@Franklin Massey, Welcome to the board! Reading your story I see a strong reflection of my situation and how I am dealing with it.
Posts by pirata
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55Greetings to All, No Longer Lurking
by Franklin Massey inclaustrophobic.
that's the simplest way for me to express how i feel in the wt org.
like many here, my eyes were slowly opened over the years as i did more earnest research, trying to reconcile some long standing spiritual quandaries.
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False Prophets or Just Poor Interpreters?
by Vanderhoven7 inis the wts a false prophet organization?
are it's leaders false prophets?
or have they simply been guilty of poor interpretation from time to time?.
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pirata
Poor interpreters whose followers have to believe their words as if they came from God (or risk disfellowshipping if you openly disagree). After all disloyalty to the "slave" is tantamount to disloyalty to God (So if I ever send a slave to you, and you think he's totally B.S.ing you about what I want, don't try to verify with me if that is what I really want, just trust him. If he's wrong you have the excuse "I was just listening to the slave...")
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Is the faithful slave hiding something
by bobld insee new 2010 wt cd-rom.ex past wt's not all info included compared to the bound volumes.. b.
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pirata
bobId, noticed you're online again. Just wondering if you have the page references for what you think has changed.
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Steve Hassan pdf version for sale?
by Joey Jo-Jo inhi, anyone aware of a website where i can buy pdf versions of his books?.
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pirata
Why is the Franz book SO expensive? Does it come written in gold?
DogPatch was joking. It's only $29.95 on freeminds.
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Some observations from the KM Elder School I wanted to share with you.
by miseryloveselders inmy school was a couple weeks back, and it was interesting to a degree.
to be honest with you, it reminded me of a police crime scene investigation with yellow tape.
what i mean is, in one respect it was business as usual.
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pirata
Thanks MLE for your observations. In your talk on education, did they introduce the term "supplemental education"? They were using that term in ours to describe education beyond high school that was shorter than than "higher educations" 4+ years.
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Observation -- Posters Don't Seem Clueless
by Band on the Run ini'm impressed with sophisticated thinking on this site.
after all it is an ex-witness site.
i wonder what changed in the former witnesses.
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pirata
Just a born-in, but...
A lot of people seem to convert to JWs at a vulnerable period in their lives when they are at a period of re-evaluation. We often learn at the service meeting to keep preaching to people who aren't interested because their circumstance change.
I read in Steve Hassan's book "Releasing the Bonds", that a therapist who helps people out of cults had to remove himself from a cult recruitment seminar (went there for the experience) because he felt himself starting to get pulled in. Persuasion can be a powerful tool.
As well, JWs are trained to be masters at shelving doubts (ie. wait on Jehovah = Don't think about it or question it).
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An Elder That Helped Me
by dontplaceliterature inhas anyone in this forum ever had an elder in the organization discuss "apostate" teachings with them in a non-threatening, mutually enlightening way?
obviously, there are many of you who have talked with elders about "apostate" ideas, and have been disfellowshipped/disciplined for it.
that's not really what i'm interested in hearing about in this thread, no offense.
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pirata
I thought there was an elder I could talk to, he certainly seemed to be aware of the issues. However, anytime I tried to bring up anything remotely off the beaten dub path, he'd come up with a though-stopping comment like "Jehovah will clarify matters in his own time". So I stopped while I was still ahead.
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Is the faithful slave hiding something
by bobld insee new 2010 wt cd-rom.ex past wt's not all info included compared to the bound volumes.. b.
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pirata
Awesome!
The alleged data files are: WT.76, A-77
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Is the faithful slave hiding something
by bobld insee new 2010 wt cd-rom.ex past wt's not all info included compared to the bound volumes.. b.
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pirata
If only they didn't encrypt the data files, we could do a quick diff to compare.
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I'm feeling disappointed now
by Nobleheart ini've been in this board for 2 months now, and have read and researched enough to know that what i thought was the one and only true religion isn't actually true.
finding out real facts has brought me severe disillusion and sadness.
as a jw i was taught that we were special in view of john 6:44 "no man can come to me unless the father, who sent me, draws him; and i will resurrect him in the last day.".
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pirata
My first post on this board was asking others if they prayed to God to help them to know if the JWs were they right religion, and if not, who was.
No one, who replied, felt that they got an answer. I don't feel I have had an answer. I don't know why, if God wants us to worship him in this way or that way, there are a hundreds of Christian groups (not to mention other religions), that all disagree with each other, yet feel that their way is the right way. This has led me to the conclusion that they're all pretty much giving their best guesses like the Governing Body is. Is the instructions manual not clear enough? Possibly.
In terms of Christianity, tight now I'm learning towards what I call the "independent Christianity" model, where there are good Christians in all regligions, Christians are personally responsible to God, not some organization's standards, which includes interpreting the Bible for oneself (instead of letting some other humans do it for you). This view has been shaped by the excellent book, "In Search of Christian Freedom" by Ray Franz, and by some of the other Christians in this board.
In parallel I am starting to put the Bible through the same anlalysis as I have the Jehovah's Witness beliefs and find myself learning towards agnosticism and/or humanism.