Ilovebirthdays

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Posts by Ilovebirthdays

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  51

  What was your favorite Beatles song that you remember ?

  by thetrueone in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  for myself growing up in the 60's it was mostly the beatles that drew my attention as well as many others.. as for the entire body of work by them, there might never be another four piece musical group like them.. sad to think that the younger generation today only has thug rap/hip hop trash or britney spears to listen to.. the quality of music may have diminished itself when it started to become more of a visual expression of art rather than .

  purely audio form of entertainment.. just one of my favorites out of many.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfrk4ca0dlg&feature=related.

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  Ilovebirthdays

  I love the Golden Slumbers melody. I know it makes no sense, but when I was a JW and really depressed, I'd listen to that and it was like Paul McCartney was telling me that somehow everything was going to be okay. (Not literally, of course)
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  28

  Do dubs intentionally mess up other people's holidays/birthdays?

  by rebel8 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  mine does.

  goes way out of her way to stir up trouble, conflict, and manipulate the former and non-dub relatives into not having a nice holiday.

  goes to extremes to do so, and is at it again, right on cue..

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  Ilovebirthdays

  My family always tries to do this. They maybe will ask to see my children once a year, and they always ask for them on some major holiday. They also try to do things to interfere with my wedding anniversary, too.
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  83

  Apostate Brainstorming Session

  by AllTimeJeff in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have been meaning to bring this up for a long time.. sometimes, i think we (former jw's) who are very rightly concerned about all the lies of the governing body have some great ideas about how to expose jehovah's witnesses.. some of us have very passionate and distinct ideas.

  not a few of us have websites with our own personalities evident.. i don't wish this to get personal.

  even if i disagree with some presentations or rhetoric of some, i know that it is sincere.

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  Ilovebirthdays

  I don't know if one should focus on the type of media (websites, books, podcasts, etc) to put out to get through to JW's, I think the important thing is HOW the message is delivered. I read COC, (not until 11 years after I left, and by then I was totally sure the JW's didn't have anything right) and what impressed me most was the tone of the book. Ray Franz used the "just the facts ma'am" rational approach that I think is the most effective. I think there are some out there who harm any efforts to get JW's to see the truth about the "truth", because their approach is very over-emotional, irrational, and sometimes focuses on elements of the JW's that plain just aren't true, and hurts any credibility of the message they have, both with JW's and any "worldly" people that might see their message, because, well, they just come across as lunatics. Hell, sometimes when I listen to those ones, I'm almost convinced the JW's have better logic than they do.

  But I'm afraid you and I have cynacism in common. I don't see the downfall of the JW's coming anytime where I'll see it, and if it does come, I think it won't be a disbanding, but a major doctrinal shift that will show the JW's of 100 years from now to have as much in common with the JW's of today as the JW's of today have with the JW's of the CT Russel era. (Translation: little if anything in common.) The population in general will never care about what JW's do to their members, they're just not important enough to even be a blip on their radar.

  And you can also count me in as another who doesn't necessarily thing bringing them down is a good thing. There is a significant enough portion of JW's hanging by a mental thread, or just plain not being tough enough to make it without the WTBS telling them their every move. I think if something miraculous shut down the entire operation tomorrow and without a doubt proved that they weren't God's channel, you'd see a fair amount of suicides, people too depressed to go on, or people finding something equally as cultish to turn their lives over to. Sometimes I think of my Grandma. She's the person in my family I'd like most to come out, but she's also the least. She's 83 years old, and it was hard enough for me to accept the first 25 years of my life were nothing but a big waste. I don't think she'd take it well that the last 83 years of hers was.

  For now, I'm just going to go with the best anti-Witness is a life well lived. I do everything I can to take the high road, and while I know nothing will change with my family (and, TBH, I can't say I want it to change for them), I know if nothing else, I've shown them that my life didn't end and bad things aren't happening to me because I've left.
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  19

  Children JW Rejection Statistics

  by AggieNostic in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am wondering if my family is similar to yours... i have 2 sisters and 1 brother.

  my older sister and i were 5 and 7 years old when my parents joined.

  my other sister and brother were "born in".

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  Ilovebirthdays

  Statistics like these really bum me out, because I seem to come from an atypical family. I never really believed that Pew survey (until I found ex-JW boards) saying they had about a 1/3 retention rate, because I see so many stay.

  I'm the only one that left of my siblings, so 33.3%. I'm the only one of the five grandchildren on my mother's side to leave, so 20% there. There's 2 of us out of 12 grandchildren on my father's side that left, so 17% there. And out of everyone I grew up with in the congregation, I know for a fact that about 90% of them are still in, and it isn't that the other 10% are definitely out, I just can't tell you for a fact if they're in or out. The only 2 I knew who left were both teenagers when their moms started studying, the dads never came, and they were never baptized, so I don't think you can really count them as JW's. I'm talking about people mostly aged in their mid-30's.
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  34

  Written Reviews...what did you really do during them?

  by xeracia in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  remember these silly tests they make you take?

  i don't remember how often they were, but thinking back on them, boy does it seem silly!

  sitting there for half an hour trying to remember stupid stuff as if you are in school.

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  Ilovebirthdays

  I forgot about those. I actually loved them because it was at least something different. Mostly I would just write random words and enjoy the fact that I didn't have to pretend to listen to someone.
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  10

  Saturday Morning Coffee while Waiting for the Freezing Rain to Move In

  by AdaMakawee in

  1. social
  2. current

  my part of oregon is getting a dose of winter this weekend.

  in fact the cold weather started over the course of last week.

  the pond in front of my apartment is iced over and even the hardiest of canadian geese have stopped flying over looking for a spot to land in.

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  Ilovebirthdays

  I must be somewhere around your neck of the woods, but all it is doing is slightly raining here. They cancelled my son's Santa breakfast at his school last night for nothing, it seems. I AM glad for all the cold weather to have left, and find it funny how warm it is supposed to be by the end of the week.
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  221

  Why do Ex-JWs start celebrating pagan Christmas?

  by DubR in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hiya guys and gals.

  im not trying to be self-righteous but i want to understand the thought process of someone who knows the origins of christmas, but starts celebrating it (putting up christmas tree, exchanging wrapped gifts; repeating merry christmas to everyone they see in the month of december)??

  it seems very silly to me (imo) after knowing how and why christmas was created (to cater to pagans sun worship and convert to christianity)!!

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  Ilovebirthdays

  Because it is fun and my kids get so much joy out of it. And I DO realize that the whole it being pagan thing is just another way to control your lives by the old men back in New York. Google wedding rings and pagan origins, and you'll find that they're just as steeped in pagan origins as Christmas is, but for some reason the JW's seem to have no problem with those.
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  14

  Its almost 2010... aren't we supposed to be on our way to Jupiter by now?

  by Elsewhere in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was just scheduling work things for dec and jan and it occured to me: we're almost to 2010. .

  holy crap!

  i thought we were supposed to be on our way to jupiter with a bunch of russians to save the hal computer by now!

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  Ilovebirthdays

  I KNEW there was something on my 'to do' list I'd forgotten. Thanks for reminding me.
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  42

  Logistical problems of the new system...

  by highdose in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just supposing that you belive in it... i used to always wonder, how on earth are we going to get from one country to the other?

  i mean old type ships used to take months to get around!

  what about land travel?

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  Ilovebirthdays

  That is not something proper to speculate about. Jehovah will take care of it all. Now go out in service so you can speculate about proper things. Like which house you're going to get when the present inhabitants die at Armaggedon.
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  62

  What's Your Favorite Christmas Song?

  by sacolton in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  mine is "silent night".

  never get tired of listening to that one..

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  Ilovebirthdays

  Blondie, you have facts and figures for everything. I guess I'm not that original if my favorite song was number 6 on that list. I just love how dramatic it is.

  Reading this, I also have to give a nod to Feliz Navidad. Whoever said it is so happy was right.