Posts by InterestedOne

14

Without faith it is impossible to please Him . . . Hebrews 11:6

by wordfamine.com in

without faith it is impossible to please him .

hebrews 11:6. .

jw's immediately interpret this scripture to mean faith in the watchtower.

InterestedOne

wordfamine.com, I have the same question as cofty. Why do you think the faith you describe is a virtue?

85

Hello--new to the witnesses...and you

by LKM in

jw
friends

just wanted to introduce myself.

i went to the kh for the first time 2 weeks ago...and will go again tomorrow.

i don't believe anything witnessy...(i was raised in the assembly of god church and now the closest thing i "do" with religion is yoga or sometimes the buddhist temple).... but the man i'm in love with is a df'd jw (we've been together for 6 years).... and he wants to get reinstated just to talk to his family again (i can assure you he does not believe it).... and he wants his family to accept me because we are about to get married... so, i'm going to meetings...its very interesting, but only because it shows me more about how he was raised.

InterestedOne

Hi LKM, I was never a JW, but I spent almost a year observing and studying with them due to a JW love interest.

LKM wrote:

we are about to get married...

Let me make sure I understand your plan:

1. Get married asap -before- he is reinstated.

2. Now according to JWism, you are an "unbelieving mate" that he got married to when he was out in "the world." For lack of a better way to phrase it, you might be considered one of the various "mistakes" he made when he was "out of the truth," but what's done is done.

3. He can then tell the elders that he wants to "draw close to Jehovah" and help his unbelieving mate to do the same.

4. If he starts playing the part, he might be able to get reinstated even if you are still an unbelieving mate.

I guess logically it could work if you do the steps in the above order. I would think at first you should stay away from the meetings so the JW's have no idea who you are until later. That way, it will appear to be that your husband had a "change of heart" even though he is married to a worldly mate.

It will be awful for him to have to live this lie though. It will be confusing for the child (or future children) too.

Edit: The whole thing sounds like a bad idea because of the emotional torment lying will cause.

Edit: Then again, if being able to speak to family means putting on a suit, sitting through awful meetings, and handing out inane magazines, maybe it's worth the trouble. He is in a tough situation wanting to speak with family. The fade might be difficult, and he will have to be careful not to end up back at square one - as others have noted.

28

I just had JWs come to my door

by Scarred for life in

jw
friends

i had not seen them in my neighborhood in at least 4 years.

i ddn't go to the door.

i avoid them when at all possible.

InterestedOne

GN: My ex-girlfriend's mom attended an IFB, so I went along. I do recall the pastor talking about how they would go out soul winnin'

28

I just had JWs come to my door

by Scarred for life in

jw
friends

i had not seen them in my neighborhood in at least 4 years.

i ddn't go to the door.

i avoid them when at all possible.

InterestedOne

I am in a densely populated US city. We have several local KH's. In the 3 years I have lived here, I've seen JW's twice in my neighborhood. The first time, they weren't looking for English-speaking people. It was a Polish JW girl and her grandmother looking for Polish-speaking people to recruit for their foreign language congregation several miles away. The second time, it was two older ladies putting memorial flyers in people's doors, and one older man (acting as a lookout).

Edit: We also have a local IFB (Independent Fundamental Baptist) church, and they've come to my door several times.

8

Who's Cult is it Anyway...???

by Bells in

firstly - i am not, and never have been a witness.

my bf's family are all witnesses and i have been looking into the religion lately to try to get a better understanding of where they're coming from.

(btw, my bf is not a witness - he was thankfully never baptised and he just walked away from it about 13 years ago).

InterestedOne

I asked the same question you did here a while ago, and others have asked it before me. Below are a few threads:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/203322/1/What-is-the-WTs-Motivation-Who-Benefits

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/203018/1/Who-Owns-Kingdom-Halls-Land
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/206155/1/Is-that-podium-thing-unique-to-JWs-Do-they-build-them

8

Who's Cult is it Anyway...???

by Bells in

firstly - i am not, and never have been a witness.

my bf's family are all witnesses and i have been looking into the religion lately to try to get a better understanding of where they're coming from.

(btw, my bf is not a witness - he was thankfully never baptised and he just walked away from it about 13 years ago).

InterestedOne

85

Good to study JW past .... New "Writing Archives" under direction of the Writing Committee

by wannabefree in

yes friends, it is important to understand your rich spiritual heritage as jehovah's witnesses, and so you don't have to look at old publications on your own or refer to worldly sources, the organization is pleased to select for you the history as we want you to have it and you can get it in your current watchtower.. from january 15, 2012 watchtower pg 31-32. the governing body is keenly interested in.

our theocratic history.

in commenting on the.

InterestedOne

The latest article about archival is letting everyone know that they have people working on the painstaking process, and I would think digitizing would be part of the process. Clearly they have people working on archival, so I don't see why anyone would say it is too labor-intensive to make the archives publicly available.

Even if it's not part of the WT-lib program with all the nice text cross-referencing features (which I agree require extra labor), why not provide the public with the digitized archives? Since the writing department is already going to the trouble to dig up tidbits and write commentary on them, I don't see why it would be a stretch to make the archives available like they do with the latest publications on jw.org - which reminds me . . . they make it difficult to get the KM's by requiring a password. This tells me they could make this digitized information (whether current KM's or older archived publications) readily available to the public if they wanted to, and I am inclined to think their decision has little to do with extra labor.

53

Shocked at what my 3 year old just asked me

by jwfacts in

me - jehovah?

who is jehovah?.

me - oh.. zac - are you happy with me dad for remembering jehovah.

InterestedOne

What nugget noticed is what bothered me too. The mixing of love with "Jehovah." Also the looking for your approval. I agree it's important to train him to distinguish false reasonings, and I also agree that the JWs' methods are insidious. It's not only about logic. They play with a person's sense of loyalty, love, etc. For the moment, I think your decision to cut back the amount of time he spends alone with JW's is a good idea.

23

The Watchtower's Delicate Mastery Of Deception

by metatron in

jw
friends

you gotta admire the skill manifest in the watchtower's deception skills.

don't kid yourself, even the gestapo, in internal documents found after the war, found the magazines to be well crafted in the field of propaganda.. the latest deceptions?

well, there's the nov. awake magazine with its cover asking, "is belief in a creator reasonable".

InterestedOne

metatron wrote:

even the Gestapo, in internal documents found after the war, found the magazines to be well crafted in the field of propaganda.

Do you have a reference or link for this? I was googling it and had a hard time sifting through the usual stuff about declaration, etc.

23

I started a new relationship

by greenhornet in

i have a girl friend that i like very much.

we have been together about a month now.

we talk about religion some times and i tell her i am christian and leave it at that.

InterestedOne

My question is are the mormans sneaky like JWs and love bomb you to join.

Here's one thing I learned from an old acquaintance when he became Mormon and which I have heard is a common part of how they recruit. After he became friends with them, they asked him to pray about the Book of Mormon. My old acquaintance said he did it and felt some warm feelings that let him know that it is true. I think this is a tactic that shows up in various forms in various cultish groups to get people to believe things that would otherwise seem crazy.