Posts by Half banana

8

Dealing with nightmares

by Freedom rocks in

i had some terrible dark nightmares when i was studying which disappeared once i got baptised.

i think it was psychological based on the fact i believed jehovah was protecting me after i was baptised.

i had a nightmare tonight after just under a year of being out of the borg and woke up feeling a bit lost because in the past i'd have prayed and then gone back into a peaceful sleep but since i don't pray anymore i wasn't sure how to comfort myself to go back to sleep.

Half banana

If praying helps then this may indicate that by doing so you are tapping into those brainwaves which give a sense of calm. You might try the autosuggestion, telling yourself that there are no existential terrors about to get you and that life and the world is good not suffocating in evil.

Have you tried to think of something positive when you wake up in the night like walking on a palm fringed beach and letting a story grow from this. Watching the sea swirl gently around a rock, meeting friendly people etc? This is the portal for better dreams!

16

"It doesn't work!...SMASH IT!!! HATE IT!!!" (Tantrum alert)

by Darth FayDehr in

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Half banana

Diogenesister I entirely agree, he is stuck in the cult without qualifications to have a better job and comes over as a toadying robot. The glass smashing is to get over his own frustrations for not being chosen as a GB member.

86

2018 JWBroadcasting "Higher education is useless" video CLIP

by Not_Culty in

sept 2018. https://vimeo.com/288327363.

Half banana

truth_be_ known, you make a good point about distinguishing the types of education, secondary and tertiary. I favour making a distinction.

There is a big change in emphasis at university level at least in the humanities. Secondary education is still about taking in information, uni is about evaluating information.There it is expected that the student questions the veracity of statements from established authorities and the advanced student makes an examination to determine the integrity of source evidence which the authority uses for the claim or proposition being made.These are two points of critical analysis which if applied to JW doctrine would soon expose them to be an elaborate hoax riding high on emotion and religious sentiment (and make the GB look like the dumb cult leaders they really are!)

For those not familiar with this degree of information assessment have a look at the excellent posts on this site from Vienne (Rachel) who with a co-author has been writing an in-depth JW history.

It is transparent as to why Jehovah's Witnesses are heartily discouraged from getting get a university education............. but you only see it once you have left the JW mindset!

86

2018 JWBroadcasting "Higher education is useless" video CLIP

by Not_Culty in

sept 2018. https://vimeo.com/288327363.

Half banana

This WT puppet says nothing. His 'argument', if it could be called that, is that higher education links you in to Satan's world. Satan is spoken of as if a real thing--what a childish dummy? Otherwise there is no logical argument used here, it is a typical endless, boring piece of WT propaganda. Propaganda in favour of keeping the faithful in the dark so as not to discover TTATT. He recommends Bible education as the only worthwhile education but doesn't realise that the essence of education is universal knowledge and its etymological meaning is "to be led out" -- to be made familiar with unfamiliar and exotic ideas not the dull repetition of Bible sayings. JW org broadcasting is mere cult propaganda and the men who peddle it are fools, like the man above.

41

(How) Will The Slow and Subtle WT Internal Shift Affect Us?

by Solzhenitsyn in

as a "deep pimo" i can say that there is a confirmed re-branding.

the coordinators committee formed a focus group from service and teaching committees.

the results of that group roughly three+ years ago, with gb approval, trickled down to the other committees and eventually into what we have been seeing before our eyes in the org and local congs.. pick an organizational level and see the shift.

Half banana

It is after all a batty religion Slimboy.

The type/aniti-type thing was not dreamed up by Fred Franz it has a long history going back to the early Church. Medieval and Renaissance religious paintings are larded with 'types' to be interpreted by the faithful for their instruction and faith in Catholic teaching. Modern JW-ism is just not capable of imparting such complexity mainly because it has such a dumb following today and instead of visual symbols for the illiterate, it uses emotive threats of shunning to secure control.

The act of removing the "type /anti-type" has an element of democracy about it, something normally alien to WT behaviour, probably because most JWs including elders and COs and I suspect the GB also, couldn't follow all the significant details found in each story, so they agreed to drop it. Any JW dogma which becomes unpopular or untenable eventually fails. In fact all JW dogma fails but the unpopular stuff fails sooner!

So the GB, for all of their squawking and rattling of their cage, eventually are bound by the hard realities which present themselves like the stagnation of membership numbers in the developed world.

I think that that the change in JW-ism which the OP is discussing has to do with trying to capitalise on what is still working rather than sticking out their necks and forming deliberate executive directions. (Methinks as a symptom of their decline, the GB are becoming passive and led by events rather than doing the leading?) Because there are so few new recruits to the cult due to the reality of the internet, the GB are instead stressing the happy faces of their flock as a means of attracting new punters: all friendly like, "Come and join our club and be a smiley face like we are." I reckon if JWs have happy faces it's because they are now losing faith in JW promises and enjoying the pleasures normal people have like exotic holidays, partying and getting on with work and family life.

The JW religion is increasingly being reduced to a noise in the background. I make this statement because this morning on holiday and having breakfast with my JW son and DIL, the world of nature, politics, history and science seem far more important and interesting to them than does the grubby cult to which they belong.

64

2018/19 new light

by Ray Frankz in

hi guys, long time without paying a visit to this site.

today i returned to check a 'gossip' that is running around in brazilian exjw forums.. they are stating that is almost certain they will make a big change in their doctrine maybe this year yet in the annual meeting.

they say people in warwick were commenting on this.

Half banana

Logically how is it possible for seven or eight men in Warwick NY to determine what is now truth compared to how they decided it should be twenty years ago?

Whatever they come up with It is fake news from fairyland.

2

Lesson in tolerance and inclusion for GBoJW

by Nicholaus Kopernicus in

on board his trip home from eire - the pope gave a 45 min on board press conference (26 aug 2018)..... "... the pope also highlighted the need for parents of gay children to have a dialogue with their offspring and not condemn them.

'your question is clear: what would i say to a father who sees that his son or daughter has that tendency?

i would say first to pray, don’t condemn, dialogue, understand, make space for them.

Half banana

The RC Church here in the person of the Pope is showing a sensible approach using understanding and compassion within the primary social unit; the family. This is in contrast to the JW org which does not care a fig for the well-being of its abused members. It over-rides the parent/child dialogue by condemning all children, or adults for that matter, with other than heterosexual inclinations.

14

The "abused" becomes the "abuser"

by stuckinarut2 in

a thought occurred to me about the perpetuation of jw abusive culture.. (i do not mean sexual abuse - i am referring to emotional, or behavioural abuses).

most jws are raised in the oppressive and abusive culture of jw life.

they have been raised with low self esteem.

Half banana

Absolutely right Stuck, the JW religion encourages a culture of abuse especially harming the minds of their children who by being emotionally abused by threats of divine judgement for disobeying parents, grow up grossly subservient, with a skewed view of both the world and authority, and remain complicit with the practise of such abuse—unless they wake up!

If they don’t, then they practise emotional and religious abuse on their own children.

This is no longer acceptable in advanced societies. In the UK since 2015 (or 2016) it has been possible to take parents or others to court for emotional and psychological abuse. I wonder when victims of the JW religion will start responding to the opportunity which the law now affords them? Also what measures the JW cult leaders will come up with to defend the indefensible?

18

Revelation 14:4

by Sergey Antonov in

it turns out that on the basis of the book of revelation 14:4 the anointed ones have to be virgins?

how does the governing body explain this?.

Half banana

Yes Steel, I agree that much of the Bible is borrowed and has source references most of them either hidden or lost. 12 x 12 x 1000 must have sounded impressive to the mystical numerologists in the second century but I ask why should the brainstorms of the writer of the Apocalypse have any meaning today?

What is the proof of the pudding here? Ultimately is anyone better off for learning the nightmarish stories of Revelation, or knowing why they were written or how they were intended to be understood?

Both by the passage of time and the history of Jehovah's Witnesses preaching, it has been shown that none of the Bible stories have any prophetic use or any relevance at all to those outside of religious cults.

18

Revelation 14:4

by Sergey Antonov in

it turns out that on the basis of the book of revelation 14:4 the anointed ones have to be virgins?

how does the governing body explain this?.

Half banana

Another thought , which twit decided that having sex is defiling to women? Rev 14,4.

Perhaps if you are an insane and celibate monk spending some time each day in self flagellation, then the book of Revelation may have some appeal for you.