in the thread http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/213523/1/feeling-a-bit-alienated, concerned jw wrote:.
mistakes will happen.
concerned jw, if mistakes will happen, i was wondering what mistakes you feel the jw organization is currently making?
It's clear to me that the WT quite simply makes things up as they go along. When they're exposed on any doctrine, belief or practice, they use the "imperfect men" card and call it a mistake. I call it intentional deceit.
The only mistake the WT continuously makes is forgetting to ensure that any of their "New Light" is not actually a flip-flop from a previously made up interpretation of scripture (like the Toes on the statue).
i finally put a couple of pieces together that have boggled me for years.. i would take my family to the conventions and assemblies and for some reason, my wife would always be upset or start an argument in the car on the way home, or in the week that follows.
i realize now that her frustration is that i am not the guy in the demonstrations.
you know, the guy who has the bestfriend/elder who always says the perfect thing and the guy is so humble and does this little talks-to-himself thing where he reveals his deep spirituality and applies the ever-so-wise words of his friend and after that life is just great again!.
My wife used to carry on after certain dramas (also on the way home) until one day I explained to her that the overly humble over-acting in these dramas is merely the unreachable bar that the WT sets for the rank and file to make them feel hopelessly inadequate in the eyes of God since they know all too well that no one is even remotely capable of behaving so perfectly in real life. Thank God she eventually snapped out of the trance...
i caught the entire session today, and strangely, it was the first time i was able to stay completely alert for an entire dc program.
i'm guessing the reason for that is that i was looking at the program with a critical eye for the first time in my life and was not being hypnotised by mind-numbing repitition (see steve hassen's combatting cult mind control).
the program wasn't that bad.
And most of those teenagers probably got baptized to make themselves eligible for marriage or just to get everyone off their backs...
you know, the thing they were talking about in the 2011 dc.
it was about how the "toes" of daniel's image no longer represent all the individual governments that have come around in human history.
and that the anglo-american world power is the last world power we'll see before the end of the system of things.
It's not NEW light... It's a reversal... They taught this in the 70's before changing it again! They do this kind of thing once in a while to create a buzz... And they know they can get away with it because they know that most of the old-timers simply won't remember "deep stuff" from the 70's while the newer JWs are already too dumbed down to even analyze this "new light"...
as ray says in the last chapter of coc, before 1981 da was quite different from df.
"persons who resigned were not treated the same as those disfellowshiped", they were not shunned for example, except when the dad person enters into politics or military.. i put it on account of humbleness that ray says he doesn't think they changed the policy just to use it against him, he probably feels he wasn't so significant as to warrant such a far-reaching change.
but it seems way too convenient that the policy change came at that exact time, too much of a coincidence.
NewChapter... Excellent point... I guess it could be said that the Watchtower "officially" became a CULT in 1981... Hopefully Dogpatch will chime in with his perspective on this...
as ray says in the last chapter of coc, before 1981 da was quite different from df.
"persons who resigned were not treated the same as those disfellowshiped", they were not shunned for example, except when the dad person enters into politics or military.. i put it on account of humbleness that ray says he doesn't think they changed the policy just to use it against him, he probably feels he wasn't so significant as to warrant such a far-reaching change.
but it seems way too convenient that the policy change came at that exact time, too much of a coincidence.
NewChapter... Excellent point... I guess it could be said that the Watchtower "officially" became a CULT in 1981... Hopefully Dogpatch will chime in with his perspective on this...
as ray says in the last chapter of coc, before 1981 da was quite different from df.
"persons who resigned were not treated the same as those disfellowshiped", they were not shunned for example, except when the dad person enters into politics or military.. i put it on account of humbleness that ray says he doesn't think they changed the policy just to use it against him, he probably feels he wasn't so significant as to warrant such a far-reaching change.
but it seems way too convenient that the policy change came at that exact time, too much of a coincidence.
Bumping this for the newbies and lurkers...
The reason we can no longer dissassociate without being shunned by family is because the policy changed in 1981... The was done for the sole purpose of shutting down Raymond Franz as the remaining members of the Governing Body (especially Whacky Freddy) was afraid that Ray would air their extremely dirty laundry... Before 1981, anyone could freely dissassociate without being shunned (although dissaossiated JWs weren't really looked at favorably by JWs in general, but they weren't actually "shunned" in the full sense of the word)...
im posting from my boyfriend's house!
im having a week here with him to get away from things and to enjoy myself.
recently i came out to my entire family that im gay.
Timothy T...
That elder seems to be one of few open-minded elders... it appears he wants to make things as easy as possible for you. Most elders would probably take a hard line and start taking the steps they're expected to take.
(BTW, my wife and I have been friends with a gay non-JW couple for 6 years now, but we've only been out of the borg for a little over a year... they're probably the best friends we have right now... We never mentioned this friendship with anyone out of fear of being marked, reproved or disfelloshipped. But we always knew that being gay is definitely NOT a choice that people make and it certainly isn't an evil act, so we never really accepted the WT's viewpoint about homosexuality... )
Just know that you're making the right choice... i hope you thoroughly enjoy your new-found freedom!
Good luck!
i wonder if an article in the wt came out telling them to reach out to those that have drifted away.
i suspect the defection has been great in the last few years, and they're trying to bring some back.
i've told my story here, how i was able to succesfully fade away along with my family, without being df'd.
I've been out for over a year and in the last few weeks I've received 2 voicemails from an elder asking me to please call him back... The last voicemail sounded extremely businesslike... I guess the CO is coming soon and they're trying to give him at least 2 "Inactive Visits" so he can meet his quota.
i've only been on this site for 10 months or so and i've already received 2 pms from members of this site (who have no posts)requesting my friendship and providing an email address where i can request a photo of the person... i happen to know that i am "marked", so i wonder if this is just a ploy to match my personal email address to the one the elders in my congo have... this also makes me wonder if the wtbts is behind some theocratic warfare strategy to obtain proof for judicial committees.
i realize this is purely speculative, but i would be interested to know if the wt or any other party has ever tried to hack this site for the purpose of obtaining members' personal email addresses...
Thanks Simon... Do you need the name of the latest spammer? I can post it here or send you a PM... Please let me know
