still i try to find a way to talk with my jw friend about the wts.
pretty much every conversation, at least so far, has ended similarly...with my friend falling back on "classic" wt defenses.
one of which i single out today...the insistence that they are the one true religion because they are the only ones who go "house to house".
So my question...would I be correct in saying that there has never been a time, even a single day, that the WTS wasn't preaching something, something they themselves concluded as significant, that has since been changed?
No no no no - you don't get it. See, that was old light. It wasn't untrue at the time. It is of course untrue now, but what they teach now will remain true until new light make today's new light old light. Got it? Sheeesh, such a simple thing
in your opinion,what does it take to gain acceptance in the organization and congregation?
I never felt accepted. Never. I wasn't. It wasn't my imagination, either.I told the elders and they told me it was my fault.
Yep - par for the course. I would wager that 90% of JWs are in the same boat. The answer to all problems is more FS, meetings and bible study. If you have problems in the congo it is probably YOUR fault, certainly not a lack of love! I have never in my life dealt with more child like people than the JWs. They're like a bunch of 4 year olds running around getting their feelings hurt and 'tatteling' on each other to 'mom and dad' to get each other in 'trouble'. If you're not in the 'in crowd' you might as well not be there.
...severely emotionally injured witness suffering from bi-polar illness as well as a severe dissociative disorder (multiple personalities) whose husband left her and has no friends in the congregation, who starts smoking?.
disfellowship her.. just thought you'd like to know.. .
beryl
My mother used to use the 'stoning' story on us ALL the time. You could just feel the love. "Good thing you weren't in Isreal 'cause we would have had to stone you." Usually for such such great offenses as having lied about hanging out w/ friends, or finding 'offensive music', etc. Yea, good thing we weren't born in Iran mom, cause you would have to work your ass off, be one of 14 wives, allow your children to be sexually and physically abused, and keep your trap shut at all times. Wishing doesn't make it so ...
.
no need to worry about going to doctors who spend years at medical school, folks!
just pray that your path will cross with a jw who's kept up to date on their awake!s - they will diagnose complex conditions that doctors were unable to, in nothing flat!.
LOL! "Readers Digest saved my child's life!" Could happen just as easily.
...severely emotionally injured witness suffering from bi-polar illness as well as a severe dissociative disorder (multiple personalities) whose husband left her and has no friends in the congregation, who starts smoking?.
disfellowship her.. just thought you'd like to know.. .
beryl
Hmmm. Why am I not surprised? Might as well ask what the Taliban would do to such a person. Same thing (course their 'disfellowshipping' is a quick death)
i am english, and live in england.
my parents were witnesses,so i was dragged along to the local.
kingdom hall twice a week back in the early sixties.because i was forced to sit there on a rock.
Hell yes. That religion attracts the freaks, weirdos, and power-tripers. Where else can a window washer be a demi-god over 70-1200 other people? The smart get out, the freaks and power-trippers remain.
for anyone who doubts that paranoia amongst the denizens of dubdom is greater than ever, consider this: in years past jws used to distribute copies of phone/address lists of the members of the congregation for the convenience of the friends, and these were periodically updated.. lately in my area, however, requests for a current list were refused, with the explanation that it would be ``imprudent to keep such a list, as it would compromise the brothers' /sisters' identities were it to fall into the wrong hands."".
is this ban now oganization-wide or just a local phenomenon?
i would suspect the former.
Room, I recall seeing the same 'ban' on lists years ago, especially as PC's became popular, and lot's of people began keeping such lists on them. It was always the 'persecution' paranoia cited too. I don't know if there are other reasons to ban them, or if the service desk (who sets this policy) really buys into the persecution bit.
recently i woke in the early morning hours to a knock on the door and my first thought was, "jehovah's witnesses going door-to-door.
" so i got myself together and went to the door and sure enough there were two people standing there with bibles in hand.
they had a flier and they started to speak, "the end is coming, god is passing judgment upon man soon.
Arg! It drives me nuts when people sell and buy into this 'Armageddon' crap. Do we all collectively forget all of history? I mean, I'm fairly young, but I did live through 'Gulf War version 1' - and ALL, I repeat ALL, of the current 'doom and gloom' scenarios were being bandied about 10 years ago. Chemical, Bilogical, Nuclear, etc. If man kicks his own ass off this planet he will have no one to blame but himself. We've been close dozens of times in the past 50 years, and probably will be close many more times before a) we finally wise up, or b) do something stupid. I'm not blind or stupid enough to think that 'all is well' and nothing can happen, but all we can do is try and help maintain our gov't best we can, and deal with events as they happen. I personally don't like the things that are happening in our gov't and the world right now, but my next chance to alter things will come in the next election.
Meantime I will continue to live w/out fear until I die, the alternative sucks.
a friend of mine lived in spain for half a year.
he was a witness at that time and he and his wife had a colombian couple over, witnesses too, they lived in the netherlands.
and one night when he was alone, the colombian girl visited him and they slept together.
Sorry, but I just can't muster up too much sympathy for this guy. He cheated on his wife, he's busted. End of story.
Sure, he made one mistake (sound like it was a one time thing) and for it he should lose all him money, his family, and his entire social structure? Sorry, he should 'pay' for his 'crime' but it is a matter that should be left between him and his wife alone. Why does he deserve to lose all freinds too?
help....i have heard that the u.s. report in the jan 1 wt showed a 3% increase!
the past 15 years or so never saw growth more than 1%.
dis they change the way these figures are compiled resulting in exagerated numbers?
. Arguements otherwise are welcome but I think this explains why they show a 3% growth this year when the number of baptised actually greatly fell as it has been doing each year for years now.
Bingo - the hit on the 'real' stat that JWs should be, but aren't, concerned with. I think we have seen that a fear of world events combined with a huge push to 'force' inactive JWs hands (15 min rule, stress on elders trying to reactivate people, etc) has served to temporarily create a blip in the JW stat machine. But they are drawing on an mostly empty well, I mean, they are 'reactivating' the 'weak' ones, who are the most likely to return to an inactive state. The real force behind an increase would drawing in outside people, which would be evidenced by baptism #'s. Much like the great stock bubble I think that this 'increase' can only tap out a very exhuastable resource.
Of course, I say all this from a pure marketing standpoint, which suits what the WTBTS is doing perfectly.
