Posts by teel

25

Effects of the changes if the book study is amalgamated with the TMS

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

we're pretty sure what will happen next week but not why.. this thread is just for a list of changes that will affect those who still go.. .

1) no more private book study arrangements.

the book study host will ask themselves "why?".

teel

botheyesopen: so true. This announcement simply smacked me down back then. It was delivered by the self-appointed over-righteous elder hounder of our congregation, who I felt had the covert single-man mission of guilt trapping everyone to go at absolutely every meeting. He took every opportunity to boast how he can't remember the last time he missed a meeting, and he can count his missings in the last decade on one hand, all because of heavy illness, and if you do any less you are a disgrace to Jehovah, who so lovingly prepared the meal for us. I think you know his type.

Now imagine my amazement, when he announced with a smile on his face, that Jehovah directed things so that now we have more time, we don't have to go to book study. "Aren't we all glad of Jehovah's new arrangement?" - If you told me before there would lesser meetings, I would have thought I would be the only one actually glad. But lo and behold - everyone in the KH applauded like they just announced Armageddon started. Everyone applauded - except me. I just couldn't believe my ears of this total hypocrisy.

20

Are 800 new JWs really baptised per day?

by losthusband in

i came across the quote below on a yahoo answers page discussing the growth of religon:.

i'm one of jehovah's witnesses and on average every day 800 people are baptized as jehovah's witnesses.

these are individuals who have studied the bible for a period of time and have to show that they understand, truly believe and want to live by god's standards.

teel

Joshnaz - unfortunately that's not the way they think, and they do have a point there. The JWs would have to be a major religion - meaning near the billion mark - to have grounds saying they are not few already. As it is now, 0.1% of the world is pretty small by all means. Until then every small increase is celebrated as Jah's blessing, and "the few will become thousands".

18

Do Jehovah's Witnesses take responsibility for anything?

by BonaFide in

jw
friends

now that i am opening my eyes more and more, i am starting to realize that jw's don't see the need to take responsibility for anything.. like in the wt for this week, if a jw marriage fails, they can say it was because they didnt pray enough, or preach together enough.. if an elder gives counsel about anything, then if it seems to work for the person, then he accepts the praise or says it came from jehovah.. but if things don't work out, then the elder will blame the person for not following the counsel right.

or he will tell them to wait on jehovah.. or if there is a wrong teaching, it is never really wrong, it is only the light getting brighter.. it doesnt really matter what happens in a persons life, it is never the fault of jw's or teachings or decisions.

they will say that jehovah is allowing this test, or that the person didnt follow the counsel, or that jehovah is doing things in a special way, or that we don't know yet why that happened, but we will.. for a person that has a comfortable life, and things going pretty well, and they never ask the elders for help, often they think that is jehovah's blessing.. but if something big goes wrong, and the elders give bad advice, or they punish someone and call it "help" and they mess up a persons life, it completely doesnt matter to them.

teel

Sorry for digging out this old thread, but this is a pet peeve of mine. You can see this on the organizational level and the personal level too. I'm reading Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control from Kathleen Taylor now. I found this regarding cults which fits so well in my experience with JW:

Group membership can provide two comforting sensations: that the member is not alone, and that he or she is not responsible. For highly cohesive groups, the group can become an entity in its own right with its own power of action, often personified by the leader, who takes on the role of supernatural protector and relieves the individual of the need to make his own decisions. This diffusion of resposibility through the group can be one of the most dangerous phenomena in strong groups, as it can lower the threshold for violent action by reducing the normal society constraints (e.g. fear of being blamed and punished) which would deter most individuals.

You think they don't do things outside the normal society constraints? Think of the field service... or "witholding information" because of "theocratic warfare"

11

JW Dream Last Night!

by AK - Jeff in

c was a very good friend of mine.

it was entirely platonic, though while i was older than her, i had been counseled that i was tempting 'fornication' by being there for her through her marital distress.

[wifey both approved and was there too btw].. anyway, the dream was long and emotional.

teel

I believe the dreams are only reflections of thoughts in conscious state.

I also had a JW dream, though not this emotional, yet funny. I was in a movie, and a sex scene started, when I realized the elders from my congregation were sitting behind me. The most devoted elder leaned forward to me, and asked me: "Are you going to watch this?" That's all I remember. I can tie this to my thoughts about increasing thought police.

37

We went to the meeting last night...

by cognac in

jw
friends

we rarely go.

but, we went because hubby wanted to tell the elders we are switching halls.. at first, i thought to myself that i would go out back with her when she gets fussy.

but, my baby doesn't really get fussy a lot so i just took her out back and played with her as she laughed hysterically.

teel

What I've seen in my KH it that the general attitude towards children is definately that they should be small versions of adults. We were reminded countless times not to give toys to children, no matter how young, but if he's old enough (meaning over 1.5-2 years) give him a piece of paper and a pen, and have him "take notes" - draw a line every time he hears the word "Jehovah". Way to go boring a kid to death.

41

what did you study?? Do you think it should be longer.....?

by angel eyes in

what publication did you study and how long was the study for??.

when i came in you were only allowed 6months, i didnt even get that lol...but was baptised after 5months.

it was so fast but i was ready for baptism.

teel

Oh, and I studied about 6 months too, but it was partly my mistake it took so little (a personal matter I don't feel comfortable talking about).

About raised as JW: my wife studied with her neighbour, although her mother was a JW too. Probably partly because of the expectations.

41

what did you study?? Do you think it should be longer.....?

by angel eyes in

what publication did you study and how long was the study for??.

when i came in you were only allowed 6months, i didnt even get that lol...but was baptised after 5months.

it was so fast but i was ready for baptism.

teel

"Allowed" only 6 months? You're right it's wrong. I never heard of any time restriction in my area, in fact a while ago I used to go back to the same person for years to study - she had quite a thick head, absolutely nothing I told her sticked for the next week. And no, that's not because she had critical thinking, it's because she had no thinking . Rushing the study ahead is a well known cult indoctrination tactic, where you pump information at a very high rate, leaving no time to think it through.

And about what to study: everything. Show people the good parts along with the bad, so that they can make an informed choice. BTW I studied the "Knowledge that leads to everlasting life" (I think that's what it's called in english).

40

Oct.15th WT- " Wanna Be Jesus Friend? Have to Support the Faithful Slave"

by flipper in

jw
friends

under the study article " you are my friends " ( indicating jesus naturally by his quote ) the wt society makes it very clear that the only way to be jesus friend is to come through them or else you won't be approved by jesus or god.

translation : friendship with jesus = treating the " faithful slave " kindly = jesus approving you.

our jw relatives will be studying this in december at their meetings.. under the subheading on pg.

teel

" the determining factor that would distinguish a sheep from a goat would be the way an individual treated even the least of these his brothers. Therefore , the primary way that those with the earthly hope demonstrate their desire to be friends with Christ is by SUPPORTING the FAITHFUL SLAVE CLASS. "

These are two unrelated statements bound together by the word "therefore". The first sentence tells me to treat every brother nicely, the second to support the faithful class. Since the two by WT reasoning seems to be equivalent, let's switch it around: "...a sheep from a goat would be the way an individual supports even the least of these his brothers. Therefore, the primary way... to be friends with Christ is by treating nicely the faithful slave class." Hm... that doesn't sound so bad is it? I mean if there's a brother who tells me to stand up against the GB I should support him as long as I'm not mean towards them right?

Not that we can buy friendship with Jesus or Jehovah.

An other way of saying: give as much as you can, but don't think that however much you give it will be enough.

22

New JW email doing the rounds. Barf buckets on standby!

by nicolaou in

i'm pasting this here as i received it, formatting and grammatical errors included .

this is beautiful!.

subject: isaiah 41:10. .

teel

Of course it is Bangalore. It's not the first time; I find it funny when even public speakers pick up these "inspirational" stories that are abundant on the Internet, and present them sprinkled with Watchtower dogma. On one public speech the speaker presented an inspirational story whose message was clearly carpe diem - live for the day - and he twisted it to show us that we need to go out in field service even more. It was so funny I wondered why noone seemed to notice the true message.

11

A thought about corporate reoganization

by JeffT in

jw
friends

it seems there have been a number of changes in the wtbs corporations over the last few years, as well as changes in meetings etc.

maybe somebody has already thought of this and i missed it.

this thought was sparked by the thread about them going after another website quoting their material.. i think the watchtower is about to divide its religious and secular functions completely.

teel

As I see it most of the more recent moves can be traced back to money. First they went from hardcover books to paperbacks (that was around 2000 in my country), then they dropped the magazines to 3 per month, then 2 per month and a member only issue. Having one less meeting is cheaper (and people can work more to have money to donate). Here more recently people were constantly reminded not to give magazines to just about everyone, and mention that we accept donation as much as possible. I don't know anything about how big corporations work, but I wouldn't be too surprised if they make some corporate adjustments that others know little about, only to save some more. To be honest I would expect even that the fixed price for the literature comes back - in retrospect the fact that they went to fully donation based support seems to not be a very smart move. There's even the other thread about the new leaflets - money must be running short these days.