Posts by OnTheWayOut

91

My brother died last night

by LisaRose in

jw
friends

i found out this morning that my brother died last night, he was also an ex jw, 73 years old and died of heart disease and kidney failure.

it was not totally unexpected, as he had been in poor health, but it's a blow, especially as i just lost another brother two years ago.

there were six of us, now only four.

OnTheWayOut

So sorry to read your sad news. I lost my sister in December and the comfort from the folks at this forum helped me.

150

I'm getting baptized

by BlackWolf in

jw
friends

i know i've started similar topics before but this time i'm serious.

my parents have been constantly pressuring me and after yesterday's watchtower study they asked me if i was going to be baptized this summer... and i said yes.

i probably should have thought about it more before making a final decision, but they're pretty much forcing me to do it anyway.

OnTheWayOut

All this talk sickened me and I realized I can't go in like this, I have to be free and I can't be baptized!

YAY!!!!

It is hard to realize in a specific circumstance that strangers on the internet actually can help when it comes to this cult.

46

45 Minute Bethel Video about Changes (downsizing) at Watchtower

by OnTheWayOut in

i don't see this posted elsewhere, and i don't have the links besides this facebook one.. but here is a 45-minute long bethel talk about the changes at bethel including addressing the hard feelings of people who were given the axe.

basically, everything must change.

we gave remaining bethelites saturday off to do our bidding in "the field" and we give bethelites over 70 an extra day a week off (if you can find any such bethelites).

OnTheWayOut

I don't see this posted elsewhere, and I don't have the links besides this Facebook one.

IT APPEARS YOU MUST BE LOGGED IN TO FACEBOOK TO SEE THIS.

===========================================================
Edited after the fact to add- wifibandit offers another link, so I place it here:
http://tv.jw.org/#en/video/VODProgramsEvents/pub-jwbrd_201605_5_VIDEO

===========================================================
But here is a 45-minute long Bethel talk about the changes at Bethel including addressing the hard feelings of people who were given the axe.

Basically, everything must change. We gave remaining Bethelites Saturday off to do our bidding in "the field" and we give Bethelites over 70 an extra day a week off (if you can find any such Bethelites). So the rest of you should shut up and go home with our well wishes.

If anyone has posted this or can provide a better link, feel free to point it out.

https://www.facebook.com/libertarian.freedom.3/videos/811638678969102/

32

Suffering and existence of God

by elbib in

many people find it difficult to reconcile suffering and existence of god.

it seems they feel that it is god’s obligation to shield humans from ill-effects of their short-sighted acts..

people’s hobby has something to do with this kind of reasoning!

OnTheWayOut

Elbib: Even now we kill innocent species for our pleasure which only last for a second or two. When we ourselves support the concept of killing innocent living beings, is it proper to ask: Why doesn’t God put an end the death of children? Let us do what is within our power first, then question God.

I like the ridiculous fairy tale at the beginning of your comment (that I didn't bother to include in my quote). We started out as primitives and have advanced a little. We developed that nasty trait of killing for something other than food or protection.

As to the part I did quote, I can only say that your statements lead to the conclusion that God is no better than mankind. Many of us kill for sport or for selfish reasons, so we can't question God about it. Since God is an invention of man, I will agree.

But this is a nice try. Us humans did it first, the animals copied us. God lets us wallow in our choices. If only there weren't mountains of evidence against such a primitive belief. Just as some people have outgrown killing for sport, some have also outgrown your primitive belief position.

150

I'm getting baptized

by BlackWolf in

jw
friends

i know i've started similar topics before but this time i'm serious.

my parents have been constantly pressuring me and after yesterday's watchtower study they asked me if i was going to be baptized this summer... and i said yes.

i probably should have thought about it more before making a final decision, but they're pretty much forcing me to do it anyway.

OnTheWayOut

I want to say, It's not too late. There are ways out of this. You can "fail" the baptismal questions, but you would have to do pretty bad with your father being an elder. You could just stand up and say "I changed my mind." There are many ways to do that.

But it sounds like you are informing us and not asking for our thoughts. Maybe you should tell your long story about last year. Many will read it.

I think you stand a better chance with your JW parents as a never-baptized adult than as a faded JW. You will be able to get a complete set of friends when you get out into "the world." As a never-baptized adult, you wouldn't have to watch your back so much concerning who you date or marry, whether you participate in politics even as little as voting, sharing holidays and birthdays.

But you sound like your mind is made up. I can say that I am a faded JW and I get by. I don't tell my JW loved ones everything I do.

32

Suffering and existence of God

by elbib in

many people find it difficult to reconcile suffering and existence of god.

it seems they feel that it is god’s obligation to shield humans from ill-effects of their short-sighted acts..

people’s hobby has something to do with this kind of reasoning!

OnTheWayOut

It seems they feel that it is God’s obligation to shield humans from ill-effects of their short-sighted acts.

On the subject of natural disaster:

Not to start a flame that leads to a forest fire, but I have heard people say that it is the parents' short-sightedness that causes them to continue living in a tsunami-prone or earthquake-prone area, so why would God do anything to save their children?

To this type of thinking, I say that every place on earth is subject to some kind of disaster. And not all people can simply pick up and move away from "the coast" or the "the open plains" or "the mountain area." If people die in a blizzard, flood, tornado, tsunami, earthquake, mudslide, avalanche, lightning storm, yadda yadda, there can be pause to wonder what God had to do with it. Firm believers are confident that God had absolutely nothing to do with it, and that's fine. But when perhaps greater than 100,000 children are swept away in a tsunami, the simple question arises: If I had the power to prevent that, wouldn't I?

Should I just say that humans have short-sight by daring to live where it is possible for such tragedy to happen? Where should they live?

I could ponder that same inaction by God concerning children born with birth defects that cause great suffering. How dare those parents have children.

28

I cringe when I think about the talks I gave.

by James Mixon in

you brothers who gave talks do you thinks about the crap you spoke from the platform.. thirty years old, no knowledge what so ever of the world we live in, barely making the grade.

to graduate from high school, a year and half in jc college and now with schooling of jw higher.

education i thought i was a hell of a speaker.

OnTheWayOut

I must say I am right at home with this thread.
I developed 45-minute talks following the outlines tightly, but having done research on the individual points found within the outline or (more commonly) the Watchtower references until I was convinced that this is such obvious logic. As I look back, I used logic flaws like a madman.

17

Don't Want To Be At The RC This Year...

by JW_Rogue in

the whole time i'll just be thinking about what effect all those crazy loyalty videos will have on my family.

i can venture to guess that they'll be wound up and determined to "stay loyal" because this "is the truth" and "this system can't last much longer".

i have to go because not doing so would raise too much suspicion but i'm really dreading it.

OnTheWayOut

Even though I wasn't awake at the time, I very much appreciated assignments like "attendant." You had a reason to get up at various times and you could milk that time into a longer time.

29

Where did Jehovah go ?

by Deleteandrestart in

for the many years i was mentally " in " the congregation, i equated the organisation as interchangeable with the persona of jehovah, in effect whatever the organisation said or thought, that was what jehovah thought and that was what jehovah said.... it was that simple.

so when i found out the ttatt and the cynical moves of the organisation over the years,including 1975 , the donation arrangements, the united nations, etc i was devastated and thought " where's jehovah in all of this?".

the god who i'd poured my heart out to on many occasions and who i thought was silently listening and hearing my pleas ..... was not there , .

OnTheWayOut

I was at this point over a decade ago:

If "the truth" was a lie, then all the beliefs that I had developed would need to be thrown away. It would mean that God didn't intervene in my life and give me a higher purpose. I wasn't serving Him by peddling WATCH TOWER magazines. I only saw two options: blame God for taking me at my most vulnerable moment and leading me into the Watch Tower organization, or remove God from the field and take blame for myself for being duped into the religion. I needed Him as my scapegoat.

But as time went on, I discovered so much more. Millions of people are duped. I don't need to wallow in self-blame. I made what seemed like an important life choice, a valid one at the time, and I was wrong because I was misled by a dangerous mind-control cult. My bitterness with God died and I remained bitter with the organization known as Watchtower. It does no good to self-blame. That's something that many abuse victims go through also, and it just isn't reality to self-blame.

I tend to agree with you that there is no Jehovah in all that, and my atheism is from a serious look at the evidence. But even without such solid evidence for a lack of God in things, I wouldn't serve God through religion now unless He personally proved himself to me.

I have taken years to find peace, to find a balance because i still have a wife in the JW's. It's a tough road, but there was never any possibility of turning back or remaining the the congregation as a silent nonbeliever.

14

Excuses for God

by xelder in

i am amazed at how people will go to extreme stretches of logic to explain or justify the supposed actions of their god (lower case g intentional, no upper case deserved).

i have seen people with wonderful bullshit detectors in normal life, throw all of that ability away in order to retain their hope of a creator who cares for them.

i am agnostic, certainly not atheistic, since i think atheism is not provable.

OnTheWayOut

Recently, Christendom theologians have come out with their "best" explanation of suffering—Suffering exists because ‘God too wants to experience suffering through the suffering of humans, or when we go through suffering, Jesus and His Father are completing their suffering through us.’

Is so, then "God" is the biggest psychopath ever.

I see that belief was created by primitive men to answer the big question, "Why?" We could have outgrown it by now, but men took advantage of belief and created religion. Religion was invented to make people feel guilty about things they did or said or thought, then sell them a way to appease that guilt.

I won't argue your agnosticism vs. my atheism. It's a matter of semantics. Atheism, to me, is the broadest sense of the word- the absence of belief in the existence of deities. In my case, I can say with confidence that none of the deities that man has created are real. To me, saying that such a position lacks "proof" is like saying there is a lack of proof that Santa Claus doesn't exist. We can follow the history of the creation of Santa Claus or "Jehovah" in one part of our brain, and then accept their existence in another part of our brain. This is the stuff of the novel, "1984."

I find most true agnostics are [agnostic atheists]. Wiki: "Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity and agnostic because they claim that the existence of a deity is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact." So, as a matter of semantics, people will drop either half of that title, drop a portion of that definition, or add their own specifics to the definition. I find that most who accept the title of "agnostic" or "atheist" both think they have thought it out beyond the people who cling to the "other" title.

I see that ideas about god have evolved to the idea that a god should be perfect, all-knowing, all-wise, and typically all-good. I definitely don't think that the writer of Genesis thought that. Most gods were created as just all-powerful and maybe all-knowing, but with character flaws. Even the god that Jews created was angry and jealous. But as man became more sophisticated in philosophy, his gods had to be elevated to fit his philosophies.