Posts by Juan Viejo2

40

The popularity fad of home-schooling!

by stuckinarut2 in

i know this has been discussed over the years on this forum, but i just had to post this again!.

it seems that the popular fad amongst the "spiritual" ones in the local circuits is to home school their children instead of sending them to school.. now to clarify, we are in a very nice area of semi rural australia .

one with very community minded, and strong family values.

Juan Viejo2

Home schooling for JW kids varies depending on how well educated their parents are and also how socialized they are. My siblings and I just went to regular public schools when we were JWs back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. There was not the pressure at that time to homeschool little JWs. In fact (at least in my family), doing well in school was assume and unpleasant discipline could be expected if we came home with anything under a B grade. We were not restricted in any way as far as school friends, but if we wanted to go to someone's home to study or play, Mom would have to check them out first. We were not allowed to go to homes where people smoked or parents drank liquor during the day.

Every one of the JW kids who did not go to public school seemed odd. They were odd even when I'd go to their home to play or go out in "service." Only two of my JW peers did especially well (one went off to college and became an English professor and writer of some note - never claimed his JW heritage). The other also went to college and became a businessman and then a politician - never referring to his JW upbringing when running for election. He died rather young. Both fellows came from very strong JW families. Both went to public schools.

The very few that I knew at the time who were being home-schooled were odd, shy, and really not very active in JW activities like door-to-door service or Theocratic Ministry School. When invited to their house to "play"---- well, I'll just say that they weren't a lot of fun. Wanna play catch with the baseball or football? (Nah.) Wanna watch cartoons on the TV. (Nah, not allowed to watch TV.) Wanna go bowling? (Nah. Don't know how - mom won't let me.)

The sad thing was that none of them that were still JWs when I knew them ever went to college. The JW girls all married JW boys or moved away after high school graduation. Sad, because in those days almost anyone with good grades could get some kind of scholarship. And if not, college was very cheap. In my state, a year at Junior College was $50 tuition and about $25 for books. If your grades were quite high and you had taken a few college prep courses, you could go to a state university for less than $300 per semester.

But the JWs had it right about one thing: Most of the JW kids I knew who went to college eventually moved away and left the JW cult far behind.

JV

70

Pseudo history in Watchtower today 😂

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

gorby went to the kh for family reasons today.. and landed right away middle in a pseudo history watchtower article.

just that aspect of the jw belief he is so sensative about.. so 1918 and 1919 are changed with one mark of a pencil.

the argument of change was in the past the argument of the doctrine.

Juan Viejo2

Paul Grundy should have a good time dealing with all these changes on JWFacts. I have no idea how he keeps up. It seems that nearly every couple of months there is another little tweak - just enough to be noticeable for some of us. Because many JWs are busy trying to keep from falling asleep during KH meetings, they will probably not even notice the changes and just go with the flow. Then in a year or two, they'll all be asking each other: "When did that teaching change?"

JV

13

HOUSE, M.D., Jehovah's Witnesses, and '75

by compound complex in

season 7, episode 18: "the dig".

house picks up "thirteen" -- dr. remy hadley -- upon her release from prison.

she asks him to take her to a certain location in order to take care of a personal matter.

Juan Viejo2

Yep - that's a keeper. This clip needs wider distribution just to make it clear that the whole blood thing is not a game. It's not always a 50/50 situation.

Death is a long lasting event. There's no going back. If you are thinking that you are going to wake up in a paradise park or on a planet on the other side of the Sun, I'm afraid that you will be very disappointed. That's the bad news.

The good news is that you won't know that you've been snookered.

JV

144

2.16.2017 NJ Star-Ledger Ad: "Were you sexually abused by the Jehovahs Witnesses?"

by breakfast of champions in

my wife found this 1/4 page ad on page 2 of yesterday's nj star-ledger, probably the biggest newspaper in nj.

pretty telling.. .

Juan Viejo2

While exchanging emails with Barb Anderson, I just realized that my ex-wife (and proud mother of my three daughters) worked for the Luxemberg law firm as an office manager back in the 1970s. She started with them when they were on Robertson Blvd in West Los Angeles (Beverly Hills was just across the street). When they moved to a new high rise in Century City, she moved with them and worked for them her whole professional life in various clerical and supervisory positions. She got on very well with the owners and all of the attorneys and loved her career there.

The west coast branch of the firm is still in that building and apparently on the same floor. They were still building out Century City at the time (1969-1980). She retired from the firm about 20 years ago.

What I got from the little she shared with me from time to time (employees of legal firms learn to not discuss their jobs away from the office) was that their reputation was impeccable and that their success rate was well above average.

Based on what little I know about them, these guys can get the job done. They would not take on this burden if they thought that they would lose or that their reputation would be damaged in any way. Again, knowing what I know about them and their over 50 years in business (at least in the Los Angeles/Beverly Hills area), having this firm on our side is definitely an advantage for abused kids and ripped off JW retirees.

Pray for their success. Yes, even those of us who are non-believers - pray that their reputation will not be harmed or wasted on the pursuit of Watchtower associated child abusers and the WT leaders who protect them.

JV

35

How long did people like Methuselah really live?

by dubstepped in

i was working today and my brain was working in circles like it often does and i started wondering about what i was always told about people like methuselah in bible times, and their incredibly claims of longevity.

i've tried researching things but have a hard time getting through all of the bible thumpers to some real evidence, and figured that some here may be more informed or have done the research previously.

so, did people really live longer way back when?

Juan Viejo2

I asked this very question to a somewhat notable Catholic theologian that I met right after I left the Witnesses. It was after a christening at a large Catholic Church in central California. He was in the area to give a series of lectures on Catholic/Christian/Jewish history vs. secular history.

After we introduced ourselves, he asked me if I was a Catholic. My response was, "Well, my mother was a Catholic most of her life, but then she converted to Jehovah's Witness and the rest of the immediate family followed. I left for good when I was about 22, but I married a Catholic girl."

"Oh, so you are a Catholic by marriage?" he asked. I replied that I never became a Catholic; my wife converted from being a Catholic to a Jehovah's Witness. We're divorced now. She eventually went back to being a Catholic."

He asked me if I was still a "believer," and if not, why not. I told him that I was agnostic about god, but felt the Bible had no real credibility. When he asked me for an example, I mentioned Genesis. "The earth, sun, moon, animals, plants, humans, etc. all created in 6 24-hour days? A flood that topped Mt. Everest in less than 40 days, but drained away in just a few months? And where did all that water go?"

"Well," he replied, "time periods in the Bible can not be taken literally. Early manuscripts indicated that every early civilization only had one time piece - the sun. It came up and it went down. The next day it came up. The concept of weeks, months and years is really a much later development. So early writings speak of seasons based on the stages of the moon, so they may have considered each full transition of the moon as their 'year.' Calendars are a relatively late development and did not really appear until numbers and writing became universal. Early humans simply did not think in terms of numbers and letters - they thought in terms of day and night, warm and cold, etc."

He admitted that much of Christian belief was based on "faith, not facts." "You'll go crazy if you try to convert every word in any Bible into absolute fact. Most of it was not even written until about 500 years before Jesus."

I had a lot of respect for what he had to say. He had that little twinkle in his eye that told me that his belief was tied more to his job than his actual beliefs, but he likely truly believed in God and Jesus. I guessed that he was a reasonable man who knew more than he was willing to divulge. But those few minutes made an impression on me that still makes up a part of my own philosphy. But the point was that he apparently did not believe that a Biblical "year" was the same as a modern "year."

So if you take some of those old patriarchs and change their life spans from years into months, then someone who lived to be 950 years old would have actually been around 80 - a far more reasonable number of years.

JV

36

Walking away will get you D/Fed

by Drifting Away in

jw
friends

someone just told my wife, that those who are just leaving organization or not going anymore will be dfed, has anyone read that or heard of that?

i have seen nothing of that, and according to jackson at royal commission, we are free to go as we please...

Juan Viejo2

I've had several friends who simply moved away from their home congregation. When they left they told no one or indicated that they would send a forwarding address as soon as they were permanently set in at their new town or state.

Usually appearing to stay active right up until your move works best. If you've already broadcast your intention to leave by only attending meetings occasionally and not otherwise participating, everyone will figure that you are bailing and will then come after you.

The smoothest transition I ever saw was back in the mid-1980s when an elder and his family decided they wanted out. He had an opportunity to get a better job in a city some distance from his old home. As he and his family left their home congregation for the last time, they told everyone that they would send their address to one of the other elders and let everyone know how they were doing. When asked where they were moving, they replied along the lines of "northern Washington, but we don't have a permanent address yet." In those days no one had cell phones, so telephone numbers did not follow them. (You can do the same thing by changing carriers at the same time you move and only inform those who you trust with your new numbers.)

No one will give much thought about you for the first few months. But then when no request for your publisher's records arrives, the elders might think something is up - but most are lazy and will just let it ride for a while.

Do not contact anyone you left behind. If you do send a note, use email or send a card with no return address and maybe a message like, "We're still looking for a permanent place up here in northern Washington."

It worked for them. Just fade into the distance. They will forget all about you unless you leave relatives behind. Don't leave relatives behind...

JV

39

Is the year 2020 the new prediction for Armageddon?

by Disassociated Lady 2 in

i have had a conversation this evening with a jw friend i have known since childhood.

he is of the opinion that armageddon will have come and gone within the next 5 years.

are the jws now pinpointing 2020 as the supposed year?

Juan Viejo2

Jehovah's Witnesses' predictions figured into my relationship with my parents on two occasions:

In the mid-1960s, my parents and siblings moved from Southern California to Nebraska to "serve where the need was greater." Around 1970, my father wrote me a letter explaining that he "loved" me and my brother and was proud of what we had already accomplished in our early 20s, but since we had both left the JWs and gone on to lead more typical American lives, that we "had chosen the world over Jehovah and his earthly organization." He went on to state that he and my mother would "stand with Jehovah" and therefore have to "shun us both." He did not use the word "shun" - but that was what the letter clearly described. He asked me to contact my brother and read the letter to him.

When my brother heard the contents of the letter, he basically stated that he didn't care anymore and that our father could go "f... himself." I knew, of course, that my brother didn't really mean that, but that he was just done with the foolishness of it all and was offended that our parents would shun us, his sons, who had always been respectful toward them and loved them both beyond measure.

Now to put everything in perspective, those of us who were around in the late 1960s remember that starting in 1966 and increasing each year up to 1969, the Watchtower and the elders were strongly hinting that Armageddon would come crashing down on all of us within the next few years - we "were definitely living in the time of the end." My then wife, who had converted to a JW when we got married and was still attending meetings after I decided to quit, was also convinced. The elders at her Kingdom Hall sat her down and described in vivid ways how my baby daughters would be damned to destruction because I no longer attended meetings - you know the "sins of the father" bullcrap. Scared the pee-pee out of her to the point that we separated and were divorced by the beginning of 1971. Every conversation I had with her after that included at least 5 minutes of "you know that Armageddon is coming in 1975. Please come back to the Kingdom Hall and repent. I don't want our babies to die at Armageddon." She was honestly and sincerely terrified to the point that I seriously considered going back just to alleviate her pain. But in my heart I knew that I could never do that and make things work.

So JW predictions of 1975 and their shunning rules (which were actually quite lenient then compared to ten years later after the Ray Franz incident) played a big part in the destruction of my marriage.

Shortly after the 1975 prophecy failure, my parents decided to stop shunning me and my brother. They took the blame for "misunderstanding what the Organization was trying to say." That was a standard JW position at the time - that the organization never said that 1975 would see Armageddon, but that in their hope for a speedy end of the world, nearly every JW in the world "thought or imagined" that that was what the JW leaders were predicting. My parents were deep into denial and took responsibility for the breakup of our family and shunning of my brother and me.

In 1981, while attending a family funeral, my father and I had another "private" conversation. This time it was 1984. And because the "end was so close," he and my mother would again have to shun my brother and I - and would I be good enough to tell my brother (my father knew that he would get an earful and a dressing down for what he was doing to the family).

It never ends. Every 5 - 10 years (1914, 1919, 1925, 1930s, WW2, "Sputnik," something will happen that suddenly causes the leaders of the Watchtower to ring the alarm bells and try to drive everyone on the fringes back into the organization. And then they lie: Shunning is not 'shunning' - pedophiles are not a problem - "new light" is always getting brighter - only the 144K are the "faithful and discreet slave - oops! - only the governing body is the "faithful and discreet slave" - and now, who knows what they teach and who is who?

Let face it: The leaders of the Watchtower have always been and still are just plain ignorant, ill-informed, self-important, money-grubbing liars - and they always will be no matter what they teach or what they call their organization.

JV

29

How about prayers being used as a talk?

by NikL in

jw
friends

another thread on here made me think of it.. its a personal peeve of mine.. you bow your head in prayer and the brother says thinks like thank you for the lessons we learned today like bla bla bla and for that wonderful point about yadda yadda yadda.

jehovah we know that etc etc etc therefore we must...well you get the gist.and on and on it goes.

absolutely drives me mad..

Juan Viejo2

When I was a young boy getting through a prayer by some of the brothers was a painful chore.

I had to walk to high school - located about 4 miles from my home. And then back after school. Then Tuesdays and Thursdays go to Book Study and TheoSchool/Service Meeting. Sitting was tolerable, but standing still for 7-10 minutes was painful because my feet were hurting so bad.

The worst was when elderly Brother Wysocki (one of the Polish survivors of WW2 and a member of the "144,000") would be called upon to do the closing prayer. About 2/3rds of his prayer was unintelligible and repetitive. That, along with my sore feet, was excrusitating.

One Thursday night Bro W was called upon to offer the closing prayer. While I did not have a watch, I am sure that his prayer lasted at least 15 minutes - maybe 20. I heard the Service Meeting Servant cough - and gently tried to interrupt, but then he chickened out. [Too dangerous to challenge one of the members of the "Remnant."]

The following weekend I was out in the door-to-door service with Brother Rogers, a kindly man who was our "Congregation Servant." I mentioned the prayer by Bro Wysocki and asked how he felt about it. "Honestly, Johnnie, I think it was a bit too much. But how can we stop someone who is sincerely trying to represent all of us to Jehovah?" Such a kind statement from a very kind brother.

But then I (a smart ass kid) challenged Brother Rogers (much to my regret later). "Brother Rogers. Jesus taught us how to pray when he provided us with the 'Lord's Prayer.' Someone with a lisp and a stutter could still follow the example of the 'Lord's Prayer' in 45 seconds and cover all the important points." Brother Rogers just chuckled and told me that I made a good point - but "maybe Jesus and Jehovah liked long prayers."

A few days later I was called into my parents' bedroom for a good spanking by my father. Apparently, Brother Rogers told him about our conversation and suggested that I should be counseled on having more "respect for elders and the 144,000." After that - long prayers became intolerable for me and made me realize how ridiculous that whole formality was. That's when I really began to hate being a JW.

JV

129

Hi forum

by A Believer in

i proably shouldnt be on here but i feel like saying this.

i have been for the last couple weeks been studying religion.

i've learned the only ones who today do what the bible says to is jw.

Juan Viejo2

I find it incomprehensible how many JW newbies who "...have been for the last couple weeks been studying religion...[and]...learned the only ones who today do what the Bible says to is JW..." seem to have become experts overnight about what the Watchtower teaches and practices. I find that quite amazing.

And then they show up here to challenge all of us who spent years in the religion and claim that "...I don't know much about the subject but I see so much false accusing the JW that it doesn't surprise me if there are lies. I don't think anyone trying to learn about JW should do so on the internet because even with the little I do know I can tell a lot of what they say isn't true..."

A Believer - you are absolutely right. You should not be on the Internet trying to tell the rest of us how wrong we are to criticize Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower. You need to do a lot more study and more investigation to prepare yourself before jumping into this "Lion's Den." Yes there are a few newbies here that know very little more than you do, but by far the majority of us have lived the JW lifestyle, spent endless hours at meetings and in the door to door preaching work. We have been to conventions and special meetings. In the past, we gave much of our money and time to the Witnesses and their work. Some of us were like you - ready to defend to the death a religion (a cult actually) that controlled our lives, burned up hours of our time, kept us from getting fully educated or employed, and then broke up our families as one or more of us decided to leave and follow other paths.

So, Believer, if that is the life you think you really want to live - go forth and do so. The final disappointing outcome will be on your head and shoulders - not ours. You've convinced yourself to believe the Watchtower's lies to be truth. You are free to believe anything you choose - including the earth is the center of the Universe and was created from scratch in 6000 years (and before the Sun and the Moon), that flood waters covered the entire earth, even Mount Everest, and that dinosaurs were on the "Ark" along with people, Zebras, field mice, and pythons.

If you thnk that seven men in New York speak for God Almighty and converse with the "holy spirit" on a daily basis are actually credible individuals who you should follow like a shorn sheep, then be my guest.

You have my blessing - for whatever that is worth. Just ask yourself if that is really how you want to spend the rest of your life.

JV

48

"Mother" Teresa—a Fraud?

by Saename in

i often comment in threads that interest me on this forum.

moreover, some of you may know that i study the history of early christianity.

i once wrote an extensive comment on the historicity of jesus' existence in one of the threads.

Juan Viejo2

Yes, there was an undercover expose on US television several years ago on one of the major networks. I've looked for it on YouTube and other documentary collections and have never seen it repeated.

The report I saw confirms much of what you referenced above. The overall impression was that the various Mother Teresa sponsored collection stations around Calcutta and other India cities were not what they appeared to be. In many cases, the dying were brought to those locations so that the relatives could get them out of their house and allowed to die out of sight, out of mind. The relatives would often not even return to collect the corpse.

The money collected was enormous - but, as you stated above - was rarely used for any real constructive purpose - and was most certainly not used to help the sick and dying.

The whole thing reminds me of another childrens' charity that services Caribbean island countries. A kindly white-haired older American man walks through the streets pleading for money and even uses "adoption" as a method. Yes, for just pennies a day, you can "adopt a child" and they will be clothed, fed, and doctored up. We will send you photos and journals showing their progress. But as he walks down the street, you see a little waif of a girl, maybe 2 or 3 years old sitting in a puddle of muddy water sucking on her thumb. It's the only puddle of water on the street. And yet he walks right by her, never stopping to pick her up and set her down in a dry spot. The whole thing is so stage it makes me puke.

When you saw a Mother Teresa commercial it was very much the same. Poor, sick people laying on a dirt or concrete floor. What? With millions of dollars of donations they could not purchase a few surplus army cots? You try laying or even sitting on a concrete floor for hours or days, and see if you aren't in pain and agony.

Bottom line: Religion + Money = Scam. Religion + Money + Charity Organization = Very Profitable Scam.

JV