i wonder how many are like me staying pimo for the great association and gathering etc.
also find it very interesting having a front row seat watching the collapse of borg.. im not wasting any more time or money on anything i don’t want to do like preaching and mostly just go on zoom .
there is nothing i want to do that would be considered disfellowshiping sin, i’m married and want to live by bible principles but i have serious doubts that the gb were chosen by god and are his one and only spokesmen on earth.
Thanks, Vanderhoven, I had forgotten what this thread was about!
Just looked up ‘Graeme Hammond’ on the internet and found the Aussie newspaper article, great anti-witness given…
Speaking personally, cannot say I can see any advantage to having been one of Jehovah’s Witnesses at any time of my life,… plenty of disadvantages though -
happy birthday 2 me!!.
sunday is my 76th birthday and i know that you want to know how it "feels" to have outlived my usefulness, to have lost my natural beauty (being reduced to wrinkles and flab), and constantly walking into a room not knowing why i'm there.
you also are curious as to how i can continue to find a reason to live since none of my kids think my opinions have any possible value, most of my facebooks friends i wouldn't recognize if i tripped over them on my way into starbucks, and my monthly expenditure on bird treats exceeds u.s. spending on the military.
😊😊😊😊😊😊😊 thank you thank you thank you !!!
bought myself some Bluetooth earphones yesterday so l could hear better!
Favourite track is now ‘Concerto’….
Feel that asking for more now would betray a greediness on my part, but your compositions are very calming, very easy to listen to!
many thanks again, you have a true gift!
if there is evidence that jesus invisibly chose specific men at headquarters in brooklyn new york in 1919 to be his faithful slave and that mandate and ability passed on to future directors...then the answer might just be a resounding maybe.. what is the evidence for this invisible appointment and what is the evidence that this is just watchtower mythology?.
i hope jws like scholar and fisherman will explain why the trust the gb.. i must be honest, i see no evidence at all to put trust in either the 1919 selection or the current men taking the lead in warwick.
.
Punky,
many thanks for the list of Watchtower quotes, reading them one after the other really emphasises how much they think of themselves. They condemn themselves out of their own mouths.
How presumptuous, how hypocritical when reading the quote from the Feb 2017 Watchtower claiming they are not inspired or infallible!
If I ever get a chance I shall be handing out this list of quotes to the local trolley pushers!
happy birthday 2 me!!.
sunday is my 76th birthday and i know that you want to know how it "feels" to have outlived my usefulness, to have lost my natural beauty (being reduced to wrinkles and flab), and constantly walking into a room not knowing why i'm there.
you also are curious as to how i can continue to find a reason to live since none of my kids think my opinions have any possible value, most of my facebooks friends i wouldn't recognize if i tripped over them on my way into starbucks, and my monthly expenditure on bird treats exceeds u.s. spending on the military.
Thank you for the music Terry!
🙂Please can we have some more?…
happy birthday 2 me!!.
sunday is my 76th birthday and i know that you want to know how it "feels" to have outlived my usefulness, to have lost my natural beauty (being reduced to wrinkles and flab), and constantly walking into a room not knowing why i'm there.
you also are curious as to how i can continue to find a reason to live since none of my kids think my opinions have any possible value, most of my facebooks friends i wouldn't recognize if i tripped over them on my way into starbucks, and my monthly expenditure on bird treats exceeds u.s. spending on the military.
Happy Birthday Terry!!! 😄
love your music, ‘specially the Snowflake one… look forward to hearing some more….
i personally have only attended a handful of meetings at kingdom halls.
i did not enjoy any of them nor was i impressed by anything that was conveyed.
perhaps others did not find them boring as i did.. nadia viotto has this to say about her experience.
Vanderhoven,
yes, yes,…..
Have read so much, all Eric Wilson’s articles, C.O.C., Penton, and so many others.. they are all encouraging in their way…
the local congregation may see me as ‘hopeless’, but the only reason I have survived the last 70 of my 74years is the hope Christ and his Father give!
Was a Christian before they started calling on my mother, mainly from Bible reading and John Bunyan’s allegorical books. Could see Christendom’s churches had failed and when Jehovah’s Witnesses called, seemed like they had the answers. However, somehow the things they said and the things they actually did, didn’t add up?
If it weren’t for my daughter I would be happy to go to sleep and leave this body behind, but she needs my support and I am gladly there for her. (Plus my husband needs caring for)
There may be many who will read this comment and think me nuts, so I have no wish to offend their sensitivities, but I do hope and wish the best for them, that all may find real peace of heart and mind, however difficult that may seem.
If anyone would wish to send me a p.m., I would welcome that and think it no imposition,
many thanks to you Rick, for your kindness, wishing you the best for the future too
i personally have only attended a handful of meetings at kingdom halls.
i did not enjoy any of them nor was i impressed by anything that was conveyed.
perhaps others did not find them boring as i did.. nadia viotto has this to say about her experience.
Vanderhoven7,
thank you for your kind thoughts, like most people here I do have a ‘tale to tell’, but a long one, (perhaps one day it will be written down.) Things never improved for me, but at last, about 2012/3 I began to realise Christianity has nothing to do with organisations or churches like Watchtower.
Initially was looking at a website discussing watchtower doctrine from an alternative viewpoint (apostate, so-called) with a view to defending Witnesses, but since I had a voracious appetite for digging out the truth, l was also reading very early Bible Student literature, and discovering the truth about the Rutherford years.
There was no sudden realisation of being duped, no flash of lightening or major waking up. I just came to the conclusion that since Watchtower was behaving and calling itself a religion, it was just the same as all the other churches of Christendom.
The internet has been most helpful to me, but the cost of staying so long is devastating. At times I feel totally isolated, really miss the discussions we had back in the 60’s, but never really found the kind of relationships that lasted forever.
Now in my mid- seventies, my health is ruined, my elderly PIMI husband hardly ever talks to me, (not that he ever did) my daughter, who left the same time as myself, struggles with low self-esteem and depression, both brought on by Watchtower policy and doctrine.
But my experiences have made me very understanding of the many kinds of problems that other Witnesses and ex-Witnesses have which result from the influence of having been in a high-control group. There have been a few suicides in recent years, both in my husband’s family and the local congregation, just regret I was not in a position to support any of them before they gave up. So sad to see people get into such a state of mind.
Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders speak softly and carry a big stick.
This man lives a quiet life?
isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?
or have they stopped publishing it?
did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?
Dear Blotty, you said -
‘People are going to make surface level arguments to try and playdown or discredit them just because they don't like them for one reason or another’
There are many people who have good reasons to feel aggrieved over JW’s, -please do not demean, invalidate, discredit or invalidate their pain by making such sweeping generalisations.
There may be a few real Christians amongst JWs, just as there are, I am sure, among other denominations, but I have known a great many Jehovah’s Witnesses who genuinely hated even members of their own religion, ones in so-called ‘good-standing’, for no good reason at all, as well as others, complete strangers to them!
We also have plenty of evidence that their own governing body members personally hate all manner of persons, (most especially ex JWs), in direct conflict with instructions to Christians at Romans 12:14, & 14:17-21.
(Also, please consider that Jehovahs Witnesses by no means lead the world on translating and distributing the Bible)
i personally have only attended a handful of meetings at kingdom halls.
i did not enjoy any of them nor was i impressed by anything that was conveyed.
perhaps others did not find them boring as i did.. nadia viotto has this to say about her experience.
In my youngest teenage years, when all important education at a decent school was thankfully available to me, my mother, poor deluded soul, dragged me thrice weekly to long tedious meetings each when I should have been doing the homework necessary to pass exams that would have eventually helped me make a decent living as an adult.
The following day after a meeting I was always too tired to be able to make best use of the earnest efforts of school teachers. Homework suffered enormously, earning me a reputation of being a ‘slacker’ or even ‘imbecile’ no doubt.
Mother used to proudly boast that I was rebellious, - a problem child, in constant need of correction, usually physical, yet never did I once complain about going to the meetings, nor did I question anything they coercively taught me.
The hypocrisy of the Witnesses didn’t fail to leave it’s mark on me from those early times, gossip was rampant, a callous, cold attitude prevailed amongst those highest in the hierarchy whilst those at the bottom felt pushed out, unwanted because they failed to meet some unrevealed or secret criteria for being accepted into the ruling cliques.
Can you believe, even though there were no other Witness children in my school, I actually went to the headmistress and, trembling in my shoes, sick with fear, made application for not having to go into school morning worship each day, and to no longer have to go into religious education classes. Here in the U.K., children who were Jewish or Catholic were able to refrain from participation in morning worship, but still had to attend.
I, however wanting to be obedient to a higher authority, or so I understood it to be so, negotiated to not be bodily present when prayers were said, hymns being sung and sermons given. Headmistress was purple with rage, I kid you not. The school had a very high reputation in the district for turning out high academic achievers, and as such they valued compliance to strict regulations. My demands were unthinkable, but nonetheless Headmistress through gritted teeth asked that my mother go and see her. (A detention was narrowly missed) Henceforth I was to sit on the ‘naughty’ seat outside headmistresses study while rest of school filed in for morning worship, girls furtively whispering amongst themselves as they saw me there and wondering what heinous crime I was guilty of!
Was there ever any support from anyone of the congregation of Jehovahs Witnesses in all those years I have associated with them? Extremely little. If any. Many times there have been that have come home crying. And seen others do so to.
I REALLY, REALLY WISH I HAD NEVER GONE TO THOSE MEETINGS
