Posts by gingerbread

51

Advise needed please

by EdenOne in

dear forumites, i need your advise please.. i would like to write a letter to the world headquarters of the jehovah's witnesses regarding a subject that i've published an article recently.

i would like to draw the attention of the gb to said article, which i will send in print form (therefore, no attention would be drawn to the website where it was published).. naturally, because i am a jehovah's witness in good standing in the congregation and what i'll be discussing in my letter will be a dissenting view from the official doctrine/practice, i want to protect my identity and i don't want to be harassed by elders or subjected to any sort of judicial investigation.

nevertheless, i would be very interested in reading their response (if any) to my letter.. how can i do that?

gingerbread

Eden -

In your letter you make a great argument however it won't change a thing. You've spent a lot of time and energy explaining why disfellowshipping and the practice of shunning are wrong. However....

if you forward this in printed form to the service desk, it will be ignored. The only return letter you will receive will tell you to talk to YOUR elders in YOUR congregation. And, to NOT talk about this matter with anyone else.

They wholeheartedly agree with Acts 5:29 - inasmuch as they don't have to listen to the publishers.

Remember:

They allowed men, women and children to be imprisoned and murdered (for the sake of the 'faith') in Germany, Malawi, Korea, Russia, Poland, Chili, Canada, Greece, United States and more. They don't care that a disfellowshipping busts up a family. Period.

ginger

58

Home schooled witness kids

by stillin in

sorry if i'm stepping on any toes here, but i haven't seen anything positive about home-schooling...at all.

the notion is that parents are taking advantage of the formative years to inculcate more worthwhile values while protecting their kids from worldly influences.

they end up with lazy, socially inept, illiterate duds who haven't a clue.

gingerbread

When the shooting happened last December at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, we heard that four local JW families decided to pull their children from public school.

All these kids (9 total) haven't reached their teens. A couple of the older ones were baptized this past summer. One of the mothers, whom I've known since childhood, dropped out of high school in her sophomore year (she somehow became pregnant). She now pioneers. Her Ministerial Servant husband works for a small company owned by two JW elders. Four of the twelve children now being home schooled are theirs.

Now there's a disaster waiting to happen.

Putting the kingdom first while praying for the end of time.

ginger

58

Home schooled witness kids

by stillin in

sorry if i'm stepping on any toes here, but i haven't seen anything positive about home-schooling...at all.

the notion is that parents are taking advantage of the formative years to inculcate more worthwhile values while protecting their kids from worldly influences.

they end up with lazy, socially inept, illiterate duds who haven't a clue.

gingerbread

It's a tragedy - in most instances.

I've seen a few families work that home school situation very well. Part of their success was that the parents were balanced - and didn't turn their children into laborers in the 'family business' or spending their days in a field service car group. Home schooling often means getting the homework done asap - without any outside interaction or criticism.

It can border on child abuse.

It's control.

Home schooling amongst JW's has been very popular in our area for 25 years. These young adults consistently have a HUGE fear of the outside world, have a hard time leaving the nest to become independent and often marry other JW's homeschoolers. They tend to look (constantly) to their parents for approval and recognition.

A network of home school systems are run by individual Jehovah's Witnesses. The New System School is popular in our area. In my opinion, the "graduates" of this so-called School has a failure rate of over 80%. The poor kids don't have a chance...

ginger

64

Is JWN an unforgiving place

by usualusername in

jw
friends

over many years i have looked at jwn.

in fact barely a day goes by without my fix.. .

it is a site of contradictions.. .

gingerbread

When I first visited, I was very nervous. This was really BAD....

But I quickly realized that I could peer into the lives and experiences of others who were struggling with facing the truth about being a Jehovah's Witness - just like me. It became liberating in so many ways.

JWN is not unforgiving - some of the posters are.

That's like saying a Kingdom Hall is judgemental......

ginger

17

jw.org

by d in

what do you people here on the forum think of the new jw website.

i find it strange how when i was jw they made a big deal out of the internet saying it was bad.but now they new this new website and they keep promoting on their literature..

gingerbread

It's part of the new re-branding efforts of Jehovah's Witnesses - happy videos, helpful articles, new construction project updates, news on how the Org. is combating persecution through the court systems, how the Org. is saving the lives of other JW's during disasters, the latest languages that are being translated into magazines & books, 'advertising' videos of the new Governing Body...

JW.org is really designed for the active Jehovah's Witness....not for the general public.

ginger

113

How to accept the actions of the Old Testament God

by confusedandalone in

jw
friends

how are we able to do this.. this is not an attempt to stir the pot or cause confusion but i was sitting here thinking of all the really horrid things that the old testament god did to people.

when i was a jw i just purposely put it to the back of my mind always trying to make an excuse.

when i was in field service and someone would ask me about it i would just change the subject.. however i have been reading alot of info lately here about how wonderful jesus is and how he is a direct representation of what god the father would be.

gingerbread

Remember that these books and laws were written by people of a different time. Many of the horrific customs are still in place in the Middle East.

Actually the ancient 'Isrealites' enacted and lived by these codes of conduct - including mass murder, slavery, discrimination, body mutilation, etc. - and used the 'god' as their authority.

If a group of leaders can use a divine authority to justify their actions, anything is possible.

ginger

80

Is the WTS backing away from "Bible Tall Tales" ?

by Simon in

when i was a kid, it seemed like not a meeting went by when you didn't hear about jonah or sampson and other tall tales from the bible.. now though, they seem to have been sidelined.

i guess the rest of the world caught on to the fact that these stories couldn't possibly be true and were so far fetched (yeah, even by bible standards) that they are just treated as 'stories' like aesop's fables.

saying that you believe in them as genuine accounts just makes you look like a crazy zealot.. but the wts is different.

gingerbread

@ tootired - and there is no solid archelogical evidence of a massive, nomadic group of people living/existing on the Sinai Peninsula during that time either!

Weird Bible stories:

The people of Noah's time were so bad and evil that the solution to this problem was to cause a flood and save all the ...... animals??

Lot's daughters get the old fella drunk and then get busy with him....two nights in a row. And he has no memory of it? He is SO drunk...but somehow his wedding tackle rises to the occasion.....???

ginger

22

A Challenge for Jehovahs Witness Apologists : Identify What Jesus Christ Has Accomplished In His Nearly Complete 100 Year Reign From 1914

by smiddy in

i for one would be very interested , if you can quantify what his acheivements have been , these past almost 100 years .. incidental acheivements could do for a start ,.

followed by more meaningfull acheivements ,.

then to top it off , with his major acheivements that he can be accredited with these past 99 years of his kingdom rule ,.

gingerbread

He has refined the leadership of the earthly part of his heavenly government so well that it now only takes 8 men to control the lives of 7.5 million willing, subservient, unquestioning people.

It's amazing that they can completely control a person's time, employment, education, association, family life, entertainment, finances, love life, relationships, retirement, medical choices...

Also - somehow Jesus has turned these guys into outstanding financial speculators, real estate developers and legal wiz kids - with only high school diplomas and years of volunteer experience on their 'resume'.

ginger

20

I think they're trying to shake off the Watchtower...

by gingerbread in

jw
friends

we had another couple over this weekend.

after taking a reasonable hike in the woods, we came back to the house, made a fire and began to talk a bit.

these folks are long time friends of ours and are (like us) slowly easing out of the kingdom hall.

gingerbread

I've always thought it suspect when the Org. began printing two Watchtower editions - public & study.

I can forsee that the private congregation study edition of the magazine will be printed by each publisher/family or viewed with a pad or tablet. In 'our' congregation, if anyone is in need of a mag at the meeting, they are given a copy - not a mag.

The financial burden of printing mags will be transfered to each congregation. In countries where finances are limited, we will be called upon to donate even more to the 'world wide work' to assist those brothers.

ginger

20

I think they're trying to shake off the Watchtower...

by gingerbread in

jw
friends

we had another couple over this weekend.

after taking a reasonable hike in the woods, we came back to the house, made a fire and began to talk a bit.

these folks are long time friends of ours and are (like us) slowly easing out of the kingdom hall.

gingerbread

We had another couple over this weekend. After taking a reasonable hike in the woods, we came back to the house, made a fire and began to talk a bit. These folks are long time friends of ours and are (like us) slowly easing out of the Kingdom Hall. They live an hour from us and we don't ever talk specific 'apostate' stuff - we all still struggle with the crazy JW distrust....dancing around topics specific to the 'truth'.

An interesting thought was raised by the hubby. He says that the Org. seems to be distancing itself from it's Watchtower past - erasing C.T. Russell from the Faithful Slave 'class', putting up banners on the buildings in New York with JW.org (instead of Watchtower), encouraging the use of pads and tablets at the meetings, the new brochure campaign where the placements will be counted, etc.

Are these 'changes' being put in motion to ease into the eventual end of magazine publication? Will the printeries change to brochures and leaflets exclusively? Is the kiosk and cart program in place to just direct interested ones to JW.org? Is the history associated with the WTB&T Society and it's early publications too damaging for the 21st century Org?

ginger