Posts by StephaneLaliberte

14

Hypocritical Tyndale video

by neat blue dog in

at a recent midweek meeting, a short documentary about translator william tyndale was shown.

it begins with this statement about his death:.

"his crime?

I remember, identifying such hypocrisy when I was "in"; however, I didn’t understand at the time how serious it actually was. I’d go on believing that such small harms were offset by all the “good fruits” the watchtower was doing.

This flawed reasoning collapsed after I read Raymond Franz’s books. It helped me understand that, in order of priority, one should first live with these values and then preach to others about it. Hence, preaching, building and organizing congregations are not “good fruits” in and of themselves. The Pharisees were doing the same things and Jesus called them out as hypocrites.

The fruits are how the members of that religion live their day to day lives. How they display love, charity, etc.

That is when I realized that such hypocrisy was very, very serious. I could not pass this down to my kids and I left.

9

Narcissistic Elders/Pioneers

by StephaneLaliberte in

today, while listening to a book that covered narcissism, i was a bit surprised to find a connexion with those “seeking privileges” in the organization.

while not being paid, pioneers, ministerial servants and elders invest a great level of time and effort in upholding their responsibilities.

fear of being destroyed by god for not doing enough.

StephaneLaliberte

Millie210: Interesting that you mentioned that the JWS are also a pedophile heaven; it crossed my mind when I wrote the post.

Even if the initial intent of the "organization" is not to attract narcissists and pedophiles, it is nonetheless a by product of their teachings when combined with their organizational structure.

9

Narcissistic Elders/Pioneers

by StephaneLaliberte in

today, while listening to a book that covered narcissism, i was a bit surprised to find a connexion with those “seeking privileges” in the organization.

while not being paid, pioneers, ministerial servants and elders invest a great level of time and effort in upholding their responsibilities.

fear of being destroyed by god for not doing enough.

StephaneLaliberte

Today, while listening to a book that covered narcissism, I was a bit surprised to find a connexion with those “seeking privileges” in the organization.

While not being paid, pioneers, ministerial servants and elders invest a great level of time and effort in upholding their responsibilities. Why?

Fear of being destroyed by God for not doing enough

Some brothers or sisters have the energy to do more and so, will take on responsibilities. Not out of their own good will; rather; by fear of being punished by God should he find that they were not doing enough. Overtime, as people grow older and loose that “extra” energy, they will quickly release themselves of these responsibilities, no longer burdened by a guilty conscience.

A genuine altruistic disposition

These are people who know they can help their peers and do everything they can to help. They believe that their actions can bring benefit to the lives of others around them. They will give their best, often at their own expense and as long as they can, often demonstrating extraordinary resilience in their tasks. Altruism is a powerful motivation.

A strong desire to be recognized by others and have power over them.

These are people that are fueled by the attention they get; it becomes their source of energy. Hence, if demonstrating extraordinary resilience results in being recognized as perhaps assist in climbing the organization’s hierarchy, they will. While they might appear helpful to others, this is usually for selfish reasons.

Considering the amount of work and time required to fulfill their responsibilities, we should agree that this requires “extraordinary resilience”. For such a motivation to keep hold, there is only two reasons: Altruism or Narcissism. While selfless altruistic individuals can be found out there, they certainly are hard to find.

So, let’s run some numbers with a simple congregation. 80 publishers with 3 elders, 2 ministerial servants and 3 pioneers. Now, let’s take away the kids, the single parents, the sick/old/handicapped and those who are, for lack of better terms, “limited”. This brings the potential adults to 30.

This means that the JWs expect to find one extraordinarily altruistic for every 4 healthy adults. If such ratio is accurate, could we still call them “extraordinary”

Of course not. This is why you end up with so many Narcissistic people in charge. There is simply too many positions to fill against the pool of possible candidates.

16

I attended my JWs Grandfathers funeral

by joe134cd in

i attended my grandfathers jw funeral the other day.

firstly i am a rabid apostate, and certainly not wt greatest fan.

that been said however, i will certainly stick up for them when they do the right thing.

StephaneLaliberte

Is this change going on world wide or was this just a one off example.

It largely depends on the congregation. Most will follow the funeral guidline which invites the brothers to limit the personal experience and focus on the spiritual aspect of things. I'd say that in average, I have seen about 20% personal, 80% religious preaching.

There has also been two instances at which a member of the family steped up on the platform, without being invited, and started to talk about their father/mother. This shows that some family members were shocked by the lack of personal content and decided to take the matter in their own hands.

As for me, should I need to prepare my parents funeral, I will make sure to host a small catering event where friends and family will be invited to talk about them. I will not rely on the JW talk.

16

I attended my JWs Grandfathers funeral

by joe134cd in

i attended my grandfathers jw funeral the other day.

firstly i am a rabid apostate, and certainly not wt greatest fan.

that been said however, i will certainly stick up for them when they do the right thing.

StephaneLaliberte

joe134cd: I am glad you could attend such a funeral. While this is certainly not the experience shared by the majority, I can only rejoice for you and your family in that everything went well and that you could find comfort.

It doesn't happen often, but when JWs do things right, we can certainly appreciate the moment without going out of our ways to find what was or could have been wrong.

While this was certainly a sad event, it is now, odly a good memory during which things went well. We can all rejoice in that.

19

latest WT, advice for Bible Studies

by neat blue dog in

our goal is to help our bible student to grow spiritually.. .

as his love for jehovah grows, however, he will likely begin to think about how he can help others, including those who are already part of the congregation.

(matt.

StephaneLaliberte

Quite frankly, I don't have any issues with the watchtower asking for monney. How else is an organization supposed to survive without an income stream?

The problem is not about asking for monney, its about HOW THEY SPEND the monney.

They are far from being transparent financially
child abuse pay offs and fines,
they don't support aging bethelites properly
create large bethels that are not really needed
sell kindgom halls for profit
don't participate enough in charity
spend large sums of monney on propagenda
etc.

13

Ever Wondered What People Think of Not-at-home Letters and Obit Letters?

by blondie in

jw
friends

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thefreethinker/2019/10/op-ed-intruders/.

here are some excerpts of a man who was called on by 2 young female jws, received a not-at-home letter as well, and what he thought about them.

i encourage you to read the whole thing, it is worth the laugh.. "it wasn’t pompeo knocking but he would have beamed approval on the two young women on the doorstep.

StephaneLaliberte

I frankly never really cared about the content of the letters I was sending, all that mattered was the time I was reporting for it and I felt it was much better then door to door ministry. Nothing was easier to "start your time" then writting up a small letter.

Then came the computers. Dispite my best effort, my conscience didn't justify spending soo much time on letters. Some would write custom messages and others would write them by hand saying it felt more personal, but I never bought into this. So, I stopped sending letters then.

12

Jw`s know where you live , You now need to know where they live .

by smiddy3 in

jw
friends

they come uninvited to your door step and try to discuss bible/wt doctrines with you, and many times or on occasion you do so.. you may even exchange first names with each other , and that is fine if you are happy with that but do you know where they live ?.

but they have an advantage over you .they know your name and where you live .!.

you may know there first name but you don`t know where they live .that is the advantage they have over you.. does it really matter ?

StephaneLaliberte

someone once asked me for my home address. I think it happened only once. My answer:

Well, if you engage in door to door ministry, you will eventually find it in the same way I just found yours.

Not a word for word account; that happened like 25 years ago. I don't remember the rest of the conversation, but I remember the answer I gave cause I bragged about it for years.

60

Did You Think Jehovah’s Witnesses Were Typically “Racists”?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i was a jw from infancy.

we had a melting pot type of congregation.

i grew up with all types of witnesses , all with different backgrounds.

StephaneLaliberte

Racism is not something I can hold against the JWs. I had Black, Arab, and Hispanic friends and we took pride in our diversity. It was one of the arguments that kept me in longer than I should have. They bragged about it as if they were the only ones that could look beyond races. In the end, I realize now, that people from all races will treat you the same when you choose to leave their religious group: Shunning.

44

PIMO Elder with a Dilemma

by xjwsrock in

i haven’t been on here in awhile and this is my second user name because i was busted by my pimi wife on the first one.

i have been basically awake since 2013. i have a super dub wife that i love and don’t want to lose and my sick mom in the hall that is a true believer.

stupid religion has gotten between my wife and i (of course).

StephaneLaliberte

I believe you are in a very unique and privileged situation. Obviously, it is hard, very hard to be such an active part of an organization in which you no longer believe, but you have to realize that you have a very unique opportunity here. You have the opportunity to play the game and do some real internal investigation. You can secretly record elder’s meetings, Watchtower trainings, access elder materials, record conversations with Circuit overseers, etc. You can collect all this information and once you are out (a year or more?) you will have all this information to share to the world.

You may want to check the laws where you are, but I can tell you that in Canada, you are allowed to record conversations of which you are a part of. So, no legal worries there.

Imagine, having recordings of things like:

1) We can lie about this or that; spiritual warfare.
2) I’d like to live in this house at Armageddon
3) We don’t tell this to people until they are baptized
4) Elders counselling/threatening someone who isn’t respecting the disfellowshipping arrangement
5) Deliberate destruction of proof pertaining to a crime
6) Homophobic comments
7) Political comments (likely against trump)
8) Misogynistic comments
9) Definitive numbers on sources of income for the JWs. Such as how donations were used in a convention.

You could write a book and call it: JW: Undercover! You’d be living my dream!!

You need play the game to the maximum and become even more “spiritual”. It should be fairly easy, provided that you allow yourself to lie.For instance, you can make up fake hours by reporting a lot of casual witnessing. These people are eagerly waiting to destroy your life for doubting what they say. There is no moral obligations to tell the truth to such evil doers. You can do a lot, a lot of damage and expose them by collecting information from the inside. Record everyone. Now a days, using your phone to do that is incredibly easy.

Only exception though: If you have young kids, quit now before it is too late. Otherwise, you may wake up one day and you will have lost your kids. That's the only reason I am not doing what I suggest to you above.