I was never pushy. I detest pushy tactics being used on me, and I could never bring myself to treat others that way. I never had much trouble avoiding 'worldy' friendships. I just generally stayed away from non-JWs because I knew that if I became acquainted with anyone, the relationship would have to include my preaching at/to them at some point. As a result, I was in a constant state of guilt for not aggressively pursuing the WT mission. Guilt and depression for not measuring up--that about sums up my 27-year WT experience.
truman
JoinedPosts by truman
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13
Were YOU a Pushy JW?
by minimus ini hated jws that were pushy.
some tried to impose their "bible trained consciences" on everyone.
or the pushy ones would go from house to house and argue with the householder!
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Jephthah - From the NSC channel
by MoneurMallard ini'm trying to embed the video here using the html editor, not much luck.
it shows up in the preview pane, but when i "submit" it disappears..... .
anyway the url to the jephthah video is..... .
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truman
I have to say, that I am a little shocked. And this after being away from the WTS for a good 10 years. I watched this video, thinking that in the end, Jephthah's daughter would not be killed. That is the way JWs tell the story. She is not literally sacrificed, but sacrifices her virginity, becomes the Isrealite version of a nun or something. In fact, in the My Book of Bible Stories, it says "Jephthah's daughter and she spends the rest of her life serving Jehovah at his tabernacle. Four days out of every year the women of Isreal go to visit her there, and they have a happy time together. The people love Jephthah's daughter because she is such a good servant of Jehovah" (story 53).
In the Insight book, they compare Jephthah's daughter to Samuel, whose mother sent him to serve at the tabernacle, and they say that "Jephthah undoubtedly [there's their favorite weasel word] accompanied his presentation of her with an animal burnt offering" (Vol. 2, 28). In my 27 years as a JW, I always thought she was not literally sacrificed, yet I just read the NWT at Judges 11:38-40, where it says that after she had gone away for 2 months to weep over her virginity, "She made her return to her father, after which he carried out his vow which he had made toward her"--the vow about making the first one out of his house a burnt offering to repay Jehovah for a military victory. That seems pretty clearly not to say that she went to Shiloh to serve for many years. And the verse about the Isrealite women coming to commiserate with her "have a happy time together" does not mention her being there at all.
This is a very disturbing contradiction to me, and I do not really make the veracity of the Bible a major issue in my life anymore.
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The Watchtower's Delicate Mastery Of Deception
by metatron inyou gotta admire the skill manifest in the watchtower's deception skills.
don't kid yourself, even the gestapo, in internal documents found after the war, found the magazines to be well crafted in the field of propaganda.. the latest deceptions?
well, there's the nov. awake magazine with its cover asking, "is belief in a creator reasonable".
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truman
I think I may have found the passage in the book (on google books) metatron referenced. Very interesting.
The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933 -- 1945
by John S. Conway
(pages 196-7)
But the Nazi persecution of the Witnesses was not simply due to their refusal to cooperate loyally with the Nazi state, to join any Nazi organizations, or even their refusal to be conscripted for military service. Rather it stemmed from the Nazi belief that this tiny sect presented a real political danger. In the first place, the international connections of the Witnesses and their reliance on Old Testament apocalyptic prophecies were together taken as 'proof' of their being disciples of the Jew Karl Marx and 'pacemakers of world Bolshevism'. But even more significantly, in the Witnesses' ‘petit bourgeois’ milieu, their messianic message, their fanaticism and readiness to make ultimate sacrifices, and their skillful manipulation of propaganda, the Nazis believed they saw a new form of their own Party organization. Since the Nazis could not credit the reality of the Witnesses ’ so-called theological beliefs, they believe that these must be only a subtle disguise for much more dangerous political purposes, designed to repeat their own astonishing success in achieving total control of the country within a matter of years.
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College
by Rocky_Girl inthere have been several education topics this week.
it seems we have quite a few people on here who are going to school as non-traditional students.
i am starting my 5th year of a 5 year program in a private liberal arts college in mt.
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truman
Talesin, thanks also to you! You have a reply.
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College
by Rocky_Girl inthere have been several education topics this week.
it seems we have quite a few people on here who are going to school as non-traditional students.
i am starting my 5th year of a 5 year program in a private liberal arts college in mt.
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truman
I will be completing my Master's Degree in English (Literature and Rhetoric & Composition) in about another year. I am 57 and in the 8th year of my college career. Next spring, I will be teaching a developmental composition course (a writing class for students whose entrance test scores fell short of qualifying for freshman comp) at the university where I am studying.
Sometimes, I actually cannot believe it--that after 27 years of my adult life spent in the intellectual straitjacket of JW world, I am going to be teaching at a university. I congratulate all of us ex-JWs who have gone out and done what they said we shouldn't do: get an education and work to improve ourselves, whether in career opportunities or simply sheer personal fulfillment.
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THE NINE INCH NAILS...
by dontplaceliterature in...have a lot of appropriate lyrics given my current situation.
i coincidentally have been listening to a lot of their tracks lately, and started noticing that i identified with a lot of them.
"every day is exactly the same".
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truman
Here's an NIN song that really speaks to the JW experience for me:
The Hand That Feeds
You're keeping in step,
And in line.
Got your chin held high,
And and you feel just fine.
Cause you do,
What you're told.
But inside your heart,
It is black,
And it's hollow,
And it's cold.
Just how deep do you believe,
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you wanna change it?
What if this whole crusade's
A charade.
And behind it all,
There's a price to be paid.
For the blood,
Which we dine.
Justified in the name,
Of the Holy and the Divine.
Just how deep do you believe,
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew untill it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you wanna change it?
So naive,
I keep holding onto what I wanna believe.
I can see,
But I keep holding on,
And on,
And on,
And on.
Will you bite the hand that feeds you?
Will you stay down on your knees?
Will you bite the hand that feeds you?
Will you stay down on your knees?
Will you bite the hand that feeds you?
Will you stay down on your knees?
Will you bite the hand that feeds you?
Will you stay down on your knees?
Will you bite the hand that feeds you?
Will you stay down on your knees?
Will you bite the hand that feeds you?
Will you stay down on your knees?
Will you bite the hand that feeds you?
Will you stay down on your knees?
Will you bite the hand that feeds you?
Will you stay down on your knees? -
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Creepiest Illustration of Eve and the Serpent
by Marvin Shilmer increepiest illustration of eve and the serpent .
today i uploaded a new short article showing what has to be the creepiest illustration ever by watchtower of the serpent talking to eve in eden.
my article is titled creepiest illustration of eve and the serpent and is available at: http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com/2011/08/creepiest-illustration-of-eve-and.html.
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truman
Funny that the angel is wearing clothes, something Adam and Eve only felt necessary after they had sinned.
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More hypocrisy (surprised?) Oct 1 2011 Public Watchtower
by wannabefree inyou could also hold back from scrutinizing.
your beliefs out of fear that doing so would.
display a lack of faith.
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truman
I don't often think of scriptures, but when I do, this one comes to mind.
Prov. 20:23
"Two sorts of weights are something detestable to Jehovah, and a cheating set of weights is not good."
Set the WT's advice to push past fear and sunk costs to examine your religion for lies about god next to their usual insistance on fear and loathing of anyone in their midst who dares to ask a real question about JW religion, and what you have is a double standard so flamboyant that is actually becomes a mechanism for their mind control. If you can reconcile this hypocrisy in your mind, the rest won't be much of a problem.
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If you have sex with your spouse after you find out he/she cheated on you, you cannot divorce them.
by Chemical Emotions inin the key to family happiness book, the wbts says that if you have sex with your marriage mate after they cheat on you, and you knew it, you cannot divorce them.. i was disgusted by learning that.
i only discovered this recently, but i am very angry.
what if your husand tells you that he'll keep screwing other women if you don't have sex with him?
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truman
Yes, the sex-equals-forfeit of the injured mate’s ‘right’ to end the marriage is definitely the WT rule. It is not necessary for the scenario to be one of tacit blackmail (give me sex or I will cheat again) for the innocent mate to be screwed (in more ways than one) by this policy, however.
Wouldn’t it often be the case that in such a damaged marriage, the innocent mate (for argument’s sake, assume it is the wife) is emotionally distraught, perhaps deeply worried about the future welfare of her very young children and her ability to care for them on her own, should she divorce.
Because the family lives a WT style life, there is no money for the guilty mate (in this case, the husband) to move out, so they continue in the same home, trying to move their lives forward on a suddenly crumbling foundation. She does not want to break up her family, and her husband is begging for forgiveness. Yet, she is so hurt, and unsure that she can re-enter into the marriage with any sense of connection.
It all hinges on a single sex act, since she is a JW. She cannot try and see if things can be repaired between them, while reserving the right to end the relationship, if they do not. She must decide to commit before she knows her own feelings or is sure of his sincerity.
If she does what everyone is encouraging her to do and takes him back, even once, she is committed. If she later realizes that the marriage should have ended with the infidelity, then she becomes the home-wrecker, the guilty party, the one the elders condemn.
It’s a shameful intrusion of corporate policy into one of the most painful and delicate marital situations that a couple can go through.
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Made a humorous subreddit on Reddit /r/jwproblems
by bottleofwater inwww.reddit.com/r/jwproblems.
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truman
An upvote for you. It reads like the JW version of r/firstworldproblems.