This view also helps explain why JWs don't give a sh*t about doing charitable works for non JWs. They're bird feed anyway.
neverendingjourney
JoinedPosts by neverendingjourney
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46
Doesn't the ARMAGEDDON teaching foster a MORBID view of the future?
by Black Man ineven when i was dyed-in-the-wool j-dub, i felt the armageddon teaching was one of the most morbid concepts to be hammered into the psyches of jws.
think about it, only jws would survive this catastrophe, which translates to roughly .001 percent of the population would survive while everyone else would die a horrible death.
that includes people who do good things and are good people, but are just not jws.
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16
It comes it this...
by new hope and happiness inhe once had the hard rugged and handsome face of a hollywood film star.
he was one of those i feared completely indoctinated,enforcing his indoctrination with out love.
everything anybody did for the organisation was a privalige and all outside organisations were apart of the world, this included law inforcement.
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neverendingjourney
Even though I've been out for nearly a decade, not a day goes by without my giving some thought to the Witnesses in one form or another.
This morning as I was getting ready for work I was thinking of the P.O. of my old congregation. The man was only a few years older than my father, but for as long as I can remember (and I'm in my mid 30s now), we always thought of him as an old man. He always carried himself that way.
Rumor has it he was borderline illiterate before we became a Witness and he fully learned to read using WT publications. Children were afraid of him. JW parents would threaten their kids by telling them they would let Bro. P.O. know they were misbehaving if they didn't shape up. When I became a pioneer, he often showed contempt for me. It didn't sit well with him for whatever reason that I was a young, ambitious JW looking to quickly move up the ranks. Many if not most JWs my age didn't care for him. Some outright despised him.
Yet, on a few occasions I was able to see how genuinely hurt he was when yet another young JW drifted away, many of them into criminal or emotional problems or unenviable lifestyle choices. After several years had passed since I drifted away from the WT world, I had occasion to see him again at my grandmother's funeral. I was never disfellowshipped. His expression revealed genuine joy at having seen me again. It's almost as if he were happy to see that even though I'd drifted away from the WT, I managed to make it out okay. If you knew the fate of many of the JWs in my congregation who were my age, you would understand this. It made me forget a lot of the resentments I held against him.
Word got back to me through my JW siblings that the PO's health has been deteriorating. He battled prostate cancer a few years back and now has pretty advanced Parkinson's. I'm genuinely sad for this man. His entire life was the congregation. He thought he was doing the right thing. He spent countless nights visiting sick people at the hospital, doing home visits with families who had unruly children the parents needed help with. I don't think the man ever took a vacation. He took a really low paying government job so that he could have the evenings and weekends free to dedicate to JW matters. And what does he have to show for it?
At least he has a govt pension and social security to pull him through, but this is a man who never thought he'd see the year 2000, much less old age. He's now roughly 70 and has very little to look forward to in life. I wonder how he does it. How does he manage to quiet the thoughts at night that doubtless urge him to reconsider how he spent his life? For as much as I despise what this religion does to people or for as much as I genuinely hate people who use the authority structure to abuse others, I can't help but feel sorry for this man. When he dies, I'm sure the KH won't be able to contain the attendees at his funeral, but given how strict and ornery he was in life, I think very few will actually be genuinely saddened by his passing.
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40
Tech49 has the CO over for lunch
by Tech49 inso awhile back, during our last circuit overseer visit, vic and i decided to bite the bullet.... there seemed to be very little support for the mid-week lunch plans for the co and his wife, so we signed up to host.
we definitely didnt want it to be awkward, so we invited a few others along, as a nice little group affair.
they were excited, and offered to do the cooking, so i said i would play along.. just some background.... this particular co is kind of a tool (big surprise right?
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neverendingjourney
A simple thought exercise: If you had the current Pope over for dinner instead, who do you think would most closely resemble the biblical Jesus, the Pope or the CO?
Not that I'm pushing Catholicism. I'm an atheist, but it put things in perspective.
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Tech49 has the CO over for lunch
by Tech49 inso awhile back, during our last circuit overseer visit, vic and i decided to bite the bullet.... there seemed to be very little support for the mid-week lunch plans for the co and his wife, so we signed up to host.
we definitely didnt want it to be awkward, so we invited a few others along, as a nice little group affair.
they were excited, and offered to do the cooking, so i said i would play along.. just some background.... this particular co is kind of a tool (big surprise right?
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neverendingjourney
There are some nice ones and some like him. Not shaking your hand...
This brought back a latent memory. There used to be CO in a neighboring circuit 20 or so years ago who refused to shake hands, supposedly because it was a good way of spreading germs. Word is he would shake your hand once and then alert you to his preference. From that point forward you were not to extend him a hand. I don't know this first hand but it was relayed to me by some people who were pretty high up and reliable sources of information.
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NEW BOE LETTER - It just got exponentially harder to "fade"
by sir82 inhere is the text of the letter:.
february 2, 2014. .
your brothers,.
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neverendingjourney
I was very fortunate in that the PO of my congregation took the view that elders were not authorized or encouraged to act like private detectives. The guy was the most powerful elder in the whole area (a large percentage of elders were people he mentored), so that attitude was pretty prevalent.
After I stopped going to meetings and moved out of town, he gave me one phone call and said he hoped I was doing well. When I started to give him my excuse, he interrupted me and said he wasn't calling to interrogate me. He was just calling to check in and make sure I was fine.
Because I knew him so well, I know that he mentally checked a box and for him the matter had been concluded. His view (and I know this because when I was a pioneer we discussed this issue specifically) was that the role for elders didn't begin anew until the inactive witness returned to the meetings, asked for help, or was otherwise in a position to affect the flock. Since I moved away, I've never even gotten one request for a shepherding call.
Since I fell off the grid, cut almost all ties with all JWs except my immediate family, I've never been bothered by them. I was doubly lucky because my immediate family has never confronted me or even asked about my going inactive.
Unfortunately, I think my case is quite rare. I know an elder from a hall not too far from where I grew up that would behave exactly like a private detective, going so far as to conduct "stake out" operations...follow suspsected evil-doers around to gather evidence against them.
As to the specific point in the letter, I concur with all the comments saying that it's unlikely to change behavior given how overburdened the vast majority of elders currently are.
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Ray Franz Books
by Bangalore innow that cynthia franz is no more,what will happen to the production of ray's books?
will someone take over the publishing of the books or will the books go out of print?
those books are too important and need to be published for the next generation.. .
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neverendingjourney
From the Commentary Press (Ray's old publishing company) website:
the present copyright owner ofCrisis of Conscious and In Search of Christian Freedom is committed to further distribution of these publications. More details will be forthcoming.
I wish I knew the inside story better. After Ray's passing, the impression given on the site was that the books would continue to be published through commentary press, but that didn't really ever fully materialize.
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How do Jehovah's Witnesses get from 1914 to 1919?
by God_Delusion inhi guys and gals,.
i have written an article that explains how the watchtower society gets from 607 bce to 1914 (http://www.jehovahswitnessblog.com/faqs/why-is-1914-important/) but i need some input so that i can write an article on how they get from 1914 to (via 1918) 1919.. are we talking about ezra, 1:2-4 when the persian king cyrus allows the israelites to go and rebuild the temple 3 and a half years after exiling them?
if so, how has the watchtower used this passage to get to 1919??.
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neverendingjourney
Evidently the Gentile Times and the seven times of Revelation are the same thing
Evidently Matthew 24 has a second fulfillment
Evidently the Gentile Times aka the seven times begin when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians
Evidently Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BC despite what the history textbooks say
Evidently the seven times are composed of seven 360-day years
Evidently the total number of days, 2,520 (360 X 7), are actually years, not day
Evidently we begin counting 2,520 days from 607 BC, when evidently Jerusalem was destroyed, which leads us to 1914
Evidently Satan was ousted from heaven and the end times began in 1914
Evidently there is a parallel between the 3 1/2 years between when Jesus threw out the money changers from the temple and Jesus' appointing of the WT as his special group of followers
Evidently those 3 1/2 years are actual years and not prophetic years composed of days that are actually years
You get the picture...
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50
OMFG Dinosaurs and Noah
by konceptual99 injust fell off my chair whilst listening to the bible "highlights".
someone has actually just said that the flood account actually helps inform scientists on matters that perplex them.
for example for decades they have wondered how the dinosaurs all disappeared but if they looked at the account of the flood then they would see the answer.
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neverendingjourney
Neverending--then how do any sea creatures remain? Noah didnt have a goldfish bowl in his arc did he?
He did have a goldfish bowl. In fact, Jehovah temporarily made all sea life microspic and placed into Noahs's special bowl until the ark made landfall. The water in the bowl was then sprinkled with fairy dust and the sea creatures all returned to their normal size and rushed back to their natural habitats. Except for dinosaur sea life. Dinosaurs were too stupid to find their way back, so they died on shore and their remains were instantly fossilized. Their remains also serve as the source of all crude oil in our modern age. Little known fact.
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50
OMFG Dinosaurs and Noah
by konceptual99 injust fell off my chair whilst listening to the bible "highlights".
someone has actually just said that the flood account actually helps inform scientists on matters that perplex them.
for example for decades they have wondered how the dinosaurs all disappeared but if they looked at the account of the flood then they would see the answer.
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neverendingjourney
Remember sharks werent destroyed in flood....all sea life survived right? So what happened to the sea beasts from the dinosaur age?
And how did both fresh and salt water fish survive if the flood waters covered the tallest mountains? The water would have mixed destroying the suitable habitat for countless number of species.
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OMFG Dinosaurs and Noah
by konceptual99 injust fell off my chair whilst listening to the bible "highlights".
someone has actually just said that the flood account actually helps inform scientists on matters that perplex them.
for example for decades they have wondered how the dinosaurs all disappeared but if they looked at the account of the flood then they would see the answer.
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neverendingjourney
the mere fact a Witness of 50 years can still think it's OK to say such a thing says loads about the way the WTS "teaches"
If you were to give my mother a quiz about elementary WT doctrines, I doubt she'd get half of the answers right. In fact, I'm quite certain she would have no idea whether according to WT doctrine the dinosaurs were wiped out by the flood or died off many years before. She simply doesn't care about that kind of thing. She's been a baptized Witness for something like 30 years. I have no idea how she "passed" the question sessions she had with the elders before her baptism.
What's worse, my dad to this day says he expected to see the holy spirit or a vision after being dunked. It's a crazy world. All my mom cared about were that the children were well dressed and well behaved and she wanted to raise her own kids in that environment. My dad was excited that he finally had access to the Bible (he was Catholic) and could now argue with his siblings and "prove" them wrong using the Bible. That was a huge deal. When he was growing up only priests dared attempt to understand the Bible.