poor places

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Posts by poor places

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  146

  What Stupid Things Were You Counseled For?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've always been told that i have a very good personality, that i'm humorous, etc.. one elder called me over and said that i was "smiling too much".

  the other elders talked to the elder who counseled me and he came back to say that i should be like i was .

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  poor places

  Let's see. There are so many moments of counsel to remember. This list is only about 2% of the things I've been counseled on.

  --length of my sideburns (shouldn't come more than halfway below the ear)

  --forgetting to bring a pen in field service

  --driving too fast in service

  --accidentally driving through a stop sign in service

  --not commenting enough

  --not being neat enough in general

  --having a lousy field service presentation

  --saying "um" too many times during a talk

  --not shaving

  --saying things that aren't totally true in a talk

  --messing up various kh jobs at various times in my life

  --listening to inappropriate music

  --hanging out with a girl alone in the kh

  --not flossing often enough (just kidding!)

  And the list goes on and on. After a while you get counseled by so many people on so many topics that you just dream about living an unregulated life. You wonder why these people are so obsessed with keeping everything about you up to standard, especially when you aren't even bothering them about anything. It's more than enough to drive you bats.
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  12

  Apostate Buzz Words

  by White Dove in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  scriptural gymnastics.

  noo lite.

  getting your fade on.

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  poor places

  Can someone please explain the "borg" joke? Are we talking cyborg here or what?
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  16

  a question for experts on disfellowshipping

  by poor places in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  can you be df'd for atheism?

  if you only tell the elders that you don't believe in god, and as a result will be decreasing your activity, will they reprove you and/or df you if you aren't repentant over time?

  pretend that you aren't telling them anything about your feelings regarding the organization or governing body.

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  poor places

  Can you be df'd for atheism? If you only tell the elders that you don't believe in God, and as a result will be decreasing your activity, will they reprove you and/or df you if you aren't repentant over time? Pretend that you aren't telling them ANYTHING about your feelings regarding the organization or governing body. You only talk about your lack of faith in God.

  Obviously I'm looking for a way of talking to elders and decreasing my activity without getting punished.
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  71

  How Do You Feel Being Thought Of As An "Apostate"?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  does it bother you if witnesses regard you as an apostate?.

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  poor places

  I would imagine that a lot of the people who are saying they don't care what JWs call them don't have any close family members in the organization. It's easy to say that you don't care what some acquaintance thinks of you, but your own mother and father? Your brother and sister? Apostates are associated with evil in the mind of JWs. It's not pleasant to have family think of you as an evil person.
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  116

  Would Witnesses REALLY drink the "Kool-aid" if the faithful slave told them to? Yes or no?

  by Witness 007 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  a "spiritual leader" tells his followers the must put on rebok running shoes and "drink the cool-aid" to join a ufo in the tail of a comet and "go to a better world" so, afew dozen young people do just that to get "beamed up" to the mothership.

  heavens gate cult 1990's.. my mother says "she is faithful to the organisation till her death" which makes me wonder if they ordered a mass suicide like the reverend jim jones did to escape a "great tribulation"....how many witnesses would really drink the cool-aid?...

  without a gun pointed at their head of course!.

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  poor places

  Be realistic, guys. Very few Witnesses would literally drink the Kool-Aid. A lot of the Witnesses I know aren't even dedicated enough to go out in service regularly. You're telling me they're going to commit suicide? Many Witnesses would be disturbed that the religion they love went haywire, (I think I mean more haywire), but they wouldn't continue believing in it.
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  43

  Do you remember the moment that you stopped believing that it was "The Truth"?

  by freeflyingfaerie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  was there one incident or epiphany that struck you hard?

  or was it a slow...gradual awakening (no pun)?.

  my coming out of the jw coma (as i like to call it) began at a family rendezvous in the beautiful florida gulf coast.

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  poor places

  I find the comments in this thread really interesting because I've never been able to pinpoint a time when I lost faith in the organization. As someone born in the "truth," it's hard to recall a time when I didn't question some aspect of the organization or even God. I remember believing in all of it as a very young child, of course, because that's what mommy and daddy said, but it's harder to remember after that. I kind of slogged through my high school years; I went through the meeting and service routine, but I don't know how much I believed. Faith is a funny thing. You can have it on Monday and sort of lose it on Tuesday. Something good happens to you and you feel like God is looking after you. Something bad happens and you're not so sure. A brother gives a riveting talk and you think the organization is great. A brother counsels you and you're not so sure.

  I've always wondered if their are certain "risk factors" that make a person more susceptible to losing faith in the org and/or God. Why do some people grow up with steady faith and others lose it right off? Any thoughts on this?
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  5

  a potentially interesting JW experiment

  by poor places in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so it would be pretty interesting if someone got df'd at an early age--20 or 30 or so--and kept attending meetings for the rest of his or her life without getting reinstated.

  imagine jws in the presence of a df'd person for sixty years, without acknowledging the person's existence.

  they'd watch the person grow older and more feeble, and all the while they'd believe that the person is going to die because of the d'fing.

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  poor places

  So it would be pretty interesting if someone got df'd at an early age--20 or 30 or so--and kept attending meetings for the rest of his or her life without getting reinstated. Imagine JWs in the presence of a df'd person for sixty years, without acknowledging the person's existence. They'd watch the person grow older and more feeble, and all the while they'd believe that the person is going to die because of the d'fing. Or would the JWs in that person's congregation start to question the nature of d'fing, how silly it is, etc?

  I guess they wouldn't! But it would still be pretty interesting. Who wants to be the first to try?
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  1

  a literary wasteland

  by poor places in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  isn't it amazing how many pages the wts has printed about the bible over the years?

  if bros and sisters neglected reading these publications and just focused on the bible, can you imagine how much more well-versed and enlightened everyone would be?

  i think the isaiah's prophecy books are longer than the book of isaiah!

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  poor places

  Isn't it amazing how many pages the WTS has printed about the Bible over the years? If bros and sisters neglected reading these publications and just focused on the Bible, can you imagine how much more well-versed and enlightened everyone would be? I think the Isaiah's prophecy books are longer than the book of Isaiah! And even harder to read!

  Think of how much money the WTS would save if they just printed Bibles instead of these heaps of Bible-based stuff.

  On a side note, it's incredible how little attention is paid to sustained reading of the Bible. The reading that most bros and sisters get is fractured in the extreme. It's a verse here, a verse there, followed by commentary from the WTS. Or it's five or six chapters for the weekly Bible reading. That's the most you get, unless you read the Bible on your own, which is an eye-opening experience, to say the least.
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  20

  Any person without the mark will be executed?

  by ldrnomo in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the daily text for today is a good way to show dubs that you talk to that everyone except jehovah's witnesses will be destroyed.

  i have found that when i do get a chance to say something to a dub about this they usually say "we don't judge so we can't say who will be destroyed" the borg was kind enough to put it in writing for me:.

  today's text:saturday may 1 2010(put a mark on the foreheads of the men that are sighing and groaning over all the detestables things that are being done.ezekial.9:4. .

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  poor places

  I've always felt that this topic is one of the grayest areas for JW beliefs. They never want to come out and say that non-JWs are going to die. It's almost impossible to understand what their stance on it is.

  My favorite field service moment was at the door with a brother whose faith was and is unshakable. After ten or fifteen minutes of conversation about Armageddon, the householder says, "So you're telling me that only Jehovah's Witnesses are going to survive Armageddon?" The brother wouldn't give in. He skirted the subject with replies like, "The Bible says that only those with an accurate Bible knowledge and who have faith in Jesus Christ will survive Armageddon." So of course, the man replied with his previous question, and their conversation went in circles for about four and half hours. It was beyond embarrassing. I was standing there hoping that the brother would just say, "Alright already, it's true. Jehovah's witnesses are the only ones who will survive!" But that never happens. Score another one for the truth. Pathetic.
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  6

  Is youth a time for anger and cults?

  by gubberningbody in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm 26 years older than i was when i got started as a jw.

  i was a hurt and angry young man who wanted a world that was a better place, a place where it was ok to be ok and not the same.

  i think maybe my anger and hurt helped to blind me from how angry and hurt everyone in the world really is and was and will be and perhaps this is one more reason the idea of a paradise following swiftly on the deaths of billions was not so much a trouble for my self-absorbed mind.. i wanted to believe and i convinced myself..

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  poor places

  I kind of know what you mean. Armageddon is definitely easier to accept when your'e a kid. That's when all the bad people dying makes sense, because when you're young you believe that it's possible to label people as good and bad. In my case, I've found it hard to tell the difference between good and bad when talking about people. There's usually bad circumstances behind the "bad people" and vice versa.