Posts by OnTheWayOut

16

They're spying me on facebook

by cookiemaster in

most of you have probably seen the apostasy trial video posted on youtube (and all over social media) recently.

well, there's a "wordly" woman from another country that i had worked with some time ago and she's posted it, tagged me, and asked "wtf?

", knowing i'm a still a jw just for family reasons.

Facebook is a dangerous place. I have absolutely no JW friends. Some have asked, none get chosen. I have many ex-JW friends, but in order to be my friend when I don't personally know you, I have to see that you have some radical ex-JW's already as friends.

Still, there's the backdoor- friends of friends can see something you have commented on sometimes.

I found another backdoor that turned out to be a problem for me. I commented about my wife wanting to go to a JW meeting while we were out of town at my non-JW brother's wedding. Since my wife doesn't read FB and nobody who is close friends of hers reads MY stuff on there, it should have been okay. It wasn't even a regular status update. BUT IT WASN'T OKAY. My non-JW sister follows me and "Liked" my comment and she has this strange habit of saving things she likes on FB on her smartphone as photos. She had literally over 1200 photos on her phone and my comment was one of them. At the wedding reception, she showed a new photo to my wife and walked away for a moment. My wife flipped through hundreds of these photos and stopped at my comment and read it. She was mad about what I said about JW's and her wanting to go to a cult meeting. I couldn't even try explain how this wasn't meant for family but was commented to a hugely anonymous group of former JW's. That just wouldn't help matters.

Anyway, I still post generically against the JW's on FB, but never anything really specific at all. Facebook is just a ticking time bomb for anyone that can't be 100% open all of the time. Watch your back there.

31

Be honest with me "how soon is soon?"

by Sour Grapes in

the witchtower is being more careful now about putting a date.

out there for the beginning of the great tribulation.

they have learned their lesson from 1975. however they sure.

OnTheWayOut

First of all, Watchtower's learning a lesson from 1975 didn't really sink in until the "1914 generation" expired fully in 1995 and they changed the meaning of "generation." Then they learned the lesson more fully when they saw they needed some more imminence put back into the doctrine.

Meetings and prayers where "soon" is mentioned are generally controlled by individual members and not in Watchtower documents anymore. I did notice that they floated the idea of running with Noah's 120-years limit on mankind in a study article before I faded away years ago, but nothing was mentioned in such a way as to directly indicate they were running a new date of 2034. Still, it seemed they were testing the idea and seeing what kind of feedback they might get. I have "heard" that they still do that sometimes- tease or test a thought without directly saying it, to see if they might could say it or if the members have some negative feedback.

I am going to try the "soon we will vacation in Europe" thing with my wife and see how that flies. I really prefer to go in about 14 to 16 years. That's soon enough.

5

$64,000 Questions for "Obedient" Witnesses

by The Searcher in

"if you heard a judge tell a jury not to listen to a single word the accused had to say, what would your reaction be?

" .

"why are you forbidden by the org from hearing a dis-fellowshipped person's side of things?

OnTheWayOut

I am not going to post a bunch of links because it's boring stuff, but experiments show that a jury will not actually disregard testimony because of instructions from the judge. If it was illegally obtained, the information is pertinent to the jury anyway. If it is declared "unreliable," however, a jury will weigh it even more carefully than usual.

So the goal of a lawyer opposed to testimony is to keep it from being heard. Watchtower does this also. And members cooperate because they are not like jurors, but more like mindless followers of this rule. If Watchtower says they should shun, they will shun. Luckily, more and more are waking up, if only on rules like this, and not shunning like they are supposed to. Still, let the DF/DA'ed person start bashing Watchtower instead of just talking family matters and sports, the mindless follower programming will kick in.

I suppose beating this courtroom analogy to death will allow for us to recognize that JW's are not like jurors at all. They are "Witnesses" for Jehovah, meaning they are on the side of Watchtower automatically. So if their lawyer says they are to testify contrary to some other testimony and they are better off not hearing that contrary testimony, they automatically agree.

17

How to be happy flopping whoppers part time while pioneering!

by life is to short in

i was just thinking the other day why is there not service meeting part like my title says.

i mean that would really be helpful to those who totally believe the no collage thing.

since they do not want anyone to have any education why don't they at the very least try to help them to be happy living a life of poverty with service meetings parts, since everyone would be in poverty if they really listened to the fds.. like a part on how not to be upset when anther brother buys a new car parks it two blocks from the hall so as not to get door dings in it and rides all day in your car and does not give you a dime for gas.

OnTheWayOut

I don't think Blondie misunderstood. She was pointing out the double meaning that could be used to make this title ironic.

I think there was a time when they wanted "poor" members to feel happy in their low wages by pioneering and giving a small amount of profit from their literature to the organization. But nowadays, they are just unable to say that donations from members outweighs any profits from literature, so they really want upper middle-class members who feel guilty that they are not pioneering and make up for the guilt with money donations.

If not for that guilt, you wouldn't hear anything about pioneering these days. Let's face it. An elderly pioneer sister, they probably break even on the literature she places and the donations she gets and passes on. Hell, they might even lose a buck or two a month from her. But Joe Lowhours and his family, what with his full-time work and the kids and their illnesses and schoolwork causing them to miss a meeting every month, and Mrs. Lowhours causing them to miss a few more with her Chronic Fatigue, but they turn in 3 or 4 hours a month between them and never fail to drop a hundred in the box each month. That's their ideal members.

56

Question for atheists and nonbelievers

by pressman in

i profess to teach the truth to you all and get you to all to think and believe.

believing in christ through his words and not through evil religious cults, like hoj and jw, can and will save you.

do you all realize that every time you are victorious and receive something of value through your hard work and sweat, it was our holy god who blessed you.

OnTheWayOut

Keep your false truth. If God or Jesus always gets the credit for the good, then they must take responsibility for much of the bad. I sincerely opened my heart and soul to them and they allowed that to lead to Jehovahs Witnesses.

Science and archeology offer far more tangible evidence than the Bible. Blind minds insist on the other way around. And if your god of the Bible did exist, he is not worthy of actual worship what with all the problems he has heaped upon mankind because he made a woman deliberately ignorant and she failed his test that wasn't fair. Put candy on a table and tell a 3-year old she will die if she touches it while you are out of the room. She will say "Okay" and then eat it, and her parent would forgive her. Not your god, though.

13

Having my stitches out....

by Louise in

jw
friends

and i'm a little scared.. yes they are ready to come out.

my thumb pad is tingly and burning.

the skin around the stitches is numb.. with the injury being so bad, it is going to take at least a year for my thumb to be 90% recovered.

OnTheWayOut

Typically, the removal of stitches is nothing at all to worry about. Even still in pain, they should not effect your pain level.

75

Having Faith in the Bible

by william draper in

i know many on here have lost faith in the bible , is it possible that is because ones do not have the right perspective regarding it .

we have usually been taught by bad teachers , or ignorant .

i believe if we take an honest look at the bible , we will see that it gives us the best answers to crucial matters , it gives us some amount of bearings ( understanding ) , which without having such knowledge we would all be more like walking zombies in amanner of speaking , we would be lacking hope in something better , for surely something better is to come , how can we be sure , .

OnTheWayOut

YOU ARE NOT GOING TO QUESTION THE HAND OF GOD? How nice of you. The biggest point about questioning is allowing it to first see that such a God that allows these things is not worthy of worship and second to see that such a monster probably does not exist. It is the anecdotal evidence to combat personal revelations.

Whether God allows children born to parents worshipping the wrong deity to be killed for that or just put into a forced marriage to the very men who killed their parents (in the case of vigin girls) is disgusting either way.

36

How do stop myself getting too Bitter?

by stuckinarut2 in

jw
friends

you know, i always maintained that during this fading process, and while learning ttatt, i would not let myself get "bitter twisted and angry".... but, in all honesty, if i examine myself, i have become quite bitter toward the org, toward the false friends and the gb.. i have become angry as i see the extent of damage i feel being raised in "the truth" has done.... i feel hurt towards the lost opportunities in life etc.... how do i not allow myself to get too swallowed up by such bitterness?.

i have always been a very happy, positive, selfless person.

i can put people at ease, i am someone people feel comfortable chatting to.

OnTheWayOut

I had to go to counseling to realize why I embraced the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses and why I probably would have been dead had I not done so. I had to read quite a bit of Zen and Tao philosophy to let it go. Still, I sound bitter in many discussions about Watchtower.

I guess I am not the person to give you advice. I try to focus my bitterness toward the organization and accept that even a-hole circuit overseers are just victims like me, and I try to recognize the good in any members I know or knew. When my best friend abandoned me, I try to remember what a great guy he is and how he is just trying to be faithful to God in his ignorance. (Does that sound bitter? Sorry.)

75

Having Faith in the Bible

by william draper in

i know many on here have lost faith in the bible , is it possible that is because ones do not have the right perspective regarding it .

we have usually been taught by bad teachers , or ignorant .

i believe if we take an honest look at the bible , we will see that it gives us the best answers to crucial matters , it gives us some amount of bearings ( understanding ) , which without having such knowledge we would all be more like walking zombies in amanner of speaking , we would be lacking hope in something better , for surely something better is to come , how can we be sure , .

OnTheWayOut

Many spoke of the earth being flat , or supportedby Elephants , but in the scriptures we find what science also revealed years later , now of course a wise man could reason that the earth was round , but to say that it hung upon nothing , where else does one find such wisdom , God revealed it to certain ones to have such understanding . Many other wise men had no grasp of such knowledge .

I will just comment on this single example of re-inventing what the Bible says to sound more palatable to modern man who has a better understanding. The roundness of the earth described in the Bible was more in line with a flat coin with round edges. If God wanted to avoid so much trouble in the dark ages and wanted to help Man understand the universe, He could have seen to it that the Bible described the earth as a ball that goes around the sun (not the center of the universe) and that stars are not little tiny lights that orbit the earth but are other "suns" bigger than the earth, just far away.

You seem to do this with other points, just as the JW's do- try to say what the Bible doesn't say and re-invent what it meant to indicate that it was different from current beliefs. It was not radically different and left out so much.

75

Having Faith in the Bible

by william draper in

i know many on here have lost faith in the bible , is it possible that is because ones do not have the right perspective regarding it .

we have usually been taught by bad teachers , or ignorant .

i believe if we take an honest look at the bible , we will see that it gives us the best answers to crucial matters , it gives us some amount of bearings ( understanding ) , which without having such knowledge we would all be more like walking zombies in amanner of speaking , we would be lacking hope in something better , for surely something better is to come , how can we be sure , .

OnTheWayOut

Some, like myself, have not "lost faith in the Bible," but have grown beyond faith in the Bible.

I think that belief that the Bible "gives us the best answers to crucial matters" is ignoring it's answers as far as women, slavery, exclusionism, etc.
If a man rapes a woman, pay 50 sheckels to her father and marry her.
The husband is to rule over his wife. Man was not created for woman but woman for man.
A man who refuses to impregnate his widowed sister-in-law is put to death.

I could go on and on.
If we followed the letter of the Bible, then we really would be closer to your "walking zombies in a manner of speaking."
You could sell your daughter into permanent slavery to pay a debt.
You could beat your slave severely, as long as he doesn't die that very day, but the next day is okay.
If you can't find a wife, you could take the virgin daughter of your enemy in battle that you just killed and shave her head and imprison her for life, but call her your wife.

Is there any other book that gives us a better understanding of where we came from , and what may be / is to be our future .

I won't bother with that except to say that man is much older than 6 or 7 thousand years old and that real progress with our future comes from excepting real science about how it all started. Otherwise, we could remain ignorant and not bother to understand our universe because "God" will tell us what we need. So don't bother to cure disease or invent better products for mankind.