Posts by Seeker4

38

Calling all ELDERS

by The Oracle in

jw
friends

if you are an elder who frequents this site, please let me know.. i am trying to connect (completely anonymously - your privacy is assured) with as many elders as i can.

i know that there are hundreds of elders in the same position as myself (have had our awakening and have come to realize that "the truth" is a sham).. i encourage you to continue to serve as an elder and for you to work together with other like minded elders as a collective force for true good.

there is much we can do from the inside to help the cause.. there are thousands and indeed millions of kind and honest hearted people whose only crime is that they have allowed themselves to be deceived and are still active jws.

Seeker4

Oracle,

You're new here, and some might be suspicious of your request.

If I can be of some help in this, from either side, I'd be willing to do that. Elders who might want to work with Oracle but who would like to remain anonymous for a while, I would be glad to work as an intermeidary. They tossed my ass out a couple of years ago, so there's nothing the WTS can do to me at this point. I was a MS and elder for 20 years or so, though it's been a while, so I've got some background.

Anyway, anyone interested in Oracle's offer, but suspicious or hesitant, feel free to PM me and I'll see what this is all about.

This could be quite interesting for all concerned, and I'd love to help.

S4

42

Official JW forum right?!

by TLK in

jw
friends

i came here expecting to find a range of jw's and check out their beliefs and thinking.

however, what i find is largely disaffected or ex jw's and atheists etc.

with hindsight i am not that surprised either!

Seeker4

TLK,

Glad you're here, but this can be a rough site for a born again Christian. We've had a few Christians who can more than hold their own - jgnat and littletoe especially, whom I love like kin - but most of 'em take quite an ass-kicking here.

But please stay. A sense of humor, which you seem to have, is a really big help!

S4

42

Official JW forum right?!

by TLK in

jw
friends

i came here expecting to find a range of jw's and check out their beliefs and thinking.

however, what i find is largely disaffected or ex jw's and atheists etc.

with hindsight i am not that surprised either!

Seeker4

Welcome TLK!

There's quite a mix of people on here, including quite a few active JWs. It's just that they've kind of seen through to what the Witnesses really are, and you might say they are a bit disillusioned!

There are only about 6.5 million active Witnesses, and of those about 2.5 million are the disappointed ones who post or lurk on here! They have maybe 16 million that attend their Memorial celebration each year, but most of those will never, ever be active JWs.

Yeah, the WTS strongly discourages Internet activity among members, especially any kind of a discussion board. The free and open exchange and debate of ideas is a huge problem for the Witness leadership. Can you imagine why??!!

Stay a while and have some fun. We're a pretty cool and diverse group.

S4

11

Why do Elders pay me a visit only when the C.O. and D.O. are in town?

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

i have been inactive in service for about 4 years and attend only 3 meetings per month.

the elders pretty much leave me alone.

visit the congregation,they somehow have a little more interest in me .. who brings up my name for the visit?

Seeker4

Are you really from Iceland? I think it's one of the first countries to consistently show negative growth for some time now.

Were you kidding around, or are you a genuine Icelander? If so, fill us in on what you see happening there.

Also, there are supposed to be more babes per square foot in Iceland than anywhere else on the globe. What's your take?

S4

24

Dinosaurs! How were they explained (away)?

by DeusMauzzim in

jw
friends

dinosaurs are a bit of an embarrassment for the watchtower.

what did you hear about them?.

- were they a 'creative' experiment by god?.

Seeker4

Dinosaurs are a huge embarrassment to the WTS and all the rest of the fundies.

I did hear it said that they were all herbivores, and that they were created to fertilize the earth and supply us with petroleum products!

What nonsense. Taking a look at them helped me to leave. When you realize that something like 98% of all species that have ever lived went extinct before man came on the scene, Genesis becomes a joke.

S4

44

Your favorite bits of JW folklore

by B_Deserter in

we all hear stories an experiences that happened to a "friend of a friend," and the witnesses are no exception.

they even have their own urban legends.

here are my favorites, and please post yours as well.. 1. watchtower theologists according to one of the old guys i used to pioneer with, there is a super-scary-secret organization of apostates called "watchtower theology.

Seeker4

I remember most of these. There was a lot of speculation among the brothers about whether Jehovah would allow men into space. That all ended in 1969!!!

There is one story heard over and over as a JW, in various forms.

It involved a guy who had training with attack dogs in the military, and he was now with the JWs and going house to house. At one door the householder told the brothers to get the hell off his doorstep or he'd sic his dog on them. This ex-military guy tell the householder, "We're going to leave, but don't let that dog go. If you do, I'll kill it." Well, the householder lets the dog attack, and this ex-military JW using his training to strike and kill the dog.

I heard that several times. Like all the rest of these, I'm sure it was urban legend, but did anyone else ever hear it?

S4

13

Anyone d'ad d'fd and not being shunned?

by dobbie in

i go on a site over here for parents, and in their faith and religion section there are regular posts on jws (where i do my bit of apostasysing lol).

anyway some of them who go on there are being shunned like moi, whereas there are a few whose parents regularly see them and their grandkids, one even says all the jws speak to her even though she was d'fd!

whilst i am pleased for them that they don't have to cope with their parents cutting them and their kiddies out, it makes me even more annoyed at the extremes you get.

Seeker4

My ex-wife, daughter, son-in-law and mother all speak to me. I'm never around other JWs to speak of.

Last weekend I ran into two old JW friends that I hadn't seen in quite a while, and they both talked to me, were very friendly, etc.

Others I see will sometimes smile, sometimes speak to me and often shun me.

Odd little religion, eh?

S4

21

Serena Williams - Renewed JW activity & Boyfriends?

by Seeker4 in

this is a paragraph from a ny times article today on tennis champion serena williams.

her comment is in regard to how she dealt with the murder of her older sister a couple of years ago.. "i tried to develop a better relationship with god," williams, who was raised a jehovah's witness, told me over the phone.

"you have a strong solid foundation, the bible says, you won't crack, but the man who built his house in the sand, his house went down spiritually.

Seeker4

This is a paragraph from a NY Times article today on tennis champion Serena Williams. Her comment is in regard to how she dealt with the murder of her older sister a couple of years ago.

"I tried to develop a better relationship with God," Williams, who was raised a Jehovah's Witness, told me over the phone. "You have a strong solid foundation, the Bible says, you won't crack, but the man who built his house in the sand, his house went down spiritually. I have a really strong foundation. That's how I was raised." Williams was never a lapsed Jehovah's Witness — even after she was famous, she claimed she still occasionally proselytized door to door. But as she tried to pull herself together in Florida, she renewed her commitment to her religion, attending Jehovah's Witness meetings three times a week.

But also in the article it talks about her traveling with her boyfriend all around the country, staying together, etc. It also mentions several ex-boyfriends.

I have a feeling that with all the travel and living in various places around the world, you can probably get away with doing a lot of things that a JW under close scrutiny in one congregation would be disfellowshipped for.

S4

32

Although you may not practise any religion anymore do you......

by JH in

although you may not practise any religion anymore do you still defend what the bible says to your best, when someone of another faith says something you know is completely false...

Seeker4

I no longer have any belief that the Bible is anything but history, myth, and the ramblings of some madmen or hallucinators.

The cool thing about being an atheist now is being able to explain stuff to people about the Bible without trying to prove one thing or another. I did a ton of this when the Passion of Christ film came out. There would be four or five people in the office throwing questions at me for a half hour at a time! It was fun.

S4

111

I REALLY DON'T CARE...............................

by Warlock in

i believe in god, but i also realize he may not exist.. if you don't believe in god, i really don't care, i'm just curious.. i don't have this need to start threads like "why you must believe in god", or other such nonsense, but some of you still have this "control" issue that you thought you left in the org.

it seems like you must still try to control what others think.

"think like me, or you are an idiot.

Seeker4

HS (I think) wrote: "An example. Clinical measurements, illustrative and repeatable have been made of sections of the brain of persons undergoing a Christian 'experience' in which Christ is said to 'come into' a persons heart. The same measurements were made of Voodo priests and India Fakirs undergoing their own religious experiences. The measurements of brain patterns are identical, the crossection illustration of the brain in action are identical, the conclusions are identical.

The religious experience is chemical and internal, not external."

Exactly, as Abaddon's last post on NDEs shows.

Warlock wrote about Abaddon: "As for the rest of your gibberish, as you describe me, so you are decribing yourself. You cannot turn it on me, because I know your style. You don't fool me one bit. You may be able to pull your shit on some people, but I'm not one of them. You are a very sick person, desperately in need of a mental heath professional."

Whoa! Ease up, bud! This is an interesting thread you started here. You should try to enjoy it a little more!

S4