Posts by link

34

What's The First Step To Leaving The "Trut...

by minimus in

jw
friends

for those that have entirely left, what was it that first got you seriously thinking that this really wasn't the truth?

for those that may be in just mentally, you can answer too....

link

The simple answer to this question is DOUBT.

Crisis of Conscience lead me to believe that the Society knew that their 607 BCE chronology was wrong. I wrote to them asking two simple questions and requesting YES or NO answers.

Despite more than one attempt by me,they absolutely refused to give yes or no answers but went off into reims of explanation that left me with no answers. This meant that at a later date they could not be accused of lying to me. It was then that I realized that they knew that they were wrong and were purposely misleading everyone with their major doctrines.

Now I just feel sorry for them. They have backed themselves into a corner from which there is no honourable escape.

link

32

Loyalty to the truth

by happy man in

jw
friends

.

at bokstudy yesterday , we talk of the diffrent things gb say, and who we must stand to this.. i tell that they are only peopel and have make some misstaks, as we can se , fore exampel in the proclaimers book, well the study leader say, we must shoe loyality to the gb, even iif it later show upp to bee wrong, it is very importat that we follow what they say.. this is a ver difficult area, ofcourse in our religion we can not have 6 million diffretn wuies, but if we follow evry word very carefull, are we then not follow man?.

what about if they say something who take your life, and later change this, who is responsibel, or even worse our kidds, who are resposibel if they die on such polyci, like the transplantaision prohibition, we have fore some time, are we fore exampel personaly responsibel fore our akts, when the day is here, or can we say, we only follow what the gb say.. this is a very tricky qestion who i think about a lot

link

Happy Man,

Please note that the examples that you give are not extreme, rare or hypothetical as claimed in the response that you have been given.

If someone gives you wrong information on a single occasion you can perhaps accept their fault as being a minor one. But it is entirely up to you as to how many times that person gives you wrong information before you start to think that there is something seriously wrong with them. For many people the Society has been wrong on far too many occasions. It is not possible to just overlook this as light getting brighter or the actions of imperfect men.

In the end I believe that you must base your decision on how aware the person giving you the wrong information is that he is doing so. If he is well aware of what he is doing then you can only believe that there is a serious problem somewhere and steer well clear.

It is not difficult to find strong indications that the Society is fully aware that it is providing wrong information to its followers, as evident in the above post from Nathan. The reason that not more people cease to be followers is that they are strictly forbidden from looking for these indications and therefore are completely ignorant of the fact that they are being mislead.

link

9

My Child Of God Philosophy

by Zechariah in

jw
friends

the child of god comes of age

this is the whole story as i have been inspired to know it.

we are helped in our understanding of god by relating or analogizing him to other things that are similar we know better.

link

Zechariah,

You have nicely highlighted the exact point that I was making.

Nobody knows even the approximate date of the flood, we have a little better idea of the date of Jesus death and we know the date of the French Revolution.

The well known Watchtower trick is to put all the known data and all the unknown data into a box and give it a good shake. Then, lo and behold, we find all the unknown data has changed into known data and, as in your example, we know the date of the flood and precise timing of Jesus death

Since you are using the time of the flood you have to know approximately when it happened and as far as I can see the only way you can do this is as I have indicated here.

This is only my personal opinion and apart from the attaching of dates, I like your discussion.

link

9

My Child Of God Philosophy

by Zechariah in

jw
friends

the child of god comes of age

this is the whole story as i have been inspired to know it.

we are helped in our understanding of god by relating or analogizing him to other things that are similar we know better.

link

I have nothing but the deepest respect for those contributors to the board who have the courage to put their honest beliefs, theories and opinions forward for the inspection of infidels like myself. To me they make fascinating reading and put a whole new perspective on the way I view things myself.

The problem is that I have such an open mind that things have a habit of quickly falling out of the bottom of it.

If I were ever worthy enough to comment on the content of these articles I would just say that, for me, they are spoiled by attempting to attach credibility to them by quoting such things as dates and time scales from our current calendar. The writings are pure speculation and for this reason do not need or deserve to have so called facts attached to them.

As ex-jws in good standing will well know; facts only get in the way of beliefs.

link

66

Yes the WT Told Millions of Youth NO COLLEGE!!

by JT in

jw
friends

*** watchtower september 1 1975 p.543 questions from readers *** .

how many years of secular education are advisable for children in christian households?

today, there are many teenage baptized servants of jehovah... how far should they go with a secular education?

link

I think that all this must be confusing for an observer looking in from the outside.

The P.O. in my wifes congregation is in his fifties, has university degrees and holds down a powerful and well paid job. On the other hand his mother was counselled not to have any more children after his birth because the end was imminent and the preaching work was more important. I know these two events took place many years apart (birth and university) so maybe the rules changed in the meantime on both family size and education.

Another very respected elder has two daughters who he sent to university. One is now a lawyer and the other a very successful business woman and both still in the "truth".

This same elder has the most normal lifestyle that I have ever seen in a witness. He is an antiques dealer and his wife a successful artist and they are quite well off with a large home in the country. They both always seem genuinely happy and cheerful when I meet them and most of their closest friends wre "worldly" people.

There are a lot of anomalies in this game!

link

6

Talk by a Branch Overseer (part II)

by Defender in

jw
friends

cygnus .

below is my reply in red to your reply in an earlier post.

i felt it merited a separate post.. .

link

A P.O. once said to me that the 1914 doctrine was probably wrong. When I asked him how, in that case, could he justify teaching it to others he replied "Ah! But its right for our time"

What he was saying was that although he, and possibly many others, did not believe it, the fear of destruction at an imminent Armageddon was sufficient to drive many people into the "truth". All he seemed interested in was numbers, not the truth!

To illustrate this point, one of the brothers that I studied with became a baptised witness within six weeks of first call. It was 1975 and he was told that unless he was baptised within the next two months it would be too late for him to get everlasting life on a paradise earth. He was in faster than the speed of light and the funny thing is he is still there!

link

20

Why we NEED the WATCHTOWER.

by refiners fire in

jw
friends

the watchtower: october 15, 1953. article - "the watchtower, a bible study aid" .

brothers, i present it for your uplifting.

a little light sunday reading..... .

link

Pseudo,

You may or may not realise that you have hit the nail (almost) on the head.

What you have done is use one of the basic Watchtower practices; that of using embedded suggestion to bypass filters in the brain. Whilst the concious mind is busy trying to work out what you are actually saying the, sub-concious is taking in the material they want you to believe.

You only need a basic understanding of hypnosis and hypnotic suggestion to see how this works and how effective it is. Combined with other similar strategies, this makes the Watchtower a powerful tool indeed. Believing what it says is not a matter of intellect or intelligence - anyone in the world who has not studied these techniques can be fooled in this way.

link

7

Englishman, Please Read

by Windchaser in

jw
friends

i went back to read what you had posted in my 'let's hear it for chesterfield' post.

it was blank.

i reponded to your blankness, and there was some sort of message stating that neither of our posts were readable.

link

Windy,

I hope that you dont mind if I explain to Englishman exactly why your church spire is twisted. You see, the explanation that it was due to warped timber is just a malicious rumour. What actually happened is this:

Just as the building gang were putting the finishing touches to the steeple, a virgin passed by on the street below. This being an extremely rare sight on the streets of Chesterfield, all of the workman scrambled to one side of the steeple to catch a glimpse of her thus causing the steeple to twist.

The local clergymen were very disappointed that the steeple ended up this shape and made the builders promise that just as soon as the next virgin passed by they would come and straighten it up.

You can therefore see exactly why the steeple is twisted and also why it was never straightened up.

Just wanting to get the facts right.

link

7

Englishman, Please Read

by Windchaser in

jw
friends

i went back to read what you had posted in my 'let's hear it for chesterfield' post.

it was blank.

i reponded to your blankness, and there was some sort of message stating that neither of our posts were readable.

link

Windchaser would you now like to tell Englishman the REAL reason that the steeple is crooked? I believe that it had something to do with a the Chesterfield virgin !

link

43

A Note of Sanity

by Know_You in

jw
friends

i'd like to inject a note of sanity into this wasp's nest of disgusting apostate vermin.

between all the bickering and backbiting, you have, as the scriptures foretold, not noticed that the day is upon you.

already it is the auspicious month of october.

link

You Know (Know You) is either a bumbling idiot or an absolutely brilliant satirical author. Just try reading his posts as if he were the latter and you will see that some of the responses that he gets are completely hilarious.

For me his contributions here are priceless. He goes straight for a nerve and then swerves off at the last moment leaving the reader completely incensed but unharmed. Some may think that Im as nutty as You Know but I really mean this.

I do not believe that You Know is a practising JW or that his posts necessarily have anything to do with religion. He strays onto this subject only occasionally in order to wind everyone up.

Thank you You Know. Keep up the posting.

link