Posts by Bungi Bill

37

How many of you have had these in your congregation?

by bottleofwater in

brother smart: the serious brother who thinks that he is an intellectual and believes he is "smart"sister armageddon: the sister who says "armageddon!!!

" after any little thing in the newschase: the little boy who is always running around and crawling under the seats no matter what the parents sayjohnny: the little boy who keeps on leaving his snot on the sides of the bathroom stallbrother squeaky: the one in charge of cleaning who tells everyone what to do, but just stands there and conversessister coquette: the congregation slut... or as close to a slut as she can get... flirting with every brother... oh yeah and she was raised in the "truth"brother borrow: the brother who owes everyone money... and still asks to borrow from othersgreg: the boy or girl whose parents are so restrictive that the kid can't watch anything higher than g-rated moviesstormy: the teenage boy or girl who you could bet does stuff behind the scenes, so to speaki'm just speaking from past memories.

not in all of this anymore.

Bungi Bill

Sister Gossip:

- there was a surfeit of her in every congregation that I was ever with. In fact my first introduction to such persons when I started attending meetings.

Sister Coquette:

Yes, we had one of those!

She was tamed, though - married a close friend of mine, and they are still together 36 years later.

Brother Smart:

I was just thinking of him only the other day:

- he was a guy who had been appointed an elder while still extremely young. Because HE was an elder and the rest of us weren't, he took it for granted that that fact meant he automatically knew more about everything than we did. Furthermore, he didn't hesitate to let everyone know this!

(In one congregation I was with, though, one of the elders was extremely intelligent - with an IQ level shared by only 5% of the population. This person was also extremely humble, and certainly did not go about advertising his intelligence).

Brother or Sister Daft,

Our congregation's "territory" included a large psychiatric hospital, and as a result (sadly), we had more than our share of these.

Bill.

14

DAY of DOOM: Armageddon Comes for the WatchTower--- April 5, 2011

by cameo-d in

my speculation comes from something that conspiracy theorists know as an illuminati ritual called "revelation of method".

it is when symbols and indications are given ahead of time, (revealed in movies, television shows, etc.

) of something that is planned.

Bungi Bill

The coincidence of dates being significant?

This is an old one - and one that has consistently been shown to mean SFA (which stands for "Sweet Fanny Adams").

C.T. Russell no doubt read much into how the so-called "Chronological Marks" of the Great Pyramid listed such dates as 1874 and 1914:

- which matched those arrived at, (and later discarded) by N.H. Barbour ; and then adopted (and retained) by Charles Russell.

However, the "proof of the pudding" as they say, is in the eating - and nothing Russell predicted happened (whether his dates coincided or not).

You had better write an escape clause into this one, like F.W. Franz did with 1975 (i.e. the time lapse before Eve was created). Because - you are going to need one!

Bill (Who has seen it all before).

45

WT Society's Sly Guilt & Fear Tactics on Young People in Nov.15th WT

by flipper in

jw
friends

as many on this board are aware- the wt society is losing younger members in big numbers.

statistics show that 2 out of 3 jw's raised in the cult leave between the age of 18 to 35. so like they always do- if the wt society sees a " need " or " problem " arising they address it in wt study articles.

thus notice how manipulative the wt society uses fear, guilt, and put down type comments to intimidate young jehovah's witnesses in this wt study article in nov. 15th issue.. under the titled article " young ones - what will you do with your life ?

Bungi Bill

With what the JW religion does to children and adolescents, I am surprised they even manage to hang onto one third of those raised in the cult:

- the fact is that the JW religion is NOT family friendly.

- in practice (if not actually in word), children are dealt with like they are an encumbrance;and are expected to conform with a schedule that fully tests an adult.

In our family, my father resisted strong pressure from his JW mother to raise us children "In the Truth"; and for this, I can't thank him enough:

- I am thankful that as a result, I had a much more interesting childhood than that experienced by those unfortunates who were reared in the cult. What is so wonderful, anyway, about a life consisting of little more than attending boring, mind-numbing meetings; preparing for those same meetings (i.e. a rehash of a rehash); hawking WT literature around people's doors; and, several times a year, sitting through days of even more mind-numbing assembly programs? It is not exactly an appealing lifestyle for an adult - it must be close to torture for a small child. (My youngest certainly made that clear, when, at two years old, he was heartbroken when told that we still had two hours of the afternoon program yet to endure at the District Convention!)

However, I did get myself ensnared with the JWs during my teenage years, and (predictably!), this played merry hell with my education. The fanatics that I was involved with went one step further than stopping me from going to college (though they did that, too, of course). They even got me to abandon my apprenticeship, that I had started just 12 months beforehand. I was able to pick that up again some seven years later, although the effects that had on my family life were close to devastating - and in no small way contributed to my marriage eventually failing.

The miracle is that 100% of those raised In The Truth In The Cult don't throw it away as soon as they can.

(I have trouble finding enough unpleasant adjectives to accurately describe the experience!)

Bill.

36

House to House and Door to Door proves to be a shame diversion

by Terry in

english standard version(2001).

woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!

for you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.. .

Bungi Bill

The comparison between WTS's methods of indoctrination, and those of the more extreme political ideologies (such as communism) , is rather frightening.

It should be obvious to anybody that if you were really all about issuing a mass warning of an approaching catastrophe, you would use the

mass media. That is what the authorities do around here whenever there is a bush-fire alert:

i.e.

- radio announcements, televised public warnings, internet sites that are accessible to the public.

- and if the fires do approach in close to residential areas, the final and immediate evacuation warnings are sounded from the P.A. systems on the emergency service vehicles.

The one thing you would never see is a mob of volunteers running from house to house with printed warnings!

That the WTS does not use such means to warn of this business of "Armegeddon", which has always been "very close" (apparently), indicates to me at least that they themselves don't believe it.

Primarily, their door to door activity serves as a stick with which to beat the rank and file. I even recall an elder once saying as much:

- only he phrased it as "the only measure that we have of a persons spirituality."

It is also a way of keeping the rank and file busy, distracted and - when combined with the inhuman schedule of meetings - worn out.

Again, this was part of communism's indoctrination process - work the people all day, then require them to attend mind numbing "political meetings" that ran well into the night.

If Schnell, in his "For Thirty Years a Watchtower Slave" is to be believed, J F Rutherford knew his that prediction about the end coming in 1925 was nonsense. It did not, however, overly concern him that the R & F took it seriously;

- his solution (thought out in advance), was to distract the R & F by keeping them "busy with distributing the literature."

(Schnell was privy to this, while acting as Rutherford's interpreter during a meeting with the WTS's director for Germany).

thetrue one just summed it up beautifully "a coercive sham presented and holographed as an endeavor to save human life."

Bill.

28

Did You Consider Yourself An "Ordained Minister?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i took pride as a 9 year old "boy" that i was a "minister".

i had a card that i carried in my wallet (with no money in it) that said i was a "minister"..

Bungi Bill

I never considered myself to be any sort of a minister.

During the mid-1970s, they went through that phase where, for a few years, only elders were supposed to be referred to as "ministers." At the same time, the "Ministry School" was renamed the "Theocratic School", and the "Kingdom Ministry" was renamed the "Kingdom Service."

Then, several years later, the WTS did (yet another!) back-flip, and restored the term "minister" to include everybody. I remember being less than impressed with them for using some of the same arguments to restore the previous use of the term "minister", as they had used in justifying its change several years before.

It all made absolutely no impression on me that we were all now once more "ministers", as I think by then the old Bull#h%t Barometer was beginning to kick in!

Bill.

41

What extent will the WT go too silence us Apostate

by jam in

i was thinking and i know this is really out there, and i am not becoming paranoid.. i thought about the terrorist , what is told to these people to move them to blow.

now some may say, no way that can happen with the jw,s.

talking about us apostate only, not the rest of the world.

Bungi Bill

As regards the Watch Tower Society, I would say that they would go just short of a bullet to silence us.

Some of the rank and file are a different matter - as Jam correctly points out , you have a certain number in the congregations who are "not right in the head." (In my time with the JWs, I personally knew a mentally unstable "brother", who made it his crusade to burn down all the church buildings in the district. Only the evidence presented by a physchiatrist that he was "in an unfit state to plead" kept this person out of prison).

Bill.

9

Is being brought up a Jehovah's Witness child abuse?

by digderidoo in

if you feel that it was abuse then why?.

personally my parents became jw's when i was 13 so i never had the earlier years within the religion.

but by being controlled so much during my teen years i would liken it to abuse.

Bungi Bill

Being a JW does not make for a family friendly environment.

Having to to sit quietly through hours and hours of boring meetings, and even longer assembly programs, would even tax adult to the limits.

- to expect this of small children is inhuman.

- as is likewise dragging small children around in the field service; either in extreme heat (as in around here) or in extreme cold temperatures.

This , added to Bible verses such as the one about "using the rod", makes child abuse all too likely to occur.

From what I observed in my 28 years with them, I would say that the majority of JW children have been subjected to child abuse.

The very best that could be said about the JWs is that it is not a family friendly religion, and it cares nothing for the welfare of its members.

(Interestingly, according to Ray Franz in Crisis of Conscience, even the then WTS President N.H. Knorr agreed that the JWs do not look after the welfare of their people).

Bill.

17

How come witnesses can seem to be very friendly to the uninformed worldlies?

by dgp in

jw
friends

i know that jehovah's witnesses are told not to be part of the world and not to have worldly friends.

i know that some witnesses do have friends.

but, what i'm curious about is how a witness could sustain polite and seemingly friendly interaction with worldlies and at the same time feel that these are not people s/he should befriend.

Bungi Bill

"Love bombing" is a tactic quite typical of all cults, when they are dealing with potential recruits.

To the JWs, this would include all "Worldly" people - hence their going out of the way to appear to be nice and friendly.

In my own case, I first heard glowing reports from my grandparents about how "happy and friendly" these Jehovahs Witnesses were. Then certainly, my initial impressions were similar.

It is only later - when you have missed a few meetings, or the "Hours" column of your Field Service Report looks a bit lean - that you discover how superficial this "friendliness" can be.

Bill.

2

Exhaustion Is The Key To Witness Faithfulness

by metatron in

jw
friends

i had occasion to do some work with some loyal, zealous witnesses recently and i can tell you that there still are some good people in this organization.. i can also tell you that i pity the exhausted, blind, and last-ditch fanatical nature of their faithfulness.

really, it's that continuing exhaustion that is the very key to the faithfulness of jehovah's witnesses.. exhaustion?

the average witness i know is overwrought, broke, physically sick or drained by taking care of someone else who is.

Bungi Bill

Excellent point, Metatron!

Physical exhaustion is a technique used by more than a few cults - both religious and political - as part of the indoctrination process.

I recall one such religious group, generally referred to as "Cooperites", after its founder, one Neville Cooper.

They had similarities with the Puritans of 17th Century England, and operated a business that was very much like a Collective Farm in the former Soviet Union.

All church members worked extended hours on this farm, using mainly manual techniques. (Why invest in a $100 000 machine, when there was a limitless amount of human labour available for nothing?).

Then, as if that were not enough, a 14 hour working day would be followed by a mind-numbing religious service lasting well into the night. (Does this not sound familiar!)

Physical exhaustion also used to advantage by some of the Communist regimes, and following the same pattern:

i.e.

- firstly a long working day to get everybody utterly exhausted.

- then after that, many hours of compulsory "political meetings," to complete the numbing of the mind.

Further to this, when I was in the Truth Lie, so many of the JWs seemed to have what is now identified as "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome." In 1990, it was calculated that five per cent of the publishers in our circuit had this condition.

Interestingly, in the sixteen years since I broke from the JWs, I have not known even one person who suffers from CFS.

Talk about "Jehovahs happy people"!

Bill

48

Former Jehovah's Witnesses..... becomes a Jewish Rabbi !

by koolaid-man in

jw
friends

former jehovah's witnesses,craig emswiller is now a jewish rabbi, and is speaking up on the dialogue progam today sat.

nov,27, 2010, 7pm est.

dialouge is hosted by former jehovah's witnesses presiding overseer and watchtower historian richard rawe.

Bungi Bill

How ones perceptions change with time and experience (most of it bad):

- there was a time when I would have thought "how could you?"

Now, nothing would surprise me anymore!

Bill.