Posts by neverendingjourney

9

Why is it so hard to speak about Jehovah's Witnesses in neutral terms?

by neverendingjourney in

catholicism.

islam.

buddhism.

neverendingjourney

Catholicism. Islam. Buddhism. Jehovah's Witnessism?

I find it odd that Rutherford specifically set out to identify the religion by a specific name: Jehovah's Witnesses, but the official group was never given a proper name. So you have a way to refer to the members but not the organization. Thus members of the group develop their own loaded language: The society teaches...the organization suggests...the Slave directs that...but neutral observers cannot speak of the religion without either adopting the religion's loaded language or using buzzwords that set off "apostate" alarms in the mind of JWs, such as referring to the group as The Watchtower.

Thoughts on why this is?

I think it may have something to do with Rutherford's view at the time that organized religion was bad (religion is a snare and a racket). He viewed his group as being a collection of true Christians, not an organized religion, so why would you want to officially identify the institution? It would seem contradictory to what he was teaching.

This is simply conjecture on my part, though. I've not seen any hard evidence that would confirm this suspicion.

62

Well my JW elder dad has lost his job...

by BU2B in

as a little background, my dad became a jw in 1980 i think, went to bethel, married my mom in 86' went back for another year and then i came along... he worked in the auto repair shop at bethel while he was there, and upon leaving, continued working in this field.

my whole life they have been the type of jw parents that tell you how you will never get to high school, never graduate it, never get married in this system, never have children in this system etc.. i say this to illustrate the end is just around the corner attitude they have always had, probably because they fully bought/buy into the hype at the conventions/wt articles.

my father has no plan in place for retirement, and he is physically slowing down doing such hard laborious work.

neverendingjourney

Unless they live under a rock, have they not seen what has happened to succesive generations of JWs who reach retirement? Have they not observed how financially limited these ones are?

It took me some time after I was out to realize this. There is no way that anyone could spend 20 years in this religious movement and not be aware of the disappointment of the previous generation. Even if I had never read a single line of "apostate" material I would have first-hand knowledge of the many changes in the "generation" doctrine. I would remember the Knowledge book campaign of the late 90s when 6-month bible studies were encouraged given the fact that the remaining time was so short. If I had chosen to remain a Witness, it would be because I willfully ignored evidence that was right in front of my nose.

You really can't go more than a 20 year period in the religion without encountering a major disappointment or rewrite of their eschatology.

62

Well my JW elder dad has lost his job...

by BU2B in

as a little background, my dad became a jw in 1980 i think, went to bethel, married my mom in 86' went back for another year and then i came along... he worked in the auto repair shop at bethel while he was there, and upon leaving, continued working in this field.

my whole life they have been the type of jw parents that tell you how you will never get to high school, never graduate it, never get married in this system, never have children in this system etc.. i say this to illustrate the end is just around the corner attitude they have always had, probably because they fully bought/buy into the hype at the conventions/wt articles.

my father has no plan in place for retirement, and he is physically slowing down doing such hard laborious work.

neverendingjourney

It is sad to see how many bought into the promise that they would never grow old sick, and as a result have no plan for what should be the best years of someones life.. Yet the WT keeps at it telling the next generation of dubbies the same load of BS.

I'm in my mid 30s. When I was a child my siblings and I would do the math on our own (my parents were not nearly the hardcore JWs yours are).

If the generation started in 1914 and a generation is 70 to 80 years according to Psalms, then the last possible year Armegeddon could come was 1994. I was scheduled to graduate in 1997, so I would never get to dawn a cap and gown.

As I got into my mid 20s, after the generation teaching was conveniently modified in 1995, it seemed like people my age had been handed a raw deal. Of course, as I got older and began to examine the religion critically, I discovered that every generation (using the real defintion not the fake WT one) had been similarly bamboozled. I learned about 1975. I bought the book "Children" from Ebay and learned that the WT was telling kids in the 1940s not to get married because the end was so near. Those kids would now be in their 80s. If you want to go back far enough, you can trace it back to the Millerites and the Great Disappointment of 1844.

Few things are truly unique. Just a reptition of the same manure that's come before us.

8

100 years from 1914

by Kosonen in

100 years from 1914 is a long time.

people has been born and grown old and died.

like my grandparents who were jws.

neverendingjourney

A point that I've repeatedly made is as follows. The last days are specifically compared to Noah's time in the Bible. The WT has interpreted this to mean that Noah preached for 40 years to warn mankind of the upcoming destruction. They refused to listen, so God brought the Flood and destroyed all but Noah and his family.

This is supposed to match up with the last days when "Jehovah's people" were chosen to warn mankind of Armageddon. But unlike Noah's time, 100 years have passed since the WT was supposedly selected. Almost 135 years have passed since the first Watchtower was published.

If the WT is some sort of modern-day Noah, then why would God have selected them to warn a group of people who would die before Armageddon ever got here? This would be like God sending me to warn you and your family that your house will burn down 130 years from now. Gee thanks, guy. A lot of good that does me.

The point here is that if you step back from it you can see the absurdity of it all without having to get into specific verses in the Bible. Their whole end-times eschatology is garbage and you can prove it without the need to get into the weeds.

8

Interview with an Apostate: AllTimeJeff

by AllTimeJeff in

tell us a little about yourself and your family.. i was born to jw parents.

which is ok, i haven't actually tried to make new friends.

this is actually a really big deal in my life and one i have been working through.

neverendingjourney

Thanks for sharing. I can relate to being an ambitious young man seeking fulfillment in this religion. I started to write a lengthy write up about it, but I decided not to make this thread about me. Suffice it to say that at 18 I had been a regular pioneer for a year as I had graduated high school a year early for that purpose. Bethel seemed like a sure thing. The circuit overseer had invited me to serve at an out of state congregation where the need was great. For reasons that I won't go into here, it all came crumbling down. I beat myself up over it for years. In hindsight, it might have been the best thing that ever happened to me.

I've enjoyed reading your posts over the years. Best of luck to you.

11

Interview with an Apostate: rawe (Randy)

by rawe in

tell us a little about yourself and your family.. my name is randy, i live in chandler, az with my wife and our daughters.

my oldest is married and has a son, making us grandparents.

my second still lives at home with us, but recently got engaged, so will be leaving the nest soon.

neverendingjourney

Hi, Randy. I met you first at an East Pheonix meetup a while back. I'm good friends with Confession. I was also at the Shun Run you sponsored about six or seven months ago. I hope all is well. I enjoyed reading your story.

How is the Universalist congregation working for you? I briefly entertained the idea of going, myself. It's not that I belive in God. I don't. But there is something I kind of miss about being part of a large social circle.

24

10,000 year old spear point found in FL - man is only 6,000 years old?

by Comatose in

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/16/us/florida-spring-artifacts/index.html?hpt=hp_c2.

as evidence piles up, will we reach a tipping point where people begin accepting the age of humans existence?.

he described as "phenomenal" the preservation of the finds, whose location as many as 5 feet deep in oxygen-free sediment had protected them from decay.. they include a suwannee projectile point -- a spear point -- whose estimated age of 10,000 years puts it "right at the cusp of the end of the ice age," arbuthnot said.

neverendingjourney

The method used to date this artifact is faulty because the Great Flood affected the decay rate of Carbon 14. How do we know this? Because it says so right there in the Insight volume. That's how.

Also mammoths with vegation in their stomachs.

44

More WT Propaganda: 10 Year Old Children Should Get Baptized!

by Oubliette in

i just caught this in an upcoming study article which will be "studied" in the congregations the week of 11/18-24/13:.

he and his wife were elated when their eldest daughter, age ten, told them that she loved her parents, loved the brothers and sisters, and loved jehovah very much.

she said that she wanted to dedicate her life to jehovah and get baptized.

neverendingjourney

My poor nephew got baptized this summer. He's 11.

39

The Current State of the Watchtower & The Cynicism of Soviet Communism

by cofty in

i am reading a book by victor sebestyn called "revolution 1989 - the fall of the soviet empire".

if you lived through the astonishing collapse of communism in the late '80s i highly recommend it.. what has struck me is the description of life under communism in the six soviet satellite states of east germany, poland, czechoslovakia, hungary, romania and bulgaria.. here is a couple of paragraphs that really stood out to me as a possible parallel to the current climate in the regime of jw.org.. ---------------------------------------------------------.

once idealism or revolutionary fervour had disappeared - certainly by the soviet invasion of czechosloakia in 1968 - the system stagnated.

neverendingjourney

I think we're just using "cynic" in different ways. To me Benny Hinn is a cynic. The guy doesn't believe an ounce of what he's saying but he's acting in his self interest by using the gullible masses to line his pockets handsomely. Joel Osteen is a fantastic businessman. He get's what people are looking for in religion and he's supplying a product for that market.

What you're describing, I think, is more of situation where religious truth has become irrelevant to the men who head the Jehovah's Witnesses today. That concern has been supplanted by the desire to maintain their authority and to preserve the structure that allowed them to ascend to such power in the first place. Perhaps they were once ardent believers, but they are now less concerned about truth and almost solely focused on maintaining power.

The latter doesn't require that they be great businessmen or evangelizers and I hope they never become either. They're certainly not particularly good at it today.

39

The Current State of the Watchtower & The Cynicism of Soviet Communism

by cofty in

i am reading a book by victor sebestyn called "revolution 1989 - the fall of the soviet empire".

if you lived through the astonishing collapse of communism in the late '80s i highly recommend it.. what has struck me is the description of life under communism in the six soviet satellite states of east germany, poland, czechoslovakia, hungary, romania and bulgaria.. here is a couple of paragraphs that really stood out to me as a possible parallel to the current climate in the regime of jw.org.. ---------------------------------------------------------.

once idealism or revolutionary fervour had disappeared - certainly by the soviet invasion of czechosloakia in 1968 - the system stagnated.

neverendingjourney

Which is my point. They have a free labor source at their disposal. Any businessman with half a brain would put that force to use in ways that are financially renumerating. You could accomplish both goals at once: make money and keep the r&f busy.

By maintaining the ineffective field service program in place, these guys act more like brainwashed buffoons who keep the status quo in place because that's what other "inspired" servants of god set up in their day and by gosh they're gonna keep doing god's will.