when i was a dub.....and had such good friends...party friends....vacation friends.....we never even did the morning text, cause we all woke up at different times depending on how much we drank the night before.........we could be on a cruise, at a beach house, or riding board in colorado......and damm....spiritual wt conversation was not in the picture!!........
so kinda funny that they all shun me now, even though i am not dfd........so if i had them over sociall....should they even come, what are they afraid of?...........i mean back then the bible shit never ever came up anyway............oompa.
did you guys have friends who were all dubby on vaca/holiday or at parties?
Oompa, my JW friends were/are like yours. If you observed us on vacation or socializing, you probably couldn't tell that we were Witnesses.
But I've noticed that it only takes one "spiritual" JW to suggest studying the WT, doing the text, etc. Most will cave to the peer pressure and guilt. Personally, I always tried to avoid vacationing with those dubs.
i know this has been re-hashed many times here.
in great detail with quotes from former watchtower articles, etc.
i'm going to cut to the chase and just make this brief and direct.
Thanks for the post, Flipper. The "1914 generation" teaching is a perfect example of how the WT Society promulgates false doctrines and teachings of men. When you mention your elderly parents, it reminds me of Proverbs 13:12 which reads "expectation postponed is making the heart sick."
The WT Society has been in the business of speculating and falsely predicting the end of the world for almost exactly 130 years now. Sure, the Society has become a bit more crafty in recent decades--for example, identifying the "generation of 1914" as the terminal point for this system of things instead of predicting dates like they did for 1914, 1915, 1918, and 1925.
But the modern Society is selling the same stuff ("Millions Now Living Will Never Die") in slicker packaging. They've learned to be crafty enough to give themselves some wiggle room--no more firm dates, just sly innuendo. And as long as we're alive there are going to be some people gullible and desperate enough to follow these men. And when we're gone, Armageddon will be nowhere to be found.
most j.w.s i grew up around werent superstitious.
friday the 13th, walking under ladders and spilled salt were for the blind and the ignorant.
we had been set free and knew better.. to be sure, some j.w.s had their own special theocratic superstitions.
I agree 100%. I grew up in a strict JW household, but we weren't superstitious. We made fun of "holy rollers" and "Jesus freaks"...all the while spending our Saturday mornings trying to convert people to our religion...strange.
As I got older, I always favored the secular side of things in the American "culture wars." As a believing Witness, I was against prayer in schools and against teaching creationism/Intelligent Design in public schools. Many times as a young person I said to myself that if I didn't have "The Truth," I would almost certainly be an atheist/agnostic.
For many folks, JW-ism is the gateway drug for secular humanism. The WT poisons the well when it comes to other religions. Many JWs identify their belief system more by what it is not than what it is (e.g., no Trinity, immortal soul, or hell). So, when a JW realizes that JW-ism is false, it's difficult to join another church that likely teaches all 3 of the aforementioned "Babylonish false doctrines."
Kind of like how Richard Dawkins says--everyone is an atheist about most gods (e.g., Thor, Zeus, Wotan); I just take it one god further. That's what many ex-Witnesses do. And it's perfectly understandable and should be expected.
hey everyone,.
getting some feedback, what would you say are the core teachings or were the core teachings of the jehovah's witnesses.
the teachings that make them unique, the teachings that if they weren't there the jehovah's witnesses wouldn't exist.. i would say the teaching of 1914 and god choosing jws as the right religion would probably be the core teaching.
Undercover, those "big 3" were the ones that were important to me when I was a believing JW. I remember going out in service and I LOVED to talk about the Trinity. I had dozens of smart-@$$ comebacks for Trinitarians (who was Jesus praying to? was God really dead for 3 days? who resurrected him?, etc.). It was too much fun.
I think these "big 3" doctrines are a large part of what keeps some Witnesses in the religion even if they see issues with doctrines, failed prophecies, corrupt leadership, etc. They say that nobody else is right. I actually agree with this statement--if you remove the word "else."
hey everyone,.
getting some feedback, what would you say are the core teachings or were the core teachings of the jehovah's witnesses.
the teachings that make them unique, the teachings that if they weren't there the jehovah's witnesses wouldn't exist.. i would say the teaching of 1914 and god choosing jws as the right religion would probably be the core teaching.
Oompa--I agree that there are absolutely some big doctrines that haven't changed. The big 3 are (1) no trinity; (2) no hell; (3) no immortal soul. (note that they are all things that WT/JW people don't believe in...I think it's interesting that the most important doctrines to a JW are things they don't believe in).
To me, the combination of the GB=God and "the end is near" trumps everything, thus forming the core of JW/WT theology.
hey everyone,.
getting some feedback, what would you say are the core teachings or were the core teachings of the jehovah's witnesses.
the teachings that make them unique, the teachings that if they weren't there the jehovah's witnesses wouldn't exist.. i would say the teaching of 1914 and god choosing jws as the right religion would probably be the core teaching.
My take on it:
These two doctrines form the core of the JW belief structure. Number 1 allows the actual theology to morph as necessary to fit the needs of the Watchtower leadership. Number 2 keeps the Witnesses simultaneously frightened (of being killed at Armageddon) and excited (about living in paradise), so they stay motivated to do what the WT leadership says without questioning it.
minimus started a thread asking people to prove that jws don't have the truth.... but, instead of proving they don't, i'd like to see someone prove that the witnesses do have the truth.. this is your thread jw apologists....convince me why you have the truth.. to all you apostates and nay-sayers, please allow the apologists to have their say without harrassing them.
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Ok, here are a few that I've heard:
there are a few here that say we are not being fair and that we wrongfully bash the witnesses.. simply prove that the religion is not correct by any standard..
Even assuming the Bible is God's Infallible Word (which is quite an assumption), JWs fail for at least the following reasons:
every year i think about this and i believe every year the percent goes up but it is hard to know what the number is because any doubting jw lives in fear of being found out.
they know how their lives would be permanently changed if they openly stated that they just couldn't believe it anymore.
i think there could be kingdom halls were 50% of the people attending don't believe they have the truth but think they are the only one that feels that way because every other doubter is doing the same thing they are doing.
There's a big difference between disagreeing with a JW teaching/practice and not believing it's The Truth.
I think every Witness has something he/she disagrees with. Common examples include (1) no oral sex between marriage mates; (2) must be a JW to survive Armageddon; (3) shunning DF'd family members; (4) silly prophecy stuff like the 7 trumpet blasts, 2300 days in Daniel representing the time between some WT articles and an annual meeting, etc.
But despite disagreeing with (or "not understanding") certain doctrines, these JWs still believe it's "The Truth." I'd say at least 90% of the baptized JWs at an average meeting believe it's The Truth.
And, as has been pointed out before, a large number of JWs don't understand many of the doctrines anyway...and they don't care, either! I know I didn't care much about doctrine, and I was a born-in JW. If I had not started digging into the doctrines, I'd still be a believing JW. And by "believing JW," I mean a JW that believes the WTS/FDS/GB is God's Channel and the JW religion is The Truth. Of course, I never believed in any of the 4 examples above...so you can be the judge about how much of a "believer" I ever was.
well had a really good weekend away from home, but i guess i knew that the respite from the wts would end.
tuesdays are the day my wife has her personal bible study with the sister and she has also had the husband come over on tuesday afternoons so the son can have the pleasure of a bible study (which he loathes, he is a high school junior and has no interest in this stuff).
i get home from work late, after a fairly long day and the guy is still there.
Sounds like a fun conversation! I have a couple of thoughts. First, the JW "teachers" almost certainly identified your arguments as "apostate" and will likely warn your wife that you are using apostate reasoning. That's JW-speak for someone who asks questions that they can't answer. It wouldn't surprise me if the JW backs off from trying to have Bible discussions with you. The excuse may be that you're not honest-hearted (which is JW-speak for gullible).
That's how JWs work. They love to have Bible discussions with people. But if you don't fall in line with their point of view after a few discussions, they lose patience with you. Of course, that's my personal experience and your mileage may vary.
And I love the way you ended your conversation with the question about whether we could still be friends. He answered that he could no longer maintain a friendship, since we would no longer have a common belief. Perhaps a response could be: "do you consider me a friend today?" He would probably say yes. You could reply, "but we don't have a common belief today, so what's the difference?" Or something like that.
