Posts by Gopher

8

Family and its importance

by Shane in

disfellowshiping or ex-comunication puts great strain on family members, it has been successfully used by other religious groups jehovah's witness's are no exception.

any group or government that can successfully put a wedge between family members is a threat to the whole family of man.. by using such phrases or reasons as: its for their own good or its being done cause we love them, or we wakening them to their senses, are simply rationalizing their actions.. think about this: monkeys shun at times one of their own, but the one shunned most of the time dies from it; are we higher than monkeys in love?

humans also die if shunned or become mentally sick depressed to the point of at times taking their own life, because if one has been a witness or other shunning group for all or most of their life who is now a support group for them?

Gopher

Shane,

Welcome to the board! I look forward to hearing your story and reading more from you (when you're ready to post more).

You well summarize why disfellowshipping is evil. The way it's applied by JW's now, it is not scriptural. And it is totally unnatural. It forces people to act against their best inclinations. Jesus said that if a man wouldn't listen to the congregation, treat him AS a man of the nations. JW's treat their outcast ones FAR WORSE than they would treat other outsiders. This is cruel and unnecessary.

There is no long-term help or ministry for those who need spiritual help and become weak in the congregations. Instead, such ones are cold-heartedly kicked to the curb.

Additionally, the organization smears the reputation of those who were once JW's, saying they are immoral, dishonest, apostate, and turn into the worst "worldly" people you've ever met.

Too bad, it seems this policy for controlling the people within the JW's won't ever change, any time soon.

GopherEven if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)

12

Why Do They Bother?

by Stephanus in

jw
friends

on another thread, i was struck with a thought.

someone mentioned how brainwashed the r&f were to accept the drivel pumped out of bethel and it suddenly dawned on me that the 'tower and the awake!

and all the other literature are irrelevant.

Gopher

Why do they print this stuff? I have a couple guesses.

1. To keep the worldwide printing empire going.

2. To drill the same ideas (propaganda) into the minds of the publishers. The rank-and-file JW's have come to expect a new dose of the magazines 4 times per month. It's become self-perpetuating.

This is not to say that most publishers actually read all the magazines as they get published.
edited for spelling

GopherEven if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)

2

Running ahead of..

by Norm in

jw
friends

as all of us who have a past in the watchtower society and know their history, running ahead of jehovah is just about the worst thing you can do.

i know this first hand because in december 1988 i was dfd because i put it to the committee in no uncertain terms that the watchtower chronology the year 1914 and the 1914 generation was pure fantasy.

in 1995 it became clear that even the idiots in brooklyn/patterson shared my views.

Gopher

Norm,

Thanks for compiling this information. What a shame, this "mother" organization that people look up to as so nurturing & cherishing of its members, really isn't. People like you who have tried to introduce some rational thought into JW thinking are harrassed and dismissed. They still haven't learned. The WT Society will continue to lose its best and brightest.

GopherEven if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)

7

How many time did you take to be cured?

by Nicolas in

i mean, when i read something of the watchtower, i still have sometime this old fear of armaggeddon.

i don't know why i have this fear since i found a lot of proofs that they aren't the true religion.

sometime, i would like to erase all these bad things that me and my family had in the jw and begin again but unfortunately, it's impossible.

Gopher

Nicolas,

Hi, welcome to the board. I don't know if we're ever completely cured. The effects of the WT Society's indoctrination linger for years and decades.

However, we can (little by little) begin to leave some of it behind as time goes on, as we gain new friends and new confidence, as new habits replace old JW traditions.

The "fear of Armageddon", or the fear that we are wrong for leaving the slavery of the JW religion is very common. But the fear passes away too. As we develop our own belief systems, either we veer away from God (and therefore there is no future Armageddon to fear), or we adjust our view of God, seeing that he is far more loving and concerned about us than we were taught, and that the morbid fear of Armageddon/eternal death is NOT something God wants us to have.

Best wishes in your journey, Nicolas. I hope you keep posting out here your thoughts and concerns, many folks on the board have ideas and thoughts that will help you put the JW experience behind you.

GopherEven if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)

16

Any good times?

by tattoogrl333 in

jw
friends

just wondering if there were any positives to being a jw.

i have read most of the posts and see that a lot of people were jw for years and years and was thinking that not all that time could things have been bad?

oh and somewhere in gen. it is supposed to state that we are living in the 7th day now????

Gopher

tat,

I wanted to try to answer your 7th day of Genesis question. In chapter 1 of Genesis, each of the first 6 "days" is shown to have ended. (There came to be evening, there came to be morning, another day.)

But in Genesis 2:3, it says "God has been resting in the 7th day." No completion to this 'restful' 7th day is shown.

GopherEven if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)

5

Wise Up!

by ChuckD in

jw
friends

one of the society's lesser-known publications..

Gopher

Chuck D,

ROFLMAO! Wonderful parody! Encore, encore!

GopherEven if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)

34

Anointed Christians throughout 2,000 years

by ozziepost in

this is the view as found in the latest magazine:.

"for almost 2,000 years, that peace has been enjoyed by faithful anointed members of the body of christ.

" (the watchtower september 1, 2001, page 14, paragraph 3).

Gopher

Ozzie,

My take on it is this: it is the wording "faithful anointed" that limits severely who they are talking about. In the Watchtower view, there were only 144,000 faithful anointed ones that gathered over the years from the 1st century to the 20th century, or about an average of 7,000 per century! (I know averages are misleading, I was just using it to illustrate the point.)

So I don't think they meant those millions who belonged to the orthodox churches over those centuries. Those orthodox believers would still have been in the Dark Ages, according to the Society.

I think this summarizes their restricted, narrow view.

GopherEven if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)

1

Persecution

by qwerty in

jw
friends

i carn't say from which sourse i recieved this from, or where in the world this is happening.

we are told not to put certain info on the net, i don't want to go into why etc.. one thing that gets my goat is the experiences at the meetings of the only jw recieve real persecution.

this of course is to blind each and every cong member into thinking that this is proof they are in the one and only true christian org.. what about other christian persecution?

Gopher

Qwerty,

Yes the JW's are guided to believe they're the only true Christians, so they're the only persecuted Christians. (Does this mean that if others DO get persecuted, such persecution is invalid because it's not against JW's?? Ludicrous!)

Those from other churches are for a fact undergoing the persecution you described in certain totalitarian countries. The reason? They want to read the Bible and talk about it (spread their Christianity).

It's shameful and deceitful when the real sufferings of others is downplayed.

GopherEven if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)

10

wrong date part 2

by tattoogrl333 in

jw
friends

well i went for my study session today and showed her the encyclopedia articles i had printed up.

she said she didn't know why the date was 586 and not 607, and asked if she could take them to show her husband.

her husband is an elder so i'm not sure what his reaction was going to be.

Gopher

Hi tattoogirl,

Let me take an educated guess about the answer you'll receive.

They'll say that the Israelites were restored to their homeland from Babylonian captivity by the year 537 B.C.E., and that Jeremiah prophesied that the captivity would last 70 years. So they'll back up 70 years from 537 B.C.E. to 607 B.C.E. to obtain the date for the original destruction of Jerusalem. Then they'll say that Bible chronology is more reliable than secular history, even though nearly all secular historians agree on the 586 B.C.E. date, which is not obtained through guesswork and such.

If they were to give ground on the 607 date, it could shake their whole faith, and they wouldn't likely want that to happen. But who knows, sometimes you get good surprises.

GopherEven if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)

75

Oh May We Ever Live Up To Our Chosen Name!

by Englishman in

jw
friends

there are some really weird and interesting names on this site.

just out of interest, lets swap details of how we selected our chosen "stage name", it could be fun!.

i chose "englishman" when i first started to lurk at h20.

Gopher

I live in Minnesota (USA). One nickname for the state of Minnesota is "The Gopher State". The university's sports teams are nicknamed the Gophers. There's no other special significance to my moniker, at least not from me!

GopherEven if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)