Posts by some-xjw-guy

were you a victim of the watchtower movement?if you were captive to an ideology known as the truth, being enslaved .

has taught you the harsh realities of life and its deceptive practices.. however, what advice could you offer someone who .... wants to get their life back on track?there are individuals here who are getting or have gotten their .

lives together or back on track.

some-xjw-guy

I say never get your life "back on track" - abandon the idea of running your life on a track, unless you build it yourself or know exactly where it goes.

Instead, I say think of yourself as an all-terrain, 4X4 type vehicle.

But it depends on what you want. Some people are happy with the standard track of the average person with those same ambitions, and if that's the case by all means hop off the JW ride and on to that one, or one of that type. That is actually a no brainer. Otherwise, if one actually wants to move through life freely any track system will eventually be too limiting.

32

JWs came to my door, and I really dissappointed myself

by jwfacts in

jw
friends

today i was woken by two 20 something year old jw guys.

i let them offer the mags and then told them i was not interested in religion.

after the reasoning book comeback i told them i was a jw but left a year ago.

some-xjw-guy

I tried to describe a personal approach in another thread but one thing I forgot to mention is the need for rapport. If you think about it, a lot of the motivation for JWs is just to belong, even if some might think of it as a reasonable religion. But the point is to go somewhere deeper than the JW conditioning has gone, even if they go to 5 meetings a week and all of that if you go deep enough you can really hit a nerve, and not just to get them upset either - I mean when you really give someone pause.

21

What sorts of books or other material do you read?

by zagor in

jw
friends

i dont think i have a particular style.

in fact it changed through different stages of my life.

as a kid i loved reading novels, which changed once i came into my teens, and i started developing interest in hard stuff of natural world, psychology, ancient cultures and mysteries.

some-xjw-guy

Like a lot of people I suppose I read a lot of things online these days, but if anything I would say the one thing that characterize it all is a different view of things. Even if you end up disagreeing with the ideas, you've stretched your mind a bit and considered things from another angle. Along those lines recently I've read a bit about the education system.

So for that matter I might get into a little fiction, saw the movie Thank You For Smoking recently and can really appreciate that satire, heard good things about the book so I might get into that.

32

JWs came to my door, and I really dissappointed myself

by jwfacts in

jw
friends

today i was woken by two 20 something year old jw guys.

i let them offer the mags and then told them i was not interested in religion.

after the reasoning book comeback i told them i was a jw but left a year ago.

some-xjw-guy

Oh as far as actual how-to, you might just tie the personal matter back to the principle which relates to the WT teachings and policy - like should they tell you what kind of sex a married couple should have or something along those lines, you know what I mean.

"Tell them the liberator who destroyed your property has realigned your perception."

25

Why do witnesses tell others how to live their lives, yet their own homes..

by The Dragon in

are in turmoil?.

i have been watching my witness mother refuse to confront her many problems with my father and brothers...instead running out at every opportunity to knock on her nieghbor's doors and tell them how some men in new york think they should be living their lives and running their household, calling it the "truth"...all while anyone who knows her knows what a mess her home life is.. .

for one i think she should be a bit more selective on what she defines as truth..for two i don't think she can lead by example only empty hypocritical words.. .

some-xjw-guy

Thats what made me think of the personal approach in the other thread. In a way you play too nice if you are just debating the beliefs. To the degree that people are honest with themselves and are willing to do some actual self examination, it's probably more effective to point out the different ways their life is affected and quite frankly how much it sucks.

7

Why play the game if you must cheat to win?

by The Dragon in

been stumped on this one lately...must one in a position of authority gauge their level of success as how good they are at cheating and using their authority to accomplish their personal plans and adgendas?.

if they would use the intelligence toward finding ways to win the game..instead of new ways to cheat..would the quality of our leadership improve?.

any thoughts?.

some-xjw-guy

Yeah, and how some people measure it IS by how much power they have over others. So they are cheating the rules of "the game" but they are not in it to play by those rules anyway, they are in it to get what they want. This is why perhaps, just maybe trying to work within the system is stupid if not just limiting. One might pay more attention to what is possible within the limits of natural law rather than what people typically think of as "the law." It doesn't mean you would hurt anyone, there's enough of that going on in various forms.

32

JWs came to my door, and I really dissappointed myself

by jwfacts in

jw
friends

today i was woken by two 20 something year old jw guys.

i let them offer the mags and then told them i was not interested in religion.

after the reasoning book comeback i told them i was a jw but left a year ago.

some-xjw-guy

But it's not about logic or reasoning, I think that's the main problem. It's personal, it involved you as a person, how you felt about yourself, and their arrogance and smugness involved them as persons, and the point is to try to get people out.

Them - I have never heard of that (with a "I don't believe you and don't care" tone)

Look at what this one is conveying, they are taking pride in their ignorance. How can you reason with someone when that is the case? And if you consider the attitude of the zealous young JW, they are like pack animals - there's not much reasoning to be had in that situation.

When it comes to their belief system they are well "defended" - even if the defense doesn't make any sense. (but they can convince themselves of that and keep their head buried in the ground) I think the best way to get through to people when they don't have their guard up is actually with personal stuff. But thats just very unlikely to happen with any JW, since others are considered.. well, others, whether its people identified as worldly or bad association inactive ones or whatever. But just imagine if you were talking about their romantic interest or something, and since the religion has a say about everything there's likely to be something that ties back to the teachings, then you can REALLY involve them and it hits a lot closer to home. Unlikely I know, but hey maybe with family or whatever..

Hmm, come to think of it the debating teachings approach is kind of like the narrow door .. I mean look at how much work it is to actually process all the information and then try to reason with them about it. (which is the harder part of course) But if you get to something real that affects one's life like with the other experience with this woman just telling how she feels, it can be a very simple point and BOOM - the point is made. Of course, in this case the broad way is actually the one leading to life, it involves life as people experience it - that's what makes it work.