stick around for a while pretending to believe but I feel that the goal should always be to get the point where you can leave and live an authentic life. It will wear you down both physically and mentally pretending be someone you are not.
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JW Expanded Volunteer Activities?
by doinmypart ini think the gb needs to expand publishers' volunteer activities beyond door knocking.. gb has shifted away from door-knocking to more varied forms of witnessing and no longer counting time for publishers.
my prediction is that the gb will start encouraging jws to participate in broader community volunteer efforts: clean-up drives, food banks, senior citizen support, and other non-proselytizing activities.
this move could help them gain goodwill with government agencies and the public.. expanding volunteer activities could significantly shift how jws are perceived by the wider community.
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- I don't know if that would work for them. Their whole shtick for the past hundred plus years has been that the end is coming, and Jehovah is going to kill everyone not in their group so doing anything else other than preaching and building the Watchtower kingdom is a waste of time. Beth Sarim is right. The whole thing is based on an us vs them mentality.
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Lack of Joy
by Gorb inbecause of some respect for family members, we visited the memorial today.. a moment i always think, could i go back into this religion?
we entered the hall and some said a short hello.
and with short i say short.
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I think covid may have something to do with their current depression. During covid a lot of them thought that the end was finally here. People were dying. Things were closing down. Then just like 1925, 1975 nothing happened. Things went back to normal. The stock market went up. Home prices and rent went up making it harder older witnesses who hadn't planned on being around this long to get by. If you've sat through 20, 30 or 40 of those boring annual pass the crackers and wine but don't dare take them events and your finances are in horrible shape because you took these guys seriously you may find the whole thing at this point rather depressing.
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Stop the Electric car solar power brainwashing Lies!!
by Witness 007 inford e.v cars lost the company 1.3 billion in three months!
i put 18 solar panels on my house but only get a small rebate $50 a quarter.
bill is $400.
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I'm in California where solar is mandatory on new homes so I had to either lease it or buy the system. It has helped cut the cost of air conditioning for me by quite a lot.
Wing Commander mentioned insulating the walls in cold areas. I'd add do this in hot areas also. The exterior of my house is insulated with foam sheets walls are fiberglass insulated and I have insulation in the roof. I think this is all required by law around here. It makes a huge difference. The temperature inside the house isn't affected near as much by the outside temperature as the last house I was in that had no wall insulation. BTW on some days it can get over 120 degrees around here in the summertime.
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Conversation with old friend
by LongHairGal ini recently had a conversation with an old acquaintance from the congregation i used to attend.
we talked about the recent changes in the 2023 annual meeting.
i especially pointed out the one about getting rid of hourly reporting on monthly time slips.
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I joined a 401k at work while I was a JW so I must have been having some doubts about what they were teaching at that time. Right after I left I decided to save enough to buy a house. A few years before this jdubs were selling their home to pioneer or move to "where the need was great". A lot of them never recovered from that blunder. I'm retired now and don't have the financial worries many of the jdubs I knew have that spent their whole lives believing Watchtower lies.