Posts by Borges

18

VOW OF OBEDIENCE AND POVERTY

by Coded Logic in

i didn't know the wtbts had an order.

anyone ever heard of the "order of full time servants" aka "the order" within the jehovah's witnesses?.

(below is a legal document from the wtbts).

I took this vow too. It was in the early 90's while I was in the german bethel. It was only for legal purposes to gain the same status as the clergy. Ironic...a vow of poverty to make the society rich.

13

Does Bethel have any woman Medical Doctors?

by VM44 in

the watchtower does not usually place women in positions of authority.. so, does anyone know if there have been any female medical doctors (any type, md, do or chiro) that worked at bethel recently?.

the only one that i know of was dr mae j work, but she was at bethel over 70 years ago!.

.

Borges

When I worked at German Bethel (1989 - 1997) there was a female medical doctor and a female dentist. But of course none of them was in charge for the medical department. Until a male doctor came (in the mid of the 90's) the "Overseer" was a guy from the adminstration-department.

25

The Internet Proves JWs Are a Joke Now

by jw07 in

i'm a born in, born in the 1980s and old enough to remember studying beefy (albeit full of crap) material like the the evolution book and revelation book (which we studied over and over and over and over).

books and brochures were wordy and chock full of legalistic language explaining away teachings and policies, some explanations slightly above the iq of the average person.. watchtower studies were longer (30 paragraphs sometimes), talks were longer and thus meetings were longer, pioneering was harder (70 hours if i remember correctly), assemblies and conventions were longer, and there were intricate food provisions to feed thousands of people (for a cost of course).. the average jw could recite watchtower propaganda for hours to indoctrinate others or defend their faith.

jws were interested in having meaty discussions at the door and challenging even pastors on doctrinal points.. i know this has been said many times, but the organization has gone through a massive dumbing down.. i can't figure out if it's due to the oblivious nature of the current governing body, a premeditated attempt by them at dumbing down the organization, or just the effects of life becoming easier around the globe due to reliance on technology.. i can only speak on my era, and i know that from the early 90s until around 2004 the organization was allot more doctrine savy.. over the past decade or so i'd say the collective iq of the followers has moved from 105 to 85.. indoctrination and blind belief has allot to do with being prone to be emotionally manipulated, but thinking ability has a say in that too.. social media is a decent gauge of how and what the average person within a certain demographic is thinking, and doing a simple hashtag search on twitter, instagram, or facebook reveals allot about how the current generation of young jws (15-28 or thereabout) are thinking.. many have become self obsessed, internet obsessed, hubris filled and passive, i can see an even bigger decline in growth over the next 5 years.. take a look:.

Borges

I never heard of any encounter with ministers at the door.

It was in the middle of the 90's. There was a town where we went to preach once in a week with a group of betweeen five to ten witnesses. As soon as the pastor of the church noticed our presence, he started to play loud Music with Anti-Witness-Lyrics out of a big speaker, that was placed on the church steeple.

When he did this the first time, we knocked on the churchdoor, to speak with him. He never opened. When we saw him on the street, we've tried to approach him, but he always fled. We were so eager to talk to him.

But a lot of people aksed us about the songs. They included statements like the NWT is an falsified translation, bablyon the great is rome, 666 refers to the pope and ohter stuff. We really defended what we believed at the time.

The most Jw's today aren't able to do this. They just give away leaflets.

So, they treally dumped down in the sence, that their Illusion has changed from a big house with many rooms, to a tiny cabin, with no doors and no windows.

4

The last step

by Borges in

jw
friends

it is now almost six years since i left the witnesses.

many things have happened in the meantime.

in the beginning, right after i found out that i had been raised in a cult and all the fairytales ive been told for so many years were just this- fairytales, i had the strong urge to do something.

Borges

It is now almost six years since I left the witnesses. Many things have happened in the meantime. Mainly with myself. In the beginning, right after I found out that I had been raised in a cult and all the fairytales I’ve been told for so many years were just this- fairytales, I had the strong urge to do something. I felt, it was my obligation to tell the truth about Jehovah’s Witnesses. Especially because I’ve been an elder and worked in the German branch of the Watchtower Society for about ten years. So I started a blog (in german) and joined an association that is helping people who had left a cult. I gave an interview to one of the greatest newspapers in Germany and held talks in schools and colleges.

Every morning I started with looking for new posts on jwn and other sites like this. Also, I read every Watchtower and Awake Magazine and was eager to learn every news about the religion of my childhood, just to find another flaw, another stupidity, another fraud.

But lately I felt a bit exhausted. I had to acknowledge, that there was no progress in my cord clamping from this stupid religion. I realized, there has to be a final cut. But how to do it? Which cord has to be clamped?

It is the illusion of being someone special only because of having left a so called cult.

You are not a victim.

You have been a beneficiary.

The cult demands, but also compensates.

It gives you hope, meaning, a sense of being special, social integration and many other things.

As long, as you get more from the cult as you give, you will never leave it. (Therefore it is fruitless to argue with someone, who is happy in the cult. It is even kind of cruel, because you try to take something away from him, that he considers very valuable).

The biggest problem with leaving a cult is to cope with the loss of all the benefits the cult provided.

It is too easy to blame these stupid men from the GB or the elders in the congregations for what is wrong in the cult. Every witness is responsible for what he is doing. If a mother, a father, a son, a daughter or a friend decides to shun a loved one, than in first place not because someone told them so, but rather they are holding something more dearly than that person. Something the cult offers is more valuable to them, than their own flesh and blood.

The problem are not Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are just one more vendor on the religious market. The problem are these billions of uneducated people who flee with their problems and their fear of death in the arms of the most selfish metaphysical providers – religion.

There is nothing special in being a Jehovah’s Witness.

And there is nothing special in leaving this stupid cult.

Everything you might have experienced while a witness, you could have also experienced under different circumstances. There is no exclusivity.

Seeing the JW as what they are – a stupid but at the end of the line harmless cult, and seeing you, as what you are, just one of the millions of people who were betrayed by an offer that promised more benefits than efforts – this is the last step out of the cult.

54

Would Your Family Stone You to Death?

by cofty in

ot law required jews to take the lead in stoning a family member who became apostate.. the watchtower has lamented the fact that the law of the land now forbids them from doing so.. if the law permitted it, as it does in some musim countries, and if the watchtower required it, would your family obey?.

my parents are good people and i believe their love for me is genuine, but i think they would follow orders.. what about yours?.

Borges

I'm sure they would. The last time I talked to my dad (Elder since over 50 years), I asked him, if he agrees with what was said about the apostates on the last DC. He told me, that he is 100 % behind the WTO.

I have a loveley family and my parents really cared about us. But they are so deluded, they follow everthing the Borg says. GB says: Shun him - so they do. If they would say: Stone him - they would do.

Sad but true.

41

I NEVER Hear A JW Talk About Never Dying & Living Forever In Paradise Anymore!

by minimus in

jw
friends

i was raised with this belief, that we would never die and actually make it into the "new system".

mu faithful jw aunt still talked about my mother (her sister) and her walking together into the great tribulation--- and never die at all!

she spoke of that 2 days before she passed away.. i believe most witnesses expect to die and then get resurrected.

Borges

When I spoke to my mother the last time (a year ago) she said, that she's expecting to die in "this system" and to wake up in paradise. And this after 60 years of "The end is just around the corner" (my dad was an tireless aramgeddon-is-coming-very-soon promoter). She sounded somewhat inbetween sad, disapointed and tired. I was about to tell her "You are right, you are going to die, but you won't wake up anywhere", but I didn't.

I'm very sure, a lot of the older ones don't expect the end coming in their lifetime anymore. Many of them feel to tired for the great tribulation and prefer to take the shortcut.

48

Jesus was a False Prophet - But was he deluded or deceitful?

by cofty in

any objective reading of the gospels makes it plain that jesus believed his parousia would happen within the lifetime of his generation.. his followers believed in his imminent return until the day of their deaths.. his false prophecy damaged the lives of his disciples in a similar way to that done by the lies of modern cults like the watchtower.

peter and others walked out on their wives, children and businesses to follow him around palestine.

jesus taught them to put their families and other normal concerns in second place to their task of spreading his message - which turned out to be false.. the question is what he was up to?.

Borges

In 2013 Reza Alsan published the Book "Zelot. The Life time of Jesus of Nazareth" (Random House). He describes Jesus a jewish Zelot in restistance to the roman occupiers, dreaming of a theocracy established by him an his followers - Gods Kingdom. The picture the gosples are drawing of Jesus, is what his followers made up after Jesus death and the obvious fail of all his predictions and ambitions.

Azlans Book is a very good read for everyone, who is interested in the question cofty raised in this thread.

17

Germans Play Monopoly

by cofty in

if karl marx, sigmund freud, and friedrich nietzsche had a game of monopoly....

Borges

I think it is very funny. But to get it, you need to know a bit about the persons involved in the game.

Borges - also German

74

Has the Governing Body Become More or Less Authoritarian in Recent Years?

by cofty in

it seems to me that this is a no-brainer but i have been out since '96.. so based on your personal experiences what do you think?.

lots more - a bit more - just the same as always - less - a lot less?.

if you think more or lots more can you spot a time or event when it started to change?.

Borges

Depends on what you mean with authoritarian. I grew up as a wittness in the 70s in Geramny. There were still lots of older brothers and sisters, who had survived the contentration camps. They could be very authoritarian. Some of them I experienced later when I was in bethel - same thing. Also education was much more authotaritan in the 50s, 60, or 70,s than it is today. And sure, the switch from an allpowerfull president to an governing body made the leadership less authoritarian.

There is lot more freedom for jw today trhan it was in the days when I grew up.

BUT!

The jw in general, but mainly the GB shows a much more obvious cultish behavior. And why - because due to all the shifts in their weird theology and the allready mentioned dumb down of the content of their magazines and books. They cann't keep the flock quiet and satisfied by the teaching of a attracktable bible- interpretation. BEcause ther is none anymore. They more it shows, that all their teachings and predications are doomed to fail again and again, the have to increase cultish behavoir, which is, considered from the outside, an increase of acting in an authoritarian way. In reaslity, their authirity is shrinking every. What we see is them fighting desperatly against this fact.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

Borges

Great Topic Cofty! As always, I love to read your reasoning.

Everyone involved in the discussion I recommend to read "Evil in modern thought" by Susan Neiman.

She describes how the earthquake and the tsunami of Lisbon 1755 (about 100.000 victims) provoked a similar discussion like the one on this thread. But a discussion that left its traces in philosophy and theology for the next 200 years.

So, nothing new here. Only that you can add to the Lisbon catastrophe calamities like the spanish flu or the 2004 tsunami (and many more).