mindmelda

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Posts by mindmelda

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  46

  Anniversary of our being egged by JWS, decide to show you all the letter we sent to 200 JW families!!! Enjoy!!

  by Lady Liberty in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i hope this letter finds you and your loved ones both happy and well.

  one day, before the summer assembly, my parents informed me that they had serious doubts.

  i just wanted it to go away, and for things to be the way they used to be.

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  mindmelda

  Very scholarly. It's too bad the Witnesses aren't. And yes, I'd heard rumors for years that both Joseph Smith and Charles T Russell were Masons, and I have no doubt they were. It was quite common in their time. Pyramidology and spirtualism were both fads of their time, or scams, to be more honest.

  Studying the history of religions of that time and then reading "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell, wherein he also discusses the symbolism of what is on our money, our governmental seals and such in the USA, also the flag, and how many religious movements of the 17 and 1800s were steep in Masonic ideas or ritual, and how many influential people were in turn influenced by that led me to some of the same conclusions.

  I never could make head nor tails of the 1914 thing. I never felt comfortable teaching it to anyone else, because I knew deep down it was Bible hopscotch of the worst kind and also, that nothing outside of WTS literature leads you to 607 as the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians.

  The other fact that 1874 was Russells original date is pretty much buried by the WTS, but I found and read a couple of his studies in an old book store many years ago and knew that and that he was obsessed with the Pyramids. Egyptology was also a huge spiritual fad of the day. Some people still are, as a device of fiction, they come up frequently in science fiction as conduits for aliens or alien machines or power sources and such.
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  4

  Quandry

  by 70-Years-Of-Servatude in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm looking for a suggestion(s).

  i placed the bible teach book with a neighbor a couple of years back.

  in the meantime i went on a personal study holiday and found many things about the wts that i never heard of.

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  mindmelda

  Just tell him the truth. Tell him you've lost interest in the whole shebang because of further studying and examining their beliefs. I doubt he'll go around telling everyone what you said to him.
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  3

  30 years in the making

  by RR in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  55 7/1 p. 411 par.

  15 christian baptism for the new world society .

  15 a christian, therefore, cannot be baptized in the name of the one actually doing the immersing or in the name of any man, nor in the name of any organization, but in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit.

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  mindmelda

  That was pointed out to me as I was baptized before 1985. I was baptized in 1976, and I never dedicated myself to any organization.

  I also remember being baptized in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit, something else that seems to have been dropped.

  Didn't have a clue what I was doing or getting into. I know quite a few people baptized into the org back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, and they didn't have a clue either. You meet them and they have drifted away, with no understanding of what being baptized means to the core Witnesses who take this stuff more seriously.

  We did that 70 questions thing by the late 70s, but I memorized all the answers. I have an eidetic memory for what I read, pretty much a cinch.

  Before the questions, it was easy to get baptized. You just asked to be, and if you weren't doing anything particularly heinous, they dunked you.

  They're making it harder and harder to get into that sheep fold, aren't they? Probably because they want to keep the riffraff like us out. LOL
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  18

  If the heavenly hope was not for the "Ancients" then how do JW's explain .....

  by restrangled in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hebrews 11:13-16. particularly verse 16: nwt version,.

  but now they are reaching out for a better (place), that is, one belonging to heaven.

  hence god is not ashamed of them, to be called upon as their god, for he has made a city ready for them.. niv version.

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  mindmelda

  It wasn't until after I'd read several other bible translations that I realized how full of WTSisms.

  Part of the coded language that any isolated subculture uses. It helps you identify who is who, and who ain't you. Kind of like the pod people screech in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".

  I have to say my favorite bible now is among the ones the WTS seems to hate the most, the Good News Bible.

  Actually, reading the whole book of Hebrews convinced me more than anything that WTS teaching is crap. I notice there's a lot of stepping around Hebrews in WTS literature...I've never found Hebrews 1:3 addresed, for instance. Because it clearly infers what the Witnesses would call a Trinitarian view.

  They've villainized the Trinity beyond all reason. It's not what they think it is. You may still not believe it, but it isn't what the Witnesses tell you it is.

  I remember how shocked I was when I discovered that still, to this moment.
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  8

  Do more! Not enough! Sacrifice of praise! Inspired by Minimus' thread

  by 5thGeneration in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my father was well off.

  elder for 40 years.. he pioneered for 25 years and the attitude was, 'well it's nothing for him, no sacrifice, he has money!".

  when he quit for health reasons the attitude was, 'why isn't bro.

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  mindmelda

  There's only one reason you'd be constantly guilted into feeling you're not doing enough, and you'll find it's the same in all high control religious groups.

  It's because there is someone benefitting from all your hard, freely given labor. And it's not you.
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  41

  If this don't scare you, nothing will

  by purplesofa in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

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  mindmelda

  My non-Witness family members just look at me in astonishment when I tell them that I knew of someone who had committed adultery in the past, had a child by this woman, and even though he'd never mentioned it to his wife or the congregation elders, was still an elder when his illegitimate child showed up on his doorstep as a grown man.

  He'd never paid the mother one dime of child support, never acknowledged this kid as his and never confessed the situation to his wife, but it was overlooked because it was before he'd become a Witness.

  Someone pointed out that continuing to keep this secret was ongoing practice of deceit, but again, overlooked. He's still the Coordinating Overseer, as I believe they are called now, of his congregation. Not even a slap on the wrist.

  So, yeah, disfellowshipping and who gets turned in for what is all about who you know and where the bodies are buried in this organization, has nothing to do with actual wrong doing or criminality. If you victimize people who don't matter that much to them, they don't care too much.

  While certainly not as heinous as child raping and murder, lying is described as a signicantly wrong act in the Bible, isn't it? And evading child support, well, that is a crime, I'm sure.

  And yet, someone here wasn't allowed to be baptized because of unfiled taxes? Unbelievable.
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  38

  Am I going to get destroyed by God for buying Girl Scout Cookies?

  by greenhornet in

  1. social
  2. humour
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  mindmelda

  Only if you don't share. Man this pisses me off because now I'm remembering that my Mom made me quit the Girl Scouts and 4-H, which I loved, when she joined the Borg. I was just a kid, I had no idea why, but I wanted to please my parents, so I did.

  Okay, now I hate the Witnesses all over again. Damn them anyway, ruined all my fun as a kid. My kids call my Witness parents "The NO FUN Zone". LOL
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  8

  Is the pratice of disfellowshipping valid today?

  by wannabe in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i don't want anyone to think i advocate or condone wickedness in any way; but that is not what is at issue here.

  what took place in the first century, as far as removing the wicked from among the congregation in the first century i find no fault with.

  my bone of contention is, should the governing body of the watchtower society, with their elder arrangement, take it upon themselves, to follow exactly, the lead of those first century christian's, and disfellowship the many that they have today?.

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  mindmelda

  They have to use disfellowshipping because they don't have eternal torment of hell to coerce people.

  Instead of hell in the afterlife, they threaten you with hell on earth. What's the difference?

  Christ preached forgiveness, and the only dangerous people that were to be shunned were people who pretended to be Christians to infiltrate congregations and destroy them from the OUTSIDE, from what I read.

  Fellow Christians were to be treated like Christ treated his disciples, and never once did he dismiss anyone but Judas, who had gone to his destroyers to betray him, whose faith may have been sincere at one point, but who made himself an outsider to the congregation. But, the elders nor the FDS are not Christ, who could read the hearts of individuals.

  Leave the judging to Christ, that message is all throughout the Christian scriptures, but they seem to think God isn't capable of it.
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  10

  2 things please: I need help with essay topic AND I'm having a crappy week

  by 2pink in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  yes, this is a dual post because i'm lazy like that.

  and i figure some of you might thank me for rolling my 2 questions/posts into one convenient click for you.

  first things first: i am writing an argumentative essay this week on any topic of my choice for an english class.

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  mindmelda

  I think you could use the idea that "the borg" (I love that!) are the antithesis of religious freedom, even though they demand it from every government. How's that for hypocrisy?

  But, they do not allow their members to peacefully interfaith with others, demonize other faiths, and shun members who investigate other beliefs.

  Every time I talk to my family member who are still assimilated, I just feel so sorry for them now. They are truly enslaved to this ridiculous excuse for a religion and believe their sacrifices of time and money, time they could be using in so many more productive and benefician ways, is going to make them young and happy forever.

  The way my aging parents pathetically hold onto that pipe dream makes me very sad, but they'd shriek and point at me because I was no longer a pod person if I even went near telling them that.
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  28

  The JW belief "death pays for sin"

  by Chalam in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hello jwners,.

  i was just reading doublelife's thread and what struck me was this jw doctrine "she said that since my dad died, he paid for his sins, and he'll probably be resurrected.".

  so, why did jesus to die for our sins if we are just going to pay for them with our own death's?!.

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  mindmelda

  If you equate death with sinning, then yes, you're going to come to the dead end of JW theology(pun intended) which teaches not that belief in Christ saves the intangible spiritual aspect of man, the soul, if you will, but only serves to make fodder for an earthly resurrection to a physical existence that sounds good, but offers hardly more communion with the spirit of the Divine than we have now in our present earthly form.

  Christianity offers literal spiritual oneness with God upon leaving the physical body, which would have been received variously by the various Jewish sects that Christ spoke to, and also by pagans that Christians later spoke to. It's likely that many pagans would have recognized the desire to be one with God in ways that Jews would not have, and vice versa.

  It can either be considered a spiritual progression or regression, as many earlier religions believed there were various ways to be ONE with God, or the Gods, in many differing ways, by various ritual. It is not actually a new thought, not even the idea of atoning blood of a God buying our souls is a new thought, it existed before Christianity and before Judaism too.

  But, Christ did represent a living embodiment of that very old and persistant spiritual concept, that through the blood of a divine being, we ourselves might become one with God.

  That makes it significant for those who believe it, and isn't that what belief is all about? We're always looking for ways to express that intangible that is spirituality inside us in meaningful, outward ways. Hence, ritual, sacrifice, atonement, but the epitome of all of that is to attain oneness with the Divine.

  However, JW doctrine only allows for a select few to attain that. Why deny it to the majority? The only conclusion I can draw is that it is a controlling device, and keeps the masses "in their place" by letting them know that they will never be quite as "divine" as the people in control of the religion.

  It's one of the defining characteristics of almost every highly controlling cult. "You can only get to God through us."

  Mainstream Christianity offers union with God who is embodied by Christ directly, more or less. There's no FTS "middle man".