Posts by Jankyn

12

Living in the Worst Times? NOT

by ICBehindtheCurtain in

i just saw this article in us news, just thought i'de share it.

the wts and other religions love to push the idea that things are so bad now, that we are living in the worst times in history so we will only live for the "new system" bs, but the reality is that i wouldn't trade where we are now for any other time in history.

if we on this board would have lived in the inquisition we would have been burned at the stake after endless hours of torture only for disagreeing with the church and choosing to be a free thinker.

Jankyn

One of my favorite topics. Whenever my mom starts up about how bad things are, I love to point out that, had she lived at almost any prior time and place in history, she'd already be dead--either from childbirth, infectious disease, accident, or--get this!--food poisoning.

No single invention has done nearly as much to prevent illness and death as the refrigerator. Add to that handy little items like food preservatives and expiration dates, and you've got a winner.

The reason we have problems with overpopulation and depletion of resources is because things are better.

Jankyn

15

Introduce Independent Thinking by Family Bible Study

by jgnat in

one tried and tested method for a fading husband to bring his witness family out with him, is the family bible study.

this method has the added benefit of being approved by the watchtower society.. .

here's one: http://www.freeminds.org/psych/exithelp.htm .

Jankyn

Jgnat, you're a gem. I really think any "family Bible study" that relies on Scripture (even the NWT) and focuses on Christian living (as opposed to end-times prophecy and OT punishment) will eventually lead away from the JW theology. As Blondie's pointed out in so many of her wonderful "Comments you won't hear..." posts, the JW literature dwells on OT law rather than NT charity (and I mean that in the sense of "caritas," unselfish giving). Jankyn

8

Anyone else raised in a "divided" household?

by dinah in

hey folks!.

i've noticed there are many here who were raised "in the truth".

are there any who were raised in a divided household--where one parent is not a jw?.

Jankyn

Dad became a JW to marry Mom (she's from a big-time JW family in the area--or at least they were back then). He was disfellowshipped 10 years later, and was inactive/df'd for most of the time I was growing up.

He didn't actively oppose our indoctrination. He just offered an alternative.

For instance, at Halloween, she'd want to hole up in a back bedroom and study the WT with all the lights turned off in front. Dad would say, "Do that if you want to, but I bought some candy for the neighbor kids." And he'd answer the door, comment on the costumes in a loud enough voice to be heard, and pass out candy. He also made sure that he bought way too much candy, so that there was plenty left over for us kids. After all, we shouldn't let perfectly good candy go to waste, now, should we?

Same thing at Xmas. We always went back to school after vacation with new stuff.

Then there was the encouragement when we took up a "worldly" interest. He went out of his way to pick up magazines or equipment about the stuff we liked--skateboarding and hot rod stuff for my brothers, rock-n-roll and politics for me. He bought me a subscription to Rolling Stone when I was fourteen, and kept it up all through high school.

Mom knew what he was up to, but was powerless to stop him. They fought a lot, but kept us kids out of it for the most part. And yes, she kind of turned into a super-JW to counteract his "worldly" influence. Or at least, she tried to act the part.

And, when each of us in turn hit our teens and told Mom that we no longer wanted to attend, he stepped in and backed us up. His exact words? "You've had x number of years to convince her/him that it's 'the Truth.' You're done now."

Okay. Now I'm really missing my dad. He died a couple of weeks ago, and this grief thing really sucks. But as I mentioned in another post, he was surrounded by friends, his three kids and their spouses/partners, and his grandkids. As my youngest brother pointed out at the funeral (which was not a JW funeral), "Dad won."

None of his children/grandchildren are JWs.

Hang in there, you UBMs with kids. It's a tough road, and I'm sure my Dad would have had it easier if he'd just bailed on us, but it worked out in the end. He led by example.

Jankyn

11

JW Graduates at the top of her class

by TresHappy in

jw
friends

the sound system always seems to blare piercing static through the speakers.

the weather is often too hot or disappointingly overcast.

i'm not going to go up there and thank all my friends or talk about being together in the future.

Jankyn

Well, if she really intends to keep learning, she won't be a JW for much longer. Hee hee!

One of the goals of our congregation was to have a JW valedictorian/salutatorian, so that they could give a "good Witness" to the whole town at once (small town). Unfortunately, that goal conflicted with the goal of turning out pioneers with GEDs. Can't have it both ways, you know!

Jankyn

20

Young witness disfellowshipped for having a mental illness

by What-A-Coincidence in

jw
friends

this is was very hard swallow.

i know of a family who has suffered tremendously when their son (15) came down with a mental illness - he cuts himself, has intended suicide 5 times.

he hard a hard time dealing with so many issues that he at one point told the elders i don't want to have anything to do with the jehovah's.

Jankyn

Happened to my cousin's bi-polar son, too. She did tell me that she felt that the elders had "learned a lot" from the situation, and they'd handle other mentally ill JWs with more compassion.

Isn't that nice? They were able to suffer, and their son was shunned, so that some window-washers could "learn" about how to deal with mental illness.

She doesn't even see the problem. Arrgh!

4

Satanist raised as a JW...

by Jankyn in

jw
friends

...and he says it made him a great public speaker!.

this is from the l.a. alternative.

the story is called "satan goes to hollywood," and can be read in its entirety at http://www.laalternative.com/index.php/2006/05/26/satan-goes-to-hollywood/.

Jankyn

Yeah, the "lust rituals" got my attention, too!

4

Satanist raised as a JW...

by Jankyn in

jw
friends

...and he says it made him a great public speaker!.

this is from the l.a. alternative.

the story is called "satan goes to hollywood," and can be read in its entirety at http://www.laalternative.com/index.php/2006/05/26/satan-goes-to-hollywood/.

Jankyn

...and he says it made him a great public speaker!

This is from the L.A. Alternative. The story is called "Satan goes to Hollywood," and can be read in its entirety at http://www.laalternative.com/index.php/2006/05/26/satan-goes-to-hollywood/

There’s a young boy standing in the pulpit of the Kingdom Hall, wearing his best three-piece suit and giving all the old ladies of the Church the time of their life.
Day in and day out, the Jehovah’s Witness congregation walks the surrounding neighborhoods spreading their gospel and their warnings, their prophecies and the wisdom of past lives.
“Adam and Eve passed original sin to every man, woman and child on Earth. Satan and his minions tempt good people every day into betraying their faith. God hates birthdays.”
This kid’s just glad to be saved from going door-to-door, so he relishes the feeling of the microphone in his hand and the sound of laughter echoing through the hall. He slips a joke in where he can; they’re in the palm of his hand.
It seems an unlikely place, but there in the pulpit, preaching to a hall full of Jehovah’s Witnesses, is where Bryan Moore first became a Satanist.

And later on...

If Moore seems more private than most parents in terms of sharing his religion with his kids, he is. But it’s not just because his religion happens to involve lust rituals and occult magic. Moore knows too well the scars forced religion can cause. Many Satanists do. Sociologists across the board who’ve looked at the religion have found that a high percentage of Church members grew up in rigid religious backgrounds.
When Bryan was 12 his parents split, in more ways then one. His atheist father moved out. His mother became a Jehovah’s Witness. Moore and his sister spent their adolescence with their mother, canvassing neighborhoods and praying at her Kingdom Hall-what Jehovah’s Witness adherents call their church.
“I put on a suit, knocking on doors, giving out the ‘Watchtower.’ Once a month I was in the pulpit. The funny thing was I didn’t really question it at the time, until I got into my teenage years, but I found I really liked being in the pulpit because often I would use jokes in my biblical sermons, and people would laugh and it got a response. It taught me about public speaking and how you really can manipulate a crowd to see things your way. I found that I kind of liked being on stage, as it were.”
From there, Moore says, he met Satan where many others before him have, including Heather: at a bookstore.

Hmmm...wonder if we know them?

33

How many JW died in the concentration camps?

by LDH in

jw
friends

.

did anyone see the "purple triangle" movie-thingy?.

how many jws were the victims of the third reich?

Jankyn

Sometimes numbers do change with research. For example, the ongoing updating of the death toll from the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 results in a larger number of dead (the death toll was deliberately under-estimated because business leaders didn't want to scare off investors). I'd imagine the same will happen with the death toll for Hurricane Katrina--and for similar reasons, since there are folks in power with a vested interest in keeping the death numbers low.

That said, I'm very suspicious of the wildly fluctuating numbers the WT has given over the years. Particularly suspicious to me are the nice, round numbers--1,000; 2,000; 10,000. C'mon. How many perfectly even numbers *to the thousands* do you really think are going to turn up here?

635 dead makes sense, in light of how well the JWs cooperated once they'd been arrested. See Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess; the Nazis thought so highly of the JWs cooperation once incarcerated that they considered resettling the eastern farmlands with them.

But Lisa's right on--when it comes to numbers, I don't believe a thing the WTS says. They don't cite sources, as any high school student learns to do. Why should I trust them?

29

Brainwashed Children

by I-follow-the-narrow-path in

jw
friends

i noticed an elder showed a picture of "paradise" and asked "who are the people dipicted"... .

serveral children answered and said the same thing "they (look like they) are witnesses" -- .

it was as if these children were taught that only jws are right... which they probably were.

Jankyn

Touched a nerve here, I see.

Like the rest, I had beaucoup Armageddon nightmares and fears. Mine came from the old orange "Paradise" book, which dates me as belonging to the over-40 crowd.

What disturbed me even more than the little girl and her doll and tricycle falling into the crack in the earth was the destruction of the puppy.

I could, in a warped and child-like way, understand Jehovah wanting to kill "bad" people, but what on earth could that puppy have done to deserve destruction? Peed on the carpet in the Kingdom Hall?

Nightmares. Eeesh.

Yes, I-follow-the-narrow-path, JW kids are raised to fear, distrust--and eventually, hate--worldly people. Except that the JWs call it "Christian love." What an example of weasel-words.

Jankyn

18

How weird is this?

by Mulan in

jw
friends

i had an eye exam recently, expecting to need a new prescription.

for about the 4th time in a row, my eyes have improved.

the eye doctor told me that if i was a new eye patient, he would tell me i didn't need glasses.. i've worn them since i was 16 and i am now 60. i have astigmatism, but he said it is so slight, that i could easily get by with the lowest correction in reading glasses.. he said i didn't need to get new glasses unless i wanted to get some.

Jankyn

Hi, Mulan.

My optometrist told me that, as with people whose normal vision gets worse with age, sometimes the age-related changes in the eyes will improve vision for those who had an astigmatism early on.

Aging changes--quite subtly--the shape of the eye (if I understood him correctly). For most people, that makes the focusing ability more problematic (hence the need for bifocals); for people who had problems with focal issues, it makes it better.

Of course, he also told me that if I'd stop reading Chaucer in Middle English from books with small print, stay off the computer, and go be an over-the-road trucker for a decade or two, I wouldn't need reading glasses.

Not gonna happen.

Jankyn