Posts by Cadellin

40

Hello everyone....another newbie here

by KWJoe in

jw
friends

i made my first post yesterday on an earlier topic about celebrating holidays.

just lois invited me to introduce myself.....hi jl.

where to start?

Cadellin

Welcome and good for you for finding freedom--and true love! Yes, life is good.

21

It's yime for an introduction

by HowTheBibleWasInvented in

jw
friends

i've been lurking a month or two and letting out a comment here and there.a few weeks ago someone asked if i had formally introduced myself.

i was born and raised a witness.

i always found meetings borning and family studies so bad.

Hey--welcome! That is really interesting--I, too, was awakened to the TTATT through an "innocent" foray into credible, third-party (read: Not WT) research. Amazing what you learn actually reading what scholars who have conducted broad and comprehensive studies of the Ancient Near East have written, as well as what geneticists and biologists have discovered. Amazing, isn't it, how the WT brochures and articles supposedly "proving" why the Bible is trustworthy history conveniently avoid mentioning what are certainly smoking guns as to the contrary?

I applaud you for your intellectual courage and motivation to expose the WT's lies and misrepresentations. Most JWs prefer to not look at the seams too closely, choosing the comfort of the social mielieu and the "hope" of living forever. I, too, was heartbroken when it dawned on me that I would never frolic in the golden light of that elephant-and-lion festooned paradise, garbed in the colloquial ethnic dress of centuries past, while smiling maids bore platters of basketball-sized fruit. Damn.

68

More fear and paranoia WT-style! (11/15/13 WT)

by LostGeneration in

i usually dismiss the "drinking the kool aid" scenarios that are posted from time to time, but the latest wt has another bit of fearmongering.

the quote from page 20, para 17. elders who are reading this article can draw some useful conclusions from the account we have just considered: (1) the most practical step that we can take to prepare for the coming attack of the assyrian is that of strengthening our faith in god and helping our brothers to do the same.

(2) when the assyrian attacks, the elders must be absolutely convinced that jehovah will deliver us.

Cadellin

At first, I didn't believe that this was really in the Nov. WT (sorry--I'm permanently skeptical from being fooled for so long as a JW). I mean, it just sounds so bat-shit crazy. So I went to the site and read the PDF.

Me, before reading it: Me, after reading it:

OMG. This is the scariest issue I've read in a long time. The GB is basically saying, "No matter what we tell you to do, no matter how insane it sounds, you must do it." The worst part is that they have been preparing JWs for a long time now to mistrust their own instincts, to resist their inner voice and to doubt what their heart is telling them, which makes people especially vulnerable to external control. Every study issue of the WT is "Obey, Obey, Obey." On top of that, you have a group that is not particularly well-educated or well-read, and that is socially, intellectually and religiously very isolated. In some ways, they're physically isolated, too, since many JWs don't go anywhere where they might have close contact with "worldlings." This is a recipe for another Jamestown--and I know it's been said before--but when you take the accumulation of all the mind-control tactics together...

I really feel ill and very frightened. I really think something terrible is going to happen in the next couple of years and while, yes, it would be great to have this religion exposed, I shudder to think about what damage will be done to a lot of people.

To me, it seems like a huge red flag and I have to wonder what responsibility we have to warn--I don't know. Warn some authority? I honestly don't know, but it seems like some kind of pro-active action should be taken. On the other hand, I believe in free speech and in people's right to make their own stupid decisions. Thoughts?

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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[endif][if gte mso 10]> <mce:style><!

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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[endif][if gte mso 10]> <mce:style><!

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.