Posts by neverendingjourney

22

Do you think that the WT has gotten stranger as time goes by or is it that with distance comes perspective?

by 4thgen in

the preaching the jw.org thing is so strange.

the two generations "new light" is crazy.

but then again i look back at some of the things i believed and taught wonder 'what was i thinking'?

neverendingjourney

It's all about perspective. Objectively, the WT has gotten more conventional in their beliefs with the passage of time. Gone are the days of pyramid inches, a resurrection of "princes" of the old testament preceding armageddon, ban on organ transplants, and the list goes on and on.

Even with respect to the cultish aspects of the religion, it can't be any worse today than in the aftermath of the Ray Franz expulsion when rules were being invented on the fly to eliminate any possible influence from high-ranking members who were eschewing orthodoxy. In fact, even unbaptized publishers could be shunned. You didn't even have to be baptized. As recently as 7 or 8 years ago parents interacting with disfellowshipped children was tolerated whereas I knew of several elderly people who hadn't spoken to disfellowshipped children in decades because it was absoultely prohibited during their time.

We see things more clearly now that we are out, but I don't think it's really any worse that what's come before.

14

How much more strange can this get ?

by man in black in

ladt night i was talking to a coworker who's sister is a witness in my old hall, and i needed some asprin after listening to this.. how can this be tolerated by people who believe that they alone speak the truth ?.

a young couple ( early 30's) had two children, and they adopted another boy from the inner city, so they have three boys under the age of 13.. the father is a construction worker, and mom works pt doing various jobs.. as a babysitter they use the respected teenaged son of a very prominent elder.

well, the parents breakup.

neverendingjourney

Sitting bac and looking at the whole situation, it is just so mentally insane to me seeing how three families were torn apart, and by playing the system with appearances and sympathy, now everyone is back.

One of the big eye-openers for me was realizing that the people I was meeting outside of the religion were on average better people than the brothers in the hall.

At least now I can choose to not let crazy people into my life. I didn't have that luxury when I was a JW since they were my "brothers."

9

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

by neverendingjourney in

catholicism.

islam.

buddhism.

neverendingjourney

Not to make a big stink, but the "mansion" isn't really a mansion as much as a big house

It was a mansion for its time, although it wouldn't properly be considered a mansion by today's standards.

There was a house I saw a few years ago that once belonged to the family of a former U.S. president. It had a historical marker on site that referred to it as so-and-so mansion. The actual name escapes me. That's what it was referred to at the time. It was no bigger than your typical McMansion you see in modern day suburbia, maybe 3,500 sq. ft.

9

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

by neverendingjourney in

catholicism.

islam.

buddhism.

neverendingjourney

I agree with you, although in fairness the blood doctrine was Freddy's brainchild. Lots of medical and scientific quackery to speak of during the Rutherford era, but this particular pernicious doctrine was Freddy's idea.

It came very early in the Knorr era. Knorr wasn't interested in pursuing Rutherford's publicity-seeking ways and, with the notable exception of the blood ban, mostly reigned in policies that would further alienate witnesses from society at large.

24

Did your congregation have a "Pioneer Appreciation Day"?

by Coffee House Girl in

jw
friends

my mom (who is now a regular pioneer) has been laid up after having major surgery, and i assert my "biblical" rights as a daughter to do what i can to take care of her, so i have been trying to go to her house on my day off to vaccum and run errands for her since she is not supposed to drive.. she called me last saturday to tell me that i couldn't come by because she was driving to her pioneer appreciation day get-together, wtf .

i'm just curious if this only happens in my area (michigan, us)????.

chg. .

neverendingjourney

No such thing in my hall, although I grew up in the South and I stopped going to meetings nearly 10 years ago. The closest thing to it was once a year when they would give us a "special talk" and take us out to eat afterwards.

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.