Its sad that so many people probably are paranoid about getting caught when they really should just be free. I know situations get complicated, but damn, we only get this one life. I can't imagine ever fearing what a J-dub elder could ask or do to me.
i_drank_the_wine
JoinedPosts by i_drank_the_wine
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39
on the subject of elders reading this message board
by cptkirk ini'm still laughing to myself thinking about elders/bethelites reading this messageboard.
yet another contradiction to throw in the basket.
didn't they always say how dangerous it is to read anything that contradicts the teachings of the wts?
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11
Something has really annoyed me and I need to get it off my chest
by mummatron inmy children's paternal grandmother (g) and great grandmother's (gg) racist attitudes.
i'm sorry but i really need to vent about this.... g was saying how she'd taken my son to the beach yesterday.
she parked away from the seafront so had to walk through the fairground to get to the beach.
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i_drank_the_wine
I dunno, if you are a white person going to an ATM at night, and you can walk two paths to get it, one with an urban dressed black guy, one with a white guy, you'll probably pick the white one. Is it racism? Maybe. Do crime statistics justify the person's actions? Maybe. Are people more comfortable with their "own kind"? Probably. It wouldn't bother me much really, going either way.
That being said, in the past I have known quite a few JW's (including 2-3 elders) that loved making jokes and comments that were clearly racist without batting an eyelash. The JW's love to beat that drum and say "we're different than everyone else", but outside of their public airs at the Kingdumb Hall I've known them to be just as foul, dishonest, and shitty as any other random non-JW person that's also shitty. Their spiritual paradise is a fucking fart in the wind.
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Blondies series deconstructing current WT study articles
by Glander inno matter where you are in the jw realm, this is a must read.
it is the up to the minute status of the always evolving wt society teachings..
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i_drank_the_wine
How many of us probably read WT shit more now that we're out than when we were in?
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23
Depressing
by mankkeli inisn't it depressing to believe that this is all there is to life?, an elder told me today that philosophers, apostates, free thinkers and many other enemies of the truth alike do not offer any hope for the future.
but this is the only organisation offering the hope.. what do you think?, the thought of living for just 70 or 80 yrs and not returning back is very depressing or do some other line of reasonings offer any hope?.
i am just curious..
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i_drank_the_wine
Knowing that there is nothing after I'm dead and gone is pretty fuckin depressing to me personally. After being raised to think that there's something else out there, then becoming an adult, learning and knowing better was a fairly jarring, unhappy mental transition for me. However, it is far less depressing than the thought of all those zombie JW's that are gonna get the same 70-80 as me but will be wasting it pissing into the wind for an imaginary invisible man.
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Do you think that the JW religion will die out?
by i_drank_the_wine inwhile the number of jw's reported every year is still growing, it doesn't seem to really be growing as fast as they once did.. do you think that they will eventually level off and then decline?
some of this was based on the stats on this page i was reading: http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/statistics.php granted, statistics can be presented in whatever light the author is trying to represent (look at the way the jw's massage their statistics to always be favorable).. of particular interest was their deductive math to find the number of people leaving yearly, which is pretty considerable.. a popular pew research study that lots of you probably heard about a couple years ago stated that jw's have the lowest family retention rate of any other mainstream religion.. combine the aging jw populace, the number of people leaving every year, the slowing growth rate numbers, the mindset held by many to "not have children in this system", the children that are had are only staying jw's roughly 1/3rd of the time according to statistics, the end never coming... add 20, 30 years?
could the jw's actually, for all intents and purposes, die out?.
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i_drank_the_wine
While the number of JW's reported every year is still growing, it doesn't seem to really be growing as fast as they once did.
Do you think that they will eventually level off and then decline? Perhaps to nothing?
Some of this was based on the stats on this page I was reading: http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/statistics.php Granted, statistics can be presented in whatever light the author is trying to represent (look at the way the JW's massage their statistics to always be favorable).
Of particular interest was their deductive math to find the number of people leaving yearly, which is pretty considerable.
A popular PEW research study that lots of you probably heard about a couple years ago stated that JW's have the lowest family retention rate of any other mainstream religion.
Combine the aging JW populace, the number of people leaving every year, the slowing growth rate numbers, the mindset held by many to "not have children in this system", the children that are had are only staying JW's roughly 1/3rd of the time according to statistics, the end never coming... add 20, 30 years? Could the JW's actually, for all intents and purposes, die out?
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KINGDOM HALL IN SHANNON NEW ZEALAND LIES TIDY BUT EMPTY?!!
by steve2 inthere's a kingdom hall in shannon, a small rural town in manawatu, new zealand, 16 kms from the nearest town, foxton, and about 30 kms from palmerston north city (population around 80,000).
jws used to go on about how fast they were growing in new zealand that even a small town like shannon (population little more than 1,000) has its very own kingdom hall.
in the late 70s, the local jws worked hard to build a brand new kingdom hall and i was among the happy throngs when it was dedicated.
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i_drank_the_wine
My dad goes to a small town congregation in the "bible belt" country south United States. I haven't been there in years, but when I did visit him there long ago in a different life, they had like 30-35 people for Sunday meetings, and all but 2 couples were over the age of 50. Zero children. All these years later I can't imagine them as having done much to increase membership. I'd bet quite a few of the elderly are dead and gone now too.
This same situation probably exists all over the US and perhaps even moreso in far more secular countries in Europe. Yes, they still are growing their numbers (albeit at a lesser rate than they used to, plus losing lots of members), but this can most probably be credited to growth in developing countries that are religious and perhaps not as advanced as more secular nations.
I hope that I live to see the day that the JW's go kah-put!
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WT and money
by mankkeli inbeing absorbed in making a living sometimes poses grave dangers.
it may lead to love of money.
in the first century, there was a group of religionists called pharisees who were known for their love of money.
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i_drank_the_wine
No, leaving the JW's for good didn't really affect my financial mindset much. I always worked hard and hustled to have a nice new car and other things like that.
However, the process leaving the JW's: losing a wife (my finances as a result too), losing my entire family, and losing the few people that I thought were friends combined with working from home and living in a new town where I didn't know anyone wound up taking a heavy toll on my work ethic, mental health, and physical health. Isolation, depression, forming addictions, losing motivation, "letting yourself go", and on and on. Still trying to get out of this funk even though I've turned things around quite a bit.
So, in a way, yes, leaving JW's affected my $$ situation quite a bit, but not my desire for it.
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How did you tell your mate that .....
by stuckinamovement inyou no longer believed that the watchtower organization was the truth, and that you were no longer going to go to the meetings or service?.
and a followup question... what was the response?.
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i_drank_the_wine
I finally broke down and flatly stated the things that I had been hinting at over the preceding year, as I missed more and more meetings (trying to fade, unknown to her). It was too stressful to deal with the tension of the situation and us constantly fighting about me not wanting to go to meetings, so I laid it out.
The conversation basically went "yeah, honey, I don't believe in the Jehovah's Witness religion at all anymore" followed by my wife saying that she wanted a divorce, which she got.
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What Do You Wish You Had Again From The Good Old Days?
by minimus ini wish i could go back to the days when gas was a cheap 26 cents per gallon and people didn't have to lock their doors at night.. is there anything you miss about the good old days?
?.
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i_drank_the_wine
I miss being able to carry my six-shooter into the saloon.
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The Convention Pretty Much Sucked
by Franklin Massey ini feel better now.. but just in case you are wondering why i think it sucked, here you go:.
- it was clearly an "insider's only" convention.
why invite the public if you are just going to engage in crazy talk that only jws can decipher?.
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i_drank_the_wine
They really seem to make the dramas tug at the ol' heart strings of their brainwashed masses lately. My mom was practically crying telling me about some prodigal child bullshit drama they had 1-2 years ago at the end of which lots of people were crying apparently (probably hoping that their family/friends that woke up and smelled the coffee can somehow brainwash themselves back into the cult again).
Pretty much every single convention could be skipped and simply summed up by sending everyone a postcard saying "be good and keep being a repressed JW". They really don't give any sort of useful information or news to their sheeple there.