Posts by dalek

this may be an elementary question but i was never a jw.. i wonder if such a person can actually exist.. i assume a born-in knows basically all about jehovah's-witnesses by the time he is, say, 16. if he were to postpone baptism, this person would not be in the same situation as a worldly who doesn't know an iota of anything, but would not be a brother, either.

what would be his real standing?.

dalek

I'm in that situation. I managed to put off and avoid baptism until I moved out and stopped attending meetings when I was 17. If I were still to be associated with the Kingdom Hall and going out in field service, I'd be considered an "unbaptized publisher".

49

Is Today's Jehovah's Witness Religion The Same As It Was When You Were A Member?

by minimus in

jw
friends

in my day, you were proud to be a jw!

you knew you'd get "persecution" and it was all good.

when you abstained from blood, you read the ingredients of a candy bar!

dalek

As someone who grew up in the Organization recently, my take on the matter is thus: The internet has destroyed the JW's former methods. They used to be able to play on people's ignorance of the JWs, because no one really knew that much about them. Now a basic Google turns up tons of hits on how they're a cult. This same freedom of information is causing almost all of the people who're currently being raised in the cult to leave as soon as they're able. Out of my peers in my circuit, I don't know of a single one over the age of eighteen who's still practicing.

The only people they're able to retain or recruit at this juncture are those who have almost no logical thinking skills, those who are broken in some way. So they've had the option of either becoming much more open, secular, and less cult-like, or doubling down to hold on that much more tightly to their rapidly dwindling numbers. That means an incredible over-simplification of previous doctrines (don't want to encourage anyone to think, even to teach them about the Bible), and a far stricter "Us vs. Them" mentality. I see the Witnesses either doing a complete 180* in the next decade, or becoming much scarier cult than they already are.

I think they're only going to get worse.

5

Are Jehovah's Witnesses the only ones that will survive Armageddon?

by God_Delusion in

hi guys & gals,.

i keep getting asked if jw's are the only ones that will survive armagenocide.. here's my response those emails - http://www.jehovahswitnessblog.com/armageddon/jehovahs-witnesses-are-the-only-ones-that-will-be-saved/.

jaymes .

dalek

The way I had always heard it was that it would be Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as any who had "the right 'heart condition'" but didn't have the opportunity to study—due either to having lived and died before the Watchtower formed, or to living in remote areas where JWs never reached them.

It's all B.S. though, so who cares?

38

Danny Boyle - Genius

by Slidin Fast in

jw
friends

i think the opening ceremony was brilliant.

what say you?.

dalek

Jarvis Cocker... cock-her? I hardly even know her!

*ba-dum-cha*

22

What part of the opening ceremony did you like best on Friday night?

by dreamgolfer in

dalek

You rang?

38

Danny Boyle - Genius

by Slidin Fast in

jw
friends

i think the opening ceremony was brilliant.

what say you?.

dalek

Oasis? Seriously? Blur and Pulp ruled 90s Britpop, Oasis was never even a contender!

70

Why did you become a Jehovah's Witness ?

by Gnosis in

why did you become a jehovah's witness ?.

initially upon entering the religion what were the positive things you experienced ?.

how did that particular way of thinking both benefit and harm you ?.

dalek

My mother had studied breifly with the Witnesses about five or ten years before my birth, but at the time it didn't take. After I was born, she was trapped in an abusive relationship with my father (non-JW) and the reappearance of the Witnesses at her door seemed like a life-saver. She took it to mean that she was meant to "raise me in the Truth" and was baptized when I was an infant, shortly after divorcing my father.

Growing up, I was initially very theocratic and enthusiastic about the whole religion. I loved going door-to-door, answering questions at the meetings, and I even learned learned a second language—now long forgotten—to join up with a foreign language group that had formed in my town after an influx of immigrants. But I was lucky enough to be in the Gifted and Talented programs at school, which pushed a lot of science from an early age, and also to have been born in the information era. By fourteen I was an atheist, and have been so ever since. I was pulled out of public school and homeschooled when my mother found out about my secular beliefs. Literally, I was kept under total house arrest for three years. That, along with my incredibly isolated childhood, caused a lot of mental health issues for me which I'm still working through. I left home for good at age eighteen.

These days, she's either faded or outright DF'ed, I've never asked. We don't talk much about the religion, but it's a large source of resentment and built-up anger between the two of us. I can safely say that the organization destroyed my childhood, and severely damaged my relationships with my entire family, both JW and non. I think I'll always have a feeling of being an outsider, some alien looking in at the world from the outside. On the other hand, I would not have the same passion for science, logic, and rationality that I do now if I didn't grow up as a JW.

114

Watchtower and Anonymous Links, Updates, News, etc.

by DT in

i wanted to consolidate a lot of the information about the attack of anonymous against the watchtower society.

if you disagree with the tactics of anonymous, that's fine.

this information may still be useful as the public is made more aware of the the dangerous policies of the watchtower society.

dalek

I guess we just don't know the day or hour. New light: Evidently, the generation who saw the Anonymous youtube video will overlap with the generation who will decrypt the database.

LOLOL omg best (and probably most apt) Anonymous/JW joke ever. Everyone can go home now.