Posts by MrMonroe

35

Elders came to visit...

by pubtruth in

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MrMonroe

(Sorry, iPad and JWN don't work well together).

How ludicrous that their solution for anyone who doubts that the JW cult is the truth is to go out to the public to try to draw them into the cult as well.

35

Elders came to visit...

by pubtruth in

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MrMonroe

49

Inactive (i.e. not reporting) witnesses won't survive armageddon

by Mickey mouse in

did anyone else catch this in the talk at the convention 'are you behaving as kingdom citizen?'.

.

MrMonroe

During his visit to the congregation, the circuit overseer actually made the remark that the measure of a person's Christianity could be determined by an examination of his publisher's record card!

Some years ago I spoke privately to a new PO appointed to our rather troubled congregation and expressed my real concern about a sister who had been physically and mentally done over by her alcoholic, abusive husband who was trying to intimidate her by stalking her and bugging her phone calls. She wanted to leave him; he was playing a very clever game of trying to do a big comeback by studying again, thus getting everyone to "encourage" him and take his side so she wouldn't walk out. She was a wreck of a woman, a walking skeleton and bent over by the pressure of her dreadful family life.

That elder told me: "I've looked at her records and I can tell you her field service hasn't changed in the past year. That tells me she is not suffering spiritually at all."

That was the first time I'd realised just how much those idiot elders judged the "spirituality" of members of the congregation by a number they wrote on a piece of paper. Soon after I began observing how many immature, obsequious and brainless young men were being identified as "Christian elders" because of the number they wrote on their piece of paper.

53

Terrible Analogy at a Convention

by ApostateDance in

jw
friends

i'd love to know what you guys think of this.

brother jackson (from the governing body) had this "neat" analogy at the very end of the convention.

he said; "what if you were watching a football game on tv, and it was the trojans against the fighting irish, and it's been a good game.

MrMonroe

Spot on, Palmtree67. And isn't is damned annoying how the rules of the game keep changing and players keep getting sent to the sin bin for asking questions when the rules don't make sense.

26

Whenever a newbie signs on...

by satinka in

jw
friends

whenever a newbie signs on...my heart skips a beat.

i wonder if it might be my son?

my daughter?

MrMonroe

Not a new member, but I discovered recently that I was once in the same congregation as relatives of Hopscotch, and that I've almost certainly met her as well many years ago. It provides a bit of a buzz.

I also spent five years in the same congo as Sizemik some years ago, so catching up (online) after all that time was good.

But I, too, hope that I'll bump into more people here who have woken up and got out of that crazy whacked religion.

40

Hi, Newbie Here

by Iseenow in

jw
friends

well i have been lurking for the past couple of weeks and have finally decided to create an account.

just wanted to introduce myself and relate my life story in the borg, specifically from the past few weeks- which i think has been a lot easier than many on the board.

anyway, my mum began to study when i was 10 (2005) and since then has been babtized; she strongly believes it is the truth.

MrMonroe

Thanks AnnOMaly. I take it that's Carl Olof Jonsson's essay? Well researched and after all this time it provides an answer I've never had to the WTS claims that they predicted the rise of the UN. Back when I was in the org I guess I vaguely accepted it (or was intrigued by its apparent success), but since I left and dug deeper into the various claims of the WTS, discovering all of them were lies or exaggerations, I assumed this one stank as well. That essay provides the confirmation.

40

Hi, Newbie Here

by Iseenow in

jw
friends

well i have been lurking for the past couple of weeks and have finally decided to create an account.

just wanted to introduce myself and relate my life story in the borg, specifically from the past few weeks- which i think has been a lot easier than many on the board.

anyway, my mum began to study when i was 10 (2005) and since then has been babtized; she strongly believes it is the truth.

MrMonroe

Hi Iseenow, thanks for your story. I would be very interested to hear from this elder which predictions the WTS did get right. Ask him for a list, because I can't think of any they could claim to be correct. They always throw the "revival of the United Nations" into the ring, but to me that's more like people applying Nostradamus' predictions .... now and then you'll get something that's vaguely correct if you squint your eyes.

They often claim that Russell predicted world upheaval in 1914, which is an out and out distortion of facts, because as varioius websites including this one point out, he expected Jesus would be ruling the earth by then and there would be no more human governments or churches by then. So that was clearly wrong.

The problem is that on one hand they say they are God's mouthpiece, so you better believe and obey them or you'll die .... and then when they get it wrong (as they have repeatedly, just like Harold Camping) they say, "Well, hey, we're only human!" You can't have it both ways.

42

Becoming of the anointed & seeing the light

by discreetslave in

i was recently born again and thus am anointed because of this i have come to realize that though there are sincere people who are jw, some teachings are fine but the wt organization is a fraud.

here is my story sorry if it's a bit long but i need to tell it.. 16 years ago today i was baptized as one of jw's.

i was 17 years old the only one in my family.

MrMonroe

The WTS is fixated with the notion that there is one religious truth only, and that they have it. Good on you for thinking deeper about it and coming to your own conclusions.

The Franz books made such a difference for many of us here at JWN, including my wife and I. It rips the veil away from the mystique surrounding the organisation, the "faithful slave class" and the Governing Body, exposing them as a high-control religion based on human interpretations of the Bible and nothing more.

I found it rewarding to delve into the origins of the WTS beliefs on Bible chronology. A book called "Counting the Days to Armageddon" by Richard Crompton dissects the belief, looking at how, piece by piece, it was assembled -- and once you see it broken down like that, the sheer nonsense of it all is plain to see. Yet 99 per cent of JWs never stop to examine it. They just accept it as a truth. Just as I did while I was "in".

I think being a JW adds to depression and mental illness, and thinking back to the people in the congregations I was in, I recognise deep depression in so many of them, much of it rooted in feelings of low self-esteem, worthlessness and failure. As well as a (possibly unconscious?) feeling that they have no control over their lives and are trapped in a lifestyle.

Once I left the organisation, I thought less and less about religion, and I know the same thing has happened to several other ex-JWs I've met (some of them through JWN). While "in" we think our lives are centered around God and the Bible, but once we stop going to meetings we realise how little we actually are interested in either. I still believe in God, though the concept is now a lot hazier, because the Bible creates a lot of confusing and contradictory images. And if there is a God, maybe that's the way he wants it.

All the best with your life. It is so sad to think of how you were planning to end your life. I'm so happy you're still here.

140

The effect we are having on the Watchtower is HUGE

by jwfacts in

i was inspired by a recent thread i know i aint gunna crumble the wt, but a girl can dream to look at the effect we as individuals are having on the watchtower society.. 3dogs1husband quoted a story to show that even helping only one person is worth it.. it is encouraging to note that the one person you may have helped has lead to millions being helped, due to the power of compounding growth.. compounding growth is well illustrated by the rice on a chessboard problem.

if you start with 1 grain of rice on square one, and double it to 2 on the second, 4 on the third, 8 on the fourth, by the last (64th) square there would be 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of rice.. likewise, if you help one person out of the grip of the watchtower this year, then next year you help one more and they help one, in a few years that is going to have a formidable result on the number of jehovahs witnesses.

look at the following statistics.

MrMonroe

JWN and JWFacts are among the sites that contain some of the best facts about the WTS that can open the eyes of wavering JWs.

I think it's also heartening that the Jehovah's Witnesses page at Wikipedia (probably perceived as a reasonably trustworthy site) gets between 4000 and 5000 visits a day; the Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses article gets between 180 and 200 visits a day, probably all of them coming directly from the links within the parent article.

Witnesses have tried very hard to remove and water down the criticisms section of the main article; I think it may help to round out the knowledge of anyone considering immersing themselves deeper into the religion.

41

80% of all web sites are pornagraphic

by Sour Grapes in

during today's witchtower study there was so much wisdom.

coming forth from the conductor and those in attendance that.

i could only say to myself "can't they hear what they are saying?".

MrMonroe

It's the whole scenario from the movie "The Village" all over again.

It's scary out there. Stay with us. Only by doing exactly what we tell you will you be safe.

I used to listen to the same sort of crap at meetings and wonder, "Do people really believe this stuff, or are they just trying to sound more righteous than the previous speaker?"

Wherever JWs gather -- at Kingdom Halls, conventions and at Bethels, invisible intellectual bubbles form. Whatever goes on in the outside world just has no impact on them. If they say it's so .... it's so. It's an imaginary, make-believe world that forms every time they gather, filled with talk about angelic direction, threats of demons, dangers of apostates, promises of a new system .... a make-believe world. And they all go along with the pretence.