Posts by Cadellin

10

The Mermaid Takes Notes at the DC...in Limerick Form

by Cadellin in

for those of you who missed the dc, i thought i'd share my notes so you, too, can partake of the spiritual feast.

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Cadellin

I think we should publish a chapbook!!! You guys are brilliant.

22

The Mermaid Goes to the District Convention and this is what She Hears

by Cadellin in

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Cadellin

Pistoff: Those were from notes. I basically just scribbled down every negative thing, w/o worrying about grammar.

10

The Mermaid Takes Notes at the DC...in Limerick Form

by Cadellin in

for those of you who missed the dc, i thought i'd share my notes so you, too, can partake of the spiritual feast.

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Cadellin

For those of you who missed the DC, I thought I'd share my notes so you, too, can partake of the spiritual feast. This is just a smattering.

Friday, “The Truth Will Set You Free”

Drink in the pure waters of God

Or risk being seen as quite odd

For those who dare balk

At the elders’ straight talk

Soon draw back the curtains of fraud.

The suits walk the platform at ten

Eleven and twelve and, why, then

They go for a snack

But soon they’ll be back

For the platform’s all cock and no hen.

Saturday, “I Shall Walk in Your Truth”

How grateful we are for the news

That those who are gay can just choose

To deny their desire

Or risk the lake’s fire

With choice like that how can you lose?

We must let God’s Word shed the light

To be sure our decisions are right

You know what to do

Critical thinking eschew

Follow “Mother’s” rules or she’ll bite.

Higher ed is for worldly nations

To Witnesses it brings desolations

No need to waste time

On that spiritual crime

Grab your mop, we’re all cleaning sensations.

22

The Mermaid Goes to the District Convention and this is what She Hears

by Cadellin in

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Cadellin

I do think this DC has ratcheted up the phobic cultspeak a few notches. What really struck me was the heightened binary—everything is black and white, either evil/worldly or good/approved by the org. There is virtually no room left for a conscience or personal decision making.

Some observations:

1. The first demo Fri am was of a bible study telling the sister that she can’t have her study this morning. “Last night, I got into a discussion with Steve about the Bible and I really let him have it. And do you know what he did? HE HIT ME!” sobs the bible study.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” says the sister. “You did not deserve that. Jehovah does not approve of hitting. But maybe you could have handled it better. Here, read [Scrip on showing love].”

“But Steve never does any of those things!” says the study.

“Well, who’s trying to be the Christian here?” retorts the sister.

Sound familiar? Yup, it’s almost word for word the experience in the Feb 2012 WT. Except for a careful addition: The first two sentences the sister says about you not deserving that and Jehovah not approving of hitting are ADDED. They are NOT in the WT. I went home and looked it up on the CD-ROM. Anyone else notice that?

So much for “authentic” experiences.

2. The first scrip read—the very first in the whole program—was Prov 4 on the light getting brighter and its application to how “our understanding of truth is progressive and refined.” That scrip was used twice during the morning and there were repeated statements about progressive revealing of truth.

3. Evolution is now lumped in with the trinity and hellfire as false doctrine. Go figure. I suppose they’re trying to recast it as completely disassociated from actual scientific investigation.

4. One of the final talks had the weirdest illustration I’ve heard in a long time—in fact, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the speaker was getting at until he finally explained the application. Suppose you are looking to buy a house and the realtor takes you to nice gated community. The house is great, except that the realtor says that there are a few rules within the community. First, everyone believes in free love and sleeps with everyone else. Second, there are “propaganda meetings” that are mandatory because the community wants to control the direction of your life. Any guesses? He’s talking about college campuses! This led to an extended discussion of how Christian parents would never expose their children etc. etc.

5. The Apostate talk was a doozy. I have NEVER heard of so much vitriol in such a short amount of time. The Bethel speaker was almost trembling. I decided that I would just take down every negative characterization. The most hilarious part, though, is that Satan runs a restaurant! Yes, Satan's diner, where demons are sous-chefs and human apostates the kitchen help. All I could think of was--someone's been watching a little too much Chef Ramsey.

Anyway, here goes. Without any grammatical adjustments or modifiers, in fourteen minutes, apostates are:

Evil, poisonous, unruly, poisonous lies, deceive minds, prefer the table of the demons, slanderous, infected, diseased workers, pushed away from Jah's table, decided on the table of the demons, oppose Jah's will, part of the seed of the serpent, prideful, reject counsel, have earthly wisdom, animalistic, pride that escalates into bitterness, jealousy, reject God's service, draw men after themselves, only claim to worship God, too prideful to preach, like kidnappers, prey upon others, speak twisted things, create divisions, resort to distortions, half-truths, lies, malicious, intend to deceive, speak counterfeit words, twist scriptures, employ clandestine methods, use smooth talk in blogs, don't care about others, hypocrites, false faced, claim to be your brother, don't have an original thought, only want to criticize, claim to serve God but reject his representatives. Reject GB, reject overseers, reject elders, lie to authorities, seek to discredit organization, use media to lie, picket in front of Bethel, have wicked works, like someone with an infectious disease, mentally diseased, want to infect others, like rotten fish, not sincere in their expressions, double-hearted, want to undermine your faith, opposers, walk against the truth, part of the antichrist, work with Satan in his evil kitchen.

I counted 64 negative characteristics in 14 minutes, which makes 4.5 or so every minute. That's without any kind of surrounding grammatical construction, which of coure, the speaker supplied. But this gives you an idea of the tenor. Actually, I thought a couple of things were odd: Not having an original thought! And "working with Satan in his evil kitchen." Direct quote. I had to giggle at that.

The speaker also said, "Don't we feel that you can say whatever you want about me, but don't say a word about my mother. Well, our mother is the organization. Shouldn't we defend our mother?"

The exhortation was imperative and repetitive: Don't read, don't talk, don't respond, don't say a word, don't even glance at what apostates produce. This was said over and over and over.

Yeesh.

39

October 15th WT up already

by St George of England in

http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/w20131015/.

needless to say, banging on again about education and also creation/evolution.

can they not think of anything original?.

Cadellin

It's articles like these that reassure me IN SPADES that I made the right choice to leave. Yeesh.

39

October 15th WT up already

by St George of England in

http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/w20131015/.

needless to say, banging on again about education and also creation/evolution.

can they not think of anything original?.

Cadellin

I've been sceptical about the increase in extremism by the Society but these two articles on creation and education seem to point in that direction. The logical fallacies and double-speak is startling, even by WT standards, particularly with respect to their attitude toward creationists whom they, very oddly, view as highly different from themselves. Don't they realize that they are just as much creationists as the Baptists next door? That they are rejecting the very same "credible scientific evidence" that they vilify fundamentalists for doing? I think there's a perception among the WT writers that there's somehow one set of evidence supporting the idea of an old earth and a completely different set of evidence supporting evolution--or, at the very least, a different set of processes and rationale to arrive at the conclusion. It's this kind of picking and choosing of scientific fact that is crazy-making.

And the poster earlier who said that it's the same old, same old is absolutely correct. The line of reasoning in the article is basically this:

1. The Bible says God made everything and the Bible is true, so then evolution must be wrong.

2. We know God made everything because everything is SO AMAZING, like the oxygen cycle and the Monarch butterfly.

3. If the millions of species on earth are so amazing then they must have been created by God.

Uh, yeah. Right. The sad thing is, the logical fallacies should be identified by most people who have even a basic understanding of science, a college level reading ability and even one or two college courses in biology, philosophy, logic or geology. But to most JWs who don't have those, it seems to make perfect sense. Oh wait--that brings us to the OTHER ARTICLE in this stupid magazine.

Hmm, so why is it the WT doesn't want anyone going to University? I wonder, I wonder...

153

The antidote to the myth that JWs are declining

by slimboyfat in

one of the most persistent myths on this website is that jws are already in decline, the rot has set in, and the descent of the watchtower is inevitable from here on in.

unfortunately the facts do not bear this out.

jws are still increasing even in most developing countries, and they are still growing worldwide at a faster rate than the general population.

Cadellin

Interesting thread. I appreciate all the information. IMHO, things seem to be getting ready to decline. That is, the numbers (lies or not) don't indicate a current decline. However, I have to concur with what has been stated repeatedly:

(1) The average age of JWs is climbing and the number of seniors is startling, especially when you look at the average age of elders compared to MSs. When I was a girl, an MS was invariably a very young man--maybe even in his teens. Now ( from what I see when I very occasionally go), it's not uncommon to see MSs in their 30's, 40's or even older. They're supposed to be the "feeder stock" or "new blood" for the elder body!

(2) The quality of both JWs and publications has dramatically declined. I look at my own nephews and neices, all of whom were raised by uber-zealous parents. They are all now in their 20's. How many are or have ever regular pioneered? Exactly three out of nine. Moreover, it was their express intention to pioneer for exactly one year, as a kind of duty, before moving on to full-time work. One of them is now working 60+ hours /week for a big multinational corp as a financial analyst (she went to univ.), the other has married and he and his wife work full-time and have a nice, comfy lifestyle, not so different than the average "worldly" young couple. The third pioneered for a few years before moving in with a guy and getting df'd. (She's now reinstated, poor thing). I think those stats, while anecdotal, are highly representative of young witnesses.

Moreover, the general quality of the publications is so mundane and intellectually flabby as to be an embarassment to any JW with an IQ over room temperature. The reading level is about Grade 6, as is the complexity of content. The Organization is aiming low and reaping what they're sowing, which may or may not lead to a decline. Regardless, it will lead to a dramatic shift in demographics as the zealous, fire-in-the-belly old timers die off and are increasingly replaced by non-thinking, weekend Witnesses who dutifully go to meetings and expend their Saturday mornings driving around in expensive SUVs, doing absentee return-visits and frequenting Starbucks.

56

GB (Splane) says JW parent should "force" their children

by Gayle in

to go in "service," "baptism," etc.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsqmosgj710

Cadellin

Sheesh, what an idiot. Now they're coming down on parents whose 10-year old isn't an unbap pub? And 13-year olds who aren't bap? This is unquestionably a move to a more conservative and defensive stance. I was raised in the "truth," was the epitome of the good little daughter and no one thought it in the least bit questionable when I got dunked at 15. That was even considered a bit on the young side. My sister got dunked at 19, no biggie. We were the children of an elder, all in good standing, parts on the assembly, the whole nine yards.

It's clear that the borg is adopting the desperate strategy of roping the children in early and tight, especially when you combine this with the increased hardcore stance on communicating w/DF'd children...To paraphrase Princess Leiea, "The more the Watchtower tightens its grip, the quicker those waking up to TTATT will slip through its fingers." Desperate times for the Empire, indeed.

121

Symposium: Beware of Apostates! - 'God's Word is Truth!' District Convention of Jehovah's Witnesses 2013 - not on JW.ORG

by mindnumbed in

symposium: beware of apostates!.

satanhuman apostates also of interest ..... the truth brings "not peace, but a sword" .

Cadellin

This is part and parcel of how the WT maintains its iron-fisted control--instill as much self-doubt as possible in the rank and file. Isn't one of their favorite scrips "The heart is treacherous and desperate, who can know it?" or something along those lines? How many times is that trotted out in publications and in talks? Publishers are told over and over not to trust their own thinking, their own senses, their own ideas, that their imperfect, susceptible to Satan's machinations, their own imperfect heart, etc etc. So OF COURSE they shouldn't be thinking things through on their own and determining if apostate material is true or not! The average JW does not believe him/herself capable of doing so. After all, if Satan can mislead perfect humans and millions of perfect angels, he can easily mislead you or me!

That's why they need the organization to tell them what to think.

66

Another Newbie

by Skinnedsheep in

jw
friends

i recently came to the realization that the organization is corrupt and is false.

my story is similar to many i think.

i was raised in the religion, pioneered and served as an elder for a number of years.

Cadellin

Welcome, skinnedsheep:

I was raised in the "truth," by missionary parents, pioneered for many years, married an elder, the whole nine yards. Because I am a woman, I was never in line for MS/elder "privileges," of course.

I always had an uncomfortable awareness that our timeline/chronology differed from secular history but was able to quash it by telling myself that radiometric dating methods were faulty, as the Society asserts, and that historians had anti-Biblical motives. It was when I started reading some of the reference material used in the Creation book that I saw how badly the Society misused secular quotes and information. I started actually researching evolution, dating methods, archeology, etc. in earnest and the blinders fell off for good. By this time, I was married with a small child.

So what do you do? I gradually slowed down in meeting attendance and service--did the fade. S-L-O-W. Had it out with my elder husband. It was horrible and hard and heartbreaking. Ended up in therapy and on anti-depressants because, you see, when you take the red pill, you wake up with a thump to find your world fragmenting around you.

But--listen now--you come out the other side. You survive. I am lucky--my marriage survived too. And because I am a woman, my dear elder husband was able to run interference between me and the elders, you know, the "I'll take care of my own household" thing. As a male, you don't have that buffer zone. But you'll do it. And you'll find out, when you've fully emerged, blinking, into the sunlight, that the intellectual freedom and curiousity that you buried for so long as a good Witness is still there. You'll enjoy using your mind. You'll discover stuff you never knew you never knew.

If it hasn't already been said, I'll say it--read Ray Franz's book Crisis of Conscience. Order it now. You really need it at this point in your awakening.