Billy the Ex-Bethelite

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Posts by Billy the Ex-Bethelite

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  35

  New BOE letter: Re: Survey on Use of Printed Publications

  by pixel in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  to all bodies of elders in the united states branch territory re: survey on use of printed publications .

  dear brothers: .

  the branch office is working on arrangements for the 2015 regional conventions.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  The increased use of electronic publica- tions can result in substantial savings for the organization.

  Obviously, the rank-and-file aren't part of that "organization." My elderly parents have spent hundreds of dollars on electronic devices and have to pay expensive monthly Internet access fees. They don't use these things for anything other than WT stuff... and they rarely use them because they just aren't tech savvy. Where they might have spent just a few dollars for printed copies, they are now in the range of hundreds of dollars. And the electronic devices will have to be updated with replacements long before they get close to breaking even.

  So, this is only savings for the corporation.

  And of course we've already seen that WT isn't saying, "we're passing the savings on to you!" Oh no! Now they're saying, "We need MORE money to pay for construction projects." Okay, so save more money by just broadcasting the prerecorded meetings on the web, sell the buildings, and give every JW a rebate!
  
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  52

  New member, no longer just reader...

  by freemindfade in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so i joined very recently and began posting and commenting without a formal intro.

  been reading for a while, decided it was time to jump in.

  mentally i am completely cleansed of this thing, but still have to maintain a minimal involvement for spouse and family.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Welcome!

  Perhaps part of the reason for the new members here is the new "songs" that were introduced to the sheeple at a recent meeting. That mess qualifies as 'ear abuse'.
  
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  53

  Need to vent: Wife just went in full cult mode, huge fight. she is so brainwashed

  by goingthruthemotions in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  out of the blue my wife started to ask me about my feeling about the borg.

  i told her i didn't want to talk about it...she persisted.

  she already knows how i feel, i told her that my biggest beef is that they use mind control, and yep she went in to how i was an apostate and how she doesn't want to be married to an apostate.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  she said she was going to the elders

  Believing JWs have no idea how really crazy things like this sound. And so many of the other statements would sound like sheer madness in court. Back in the day, WT was ready to take the freedoms of religion and speech all the way to the top courts. However, when WT is trying to deny those freedoms to questioning members, it screams "WT is a cult!"
  
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  26

  Am I going crazy?

  by HappyDad in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  am i going nuts or am i just pissed off?

  there are so many posters who use abbreviations in their posts and so many of us have been out for years.

  the borg constantly changes everything from beliefs to organizational tactics, so those like me don't have a clue to what you are referring to.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Ugh, it's a mirror of how bethel was full of acronyms, and it was hard to keep track of the department name changes and the ensuing acronym changes.

  All the sisters in the 50's claimed to be AA.......

  I used to be a triple A -- Available After Armageddon

  Hmmm, come to think of it, I think I'm still a triple A -- Available After Apostasy
  
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  5

  Talked to the wife about the education video, and she thinks churches should be taxed...

  by garyneal in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  we went on a weekend trip to visit family back in our hometown and on the way down i brought up the recent video on tv.jw.org concerning education.

  i basically said the same thing about it that i said on this thread.

  to sum up, i said that if the wts is so concerned about witnesses losing their spirituality at the university then they need to put their money where their mouth is.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  ...and where that student would not have too many close ties to the witnesses in the local hall.

  Ha! With WT policy, how could a JW kid studying in university show their face at the local hall? Particularly now with ToMo's rant recorded for posterity, a kid will know they will get nothing but grief from JWs for taking classes.
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  39

  NEW LIGHT FROM SLO CIRCUIT OVERSEER "Warning, Blood on Doorposts", "The Couple who Missed One Meeting Died With Their Kids, Don't Miss Any!

  by Trailer Park Pioneer in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  sorry, i messed up before i could put the right title on this new light from our circuit overseer, his visit show's a great desperation in the organization's mindset, adding more anxiety and guilt to jws who already feel they don't measure up!.

  hi, i attended the circuit overseers visit and got really angry because our c.o.

  gave information coming from the governing body's chief apologists regarding "meeting attendance" and "the couple who missed one meeting and lost their entire family because they did not get the "411" when armageddon was coming!

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Jesus said it would come as a thief in the night. Evidently, Jesus meant that it would come as a meeting at the Kingdumb Haul.

  It would be interesting to ask the CO if he meant that the attack on Babylon the Great would begin when the witnesses were at the Kingdom Hall? Because the troof teaches that armageddon begins after the tribulation and the attack on religion, and after a grand and notable cry of peace and security. So it's not like a meeting next week is going to announce "Armageddon begins now and only those in this building would survive." In the story, there were 10 plagues. It wasn't a case that Moses came back to Egypt and met with the Hebrews in their Kingdom Halls and explained during their service meeting that there was only this 10th plague, and there wasn't going to be any announcement to the Egyptians. Nope, the story is that after the earlier plagues, there was warning to everyone when the 10th was coming and what to do.
  

  There is a long list of things yet to be fulfilled before armageddon begins. The old teaching was that false religion would be attacked, and JWs would be attacked but would be able to continue to meet in secret with their congregation book studies. That's sorta been scrapped, eh? In the case of his new story, wouldn't the government agencies be able to go to the KH and round up all the JWs in attendance and exterminate them? In which case, the JWs that met secretly away from the KH would be the ones surviving the tribulation and armageddon.
  
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  28

  1st POST: A romance with a JW

  by myangelface in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i am not a jw ...however i began having bible studies (i d call them watchtower studies).

  i was beginning to get lured in and brainwashed into accepting the religion as the true religion...but something inside of me told me there was something odd.

  some time passes and i was invited to a meeting and i accepted.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  my conclusion is that JWs love half-heartedly ? 

  You've visited his congregation and commented about them...

  The atmosphere was not authentic ...there was people smiling at eachother and greeting eachother but I am a very intuitive person (keen sense of perception) and I could just smell the hipocrasy and the fakeness. Like fake "love"

  You can find both fake love and real love among the JWs. And the word "love" can get thrown around in a congregation so that it is meaningless. In case you haven't learned about disfellowshipping, they call it "a loving provision" where every JW will ignore, shun, don't talk to an offender that has been examined by a judicial committee of elders and announced to the congregation as someone to be treated that way... yes, they shun someone supposedly because they love them. I knew plenty of JWs that would tell me that they loved me... but in reality would be ready to throw me under the bus at their first convenience.
  

  Let's summarize: It's a cult.

  Besides the control of the religion, his family experience could cause him to behave in such an unloving way after claiming that he loves you.
  
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  5

  What was your experience in school as a Jehovah's Witness youth? What were some of your regrets and how did your peers treat you?

  by adjusted knowledge in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was in the first month of kindergarten on the night my parents had their first bible study with the jehovahs witnesses.

  it was around october and would be my last halloween, christmas, and birthday.

  i cherished those last memories though i cant really recall my last birthday celebration as a child.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  It's been a looong time ago, but there are still some memories.

  There were plenty of regrets and missed opportunities because of being a JW. I wasn't treated terribly bad, but it was enough that I saw 'the world' as a rough and unpleasant place. Unfortunately, it moved me more toward WT, the conditional JW friends, and the hope of the destruction of the 'wicked world' "very soon now"... back in the 70s, then the 80s. Then I made 'spiritual advancement' and went to bethel. Ugh.
  

  Over time, I've tried to put a positive spin on things. During those school years, I focused on studying (rather than having the right friends, the right clothes, the right extra-curricular activities) and was a very good student. Although I didn't get to go on to "higher education" then, I always valued learning and now have my degree.

  I also came from a small rural school system. Although some of my classmates kept in touch with each other and have stayed friends all these years. The majority of us went our different ways and didn't reconnect in any way until Facebook came along. In some sense, I don't feel it's just a matter of not having friends in school because I was a JW. I feel that the JW 'friends' I grew up with were superficial and not real friends.
  
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  23

  When they ask in exasperation; "But what if it IS the Truth?"

  by nicolaou in

  1. social
  2. family

  this is how robert ingersoll responded to a fundamentalist's question, 'what if it's the truth?

  ' back in the 19th century.

  "why," they say to me, "suppose all this should turn out to be true, and you should come to the day of judgement and find all these things to be true.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  "What if we picked the wrong religion? Every week we're just making God madder and madder."--Homer Simpson
  
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  28

  1st POST: A romance with a JW

  by myangelface in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i am not a jw ...however i began having bible studies (i d call them watchtower studies).

  i was beginning to get lured in and brainwashed into accepting the religion as the true religion...but something inside of me told me there was something odd.

  some time passes and i was invited to a meeting and i accepted.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Focus your time and energy on something more worthwhile than the seduction of a JW fundy.
  

  He admits he loves me now...but eversince that day he hasn´t spoken to me

  Doesn't that tell you something?