Posts by ABibleStudent

29

Conversation-stopper STOPPERS needed!

by DS211 in

i have to get active.

my wife told me we have hospitality this weekend and i know the jw slingshot mechanism will engage after attendance.

so i have to get ready.

ABibleStudent

Hi DS211, The easiest way to counter WTBTS taught platitudes is to ask short and simple questions like what Phizzy suggested that guide your wife to confront her cognitive dissonance in small steps. Too much cognitive dissonance at once could cause your wife's cult persona to terminate all conversations. Before you use zingers to stop your wife from using thought stopping platitudes, you also need to learn how to bring out your wife's authentic persona. Your wife's authentic persona is your greatist ally against your wife's cult persona.

Whenever you ask your wife a question, don't say a word until she says something even if you have to wait for minutes. Remember every time you cause your wife to hesitate answering your questions. Those are the questions that cause your wife a lot of cognitive dissonance. My suggestions for the following platitudes would be:

"Wait on Jehovah" - How long have JWs been waiting? When did the WTBTS start predicting that Armageddon was going to happen soon? How long are you willing to wait for Armageddon to wait? Until you are 60? 70? 80? Can we start to plan for our retirement now?
"I will research that" - When will you start your research? What will you use to do your research? Will you be emulating the Bereans and independently researching what the WTBTS writes? If you do independent research, would the WTBTS/elders compliment you like the Bible does in Acts 17:11 when the Bereans read the Scriptures to verify what Paul said?
"I don't want to talk about it now!" - When will you want to talk about it? How would you feel if I told you that I don't want to talk about it, when you want to talk about something that is important to you? Would you like to watch the Matrix, Obilivion, or 1984 now?
"Where else would we go?" - How about follow the teachings of Jesus Christ like Simon Peter responded to Jesus Christ in John 6:60-70? Do you want to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ or follow the teachings of the WTBTS? Why didn't Jesus Christ order his twelve disciples to shun those disciples that left him in the desert in John 6:60-70? When (and why) did Jesus Christ order his disciples to shun or not to associate with other people?

Best of wishes helping your wife to think for herself.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

16

Need help to do a "talk"!

by ILoveTTATT in

jw
friends

the talk is called "the right religion demonstrates true faith in christ".

i have to help my fading gf give the talk.

if you have any subtle "apostate" ideas, i would appreciate them.. here is what i would like to say:.

ABibleStudent

Hi ILoveTTATT, I find the title of the talk "The right religion demonstrates true faith in Christ" to be a little self-serving for religions. Is it possible to show how Jesus Christ viewed Jewish religious leaders as hypocrites because of the burdens that were placed on the Jews without condemning the WTBTS. And, then finishing with members of the right religion would demonstrate true faith in Christ if they could respond to Jesus Christ like Simon Peter did in John 6:68-69.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

47

New here and having ah ha moments!

by Angus Beef in

jw
friends

what made you realize it was time to go?

i've been having health problems for the last few years and instead of any help, i'm listed as spiritually weak and of course associations is only my kids and husband.

all the good jw's have moved to other congregations and are doing well.

ABibleStudent

Welcome Angus Beef , You have a lot of options that do not involve leaving the WTBTS now. Make a plan about how you want to help yourself, your husband, your children, and your grandchildren.

Your plan should include that you independently research the WTBTS to discover whether your suspicions are factual, learning as much as possible about Steve Hassan's BITE control model and how it can help you to critically think for yourself, how to help your family to critically think for themselves, how to plan fun activities with your family members to help them meet more non-JWs who they share common interests, how to do more effective financial planning than waiting on the WTBTS's Jehovah, and venting your feelings and asking for advise on JWN to help you and your family.

The greatist gift that you can give to JWs is to help them to critically think for themselves instead of allowing the WTBTS to use BITE control techniques to victimized JWs.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

36

Quite an interesting first meeting with my Therapist.

by truthseekeriam in

jw
friends

the moment i mentioned jehovah's witnesses he headed over to his file cabinet and handed me this print out.. .

dear beloved one, .

i see your loneliness and fears.

ABibleStudent

Hi truthseekeriam, I agree with other posters that your description of your 1st visit with a therapist would raise red flags with me. I consider skepticism is a good thing, because it helps me to overcome my desire to trust people before they prove themselves as being trustworthy. If you have a plan about what you want to accomplish from your visits with a therapist, I feel that you will achieve greater success from your visits based on my personal experience.

I have visited 4 councilors in my life for two life changing events. I always think about what I want to accomplish when I visit a therapist to determine how long I will visit a therapist. What I want to accomplish changes with what is going on in my life.

When I got divorced, I visited three councilors before I stayed with one. One councilor I thought was very good and was religious. He was not covered by my insurance, so I decided to see more councilors who might be covered by my insurance. The second councilor was very, very empathetic, but I did not want empathy. I wanted to learn why I wanted to be with my ex-wife when we had an emotionally abusive and toxic relationship. I stayed with the third councilor until the insurance coverage ran out to vent my feelings instead of to my friends and coworkers. While seeing the third councelor, luckily a coworker recommended that I read a book, which had excercises that helped my to disover what childhood baggage I had that was trapping me emotionally to want to be with my ex-wife.

The second event was to understand my emotional conflicts in asking a woman to marry me. I saw one councelor who was covered by my insurance and she did help me to understand what was missing from my relationship and how to attain what I wanted with my girlfriend. Before I could talk to my girlfriend about working towards getting married she decided to terminate our relationship. Since I had already resolved my childhood baggage, I did not go through a lot of emotional turmoil.

Best of wishes to you and your husband on resolving your issues with your therapist.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

6

Lack of Zeal

by Kool Jo in

jw
friends

hey folks...was talking to an friend on skype who's a jw.

she mentioned that she no longer has the zeal to do fs and meetings ect...if a jw confided in you, how would you handle it without rasing suspisions whilst at the same same trying to get them to think or even plant a few seeds?.

she says once she leaves the kh, she doesn't feel the desire to do anything spiritual and that her fs time has reduced...she also told me that she feels "lazy" in her worship to jehovah.. thanks.

ABibleStudent

Hi Kool Jo, Just tell her that you care about her and how she feels. Ask her simple questions about how she feels and what does she feel is the cause of her lack of zeal. Listen to her for awhile and then suggest that she talk with a psychologist to help her because you are concerned about her becoming more depressed.

It could help her more if you suggested several psychologists including a couple of cult-exit counselors.

The most you can do without setting off her apostate alarms is to let her talk, empathize with her about her feelings and saying that her feelings are valid without saying that she should doubt the WTBTS, and suggesting that she gets emotional help before she feels worse. Jehovah gave her a brain, so Jehovah may be waiting on her to use it.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

18

How would you respond?

by MsGrowingGirl20 in

ok so this is a conversation that i am having with a friend that i really love.

i have some points that i want to say but tell me, how would you respond to this email?.

not gonna try to defend anyone i can really only speak for myself.

ABibleStudent

Hi MsGrowingGirl20, What do you want to accomplish with your email? Is your friend being shunned or is she shunning you?

I do feel that your paragraphs are too long and difficult to read.

It might help to just write that you love your friend and that you miss talking with her like you use to. If your friend is shunning you, would it hurt to write her saying that you do not want to force your beliefs on her and that life is too short to talk about the WTBTS with her.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

30

Strange things happening...

by DS211 in

jw
friends

some strange things are happening.. 1. wife started smoking.

2. wife agreed that the whole "clean up after armageddon while growing to perfection" thing is all speculation.. 3. as i was going to the meeting tonight (i had a part and kids are sick so she stayed in) she says "do you have to go?"..

4. when i got home she says " i wanna go out and party..... hmmmmmm.

ABibleStudent

Hi DS211, Have you watched Matrix with your wife yet?

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

34

I know TTATT... so why do JW apologists still scare me?

by ILoveTTATT in

jw
friends

another of my rants.... .

why am i still scared when i read something that the jw's have written?

why does it still upset me to read jw literature?

ABibleStudent

Hi LoveTTATT, As some other posters have written (or alluded to), you may need to either see a psychologist or attend group therapy sessions to use psychological regression techniques to overcome your WTBTS's induced phobias.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

21

Could this be the Atom Bomb when it comes to waking up Someone? Could it Work?

by BU2B in

jw
friends

could this be the home run swing when it comes to waking up a spouse?

could it work?

yesterday i was checking out this website http://howcultswork.com/.

ABibleStudent

Hi BU2B, That website might awaken JWs, who are "Spiritually Weak" (still thinking) and probably would not awaken a "Spiritually Strong" (non-thinking) JW. Asking JWs simple questions to understand what motivates them will help a lot to plan how to help them to critically think for themselves.

It depends a lot on why a JW believes in the WTBTS. Does a JW suffer from an incurable disease/disorder/deformity and believes they will be cured after the Big A? Does a JW want to see a loved one in paradise? Does a JW have a close circle of conditional JW friends and family who they are afraid to lose? Does a JW work for a JW boss? What doubts does a JW have about the WTBTS? Has a JW been treated badly by elders and other JWs? Etc.

Helping a JW to critically think for themselves and showing them how much fun they can have away from WTBTS takes time and will probably have a higher success rate than a JW only visiting a website. JWs absolutely trust what the WTBTS writes and the WTBTS writes that a cult must be lead by one man only and not eight, therefore the WTBTS is not a cult.

Even ex-JW apologists after 20 years will say that the WTBTS is not a dangerous cult. I know this because I know someone who said the WTBTS was not a cult to me. I just wasn't quick thinking enough to say, "You are right that they are not a religious cult, but they are a dangerous cult. If you say they are not a dangerous cult without knowing what attributes a dangerous cult has, then you are proving that I am right that the WTBTS is a dangerous cult. If you want to learn more about what a dangerous cult is, please visit www.freedomofmind.com."

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

25

Question

by Fading Begins in

jw
friends

i am sure that this has already been discussed, so maybe someone could direct me to the correct link.

i just haven't been able to access this site as often as i would like.

at the meeting tonight (i wasn't there but was told about it), the brothers were told to pack up a "survival kit" with enough provisions to last for six months - water, medications etc.

ABibleStudent

SloppyJoe - People were murdering over a bottle of water they were so desperate when Katrina hit.

What doe the WTBTS recommend to JWs when someone else wants their survival bag and is prepared to take it by force? Wait on Jehovah?

Considering that the WTBTS is promoting maintaining a survival bag, I am suspicious of their motives. To me it sounds like a way to increase the fear of JWs instead of a true concern for their well-being. JWs would be better prepared by visiting the following website instead of listening to the WTBTS about creating a survival bag: http://www.ready.gov/are-you-ready-guide

BTW a go-bag refers to bags that military and emergency response members keep filled with clothes and toiletries in case they are deployed ASAP.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert