Anyone under the age of say, at a minimum 18, is unlikely to REALLY be mature enough to make such a lifelong commitment to an Authoritarian Mind Control Cult, or to realise that is exactly what they are doing !
Posts by Phizzy
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22What is the youngest a child has been baptised as a JW?
by Ultimate Axiom inthe youngest reference i have come across is in the 1992 watchtower (march 1st page 27) - “in the summer of 1946, i was baptized at the international convention in cleveland, ohio.
although i was only six years of age…”.
i would like to find more examples of this, particularly of examples in more recent times.
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55
Ban on Independent Meetings
by lssjr insource - march 2021 announcements - - https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5085868283920384/2021-march-147-english-german-announcements-reminders.
this is a sobering reminder of what happened some 40 years ago when raymond franz and others were literally kicked out from the jehovah's witnesses for having pre-arranged private spiritual discussions.lesson: paragraph 7 is another example of the i and t in dr. steven hassan's bite model of the 21st century cult - information and thought control at its best!!!!
"my gosh, there must be a lot of independent meetings these days.
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Phizzy
Let's hope this has the same effect upon some that it did , me included, when similar announcements, or should I say Rules, were made in the past.
It was the September 2007 bit in the " Kingdom Ministry" which did it for me. This, I think was in the form of one of those innocuous looking Question Box sections, where they often hid away dodgy stuff, and it basically said, do NO INDEPENDENT RESEARCH !!!!! and WE WILL DO YOUR THINKING FOR YOU ! Not in all Shouty Capitals like that , but that is what it was really saying.
And that was the proverbial Straw for me, I left for good a short while after. Nobody does my thinking for me !!!
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22
What is the youngest a child has been baptised as a JW?
by Ultimate Axiom inthe youngest reference i have come across is in the 1992 watchtower (march 1st page 27) - “in the summer of 1946, i was baptized at the international convention in cleveland, ohio.
although i was only six years of age…”.
i would like to find more examples of this, particularly of examples in more recent times.
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Phizzy
They will be chucking a foetus in the pool and counting that as Baptized and a member soon.
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11
Are JW's Fundamentalist Christians
by What is Truth? intop ten signs you're a fundamentalist christian.
10 - you vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.. .
9 - you feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the biblical claim that we were created from dirt.. .
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Phizzy
Dead right JeffT !
The Fundamentalists originally started out with the somewhat laudable idea of cutting through the crap of Centuries of modification of Scripture and of biased exegesis, and worse of that awful thing eisgesis, and getting back to what the Scriptures actually said.
Of course, to determine what the Scriptures actually say one HAS to use exegesis, and sadly, they soon fell in to the old trap of introducing eisegesis, so the movement failed in its aim. They also fell in to the trap of trying to take the Bible as literally as they possibly felt they could, a trap the JW Org still falls in to.
JW's show scant respect for what the Bible actually says.
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26
The Bible speaks of the "Unforgivable Sin" ? What is it ?
by smiddy3 indo any jehovah`s witnesses or ex jehovah`s witnesses even know what that sin is ?.
why is such a statement in the bible if its not identified what that sin is ?.
were the authors of the book just playing with peoples heads ?
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Phizzy
There is no such thing as " Sin" as it is defined in the Bible, so who gives a s**t what their unforgivable sin is in reality ? it won't affect your eternal future.
Having said that, I have never seen a satisfactory explanation of what exactly was in the Bible Writer's mind when he put this drivel down. Every attempt at exegesis on this strikes me as mere personal opinion on the part of the Exegete, who has no real reason for said opinion.
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Share your Haysbridge, Surrey assembly hall memories
by truthseeker indid you ever go to the haysbridge assembly hall in surrey?.
post your experiences.
the assembly hall i believe used to be a reformed school for boys and was completely renovated and dedicated in 1985.. it was the only assembly hall i knew of that sold souvenir pens, book marks and notepads.. .
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Phizzy
" I have a program for Twickenham too. July 1980 " Divine Love" District Convention with W Gooch giving the Keynote Address. Ah ... Happy days?",
I don't think I went to that, I went to one down in Plymouth if memory serves, or was Twickers the only one in the South in 1980 ?
Whatever, can't have been " Happy days" mate, as I have no clear memory of it !
If the Plymouth one was 1980, I remember taking the piss out of an old boy who was behind me when we sang the Songs, he had the old " whistling dentures" so every word I sang with an "S" in it I let out a whistle, and my Mrs nearly wet herself laughing !
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Phizzy
I like this one too !
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23
Memorial this year?
by carla inhow are they handling the memorial this year?
zoom or open kh's?
how do they reject the wine & bread in their own home?
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Phizzy
I have just received my Invite this morning, simply addressed to the House, not an individual who lives here. The little typed note that accompanied the actual Invitation, which has a Poncy looking Jesus on the front, this note from an Elder, has an opening sentence that is gobbledegook ! He obviously didn't proofread what he had written!
I did think I might e-mail him and point out this gaffe, but then I thought, nah, let it stand, they are less likely to trap someone if they send out stuff written by what appears to be either an illiterate or lazy person.
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When was your last Kingdom Hall meeting?
by RULES & REGULATIONS ini stopped going to kingdom hall meetings about nine years ago.
i was fading for the longest time, refused to go out in field service, dropped out of the ministry school talks, no longer answered at the watchtower study, arrived at the meetings the last second, and left as soon as possible.
i couldn't take attending the meetings any longer.
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Phizzy
When I left around 14 years ago, as I walked out of the K.H, I looked back and thought " I shall never enter that place again" . Well I did. Two or three times, but only for Funerals.
I simply could not muster the strength to suffer the pain and boredom of an actual J.W meeting, the pain coming from not being able to shout out " This is all False, Deluded Nonsense !" or something similar.
I doubt I will attend another Funeral, not that the last one was too bad, they seem to have mellowed a bit , and at least some of the content was a Eulogy to the Departed one, but I still find the experience excruciatingly painful, for the above reasons. I should really, I suppose, be able to suffer it like I do other Religion's Funeral Services, but it is different for me, a J.W one.
I wish all the best to you poor sods who are "awake" but still have to attend !
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56
JW Net and Politics
by snare&racket inthis site was and remains instrumental in assisting people that want to leave the jw's.. there has been political discussion here for some time now, a good couple of years and it makes me feel a little uneasy.
i just opened up the site for the first time in some weeks, of the 10 posts being discussed, 4 were by the same poster, about politics, promoting their right wing beliefs.. this has been the trend for some time now, the same name behind a peppering of posts stirring the right v left of politics.. i remain forever grateful to the site and it's founders simon & angharad, i appreciate that simon shares some of these these political beliefs.
it would be a shame to see the site evolve from a place for jw freedom of thought and escape, to political squabbling, that the world is frankly tired of right now.. just to clarify, politics is my hobby, whilst my friends read the football scores, i'm reading polling data.
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Phizzy
I agree 100% with Snare's O.P.
When I joined , this Site was literally a life Saver to me, but if my first experience of the Site had been of Political Bigotry, of any colour, I would not have stuck with it, as it was, it was a shock to my sensitive J.W self, and that was only the very quick demolition of many of my lifelong beliefs.
What we had then was a good number of Posters who would in a very kindly way set you straight, now what we have is a lot of what we see elsewhere on Social Media , where a "discussion" quickly descends in to Ad Hominem attacks on those holding different views to your self. I wonder if this is why a number of the more erudite and useful contributors have left over the last 3 or 4 years ?
As has been said, some sort of subsection of the Site for Political Bigots to fight it out might work, or keep purely Political comments and Threads off the Site ? I don't know, but surely this should be a safe haven, that kindly informs and directs, someone trying to get free of the Org ??