Half banana

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Posts by Half banana

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  77

  A question about the contemporary generation teaching following a conversation with a JW apologist

  by Giles Gray in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i would like to ask the ex-jws on this site to put their ‘apologists hat’ back on for a moment, so that i can go through the overlapping generation teaching in an attempt to make sense of it.

  i apologise if these points have already been addressed on this site.a quick background for the reason for my request… having never confronted a jw apologist on the topic, i recently engaged with a jw regarding the official understanding of a ‘generation’ and unfortunately he didn’t have an answer to the points i was making.

  i was left a little confused as to what the official jw response would/should be.so i was hoping that my thoughts below might be considered from an apologist’s perspective.the point in question relates to this section of the watchtower article below from 2008, as well as the jw.org video explanation of the overlapping generation:---:w08 2/15[box on page 25] can we calculate the length of “this generation”?the word “generation” usually refers to people of various ages whose lives overlap during a particular time period or event.

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  Half banana

  I find Splane’s explanation fantastical. The only persons who could believe that the Biblical word “generation” means “overlapping generations” would be brain dead zombie JWs who will die rather than disagree with the WT.

  There are two groups within this cult who refuse to think; there are the administrators of the religious racket whose existence depends on the mass of believers. They have gladly inherited their roles and job number one is to shore up their own rights to control the larger group. Their function is to make their religion credible and to retain the confidence of the followers. The second group who are duty bound not to think, are the true believers who are led by the GB. (Misled is probably a better word!)

  A common thread within the JW org is the normal and unquestioning practice of belief in fantasies.

  For example the stories about Biblical characters are dredged up in the Watchtower all the time as examples of faith. Who is there among JWs who would stop for a moment to consider whether these men and women were real? The WT gaily trots out names such as Noah, Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, Isaac and Jacob, etc, as if they lived! They are archetypes or mythical persons often borrowed from other cultures but given new Hebrew names -- they are all non-historical literary personages. Once a believer has swallowed the bait of Bible faith -- anything goes, anything is possible and anything can be believed.

  Once in the JW mindset, it is not difficult to shut down critical thinking, living for paradise is the goal and that means, at least in the mind of the true believer, obedience to who they are taught to respect as “God’s anointed”.

  Back on the theme of Biblical words, Jesus explained clearly and unambiguously how long a generation was: namely the lifetime of a group experiencing one event. Mark 8,38 - 9,1.

  Yes, as the outcome (or lack of outcome!) of these words show, the "JW generation" is just a fantasy built on top of another Bible fantasy.
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  8

  FATHER OF ABUSE VICTIM CONFRONTS WITNESSES

  by ThomasCovenant in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  i missed this when it first came out.

  .

  it's so sad to realize that i was part of the behaviour shown by the witnesses in the video.. this is my neck of the woods, and i recognize some of the yellow vested attendants that control the situation.i used to play football with the big french brother named guy.. if only they could see.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukiqqgfngxk.

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  Half banana

  The monster episode was interesting in its crude observance of symbols but not grasping the real issues..... both on the part of the org. which created it and the witness who was interviewed (if it wasn't acted).

  The bro, the psychiatric community nurse (who I knew well forty years ago!) spoke the legal viewpoint correctly. The organisation now indicate you should contact the police but JWs pride in their loyalty to this half baked religion will inhibit them from doing so.
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  20

  This Cult sucks, I loath it. I don't understand Why my wife will not leave

  by goingthruthemotions in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i loath this cult!!!!!!!!!!

  why won't she leave?.

  she knows about the australian royal commision, the united nations, failed prediction dates etc...., i have crisis of consciene and she know, it is visiable that she could see the book everyday.

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  Half banana

  "Lett be true" Good twist of the quote Anna Marina!

  @goingthruthemotions, among JWs the greatest thing in life they possess is the prospect of everlasting life in paradise. This hope, courtesy of the WT org, has cancelled common sense and clear thinking.

  The JW hope is false, no religion can offer everlasting life, there is no sound basis for it. One hundred and forty one years on, and still no one has benefitted from the showman's spiele "roll up roll up, live forever in paradise with the Watchtower organisation". But people want to believe, people above all things want hope so millions of them have fallen into the WT hope trap, millions are prepared to shut down their reasoning faculty and simply "believe''. We did once before we woke up -- or did we grow up?

  So we are are not able to reason with our family members on the matter of belief, facts don't cut the mustard with believers, with them it is a matter of heart not mind, emotion not brain.

  I lost my attractive intelligent wife to the cult, it was a great loss, perhaps foolishly I left her with the the children (it was a terrible experience) she would have crumpled without them but even so I could not live on JW terms and I would say my life has gone well since having cast off the religion and unfortunately wifey too.

  I hope in your situation you can work something out. For her to leave, it will take a lot more patience and eventually an understanding from her that what she wants is actually not available -- everlasting life in paradise is something no one has enjoyed or will ever have, it is simply too good to be true, it is a dream.

  Yet to tell a believer this, is to attack them, to dig right into their heart -- and the response of the believer is to repel the idea, attack the speaker and deny any possibility of being mistaken.

  What is at stake for your wife is her attachment to the illusory rock on which she is emotionally anchored. For her to let go will take enormous courage, the new and realistic vision of life needs a helping hand and a constant companion to reassure her during the the waking process, I do hope that you are the one to help her through it.
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  3

  Why people chose a certain religion!

  by eyeuse2badub in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  not sure if i posted this before but it's so damn interesting, i'll do it again!.

  by yoginder sikand.

  03 april, 2012

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  Half banana

  Eyeuse, you have found a good assessment of the effortless coercion of children in religious families. This is an important dynamic in holding irrational beliefs.

  "Yeah! but I believe that my truth is truer than your truth 'cos my parents said so. . ."

  For a child it would be biting the hand that fed it to disagree. Better to go along with what mum and dad say. The result is ethnic divisions with fierce religious loyalties, each faction believing their version is the supreme 'truth'.

  The JW cult must now be considering drawing its horns in, creamiing off capital from their takeover of KH ownership worldwide and protecting its own decline by securing the loyalty of its core members -- those true believers who will stay in spite of everything. By having a membership of mainly "born ins" who are culturally acclimatised to JW ways, it could be easier for the GB to control. Marrying "only in the lord" would keep numbers up even without preaching. Other weirdo religions survive this way such as Plymouth Bretheren. The way forward GB!
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  35

  Noah’s flood

  by dothemath in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a few years ago at one of the conventions, there was a talk on gods remarkable creation.

  one of the slides showed a giant sequoia tree, approximately 5000 years old!.

  later another talk was about noah etc.

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  Half banana

  The article on redwoods is out of date, inaccurate and misleading. It is just as unscientific as Splane's ramblings. If you want scientific information go to scientists and their data, not religious writers who cannot conceive of a world outside of their Biblical faith.

  One can add dendrochronology to the list of evidences for disproving a global flood. The creationist in the redwood article foolishly implies that sequoia trees took a beating 3200 years ago as if this is some sort of proof. Dendrochronology works by building up a year by year climate analysis from myriads of overlapping tree ring records of from the last 11,000 years -- and no global flood event anomaly shows up.

  When considering any serious information it is necessary to determine the integrity of the writer and their intent. Creationists happily deny factual evidence.

  As for Noah's flood, if you cannot distinguish between what is a myth and what is factual, you have a lot of growing up to do.
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  35

  Noah’s flood

  by dothemath in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a few years ago at one of the conventions, there was a talk on gods remarkable creation.

  one of the slides showed a giant sequoia tree, approximately 5000 years old!.

  later another talk was about noah etc.

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  Half banana

  There is no chance that Noah's flood took place.

  Like much of the Bible, it absolutely has to be a myth. Only in myth can impossible things happen like a global flood within the last four thousand four hundred years.

  There is however plenty of evidence that a global flood did not take place!

  The Biblical flood took place during the historic period yet no written record of it exists -- the BIble's account is not history and no documentary writing corroborates it. There are lots of flood myths but no history! The continuous record of literate civilisations such as the Egyptian, show that they carried on right through the Biblical flood time as if nothing happened, therefore nothing did happen!

  Fundamentalist religious people seem reluctant to consider the earth-science data, the efforts of countless thousands of researchers, which show very good continuous readings of climate, plant and animal activity in the last 11,700 years of the Holocene period. No global flood interrupted the annual lake deposits, no flood destroyed the polar ice-core sediment layers, no flood destroyed the plant life, no flood killed or changed the locations of animal or more obviously, human populations. An example: the people of Papua New-Guinea have been cultivating the same vegetable gardens continuously for eight thousand years!

  It is tiresome to argue with people who have chosen to deny the evidence.
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  3

  Process and Content

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  in a previous life, when we were teaching quality management business practices, we emphasised the need to differentiate "process" from "content".

  this required looking at how things were being done rather than any analysis of the internal data being processed.. it is possible to look at the processes involved with the creation, editing, and delivery of any sacred scriptures without having any need to accept or agree with the content of what the people were writing.. the judaeo/christian scriptures open to us the minds of peoples living long ago in cultures that are very different to ours.

  i actually hesitated when i wrote "judaeo/christian" because in reality we have the hebrew literature followed by jewish literature.. treating their writings as "literature" opens the field of enquiry, freshening the mind from having any need to become personally involved in its contents.. i am currently investigating second temple judaism, since that period created the foundations for judaism and for christianity.

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  Half banana

  I often want to say that the biggest mistake in reading 'sacred' writings is to imagine that they are sacred!

  Nothing is of itself is sacred.....it is never more than a cultural consensus.

  How the sacred element became to be applied is never a part of religious history. Religious leaders instead point to an interpretation of texts knowing the herd will respond with reverence and fear-- just as they have been taught to.

  As you point out Doug, process and content both need to be understood to take a dispassionate view.

  Especially "late second temple" is an important period in textual evidence to understand the origin of Christianity since it is firmly rooted in Jewish developments of the time. Would you say 175 BCE up to the cut off point in 70 CE? It is something which engages my thinking so I look forward to hearing more of your research on the matter.

  One hopeful development is to be found in your bibliography, the fact that the academics with Jewish origins, like modern Israeli archeologists are exposing the flaws in Biblical sanctity and not kowtowing.
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  9

  Jehovahs Dodge Claim

  by smiddy3 in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  "victims say cash moved offshore".

  i just thought you might be interested in how widespread this article has been taken up by the media in australia.. west australian newspaper , herald sun sunday victorian newspaper ,the daily telegraph n.s.w.

  newspaper,.

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  Half banana

  Excellent Smiddy, do keep us informed.

  With such bad publicity, how can the cult maintain credibility in Australia?
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  14

  terrified but waking up, child abuse, suicide etc.

  by anon1028 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  im new to this forum, i dont know where else to post my story, sorry if im wrong for posting this on this subject.

  as i begin to wake up from being in the org i thought id introduce myself to this forum with how i was raised in the org..., ive been beginning to look at everyones stories from being raised as one and how they left, and i find comfort in knowing im not alone, so maybe another young person like me will find the same comfort reading my story.

  as you can tell by my username, i am posting this on an anonymous account because of fear of what the elders would do to me and my parents if they found out who i was.

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  Half banana

  Hello Anon 1028 and welcome to this site. Yes we do understand you! Sorry you are suffering at the moment.

  It is clear that the JW organisation uses cruel methods to keep the membership locked down under its control. By using family loyalty as a weapon, it divides families and by using guilt and fear of death, it traps its members into a depressed and helpless state just as you are experiencing. But do not give up hope! You can overcome these problems like most of us here have done.

  What the organisation does to all its followers is rob them of their individuality and it steals their free time so that everything a JW does ultimately empowers the governing body. Do think about this. Is it fair? Is it reasonable that they should dictate as to who you are and how you must live your life? What do they know that you don't? Why listen to them?

  The governing body now admit they are not inspired by God and they acknowledge that they make mistakes, in fact we can ask, have they ever got anything right? No! they have never got any prophecy right, isn't it laughable that they claim that prophecies have happened by being fulfilled invisibly?... like God's Kingdom! What is the use of such teachings? It is just dry fodder for the cult donkeys to chew on, it is tasteless, useless and meaningless ......yet it is central to JW teaching.

  Let me reassure you there are much much better ways of living other than being a JW! One way is to be yourself, not a nodding puppet in a religious pantomime.

  May I suggest, plan your departure as you are already, save to get your own place where you can do as you want. Find some sensible friends, this is very important, then make up for lost education and get some certification from college, this will go a long way in getting more satisfying and better paying work. Already you write well and that is a good start (use paragraphs though!)

  Remember that statistically, over time, most people leave the organisation -- and your family will be encouraged to do so as you prosper and become a free, happy and a responsible adult.

  So don't be terrified, work towards your own goals.

  All the best to you and keep posting so we can help you.
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  24

  new situation in world helpful to org?

  by Magnum in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes new situations can provide cover for one’s mistakes or intentions.

  for example, suppose that i crack the windshield in my dad’s car one night.

  i go home, park the car in its usual spot in the yard, and go to bed without telling my dad because i’m scared and i’m trying to think of a way out of the situation.

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  Half banana

  Essentially the JW religion is a social club with paranoid beliefs as a ticket for membership. This community aspect would be more difficult to maintain as an e-religion.