long, long time lurker and great fan of the site - first time poster.
i am not sure if i am truly a lurker since that implies i am apostate-curious.
in fact, i have been mentally out completely for a long time, but still physically in like many of you.
Accounts is awful, it's usually given to the most senior MS, or at least the MS who is most numerate or has a numerate wife... Accounts servant is a stepping stone to elderdom too, if you do it well.
Map servant is OK, magazine servant is OK too. You should just aim at being happily incompetent at whatever assignment youre give so that youre not asked to take on extra. Appear to be happy & eager but useless.
i think 60% think or hope it's all what it's cracked up to be and the others are just there for different reasons.. what do you think?.
20% believe everything from the GBs mouth is absolute truth (fully indoctrinated born ins, some of the elderly long time servers)
60-70% on a spectrum believe "It's God's organisation, but there's a few things I don't understand"
10-20% - Major doubts but stick in for various reasons + skeptics & non-believers.
It's just a shame the 10-20% can't identify each other.
i've been reading around this subject of late and it seems to make a lot of sense.
i'm wondering if anyone is convinced and/or has seen anything that can substantiate or corroborate the 'facts' set out in these arguments.. http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/bloodlines/russell.htm.
i was particularly fascinated to read the following:.
The elite, however you define them, already have in the high 90%s of the world's worth. Do you really think they're siting around illuminatifying?
All they're doing is trying to fight rising taxation & protect their own interests. Some of the good'un's create vast charitable foundations - it's the best we can hope for at the moment.
some of you will have noticed that i've been paying a lot of attention to the governing body recently.
this is because most jehovah's witnesses venerate them collectively (even if they can't name them individually), and i feel this makes it important to understand this group of men properly and expose their mindset as individuals.
as the saying goes, i feel it's important to "know your enemy".. i realize it's very convenient to think of the governing body as being "evil" when we consider that they are ultimately responsible for all the damaging jw teachings and beliefs.
It's a corporation dedicated to the survival of the corporation. The governing body are all now company men who have proved their dedication to the corporation. Everything they do, seen through that lens, makes sense.
Honestly, I believe the 'John' who wrote Revelation was familiar with the Hebrew scriptures. He was probably a Christian convert Jewish mystic who re-imagined the restoration prophecies of the Israelite nation to translate them into the second coming of Christ prophecies. It's not surprising there is lots of shared imagery.
It's just a shame that 2,000 years later people still take them seriously as indicators of the future.
because i was raised a witness, i don't think i was "uncomfortable" knocking on strangers' doors.
(weirdo).. but as i got older, i simply didn't want to bother anyone so i was at there door for no more than 30 seconds.
at the end i hated being there..
Born in, always hated it.
Shy child, shy teenager didn't matter, every Saturday, many Sundays forced to be out knocking on doors. I auxilary pioneered many, many times through guilt or 'encouragement' & it became tolerable & sometimes it was nice to be out in sunny weather with friends. But the knocking on doors talking to strangers about God bit never became normal or enjoyable.
1. move out of your assigned congo territory - with gas going back to $ 4 a gallon, they wont come hunting for you.
2. stop going to meetings because you:_______________________________________________.
2. Stop going to meetings because you:
a) have unspecified allergies
b) are depressed c) have to work late
d)'are stumbled'
there has got to be some kind of code word system to find out if someone you know is in "fade mode"!
lol!!!
what do you do when you suspect a jw is on the way out?...you may notice that they don't talk about meetings or service on social media...they don't even list jw as their religion.
Using the ol' green Bible was talked about for a while, but I think that's too obvious now.
We can't go for not answering up & yawning ostentatiously because that's about 70% of the audience.
i don`t know how the rest of you posters feel , but i think all of this knowledge coming out ad-hoc in response to questions could be utilized in a more meaningfull way by a book or series of books , not just for the benefit of ex jw`s but for all that are interested in the bible and christianity.. leolaia : if you have already published something along these lines please forgive my ignorance , (and point me in the right direction) however if you haven`t, then please seriously consider it.. i am sure many,many , people would benefit greatly.. smiddy.
I would LOVE a book of Leolaia's takedowns of the societies mythology, e.g. showing how the society's explanation of the nephalim conflicts with tradition & the bible etc...
i was remembering the 1980s when it was in vogue to shun children.
they went through a fad when they'd call unbaptized excommunication as "disassociation".
within a short period of time, most of the teens and preteens were "disassociated" or disfellowshipped.
I remember many announcements that someone was now a 'dissaproved associate'. It's crazy, they'd disfellowship a kid that wasnt even baptised!
