Forgive me if it's been covered, but their "Apply Yourself to Field Recruiting" parts can be about repairing the wheels on their literature carts and proper posture at a table in the mall that will help you sit there for hours.
OnTheWayOut
JoinedPosts by OnTheWayOut
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37
Theocratic Ministry School . . . is still there AND longer?
by warehouse inso i made a timeline based on the leaked letter, it is as follows:.
edit: updated chart with color, because the html version was crap.
so i know i might be crazy, but is the theocratic school still there, just called apply yourself to field ministry?
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It must be a concern of all the information that is now been leaked
by joe134cd ini have put up previous posts about this in the past, but i just thought that it was worth mentioning again.
it has to be of concern to them with how quickly information is getting leaked.
hell it even surprises at just how slowly information spreads by offical means.
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OnTheWayOut
Leaking information is actually a very effective way of bringing down authoritarian regimes. By their very nature, they hate to be shown not to have complete control...
Except for what is said by OneEyedJoe, I see only one other advantage in "knowing" ahead of the members. I know some will say to a Dub, "The money situation is so bad with pedophile lawsuits that I wouldn't be surprised if they cut magazine production again and lay off a thousand or more Bethelites again." So I get that one, also- putting a bug in the ear of a Dub to think differently when the big announcement is made. I did that with my wife.
But I find it strange that some are so high up the chain and stay there knowing what they know of TTATT. I guess some feel they have little choice. I think I would rather find a minimum wage job and my freedom than that. But that's just me. If we didn't have people up the chain leaking info, we would still hear about the announcement and still be able to suggest afterward to our Dub families that the reason is not for the sake of the "preaching" so close to the end but for dire financial reasons of a different sort.
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Tired of the truth... Tired of doubting
by Deltawave ini'm reaching out here, i've known ttatt for about 3-4 years now.
sadly when i first grasped it i had a total mental breakdown as i was a hard core firm to the core pioneer and 110% believer of my faith.!
now nearly 2years on after my breakdown i still have to attend to please my jw wife.
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OnTheWayOut
I have to agree with Tornintwo.
I will also suggest a slower approach if you just can't have a serious talk with your wife yet, but this is only the poor alternative: at least cease the field recruiting activity.
I was in a fairly similar situation. I was the gung-ho believer, 110% in. I did not have a mental breakdown but it was close. I did have to go to counseling shortly after I stopped going to meetings and face 20 year old issues concerning my mental health that I put off because "the end was near" and "the truth was all the counsel I should need."
Anyway, I resigned as an elder and removed myself from the TMS and faked field recruiting for a few months, putting 1 or 2 hours on a slip, then went inactive altogether.
Field recruiting is very depressing when you know that you don't even want people to read the trash you offer. Tell your wife that you will get a bit of informal witnessing in, then don't even do that. Count a bit of your time on the internet telling us "the truth."
If you can do that, you can brace yourself to eventually tell more to your wife about missing meetings.
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Warwick, What is it good for?
by freemindfade inabsolutely nothing.... has anyone dared ask what they need this place for?
think about a few things.
in bethels hay day, there was a shit ton of literature being printed, they even need a giant factory with elevators a truck could fit in.
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OnTheWayOut
What the heck are they doing at Patterson? Why couldn't the GB move there? -
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EXACTLY Why JW's Are NOT Christian
by Perry ina lot of people, ex-jws, believers and unbelievers alike, think that jw's are just a somewhat kooky brand of christianity.
is it possible to "try and follow jesus" and not be christian?
what exactly makes someone a christian?
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OnTheWayOut
Perry, you left out the word "true."
Your title should be "EXACTLY Why JW's are Not True Christian"Then perhaps you can see how narrow-minded you are being with some "true Scotsman" examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion. When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim ("no Scotsman would do such a thing"), rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule ("no true Scotsman would do such a thing").
No True Scotsman (NTS) is a logical fallacy that occurs when (1) someone changes the definition of a word to make a claim true by default or (2) a term is defined biasedly to allow easier use of the first form. Instead of acknowledging that some members of a group have undesirable characteristics, the fallacy tries to redefine the group to exclude them.
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Does Anyone Still Believe in God?
by LaurenM indo any of you ex-jw's still believe in god?
even with the new rebranding/softening of this religion, i still don't see how people can believe in him.
the god of the old testimate is an angry murderer who approved rapes and slavery and killed thousands of men, women and children.
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OnTheWayOut
For some believers, there simply is no argument that will talk them out of belief. Here's the way it goes for them:
The Dragon In My Garage
by Carl Sagan
"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"
Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle -- but no dragon.
"Where's the dragon?" you ask.
"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.
"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."
Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."
You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick." And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so. The only thing you've really learned from my insistence that there's a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You'd wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I've seriously underestimated human fallibility. Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it's unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative -- merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of "not proved."
Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons -- to say nothing about invisible ones -- you must now acknowledge that there's something here, and that in a preliminary way it's consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.
Now another scenario: Suppose it's not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you're pretty sure don't know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages -- but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we're disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I'd rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren't myths at all.
Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence" -- no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it -- is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.
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How will many JW's react ?
by Phizzy ini did not believe i would see the demise of the wt in my lifetime, and maybe i will not, they may be able to ride out their present problems.. but how do you think this will affect the average, loyal, believing jw ?.
usually most things just wash over them, if there is a slight niggle, they use their well-worn way of explaining things to themselves as in "the end is near" or "jehovah knows best" etc etc.
but the huge sea-change in corporate policy that we see unfolding, all construction work stopped, except warwick and maybe their biggest project, chelmsford u.k. huge bethel layoffs, and the lifestyle of the remaining staff reduced to virtual slavery, more bethel closures, spiritual food reduced for the public as well as the r&f, and all of this being the opposite of what they have claimed was evidence of jehovah's blessing ???.
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OnTheWayOut
Against my better judgement, I attempted to put a thought in my JW wife's head about this upcoming announcement. I deliberately used words that would stick as a reason, no matter the spin that she hears. I said that my Witness friends on the internet say that there is such a huge money problem with all the pedophile lawsuits that even the money they took away from all the congregations worldwide didn't seem to be enough and that they were at least temporarily halting all Kingdom Hall construction, sending home another thousand or more Bethel workers, and reducing the production of magazines again to half of what they are now.
All she could say was, "Where are your friends getting this information?" It was clearly an implication that this was coming from apostates. When she hears the true news, she will tend to remember what I said. I think that many many will start smelling the dead rat.
Their only saving of themselves was that previous "Obey, even if it doesn't seem logical or sound" or whatever. Some will simply cling to that no matter what and blame Satan and the world. But many will know that Jehovah doesn't seem to be blessing their organization's efforts.
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My Mom Is Dying
by minimus ini just wanted to say that my dear 89 year old mom is terminally ill and will soon pass.
she is on morphine and hanging on.
she has been a devout witness for about 60 years and a wonderful mother.
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OnTheWayOut
So sorry to read your sad news. My mother is still healthy in her young 70's and still a JW, but has not shunned me. Thanks for the advice, Min. -
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Help Me Undertand...
by DarioKehl inaccording to the 2014 annual report:.
"worldwide, there are 115,416 congregations of jehovahs witnesses and 8,201,545 publishers.".
i don't understand how the borg is facing financial difficulty.
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OnTheWayOut
There are many congregations even here in the United States that struggle to pay their bills and did not have a mortgage on their Kingdom Hall when the debts were dropped. You have JW's that feel they are giving their time and they don't give much of their money, which they don't have much of anyway.
The money grab was huge, admittedly. But I wouldn't be surprised if the monthly payments plan is a bust. Say that two different people in a congregation that had a big mortgage feel some sense of relief that the debt is cancelled and stop struggling to donate their $100 a month and switch to $10 a month. That congregation now has $180 less per month to send in. Now add in a few dubs leaving the religion and a few dubs losing their jobs. This scenario is likely repeated across the country.
Leave the United States and the story will be worse for them.
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What makes WT think they can reassign Bethel volunteers to be Regular Pioneers.
by Zoos inwhen the gb cuts loose 1600 volunteers, what makes them think they can continue telling them how they will spend their time?
i've read on many of these threads that the 1600 will be reassigned.
what, are they still under some sort of contract?.
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OnTheWayOut
They should consider a coin-operated laundry.