Posts by link

13

Need to help my Mother

by LostinSpace in

jw
friends

im sure you have all heard the same sort of story day in day out on these forums'...but i need help.. my mother has been a jw for over 20 years now.

during my childhood i was taken to kh every week (my father wasn't/isn't a jw and was always working away).

during my school years i was "mentaly" abused by other children because of my mothers beleifs.

link

LostinSpace

Be careful that what you are doing is for your Mom and not for yourself.

I am in exactly the same position as qwerty and quite a few others on this board. We would love to get our loved ones out but not at any expense. The price could well be too high in the pain that they would feel in losing everything that has been so real to them for so long. The exact same things that are not real to us.

If you decide to go ahead you must realize that although there are common denominators as to why people are in, the tactics that you could use to help them see the light are very, very specific to the individual. If you are going to do this properly, it is my belief that you will have to do a lot of research and look deeply into what is driving your Mom before you make any serious move.

Go slowly and give it a lot of thought.

Best of luck

link

9

Kingdom Hall personalities

by freedom96 in

jw
friends

just as people have different personalities, i believe that individual congregations also had their own personality.. the hall i went to while growing up, was just awful.

the po of the hall was known in the entire area, and was just a tyrant.

there were no grey areas.

link

Definitely a congregations personality is formed by the personalities of the people in it. I have attended some strange ones.

In one remote congregation that I went to almost the entire congregation of some seventy people were related to each other and there was only two surnames in it. There was so much inbreeding that some of them were starting to have strange looking kids.

Another congregation grew quite rapidly and split twice with about sixty people in each of three congregations to start with. However it was not long before one congregation got a name for being free and easy and quite laid back about things. This congregation now has a hundred in it and the other two 40 each.

People in congregations seem to be very aware of the personalities that they have.

link

17

If First Contact Happens/Atkins Diet

by metatron in

jw
friends

i am struck with how frequent and bold ufo incidents are becoming:.

i am also greatly impressed with the recent vindication of the atkins diet in a. major study - and what it tells us about the state of human knowledge and science.. what stuns me is that this diet has been explicitly described and debated for.

about 30 years - and yet, its proof took decades - with some 'experts' still refusing.

link

Metatron,

Never mind the Atkins Diet, there are probably dozens of effective treatments out there for various ailments and illnesses that are not mainstream medicine. There is also a large percentage of the population who wont accept this because they have not seen the evidence, just like those who never saw the Wright brothers and for a time refused to believe it.

Mainstream medicine is ok but it is for the masses and does not treat the individual.

Penicillin, for example, is a wonder drug and cure all for the masses, it removes the symptoms but very often leaves the underlying cause untouched.

Whilst alternative treatments may not effect the same cure in everyone, as is the case with penicillin, they certainly have their position, complimentary to mainstream medicine, and this position gets stronger as more is understood about it.

Its an excellent point that you make here regarding head in the sand attitudes.

link

13

How do I reach my sister?

by Mackin in

jw
friends

i come for your opinion.. heres the deal.

my sister has just completed her thesis and received her doctorate.

the examiners showered her with praise for her outstanding work.

link

Makin

If you replace the word sister with the word wife I could have written your opening post here.

I just want to tell you that everyone who has responded to it has said exactly the right things from my experience.

The only reservation that you (and I) might have concerns the depression. It is most certainly caused by the inner conflict of not wanting to face the truth head on and there is nothing we can do about that until they at least agree to look.

It most certainly is not nice to see someone suffer needlessly, as they do but, we will be there for them when they need us

link

40

Watch Tower Roots:

by blackguard in

jw
friends

fascist and the church of.

corporate mammon .

"by their fruits shall ye recognize them": this paleo-semitic thinking, is as every bit an axiomatic statement about evidence collection as the hellenic system so pervasive in western society today.

link

Many thanks for the thread reference that you provided sf. That was an excellent discussion and I felt that some parts of the debate reflected much of my own thoughts on these matters.

By their very definition conspiracy theories, secret agendas (call them what you will) cannot be supported by the normal rules of factual evidence. For this reason they are wide open to a variety of interpretations dependent upon who is reading the situation and why.

For example, although Russells father shows up in the Masonic records, Charles Taze Russell does not. This is explained by those who support such theories in one of two ways. Either CT Russell was too senior or prominent to have his name recorded, or his name was removed from the records in yet another Masonic conspiracy.

When I was studying "the truth" I asked for factual evidence to support some of the things that I was being told. It was not forthcoming and consequently I did not "join up". I was then told that the evidence was there but because I did not want to see it I could not.

I get the feeling that conspiracy theories travel along much the same lines.

link

40

Watch Tower Roots:

by blackguard in

jw
friends

fascist and the church of.

corporate mammon .

"by their fruits shall ye recognize them": this paleo-semitic thinking, is as every bit an axiomatic statement about evidence collection as the hellenic system so pervasive in western society today.

link

Blackguard,

Many thanks for your post. I get the feeling that I have read much of it somewhere before, have you posted it elsewhere?

Also could you give your definition of the words ILLUMINISM and ILLUMINIST as they appear quite often in your essay. I do of course understand the dictionary definition but your use of these terms feels a little unusual. Perhaps you are using them in a different way.

Thanks in advance for clearing these points up.

link

10

Forum Decorum

by ballistic in

jw
friends

following on from the thread "be nice...", don't you think there would be a lot less disrespect and flame wars if all members had either .

a. attended an apostfest (i.e.

met their fellow posters).

link

I for one would very much like to be more open and I know that there are many here in a similar situation to my self with family IN who they do not want to lose.

The more open you can be the more interesting your posts can be. I have some excellent letters exchanged with the Bethels both London and Brooklyn that would make interesting topics here.

My letters to them got shunted around and read by all the Elders in my local Congregations before I got the replies to them, so local lurkers would be able to immediately identify me from the contents.

My family was aware that I was writing these letters so the fact that others knew about them did no harm.

Just one example of how not being open can hold you back.

link

5

Something quick and easy!

by link in

jw
friends

my wife was given a hard time out in field service today.. a householder told her that she belonged to a wacky american religion.

this upset her so she told them that the governing body of jehovahs witnesses were not all americans and that several nationalities were represented amongst them.. can anybody confirm that this is actually the case?

where in fact do they all come from?.

link

My wife was given a hard time out in field service today.

A householder told her that she belonged to a wacky American religion. This upset her so she told them that the Governing Body of Jehovahs Witnesses were not all Americans and that several nationalities were represented amongst them.

Can anybody confirm that this is actually the case? Where in fact do they all come from?

link

51

Ever hear of the "Three-Brain"???

by WingCommander in

jw
friends

i am a "newbie" on here, so you'll have to bere with me.

my question is, have any of you heard about a group of scam artists going around to the congregations trying to peddle their version of self-healing crap???

this was about 10-12 years ago in the usa.

link

Mulan,

My wife has managed to shrink a malignant tumour (to the size of a pea so far) using only homeopathic and other natural remedies and processes. Most of the people she started out with who were diagnosed with this condition are now dead. Neither her nor I are the least bit interested in the scientific explanation behind her improvement in health and in fact we think that the belief in it by itself had a positive effect.

I will never cease to be amazed by the people who ask to see all the data and the results of the laboratory controlled testing of any type of natural medicine or processes. Never once in all my long life have I heard of one patient ask his doctor to see the same data for the drug he was just prescribed.

Within the last seven days a neighbour of mine has died because the drugs given him for an unrelated ailment gave him kidney failure. I bet he never asked to see the test data and check the side effects.

Ill take my chances with things that I can see working rather than take the drugs I can see killing people.

link

2

Unified Thinking

by link in

despite the fact that there has to be unified thinking in the kh, i have sometimes heard brothers arguing amongst themselves over the interpretation of scripture.. one such discussion concerned "the days of noah".. this elder was adamant that noah never did any preaching work after jehovah gave him the plans for building the ark.

his reasoning was that since jehovah already knew at that point exactly what size the ark must be, he must also know how many persons would be occupying it.

his point being that jehovah would not expect noah to continue preaching to people that he was aware would never listen.. this obviously has some connotations frrom a prophetic point of view and most of his listeners said he was talking rubbish.. what do you think?

link

Despite the fact that there has to be unified thinking in the KH, I have sometimes heard brothers arguing amongst themselves over the interpretation of scripture.

One such discussion concerned "the days of Noah".

This Elder was adamant that Noah never did any preaching work after Jehovah gave him the plans for building the Ark. His reasoning was that since Jehovah already knew at that point exactly what size the Ark must be, He must also know how many persons would be occupying it. His point being that Jehovah would not expect Noah to continue preaching to people that He was aware would never listen.

This obviously has some connotations frrom a prophetic point of view and most of his listeners said he was talking rubbish.

What do you think? Can you recall any similar disagreements on interpretation ??

link