OnTheWayOut

Joined

• started 589 topics
• posted 21,823 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by OnTheWayOut

• 
  49

  A philosophical question .... what does the word God mean to you personally ?

  by Finkelstein in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  to myself it means to seek knowledge and understanding of are selves and the world in which we live.. unfortunately history has shown whenever one tries to connect to god and of his knowledge through men who say they themselves are connected to god through spiritual wifi ie.

  gb members of the jehovah's witnesses for example, one usually ends up finding a accumulation of only man's acquired knowledge.

  over thousands of years of trying to connect to a god(s) for help and answers, mankind has eventually relinquished himself to seeking answers through scientific investigative acquired knowledge of the world in which we live in.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  "God" is a mythical fiction of man's invention, who can be described in various ways depending on the myth system of the person describing said God.
• 
  12

  Did you go to your ASSIGNED congregation?

  by Zoos in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the rule was (is) that you go to your assigned congregation.. growing up, i think our family was in our assigned congregation only one of three times.

  the family made two major moves when i was a kid and each time my folks would visit the various congregations in the area and pick the one with the most kids.

  given our association restrictions with the world, they wanted to make sure we had plenty of friends.. i have to give them credit where due.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  I moved into a large city and went to the local Kingdom Hall on Sunday after figuring out the meeting time for the one congregation out of the three,that I should be assigned to.

  I was asked by a sister, "Are you still trying to decide which congregation you are going to attend?"

  Apparently, that was the norm.

  My answer was "Nope. I live in this territory. Even if I don't like you guys, I am coming here."

  I was kidding. Anyone would know I was kidding. It became a major issue with the C.O. that I didn't like these people, and I had to remember this virtual non-incident and explain myself.

  I did wind up moving to another congregation's territory a few years later, but they met at that same hall and I was told not to bother changing congregations.
• 
  22

  Is the reasoning book no longer in use ?

  by opusdei1972 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i would like to know if witnesses are still using the reasoning book in the field service.

  i am asking about it, because i had read that it is currently out of print, doesn't it??

  .

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  They really only need a single sheet of paper with instructions on reasoning, overcoming objections, etc.

  "Stand by the cart. Do not initiate any conversations. When asked anything, say there's an answer at jw . org."
• 
  121

  Hey ya'll! My first post. Please help. In need of advice/comfort.

  by Stepford Wife in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey ya'll!

  i have been lurking for years on this site and others but never had the courage to post anything.

  actually i was afraid of posting on an apostate site in the event i was wrong.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  ...and a real "spiritual head of the family" would resign as an elder if his family wasn't "spiritually strong."

  That is just my opinion. I never needed the title, and actually offered to resign/be removed when my JW wife went to college and missed some meetings. But that was back in the interim when college wasn't so bad.

  They really might remove him, they can say that he is not "making" you do the right thing. So if he really isn't putting undo pressure on you and not reporting all to the elder body, give him some slack.

  I would probably tell him, "Is your eldership so precious to them that they think you should drag me to the hall?" "Will you be okay if they take that away?" "Why not (if there's a neg. response)?"
• 
  121

  Hey ya'll! My first post. Please help. In need of advice/comfort.

  by Stepford Wife in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey ya'll!

  i have been lurking for years on this site and others but never had the courage to post anything.

  actually i was afraid of posting on an apostate site in the event i was wrong.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  I am going to answer a bit different than most.

  You want to avoid being DF'ed and you want to help your daughter to be free of meetings and the pressure to advance in that den of lies.

  I don't have children, and I was the fading husband. Quite a bit different. But if I had a child, I would do everything in my power to get him/her outta there, including being DF'ed.

  Here's my thoughts: They can't DF you unless they have a charge against you. But these guys are slick and want to come up with a charge. So meeting with them might cause you to say something that they twist and agree with each other is good enough to DF you. It's rare, but can happen.
  
  If I were in your position, I would say you stumbled upon the ARC on youtube and it was Geoffrey Jackson talking, so you didn't see how watching that could be wrong, you thought it would probably strengthen you to see how he answered worldly courts. I would tell the husband that the ARC extremely disturbed you, and that current policy offers no real protection to your daughter from creeps in the congregation/organization that they wouldn't tell you about. I would say that it's clear that your daughter doesn't want to go to the hall (no matter her reasons, they can't DF you for what she says/thinks- prep her for their drills, let her know not to say that Mom said anything). And the only way you saw to eventually safeguard your child is to stop going to meetings and hopefully, allow your daughter to miss meetings. (Even if hubby is dragging her there, your reasoning doesn't have to be totally sound- just needs to contain enough truth to sell it.)

  Beyond that, tell him what the elders want to hear- Governing Body is good, has the truth. "But I am still not ready to go back to the hall, and if my daughter doesn't want to go, I feel much safer for her. You are my husband and I have told you what I need to say. I see no reason to repeat it to two other elders. I hope you respect me and will tell them that I am fine and don't wish to meet with them." (He probably will feel much pressure to tell them your thoughts.)

  See how your husband deals with that- if he is removed or not, what he says to them and to you. Don't decide whether to leave him or not until you get a good idea how that's going to work out. If you don't get your daughter out of meetings with you, then consider leaving him.

  Anyway, that's probably what I would do.
• 
  41

  Does Believing in God Make You Dumb?

  by Brokeback Watchtower in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzqaeusdmtk.

  http://jdc.jefferson.edu/jmbcimfp/5/.

  abstract.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  If the entire world around you insists that Santa Claus is real, you are not dumb for believing it. If you grow to be a teen and then a young adult and the whole world keeps proclaiming Santa Claus is real and you never saw your parents putting gifts under the tree, you are still not dumb for believing it.

  I don't think belief is mostly intelligence-driven. It is highly emotional and includes much from our evolution, especially the desire to explain things that we haven't understood, so we say "God did it." Our evolution also gives us the desire to belong to the group and the fear to stand out against what the group says and does.

  Once a person breaks from the emotional part, intelligence can come in. A person who stops believing in Santa Claus because he gets old enough to figure out that poor children get worse presents than rich children can also figure out that the miracles of his belief system stories are just as ridiculous as the miracles from the belief system stories that he scoffs at.
• 
  38

  Honestly, Did Jehovah's Witnesses Do Anything POSITIVE For You?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was raised as a witness and am very thankful that i am out.

  having said that, i think my upbringing produced positive qualities in me.

  do you believe that anything positive came from your being a witness?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  I am not a fan of this type of question.

  If my father divorced many times, and I determined not to be like my father, does my one successful marriage give all the "credit" to my father? Or can't I say I did that despite my father?

  I could state other examples, but my point is that the credit goes to the one who accomplishes something despite the JW upbringing. Minimus gets the credit for his good qualities, not the Watchtower.
• 
  26

  Charles Darwin was not an Atheist

  by LAWHFol in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  personally i have the same viewpoint of darwin, when he said : " the safest conclusion seems to me to be that the whole subject is beyond the scope of man's intellect".

  i'm not trying to convince anyone about the existence or non existence of god.. rather, i encourage everyone to keep seeking.

  keep searching for the truth that makes the most sense to them.. darwin is the grand father of evolution, and his findings and life work, did not make of him an atheist.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  

  We could also say that facts don't care what you believe. And "you" can include people like Darwin, who had less facts and data available to him at the time.
• 
  133

  What are the biggest holes in evolution?

  by shadow in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  how honest are the proponents of evolution?

  idk but curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Oh, it's every living thing ON THIS PLANET. It could have happened independently elsewhere in the big wide universe.
• 
  133

  What are the biggest holes in evolution?

  by shadow in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  how honest are the proponents of evolution?

  idk but curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Every living thing evolved from a common ancestor over millions of years.

  That's plenty enough to fill holes. When evolution was theorized, they didn't even know about DNA. The "hole" may be where people who want evolution to be wrong cling to old details of the theory. They break out ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES or refer to books/videos/articles that are old.

  We are in the infancy of understanding many aspects of our world and our universe. If we keep questioning and accept the facts such as Cofty's assertion above, regardless of what preconceptions we have to discard, we will fill the holes.