Posts by hybridous

22

Service experiences

by former2free in

jw
friends

i know what you may be thinking by the title but bear with me.

have you ever reflected on past service experiences and think wow if only i had listened to a householder?

two things come to my mind of personal experience.

I was probably 12 or 13 at the time.

I was out in service on a terribly cold, inhospitable winter morning. I was paired with a slightly older (age 15-16) peer.

One woman opened her door, and with equal parts puzzlement and disgust, said words to the effect of: 'I can't believe that they have you out doing this, on a morning with these awful conditions.

My peer said: 'But this is Our Choice.'

Well, it might've been true for him - but it sure as hell wasn't true for me.

No, I was out there because my mother expected it of me. Nothing more than that.

And that's when it hit me - front and center.

We're lying. But apparently, it's OK as long as it's done for selective interests...

10

Just About To Leave For My Work's Christmas Party

by pale.emperor in

it's my work's christmas parts this evening.

just getting myself ready for it and decided to wear a suit rather than casual shirt and pants.

it's funny because i've just noticed that i now only own one suit.

hybridous

Isn't it grand to NOT have to wade through and drag around all the BS WT baggage about everything?

72

Did you know Banks create money out of thin air?

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

banks create money “out of thin air.”empirical studies have been undertaken to prove this thesis and this is the conclusion:.

in the 5,000 year history of banking, banks have been thought of as “deposit taking institutions which lend money”.. 1. what is the legal reality?

banks don’t take deposits and don’t lend money.the public is under this false impression on purpose because the language of banks is not legal language.. so--what is a “deposit”?a deposit is not actually a deposit.

hybridous

no banks cannot manufacture money out of thin air.

But they can loan money that they don't actually have deposited....

19

Do you remember this?

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

when g. was a litle kid, remembering the watchtower study at age 9, hearing all the stuff, the paragraph, the questions, the answers, about topics i could not understand, so it became so abstract that it was not entering my ears and brains.

it felt that i was no part of the group, someone alone on a distant planet.. do you remember this feeling?.

g..

hybridous

To the OP point - yes, I remember not really being able to wrap my mind around doctrine, and felt like I didn't fit it in because I didn't understand everything I was expected to...little did I know that accepting WT doctrine was NOT an exercise of rigorous logic, but rather a suspension of such thinking.

Not to mention, some of my Kingdom Hall contemporaries were starting to 'reach out', as-it-were, and Auxiliary Pioneer over summers and school breaks, and since I hated Field Service fiercely, I couldn't walk that plank...

While at the same time, the WT and my parents did their best/worst to make sure I didn't fit in with the kids at school...

Few friends in school and fake ones in the Kingdom Hall. I was a kid on an island.

And yet they were all astonished that I bailed on the religion. I was miserable in there, and yet it threw them for a loop that I balked at a lifetime on the hamster wheel. They really couldn't understand me - never could, I guess.

16

Their Last Message of Damnation

by new boy in

jw
friends

the leaders of the witnesses are preparing their flock for the day when they will have to give that last message of damnation.

they will soon be announcing how their loving god jehovah will soon becoming to kill off the vast majority of mankind.

billions of men women and children,.

hybridous

Also, the 'Last Message of Damnation' (OP), is a scenario where the "ark" of the saving Organization is shut, right?

So at this point, there's no more recruitment, no more disciple-making, no more Bible-studies....

No need for much literature or tracts. Maybe they save this final step for the days when the Org is so financially strapped, they're staring at their own demise, and thus proclaim and project their own mortality onto the world-at-large...

16

Their Last Message of Damnation

by new boy in

jw
friends

the leaders of the witnesses are preparing their flock for the day when they will have to give that last message of damnation.

they will soon be announcing how their loving god jehovah will soon becoming to kill off the vast majority of mankind.

billions of men women and children,.

hybridous

I don`t believe they will ever do that because its not something they could walk away from or explain its failure to materialize ,however they will always be on the brink of delivering such a message........ in the near future.
Dangling the carrot before the donkey scenario.

Good comment, smiddy. I had always seen this similarly. The 'Good News of the Kingdom' (or whatever you want to call their message, now) is really the penultimate message. Contrast with the final, ultimate, message (see OP).

And really, once they went to the final one, it's that or nothing. I don't see, outside of some 'Jonah clause', how they could renege and stay Jah's vengeance day. The 'Jonah clause' has never been part of the JW narrative regarding the end of the system. Total Armageddon destruction has always been treated as a foregone conclusion. Repentance was never an out.

89

why the watchtower is so short of money

by pepperheart in

the watchtower is so short of money because they have to pay for all the upkeep of so many branch offices around the world.because so many of the branch offices are in very poor countries and they are not balancing the budgets.

hybridous

Does it really mean anything to predict that the JW religion will be 'still be around in 100 years'?

What exactly, will be 'around in 100 years'?

It's been observed many times over that today's WT cult is markedly different in many ways, when compared to what we were involved with a generation ago; even more divergent when compared to what our grandparents were involved with 2 generations ago.

This 'religion' is evolving to find its homeostasis in a modern age with new pressures applied to it. It will continue to evolve and adapt to these pressures, or it will die. Each step it takes into the future removes it from its origins - ironic, given its grandiose claims.

So if we fast-forward 100 years and look up the JWs, what will we find? A pared-down internet-based religion? Some weird mutant frankenstein that found common cause and merged with SDA and Mormons? Don't laugh! It's about survival at all costs.

Whatever lasts won't be what's here now.

10

JW culture of "informers" is very similar to Communist China under Mao

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

first, let's look at what counsel is published by the watchtower and required as proper behavior in the congregation.. *** g88 9/8 p. 20 should i tell on my friend?

***understandably, you may not feel you have the spiritual qualifications to readjust an erring friend.

but would it not make sense to see to it that the matter is reported to someone who is qualified to help?

hybridous

"I'm paying a high price--THEREFORE--it must really be worth it all."

Yes, I am reminded of the terms: loss aversion and the sunk cost fallacy. Even when met with irrefutable proof that the religion in false by its own standards, the average JW can't concede anything.

Looking back on years of sacrifice and suffering to belong to the religion, what would it mean to do an about face? To admit you were wrong?

Tough pill to swallow. The a**holes that run the religion, however, have a way of forcing it down.

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