Posts by oldskool

33

JWs exist because...

by oldskool in

jw
friends

one sentence answers only.. here's mine:.

jws exist because people want an escape from the modern world and are willing to give up intellectual freedom to get it..

oldskool

One sentence answers only.

Here's mine:

JWs exist because people want an escape from the modern world and are willing to give up intellectual freedom to get it.

11

watching the world - awake june 22, 1977. during the first interhemispheric conference on adolescent fertility, held recently at arlington, virginia, the delegates representing thirty-nine nations concluded that childbearing among teen-agers has reached the proportions of a “worldwide epidemic.” as quoted in medical tribune, iranian journalist nalia kazemian said in the keynote speech: “[we must] face the fact that the world-wide trend towards pregnancy and childbearing [at an early age] is a physical, social, and demographic crisis.

damaging the whole fabric of society.”.

daily mail - june 2, 2016. us teen pregnancy rate falls to an historic low.

oldskool

The end already occurred, and we missed it. All faithful JWs are on another planet and soon the great crowd will join with them.

All praise Jehovah's truth!

32

what sort of reactions have you gotten when talking to other jw when telling them the "truth about the truth"?

by AmIright in

its funny ive read some stories on here about how they have become so infuriated by what logic dictates as being true and their own denying of it because it completely screws up their belief and shows how hypocritical it is xd some look like a nuclear reactor about to blow xd.

share you experiences here :) .

oldskool

The Elder that responded with the most empathy, and could see I had a point, eventually was the harshest at my spouses JD. We secretly taped it, and you could here him trying to be a hard ass with the other two elders in the room when they discussed it privately.

Most others basically blow it off. They are emotionally tied to the society. It's like telling somebody to disown their mother. Until they've had enough of the abuse, they won't see the bad in what's going on.

Closer family eventually left, mainly because we paved the way and let them see that leaving could be done. Talking never did much. Instead, it is the little things that, over time, causes a believer to question and doubt until the point where they make a change.

99

The Greatest Intellectual Scam of All-Time: French Postmodernism

by cofty in

sbf you annoyed me enough to deserve this.. gad saad's comments on the nonsensical gibberish of jacques derrida, michel foucault, and jacques lacan.

charlatanism of the highest order.

.... the first quote from derrida starts as 2:50.

oldskool

The first 30%, or 2 minutes, of this video goes absolutely nowhere. Deserves no further time.

9

What strange things are taught at MTS?

by Londo111 in

a few years before i woke up, a young man in my congregation went to ministerial training school.

he began to speak about some of the things he had learned.

one of the things mentioned was that of incubus or succubus, that is to say, sex demons.

oldskool

Very interesting to see how letter written by a crackpot in 1911, and then republished by the WTS in the magazine, is still in circulation as an urban legend within the group.

I still like the Jeopardy! NTW legend. Now that's a classic. I almost saw tears in a JWs eyes when I affirmed to him that it wasn't true. "But the brothers said they saw it, why would they lie to me?!?"

70

Witness Carts - A Vehicle for Significant Decline

by slimboyfat in

i was stalking to a jw today about her recent experience on the carts and with being a jw generally.

until this conversation i considered the carts as just an ineffective preaching method and a harmless waste of time.

but now i wonder if the effect of the carts might be to produce noticeable decline in jw numbers.

oldskool

They may have underestimated how important traditional door to door ministry has been in structuring JW life, self-understanding and commitment. Over emphasis of cart witnessing threatens to undermine that.

Any thoughts on how much people doing at either broken apart? Is cart now a larger portion of the work?

Door to door is a more consistently active activity than sitting at a cart. You're typically on private property, and it is similar to territory sales. You have to be ready for anything. However, as history progressed (50s through 90s), the activity became more conventional. Probably directly correlated to born-in JWs learning it as a more cultural activity rather than converts doing it with apocalyptic passion.

Again, the one street of territory + break + 3 calls was a routine I remember well. Nothing close to the "preach the word" urgency WTS made it seem like was going on.

To get to the OP, I would say that cart witnesses has the potential to lower the bar even further. Just sitting at a cart in a boring location? I've done table events before in past jobs, including major event centers with lots of people. You have to be standing, you have to invite people in, you have to ask questions constantly. It's actually really hard to do well.

But it's also really easy to do poorly. Sit behind a table and not say much, barely anybody will approach you. And that's in a busy location. So in this light, it may be an even bigger excuse to non activity in the ministry, which although it's never verbalized, appeared to be the primary goal for most of the JWs I personally knew.

In private, I remember so many JWs saying they hated the ministry. If there was a way to cheat at it, they would. All of them dreaded to be in the car with one of those 70 year old old school Knorr Era witnesses that wanted to knock on 100 doors.

70

Witness Carts - A Vehicle for Significant Decline

by slimboyfat in

i was stalking to a jw today about her recent experience on the carts and with being a jw generally.

until this conversation i considered the carts as just an ineffective preaching method and a harmless waste of time.

but now i wonder if the effect of the carts might be to produce noticeable decline in jw numbers.

oldskool

I'm really starting to think they choose low traffic times and places on purpose so they don't have to talk.

Low traffic areas is the only places I've ever seen them.

Again, JWs are now conditioned into having low activity/contact field service. Raising the bar isn't in the flocks agenda. This is probably to the chagrin to HQ but that's the defining culture, at least in the west.

23

Reaction of the JW believers to the 2016 RC

by EyesOpenHeartBroken in

there are threads on the content of the rc and reaction of awake jws here, but how are indoctrinated jws reacting to the convention.

my family and i have not attended yet, but i am bracing myself for it.

anybody talking in jw circles?

oldskool

I'm sure it will go down as the greatest convention ever until next year.

70

Witness Carts - A Vehicle for Significant Decline

by slimboyfat in

i was stalking to a jw today about her recent experience on the carts and with being a jw generally.

until this conversation i considered the carts as just an ineffective preaching method and a harmless waste of time.

but now i wonder if the effect of the carts might be to produce noticeable decline in jw numbers.

oldskool

f you can keep calm and and keep a sense of humour about it you can have some fun. I had a positive experience in Edinburgh a while ago I shared on another thread where I am sure I really made a JW guy think seriously about things. Even after he worked out I was DFd he shook hands and we left as friends. Those are the best ones.

Yea, the neutral territory of public space means the pronouncement to "get off my property" or conversely "We'll be going now" do not apply. JWs literally have to run away and leave the cart, or sit there and take the abuse because they asked for it.

9

What strange things are taught at MTS?

by Londo111 in

a few years before i woke up, a young man in my congregation went to ministerial training school.

he began to speak about some of the things he had learned.

one of the things mentioned was that of incubus or succubus, that is to say, sex demons.

oldskool

The sex demon urban legend rings a bell.

I know a few that attended probably circa 2002/03. They never spoke of much, two things I remember:

One specifically said the experience show him how much he truly loved the Governing Body, I believe one of them taught for a portion of it.
The "miracle" of 1935, i.e. the appearance of the Jonadab class also labeled the other sheep, great crowd and those with an earthly hope. Again the GB member present impressed on them how miraculous the beginnings of the WTS org were. Of course, there was no miracle and was instead was the outcome of Rutherford's failed predictions.

Personally, the experience both had gave me strong pause in the JW org. I imagined both students would get some sort of interesting/exciting assignment at the front lines of JWdom. Instead both were assigned to the same congregation about an hour from their old one, with only slightly less or similar attendance numbers.

The assignment didn't line up with the image that there was exciting work going on all throughout the org. A decade and a half later I know the one guy is still pioneering at that hall, part time job, ect. What for??????