Posts by Trojan

25

Can DaVinci Code make Witnesses think?

by Lilycurly in

jw
friends

i've just finished reading the book...and i know most of it is fiction, but some of you might have read it too.

as an ex-jw, it really made me think...the author has an excellent way to make one think outside the box without making it look like he wants to ram his ideas into your head...you know, it's kind of subtle, amongst all the action and enigmas.

my father loves to read...i really want him to read that book.

Trojan

Nope! No way. As somebody here noted hardcore JW will make whatever it is......

I've read the book as soon as it came out. I ALWAYS read ANYTHING I could get my hands on......never allowed ANYBODY to forbid/censor what I read...after several years into "the truth", I allowed that very same GOOD habit to be surpressed by ....you know by what.

So, last summer I've started picking up again on all kinds of books (say it historical, archaeological, evern weird topics). Among these I've read DVC. Now here's my experience with that:

Most average JW will look at you with a very strange look in their face! One time it slipped out on a bethel table that i've read the book and the ones around me said that books is satanical and where shocked....later one I found out that some others had read the book (the more open minded type of JW) and where shutting up.....

The real truth can sometimes be uncomfortable. And foremost the same goes with this book or the other thread about the movie "The Island": 98% of JW WILL NOT see similarities. They DON'T WAN'T to see it and shut their brains off....that part of their brains (the critical / analyzing part of it) is SHUT OFF! Believe me. YOU are seeing things through a new eye. The clones in The Island could not understand what the outside world was, because it wasn't an option.

NO, if you have hopes with the DVC. Don't.

20

Anyone seen "The Island"

by onesong in

jw
friends

.

it may have already been talked about here but i just saw it last night with some other "apostate" friends.. wasn't it amazing in it's similarity to the borg.. my favorite scene was everyone reading together "dick and jane" talk about a great watchtower study depiction!

Trojan

YEESSSS!!!

Here is my two pennys: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/106682/1852927/post.ashx#1852927

24

Life in Bethel & Ex-Bethelites know if the GB prayed together?

by Sheepish in

i have always wondered how seriously they took this dispensing doctrine thing.

do they all get together and actually pray or just have meetings?

ex- bethelites say they wrote doctrinal articles for the watchtower or awake.

Trojan

What-A-Coincidence!

Hey, NOW i know you where a bethelite. Only a insider could mention the stuff you addressed in your thread. Yes, it's all me! (Hate the dish duty thing, the watchman and the extra watchtower).

Here is what they recommend: if you are spiritual and a well behaved boy, you prepare the Watchtower with your wife.....MAN, GIVE ME A BREAK! PLEEEASE....how often should I study the Watchtower?????

No. 1 - Once it arrives (YOU SHALL read everything the FDS gives you RIGHT AWAY)

No. 2 - Family Study with your wife

No. 3 - With the Bethel family

No. 4 - At the Hall.....

This is what I call indoctrination!

Me: Read over it in 15 min. Don't do the No. 1, 2 and often 3.......

The nice thing about watchman duty is you can miss the meetings.....(there is a rule in the Dwelling together manual that says that Bethel is the foremost important thing in your life....it goes BEFORE meetings, service and whatever there is....BETHEL is FIRST. Oh, for the ones that don't know: Dwelling together is the little manual "Bethelite for Dummies" - one bethel friend called it the work of the devil...because if the submission thing in the WT scares you, then you should give this little green colored brochure a look.....

Why I'm still in? I had a thread about that.......I'm working on my way out.....believe me....it's very complicated to get out.....I'm the prisoneer that is using a spoon to scratch a crack in my prison wall....once it's big enough.....I'm out. In the meantime I've got to scratch on that wall....

Trojan.

24

Life in Bethel & Ex-Bethelites know if the GB prayed together?

by Sheepish in

i have always wondered how seriously they took this dispensing doctrine thing.

do they all get together and actually pray or just have meetings?

ex- bethelites say they wrote doctrinal articles for the watchtower or awake.

Trojan

I'm still a Bethelite. What-A-Coincidence wrote:

Satisfying how? Healthy meals, your laundry gets done, a medical staff, no bills except a telephone bill, etc. Those are the positive aspects. Then again it depends on who you associate with, some Bethelites are clowns, some are down to earth, some are Borged out. Some overseers Lord it Over. Some are down to earth. I had both. One was a total jerk and another was like a father.

To me that's one of the worst parts of Bethel life! It takes your iniciative away...some Bethelites have the same syndrome prisioners have (I have forgotten the technical name...), they can't live a life outside, you "unlearn" lots of things that are necessary to the "outside" life. I grew up without a father and learned to make my own money since I was 12.....I had to take care of myself and my little sisters, because mom had to work all day long. I cooked my own meals since that age. Now, here I am at Bethel....do you really wan't to know HOW BETHEL REALLY is?

Go, watch the movie "The Island".....anybody who has been a bethelite will agree. Some of the bethelites will make funny jokes about how that movie really portrays the inside life.....

If you have seen the movie (which metaphorically could also apply to the organization itself) there is one part where the main character asks the Doctor (which controls everybodys moves, even if they have too much sodium in their urine): "There must be something else than sitting here and waiting for the Island...." Go and think what that means...

This might be funny to some of you, but we are not very far from the "checking your urine" situation. This bethel overseer told a sister that she can't eat certain foods, chocolates, etc. because Bethel is paying for her treatment and he considers those foods as bad (he was talking about chocolate specifally). The sister told him that the doctor (outside Bethel) haven't told her to do a special diet......

The control is sickening! Only my two pennys on the subject....

OH, and prayers? One of the staff members in Service Department told me that one day he wrote that letter to some poor old pioneer sister, encouraging and so, and at the final sentence he wrote something along the line "and we pray for you and your well being".....his overseer (a very harsh man) told him to take that sentence out, because it sounds as we sit here praying for others and that sounds childish......make it business like!

64

Question for JWs still on the "inside":

by Hellrider in

just a question: if you are still jws (for any reason, many just can`t leave because their entire families are wrapped around it, etc), but don`t believe in it, and lead a "double life", how do you cope with going door to door?

i just can`t imagine how it must feel like to go out there and try to tell people at the doors or in the streets things you know are just bs!

how do you deal with that?

Trojan

Difficult hellrider! I can tell you: very difficult. But then, you should be at MY bible studies.....i can be quite creative....believe me, there isn't a lot that will harm. Like the study I have with a teenager....I teach him the right things...(hey, I go alone to those studies)....like what career to choose, etc. You can much likely wrap it up as "small-talk", like hangind around with good friends...once in a while people only wan't somebody to hear they're woes and then I agree to all of what they've said and leave. I either take the "right" partner with me...or go alone....then you reduce that to one or most three times in the field...that's it!

This is the simple answer. The truth? You guessed it right: it feels awful!

Even more difficult it's if you're an elder and have to do the double whacker thing....Don't even ask me about that one.

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

How did you get out of work or field service this morning? Just kidding. I was thinking about your situation and hope you can find a minimally painful way out.

I didn't make it......oh, sorry. You see, the "nice thing" about "privileges" is that you can get away with many things that the "regular publisher" can't.....(I hate to see that as I write this.....)

Thanks serendipity for your lovely message. I hope too I can find a way out.....

kaput: LOL. Yes Wes Craven is a child compared to this speakers! I would hate to see a horror movie done by them. We had this other elder give a talk, 3 months ago, at our hall and he started his talk with a vivid descripiton of what I call "The day after".

".....then you see one arm coming under tons of debris....and you recognize it is Brother X....you barely manage to see his golden watch on his wrist.....and you remember that the past few months he had spent lots of time on his secular work and missing the meetings....now here he his Brother X...dead and his watch is of no value to him and everlasting life..."

It sent chills over the spine.....but foremost it made me furious! How could this guy stand there and invent this scenes out of some horror movie and say they're true, biblical....I almost wanted to go on stage on drag him down in midst of his talk....kicking him out of the KH. Really.

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.