I'm afraid Lost Generation is right. When I was on the front page of "The Oregonian" in 2002 blasting the shunning policy's. They wanted to interview someone from the WTB@TS for the "other side" of the argument. They said it was a voluntary organization and I "knew the rules" before I joined. Which of course wasn't true.....but that is the truth about the truth.
new boy
JoinedPosts by new boy
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Class Action Lawsuit Against The Watchtower Corporation By The Multitude Left Penniless After A Vow Of Poverty And Obediance Lasting Decades
by Brokeback Watchtower inwell i think as the exposure becomes greater of the wt hypocrisy and cover up that the likelihood of this happening great.
no retirement funds for all those laid off when they were no longer profitable due to old age has got to bite these guys in the ass some day.. and maybe in the process of man's enlighten world view and a better understanding the cruelty of disfellowshipping member and enforcing a communication ban ones family members may open them up from another class action lawsuit over such egregious action caused by a religious printing organization domination over peoples action through deceit and clever lies about supernatural claims of authority.. either way i think they are going to need a lot of outside legal help in the future as lawsuits will pile up around the world which that alone could dry up all their funds in defense costs..
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"50 Years a Watchtower Slave" Chapter 10 Part A
by new boy inchapter 10. taco bell, kansas and the beach boys.
since college was never a consideration.
there no time for a “worldly” education with 1975 was just around the corner.
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new boy
Chapter 10
Taco bell, Kansas and the Beach Boys
Since college was never a consideration. There no time for a “worldly” education with 1975 was just around the corner. There was no time to waste. So out of high school I got a job at taco bell. I made a $1.25 an hour. My mother and I decided that the best thing for me was to move to Salina Kansas, to “where the need was greater” and serve there as a pioneer. My mom told me not to tell my father about these plans. She told me “he wouldn’t understand.” She would break the news to him herself. That was fine with me. I didn’t really didn’t care for him at that time. The reason being he wasn’t taking the lead in our family spiritually anymore. Dad had bailed out of the program and I hated him for that. My mother did a good job in driving a wedge between him and me. She would consistently tell me what a disappoint he was. Maybe she was afraid I would pick up some of his bad habits. Just another classic case how this religion can spilt up families.
My dad told me years later that my mother never did tell him I was moving out. He came home from work one day and asked her where I was. With a blank look on her face she told him I had moved to Kansas to pioneer. He wept. I never even said good bye to him. I have no idea what sick pleasure my mother got out of doing that.
I was eighteen and I was on a grand adventure, moving 1500 miles away. I packed up my 1956 ford and headed south two miles to Foothill Blvd. which was the old Route 66. I turned left and just kept going. Though I have visited the LA area many times over the years I really never thought of that area as home. It was a strange world I grew up in, with no friends outside the faith and few friends in the faith. I really never did fit in back then. There was a huge sense of freedom yet sadness too. On some level I don’t think I really ever had a childhood. I was taught to be strong and independent. To act like an adult from an early age. My religion and my mother told me the only approval I needed was Jehovah’s. That is how I lived my life. So with my Bible in my hand I went to Kansas to save the world. The problem was of course, I couldn’t even save myself. Where ever you go that’s where you will be.
One of the first things I saw once as I crossed the border into the Kansas was a bumper sticker that said “Suicide is redundant if you live in Kansas.”
I drove almost straight through and got to Salina at about 1:30 in the morning. I ended up spending my first night in Salina, in jail. It was too late to get a motel. I really didn’t want to spend the money anyway for just a few hours of sleep. So I drove to a city park and tried to sleep. At about 5:30 in the morning a cop was knocking on my window with his flash light. After talking to him for a few minutes he was convinced that I was a run away and a draft dodger. So down to the police station we went. I convinced the cop to wait a few hours before we started calling everyone to prove my story was true. I never told any of the “brothers” there I was moving back. So I’m sure the congregation overseer Merle Freeman was quite surprised to get a call from the police asking if he knew me. Merle came down to the police station. After the police heard his story and mine, they let me go. Merle had a strange look on his face as he shook my hand on the sidewalk and welcomed me to Kansas. My first day there and I was already getting a bad reputation, I thought.
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Tiny Tim Had It Right!
by new boy in"god bless us one and all.".
if you don't believe in god anymore, that's cool too.
for those of that mind set.
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new boy
"God bless us one and all."
If you don't believe in god anymore, that's cool too.
For those of that mind set. "Than just bless us one and all!"
Its a tough time of the year for those that are still "in"
And sometimes for those who are "out" too.
Enjoy the journey....
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2 bilion income from selling HQ now
by Gorbatchov inthe wts has a tax free income of 2 bilion dollar now by selling the brooklyn hq (beside other recent money schemes).
were has the money gone?.
it must be somewere.. g..
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new boy
My guess is that a big chunk is in the stock market, in the very system they hope will fall a part.
Either way they enough money to keep them going for awhile.
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"50 Years a Watchtower Slave" Chapter 9
by new boy inchapter 9.
“let’s us move to were the need is greater”.
i remember a “kingdom ministry” heading saying “only x number of months left.” left to what?
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new boy
Chapter 9
“Let’s us move to were the need is greater”
I remember a “kingdom Ministry” heading saying “Only X number of months left.” Left to what? If you added the months to the date it worked out to October 1975. I wish I could find that KM. The society says they never pushed that date but that is simply not the case.
In the summer of 1967 my mother, sister and I took a trip to Salina Kansas. My mother’s old stomping grounds before the war. It’s funny my mother first break away from the farm was moving to Salina and it would turn out to me mine too. We were there for a month. I didn’t know it at the time but my mother’s plan was to have me move there and serve where the “need is greater.” She felt it was time for me to leave the nest.
This was a term that was used a lot back in the nineteen sixties and seventies. It meant that people who were bored, tired or just super zealous would connect the society, to find out where there was a need for more “brothers” and their families. These were places where the ratio of witnesses to normal people were well below the national average. These places were usually in the Midwest or Deep South. The society would send you a list of congregations. If you answered the call, you would quit your job sell your house and move to the other end of the country to help out a “weak” congregation.
This was used a status symbol too many times. “Brothers and sisters” would be quick to point out that they sold off everything and moved to an area that “needed help.” As if say look at me, we are so “spiritual” that we are willing to give up our comfortable lives and move to Timbuctoo to serve the Lord. A person couldn’t help but notice that many times these families were not necessary stronger and didn’t become pillars in their new congregations. Instead like most people they brought their problems with them. I love the line in the movie Doctor Zhivago. “Happy men don’t usually volunteer.”
Some made a life in their new locals, while others headed back home after a few years. Many never did fit in and felt out of place. Plus many of the locals didn’t like these strange new comers with their uppity attitudes and their “we are here to help you hicks out” attitude. Many of the locals didn’t like the idea that they “needed to be helped out” in the first place. In Kansas most of the pioneers there were from the Pacific Northwest or California.
Some of these “brothers’ had a little money saved up after they sold everything off. Others like myself, had to find employment immediately. They soon found out there was a reason many of these remote and rural areas didn’t have a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses in them. There was little or no work. The attitude was. “No worries Armageddon was coming soon and we’ll make do, besides Jehovah will provide for us since we are putting him first in our lives.” So we were willing to sacrifice our time and comforts for happier times in “the new system.”
Around nineteen ninety five when I was still a Jehovah’s Witnesses, something strange happened. I was a real estate agent in Portland Oregon. I met a real estate investor from California. He had made a fortune in the real estate market in the San Francisco bay area in the nineteen sixties and seventies. One day we were both in my car looking for his next investment property. I was very intrigued about his career in real estate. So I had to ask. “So Steve, what was your most interesting deal in real estate ever?” He got a slight smile on his face. “Do you mean strange or where I made the most money?” “I don’t know… Ok how about strangest I guess.” I said. “Well, in 1973 I bought this guy’s house in San Jose. What was strange was he wanted to sell his house to me but he didn’t want to move. He and his wife wanted to rent back his own house from me.” “Really…. why would he do that.” I asked. “Well” he said. “It turned out he was in some strange religion that believed the world was going to end in 1975! Can you believe that shit?” “A….yes…. I guess I can. Was he a Jehovah’s Witness?” I asked. “I think he was…..why?” I just had to say it. “Because I’m a Jehovah’s Witness too?” He got silent. “So how did it turn out with you and this guy?” I asked. “Not good.” He said. “When the end of the world didn’t come in 1975, real estate in the bay area started to go through the roof. I had to keep raising the rent on him. Finally he had to move out five years later because he couldn’t afford to live in his own house anymore. I sold the house four years after that and made over 500K on the deal. He was a real jerk.” He couldn’t help but rub it in about how stupid this guy was. I wondered to myself how many other witnesses did something like that. True story.
This was just one guy out of thousands who like myself bought into the 1975 program. It’s true to people outside the Jehovah’s Witnesses we must have looked like total nut jobs.
After the bubble burst in 1975 and god failed to make his presence known, the mass moving around the country pretty much ended. Somehow moving to Ruston Louisiana, Salina Kansas or Narragansett Rhode Island didn’t seem like such a great idea anymore, since no buddy really knew when Armageddon was going to happen now.
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"50 Years a Watchtower Slave" Chapter 3 Part B
by new boy inmy mother had a strange relationship with all the men in her life including me.
before 1961 she loved my father in some strange way.
she really thought her new religion would get my father back on the right path, back on the straight and narrow.
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new boy
Sorry, this is Chapter 8 part B not Chapter 3
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"50 Years a Watchtower Slave" Chapter 3 Part B
by new boy inmy mother had a strange relationship with all the men in her life including me.
before 1961 she loved my father in some strange way.
she really thought her new religion would get my father back on the right path, back on the straight and narrow.
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new boy
My mother had a strange relationship with all the men in her life including me. Before 1961 she loved my father in some strange way. She really thought her new religion would get my father back on the right path, back on the straight and narrow. Yet every congregation seem to have its problems and my father was quit to point them out to her.
So finally in 1960 they decided to go on a grand adventure and move to Long Island New York. There they thought they would find a new life. My father was going to start a pizza by the slice business with my uncle. We started attending the Babylon New York Kingdom hall. Well, things didn’t work out and 1961 we were heading back to southern California.
You know what they say. “Where ever you go that’s where you’ll be.”
My parents went back to there old congregation Glendora California in 1961. My mother had a strange feeling about the congregation. There was something going on there that just didn’t feel right. There was a huge exodus going on of people leaving the Kingdom hall too. So my parents (probably mostly my mother) decided to go to the Azusa Kingdom Hall instead. The funny thing is, we lived about a hundred yards from the Azusa's congregation’s territory line.
So she requested her publisher record cards. In those days you would have to go to the Bible Study overseer to get your publish record cards. These cards reported all your field service active and any other information a new congregation might need to know about you. They like to keep close tabs on everyone.
They don’t give this cards to the publishers themselves any more. Now, they mail them to your new congregation. The reason is people would get their cards and throw them away and stop being Jehovah’s witnesses. The society wants to know if you quit now a days. Why is that? The only reason I can think of is so they can punish you. They want to be able tell everyone that “brother or sister so in so is no longer a Jehovah’s witnesses.” This way they can make sure everyone knows when you leave. No fading allowed, let the shunning begin!
Something strange happened. Instead of getting their cards the “brothers” in charge said they wanted to meet with my parents. Back in the nineteen sixties there were three brothers in charge of the congregation. There was the overseer, the assistant overseer and the theocratic ministry overseer.
At the meeting the three brothers requested my parents to stay and not leave the Glendora congregation. In essence they needed to stop the exodus out of the Kingdom hall. Since my family was well known in the hall they choose us to make an example of. There really was no rule about going to a congregation outside your territory, so my parents held their ground.
My parents ended up writing a letter to the Brooklyn Bethel, the headquarters of the organization to complain about these overseers. My parents didn’t know it at the time but the letter that they wrote was not confidential. The society forwards all letters to your overseers or elders. So these overseers got really mad. There were more meetings and more yelling. A one point they called my father “a monkey on a string.” I’m not sure what that means. Whatever it meant, my dad didn’t like it and let them have it. I heard there was a lot of yelling and name calling that went on in those meetings.
All my parents wanted to do was go to a different kingdom all. It ended up with my mother being “publicly reproved” and my father was “disfellowshipped for slander and rebelliousness against the organization.” They said they would have disfellowshipped my mother too but she had a bad heart and the shock might kill her. They were right, it would have killed her.
I’m guessing my father could have done some activity that might have deserved this kind of punishment. So maybe on some level he did get justice. On the other hand my mother was the perfect JW follower.
This totally destroyed our family. My father blamed my mother and her religion for his public humiliation. My mother was in total shock and disbelief that there could be such an injustice in “the lord’s house.”
My father ran a crew of about thirty men on a construction site. One day he overheard one of men tell another. “You know Marty got kicked out of his church. What kind of terrible thing do you do to get out of a church, have sex with farm animals?” My father had a lot of pride, so this cut him to the core.
He stop going to most of the meetings. My mother was a diehard. She was never going to give up. She was more diligent than ever. Sure we got the looks at the kingdom hall and the whispering behind our backs. She never flinched.
We ended up going to the Azusa congregation anyway. Why not, we had paid the price for wanting to go there already. Six months of faithful meeting attendance in her new congregation and her “public reproof” was lifted.
My parents went to the circuit overseer to get justice. He was on his last trip through and didn’t want to get involved. The next circuit overseer wasn’t much better. Since these three “brothers” are appointed by the society and thus it is thought they were appointed god himself. They were untouchable.
So in 1964 my parents flew back New York City to the world headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses which is called Bethel. They wanted to plead their case to the big boys. They talked to Harley Miller in the service department. After hearing their story he set up a special committee to retry their case. Finally after for four years the matter was reopened. My parents were not just reinstated they were exonerated.
What happened to the three “brothers?” Nothing happened to them. Oh guess what? They all left the religion years later also.
According the society all elders and servants are appointed by god’s Holy Spirit. So I guess it was god who made the real mistake here not these guys. Whenever things like this happen in their organization of course the Witnesses will be the first to tell you “we are all imperfect.” Yet, god spirit appoints their leaders. Another catch 22 in action.
Bottom line even though my mother and I did nothing wrong we were still shunned by the Witnesses. So shunning is not just reserved for wrong doers. Anyone in good standing or not, can experience this unique Jehovah’s Witnesses punishment.
In high school I was shunned by my witness friends and dislike by fellow class mates too. A rock and a hard place. I was determined to show them all. I would became a super witness. I would pioneer and go to Bethel became a servant (they didn’t have elders back then) and show them all. Yes I would make my god and family proud one day.
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My mother's treatment. Unreal.
by quellycatface ini disassociated myself 3 years ago but have never told my mother, as she lives quite a distance from me in the uk.
i've have told her that i no longer go to meetings, neither does my son, who is 16.. i haven't seen her for 3 1/2 years.
i offered to come visit this week but she was incredibly offhand with me and said she couldn't meet with me today as she was on the ministry!!
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new boy
Tell her that even though you may be a disappointment to her. What has her grandson done to her to be treated this way? Tell her, your son hasn't made a decision about being a JW let. But since she would rather spend time trying to bring strangers into the "tooth" then spent time with her own family. Your son is seeing what the witnesses are really all about! They like to use guilt.....use it on them.
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Daily text for 12-7-2016 Gods promises "Dynamic"?
by NikL inwife read me the daily text this morning out of the blue this morning and a couple of sentences stuck out in my head.. all of jehovah’s promises are dynamic, not static, because he is constantly working toward their fulfillment.
(isa.
46:10; 55:11) once a person realizes this about jehovah’s word, what he reads in the bible can exert a powerful force in his life.. .
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new boy
Maybe there is a "type and antitype" application here. Better do more research.
You are looking at a turd in a toilet and wondering what it could mean.
Maybe it's just a turd.
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"50 Years a Watchtower Slave" Chapter 8 Part A
by new boy inchapter 8. a monkey on a string .
my mother never really had much respect for my father.
according to her, my father was weak and “not a good spiritual head of the family.” she probably knew that deep down he was not buying the program.
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new boy
Chapter 8
A monkey on a string
My mother never really had much respect for my father. According to her, my father was weak and “not a good spiritual head of the family.” She probably knew that deep down he was not buying the program. Whenever there was a problem in the family his favorite saying was “just go along for the sake of peace.” This is exactly what he was doing. Years later, I really disliked him. Not because he wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness anymore but because he knew it was all bull shit for years and never said a word to us kids about it. Yes, his just “give for the sake of peace” attitude affected me, my kids and their kids. He told me years later that I would have never listened to him anyway and he’s was probably right. However at least he could say he tried to warn us. No, He was more worried about his relationship with my mother than his relationship with us kids. He had turned over the raising of us kids to my mother. He was MIA. We were on our own. It didn’t really matter anyway. When she did die years later, she never really liked my father up to the very end. All those years of him kissing her ass, got him nothing. It reminds me of the saying “You are as much responsible for the evils you commit as the evils you permit.”
In nineteen fifty nine when I was ten years old my mother took me and my sister to Hawaii for the summer. I found out years later that she never told my father before she left. He came home from work one day and we were gone. She did this three or four times while we were growing up. She would just take off and not tell my father where she was going. However she would always come back before school started. I’m not quite sure what this was all about. Maybe she found out about one of his many infelicities. Maybe it was putting him on notice to shape up. I really don’t know the reason for the separations but when we came back he really appreciated her more than ever.
Maybe she was like her grandfather (not the one who sexual abused her) and just had a wandering soul. He would take off for months during the great depression and never tell anyone. Not even his wife. Sometimes he just wouldn’t come home from work. Instead he would hop a freight train out town. One day on one of his rare visits back home, the noon whistle blow. He came home for supper, as was the custom in many small Midwest towns back then. He told his wife “I’m not working for those guys anymore after today, they’re all a bunch of idiots.” After his meal he went back to work digging a well.
My great grandfather didn’t come home that evening and he didn’t hop a freight train out of town either. That afternoon he was at the bottom of a twenty foot well digging out the muck and smoking a cigarette. There was a small gas pump running on the top of the hole that was pumping out the water that was seeping in. One of the guys he was working for, did however turn out to be an idiot, because he accidently kick a can full of gas into the hole. No more freight trains for gramps. He was burned to a crisp. His wondering days were over.