Posts by doubtful

39

Tying Your Shoes With Modesty and Soundness of Mind

by Franklin Massey in

jw
friends

the lack of intellectually stimulating material within the jw religion right now is astounding.

there is clearly a lack of spiritually dense material and a surplus of ridiculous, childish babble.

the regular "food" that jws are being fed is illustratively equivalent to pureed baby food.

More weird JW FB conversation

by serenitynow! in

jw
friends

sometimes the things they talk about are so unrealistic.

this person had everyone list occupations/industries that would cease to exist in the paradise.

it's interesting how they think that everyone is going to turn into a carpenter, builder, farmer, etc.

doubtful

OMG! Some of these responses are so hilarious I nearly shat myself using my imperfect second belly button!

13

WTS Quotes on Evolution

by sizemik in

the official wts website has a short article entitled .

is evolution compatible with the bible?.

http://www.watchtower.org/e/20080101a/article_01.htm.

doubtful

They don't understand the power of accumulation. Good stuff indeed.

48

True Friendship Only Found In the Organization?

by What Now? in

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often times, i read in the magazines that only among jehovahs people will you find true friendship.

doubtful

To the OP,

You are not alone. For whatever reason, if you're not in one of the cliques, then chances are you will have nothing but shallow, superficial relationships with the other people at the hall. The only reason they even recognize your existence and feign a loving desire to see you is because you are one of them, and they are told that they MUST love their brothers and sisters. But you can't make anybody love another person. Genuine love arises from a close bond, a strong relationship built on mutual interests and personal attraction between both parties. If you share nothing in common with them other than your association with the organization, then you will not form a close relationship with them, and they will be nothing more than acquaintences. It's that simple.

In the org, members have to pretend to sincerely and profoundly love everyone. They have to put up with 100 - 130 people multiple times per week, many of whom they privately cannot stand, and their potential friends are limited to this small group of people, who may or may not have similar interests, circumstances, tastes, etc. as yourself. Some will cultivate a genuine interest in your well being, and they will be giving of themselves and compassionate. In my experience, these were usually the older ones. Yet, as a youth, the thought of passing my time playing cards with old people never seemed like a worthwhile existence. The young people operate on a clique system. You're either in a certain social circle, or you're alone, very similar to High School life. I moved a lot, and whenever I joined a new congregation, the youth cliques were already well established and virtually impermeable, which meant that I was always on the outside looking in, begging to be invited to events and outings, and always given the brush off.

My circumstances also set me apart and prevented me from being admitted into one of the groups. I have a chronic pain disease which prevented me from playing sports. This is what about 99% of JW male youth and young men do in their free time, because they're too broke to engage in any form of entertainment that actually costs money. So, whatever they were doing for fun was almost always something I couldn't participate in. This left the girls, but there were always barriers to communication and association with them because of the Medieval attitude among JWs concerning teenage dating.

Secondly, I was very different from most JWs in that I am actually intelligent, and well read. I never truly believed that the Big A was necessarily right around the corner, and always had the idea that I would prepare myself for a full life in this system of things, just in case it didn't come. That meant that I chose to satisfy my thirst for knowledge and pursue a university degree that would afford me the opportunity to choose the right career path for me that would be both enjoyable and lucrative, rather than settling for whatever low-paying lackluster job I could find at the bottom of the social ladder just so I could say that I "put the kingdom first". This put me at odds with other youth who were skeptical of my decision and even downright critical at times. The other youth who instead chose to pioneer right out of high school were held in high esteem and often found friends amongst their fellow pioneers. Other youth also skipped on education, but instead went to work full time, meaning they had more money than I did, and they also had a lot more free time compared to me (I work part time and go to school full time). Many other ones started dating relatively quick after high school because they figured since they weren't going to college, and they had no ambitions about moving up in their careers (content to be a bottom-feeder in some manual labor job) there was nothing holding them back from getting married at such an early age. So a lot of the youth started pairing off into couples, and couples' groups, and I was once more, left on the outside looking in because I myself could not date since I was not in a position to support a household.

I met one girl at a DC who I hit it off with really well. We started writing letters to each other, and that progressed to phone conversations, and hundreds of text messages per day..etc. We really liked each other, and she was my cloesest and only friend. We seldom saw each other in person because we lived far apart, but her parents hated me because I was going to college. I wasn't good enough for their daughter, because I must have somehow been spiritually deficient. Her mom always tried to push her in the direction of Bethelites, and MTS graduates. Her mom would literally try to hook her up with brothers who held special privelleges as early as age 17. But because I wasn't a pioneer, I didn't make the cut, even though I was a ministerial servant since the age of 18. So her parents would severely curtail her communication with me. She had to cut back on how much we talked, and she could only talk to me in secret. Even after reducing how much we talked on the phone and drastically reducing the number of text messages we sent to one another, her parents still chastised her for speaking with me.

When I confided in her about my doubts about the Org, she shunned me. She did this even though she was a hypocritical pioneer, who would routinely binge drink to the point of vomiting. Apparently she felt it was okay to keep that a secret and continue pioneering and giving interview parts at District Conventions, so long as she didn't jeaporadize her family's reputation, or her daddy's special position as one of the elite elders in the district.

That was the last straw for me. I never had true friends who were JWs, and even if they are friends, your friendship comes with strings attached. You leave the org, or even show the slighest hint of deviating from the herd of other JWs, and it's as if you never even existed.

42

The Generation(s) That Wasted Their Lives

by undercover in

jw
friends

growing up as a jw, you see the world differently than most everyone else.

you see the world as something that is going to end very soon.

all that we know will be gone by the time we're adults.. when we were young, we were living in the last days and were expecting armageddon before we grew old.

doubtful

Blues Brothers. Great comment!

149

"Overlapping generation" explanation - TRANSCRIBED EXTRACT from Friday's talk (DC 2011-12)

by AnnOMaly in

i thought this would be easier to examine if written down:.

god's kingdom will soon come.

so we know that god's kingdom will soon come.. .

doubtful

I haven't finished listening to the sound file yet, but so far three observations that really stick out:

1. The speaker oh so conveniently extrapolates tsunamis, earthquakes, and tornados (the tornados because they are fresh in people's memory and garner more of an emotional response) as fulfillments of the prophecy of the 4 horsemen of the apocolypse, in quintessential Watchtower fashion. Where in the hell is the connection between natural disasters and the horseman of Death in Revelation??? The scripture talks about death resulting from famine, war, and plague. There is not even the faintest suggestion within the scripture to indicate that it might refer to natural disasters. They're really grasping at straws here.

2. The first geriatric interviewee says that he thought the days of his youth were the last days, as if he were making a contrary-to-fact claim. The Watchtower still teaches that all years since 1914 comprise the "last days". Therefore, he unwittingly refuted Watchtower doctrine in front of thousands of attentive JW drones. His testimony was an actual admission to the fact that what he thought were the last days have since been found to have not really been the last days afterall! Shortly after this, the speaker tried to interject with another question, almost as if he were trying to redirect attention from the interviewee's comment.

3. The second interviewee (the woman), commented that such terrible things were never seen in her generation. She clearly makes a distinction between the generation to which she belonged, and the generation of today. It's those pesky rules of semantics weaseling their way even into district convention interview parts! If only the rules of the English language didn't get in the way of the Governing Body's spirit-directed doctrine.

18

Worldy opposition is interpreted as confirmation of the truth

by MrMonroe in

interesting comment on the talk page of the wikipedia article on the governing body here:.

one dopey jw (wandering-teacher) who complained that the article was "biased" against the jws was supported in a comment by another assumed jw (galik) who whined that the article was "peppered with quotes from known opposers of jehovah's witnesses in order to use this article as a propaganda vehicle".. wandering-teacher replied: "thanks for the support, galik.

the difficulty of having a neutral point of view in the ... article strengthens my faith that i have made the correct religious choice for me.".

doubtful

Haha. Good one Billy.

19

Jaydub thoughts from FB....

by manthedan in

it drives me crazy what they say and how i used to think and talk like them!!!

does anybody have the photo from the article they are talking about?manthedan.

did you noticed the picture of noah and his sons in the watchtower study today?

doubtful

Yeah I don't know why I even keep the JWs on my FB friend's list. I suppose it's because their crap serves as a reminder of what kind of stupidity and blind ignorance I left behind.

2

Did Jeremiah refute the validity of the Mosaic/Levitical Law?

by doubtful in

now that i no longer view the bible as one big harmonious collection of inspired works, i find myself asking some interesting questions.

one question that appears to have not yet been addressed on this board is the issue of whether or not the prophet jeremiah endorsed the law.

a couple of things he said would seem to indicate that whatever was passed off as the law covenant in his day, was not something he felt to have been divinely inspired.

doubtful

Now that I no longer view the bible as one big harmonious collection of inspired works, I find myself asking some interesting questions. One question that appears to have not yet been addressed on this board is the issue of whether or not the prophet Jeremiah endorsed the Law. A couple of things he said would seem to indicate that whatever was passed off as the Law Covenant in his day, was not something he felt to have been divinely inspired. It's late and I'm tired, so I don't have time to locate the texts for reference but I will paraphrase his comments.

In one scripture, he says that when the Israelites came out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, that he did not issue them commandments concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Jeremiah 7:22 For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices.

In another text that I do not presently recall, Jeremiah criticizes the religious leaders of the day (reminiscient of Jesus' dealings with the religious establishment of his day) and essentially says that they had fabricated a law, or added to the law, or something to that effect. In other words, he was denying the validity of the law, and denying its claim to be God-given.

81

2011-2012 DC Brochure(s) "Listen to God" PDF

by yknot in

anonymous brother does it again!

(huge round of applause!!!

(regular) http://www.sendspace.com/file/nzjme3.

doubtful

I read the first version and kept asking myself what else they could possibly do to simplify it any further. I then opened the link to the "simple" version and just started laughing hysterically. They reduced each page to one sentence or less and made it into a picture book! It's on an even lower level than the material I read to the 2nd graders at work!

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who had some naughty thoughts after viewing Eve getting ready to devour the fruit. That looked super erotic, almost as if it were intentional, as if to say that Eve became a dirty slut, porn star status whore when she ate of the fruit.

And my favorite little gem was the Leave it Beaver scene on page 26 where rather than saying what is taught for "already-in" JWs such as "wives should be in subjection to their husbands", they whitewashed it in order for it to be palatable to the general public. It says "Wives should cooperate with their husbands", and then shows a picture of a humble, subservient housewife preparing a lunch for her hardworking husband.