we were told we were part of the world if we got involved in politics.
if we had employment that had political involvement we were instructed to get another job.
we were told we might be considered disassociated if we voted and then it became questionable.
jhine has it right. Thanks Jan.
Now I am out and free, I see it as my Moral and Civic Duty to take part in all aspects of politics to make the World a better place, not something JW's ever work for, they see this world as doomed, and simply sit back and do nothing for however many decades they may live, and let the rest of us work for things that will be of great advantage to them.
They are basically Parasites.
in the year 2000, our congregation decided to split into three separate congregations because of growth.
there were 186 members.
the kingdom hall had only 190 seats.
" Except now with no meetings " it will be surprising if the married ones don't have the odd "slip up", what else is there to do ???
One "Sister" in our Congregation, many years ago, excused getting pregnant by saying " It was just one that slipped through the Net ", a Bro. overheard and said " You shouldn't have been using a Net!" LOL.
I am wondering how my old Congregation is getting along now, we too split because we had well over 200 Publishers on our books, officially, though rarely did all of 'em turn up for a Meeting at one time, but we had a lot of overflow problems, as fixed seats were about 180 I think.
So we split in to two, I wonder how those two Congregations are doing ? does the combined attendance ever exceed 200 ? maybe on Memorial night, but that is an exception, lots of non JW's there . Does the combined number of Publishers now exceed 200, some 16 years or so down the line ? I very much doubt it, even in my day, a lot of the "increase" was JW's moving in from elsewhere, I doubt actual converting has become any easier !
so i'm sure many of us here have used the site https://ad1914.com/, apparently the domain had expired.
this site was instrumental to my waking up.
i have been able to use it to direct others to as well since it had a large collection of matters dealing with the validity of the "gentile times" claim.
Rattigan, you are simply trying to be a Provocative Troll! The whole 1914 thing, in its entirety, has been de-bunked thoroughly SO many times !
i can't believe it.
it doesnt even seem real.
my mother told me that the world would gone by the time i was 25. .
Dear Joliette, if it makes you feel any better, my youngest kid is older than you !
Actually 40, when you get there, is not so bad, you can still act like a Teenager and get away with it. Now I am well in to my 70's I get berated because my sense of humour is no more mature or sophisticated than that of a 12 year old kid ! I still laugh at Fart Jokes ! Also I get very pissed (drunk) sometimes, but, what the hell ?
I can be sensible and mature when I am 6ft under, in between, whatever age you are this applies : "Life is for Living, for Loving, for Laughing and for Enjoying."
i recently had an online exchange with an active jw about the blood issue.
he originally wanted to talk about the potential dangers of transfusions but i pointed out that the risks of transfusions have nothing whatsoever to do with the reason that jws reject blood, and therefore i didn’t see any value in debating that topic.. not able to let it go, he then insisted that the blood mandate was a common theme throughout the bible, quoting acts 15:29.. it’s been a while since i looked into the subject, and i admit i’m now a little rusty when it comes to recalling where to find biblical quotes, but i remembered that there are passages in both the new and old testaments that, when read in the context of the time they were written, call into question the watchtower’s rendition of acts 15:29.. i offered to do some bible research and get back to the jw, suggesting that rather than letting our discussion become combative, we could have an informative and interesting exchange of ideas.
i reassured him that i was not looking to undermine his convictions, in fact i was more than happy to be corrected if my thinking was wrong.
" the mention of blood at Acts 15 was a reiteration of the prohibition against eating it in the Law. "
And that destroys any argument that the Prohibition is about Transfusions. Thanks TD, couldn't be more concise.
And if you understand and acknowledge the context of Acts 15, any JW would have to be honest and say this advice was for 1st Century Christians, where fully practicing Orthodox Jewish people, who were also Christians, had fellowship with Gentile Christians. That situation never happens today.
the 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.
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 !
source - 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.
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 !!!
the 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.
They will be chucking a foetus in the pool and counting that as Baptized and a member soon.
top 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.. .
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.
do 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 ?
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.
