Posts by 00DAD

48

Should i go?

by MsGrowingGirl20 in

jw
friends

so, a good friend of mine, a pentecostal christian, invited me to go to a retreat with her church.

we're the same age-19 years.

we were friends before i became a witness and she was always patient and caring with me especially throughout my arrogant spell as a witness.

00DAD

Love your friend.

Religion has got to go. You don't.

66

Still Waiting For the Governing Body To Explain Their New Light

by Cameron_Don in

jw
friends

regarding the governing bodys new light relative to matthew 24:45-47, anointedjw.org recently said the following:.

this new light certainly poses a problem for the governing body.

perhaps this is another reason why they have not yet published a sober and scriptural xplanation of this new light.

THE WALSH TRIAL FOR NEW MEMBERS !!!!!!

by DATA-DOG in

just wanted to make some information available for newer ones.

i am a born-in third generation ( or is it one overlapping generation..i get so confused) and i had no idea these court transcripts even existed until almost 2 years ago.

i don't want to assume that you have read these.

00DAD

Good call!

I was just thinking of this yesterday and meant to look it up. Thanks for doing the legwork for me!!!

00DAD

119

worn out ministerial servant!

by El_Guapo in

jw
friends

00DAD

EG: About 8:00 pm, I get a text from an elder: brother, please read Hebrews 10:25 (Meetings are important) -miss ya bud. I've read that text a thousand time, not sure how to respond.

Tell them to look up the scriptural cross references and think about how they do or do not relate to the way JWs apply them.

34

i've been lurking here for some time and now that i've registered here's a little bit about myself... i'm in northern europe (so english is not my own language,but i have indeed studied it for more than 18 months) and i was born into this hateful cult in the "momentuous" year of -75.good that my parents stayed alive till then!.

as far back as i can remember i had doubts both about the doctrines and the whole existence of god.however,i instinctively knew that these doubts are not to be mentioned.so i learned to be a fake at an early age.though having read many other stories here i realise how easy i got it.i now understand that we lived in a rather liberal area and also my family was quite liberal eventhough my dad was an elder since mid -80 and mom was really "strong in the truth".i never brought up the religion at school or with friends and was never bullied or anything.it helped that i was good at sports,especially football (soccer for americans) and football is also the source of my biggest hurt in childhood.i know it may sound very trivial,but the fact that i wasn't allowed to join a football team felt just so unjust and painfull and it lasted all through my childhood.whenever we had a new gym teacher,the first thing he asked me was which team do i play for.i was too embarrased to tell the truth and i just gave the impression that i only wanted to play for fun and not join any team.oh,how badly i wanted to!.

somehow i managed to silence all those doubts and got babtised as a young man.very soon after the babtism i knew that it didn't have the hoped for effect of making me more spiritual and meetings and field service still felt an absolute bore.now began the long years of just "going through the motions".all my family (parents,many brothers and sisters,uncles and aunts,nieces and nephews) and most of my friends were in.i never reached out and attended only one or two meetings a week and penned my hours.i kind of liked my congregation (also,the seats at our kh were really comfy,so i often slept through the meetings) and made some very good friends.friends that - as you all can guess- didn't turn out to be so good in the end,but with whom i nonetheless had some good times and felt a strong connection to.. for a long time nothing happened that would've disrupted my rather non-eventfull life as a lacklustre jdub with at least another foot in the "world".i'd done many things that would've gotten me d'fed,but i never had any intentions of going to the elders about it and i had no pangs of conscience about it either.it was just a matter of convenience..i liked my witness friends,wanted to hold on to them and not to lose my family.. however..there was this girl... a (worldly,of course) girl that i had absolutely fell for and had a brief romance with many years ago.now she was back in my life.i must omit the proceeding turns of events for the sake of anonymity,but the end result is that i'm a proud father of a lovely baby girl.well,not so much baby anymore as she starts school soon.i love her so much and it gives me great satisfaction that she is growing free from any influence of vicious cults or of any gods for that matter.we live now in different countries but i see her often and there's always skype.. her birth also acted as a catalyst for the change in relationship between me and the society.i decided that i wanted to share the joy of her birth and existence with my family,eventhough i also knew that that would mean i'd have to go the elders too.if i didn't,they would,and that would result in automatic disfellowshippping.. a jc was duly formed and i had decided that i'm not going to go there and tell them that i regret her,as having her is the best thing that's ever happeded to me.

00DAD

Welcome!

Glad you're free. Thanks for sharing your story.

00DAD

30

I found this paragraph in the Watchtower study to be so ridiculous and offensive......

by Pyramid Scheme in

usually i read through the study article for the week to see if there are good points of discussion with my family.. when i read this paragraph, i nearly fell off my chair.

this is complete and utter garbage.

i have had discussions with my wife and other family members who also agreed it was complete rubbish.

00DAD

This kind of self-referential "reasoning" also creates a nearly impossible situation for anyone trying to be reinstated.

When the elders ask, " Do you think Jehovah has forgiven you?" how is a person supposed to answer?

This is really tricky. You'd think the answer should be "Yes!" but that answer can cause problems. For instance, as the paragraph in question shows, the elders like to believe that any "decision" they reach in a Judicial Hearing while "under prayer" is directed by Holy Spirit and simply reflects what Jehovah has already decided in Heaven.

So if they don't (for whatever reason) feel that you're repentant, then that must mean that Jehovah has NOT forgiven you, with the resulting implication that you are wrong about believing he has.

On the other hand, if you say "No" then that tends to indicate in the minds of the elders that you probably haven't done enough of whatever it is that you should have done to be completely repentant and recieve Jehovah's forgiveness.

If you say something like, "I'm not sure ... I think so, but I don't really know," then you're handing over complete authority for everything to three guys that think Holy Spirit directs them.

The problem with this whole arrangment is that is is predicated on a bunch of false beliefs. They claim it's all about repentance, yet in reality the elders have no way to determine real repentance or a lack of it. In fact, the shunning process effectively eliminates any real opportunity for them to legitimately get to know an individual and get some real feel for their mental, emotional and spiritual state. They claim their "monitoring your 'spiritual progress'" by un-officially observing your meeting attendance. But they're not even too good at that.

I once heard an elder say he'd never seen a particular DF'd individual at meetings even though that person had been going for many months and had sat in front of, behind or next to that elder on several occasions. So this poor person's life was on hold because one particular elder isn't very observant.

The elders don't really know what they're doing. The WTBTS's directions are convoluted, conflicting, contradictory, sometimes overly specific, othertimes frustratingly vague and open to interpretation. Also, the elders are often more afraid of appearing weak in front of their fellow elders than in really doing the right thing.

30

I found this paragraph in the Watchtower study to be so ridiculous and offensive......

by Pyramid Scheme in

usually i read through the study article for the week to see if there are good points of discussion with my family.. when i read this paragraph, i nearly fell off my chair.

this is complete and utter garbage.

i have had discussions with my wife and other family members who also agreed it was complete rubbish.

00DAD

Of course that paragraph makes no sense, but in the context of the entire article it is obvious why they needed to shoehorn it in there.

They just spent nearly an hour telling us how we need to forgive one another, even of serious sins, so they need to do some "damage control" to re-assert why they shun people without even know why other than because some announcement was made from the platform.

I thought it was interesting to note that (in the congregation where I observed) only one individual commented on disfellowshipping or shunning even though there were several references to that and repentance in the article.

Apparently the subject of "the elephant in the room" was was too awkward for most people to touch.

It's all about control, they have it you don't: Shun anyone we tell you to shun even if you don't know why; on the other extreme you must forgive anyone we tell you to forgive even if they've caused you great personal injury and have not done anything to warrant your forgiveness.

30

I found this paragraph in the Watchtower study to be so ridiculous and offensive......

by Pyramid Scheme in

usually i read through the study article for the week to see if there are good points of discussion with my family.. when i read this paragraph, i nearly fell off my chair.

this is complete and utter garbage.

i have had discussions with my wife and other family members who also agreed it was complete rubbish.

00DAD

BTW, was it a Freudian slip the way you quoted the paragraph in question? You quoted:

In accord with Jehovahs's will, Christian elders have been entrusted with the responsibility of wrongdoing in the congregation.

When it actually reads:

In accord with Jehovah’s will, Christian elders have been entrusted with the responsibility of handling cases of wrongdoing in the congregation.

The part you left out significantly changes the meaning! ... lol

00DAD

28

Yesterday was my last meeting

by nolongerconfused in

yesterday's watchtower study was the last straw for me...as you all have probably seen the post before me, here's the quote that did it for me.

11/15/2012 wt "forgive one another freely".

paragraph 16 - "in accord with jehovahs's will, christian elders have been entrusted with the responsibility of wrongdoing in the congregation.

00DAD

BTW, was it a Freudian slip the way you quoted the paragraph in question? You quoted:

In accord with Jehovahs's will, Christian elders have been entrusted with the responsibility of wrongdoing in the congregation.

When it actually reads:

In accord with Jehovah’s will, Christian elders have been entrusted with the responsibility of handling cases ofwrongdoing in the congregation.

The part you left out significantly changes the meaning! ... lol

00DAD

28

Yesterday was my last meeting

by nolongerconfused in

yesterday's watchtower study was the last straw for me...as you all have probably seen the post before me, here's the quote that did it for me.

11/15/2012 wt "forgive one another freely".

paragraph 16 - "in accord with jehovahs's will, christian elders have been entrusted with the responsibility of wrongdoing in the congregation.

00DAD

Of course that paragraph makes no sense, but in the context of the entire article it is obvious why they needed to shoehorn it in there.

They just spent nearly an hour telling us how we need to forgive one another, even of serious sins, so they need to do some "damage control" to re-assert why they shun people without even know why other than because some announcement was made from the platform.

I thought it was interesting to note that (in the congregation where I observed) only one individual commented on disfellowshipping or shunning even though there were several references to that and repentance in the article.

Apparently the subject of "the elephant in the room" was was too awkward for most people to touch.

It's all about control, they have it you don't: Shun anyone we tell you to shun even if you don't know why; on the other extreme you must forgive anyone we tell you to forgive even if they've caused you great personal injury and have not done anything to warrant your forgiveness.