under_believer

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Posts by under_believer

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  15

  Scary demon stories to encourage meeting attendance!

  by freetosee in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ive been free for about 10 years now, though not disfellowshiped.

  and some time ago i accommodated an elder (friend of the family) who was visiting from the caribbean.

  after trying different ways to encourage me, he and my father (both elders) chose demon stories it frighten me back to jehovah.

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  under_believer

  I'm sorry to say that the demon thing has been used on me in the past to very great effect. I had a very active imagination and several associates or family members with firsthand demon stories and it used to scare the living daylights out of me. I would sometimes spend hours in prayer at night, frightened out of my wits that things would start floating around the room, or that I'd hear voices or see eyes glowing in my closet, or be anally raped by a demon, or be held down in my bed and unable to move my arms and legs. These kinds of stories, from the platform, and from my friends and family, would often serve to reel me back in when I was experiencing doubt.

  Ugh I'm getting all creeped out just thinking about it.
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  40

  Freemasonry and the congregation

  by Satans little helper in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  are there any freemasons who post here?

  if you don't want to add to the thread then feel free to pm me.. one of my close friends is a mason and has encouraged me to consider joining but everything i have known about the masons in the past has been negative - all bigoted jw speak.

  from what i have researched they are a fraternity who hold near christian moral values and cannot understand the vitriol the witnesses hold for them.. i have also seen pictures of rutherford's grave in a masonic cemetary so cannot understand why they would aim such negativity against a group which their founder belonged to.. can anyone shed any light on this?

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  under_believer

  I have always assumed that it has to do with their (masons) ritualistic approach to human development (a la the old mystery schools) and their (JWs)abhorrence of ritual and human evolution. It (ritual) is actually a very powerful tool to plumb the depths of the subconscious and superconsciousness. The only quasi ritual the JWs have is memorial but it is more designed to have the adherents reject and place them in the observer role than participation in the rite.

  This is misconception that the Society likes to spread, but in fact many of their practices and procedures approach the level of ritual. When you do the same thing over and over again thousands of times, exactly the same way, I call that a ritual. Any deviation is considered strange or dangerous. I think it's easy to see ritualistic behavior in the formulaic, exact way the meetings are always carried out--Stand for song, prayer, the question/response cadence of the Watchtower study, the way the speaker always gives the closing prayer on Sunday.
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  21

  Could the JW's be in "survival mode"?

  by JH in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i notice that they don't preach much door to door anymore.

  i'm not the only one who notices this around here.. i was just wondering if they reached a point where they can't bring anyone to the org.

  anymore, so all that counts for them is to keep going to their meetings and wait for armageddon.

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  under_believer

  I think the JW rate of growth will drop drastically after the year 2014.

  People will really realize that the Watchtower doesn't know what it had been talking about, and will lose faith in it as God's Organization.

  I wouldn't count on it. We've seen them survive too many reversals and switches in doctrine for that to be likely.

  I think it'll be a slow decline, not tied to any one event or year.
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  21

  Could the JW's be in "survival mode"?

  by JH in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i notice that they don't preach much door to door anymore.

  i'm not the only one who notices this around here.. i was just wondering if they reached a point where they can't bring anyone to the org.

  anymore, so all that counts for them is to keep going to their meetings and wait for armageddon.

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  under_believer

  Hi under believer, welcome to the forum!

  /waves Hi, thanks for the welcome. I still can't believe I'm even doing this.
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  37

  Could we have stumbled onto the reason behind the higher education thing ?

  by Forscher in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in the mid 1990s the wtbts backed-off just a little bit on its stance about higher education publically while it was still discouraged unofficially.

  now, all of a sudden they are publically clamping back down.

  and coincidentally they are clamping back down just as ben schroeder was entering his final year or years at columbia law school.

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  under_believer

  I see you point, of course. It was that very phenomenon that made me stop commenting in the first place. When I really put work into my comments, they essentially went in one ear and out the other. Pearls, swine, etc, though ostensibly "putting things in your own words" is what they want out of you. And sitting there simply regurgitating exactly what is written down in the paragraph, or relating some recent salient experience, is a non-starter for me.
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  41

  When and What was your "Spiritual" height?

  by Dune in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the highest i ever got was my being considered for a ministerial servant back in fall'ish 2004. .

  of course, i also started college that semester, and was given an ultimatum and now i'm here .

  but anyway, when and what was your pinnacle height in the organization?

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  under_believer

  Ministerial Servant + Pioneer. Made my 1000 hours the first year, went to Pioneer School, and I would describe those two weeks as the "Spiritual Height" of my life. However, 90% of my hours were in the "early morning service" which essentially consisted of driving around and leaving magazines with gas station attendents and convenience store clerks. Was removed from both priveleges at the same time I was publically reproved.
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  39

  Lying Elder???

  by Confucious in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this is a bizarre thread.

  but i was talking to an elder and he was asking me if i've sinned.

  but we are all unclean.

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  under_believer

  What is always amusing to me is that some poor sap has to give a talk about masturbation every couple of years or so on the School. Fun times. I was assigned one of those once and I turned it down, mostly because it would have required blatant hypocrisy.
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  37

  Could we have stumbled onto the reason behind the higher education thing ?

  by Forscher in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in the mid 1990s the wtbts backed-off just a little bit on its stance about higher education publically while it was still discouraged unofficially.

  now, all of a sudden they are publically clamping back down.

  and coincidentally they are clamping back down just as ben schroeder was entering his final year or years at columbia law school.

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  under_believer

  Just last night at the TMS&SM, I was looking around and reflecting that everyone there was either deeply stupid, or pretended to be. There are many, many stupid Witnesses. And the ones that aren't stupid find it convenient for many reasons to act like everyone else.
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  21

  Could the JW's be in "survival mode"?

  by JH in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i notice that they don't preach much door to door anymore.

  i'm not the only one who notices this around here.. i was just wondering if they reached a point where they can't bring anyone to the org.

  anymore, so all that counts for them is to keep going to their meetings and wait for armageddon.

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  under_believer

  Service activity is still fruitful and active among the immigrant population, both legal and illegal. This is one of the primary reasons the Society has been really pushing foreign-language service lately.

  It's also semi-successful among poor people.

  Among white middle class Americans, though, it's so statistically unlikely to find anyone who is interested that congregations in that demographic are having a really hard time.
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  11

  Funeral experience...

  by Hecklerboy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my uncle died last week so the wife and i went to his funeral a couple of days ago.

  he was a baptist so he actually had a nice funeral and they talked about him and what he like to do.

  the preacher even shared some memories of talking with him on the street of our small town and how happy he was, never complaining about his illness (cancer).. well my 2 brothers and my sister were there (all witnesses).

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  under_believer

  It's interesting that they were at that funeral at all. Though it's a "conscience matter," most JW's would choose not to go to any service at an establishment of "Babylon the Great."