garybuss

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Posts by garybuss

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  60

  Why Adam and Eve were unfairly judged by God

  by BreakingAway in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the argument has been made on many occasions that death and suffering are a result of adam's sin.in fact, the bible is so clear on this "fact" that it is one of the few things on which nearly every christian denomination will agree.. "therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned romans 5:12. however, i would like to present the case that god had, in fact, not told adam this very thing, and consequently, adam was unaware of what really would take place upon eating the fruit.notice this verse:.

  "but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.

  " gen.2:17. i highlighted the word "you" because this is absolutely critical.why ?

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  garybuss

  "the God of the Bible comes across as dangerously schizophrenic"
  
  Hmmm, wonder why the business of religion does so good.
  
  
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  10

  What do you mean no more book studies ?

  by Homerovah the Almighty in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  .

  i went to my usual place for the study tonight and no one is there....... why did they cancel it, this was my night out to get away from the family and kids , after the meeting i usually headed over to moe's to get spiritualized with a few beers.. great.... now i've gotta come up with a another excuse for marge so i can go out tuesday nights.. do jws go out in the door to door work in the evenings ?.

  stupid governing body !.

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  garybuss

  I understand here they are already twisting the bookstudy melon off at the vine. I heard they have combined all the bookstudy groups into two larger groups and they're having them on Monday and Tuesday evenings.
  
  Not sure if both are at the Kingdom Hall or what. I'll find out.
  
  
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  60

  Why Adam and Eve were unfairly judged by God

  by BreakingAway in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the argument has been made on many occasions that death and suffering are a result of adam's sin.in fact, the bible is so clear on this "fact" that it is one of the few things on which nearly every christian denomination will agree.. "therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned romans 5:12. however, i would like to present the case that god had, in fact, not told adam this very thing, and consequently, adam was unaware of what really would take place upon eating the fruit.notice this verse:.

  "but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.

  " gen.2:17. i highlighted the word "you" because this is absolutely critical.why ?

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  garybuss

  If the Hebrew God was a man today, would you pick him for a friend based on a personality profile and behavior record obtained from the stories in the Tanakh?
  
  
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  23

  Why does guilt often remain so long with those who've left the JWs?

  by And He Ran in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i would be interested in getting people's input in why so many jws - including me from time to time, though less so now - seem to be burdened by guilt after they've left, even after they've successfully faded and aren't being hassled by family or elders.

  is it a residual leftover of the indoctrination over the years?

  i welcome your comments.

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  garybuss

  The guilt might not be guilt, it might be a floating episode. Many former Witnesses like me, had post-exit syndrome symptoms, often marked by post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. Have you invested in any exit counseling? Done a written inventory? Have you listed your assumptions and given them weight and value in writing? Have you learned to identify principles at work, list those principles and test those principles on the reality scale? Can the principles be equally applied?
  
  I made a study of the English language because my understanding of definitions and concepts associated with many words was based on error and bad premises. I studied the difference between subjective and objective, implicit and explicit, and the difference between illusion and delusion. I made a study of opposites and paradoxes.
  
  Then I read and read. I read much of Charles Russell's work. I seriously studied some works. I read both sides of the purge of 1917. I bought much of Paul Johnson's work and read much of it. I read much of Rutherford's work and I have acquired a very nice library of that era. I made an exhaustive study of the 40's and 50's work of the team of Knorr and Franz. I listed their assumptions and made weeks long studies on individual assumptions. I made a word by word study of both versions of the Let God Be True book. I studied the appointment, the closed door, and the phony neutrality advertisement.
  
  I studied the core beliefs and found out there weren't any, there were just core dis-beliefs. I studies all the Witness stand alone dogma and again, there wasn't any. All Witness rhetoric took a counter-believing group. I studied ethics and I studied the business of religion. I have non-Witness views of "legal" and "ethical".
  
  I studied William Miller and the White family and the Second Advent Christian groups. No exit study is complete without this. I met with current Bible Students and studied their version of the Rutherford theft of the corporation owned assets. I met in person with some, and talked on the telephone with other former Witnesses like Jerry Bergman, Randy Watters, and Ed Gruss. The Christian apologist groups of former Witnesses were and are a big help to me.
  
  It's hard to fix a sick brain with a sick brain. I found post exit counseling including practices and principles used by high control groups helped me a lot. I was raised a Witness. I didn't have an established non-group personality to return to, so I enjoyed a long period of recovery. It was more like new construction than remodeling. I had the privilege of developing a rational personality over many years. I didn't accomplish one phase alone. I had help all the way.
  
  I'm still a work in progress and I'm constantly looking for a sage or a mystic who will sit with me and talk to me.
  
  
  
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  38

  How do you confront someone abusing their daughter?

  by Paralipomenon in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  seeing how child abuse has affected many people here, i am hoping for some advice.

  we have friends of our family that have it on good authority that a father is abusing his four year old daughter.

  he's always seemed rather creepy to me, which is a bit of the problem.

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  garybuss

  The mother's not a part of the situation in my world. I err on protecting the child. Here we have a child protection service. I'd just call them. I don't talk to the mother, I don't watch the sunset, I call them right now.
  
  I don't have any friends who abuse children, so I can't offend them.
  
  
  
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  127

  The End of Circuit Overseers

  by scotsman in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  is indeed apparently nigh as another poster predicted along with the end of the weekly bs.

  not sure when this should take place but i'm reliably informed by a family member that one of the uk's overseers was talking about it fairly recently.

  reduced to weekend visits by an outside but local elder instead.. i have no further info..

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  garybuss

  When I was a kid meetings were in a storefront on bums street between three bars. I always looked forward to the circuit servant visit. During the circuit servant's visit Witnesses behaved like they advertised they behaved instead of jerks like they normally were. It was a break in the normal routine. It wasn't a good break necessarily, but it was a welcome break nonetheless.
  
  The bad part was more meetings and longer meetings. Schedules changed and that made the week go faster. I remember liking the circuit servants but the district servants were like Darth Vader to me.
  
  We didn't have the elder situation like they have today. The groups were called companies and the leader was appointed by the publishing corporation. The leader was called company servant and the company was run by three guys, the company servant, the assistant, and the Bible study servant.
  
  The book studies were managed by conductors and the work was all done by volunteers without designations.
  
  The circuit servant visit started out with an ass chewing after the service meeting with the activity chart swung out on it's hinges. Saturday meeting was new things (returned) learned, and Sunday meeting ended with a pump up talk after the Watchtower magazine study.
  
  By the end of the week I was glad to see it end. The next Tuesday, the Witness people had all the smiles put away and things were back to normal. The good thing was, there were no elders running around checking on people.
  
  New people would come in, attend a few meetings and disappear, never to be heard from again. The core company group was virtually all born ins. The song book was green. Some of the songs were actually singable. The piano player only had three ringers on one hand, a feature that added interest to the melody no doubt.
  
  
  
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  18

  Article on Mental Health and witnesses

  by chikikie in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  all i can say is wow!!

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  http://www.seanet.com/~raines/mental.html.

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  garybuss

  http://www.seanet.com/~raines/mental.html
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  16

  If you could say just one thing to help free a JW...

  by Mr Ben in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i guess it's seven years or so since i left, and back then i knew exactly what i would say when members of my cong would come and see me about my absence.

  strangely, no one, not one, came and talked about my sudden absence.

  i had actually planned a small speech that i could use when friends or the elders eventually came to see me.

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  garybuss

  If you could say just one thing to help free a JW...
  
  I wouldn't say it.
  
  
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  38

  Is the Tower of fear and deception really starting to crumble ?

  by Homerovah the Almighty in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  there has been some dramatic changes going on recently with the jws as everyone knows , i can only speculate this is due to the once well hidden secrets.

  that have been hidden so well from the eyes of the faithful followers, the overwhelming information on the inter-net may be the cause of this.. perhaps the power and arrogance that the gb held for so many years is indeed starting to weaken.. i'm actually seeing the faith weakening within my own family members that have been involved with the organization for decades.. they do seem to be down sizing a lot in their operations, wouldn't it be surprisingly ironic if " the truth " was the thing that really was to bring down their structured lies.. well we can only wish, right !

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  garybuss

  Witnesses I know personally are loyal to the corporation to the core. I could show them a picture of the Governing Body members all in Vegas drunk, playing blackjack, and screwing whores and it wouldn't phase them one bit. They'd say: "The end is near!".
  
  The only change I see in the Witness people is that they are dumber than they were last year. They've had 365 disconfirmations in a row since last year and they still line up for religious gruel and they love it.
  
  If they've spent 40 years as a Witness, they've seen fourteen thousand six hundred disconfirmations in a row and they can explain away every single one. They can't have one single rational bone in their body.
  
  
  
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  38

  Anyone else having this problem with Witness Friends and Relatives

  by Evidently in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  they are all over me with all of these "end of this system of things" signs......earthquakes, cyclones, pestilences, cost of food to lead to food shortages, blah, blah, blah....did they make an announcement at the kh that "this is it!!

  " they say that we've never had all of these things happening all at once like we've had the past few weeks...... .

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  garybuss

  Jehovah's Witness group is a one pony rodeo, it's a one car funeral, it's a one song concert. They only have one thing to talk about . . . "the end". They have nothing else! When they quit talking about "the end", they're outta business.
  
  Save time and end every Witness sentence with "and the end is near". We have a new book . . . "and the end is near", there are earthquakes and high gas prices . . . "and the end is near", ad infinitum.
  
  Witnesses don't tell me the end is near because they don't like the sound of my laughter, and I do laugh at them. I can't help it.