Posts by Vidiot

13

Zoom Social Event With a GB Member (Losche)

by Jofi_Wofo in

in a recent turn of events, i found myself at a jw social gathering on zoom (supporting my pimi wife, while among mostly jws whom i don't know and a handful of old friends who don't know i'm inactive) that just so happened to also be joined by garrett losche and his wife.

sorry to disappoint but i had absolutely no interaction with him and have nothing interesting to report about it.

i'm just sharing this because i can't believe i even got that close to maybe chatting with him, despite being a closeted apostate.. there were about 300 people in the zoom meeting, all having been directly invited.

Vidiot

Justmemorph - "...He was a way out there kinda guy. Always going off the rails"

Explains why he was invited to join. Vidiot

16

Article in The Australian: Jehovah's Witnesses facing tax turmoil

by AndersonsInfo in

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/.../64acd93d531eb6b7301d.... .

sorry, the article is behind a paywall.

however, here's a copy of it without the photo:.

Vidiot

Hm.

Article's locked behind a subscription registry.

Did it happen to elaborate on just how they "resolved" it?

21

What would happen to the Watchtower Org. if the recent UFO sightings were actually aliens ready to take over Earth

by pistolpete in

the past two weeks several ufo sightings.

navy and pentagon confirm sightings.

us military is worried because the technology being used to drive these air vehicles are showing no signs of any sort of jet fuel.

Vidiot

Even as a very young guy, I'd realized that full-on First Contact (hostile or friendly) would be a crippling blow to the WTS... I didn't really know why, I'd just grasped it intuitively.

As I got older, I realized that the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial biological life simply isn't compatible with a fundamentalist/evangelical worldview... including the JW version (and this was confirmed for me decades later*).

It's one of the main reasons the gradual rising tide of UFO sightings in recent decades (that respected public officials are acknowledging, I might add) interests me.

*A few years back, there was a university research paper published (please note: I have never been able to find it since, but I swear I read it) regarding Americans' overall potential belief in the supernatural... and had included ghosts, hauntings, angels, demons... and aliens (there was more, but for all intents and purposes, those were the big five).

The researchers discovered a funny trend in the data; namely, that many of the individuals surveyed accepted the first four, but not the fifth... which they thought was weird, and scratched their heads. After all, paranormal phenomena was paranormal phenomena, right?

The trend was significant enough to throw off their projections, so they did some further digging... and found that virtually every single one who'd accepted ghosts, hauntings, angels, and demons - but specifically rejected the possibility of ETs - were Evangelical Christians.

So they dug into the fundamentalist/evangelical belief system to figure out why, and quickly realized that - short version - quite a numbers of particulars inherent in a literalist Biblical worldview just didn't really allow for the possibility of extraterrestrials.

This was effectively confirmed for me recently as I was reading a book containing UFO-related testimonials, and came across a blink-and-you'd-miss-it moment wherein an Air Force flight controller had tremendous difficulty reporting his own UFO sighting specifically because, as he said, his religion didn't allow him to believe in aliens.

Seriously.

EDIT: It makes me really wonder just how many of the government officials who'd specifically derided Project Blue Book back in the day were devout Evangelicals.

16

Article in The Australian: Jehovah's Witnesses facing tax turmoil

by AndersonsInfo in

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/.../64acd93d531eb6b7301d.... .

sorry, the article is behind a paywall.

however, here's a copy of it without the photo:.

Vidiot

Wow.

Just a month or so back, the Aussie branch of the Org finally blinked and signed up for the voluntary CSA redress scheme (tantamount to admitting the problem was real, I might add)...

(Australia: Jehovah’s Witnesses to join redress scheme for child sexual abuse survivors (jehovahs-witness.com))

...when it became painfully apparent that their charity status was approaching the chopping block.

And now it's approaching said block again?

Why the hell would "God's Earthly Organization" give a shit about something so mundane, even to the point where they'll grudgingly expose themselves to liability, public embarrassment, and worst of all, tacit admission that they were woefully and egregiously wrong?

Why the hell is the Org fighting so desperately to not have to "pay back Caesar's things to Caesar"?

Unless...

...the Org's business model is actually dependent on said tax-exemption for its very survival.

24

This Discussion Board

by minimus in

jw
friends

when you look back the last 20 years , what a transformation!

back then witnesses were putting out poetry and most were singing the praises of the organization.

slowly and gradually, negative thoughts were allowed to be expressed about doctrines, elders and congregation life.

Vidiot

I came here looking for confirmation of a number of suspicions...

...and soon realized that reading XJW material on the net doesn't turn you into an "apostate".

It just helps you realize you already are one.

6

Article: Passing the Time By Firing Back at Jehovah’s Witnesses — With Letters

by AndersonsInfo in

jw
friends

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts/under-the-sun-why-a-local-woman-wants-to-nail-the-jehovahs-witnesses-11545704.

kayleigh had run out of postage stamps and was waiting for new ones to arrive.

it was slowing her assault on a local congregation of jehovah’s witnesses.. she pointed to a stack of letters she’d already written to what she liked to call “the jws.”.

Vidiot

Nitty-Gritty - "Have the Andersons sunk so low as to think that this article, about a woman wasting her time writing to JWs in some kind of revenge tantrum, is worth posting?"

As far as I'm concerned, anything the Andersons have to say is worth posting.

16

The difference in JWs in the cult

by mickbobcat in

i have been in several congregations over the years.

the hypocrisy was staggering.

so many of these idiots were fake jws.some were strict followers and were as annoying as could be.

Vidiot

mickbobcat - "So many cult members would live double lives..."

It's like homophobic politicians...

...the more anti-gay they are, the more likely they're into the buttsex.

Vidiot

20

Big Cull of Foreign Language Groups and Congregations

by eyeslice in

i overheard mrs eyeslice listening to '2021 governing body update 3' yesterday.

apparently, they have started ditching foreign language groups and congregations as these weren't exactly roping anyone in.

of course there is a positive spin on all this - '4,000 plus elders freed up to serve in local language congregations' and of course there has been immensely positive feedback from various branches about the benefits of this.. i suspect though there will be an awful lot of elders who were serving as king pins in these congregations who are going to have their noses put out by going back to local language congregations where they will barely be used.

Vidiot

Phizzy - "Even when I was a practicing and believing JW, when they used to spin stuff as a 'Blessing', or 'Evidence we are deep in to the time of the End' I use to think then, 'No it isn't'..."

"Everything is proof we're right! Even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!"

Know what's really funny?

Back when I was still in (but by my mid-30s, terribly unhappy), a big part of me genuinely hoped that was true...

...specifically because I foolishly assumed that once the Big A was actually one and done, I'd finally be free of the Org.

I actually felt sick to my stomach when it became painfully clear (from both platform talks and in correspondence/literature) that the Watchtower Society explicitly planned on governing the entire world - with the Warwick compound serving as the de facto capital, no less - for the full Thousand-Year Reign, if not longer.

I didn't want to live on this planet, anymore.

20

Big Cull of Foreign Language Groups and Congregations

by eyeslice in

i overheard mrs eyeslice listening to '2021 governing body update 3' yesterday.

apparently, they have started ditching foreign language groups and congregations as these weren't exactly roping anyone in.

of course there is a positive spin on all this - '4,000 plus elders freed up to serve in local language congregations' and of course there has been immensely positive feedback from various branches about the benefits of this.. i suspect though there will be an awful lot of elders who were serving as king pins in these congregations who are going to have their noses put out by going back to local language congregations where they will barely be used.