Posts by james

7

The nature of the JW pendulum swing: length, intensity, trends over time

by Check_Your_Premises in

jw
friends

i have a science and math background so i naturally want to quantify things, model things, and analyze things.. i have heard folks here frequently discuss the pendulum swing of the jw.

for awhile they are full of zeal.

they perform all their duties flawlessly.

james_woods

Hi both Check_ and Cheezy

Chuck_, did you mean the "typical" individual Jdubpub or the tidal swings of the group as a whole? I agree with Cheezy that while you might be able to sort of predict "typical" behavior, it would have to be an awfully complex formula. After all, Wall Street has spent millions on our finest physicists to do this kind of predictive math on stocks, not always to any great advantage.

As to an individual, well- IMHO there are so many different personality types in the borg (some being kind of OK, some truly delusional) that it would seem for that all bets are off. And really, for the individual R&F, isn't their mental state toward the KH meetings and service heavily influenced by whatever is the latest Governing Body screwup?

As to the Society, they seem to telegraph their crisis moments pretty well themselves because of bad chronology and logic...(the generation?) (the memorial partaker numbers?)...unless they get found out like with the UN!

James

40

Followup on activity at NYC Bethel

by startingover in

i posted something a few days ago on friends regarding printing still being done in nyc.

i have some new info and am putting it under scandals because it doesn't move so fast.. i have family members that just returned from a trip to nyc.

they did the tours in brooklyn, walkill and patterson.

james_woods

Here is a cynical suggestion on what to do with all the empty buildings - remodel them into nursing care facilities, and then get all the aged publishers to sign over whatever they have and keep them there under lock and key.

No - wait...that would entail actually GIVING VALUE back to your contributors. Better to just take their cookies and run like before.

PS - I visited Walkill way back in 1972 along with Brooklyn B. They had just bought all the Squibb pharmecutical bldgs and one of my friends at Bethel had a full time job stripping out these empty bldgs and repainting them. As for the farm, I had the distinct impression that even then it was more for show that actual food production. Some were heard to make the joke that like the former Soviet Union we must have needed a showplace collective farm to impress visitors.

22

And the biggest WTBS oxymoron is

by zagor in

jw
friends

in my opinion it is a current truth.

ive never heard of such term elsewhere.

the funny thing is you never really know when an old truth stops being current and becomes a new lie.. .

james_woods

How about INFORMATION BOARD - when it really should have been BULLetin board all along...

James

14

My exScientology friend...

by james_woods in

i have a friend who backed out of scientology way back when hubbard was still alive.

we go to lunch together quite often here at work.

we have often commented about the great similarity & difficulty between breaking away from wt and from the scientologists.

james_woods

Hey Almost,

I guess you are right about low success on comparison of cult behavior...But, were you still in when the Jonestown massacre occurred? I was (but fading fast) and I know for a fact that this incident shook up even some of the hardliners - even heard them comment on how the "world" might think we were "cult-like" as well. Maybe some of the deep researchers (Blondie or Mouthy???) remember what WT and Awake had to say about this tragedy. Should have been interesting to see them explain cult behavior without self incimination.

BTW - should have also added that both founders died rather suddenly under slightly mysterious (or at least unusual)circumstances.

There is also a similarity between this friend and some witnesses who leave for reasons mostly other than doctrine. This exScientology guy is almost like the Russellites who split when Rutherford took over. He really thinks L.Ron was right but that it all went to hell in a handbasket when David Miscavige took over. Yes, still holds with the phony lie detector, Xenu the alien, the bad souls in the volcano, etc. - just thinks the organization has gone astray. I see this with some who leave on control issues, rebel against parents, etc. Hope they are waking up to the underlying causes of the rotten mess, and are not believing it but just mad at it because it cramped their style.

James

14

My exScientology friend...

by james_woods in

i have a friend who backed out of scientology way back when hubbard was still alive.

we go to lunch together quite often here at work.

we have often commented about the great similarity & difficulty between breaking away from wt and from the scientologists.

james_woods

I have a friend who backed out of Scientology way back when Hubbard was still alive. We go to lunch together quite often here at work. We have often commented about the great similarity & difficulty between breaking away from WT and from the Scientologists. I am not so sure that Scientology doesn't put the WTS to shame on a few grounds.

Anyway, this guy was one of the elite Sea Organization people back when Ron was still on his yacht running around out in the Atlantic islands to avoid the IRS. He tended the engines on this ship, which he described as a converted WW2 antisub patrol boat which they renamed the Apollo.

By his description, Hubbard was every bit as paranoid as the Judge and at the same time as whacked out on occultism and self delusion as Russell. So - check out a few parallels between what he made and the WTS:

* complete unquestioning belief in Godlike founders and rulers

* organization obsessed with publishing mass quantities of crazy literature

* organization ordered to buy these literature themselves to force best seller status

* organization obsessed with absolute control and brainwash of rank & file

* organization obsessed with money grubbing from rather modest membership

* organization obsessed with paranoia; everyone is out to get them because only they know the truth

* creepy self spying and shunning practices that would put the East German communists to shame

* belief system which hates conventional physchology, mainstream christianity, and normal governments

* belief system which has disturbing linkages to occult ideas

* original founder's carefully planned successors got hijacked immediately after death by a strongman from nowhere

* they got Tom Cruise, we got Michael Jackson...

etc... Scary, Huh?

James

68

Anyone here anointed??//

by Star Moore in

hello friends, i would like to hear some stories of becoming anointed.

i have been for 5 years now.. been a christian for 26 years.

i dropped out of the watchtower in september and am learning in leaps and bounds since i left with my new eyes.

james_woods

Thanks LittleToe,

and may I just rant further - wouldn't this all go away without a whimper if they just let everybody partake of the emblems at long last and QUIT COUNTING?

James

68

Anyone here anointed??//

by Star Moore in

hello friends, i would like to hear some stories of becoming anointed.

i have been for 5 years now.. been a christian for 26 years.

i dropped out of the watchtower in september and am learning in leaps and bounds since i left with my new eyes.

james_woods

Fascinating, as Mr. Spock would say...

Maybe there is another point to be made here, beyond the "experiences" and the "interpretations"--

For to hold with the JW mindset, all this is heavily tied to a totally illogical "chronology"...and a stubborn insistence that the number 144000 is a literal.

I.E. you really would have to believe that EVERYBODY got "chosen" from year 1 or so up until about 1925 when the end "should have come around" (well, or substitute 1834, 1874, 1913, 1914 as you wish). Now we have a problem: there are around 100000 of the friends all here AT THE SAME TIME! This means the end has not come and now there is no room for expansion and precious few could have been chosen ones for the past 1900 years!

In come da JUDGE! Well look, we were right all along, us oldsters were special and still are, but now anybody else can come in as a sort of second class citizen past 1931-1935 to avoid Occams razor. Doesn't matter that your immediate predecessor who thought HE was THE faithful and discreet slave never had to think of it because he went to his pyramid grave still believing the end was right around the corner.

Here is where all of this fails my test of consistency - as posted by someone earlier; NO OTHER CHRISTIAN group has to my knowledge EVER cooked up such a definition of a literal 144000 christlike mediator class who are specially "chosen" but only along a certain timeline which just happened to run out about 1931. And now, unbelievably, they face another chronology vs. numbers crisis: why does the annointed number just hover around 8500 or so? How can the Governing Body still be Real Annointed and not be so senile that they are practically in diapers?

Maybe it would be a lot easier to just put all Christians on equal grounds all through time and get rid of all this special stuff - apostle Paul had to do this way back when with Gentiles vs. Jews...

I say let go of the two caste system.

James

68

Anyone here anointed??//

by Star Moore in

hello friends, i would like to hear some stories of becoming anointed.

i have been for 5 years now.. been a christian for 26 years.

i dropped out of the watchtower in september and am learning in leaps and bounds since i left with my new eyes.

james_woods

Sorry Heathen (and maybe also to LittleToe) - No disrespect here for anybody...

What I meant by "not scriptural" was that the idea of having one group of christians on earth "anointedHAVES" and another "NOT" and the "NOT" cow-towing to the "HAVES" is IMHO BS. Maybe there are allusions to various groups of believers in the NT, but this mediator stuff for and by the few is in my opionion human self pride. An illusion; not an allusion. Perhaps I should have said "not well-founded Scripturally".

Anyhow, the point of that story was that I don't think this special Anointed sort of thing (if real) could just come and go according to your own personal wishes at the moment...

James

36

Why do churches still make me panic ?

by Aiesha Harley in

jw
friends

i'm really glad i've found this site a week ago.

reading some of the stories and comments on here has really helped.

there are so many out there who's lives have been ruined by the so-called truth.. i was brought up in the truth as an elders daughter, youngest of 5, a brother and sister had been disfellowshiped, other brother had left as a teenager and my other sister is still sitting on the fence aged 40 going on 15, if she'd made a decision instead of sitting on the fence i'm convinced she wouldn't be the alcoholic mess she is today!

james_woods

Aiesha, will give you a persmsg later to avoid putting travelogue stuff on your good thread.

Did have one other great cathedral story, though. My last trip to London was to meet up with our company sales guy at the office and then out to Cologne, G. to call on Ford of Europe. Well, the Ford engineer Rudi wants to take us all around to the big cathedral and it was very impressive. So I buy one of those strung together tourist postcard books and there is this really depressing B+W photo of downtown Cologne after WW2 with EVERYTHING blown to dust and atoms EXCEPT for the big cathedral. Ken Rowe (our salesman) made a big point with Rudi that "see there, we deliberately saved your beautiful artifact, but you guys blasted ours in Conventry flat as a pancake". Rudi (who had a devastatingly dry sense of humor) raised an eyebrow and replied "maybe, but I think that may be just because you guys could not HIT this cathedral)...but my point being I am glad it is still there for people to see.

We also asked Rudi how far it was to Paris (kind of wanted to go on the weekend) and he replied "about three days - by tank"....BTY Rudi was really from Antwerp and just loved putting it to his fellow Germans as much as us.

James

68

Anyone here anointed??//

by Star Moore in

hello friends, i would like to hear some stories of becoming anointed.

i have been for 5 years now.. been a christian for 26 years.

i dropped out of the watchtower in september and am learning in leaps and bounds since i left with my new eyes.

james_woods

What I have on this comes from an experience from the late 60/early 70 time frame. There was a Circuit Overseer who came to OKla City area circuit who was of the "anointed". The only problem was that I do not believe he was over about 35 at the time. I am not going to mention him by more than initials (DW) because he was my friend and what I have to say is not totally complimentary. Everyone was of course fascinated by this abberation of the two class doctrine. Yes, we all knew it did not fit the 1931-1935 hypothesis, declining numbers at memorial, etc. So, there was a lot of buzz. This was before the elder thing, and I was out in a small congregation as assistant cong servant. My cong servant (a pretty sincere special pioneer) and I did a full gossip analysis on it. We were basically going on the party line that an old annointed must have done the unforgivable sin. Finally (believe it or not) the annointed CO sort of had a pi*zing match with this special pioneer's wife (because she was teasing me for wearing a cowboy hat during weekday service on a day about 15F in the sun) and I was left in the middle. (He made her cry and they went off by themselves to knock doors elsewhere.) Here was my chance, so I go for the question. What I got told was that "(bzz-bzz-) we cannot really say what JHVHs will is (garble-crackle-fade) but that it does not mean they were better than anyone else (crackle-pop) and that it does not give special insight unless we were on the GB itself (sweesh-burble-weird whistle sounds) (oops, we are losing the line...bzzzzzclick)". Now I am telling you all straight that this guy was a pretty good friend with me and would give me the real word on just about anything else, committee business and all. To this day he was certainly one of only TWO CO's that I found I could actually talk to. Probably I should mention that this annointed CO's wife was a really nice lady but was NOT of the annointed.

Well, of course he got reassigned in due time, went on I think to DO, and I went on to elder, quit in 1980 etc. I have asked several times and got told that after he and wife had a late-life son that he decided he wanted to be on the earth after all with the family and sort of UN-anointed himself. But all of that part is second hand. Maybe he is out there somewhere on this web and can laugh at my story for himself.

Bottom line: IMO this two class thing is elite-ism garbage and is not only unscriptural but unchristian as well.

James

james_woods

Posts by james_woods