Posts by OnTheWayOut

8

FREE AGENTS without responsibility

by Terry in

i was 11 years old and i was sitting at my desk in homeroom class when the student on my left, gregory, tapped me on my shoulder.. he held a folded note in his hand and was gesturing for me to take it.

he leaned toward my desk and whispered barely loud enough for me to hear,“pass this note to robbie.” robbie was the girl sitting on my right.. i took the note, unfolded it and read it just as gregory punched my arm.

a shout-whisper came along with the fist, “don’t read it, you moron!”i picked up my pencil and scribbled one word of my own and passed the note to robbie.. i had a crush on robbie and so did gregory bunn.

OnTheWayOut

You can really analyze the shit out of something.
You cock-blocked Greg. Simple as that.

63

Just because the JW'S are wrong doesnt mean theres no god.

by atomant in

l;ve been giving this some serious consideration lately.l dont have all the answers no one does.we are all entitled to our opinions.l certainly dont believe in evolution as lve researched that subject extensively.lt's important to believe in something even if its for mental health.l believe everything happens for a reason.l also believe if we all live as close to the 10 commandments as possible this world would be a far better place to live and no one can argue with that.

OnTheWayOut

l also believe if we all live as close to the 10 commandments as possible this world would be a far better place to live and no one can argue with that.

Many can argue with that.

Don't Kill, Don't Steal. Those are great. But those type of rules were not "invented" at the time they were supposedly written. They were widely accepted tens of thousands of years before that. The Code of Hammurabi predates the 10 C's by centuries and there is an existing copy from days gone by in stone. And other civilizations (China, India, Sumeria, Egypt) had law codes that had prohibitions against murder, theft, adultery, fraud.

So don't assume the 10 C's are good because many of it's tenants are good.

The first commandment, punishable by death or suffering for generations, to have no other gods- we have the start of an enforced belief system that could and did lead to things like the Spanish Inquisition and the dark ages. Today, another group has a similar commandment- The Taliban.

The second commandment about no graven images, that's pretty much unenforced in Christianity. Could you imagine it's enforcement today. You don't have to imagine. Muslims were enraged at drawings of Muhammad. In United States law, the second commandment is nowhere. I could not imagine the U.S. would be "a far better place to live" if the second commandment were enforced similarly to Muslims laws about "graven images."

The third commandment about taking the Lord's name in vain, this is just a restatement of the first commandment, enforced belief. This one is just more specific in that someone will define what "in vain" means and can put scientists and thinkers to death for daring to defy the church.

The fourth commandment about the Sabbath. Could you imagine a world where nobody does anything on Saturday (or Sunday)? There are little groups that try to enforce this one. Technically, driving your car to church on the Sabbath is a violation of the commandment, punishable by death.

Honoring your parents is a good idea, but if some priestly body were to define this, many many many teens would be stoned to death over the objections of their parents.

Here's the guts of the ten commandments that are okay:

Don't kill people.
Don't take what isn't yours.
Be fair.
Be good to your parents.

I could add things like
Don't be an idiot.
Be good to your children.
Don't own slaves.
Be a good neighbor by cleaning your property, shoveling snow, cutting your grass, helping the elderly.
Do the right thing.

5

Prophecy vs. Profits ...See

by Perry in

while we had our eyes fixated on our "one-time" idol the watchtower and their false prophecies like the generation of 1914 that wouldn't pass away, 1975 etc.

; a number of real prophecies were unfolding.

we just weren't taught to look for them.

OnTheWayOut

cofty, please try to understand that even Perry doesn't fully understand this: the real purpose behind his posts is that he actually wants people to convince him that his current belief system is wrong. So he just wants to be sure everyone gets a chance.

Perry, wouldn't it be better to address what people say on the other thread rather than just start a new one with nothing new. It's almost like you are "counting time" preaching to us and start again with the same message.

144

Got in a bad wreck.....uuugh

by brandnew in

jw
friends

just happy to be alive....can barely move ☺.. a girl who just got her license , and a new suv....thought it might be cool to pass the person in front of her....at a curve......on a two way road!!!!!😠😠😠.

very mad puppy.

OnTheWayOut

Back in the saddle, spring is here. Good that you are up and on the road.

21

Tell me what you think.

by Aroq in

ok, i'm willing, and thinking about going to the meetings, but there is a catch.

i'm not, nor ever be a jw.

i know too much about their beliefs.

OnTheWayOut

Don't go and tell your children that they can go with Mother or stay home with Father.

57

Confused: What does the overlapping generation really mean?

by MicaSmith in

can someone help me understand how the wt came up with the overlapping generation theory?

i just don't understand it even though i read the information several times.

it's bewildering.

OnTheWayOut

Great answers here. Now, my take- Watchtower has too many older members who clearly remember that they were heavily promised that the "generation" would not all entirely die until the end arrived.

Watchtower is a Doomsday Cult. Doomsday Cults need a time reference in order to recruit/retain. Watchtower has nearly given up on recruitment and focuses on retaining members. They tried abandoning the attachment of their "generation" to 1914 with their 1995 doctrine that the generation was "wicked people of the time of the end" without any real dates/chronology attached. It hurt retainment, so they went back to date-setting attached to 1914.

Eventually, the calendar will force them to abandon this entirely, but not just yet. All the current Governing Body members will be dead by the time that happens, so they just won't sweat or lose sleep over the problem down the road.

34

My boyfriend is thinking of becoming reinstated

by gypsyvine in

i'm not really sure where to post this.. i've been with my boyfriend for 4 months now and i've really never been happier.

i was brought up in the church of christ with an elder father and i really believe in my religion, although i will admit to being a lousy christian at times due to sheer laziness (not wanting to get out of bed on sunday).

my boyfriend essentially lives with me.

OnTheWayOut

Should I just get out now? He got DF'd about 2-4 months before we met I believe.
This is really hard because I've never been so in love, but I am open to the harsh truth.

I would love to read an update. This is not a simple cut-and-run answer.
Sure, that's about the best answer when the guy wants to become an active JW again. But in this case, it's highly possible that he won't become active. He seems straightforward that he wants the reinstatement just for family. He's brutally honest that he would "hide" gypsyvine until he is married to her, so he isn't saying something deceiving. And SHE LOVES HIM.

It sounds like he will do what he will do. It's been 2 months, so I am sure he's not reinstated yet, but is he still trying? If it were me, I would remind him of his promises and only be prepared to bail out if he becomes a regular JW after the reinstatement.

29

Diddling, adjusting, changing Doctrines? Why not leave it alone?

by Terry in

i have kept on asking myself why the jw's put targets on themselves by constant diddling with their own doctrines?

why not leave it alone?.

mainstream christianity has fixed teachings.

OnTheWayOut

They say (they being the ex-JW community) there are two things driving doctrinal changes: money and the calendar.

As far as money goes, there is a variant on that reason- SELLING LITERATURE.

In the heyday of Freddy Franz, selling Watchtower literature was reason enough to keep changing the doctrine. If you want to sell new books every year, they have to offer something new within them sometimes.

Otherwise, doctrine is changed to make it easier to fleece the members with new thoughts on OBEY OBEY OBEY and the rest is calendar driven- the doctrine expires until they change it or write some new theories on how it doesn't expire.

241

Another generation....

by joey jojo in

it has been 21 years since the 1995 article that pretty much buried the idea of the '1914 generation'.. remember those guys?

the ones born in 1914 that would still be alive when the end of the system arrived.. i'm glad i'm old enough to remember going from door to door, preaching this belief.

the reason i say that is because i have a lot of 'still in' jw friends and family.

OnTheWayOut

Nice opening post. WOW, even though so many were never supposed to graduate high school or grow old, they went on to become grandparents and now, even since their abandoning of the 1914 generation, babies have been born into this religion who have already had babies of their own.

28

PAINTING THEMSELVES INTO A CORNER or WHY was the "GENERATION" teaching started in the 1st place?

by Terry in

setting the scene.

pastor russell died in 1916. those who had 'followed' him were known pejoratively as russellites.

you could call it a 'cult of personality' if you wanted to sneer.

OnTheWayOut

Doomsday cults need a doomsday to gather followers.

Here's the real simple version of the complicated doctrine of when Jesus supposedly returned and the lastdays arrived/ended/started.

William Miller said that Jesus' Return would be in 1844. (See The Great Disappointment athttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment ) People who believed what he said were known as "Millerites." It (Jesus' return) didn't happen. This return of Jesus was also known as his second advent, and believers came to be known as Adventists.
Adventist Jonas Wendell suffered in his faith at the Great Disappointment, but later carried the same type of "Millerites" talk in a sermon where Wendell had picked the new date of 1873 or 1874 for Jesus' 2nd return (after studying Bible chronology and being wrong about 1868). 18 year old C. T. Russell heard Wendell in 1870 speak of such a date. Wendell had already published The Present Truth, or Meat in Due Season highlighting such dates. So Wendell invented those terms that would haunt the WT organization and morph into New Light and food at the proper time.

Wendell died in August of 1873, probably confident that his 1873 to 1874 date was correct. When Jesus didn't appear as expected, Russell still believed it (or at least wanted to keep selling pamplets that explained it). He taught that Jesus must have returned invisibly, meaning that Jesus was ruling from Heaven starting in 1874. He taught that 40 years later, a literal application of how long a "generation" was, in 1914, Jesus would take power on the earth. That would mean an end to the Gentile Times in 1914 and an end to the last days- destruction and death and stuff.

Because World War One (coincidentally) started in 1914, Russell used that as a sign that he was correct in his complicated doctrines. He was already good at reinventing understanding rather than admitting he was wrong.

All the rest is just calculated backwards- the stuff about 607 BCE and the 2520 years and the Seven Times.
All of it was just made to fit that understanding. When things didn't work out as planned (again) the people in charge just reinvented the understandings and adjusted the math to fit whatever they wanted it to fit to sell more pamphlets/magazines/books. The end of the last days became the beginning of the last days. 1874 was forgotten. They just kept changing the end-date. They even made terrible errors and just changed the math to fit- they forgot there was no "Year Zero" and changed 606 BCE to 607 BCE.
They kept 1914 because it was so well-known to the followers and they already said "See, we were right" when World War One started. Everything about Nebuchadnezzar and the destruction/building of the temple was just made to fit the math. You can find anything if you work backwards. It's like writing a Sherlock Holmes story. Just work backwards from what a great detective would expect to find and make him look like a genius in discovering those things.

It is so unnecessary to understand the ridiculous theories of WT's present understanding when you can see what it was based on and how it changed to suit their need to get a following and sell pamphlets/magazines/books. It saddens me that I bothered to understand it at one time.

JW's were "painted in a corner" when their 1914 generation was close to expiring for the 1970's, but rather than adjust then, they let their shelf life expiration inspire them to shout even louder. They built a whole new Watchtower Printing Corporation on the backs of 1975 believers. They wound up with more new recruits retained after the disappointment about 1975 than they would have had if they never had a 1975 campaign.

They tried leaving the "imminent end" open for awhile, but doomsday cults need a doomsday. They went to that ridiculous overlap generation because it serves their purposes better than their "ongoing generation of the wicked" doctrine from 1995.