Gregor

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Posts by Gregor

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  17

  Taboos

  by slugga in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i don't want to start a thread judging people here i'm more interested in your experiences and beliefs without people starting to fight.

  do you still hold certain org views, are certain things taboo to you even though you may be out and have been out for years?

  think they will handle it the same way all of us are handling it.

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  Gregor

  No, I dumped everything was was unique to JW's. (of course, murder, stealing, etc. are not exclusive JW concepts).

  From a practical point of view though, I wish I had held on to not celebrating Christmas. Jeez, what an expensive pain in the ass!
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  17

  Old committee notes.

  by Gregor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as an elder in the late '70's i served more than my share of time on judicial committees.

  the jc was made up of three elders: the presiding overseer, wt study overseer and bible study overseer.

  since these positions rotated yearly, the average elder would serve three years straight on the jc.

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  Gregor

  Sparkplug, et al

  You are very insightful. Yes, I can still feel a knot in my stomach when I recall some of those "judicial" matters. We had to 'enforce' things we didn't even understand or agree with. Later, of course, I realized these rulings came from a bunch of institutionalized, oddball, old men, many of whom were jerk-jolly themselves if not outright queer as a three dollar bill. The one that haunts me the most was the young sister with the domineering husband who was vulerable to anyone who could offer her comfort. I KNOW that her overwhelming guilt led to her early death. I have tears again in recollecting it for this post over 25 years later.

  Notes? We never turned in no stinking notes. Most of the elders I served with were semi-illiterate hicks (you know, janitorial service company executives) that didn't take notes. I made my notes right after the meetings. Sometimes we had two or three matters going at once.

  Of course, this experience ultimately led to my rebellion. But it also gave me a lot of empathy for those who are still blindly following the org.

  Thanks for all your understanding.
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  17

  Old committee notes.

  by Gregor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as an elder in the late '70's i served more than my share of time on judicial committees.

  the jc was made up of three elders: the presiding overseer, wt study overseer and bible study overseer.

  since these positions rotated yearly, the average elder would serve three years straight on the jc.

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  Gregor

  As an elder in the late '70's I served more than my share of time on Judicial Committees. The JC was made up of three elders: The presiding overseer, WT study overseer and Bible Study overseer. Since these positions rotated yearly, the average elder would serve three years straight on the JC. Due to various circumstances, I served almost five years in a row. We had a congregation of about 100 pubs., almost 200 meeting attenders counting the children, unbaptized family members, etc. These were middle to lower middle class people, a lot of young families, teenagers and a nice mix of old timers. We had our share of dedicated sisters with unbelieving mates .

  It was my luck to be serving during the time when the GB was handing down a lot of nitty gritty no-no's of sexual conduct, i.e. Certain sexual practices between married people, masturbation, a homosexual mate was NOT grounds for scriptural divorce, fine points of sexual conduct that might or might not be grounds for divorce (a married brother having an intense 'wet' affair with a another woman was not nice but it wasn't grounds for his wife to divorce him if he didn't "put it in".

  Well, they came out of the woodwork. We would be approached regularly by brothers and sisters who were affected by all of the above. How would you like to spend dozens of hours over a period of months and years having both informal ("Brother Doe, could I/we speak to you in private for a moment?") and committee meetings with brothers and sisters on these intimate topics:

  -A sixteen yr old boy who can't stop masturbating. Underwear ads in the Sears catalog would set him off. He tried to quit and couldn't. Every time he slipped up he would come to us to ask for help (almost weekly) We had to tell him it was very serious and he needed to stop wether we personally thought it was serious or not.

  -A 68 yr old brother whose wife had cancer. He had the same basic problem as the 16 yr old boy. He would cry. He died 1 month after his wife passed away.

  -An attractive young married couple who felt they needed help from the elders to help them stop performing oral sex on each other. This went on for months.

  -A young sister whose husband forced her to perform oral sex, which she had been doing willingly until the WT came out. Then, overnight, giving him a BJ became an issue as serious as a blood transfusion. Did she have grounds for divorce?

  - A beautiful, sweet young woman with 2 children had a selfish, controlling, asshole husband who was not baptized but came to all the meetings. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and was confiding her problems to an older sister whom she trusted. One day after a couple of glasses of wine, the older sister seduced her into some lesbian acts. This young woman fell apart, I'm sure she would have been diagnosed as having a nervous breakdown if she had gotten professional help. She came to us and confessed and was unconsolable. She never recovered. Her health fell apart. She died a few years later when she was in her early 30's.

  There were many more, but my point is that within a very short time the WT Society backed off on many of these issues. Unfortunately, the damage to real people, good people, had been done. The almighty Watchtower juggernaut rolled right over them with no apology or acknowledgement of the turmoil it had caused those who tried to obey every word they published.

  One evening about a year after I was DF'd I took a glass of wine and my old committee notebooks out to the patio and burned them page by page on the BBQ. By the time I was finished I had tears running down my face and it wasn't because of the smoke.

  I hate the Watchtower Society, they have hurt a lot of good, honest and sweet people.
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  11

  Do You Keep Your Old JW Books?

  by Clam in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  what have you done with your wts book collection?

  have you sold them, burnt them, given them away or kept them as a memento?

  the only one i kept was aid to bible understanding, which i still find helpful, even though there are errors, eg 607bc lol .

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  Gregor

  Clam,

  Shortly after I forced the committee to DF me, (This is 1981 and there was no recognized "Disassociation" category or I would have done it that way) I boxed up my extensive library of Society literature, books, WT bound volumes, etc. and took them to the landfill. I'm sure that hundreds of years from now, some archeologist will dig my collection up, read it and write a paper about what a bunch of dumbasses there were back in the mid- twentienth century. It is interesting that you and I only kept a copy of "Aid to Bible Understanding". That book was produced by a committee that was overseen by Ray Franz, the author of "Crisis of Conscience".
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  86

  Talked to JW cousin

  by Undecided in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was in the grocery store and met a cousin i haven't seen in years.

  the first thing he asked me was, do you go to the meeting now?

  he mentioned how armageddon was so close.

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  Gregor

  Undecided

  I read your profile and couldn't help but notice how similar our backgrounds are. As an elder serving on judicial committees I was troubled by the changing 'truth'. You put it very well. In the final committee meeting (that resulted in my telling them to do what they had to do) I pointed to the comprehensive collection of the Societies publications all around us in the KH library. I asked them, Why are we not encouraged to study these? Why aren't they being re-published?

  You have obviously crossed a threshold. I can tell you from experience that you can never go back to the org. with your heart or mind. You are so right to be indifferent to being DF'd. It really doesn't hurt! In fact it was a most liberating, wonderful feeling that gave me the strength to deal with the shunning from close family and friends.

  I look forward to seeing you change your alias from 'undecided' to something that fits you better.
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  12

  Can anyone post W01 7/1 p18-21 - "do not let doubts destroy your faith."

  by AlmostAtheist in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have a sudden urgent need to see this article, but i don't have the cd here at work.

  can someone post this article, or pm it to me?.

  dave

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  Gregor

  Hey, BizzyBee and bks

  You sound like a couple of sisters in my cong.
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  34

  The WBTS really is a dangerous organization

  by pratt1 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  .

  it has been well documented that some extreme cults have be able to isolate their memebers and then have them kill themselves because of their beliefs.. the dubs has always looked at these cults as being mislead by the devil and the dubs would never do anything as drastic a mass suicide.. however as a child i remember thinking that at the begining of the great tribulation, the fds might tell us to run, or congragate somewhere isolated and we would actually leave with on the clothes on our back, and anyone not heeding this warning would be killed at the battle of "armefogotten".. if the fds could get the dubs to leave their home and familes, bascially their lives behind, isn't it just a small stretch to think that a desicion to end ones earthly life could be the next request?.

  also remember that particularily the jim jones event, some members had to be physically forced to drink the kool - aid while others freely drank.. does anyone else think that because of the power that the wbts has over it memebers, if they decided to do something drastic, many of the members would just blindly comply?

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  Gregor

  The thousands of JWs who have died to obey the WT blood doctrine (initiated in about 1947) make Jim Jones group of 900 Kool-Aid drinkers look like pikers.
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  34

  The WBTS really is a dangerous organization

  by pratt1 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  .

  it has been well documented that some extreme cults have be able to isolate their memebers and then have them kill themselves because of their beliefs.. the dubs has always looked at these cults as being mislead by the devil and the dubs would never do anything as drastic a mass suicide.. however as a child i remember thinking that at the begining of the great tribulation, the fds might tell us to run, or congragate somewhere isolated and we would actually leave with on the clothes on our back, and anyone not heeding this warning would be killed at the battle of "armefogotten".. if the fds could get the dubs to leave their home and familes, bascially their lives behind, isn't it just a small stretch to think that a desicion to end ones earthly life could be the next request?.

  also remember that particularily the jim jones event, some members had to be physically forced to drink the kool - aid while others freely drank.. does anyone else think that because of the power that the wbts has over it memebers, if they decided to do something drastic, many of the members would just blindly comply?

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  Gregor

  Pratt,

  Your question has already been answered.

  Its called "No blood transfusions"

  How many have already drank that Kool-Aid voluntarily or forced their children to drink it in-voluntarily?
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  28

  Do The WTB&TS Really Believe They Have Truth?

  by prophecor in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  or are they just stringing the rank and file along, getting every ounce of work out of thier constituents, long enough to pull the next rabbit out of the hat?

  those at the top, don't they see where they've made mistakes?

  how can they continue in good conscience before the god they profess to serve?

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  Gregor

  In 1983 I had the opportunity to ask Ray Franz personally if he thought the GB was sincere or simply conniving manipulators. He didn't hesitate to answer that many of them were the latter, but that some of the older men were sincere but easily led into decisions of policy and doctrine.

  Rays' uncle, Fred Franz, as you know, was the real source of most all JW doctrine and he took them out on a limb several times, ala the 1975 'prophecy'. That bombshell, released in 1966, was of course built on the bedrock doctrine of 1914. That is when Nathan Knorr made the revealing statement to the effect "we have a lot riding on 1914, I hope we're right about that".

  It all reminds me of that passage in Isaiah (?) that was pointing up the stupidity of the pagans who cut down a tree and then used some of the wood to cook their food and the rest to build an idol to worship!

  Or the old saying that if you watched the sausage being made you would never eat it.
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  39

  "Deliverance At Hand" 2006 Convention

  by drew sagan in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  many of us are familiar with the theme of this years district convention, "deliverance at hand".

  i don't know if the publication release has been leaked yet, but i thought it might be fun to speculate about what it possibly could be.

  i'll start it off... .

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  Gregor

  I have been told that the Jan. 15 Watchtower will have some 'new light' on the subject of dealings with the DF'd. I don't receive the mag. but would like to know if this is the case and what's new about it.

  Thanks