Posts by Trojan

32

Symbolic generation. Does it extend batting time for WTBTS?

by Spectrum in

before coming on this forum i didn't know that the jws had changed the generation definition from literal to symbolic and i obviously predicted that this religion will be finished when that last 1914 codger dies.

when i found out that they had changed their definition i thought, bloody hell this religion is going to go on forever.

then i thought that no, they are going to fade out, then i settled on, they are going to survive just like the catholics and orthodox.

Trojan

I do agree that there are many, many people who need the regimented lifestyle in order to feel good enough, or whatever. But I think there are an equal number who feel completely trapped, and don't have the skills to find their way out. The longer they stay in, the harder it is to leave. And imo, the worst part of the JWs is the fact that one can be so trapped. That's part of what makes it a cult.

GoingGoingGone, you are so right! Me (still in) and many others that surround me (I have mentioned this in another thread), but even Awake and Watchtower writers!!! One of them actually said to me (talking about this same issue):

"Look, it's like some people feel secure if they have bars on their windows. They couldn't sleep if they didn't have those mental bars. It keeps them secure...."

I thought to myself: What a crap! The same bars that keep others "secure", keep me trapped, imprisoned.....if you leave, you leave lots and lots of things behind....I thought only about this: I know that some JW tear appart the family pictures where they have an D'f person on it or even worser an apostate.......you wouldn't be on any family picture! Myself? Every single photo taken has something to do with this wonderful magic kingdom world.....It takes lot's of guts to pull the plug to it all.....or maybe, places like this!!!

Another brother said to me: "It's like a Poker game.....you started beting on the "end-is-near"-cards and put money on the table, as time goes on....you bet even more: family, house, job, carreer, education......YEARS OF YOUR LIFE, now there's so much on the table, that you would look like an idiot if you stand up and leave it "to the house"......you play the game...."

To me that isn't normal human behaviour. It's true what he said. Gamblers start sweating, know they've lost A LOT and their mind shuts up and they just continue the game....for no logical reason! Isn't it curious that there is a similarity between Gamblers and JW? They both loose family bonds, time, money, lifes...

Trojan.

16

Question about baptism

by Shazard in

hey people!

i have read that baptism in jw is something very different than in christianity.

so question... is jw baptism somewhat legally binding.

Trojan

As a matter of fact, Jesus would not qualify for baptism in the Watchtower Society of Jehovah's Witnesses today.

Interesting statement Frannie Banannie! Really. Could you precise a bit? I would love to use some of those arguments with my fellow elders (as some of them wan't to take the baptism procedures even further - like this: "Remember when you had unmoral sex? YOU HAVE TO remember and tell me every occurrence in your life where you had unnatural sex. I'm waiting for your answers." Elder A to Elder B: "I KNOW this guy is a pervert, I wan't to start shunning him before he even gets baptized OR start right after it." Me: "WHY then baptizing him in the first place? Leave this guy alone for gods sake")

So. I wait. Once you have time, would love to hear your input.

Trojan.

16

Question about baptism

by Shazard in

hey people!

i have read that baptism in jw is something very different than in christianity.

so question... is jw baptism somewhat legally binding.

Trojan

What about actually signing some papers in case if you were baptised in other church previously?

In Germany you have to write a formal letter to your former church resigning and telling them that you don't wan't to be one of THEM because you're becoming a JW. The goverment keeps lists of catholics and evangelics and you have to go to the proper govermental agency to get your name off those lists. This something the elders require you to do, before they even consider the questions with you. Because in Germany you do have a legal binding to the two main churches (has tax law reasons, because every person pays somewhat close to 1.5% from ANY Income they have to the mayor churches. Government takes it off your wage, stock earnings, real-estate sales, etc. and passes it on to the corresponding church).

65

Does God make Mistakes or Bad Decisions?

by gumby in

genesis 6:5-7, 8:21. god decides to send a great flood to kill all humans, save noah and his family, because man's heart is evil.

"and god saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.... and the lord said, i will destroy man whom i have created from the face of the earth.".

later, after the flood waters recede, god promises never to do it again because man's heart is evil.

Trojan

For a long time, I have teached others that all that stuff that appears in the WTBTS Armaggedon pictures CAN'T be TRUE! Why?

I tell them. What was the first images the allies would see after entering the concentration camps? Everybody (specially my dear JW brothers) shudders.....YES, my dear brother/sister.....disturbing isn'ti it???? Question number 2. What where the allies thinking about the perpetrators of that destruction of human life? More scary faces....YES, you see where I'm heading with this....

Now, think even more. THOSE are the opening pictures to a new world order! If we had to do a nice history book in paradise about this new glorious, golden time in human history.....the book would start with EXACT SAME images the NAZIS left behind for the allie troops to discover.....(only worser, because they found some guys alive, almost skeletons, but ALIVE).

Now, dear brother/sister.....according to some talks I've heard in Assemblies, Halls.....YOU my dear will be buring and burning the parts of dead bodys, our dear old sister suchandsuch will walk around with one mans arm in one hand and some other guys ripped off head in her other hand.....just like cleaning up the Kingdom Hall.....very nice, don't forget the vaccuum cleaning dear sister suchandsuch....there is some dust on the floor....ehm, I mean some blood and stinking corpses......

THINK. THINK AGAIN.

65

Does God make Mistakes or Bad Decisions?

by gumby in

genesis 6:5-7, 8:21. god decides to send a great flood to kill all humans, save noah and his family, because man's heart is evil.

"and god saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.... and the lord said, i will destroy man whom i have created from the face of the earth.".

later, after the flood waters recede, god promises never to do it again because man's heart is evil.

Trojan

I guess the more creepier pics are indeed the paradise pics,

Specially the ones with lions and beachballs. I have told to some other JW: Where in the Bible it says that Lions (wild beasts) are going to sit on the beach, playing volleyball with kids??? Where? Where, PLEASE show me!)

Another point: Where in the pictures do you have the mass-production factories to produce the millions of pants, skirts and ties for the ressurected ones? Who will operate that stuff? (Oh, yes. I know. The chinese. They are number one producing cheap mass-production jeans. Since they couldn't get a chance to be witnessed to, they will be doomed for eternity to sit on a sewing machine doing clothes for the millions that sit on the beach drinking juice and playing with lions. I don't see many chinese on the paradise pictures - disturbing.)

65

Does God make Mistakes or Bad Decisions?

by gumby in

genesis 6:5-7, 8:21. god decides to send a great flood to kill all humans, save noah and his family, because man's heart is evil.

"and god saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.... and the lord said, i will destroy man whom i have created from the face of the earth.".

later, after the flood waters recede, god promises never to do it again because man's heart is evil.

Trojan

Yeah Gumby....I understand that drowning is quite a peaceful death. It's not violent and you sort of slip off.
So how come Jehovah gave these early dudes the good breaks and we poor bast*rds get the fire and lightning and knifeing and falling into gaping holes etc.
Not fair

LOL, wombat. Had a good laugh about your reasoning!!! Superb!

21

Jehovah, The Imposter God

by THE SHOOTIST in

what was jehovah thinking when he put that tree in the middle of the garden and the told adam and eve not to eat of its fruit?

the real all-knowing god would never have done such a thing.

didn't he know that making the tree and the fruit would absolutely ruin this perfect man and woman?

Trojan

SHOOTIST:

Here in short. I'm kind of biased since I'm still "inside" this mess (WTBTS active)....I have started for a long time to develop some independent thoughts on issues like this and have put them "way back into my mind". I have some common ground with you, although as others have stated I still wan't to believe in that all-loving, all-caring God. But here's the "official explanation" from WTBTS on this "problem" (all-knowing god). I personally have problems, and had long heated discussions over this with other elders or circuit overseers, I still don't get the point, but to throw in an extra explanation (and I would really like to see how different people on this forum see this particular point):

Jehovah is all-knowing, foresees it all, way into the future (otherwise the prophecies stuff doesn't work). So, how can you reconcile that with the problem you mentioned (didn't see the Adam/Eve problem coming up)? Well, the Reasoning book (and other literature of JW) explains that he can "shut off" his ability to foresee stuff. They use this illustration: you have many stations in your radio/tv set, but you can switch around and purposedly "ignore" the ones you don't wan't to know! So Jehovah, went ahead and didn't foresee what would happen to Adam/Eve - he switche off to another channel that he did want to foresee (like the prophecies in Daniel, Revelation etc.) It's his own choice. Here's another illustration I've read in the Watchtower: It's like a car. It has the ability to drive at 100 MPH or cruise at 50 MPH. Jehovah's the same. Sometimes he decides to switch to the "let-me-see-what-will-happen-to-this-particular-guy"-mode and sometimes he switches that off!

Easy, isn't it? Yep, I knew you would love this one!

I once asked some other collegues (elders): So, does Jehovah know WHO is going to survive Armageddon? Could he foresee the fatal fate of millions of individuals (so that we don't have to go and visit a particular person and waste our time, in case Jehovah foresaw that this particular person WILL loose the game). The answer was NO. Big-time NO! He switches off the mode and willingfull does not wan't to know, just to give the person to use his/her FREE WILL. Well, now things got complicated, because if you throw in FREE WILL and then say everything CAN be foreseen, but at the same time you don't believe in a FIXED PATTERNED life (like JW), then you have a whole deal of stuff to explain.

By the way: there is no way to sustain the above explanation with Bible scriptures (the "switch on/off"-mode of foreseeing things). But it's official JW doctrine.

Now, the ball is rolling.

19

Quotes from "Clothe Yoursleves With The New Personality" Assembly

by Inquisitor in

"i use my time wisely by not spending it with my worldly friends..." and so you chose to spend it with people who devised rules that shut up their female members (with the exception of elders' wives who are skilled manipulators of men and power), ban moustaches and beards (for men too) and frown on higher education.

wise indeed!.

"we cannot find such joy (construction of new kingdom halls) in the jobs that we do in the world..." never had a fat paycheck waved in your face, have you?.

Trojan

I sit there (in the last row) and they have this elder and father come up for an Interview that goes like this:

Interviewer: "So Brother Dude, what do you do to entertain your children?" (Because there isn't really a lot left over after this course, lets resume: college is bad, learning too, videos three time bad, playing with other children from the neighborhood is devilish bad, playing on your computer makes you a real badass and Internet is the devil in person, ....)

Brother Dude: "Well, I go to the local Mall and we walk around and watch the shop windows, but we do not buy anything, because I do not wan't my children to grow up with a materialistic way of thinking. I tell them that we don't need all these things and in that way I teach them a lesson for life. To the final end I go and buy an icecream and then we go home!"

Interviewer: "Very well, Bro. Dude....well done. This is a fine example of entertainment in family;"

I thought to myself: Heck, he could as well have said: "I go to a local brothel and we walk around, watch the ehm, doing their business...and then I tell the boys that this is naughty stuff, that they will never do and then I buy them a beer....eh, an icecream and we go home."

WHY IN GODS SAKE would this guy SHOW all the stuff that he doesn't intend to buy anyway? And another question goes around my mind: IS THE ICECREAM NOT SOME SORT OF WORLDLY, DEVILISH LUST? Is something to that icecream that could be banned?

14

The missing link to understand the Bible...this will help you.

by Trojan in

after having a nice conversation with a friend about some interesting points in the bible we never get to understand, i did a little research and found the simple answer to all of my questions.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/index.html.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/beastiality/lv18_23a.html.

Trojan

Thanks. We're on the same line then. I had such a good laugh. The nice thing about this site is that it takes the seriousness out of the accounts. As I'm still "in" and have to prepare talks etc., everything is to be seen as "serious" and overemphasized, but as I saw this cute little pictures I realize how ridiculous some accounts/stories are.

Here are some examples of things I don't get:

The other day I've read the two books of Chronicles and the slaughtering and killing that "good, righteous" kings where perpretrating is sickening. Even if you put it as the WTBTS explains that they where all terrible bad people! Why? Imagine the act in itself! Has somebody of you seen the movie "The Gladiator". THAT is how the killing among Israelites and other folks had to be! It was mud, dirt, crap, sweat and the warm blood of your enemy spilling into your face, you would end up with that terrible smell of blood (my uncle worked for years in a butchery and I can tell you IT IS DISGUSTING, you can't even rub the smell of with soap - by the way I always wondered how a Israelite priest, highpriest doing duty at the temple must have smelled....), crushing your iron sword into somebodys head, the guts spilling out - I'm sorry if I'm painting this to vividly (but that's what the Kingdom Ministry School book suggests anyway to every JW - IMAGINE the scene....must of JW don't do it - at least not with the disgusting scenes that go on in the Bible. No, it has to be painted the WTBS way: nice cute, little warriors="brooklyn-bethelites-without-suit-and-painted-beards".....everything cozy, clean and pink).

...actions like that MUST BRUTALIZE any human! And then King David, comes home from the slaughtering (remember: AFTER having seen all these scenes AND having participated in them), takes his tie off and sits down to write lovely poems about love, mercy and God.

Man, he must had a stomach of iron, or no brain (shutted up all of this weird stuff) or something's wrong with the whole account. Just from this simple human, psychological point of view.

Now put this together with the instructions on the last elders course (worldwide held, finished in most countries end of 2005/beginning of 2006): "Fathers, don't let your kids play videogames, as they will make your kids [PUT WHATEVER YOU WAN'T HERE - dumb, brutal, ...]

but then you use King David (and the others) as good examples of righteous people for your kids. Something's definitely wrong.

Trojan.

I could mention other examples of double-morale and strangeness in the Bible and specially in relationship Bible/WTBTS.

14

The missing link to understand the Bible...this will help you.

by Trojan in

after having a nice conversation with a friend about some interesting points in the bible we never get to understand, i did a little research and found the simple answer to all of my questions.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/index.html.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/beastiality/lv18_23a.html.

Trojan

Sorry, I meant I DIDN'T KNEW that site....never came across that site.....