pirata

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Posts by pirata

• 
  40

  Well I am hurt

  by mouthy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my internet has been off since the 5th of april not 1 of you missed me .

  i see where a big fight went on when the conference call was on( i only read some.

  of your points).

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  pirata

  I was away too because I said I spent way to much time here and I need to do other things.

  That lasted about 10 days.

  Welcome back!
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  11

  'Separate the wheat from the chaff' in 2011

  by Gorbatchov in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the april 2011 pioneer action of 30 hours is a kind of 'separate the wheat from the chaff'.. think about it: 40 percent of our congregation is pioneering.

  the other half of the congregation has something to explain.... i don't report hours for years.

  although i'm not "too sensitive" it feels like "standing fully outside the group".

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  pirata

  (pirata buys some time by aux pioneering in April)
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  24

  At different stages of your life, what did you lack, that deprived you of fulfillment or completeness?

  by miseryloveselders in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i don't believe that there is such a thing as a perfect, or an ideal situation.

  ideal is the more appropriate word to use, because the word itself denotes a conception, a remote possibility, not a reality.

  i'm asking you, in your lifetime, have you ever found complete fulfillment, or felt complete within yourself, and your accomplishments?

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  pirata

  My thought: Achieving a goal gives a sense of achievement. Working towards a goal gives a sense of purpose.

  In my early 20s. I felt a need for companionship and felt something missing. After a number of years, I met a wonderful JW whom I married.

  Things get a bit complicated after that (at least for me). Ever since high-school, my life had gone at a hectic pace, and I didn't have much time to think about things. I was running with one foot on the witness treadmill, and the other on the "world's" treadmill. Buying a car, a condo, good job, reaching out, auxiliary pioneering, etc. Trying to do everything. Well things quieted down after I achieved alot of that and had gotten married and I had a bit more free time to think about things. Long story short, I discovered the wonder of "independent thinking" which led me to no longer believe I'm in the one true religion; but keep it to myself, for now.

  Right now, I'm not as concerned about making lots of money as I once was. I am of the opinion that if you have enough to cover the basics, all the shiny toys don't make you happier in the medium/long term.

  I realized lately that I have been starving intellectually. I didn't know how to think or have a reasoned opinion. I have been reading alot about history, politics, psychology, logic and reason, my beliefs, religions, a lot, as well as educating myself further. Now I know why those "liberal studies" I used to knock as a witness are so valuable.

  I don't really have many friends (stopped working too hard on JW friendships after realizing that it's all conditional and I'll just be dumped should they find out what I really think). But my marriage provides the companionship I need, and this board fills my growing need for self-expression.

  I think that constant growth is what keeps us going as humans.
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  16

  ExJWs and NonJWs Ask: Should I Try to Change My Mate?

  by pirata in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i put this together more as a collection of my thoughts.

  i would appreciate hearing your thoughts, disagreements, rebuttals, etc on this subject as it has been weighing a lot on my mind lately:.

  after reading a lot of heart-breaking stories over the years on this message forum about mates who no longer believe in the jw religion, the common thread seems to be a desire to get the jw mate to see the same thing; with usually dissapointing results.. i am currently of the opinion that maybe the best thing is not to try to change your mate's religion.

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  pirata

  *bump* for any others who are/were in the situation of living with an mate of different beliefs, and how they best make it work.
• 
  41

  Wife wants me to read Secret of Family Happiness, any suggestions?

  by insearchoftruth in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  hello, have been on this board for a few years, and now my wife is asking me to read the subject book with her.

  .

  it seems pretty 'vanilla' in my scan through it, seems to lift up the male headship issue a few times and of course the cure to all ill is to 'attend christian meetings'.. am still working to fully open her eyes, anything in here i can use that may help, any conflicts with current doctrine i could possibly point out??.

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  pirata

  when I floated the idea in the past she was in jw mode and said that the secret book was bible based and others are based on the current system. Hoping she gets beyond that soon but who really knows.

  JWs are not very good at compromise (mainly because having an open mind is only for people that are being studied with), f you went with the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus", you can suggest she search it in the Watchtower Library to see if it is mentioned there (which it is, in a positive way. The article that mentions it actually uses the information in the book as the basis for the article). Considering this book and seeing that there is nothing scary in it, or that the worldly wisdom in it really wasn't bad, she might be a bit more open to other material. Alternatively, you could suggest that if a book does not violate bible principles, then there is nothing wrong with considering and weighing the information there. If it goes against bible principles, then you can stop reading it.

  Good luck!
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  25

  I have never seen anything like this before. Japan Video

  by sabastious in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i cannot believe this (no one is shown dying on this video btw):.

  http://www.liveleak.com/mp53/player.swf?config=http://www.liveleak.com/mp53/player_config.php?token=e9e_1302492014%26embed=1.

  -sab.

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  pirata

  It is a good reminder to to make good use of the time we have now. We never now how long we have.
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  17

  JW's have NO right to criticize the destruction of forests

  by stillstuckcruz in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  g90 3/22 pg 8: deforestation is much the same.

  humans enjoy the forests, depend on them, in fact.

  but they keep killing off the equivalent of the players: the individual species of plants and animals, whose complex interplay is what keeps the forest alive.

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  pirata

  *** w09 7/1 p. 15 A Visit to a Remarkable Printery ***

  In Wallkill, every month some 1,400 rolls of paper arrive at the printery, which uses some 80 to 100 tons of paper a day.

  http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_trees_are_sacrificed_to_gain_one_ton_of_paper According to non-profit group Conservatree, it takes an average of 24 trees to make a ton (2,000 pounds) of typical office paper. It takes about 12 trees to make a ton (2,000 pounds) of thinner magazine or phone book paper. Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_trees_are_sacrificed_to_gain_one_ton_of_paper#ixzz1JJZGK3mk Assuming that magazine paper is halfway beetween the quality of magazines and office paper (thus 18 trees per ton), and an average of 90 tons per day we get: 365 * 90 * 18 = 591,300. A guesstimate of half a million trees consumed per year for Watchtower's North American printing operations.
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  19

  Is there anything from the GB that isn't about them getting Money and Power?

  by punkofnice in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  since i woke up from the delusion of the jw cult, i have seen things very differently.. it seems to me that all the gb and their suck ups gear up for is money and/or power.. eg.

  brothers in cheap salesman suits on the platform.

  the 'clean' image.

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  pirata

  It seems to me that the money is for the organization, not the GB. I sincerely doubt te individual GB members gets any large amount of money. Sure money is spent flying the GB all over the place, but I can't imagine flying all over the place to give talks is like a vacation as some have suggested.

  My take: With the not-so-discreet idea that they are the 7 men on this earth that are God's channel to proclaim his "deep truths", they feel the necessity, of keeping their authority concrete and centralized. I cannot recall any one time period seeing so much emphasis on obeying the Governing Body than I have in the past 5 years. A large portion of the current book study book is spent reinforcing the concept of a Governing Body in Christianity. Money is a worry, because if the money dries up, it could be seen as evidence that Jehovah is no longer supporting the work. If obedience dries up, it will undermine the GB's role as the faithful slave. It's a struggle for survival. Not the survival of the Governing Body (leadership concepts shift over time), but for the support of the belief system.
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  8

  Watchtower CD's

  by whathappened in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  does anyone know if the watchtower cd's from the early days that you order from freeminds has any reference on them regarding identifiers?

  can you tell they are from freeminds or is there anything that gives away they were ordered from a so called apostate website?.

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  pirata

  Make sure to delete the mp3tag information on mp3s from free minds, otherwise that's a big giveaway.

  The research application CDs are fine (no commentary or apostate links).
• 
  62

  Why did you "BORN IN's" leave?

  by stillstuckcruz in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i'm sure at some point you have mentioed it somewhere on the site, perhaps several.

  but this question is i guess personal.

  for those her were born into the jdub religion, why did you leave at whatever point?

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  pirata

  Once in a while I'd research topics in secular sources; I thought I'd find some non-JW sources to use in service to help convince householders. Some of the things I found made me think about our beliefs from different angles that I never thought of before. Through wikipedia I found about 1980's purge of Ray Franz and friends, and the ajwrb. This was a bit disturbing, but I shelved this. It still bothered me for a while, then the OKM article came out saying not to do research in groups, or do research with a view to verifying the correctness of the Society's publications. Although it is probaly a coincidence, I had prayed the night before I got that article to know if this was really the true religion. At the time, I thought the article was an answer to my prayer; and the answer was "If it was the true religion, they would not discourage verifying their assertions". After this I started doing more research to verify "my" faith, using any and all resources. Suffice to say, that led me to the old publications, freeminds, JWN, CoC, Gentile Times Reconsidered, ISOCF, etc, and I realized that the claim to be the only true religion on earth was seriously thrown into question.

  I'm still in (for my marriage). But mentally I'm out.