Posts by poor places

61

2010 - Year of the Governing Body?

by lepermessiah in

jw
friends

let me explain by what i am getting at without sounding like captain obvious!

i am actually excited about this since i think this could help assist a ton of people out of this organization!!.

i believe that the governing body is stepping up efforts to emphasize their unconditional rulership - every wt study article seems to make reference to their authority.

poor places

WT Wizard,

I definitely see your point about worship. I don't know about other JWs, but speaking for myself, I fought a constant battle between worshiping God and worshiping the man-made rules. And if someone doesn't believe that JWs make you worship rules, just have them read that recent Bible study book: Remain in God's Love or whatever it's called. Or listen to a JW speak adamantly about how you must not celebrate Christmas because it's pagan, while acknowledging that the only reasons most people celebrate the holiday is to be with family. But rule-worship prevails over logic.

One somewhat unrelated point that came to mind about being an "apostate." How can a person who has differing views from JWs ever discuss those views without being suspected of reading "apostate" literature or sites? It's a tough situation. Once a JW suspects you of reading "apostate" stuff, the conversation is basically over. As far as JWs are concerned, "apostate" stuff is plain evil and the person who has been reading it is deeply misled and troubled. You just can't get around it.

8

how do they write new articles/talk outlines?

by poor places in

jw
friends

it really makes you wonder.

i mean, they're all pretty interchangeable, aren't they?

nobody would've guessed that today's special talk was new; it could've been replaced by about fifty other talks without anyone catching on.

poor places

It really makes you wonder. I mean, they're all pretty interchangeable, aren't they? Nobody would've guessed that today's special talk was new; it could've been replaced by about fifty other talks without anyone catching on. Can you imagine being a writer faced with the challenge of making new 20-paragraph articles, all of which have already been written? How do they even do it without falling asleep?

It's funny. A couple of years ago I got so excited when they unveiled the new "study edition" of the Watchtower. I thought that something new might be on the way. Little did I know that the only new feature would be scriptures in italics. The new articles are interchangeable with the old ones. And each meeting is interchangeable with the one that came before, unless someone breaks the mold and says something new. If it wasn't for the unique nature of each person alive, I suppose that the Watchtower would make people interchangeable too. But one size doesn't fit all, and that's where the Watchtower fails.

It's sad because there are some very talented speakers in my hall. Imagine if they could speak as they want to speak!

26

Theocratic sleeping: have you seen anyone asleep at the KH? Or done it yourself?

by highdose in

jw
friends

i must admit have done the whole nodding thing and even once at an assembly fell asleep on a brothers shoulder... shame he wasn't cute!.

poor places

I have a theory that you have to be an absolutely brilliant speaker to make those convention outlines interesting. Most brothers sound like they're reading the talk from a sheet. I've heard before that speakers at assemblies and conventions are supposed to give the talk more or less word for word from the outline, so I think that should account for the extremely boring nature of most of the talks. If the brothers were just given a little more leeway regarding what they could say, I guarantee that the talks would be a million times more interesting.

30

If still "in", how do you feel when praying in front of a group despite being in doubt of your beliefs?

by Crisis of Conscience in

jw
friends

it happened to me this weekend.

i'm curently "active" and had some long time friends from a different congregation over for dinner.. we went through the formality of praying before the meal.

normally or rather lately i've been passing it off to someone else.

poor places

Yeah, praying in public is a tough one. Although I only have to say public prayers on rare occasions, it still happens every couple of months or so. I feel somewhat hypocritical, since I'm praying for people who have no idea how I really feel. On the other hand, I don't feel terrible, because it's not like I refuse to believe in God at this point; I just don't have any idea if he exists or not. So I make my prayers as generic as I can: thanks for letting us be here today, please help us to pay attention, let your holy spirit be with us, etc. The only trouble is that I end up giving the most boring and least heartfelt prayers imaginable; I'd like to do better, but pretty much can't.

31

privilleges equals spirituality

by stillin in

jw
friends

what a sad joke!

posters here talk about the "do more" pushiness in the organization and that is so true!

elders just assume that you want to carry microphones and work your way up the spiritual ladder to that blissful state of total immersion in "kingdom matters.

poor places

The reasons for a person becoming a servant or an elder are really strange. If you're a male, all you have to do is boost your service hours and comment more and within a couple of years you'll be a servant. Then, once you become a servant, you can do next to nothing and remain a servant for years. Or if you're a servant who wants to be an elder, you can pretty much just keep doing what you've been doing, and within five or ten years you'll become an elder. The appointments from servant to elder can seem really arbitrary. Sometimes age has a lot to do with it. Or maybe good looks.

All I know is that once you're appointed anything, you start to think about why you were appointed, or at least why you were appointed at the time you were appointed. It's sort of like when you're a little kid and you turn eleven. You think to yourself, "Wow, I'm eleven now, but I don't feel any different!" And you start to question the meaning of the age number. When you're appointed, you think about how you're essentially no different than you were a year ago, or two years ago. You're no better as a person, you have basically the same hopes and flaws, basically the same spirituality level. And yet here you are, an appointed person. And then you start thinking about all the things you've done wrong, little or big, and how undeserving you are to be appointed anything.

508

Most-Ignored Scriptures by JWs

by Mad Sweeney in

the watchtower has been known for over 130 years as a great scriptural cherry-picker.

they pick out disparate unrelated verses and combine them to support the wackiest of wacky doctrines.. on the other hand there are many scriptures they almost never address, whether because they contradict wt doctrine or because they simply don't have a clue what they mean or how to spin them to the wt advantage.. one of these is revelation 19:1 that mentions a "great crowd" "in heaven.

" the only time it is ever brought up it is dismissed.

poor places

My favorite ignored scripture is probably Ecclesiastes 1:11: "There is no remembrance of people of former times, nor will there be of those also who come to be later. There will prove to be no remembrance even of them among those who will come to be still later on." Doesn't exactly support belief in life in a paradise earth or in heaven after death, does it?

Another favorite is the context of Matthew 24:45. Verse 48 says, "But if ever that evil slave should say in his heart, 'My master is delaying,' and should start to beat his fellow slaves...the master of that slave will...punish him with the greatest severity." According to this verse, the "faithful and discreet slave" could be evil. Of course, you never hear that from the platform. It's beyond incredible that no one ever mentions that part of the account. Or if they do mention it, they totally mess with its meaning.

64

Did leaving the WT build greater appreciation for or kill your reading of the Bible?

by lepermessiah in

jw
friends

i am really on the fence on this issue right now and would love some opinions.. i find that i dont sit down and read the bible for long periods since becoming inactive, but on the other hand, individual scriptures mean much more to me now.. i will sit down and look up some favorite passages from time to time and feel like its the first time i really "got it" - without the jw goggles on.

i love matthew chapter 23, since i think it describes to a tee the situation in jw congregations.

i think if jesus returned today, he would blast the elders and "leaders" of the borg in a similar fashion (along with most religious leaders) .matthew 24 is actually more interesting to me now, simply because my whole life was waiting for the 1914 generation to end sometime during the reagan era!

poor places

To me, the Bible has books that are great and books that are really dull. The Gospels are all wonderful, say what you will about Jesus prophesying the death of many on earth. With the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presents a great way to live: loving one's enemies, turning the other cheek, not getting consumed by financial concerns, etc. I believe that Ghandi once said that if a person based his life on the Sermon on the Mount, he'd live a good life. I agree with that idea, even if he didn't say it.

Ecclesiastes is also an excellent book that provides a very different outlook from any other book in the Bible. There's no violent God or afterlife or silly set of laws in Ecclesiastes. It seems to be more or less a meditation on what it's like to be a human being. There are other books I like too: Genesis with its interesting stories, Job with its misery, Proverbs with its wisdom, Paul's writings, Revelation with its psychedelic visions. There's a lot of great stuff in the Bible, whether you think it's inspired or not. Not the major prophets, though. Please don't make me read them again. Or Leviticus. Anything but Leviticus.

On a side note, I don't think there's any reason to feel too upset about the violent God of the Hebrew scriptures, unless you think it's inspired. If you don't think it's inspired, you can accept that the parts that don't make sense are just stories, and you can sleep fine at night.

27

feeling lousy

by poor places in

jw
friends

hi folks,.

i'm a newbie here.

been watching the proceedings on this site for some time now.

poor places

Heaven,

I agree 100% that the only way to approach relatives with differing religious viewpoints is calmly and rationally. As for their reaction, I guess that depends on the person. I think that some people I know would go absolutely nuts about me explaining my different viewpoint, no matter how calm I am in explaining it. But it's hard to tell, of course. I have limited experience telling people my feelings about these things. So far, one person has been completely understanding, one person started attacking me and I had to back down, and one person at first acted like she agreed with everything I said, and then completely changed course a couple of weeks later and started following the company line again. Now that was a really strange case. Impossible to understand how someone could spout two contradictory lines of thought within a couple of weeks. Just totally weird.

It's just really hard to say how a person is going to react. But I'd say that with most people I know, especially the people I care about most, any confession from me would be setting up a disastrous situation.

27

feeling lousy

by poor places in

jw
friends

hi folks,.

i'm a newbie here.

been watching the proceedings on this site for some time now.

poor places

Thanks, everyone. All of your comments are very much appreciated. It's hard for me to say anything because I feel as if everything has already been said on this site. But I might add that one of the hardest parts about disagreeing with some of the doctrines of this religion is that in doing so, you break the heart of people you care for if they find out what you think. And if you're born in the religion, you're dead meat if you stay around too long. You become too aware of the flaws in doctrine, too aware of the strange logic used to present these doctrines, too aware of your own hypocrisy, too aware of the potential cost of your straying beliefs.

It's also hard to have no one to blame. When you look at the organization in the big picture, I don't think that there are many people who are intentionally trying to mislead anyone. In a sense, everyone is innocent and everyone is guilty. Everyone who believes is forcing a way of life on others, yet they also think it is the best way of life for others. I believe that this is true of people in the organization from the bottom up. The real culprits are the founders of the religion, those who enforced rather bizarre doctrines on unsuspecting people from the start. Although in a sense the founders were also innocent, since they probably believed that what they said was for everyone's good.

What I mean to say, then, is that the thing to blame is the desperate and yearning side of people. The side that needs to believe in things that may not be true. The same side that forces other people to believe the same things.

27

feeling lousy

by poor places in

jw
friends

hi folks,.

i'm a newbie here.

been watching the proceedings on this site for some time now.

poor places

Hi folks,

I'm a newbie here. Been watching the proceedings on this site for some time now. I never posted before because I never felt safe doing so, but here I am. And what can I say? My story, I suppose, is more or less like everyone else's story here: born in the religion, stayed well past the teen years for reasons that now seem foggy and difficult to explain, and am now feeling unable to leave because of family.

I guess the reason I'm posting is that I feel like I'm starting to lose it. My mind, that is. My anxiety is almost non-stop, and I've just about given up on the thought of fitting in anywhere, having more than two friends, or getting married. I'm usually not a selfish person and I don't even like talking about myself, but I guess I'm just looking for an outlet, some kind words. Kind, non-judgmental words. Where are those, ever? Take care, everybody.