the last official 'meeting' i went to was in january at our two day assembly.
believe me i didn't want to go but i did and took a different kind of notes.
for one i wrote down in my note book words like "faithful and discreet slave", gb, organization, fruits of the spirit, jesus, and put a check mark next to each time i heard one of them, (just like when we were kids guys!).
Great thread, fantastic observations and thanks for confirming what some of thought would happen at this particular assembly. Really enjoyed this phrase;
" a low energy frequency"
Just about sums the feeling one leaves any WTS propaganda session with.
Is Iloowy still banned from here?
while i am new to this network, the evidence seems to be overwhelming that the wbts is in decline.
while many voice their pleasure at this prospect, it is in many ways sad for me:.
it is sad that so many have spent such a great quantity of their early lives supporting a cause that appears to have been a waste of time.
@ Garybus and PP - surely you don't think it is just that easy? It has many more layers that just a simple "get over it". I don't think people would mind being shunned by "some jerk" but for most it is family and what they thought were friends. Can be pretty hard to reconcile that kind of emotion and still come out sane.
It's never a case of a simple "get over it" and I'd never suggest it was. However, to stay in a cult because you fear losing contact with people who only stay in contact with you because you're seen to be part of their cult is surely counter-productive and in the long-term much more damaging that simply leaving.
It's especially disturbing that some willingly choose to stay in the cult, and live with a sense of foreboding due to the cult's rules and a sense of looking over one's shoulder due to the cult's elders, because they fear family members not speaking to them ever again. Not only are they subjecting themselves to a lifestyle restricted and shaped by a set of doctrines they don't believe in, but even worse, those doctrines are formulated from a fantastical book they don't believe in either!
saw this on the paradise cafe forum.
anyone know if there is any substance to these rumours?:.
unconfirmed issues at wt hq and chicago.
silly rumors like this
I wonder if people described it as "silly rumors" when it became known that a member of the Governing Body was a....what are they called again....oh, that's right, an apostate?
I think it's really easy to forget that just over 20 years ago the WTS was seriously rocked to it's core and a lot of people left and went on to write books, speak publicly and offer hope to every single JW who came after them.
It will happen again.
saw this on the paradise cafe forum.
anyone know if there is any substance to these rumours?:.
unconfirmed issues at wt hq and chicago.
@ albert - sorry mate, I don't have it to hand. It was in the Study Edition of the Watchtower and it was one of those supplementary articles that sit between the study articles. It arrived sometime last May or June, IIRC.
japan had a handful of witnesses after ww 2....this number skyrocketed to 222,912 by 1998!
then something happened.
publisher figures didn't stop, they dropped by thousands over the next decade!.
I see your point regarding converts looking to the internet for information prior to moving forward with studies. I think to a large degree, that's what we're seeing here in the US, especially among the English speaking population (although I'm sure its starting to be true with the Spanish speaking population as well).
IMO, this is why the WTS is dead set on sticking with the "apostolic tradition" of going door-to-door. Do they really want their message being seen and heard by millions of people in the West, particularly when it's so easy to say, "ooh, Jehovah's Witnesses! What colourful, informative magazines! Let me just get some more information on them from my web browser!"? Thus, keeping the JWs on a treadmill of door knocking when there's no one at home (i.e. 9am-11am Monday - Friday) or when they're too busy to take any notice (i.e. 9.30am - 11am Saturday), then there's little chance of JWs actually showing up on the average PC-hooked-up-to-the-internet-owning householder's radar.
Plus, why are they sticking with the "apostolic tradition" of going door-to-door when they've ditched the other "apostolic traditions" of, oh, I dunno, meeting in private homes and baptism at the point of conversion/belief?
while i am new to this network, the evidence seems to be overwhelming that the wbts is in decline.
while many voice their pleasure at this prospect, it is in many ways sad for me:.
it is sad that so many have spent such a great quantity of their early lives supporting a cause that appears to have been a waste of time.
The far left might excuse a believer for being deluded but there's no good excuse for a coward who stays because they're afraid of being shunned by some jerk.
What Gary says here is probably massively unpopular with many on this forum. But I happen to agree wholehearted with him.
i know this article was brought up with respect to the statement it contains regarding the fact that religion should not divide a family.
i finally got to read it and i found something more interesting a few paragraphs earlier.
the article states:.
@ homeschool - deeeeeep breaths.
hi again.... i've been searching around for a few days now trying to understand whether or not there are spiritual folks out there who believe some of the fundamental tenents of the witness religion, but don't believe in all the rules that the gb puts forth... many of the folks that i talk to tell me that the only way to salvation is through acceptance of jesus as god.
i do accept jesus as the messiah, as a perfect man that god sent to atone for the sins of adam, but i don't believe he is god.... i believe there is one god, one son and one holy spirit and they are not three persons in one god... i feel weird whenever i go to another service that exalts the trinity, as well as some other basic rituals of their religion.... am i making sense?.
@ LeavingWT - Walter is great.
hi again.... i've been searching around for a few days now trying to understand whether or not there are spiritual folks out there who believe some of the fundamental tenents of the witness religion, but don't believe in all the rules that the gb puts forth... many of the folks that i talk to tell me that the only way to salvation is through acceptance of jesus as god.
i do accept jesus as the messiah, as a perfect man that god sent to atone for the sins of adam, but i don't believe he is god.... i believe there is one god, one son and one holy spirit and they are not three persons in one god... i feel weird whenever i go to another service that exalts the trinity, as well as some other basic rituals of their religion.... am i making sense?.
"PP - Sorry if I misread your meaning. One thing I have discovered as I have sampled various churches, is that the membership often has a wide variety of ideas and understandings of scripture and no one seems to get overwrought if someone holds a different one from the official doctrine of the church. I attended a Methodist church a few times shortly after leaving the wts and was shocked when they actually encouraged people to read the Bible and try to figure things out for themselves!"
I think if you can find a church that you're comfortable in and enjoy fellowship in, then just relax and have fun. I know one committed Christian (an ex-JW) who for the first 30 years after leaving the WTS didn't believe the Trinity. However, she wasn't excluded or shunned because of this.
