"The first sister who had stood up claiming to be of the anointed said, "Why didn't you stand up with the Great Multitude group?" The second sister replied: "I don't know which group I am." The first sister told her: "If you don't know if you're of the anointed, then you're part of the Great Multitude." So, the second sister stopped partaking at the Memorial"
This explanation sounds vaguely familiar -- perhaps this was what happened with my grandmother.
All I know is -- if my grandmother wasn't "worthy" to go to heaven, then nobody is....
I keep trying to figure out how I, as a reasonably intelligent person, could have swallowed all the conflicting doctrines and timetables and general rubbish virtually whole and without question for so long. It boggles the mind to even think about.
Thanks cabasilis, NanaR
Posts by NanaR
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21How did Rutherford do it?
by NanaR inback at the time that rutherford revealed the "new light" regarding the great multitude as an earthly rather than heavenly class, how did he manage to convince people to stop partaking of the emblems?.
i have wondered about this for years.
my grandmother was born around the "turn" of the 19th century to the 20th century.
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NanaR
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Jehovah`s Witness Memory Loss.....BrainWashed or Selective Memory
by OUTLAW inhow many times have we meet jehovah`s witness`s that could`t remember what they preached years earlyer?..they will down right deny it,until you stick thier own literature under thier nose..some say it`s because of brainwashing,some say it`s selective memory....what causes memory loss in jehovah`s witness`s?.....outlaw
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NanaR
Outlaw,
It depends on how many years worth of "new light" you're trying to keep track of. I remember things that I learned early on, and I remember that they changed, but I sometimes have trouble remembering WHEN they changed. (Having the CD now to refer to is helpful on that).
If you read through literature in the months or even a year just prior to a major "new light" revelation, you will see that they progressively "soften up" the explanation of the "old light" to make the "new light" more acceptable when it comes.
Also, when they do a flip one way and then later flip back, it isn't too difficult to see how a person might "forget" the switch.
Is brainwashing involved? I believe the way the WTS chooses to present material is at best intellectually dishonest and at worst brainwashing. But I haven't come to a definite conclusion.
Individual witnesses for the most part are (I believe) just trying to keep up with "current truth". As someone who rode the merry-go-round for over 40 years, I can say it was a constant juggling act -- trying to remember what was "currently" TRUE. And then when you have people around you who haven't been around as long, you have nobody to confirm whether or not something you "remember" was actually the case or just your scrambled memory.
They believe it is their responsibility to leave the former understanding and embrace the current one. So while I don't actually believe they totally "forget" what they once taught, they have no incentive to actively remember it either.
Just my 2 cents,
NanaR
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How did Rutherford do it?
by NanaR inback at the time that rutherford revealed the "new light" regarding the great multitude as an earthly rather than heavenly class, how did he manage to convince people to stop partaking of the emblems?.
i have wondered about this for years.
my grandmother was born around the "turn" of the 19th century to the 20th century.
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NanaR
Then Rutherford created the cut-off point for those going to heaven, and that was 1935.
Anitar,
Thanks for your response. Yes, I know about the 1935 "revelation" -- but my grandmother was "of the annointed" long before that. She was baptized sometime before my mother was born in 1918. So by 1935, she would have been partaking for almost 20 years. That's a long time.
So I can't figure out how she came to the conclusion that she wasn't REALLY "of the anointed". And since she died back in the 1970s, I can't ask her.
I was hoping somebody here knew the reasoning that was brought to bear on folks at the time to convince them that they weren't really annointed.
NanaR
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21
How did Rutherford do it?
by NanaR inback at the time that rutherford revealed the "new light" regarding the great multitude as an earthly rather than heavenly class, how did he manage to convince people to stop partaking of the emblems?.
i have wondered about this for years.
my grandmother was born around the "turn" of the 19th century to the 20th century.
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NanaR
Back at the time that Rutherford revealed the "new light" regarding the Great Multitude as an earthly rather than heavenly class, how did he manage to convince people to STOP partaking of the emblems?
I have wondered about this for YEARS. My grandmother was born around the "turn" of the 19th century to the 20th century. She was a 3rd generation Bible Student. She, of course, believed herself to be of the annointed and partook of the emblems before the "new light". She was also the kindest, most compassionate, most "Christian" person I have ever known. I asked her once about why she stopped partaking, and all she said was, "I found out that I was not really of the annointed." That always bothered me...
So does anybody know just HOW the old Judge managed to convince people that they weren't going to heaven after all?
NanaR
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Regrets for becoming a JW
by sinis inwell, i have been thinking lately how f@cked the jw have left me, in a sense, though i was raised in the "truth".
first off, my grandfather was df'd when i was 12, will never forget as it was the first night i gave a talk on the school.
he was df'd for chewing tabacco.
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NanaR
sinis,
I don't feel as though I "became" a JW -- I never really had any choice. I was a "cradle JW" (borrowing an expression from the Catholic Church -- cradle Catholic -- which is what my husband was before he "became" a JW).
I am at the point in my life where looking back does not hold much interest. I excelled in school, I turned down multiple scholarship opportunities, I took a part-time job and pioneered. But then I met my husband -- at an international convention in Puerto Rico -- so the point could be made that had I not been born a JW and he not been "converted", we would have never met. As he is my best friend and the love of my life (we married in 1974 and are still happily married almost 33 years later), I certainly can't regret THAT part of my JW life.
I do wish that my eyes had been opened to the "truth about the troof" sooner, so that my children would have had more "normal" lives. None of my children were ever baptized, and it was a visit from 3 elders who interrogated my youngest daughter and pronounced her "not a publisher" that started my drift toward "the back door". But had I stopped going in service, etc., sooner, perhaps my oldest daughter would not been the confused and mixed up mess that she is now.
So I guess I do have regrets, but noone can change the past. Only the future is within our power to shape -- and I am doing that the best way I know how.
Best wishes,
NanaR
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Career Change???
by Junction-Guy inwell i worked for many years in low paying jobs-fast food,motels, delivering pizzas.
i started working in a law enforcement field nearly 8 years ago, and have been there ever since.
i always was interested in law enforcement and fire/rescue when i lived in kentucky, so i finally entered the corrections field in 1999. it's a decent paying job with benefits galore, i have lots of sick time built up along with lots of vacation time.
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NanaR
junction-guy,
I work at a community and technical college. One test we have students to take is this one:
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm
It helps them understand where their personality strengths lie. I am an "ENFP"
We also administer some career related tests, but the school "subscribes" to them and you have to have an access number. I see an online test, though, that claims to be "free" -- you just have to register. You might want to take a look:
http://a.free-career-test.com
If you are going to take the test, you will need about a half hour. Also you have to click "no thanks" about a million times on advertising. But at the end, it gave me a pretty accurate description of what I already know to be my strengths and weaknesses in personality and career preferences.
I agree with others who have posted that you might be best served by staying within the same retirement system. I was able to go from working in public K-12 school to working in a community college while staying in the same retirement system. I am making more money and enjoy my job in the college much more than the public school setting. So take a look AROUND YOU before looking AWAY FROM YOU.
Also, some employers will pay for at least part of your educational cost if you are looking to move "up" in your current job area.
Experts say it is always best to be looking for another job while you are still employed. It is a conundrum that employers prefer hiring someone who is currently employed over someone who is not. Go figure -- but my husband found that out the hard way when he left a job BEFORE finding another one. His "job search" took 2 1/2 years and nearly bankrupted us (didn't help our marriage either, but we have recovered from that thankfully.)
Best wishes on your journey!!
NanaR
(I'm posting from Firefox, so if this comes out weird, sorry about that :-( ) -
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Education Brochure?
by NanaR ini finally downloaded the 2005 wt cd (thanks to link posted by vanilla mocha on another thread) from http://www.watchtower.cc .
for a while now, i have been wanting to find a copy of a publication that was issued in the early 1990s regarding education.. this publication (a brochure, i think) had the same title as a 1992 watchtower article that i found on the cd-rom - education and jehovah's witnesses.
however, my memory is that the brochure was more direct in actually encouraging witnesses to prepare themselves educationally for gainful employment (while i am sure it still had the required admonition to full-time service and supporting oneself in that endeavor).. "party line" was that pioneers needed to be able to earn a "living wage".
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Education Brochure?
by NanaR ini finally downloaded the 2005 wt cd (thanks to link posted by vanilla mocha on another thread) from http://www.watchtower.cc .
for a while now, i have been wanting to find a copy of a publication that was issued in the early 1990s regarding education.. this publication (a brochure, i think) had the same title as a 1992 watchtower article that i found on the cd-rom - education and jehovah's witnesses.
however, my memory is that the brochure was more direct in actually encouraging witnesses to prepare themselves educationally for gainful employment (while i am sure it still had the required admonition to full-time service and supporting oneself in that endeavor).. "party line" was that pioneers needed to be able to earn a "living wage".
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NanaR
I don't know why the entire link won't go up, but I'll try again:
Maybe that did it...
NanaR
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133
What state are you from?
by Junction-Guy inthis is for the us crowd, what state do you live in?
or from?----i live in tennessee, but from ohio and kentucky.
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NanaR
I'm from northeastern Kentucky (very close to both Ohio and WV). Never wanted to live anywhere else.
NanaR
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Education Brochure?
by NanaR ini finally downloaded the 2005 wt cd (thanks to link posted by vanilla mocha on another thread) from http://www.watchtower.cc .
for a while now, i have been wanting to find a copy of a publication that was issued in the early 1990s regarding education.. this publication (a brochure, i think) had the same title as a 1992 watchtower article that i found on the cd-rom - education and jehovah's witnesses.
however, my memory is that the brochure was more direct in actually encouraging witnesses to prepare themselves educationally for gainful employment (while i am sure it still had the required admonition to full-time service and supporting oneself in that endeavor).. "party line" was that pioneers needed to be able to earn a "living wage".
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NanaR
Hi JustaHuman,
I downloaded it from: http://www.watchtower.cc .
The file is in ISO format -- you have to have a program like the one the Crucial Criteria web site links to in order to extract it. I used a different program for extraction (free trial version available by download) -- http://www.magiciso.com/download.htm .
What I would recommend is to download the Magic ISO program first, then make a folder on your hard drive for the ISO file extraction (read on). Then download the ISO file and save it on your desktop. (It is a very large file, make sure you have enough space on your hard drive). When it is done saving, and you choose open, it should open in Magic ISO if you have downloaded that first (choose "try it" to open Magic ISO). Look on the right side of the window that Magic ISO opens. Using your mouse, highlight all the files in the box on the right side of the window. Right click on the highlighted files and choose "extract". Then brouse to the folder you created (above) for the file extraction and choose okay.
After the files are extracted, run the setup file and choose a "hard drive" installation.
That should do it. If you need extra help, pm me.
NanaR