Posts by ICBehindtheCurtain

21

Nathan Knorr and Bethel Life in the seventies

by Boxed elder bugs in

when i was at bethel in the 70's the president of the watchtower society nathan knorr was really unpopular among a lot of bethelites because he supported the four year oblligation for bethelites to stay at bethel and stay single for four years.

i had heard that over nintey percent of the people who left bethel fell away from the jw religion afterwards, i was among that number, and i had heard that the majority of people who came to bethel did not keep there four year commitment but left in less than a year, i know the majority of people i started with lasted about a year at bethel, i was dumb enough to stay at bethel three and one half years.

i guess it was because i was raised in the witnesses and didn't know what to do after i lost my faith in that religion while i was there.

ICBehindtheCurtain

Boxed Elder, Welcome , it's great to have you here, I hope you can share some of those exciting bethel stories with all of us, waiting anxiously....

IC

43

Disturbing paragraph in Dec 15, 2005 Watchtower

by yaddayadda in

in the 2nd study article, page 29, paragraph 17.

"a similar shocking end will come to the symbolic harlot who has the name "babylon the grat.

" the harlot represents the false religions of satan's world, which have their origin in the ancient city of babylon.

ICBehindtheCurtain

Sister Blondie, thank you for that! and yes I agree the society trains it's members to ignore secular history. Hey this meeting here on JWD has been so informative thank you all! I like our meetings on here so much more, no dress code, no BS!

IC

23

Comments You Will Not Hear at the 1-22-06 WT Study (Obey)

by blondie in

whom do you obey - god or men?.

2006 year's text--obey god as ruler rather than men.

(a) when ordered to stop preaching, how did peter and john respond?

ICBehindtheCurtain

AlmostAtheist , I've got a few more hours to go before this clears up, I think that by 4 or 5 I will be OK !

IC (of the suffering a case of Acute JWMeetingitis class)

29

What's your view of the bible?

by JH in

jw
friends

ok' the bible is full of errors and inconsistencies some will say, so does this make the bible nul and void?.

some verses are still very clear, like thy shall not steal, or thy shall not commit adultery or fornication... .

some will think that if you find a few errors or inconsistencies in the bible, then it's not trustworthy anymore, so scrap the whole book.

ICBehindtheCurtain

The bible has certain writings that are pretty beneficial like the Proverbs, but mostly everything else is nonsense. Writings by priests or high ranking government officials who wanted to control every aspect of their people's lives, by making up stupid rules, and laws and then saying they came from God.

These writers ~~stole~~ borrowed stories and ideas from other civilizations and made them their own, and also invented important heroes and characters that would give their people a sense of history (since the Hebrews had none) and importance, thereby making them feel superior to other tribes and peoples. It was written by men for men, their laws forced women to be lower class citizens, from the story of Eve on.

I have read the list of laws from ancient Sumer and it's interesting to see how they resemble what the Hebrews wrote about 2 thousand years later, quite interesting.

IC

43

Disturbing paragraph in Dec 15, 2005 Watchtower

by yaddayadda in

in the 2nd study article, page 29, paragraph 17.

"a similar shocking end will come to the symbolic harlot who has the name "babylon the grat.

" the harlot represents the false religions of satan's world, which have their origin in the ancient city of babylon.

ICBehindtheCurtain

Boy am I glad my family and I no longer believe this CRAP!!!!! Hey by the way, you know how they say that all false Religion had it's beginnings in Babylon? Do you all think that is true? Don't countries like China go way back? I think this is worth researching unless you all already know the answer.

IC

23

Comments You Will Not Hear at the 1-22-06 WT Study (Obey)

by blondie in

whom do you obey - god or men?.

2006 year's text--obey god as ruler rather than men.

(a) when ordered to stop preaching, how did peter and john respond?

ICBehindtheCurtain

DAMN!!! I have to go and listen to this CRAP tomorrow, oh wait.....AAH..AAHH...AAHCHOOOOOOO!!!! I think I feel a severe cold coming , sorry I might not make it!!

Thank you Blondie for your sacrifice, it is very much appreciated, as always Excellent Work!!!!

IC

7

The Atheist's Book of Bible Stories - Ch. 11 - Thanks for the Memories

by RunningMan in

thanks for the memories

and me, im walking down memory lane, .

without a ding-dong thing on my mind.

ICBehindtheCurtain

RunningMan, YOU ARE VERY KOOL!!!!!

I LOVE THOSE BIBLE STORIES OF YOURS, THANKS!!!!!!!

IC

37

Help! My parents want to take my daughter to meetings!

by montana96 in

jw
friends

i have a problem that im hoping you can all help me with.. my daughter who is now 11 was devastated when we left.

she loved it, our fault we did everything by th book.

she wants to go to the meetings with my parents.

ICBehindtheCurtain

Mercedes, one thing I didn't tell you is that since we are faders we explained to the kids why they could not share this information with any of their JW freinds, they understood and agreed this was the best thing to do at the time. We also told them that the lies were perpetuated by the leaders in the organization, the brothers at the KH's are mostly good and honest people who we love, and they don't know about these things, and we should always show love and have respect for their feelings. So far everything is fine, although I know that eventually we will DA ourselves, but hopefully by then we will have helped more people see the light.

IC

37

Help! My parents want to take my daughter to meetings!

by montana96 in

jw
friends

i have a problem that im hoping you can all help me with.. my daughter who is now 11 was devastated when we left.

she loved it, our fault we did everything by th book.

she wants to go to the meetings with my parents.

ICBehindtheCurtain

Mercedes, you have been given excellent advice here, I agree with Dansk, show her the truth about the organization and why it is wrong. My husband and I were in a similar spot, not that my parents wanted to take my kids to the KH, but that we had to explain to them why we were hardly going to meetings. We had also indoctrinated them very well, so I could tell they were feeling like something was wrong.

We first started by telling them that we had found out some stuff the organization had lied about, and this was the reason we were missing meetings, we were gathering some info before we shared it with them. Then one day we sat down and explained the NGO thing, the Malawi thing, the history of the organization, and the Faithful and Discreet Slave nonsense. We were very surprised when they told us that they had felt for some time there was something wrong with the JW's. My oldest who is in his teens said that he always wondered why we needed a FDS-GB when we had Jesus Christ, and the youngest who was 11 at the time said that what really bothered him is that they kept repeating the same stuff in all the meetings and assemblies and sometimes he felt like screaming at the brother on the platform to just "SHUT UP" , imagine our surprise! (my youngest is our little firecracker, and spent alot of time in the back room during meetings), poor kid!

After sharing those things, we told them that we were still doing more research on Religion in general and would continue sharing our findings with them, which we have done. I don't know if you have read my previous posts, but my husband and I after doing exhaustive research (mainly I did this, since I have more time) found out how the bible was put together by the church and why this was done, we have researched ancient civilizations like the Sumerians which shows that they were the original authors of some of the stories the Hebrews borrowed like Job, the story of Noah, the creation story etc. There is alot of research on this web site I hope you take advantage of this and enlighten yourselves.

Well, we shared this info with the kids, their eyes were wide with astonishment when we told them that basically all we had known was not necessarily true. The hardest thing to let go of for my 11 year old, like your daughter was the Paradise belief, he was pretty down about this, with teary eyes he asked me that when I die, if he would never see me again, my heart just broke, I hugged him and said, that I believed we went on after we died, but that I would research this and we would talk about it again. I did extensive research into life after death, Near Death Experiences, Rebirth and was pleasantly surprised, there are instances of people that were born blind that have an NDE and they describe seeing everything in the room while they were clinically dead, there are experiences of children describing events in a past life, were they have verified the dead persons circumstances at death and they coincide with what the child said.

Anyway, to make the long story short, my husband and I now believe in the afterlife, in all of these experiences they see their loved ones again, and go to a place that looks visually like their idea of heaven or paradise I won't tell you more I don't want to freak you out, you probably are already anyway from what I've told you. Well, here was what I wanted to find out, when we shared that info with our kids they hugged us and we could see this brought them peace. My little one said "Wow that's kool, we get to see you guys again, now I don't feel afraid of dying anymore".

He was also very relieved when he found out there would not be a "Persecution" or "Tribulation" or the "Armaggedon", this is something that gave him nightmares, he feared we would be taken away from them and tortured, what a terrible thing to put a child through, I can tell you honestly Mercedes, that these children are today much happier and no longer afraid of living in this "worldly" system they know that we can enjoy our lives and have freinds that are not witnesses and they now enjoy that, they enjoy sports, they are free to pursue their dreams!

We still go to some meetings, we are faders, my mom and other family members and freinds are still in, but we have helped some of my family and close freinds see the truth about the "Truth" and they pretty much believe the same as we do now, we believe in a Creator but no longer believe in Religion, and we don't believe the bible is inspired, it's been quite a Journey, but one that has been very worthwhile, I wish you the best on yours, sorry this was so long, but I hope it is of some use to you.

IC

36

Biblical beliefs that are similar to older pagan beliefs

by M.J. in

i'd like to list some beliefs within judaism and christianity that bear a resemblance to older pagan beliefs.

the wts is deceptive when they selectively point out such parallels, but only with respect to beliefs they reject.. for example, the wts argues that the origin of the concept of the immortal soul is in egyptian and babylonian mythology, both of which espoused such a concept.

but they neglect to also point out that babylonians wrote flood accounts similar to the noah story before the writing of genesis, or that baptism was practiced in pagan religions before the birth of christ.

ICBehindtheCurtain

This is a great Thread- Thanks Narkissos for that link, very interesting - and Severus thank you for that information, it goes to show that although the JW's pride themselves in staying "Spiritualy Clean" this in itself is only an illusion, because pretty much everything we do had so called "Pagan" beginnings, even down to the Amen, DAMN!!!!

I guess there's just no getting away from those damn pagans, so if you can't beat them JOIN THEM, besides theyr'e alot more FUN!!!!!

IC