Posts by Max Divergent

35

JWs and voting. Is it okay now?

by NikL in

jw
friends

i know there has been lots of discussion on this issue in the past year but i have been unable to find it.

i need to know where to find the questions from readers that talked about it being okay for people to vote if their concience allows.

i brought this issue up with a couple of people, one a rank and file dub and the other an elder.

Max Divergent

The WTS have done the best they could do here, IMO...

In the Mexico/Malawi party card issue, the WTS gave Mexican's advice that let them off the hook and the Malawian's advise that got them in prison or worse. At least they're giving everyone the 'Mexican solution' if the troubles they face are too great to just stay at home on poling day.

If someone were under duress (wife of an apostate, say :-), then they're not going to make life harder by insiting she 'take a stand' on the issue if, as they say, their religious issue is actually casting the vote and going into the booth dosn't mean you actually did cast a valid vote.

There's no doubt in my mind that if someone in a free country under no duress or compulsion volenterilly went to the polling booth out of choice they'd be in front of a Judicial Committee, or at least not be used for privilages, becuase the article dosn't cancel out what's been written before, it just gives some escape clauses for tough situations.

Some reasonableness from them on this point!!

Max

113

Witnesses coming Saturday... I need HELP!!!!

by Globetrotter in

i got into a rather heated discussion this morning with my unbaptised but raised jehovah's witness wife.

we discussed so many things: feb 1 watchtower article on 607 and 1914, the un, beth sarim, blood, god's mouthpiece here on earth, etc.

this was yet another attempt on my part to try to plant a seed of doubt.

Max Divergent

Just my thoughts.... my Mrs still has her moments of wanting to beleive. But I recognise that it's not the religion she wants, it's belonging, acceptance, a hope (dream) and stuff like that. I need to be able to provide those things from a worldly source.

One of the problems with talking about the problems with the WTS (607/1914/1975, blood, UN NGO, abuse, etc etc etc) is that there's a 'word answer' to everything. By that I mean a set of words which you can't prove to be wrong that, if true, would resolve the problem.

The ultimate, last resort 'word answer' is '...well, we'll have to wait on Jehovah to sort that one out...'. You can't prove that this is wrong, silly, imporssible, won't work or anything else! If true, it would (supposedly) fix any problem at all!!

I'd suggest that you'd be better off to talk about how you want your life at home to be, not their religion.

Think of three things you want at home - not three things you DON'T want, but three things you can get... You and your wife to do a Community college course together, go to Vegas one weekend soon, go camping, hiking, or work cleaning up a river once a month, equal time on religion - 5 minutes of JW talk to you or the kids gives you 5 minutes to say what you want to, ... whatever's achievable in your house.

Why not cancel the elders, get out the barbie, cook up a fatty, tasty brunch with bacon and hash drowns and all that, brew some special coffee from Brazil or someplace and just talk with your wife and kids about how you want to live (not how bad the religion is)?

Maybe pack a suitcase and book a hotel room too, just in case... if things are that bad, then you can only be prepared for the worst case if you expect it to happen and have a plan to live through it.

Take care, Max

29

Did or does being a JW cause a person to be immature?

by gentlesoul in

jw
friends

i have noticed that most jehovahs witnesses and many who have left are very immature.

could you please give me your oppinion on that.

do they go as far as controlling your maturity ?

Max Divergent

The religious tennants of the JW's can certainly hold a person back from attaining what I'd think of as maturity - it seems designed that way, it's harder to keep mature people fooled.

But that's not to say being a JW stops one from becoming a mature adult, would we think of Ray Franz as being a mature man while he was on the GB?

5

Download secret elders 'Flock' book?

by Max Divergent in

jw
friends

hi all - my dear wife (who's still to make the final mental break) has asked for a copy of the elders book (horay!!!

), but... i can't find a copy to download for her!!!

am i just loosing my internet search touch, or is it harder to get now???.

Max Divergent

Many thanks all!! Yep, got COC & Christian Freedom. The elder's book will help to answer some questions about things that happened.

Regards, Max

5

Download secret elders 'Flock' book?

by Max Divergent in

jw
friends

hi all - my dear wife (who's still to make the final mental break) has asked for a copy of the elders book (horay!!!

), but... i can't find a copy to download for her!!!

am i just loosing my internet search touch, or is it harder to get now???.

Max Divergent

Hi All - My dear wife (who's still to make the final mental break) has asked for a copy of the elders book (horay!!!), but... I can't find a copy to download for her!!! Am I just loosing my Internet search touch, or is it harder to get now???

Any tips???

Thanks, Max

22

How you can tell they've come back! or, timewasters....

by LDH in

jw
friends

i was just thinking, when i was a young teenager, i started an attempt to become fashion conscious.

i started noticing what people were wearing, even at the kh.

ok, especially at the kh!!!!.

Max Divergent

I could never stay sitting... MS don't get the libary with closed door privilage much - that's an elder perk, but sure as hell get back of the hall space whenever they want it.

We'd often have most of the MS's all leaning on the literature counter or riding shotgun on the sound mixer or sitting with the hall attendant or supporting the microphone runners... but mostly just bagging the guy on the platform ... most of the meeting... The hero was the guy who could get the speaker to laugh...

The little ante-room by the platform was cool too... go up there 30 min before a talk to collect your thoughts, pray, prepare a whiteboard, sleep, read a novel.... look at the talk material for the first time ... make animal noises that the speaker can hear but not the audience... make obsene gestures to people doing demo's ... whatever... at the circut assembly site there was a table tennis table behind the platform... I was never that game though.... apparently the speaker was the only one who could hear if there was a game on!!

Geting assigned to the right crew at jamboree's was just a matter of figuring who was slacker than you and had a private room (audit and attendant depts were good for that) at the site (typically with fresh coffee and all the geogous sisters). That was 75% of the sessions gone and a reputation witht eh plebs as a hard working bro... even the wife only complains about the bro's using you too much, so no blame and all gain... by the end she was on to the game and was just plain jelous...

No wonder I left! Wanker that I was! (actually, that was an other diversion when it got really bad...)

26

The Emerging 'Schizophrenic' Witness

by metatron in

jw
friends

i have a 'loyal' witness relative suffering various watchtower-related trials, who, i believe, represents an emerging.

new form of jehovah's witness.

she seems to have a sort of 'spiritual schizophrenia'.

Max Divergent

I think there are three kinds of JW -

1) the ones who beleive in God and beleive that the JW have the 'truth' (like it or not) and carry on going along with it despite the annoyances of the 'imperfect humans' that keep coming up all the time;

2) those who worship the WT in leiu of God and don't really see the distinction between the two; and

3) those who don't really beleive, but go along with it for some reason (family etc) and just pay lip service to keep the hassles to a minimum

(or a mixture of all three)

Max

19

I got a Professional Opinion of 'Great Teacher' book.

by lisaBObeesa in

(i did put this post on the other thread, but it is so far back on the thread i thought i would post it on it's own, too.

i showed page 170 and 171 of this book to a therapist i know to get her opinion.

i did not ask if i could quote her on the internet, so i will not give her name.

Max Divergent

I haven't persoanly been directly affected by this disgraful side of human and Watchtower behaviour and have tended not to give it a great deal of attention, and this was the first time I'd read of this new book.

I must admit that when I read the scans I saw nothing I thought to be suprising or objectionable in it even after reading the therapists comments above. It didn't reflect what I'd have said or thought on the topic, but I thought it was OK given who wrote it and who woud read it...

Then it hit me that I was reading it from my (still) built in JW filters that accepts this sort of language on some unconcious level (at least on topics I haven't been reeducated in properly...). I realised that the responsible section of society won't accept the sort of bad advice or poor expression or built in guilt/shame biases that JW's have seemingly learned to accept (as I did momenterally) on such topics.

When I read WT wrtings on creation/evolution; existance of God etc and I bristle with the obvious (to me now) falseness of what they write. I hope I'll be better attunded to the built in narrowness and uglyness and wrongness of the conservitive religionists, including the Watchtower, on abuse and rape matters.

What paragraph 3 of p.170 says is that the problem with peodophillia is that it may lead the victim to practice sodomy consentually in the future. Is that a voyeristic outlook on child sex under the guise of religious guidence?

I wonder if there's grounds (outside the US of course) for seeking an injunction on the distribution of pp.170-171 on the grounds that it is offensive to standards of public morality and is obscene and is harmful to children? A reflexive stretch on my part perhaps...

Thank you for the post and the thought you've given this. Forgive my ignorance and pervious lack of attention.

MD

51

How Long Were You "In Transition" Before You Left The Organization?

by minimus in

jw
friends

weeks, months, years??

?

Max Divergent

1 1/2 to 2 years or so... as far as any observer was concerned, there was a bit of a slowing down followed by sudden cold turkey withdrawl from religious life, but that wasn't quite the full story...

For me there was some in vino veritas (With wine, we speak truth) involved for the first real crack to appear in my 3rd Gen JW thinking.

We were staying with the worldly inlaws for 2 weeks a few years ago. I took a shower whilst as pissed as a fart (drunk) after another great night out, and mused again that what the WT says about worldly people wasn't always completly true...

I nearly passed out when it hit me that it was just as well not everything they said was true*, becauase then it'd be even worse!!!! Eg: they were pushing the line that the congregations were a forgleam of the eternal ~~prison~~ paradise on earth and the ~~screws~~ elders were showing us the way life would be led forever under ~~Stalinism~~ God's arrangement... what a horrific thought!!!

I could only stay in 'the truth' if I ignored at least half of what the organisation said and did.

Understandably, this idea (that being a JW was bad whether it was the truth or not, and that it was worse if what they said was actually true) was the beggining of the end for me - but took another 18 months or so of H2O, Franz, Freeminds, College etc to come around to the natural conclusion of stopping being a JW in my own mind and stopping going along with it.

Once I couldn't stand it anymore, I got deleted as an MS as quickly as I could without causing too many problems for myself (like having to say why; I let then be relieved I was stepping down), went to one more meeting after the announcement and never, ever went again.

That's 4 or 5 years ago now.

Max

* 'Truth' in WT speak is about the same as 'Stable', 'Plug & Play' or 'Compatable' in Microsoft speak... nice sounding, but the meaning in the corporate dialect varies from the English language meaning of the word... (though W2k isn't too bad)

10

Launching into a thorough investigation.

by Blueblades in

jw
friends

have you pondered the "evidence" of the world-----of history------of science----of philosophy-----of psychology?

have you personally,without the help of others,launched into a thorough investigation concerning god,the bible,and jesus christ?

while i myself am still in pursuit,i am not yet finished nor have i come to any absolute conclusions about anything i am asking of you in this post.

Max Divergent

Hi - Yeah, I'd like to know more and on the basis of evidence and have had an ongoing (though inconsitant and half-hearted) reeducation program (which included college)...

I've just read Bill Bryson's recent A short history of almost everything which gave a good (I think) overview of the scientific search for evidence over the last few hundred years and the present state of knowledge in his easy to read, good humoured and informative way.

Sagan's Demon haunted world (mentioned above) is excellent for helping to develop the thinking skills to recognise evidence and reject 'baloney' (I think the centre-piece is his 'Balony Detection Kit' of skillls in sceptical thinking). I'd like to read Sagan's Cosmos one day too, when I was small I saw the TV series and it made an impression.

Richard Dawkins' The blind watchmaker makes it crystal clear that the way creationists describe evolution is a load of hooey and dishonestey. You might accept or reject creation or evolution, but you'll certainly see the falsehoods many creationists (JW included) use in debunking evolution. (I say all that on the basis of reading the first 1/4... after that it goes over my head).

I'd read them in that order (then re-read as much of the JW's creation book as you can stand before throwing the book out the window and your guts all over the floor...)

Enjoy