OnTheWayOut

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Posts by OnTheWayOut

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  20

  Is 1975 explicitly written in old publications ?

  by SlappySlap in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  i've been hearing about 1975 for decades but i've never found a publication where this date is explicitly written.. do somebody have references ?.

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  OnTheWayOut

  The articles are pretty explicit. They didn't say EXACTLY what people were led to believe, but they were definitely enough to lead people there, then they finished it off with public speeches about the part that wasn't spelled out 100%.
  
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  24

  Last Memorial Experiences

  by NoviceLocs14 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i'll share mine first.... i had never missed a memorial for at least a quarter of a century of my life.

  i was kind of raised to believe that missing the memorial was a sin in itself.. by 2013 memorial season, i was missing most of my meetings (even though i was still technically part of my foreign language congregation), and i had just come off the pioneer list.

  i still made plans to attend the memorial (god forbid if i missed that lol).. i knew that typically our memorials were around 9 pm, since we usually got last priority (being a foreign language hall and all).

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  OnTheWayOut

  In 2006, I had pretty much faded from my local congregation. My wife and I went on a Spring vacation to Las Vegas during the Memorial. After the session, she started making plans to hang out, do field circus, and attend a regular meeting with some other JW's. That pissed me off as I didn't intend to spend my Vegas vacation doing JW stuff. So I told my wife I was done- done attending ANY meetings.
  
  I did not go back at all, but one year later we were on another vacation, this time staying with a JW friend in her family's home on a tropical island. This JW friend was close and relatively unconcerned about my inactive status. But she said her family didn't realize I was totally inactive. We were scheduled to leave the island the day after the Memorial.
  
  I had not rented a car and the friend drove her father's car. Her parents were deeply concerned that I was not even attending the Memorial. They said they shouldn't go so far as to kick me out of their home, but didn't want to aid me to get to the airport the next day (despite the fact that my JW wife would need that ride). The home was a good 20 minutes drive past where cabs would even take you on the island. Well, I was about to grab my suitcase and start walking to get a hotel for my last night, but my wife defended my right not to attend. That was all I needed- my wife's support. So I said I would just go to the Memorial and the friend said she could smooth it over with her parents.

  I was wearing my best Hawaiian shirt, khakis, and clean hiking shoes. My wife tried to get me to wear a different shirt and a tie. I said no way. Funny, I wasn't the only "tourist" dressed that way. The talk was from a Spanish "branch brother" from Puerto Rico. Maybe his Spanish Memorial talk for the other congregation was spectacular, but his English talk totally sucked. Nobody, absolutely nobody, would say "Great talk" to him or to each other.
  
  I got my ride. Since then, I went to one funeral talk at a Kingdom Hall just last year for my father-in-law.
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  34

  2017 Sunday RC Final Talk & Comments About 1975

  by baldeagle in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  many of us here have commented on the deceitful friday afternoon video shown at the 2017 rc that discussed 1975.. the video attempted to shift the blame onto congregation members for the fiasco saying, "some were looking to a certain date as signifying the end of this old system of things.".

  this same video mentions how, “a few even went so far as selling their homes and quitting their jobs.”.

  we all know that the wt leadership created this teaching and endorsed it right up to its abject failure.. now below is the concluding talk given on sunday at the rc.

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  OnTheWayOut

  A bunch of copy-and-paste kiss-asses managed to get into the governing body and have no good ideas. The lawyers and accountants run the shots and then the kiss-asses discover video. They relish the idea of the good old days where Russell, Rutherford, and Fred Franz were the hot shit. These guys will tweak whatever doctrines the lawyers and accountants don't stop them from tweaking.

  And they have no clue why recruiting is not working at all. So they get another idea- talk about the mistakes of the past. They probably were turning to "apostate" web pages to see what "we" were saying and decided to start pumping out replies. But their replies are the same-old-story, that it's members' faults. They hope that there's enough younger blood or cognitive dissonance among members listening to say "Yeah, those members back then. It's their fault. Not mine."
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  56

  Would You Outlaw Jehovah's Witnesses If You Had Your Way?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i still believe in freedom of religion even if i disagree with the beliefsof the religion.

  what about you?.

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  OnTheWayOut

  I have mixed feelings on bans and outlawing religions. Generally, I support Russia's decisions on banning JW's or any country that bans cults that suppress independent thinking. But the line is difficult to draw.

  At the same time, it feeds their persecution complex at the same time.

  Better to just tax all religions as the businesses they are. That might keep upstart cults from forming.
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  9

  Foreign Language Field and Fading

  by NoviceLocs14 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  hey guys.

  first of all, i want to thank everyone for being so welcoming and helpful on this forum.... i was thinking about my last 3 years as a jw when i was attending the portuguese congregation and learning that language to bring in more converts.

  interestingly, we were told not to attend meetings in our native language in order to immerse ourselves in the new language.

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  OnTheWayOut

  Hey, the same thing happened to me. I was focusing on the learning of the language and I didn't keep getting the cult "language" down my throat.
  
  Thanks for sharing such a story.
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  16

  Creation account is the creation of Moses

  by venus in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the word `intelligence' [from inter, “between” + legere, “ to read”] would mean ‘discern things as though reading in between the lines.

  now read in between the lines of what moses wrote; his favored and frequent statement is this: ‘obedience to god means blessings, and disobedience means maledictions.’ (deut 28:1-68; 30:15-18) let us try to discern his motive behind this statement.. .

  when moses wanted to present 10 commandments and other laws, he naturally wanted to prepare the israelites with a mind-set that ‘we must obey god, otherwise it is problem for us.’ the best way for this was to modify a well-known story of fall from other cultures.

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  OnTheWayOut

  I hope one day that people all realize that the Jews were not slaves in Egypt and there was no exodus with or without the 40 years wandering on a trip that should have taken just days.

  Whoever finally wrote the creation account also wrote the Moses account, both from stories used to sway the people into believing they are a special people.
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  33

  My parents found out

  by BlackWolf in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so in my last post i talked about how i had told my younger siblings how i didn't plan to get baptized or ever be a witness.

  i thought i could trust them but i guess i was wrong, they're just kids after all.

  my oldest brother (who's 11) told on me today.

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  OnTheWayOut

  I'm going to guess that "faking" is your term, that they just said to do the JW stuff and maybe be quiet about your thoughts.

  Do whatever it takes to get your education and have a normal life. Keep us posted.
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  45

  What did NOT get you out?

  by problemaddict 2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i realize this is odd, but a "how you woke up" thread and the personal stories that are told which i know we all enjoy, made me think of this.

  in helping my wife and a couple others get the ball rolling, i realized the thing that resonated with me, didn't even move the needle with them.

  i wanted to rail on and on about blood, because that was my conduit to waking up, but for my wife it was about shunning.

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  OnTheWayOut

  Allowing of blood fractions did not get me out. Their baffling bullshit was enough to get me to think that medical advances had come far enough that we were able to get the thing we needed without violating God's laws.
  
  Birthdays and holidays did not get me out.
  
  The "deficit at this point" announced at the Circuit Assemblies, despite my just having been to the business meeting with the elders and knowing our funds were okay, did not get me out.

  Shoddy overpriced quick-build Kingdom Halls did not get me out.

  I saw all that clearer later, but I saw it while I was in, and it didn't really get to me.
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  25

  I Give Up!

  by pale.emperor in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  im giving up guys.

  i've reached the end of my patience and now i finally refuse to waste any more time on part-time witnesses.

  i've text all of my active jw family members and told them to delete my number from their phone and never contact me again.

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  OnTheWayOut

  So sorry to hear of your family woes. Yeah, I did try a little bit at one time to help family, but had to back off and find neutral ground in order to maintain relations. Short of that, I might have just cut them all off same as you. Good luck with that.
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  12

  How did you overcome feelings of lost time in the Org?

  by Skepsis in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm a very positive person who always try to focus on the good side of things.. however, my fading is becoming increasingly painful and i'm starting being shunned by some i thought were friends.

  i'm missing some meetings so the rumour is spreading to neighbouring congregations where i'm known that i'm not as spiritual as i used to be.

  elders want to have a shepherding meeting with me.

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  OnTheWayOut

  I can't speak on the job issue for you. I had a decent job that I love and still have that.
  I faded for the sake of my mother and my in-law family. Well, that part went okay.
  
  On the friend issue, similarly people I thought would want to at least stay in contact were ready to drop me. So I dealt with that by fading faster. I don't need fake friends or cold shoulders. Better to be alone.

  And I slowly built up friendships with other ex-JW's by meeting them.