Posts by Cadellin

53

2011 Yearbook - "Tracing All Things with Accuracy"

by pirata in

2011 yearbook - "tracing all things with accuracy", p.9-13.

jesus said that the faithful slave would be discreet in giving the domestics "their food at the proper time.

" christ thus indicated that those who dispense this "food" would be conscientious, prudent, and discerning in providing spiritual food for the household of faith.-matt.

Cadellin

FM used the phrase "low risk admission." That's it, exactly. By admitting the "error" of a few silly things, they are hoping to innoculate readers against pursuing any deeper, more significant inconsistencies or inaccuracies. And it's working, to some extent. My mother, who'se aware of my problems with how the Society uses scientific quotes, pointed this Yearbook blurb out to me as proof that the Society is aware of the "problem" and is correcting it. See? Everything's good now, you only have to wait on Jehovah.

YEAH, BUT it makes the most recent shoddy work in the latest 2010 Creation brochure even more reprehensible, IMHO, considering that the two projects had to be in the works at around the same time. "Let's distract the readers with our goofy little example of spider silk and they won't notice the omission of gobs of relevant context in our 'discussion' of how life began!"

"Tracing all things with accuracy"--Yeesh!! And keep a straight face at the same time...

27

who succeeded Fred Franz not as President but the theological guru

by ex-Special Pioneer in

jw
friends

for decades fred franz was the guru of the watchtower bible & tract society.

he was obsessed with "biblical prophecy" trying to explain the book of daniel and revelation.

who took over after he stopped writing and who is considered the authority on the jws teaching today especially the so called "prophetic interpretation?

Cadellin

Recent books on prophecy have more to do with things like dress and grooming, Internet pornography, and meeting attendance. When prophecy is dealt with it is primarlily cut and paste from older Watchtowers.

Good observation. It's all spun to be about rules of conduct, the preaching work and obedience and, increasingly, extremely simplistic with "dumbed-down" reasoning aimed at about a Grade 4 or 5 reading level.

44

If you could choose one book to suggest to a JW...

by SweetBabyCheezits in

jw
friends

i'm sure this isn't an uncommon question but i'll ask anyway.. suppose you had the chance to suggest one book, essay, article, or other writing with the goal of helping a loved one wake up... which one would it be?.

bear in mind the goal is to subvert the programmed hair-trigger defenses that cause a complete shutdown of critical thinking.

this automatically excludes anything that would directly place the wt society or its history in a negative light.

Cadellin

This might be too subtle, but I might suggest Neither East Nor West by Christiane Bird. It's about one woman's travels, by herself, through Iran. I read it before I woke up w/respect to the "truth," but I have to say that it jarred me.

At one point, Bird is visiting an ultra orthodox Muslim city in the north of Iran (Qum, IIRC) and she has a lengthy discussion with a cleric. The reasoning he uses to support Islam, as well as his general world view, was so similar to JWs that it gave me a jolt. I remember thinking something like Moslems think they have the truth but they're wrong--yet their epistemological support structure is virtually identical to ours. So if it's possible for them to be deluded, then what about us... The cleric's rationale regarding believers and non-believers could have come from an assembly part, no kidding. If I had to pinpoint one moment where I started to wake up, it was then.

Then, of course, I started discovering all the quotes taken out of context in the Creation book and my whole world fell apart. But that's another story...

27

Yoga......JW view

by confuzzled777 in

jw
friends

i needed a place to come vent.

i went to a yoga class last sunday and loved it!!

i am going again tonight with my hubby.

Cadellin

I have been so relaxed at the end of a yoga class, laying flat on my back for final relaxation--corpse pose!!--that I have almost fallen asleep. This, in the middle of the day, in broad bright daylight and on a HARD WOOD FLOOR. It's amazing.

And I've been doing Vinyasa, not Hatha, though I'm not sure there's a huge difference. I've also done power yoga, which is like vinyasa, only moving faster through the poses.

Love the Smurfette Yoga pants. I wanna pair!!

131

so oompa got df'd this week...

by oompa in

jw
friends

no call to invite me to a committee meeting...no notification of deciding i should be df'd....no telling my jw wife of the announcement...not a chance to appeal what i did not even know what was going on...my mini-serve son is devasted....he even researched it....told me to go to page 153-154 of the od book...never heard of it but it is a green hardback given to all who are to be baptized.

wow...the elders broke every rule in this book as to my case.... i have no respect for these men that can take away your jw family without even telling you they are going to.

my jw son has now begged me to meet with my committee...even though there is prob zero chance they can reverse the decision...that chance is from when they let you know...and you have to appeal by letter within 7 days (i cant make this stuff up!!

Cadellin

Oompa--I'm so sorry. This is a terrible blow, especially on top of the physical struggle you're going through in trying to recover from the accident. I'm amazed and stunned.

Actually, instead of sending the story to French and Russian governments--or maybe, in addition to--why not see if the Bulgarian gov't is interested in hearing about these "sanctions" to your (unconscious) acceptance of blood?

27

Yoga......JW view

by confuzzled777 in

jw
friends

i needed a place to come vent.

i went to a yoga class last sunday and loved it!!

i am going again tonight with my hubby.

Cadellin

As I was fading, I very much wanted to try yoga--I had heard so many great things about it. And, yeah, I'd read the extended, hyperparanoid view of the WT. It took a lot of coursge to walk into my first yoga class but I'm SO GLAD I DID! First of all, there were no demons lurking in the corners. As any reasonable person knows, spiritual and cultural significances of practices change with time and place. The yoga that is practiced in the average American gym or health club is a far cry from the kind of meditative spiritualized experience that that WT is so worried about. Where I go, we listen to hip-hop music while we do down dog! There's no meditation, though we do close our eyes and engage in deep breathing, which is incredibly relaxing. I absolutely love yoga and find it is fantastic for both strength and flexibility. I think its sad that extremist fear-mongering has closed off this incredibly healthful avenue for your friend.

60

Hello. I have made myself a footnote.

by NewChapter in

jw
friends

first time poster.

i guess this makes me the scary a word.

arent apostates jealous?

Cadellin

Welcome, NewChapter! Looking forward to hearing more from you!

Leo said: Well, that was until they discovered Ardi (transitional between quadriped and biped):

And don't forget Sahelanthropus tchadensis, at 7 million ybp! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahelanthropus

Lucky you for getting to see Lucy! We got to see her when she visited the Seattle Science Center a year or so ago.

24

So, circuit assembly. Ni-i-ice...

by sd-7 in

jw
friends

randy newman might say, in this moment, .

moving on, had to get that out of my head, um...so.

i feel like this is the worst time to be writing anything, as i'm in a rather foul mood today.

Cadellin

I can't have a spiritually united family without selling my soul and compromising my values

Hey, sd-7, it's totally fine to vent. We're listening and--most importantly--we understand. What you said above really resonates with me--you totally hit the nail on the head. You and many of us, myself included, are right plop in the middle of an impossiblity, a paradox of heart-wrenching proportions.

Hang in there. Don't sell your soul. Don't compromise your values. But do what you need to do to keep going, and find happy again.

30

LURKERS: Is JW the only true religion? Here is my personal research!

by mentallyfree31 in

jw
friends

are jehovah's witnesses the only religion teaching the truth?.

the statement that only jehovah's witnesses are teaching the truth is an extraordinary claim.

such a claim would require extraordinary evidence.

Cadellin

This brings to mind the WT study article from Sunday, where young ones were encouraged to "prove to themselves that the Bible is true." When the Society says that, what they really mean is "ratify what you've been told to believe," as could be seen from the next paragraphs emphasizing Bible/WT literature reading. There is no risk in that kind of inquiry; in fact, that's not true inquiry at all. It's merely reinforcement of an a priori belief system. Yet it gives the illusion of a certain kind of intellectual rigor, that the Bible can be proven to conform to JW teachings through an impartial examination, which aligns with the JW idea of ultimate, objective, immutable (yes, despite the ever-fluctuating beams of "new light") and proprietarial Truth.

To embark on the kind of inquiry contemplated by mentallyfree's post means to put the JW idea of Truth at great risk; it means to step outside the discourse community and to be willing to have your entire world view upset. It also means a lot of hard work--it's so much easier to simply read the mags and WT literature and to have that cozy, warm feeling of having been right all along.

55

Greetings to All, No Longer Lurking

by Franklin Massey in

jw
friends

claustrophobic.

that's the simplest way for me to express how i feel in the wt org.

like many here, my eyes were slowly opened over the years as i did more earnest research, trying to reconcile some long standing spiritual quandaries.

Cadellin

There is hope gained from hearing that you are not alone in your struggle. Many of the brothers and sisters have cautiously shared with me the same concerns that a lot of you voice on this forum every day. As you post, please remember that there are possibly thousands of curious, doubting, concerned friends who sneak onto to this website in search of something. Show them they are not alone. Show them they are not dependent on any man-made religious entity. Show them that love, goodness, and compassion exist an more places that they may have ever known.

Beautifully put. You are an eloquent writer, and I agree wholeheartedly with your words. That said, I wish you strength in remaining undercover. I tried to do that as well, out of respect for a large extended family of uber-strong Witnesses whom I love dearly, including my elder husband. I've been partially successful, but found I cannot participate in field service with a clear conscience. I did the driving around visiting the elderly and ill for a long time (which, btw, I enjoyed and found genuinely useful) but inevitably it would entail at some point being forced to do a few not-homes or RVs. How are you planning on navigating the field service requirement?

My husband just returned from the KM school, where he gave one of the talks w/demo, and I'm aware that he's experiencing a measure of cognitive dissonance. His response is to batten down the hatches and revert to more deeply entrenched non-thinking modes (for lack of a better phrase). I, on the other hand, have become more and more aware of the severe gaps in evidence and logic immanent in so much of what the Society prints. This has caused not a small amount of stress in our marriage.

The harsh and un-Scriptural rhetoric on higher ed is, to me, one of the clearest signs that this organization is embracing a heightened seige mentality that can only result in further fragmentation from within.

Nice to have you here!