Posts by TerryWalstrom

31

The Dub At My Door (is back for Return Visit)

by TerryWalstrom in

the dub at my door ___________________i’d rather have a root canal than agree to a sit down with an active jehovah’s witness.i’m an ex-jw.

for good reason.

fool me once....i’m an activist and an author of a book or two exposing and vilifying the destructive jw cult organization.yet i agreed.

TerryWalstrom

If this Dub was any other run-of-the-mill brain-dead robot I would have given him my Apostate speech:

"Let me just stop you there before you get too deep into your message, my friend.
In the interests of full disclosure, I used to do exactly what you're doing today. I was one of Jehovah's Witnesses back in the 60's and 70's. I even spent time in Federal Prison over the Conscientious Objector Christian "neutrality" principle which was in effect back then. I was a full-time Pioneer as well. So I am quite familiar with what you are offering me."
I stop at that point and see if they are curious or can't wait to get away from door.

If they are curious I add a little bit more about the run up to 1975 and how the Earth was going to be too overpopulated and people would be starving by 1975 and how it was the End of 6,000 years of human history and Bible studies were only to last a maximum of 6 mos. because time was so short. And how NOTHING happened and the Watchtower and GB said NOTHING for almost 2 years while we all waited for the other shoe to drop.

I never get very far into details before they are inching toward the exit :)

One Dub said rather haughtily, "Yeah, some of the weaker Brothers and Sisters were only hanging around to save their own ass--they didn't love Jehovah."

I replied, "I think that's called Salvation, isn't it? That's the central message of Christianity, saving your ass. As far as not loving Jehovah, I think you're missing the point. All of the predictions ever made by the Watchtower have been made IN THE NAME of JEHOVAH and they turned out to be a lie. Why would an intelligent person want to stick around for more and more lies? Every false prophecy is sold as Jehovah's loving provision. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice---hell no!"

31

The Dub At My Door (is back for Return Visit)

by TerryWalstrom in

the dub at my door ___________________i’d rather have a root canal than agree to a sit down with an active jehovah’s witness.i’m an ex-jw.

for good reason.

fool me once....i’m an activist and an author of a book or two exposing and vilifying the destructive jw cult organization.yet i agreed.

TerryWalstrom

IF the Bible is a collection of hearsay, the core basis of Jehovah's Witnesses is opinion
.
1. The Faithful and Discreet Slave is consequently granting itself power based on human opinion (self-deception).

2. The reason constant doctrinal changes occur and prophetic dates fail is human opinion is fallible no matter how sincerely believed.

3. Only JW's old enough to have lived through dramatic failures and dogma changes fully appreciate the plausibility of this statement.

In view of the above, debate with JW's is two-mindsets clashing in two separate magisteria or jurisdictions.
This being:

A. Ex-JW who has seen the human error and investigated evidence which debunked claims of divine authority. A so-called "Apostate" is NOT really a renegade against God.

B. The convinced (i.e.faithful and loyal) JW imagines himself to be representing an honest organization.

For person A, person B is deluded although honest. For person B, person A is Evil and fighting against a truly necessary work.

How then can any agreement be possible since their separate realities clash?

In my opinion, the core issue is AUTHORITY and consequently AUTHORIZATION.

1. The Bible, if really the Word of God, must contain necessary Truth and somewhere there is a pure understanding to be found and cherished and promoted.

2. The Bible, if only a human document, may contain historical wisdom and ethical ideas, but cannot purport to be anything other than a competing philosophy in the marketplace of ideas. It stands or falls on a case by case application.

MY TASK is to lay out those two alternatives and require evidence to support all claims.

A TRUE Bible (Divinely Authored) would never fail any test and would stand up against all competing systems.
A corrupt human document BIBLE would break down historically, and logically in terms of internal consistency with reality, plus supernatural knowledge (data) would jump out of the text beyond Bronze Age wisdom.

All the above is sort of my road map toward a possibility of testing foundational arguments. An intellectually honest person would agree in advance to accept where the evidence landed regardless of one's prior position or belief.

31

The Dub At My Door (is back for Return Visit)

by TerryWalstrom in

the dub at my door ___________________i’d rather have a root canal than agree to a sit down with an active jehovah’s witness.i’m an ex-jw.

for good reason.

fool me once....i’m an activist and an author of a book or two exposing and vilifying the destructive jw cult organization.yet i agreed.

TerryWalstrom

I appreciate all the supportive comments very much.
I remember at the Dallas Market Hall assembly of 1966 outside in the parking lot a group of protesters with signs were being quarantined by attendants.

I clearly recall my thoughts in reaction.
I was walking over to the protesters to query them about what gripes they had and I was surprised when an attendant jumped in front of me blocking the way.
"Hold it Brother--these are the EVIL SLAVE CLASS!"
Ooohhhhh. Really? That sounded spooky and devilish.
"I just want to ask some questions."
"No Brother, their father is Satan and he is the Father of lies."

Ooohhhh. Really?

I'm amazed still how absurdly melodramatic this scenario was and how transparently superstitious the attendant was. BUT IT WORKED!

The primitive tactics of debunkers, ex-Dubs, whistleblowers and outright Apostates back in the 50's and 60's was too confrontational and unfounded in reality. It was more like an Anti-war protest than humanitarian. Too bad, too. Who knows what I might have learned?

30 Years a Watchtower Slave and Visions of Glory was as close as you could get to something tangible by way of exposing JW's.
Those protest books took, in my opinion, the wrong path because they sounded like sour grapes and insincere. One day you believed THIS and the next day you suddenly see through EVERYTHING? Nah. Not buying it.

I plan to spend very little time on "Disproving" the authenticity of the Bible. He'll come back and have to admit to "no originals" and I'll pivot to another matter. All his research and apologetic material won't come in handy because we shall be on a completely OTHER topic.

20

Another Hollywood Memory

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

another hollywood memory____________________“thanks for the pink chablis, marta.

who’s that singing?

sounds familiar.”.

TerryWalstrom

Thanks, Pete.
I think I shouldn't have sat around after writing about her listening to Michael Franks music for the last twenty-four hours :)

I honestly hardly knew her in the grand scheme of things. She was just so special it pisses me off how she died so young. DEATH is the enemy nobody conquers except delusionally by "belief."

I'm getting older than old. At Seventy, I'm in the killing fields and in the crosshairs.
Everything suddenly has "final value". It's a going-out-of-business sale on APPRECIATION.

I need to pace myself...

31

The Dub At My Door (is back for Return Visit)

by TerryWalstrom in

the dub at my door ___________________i’d rather have a root canal than agree to a sit down with an active jehovah’s witness.i’m an ex-jw.

for good reason.

fool me once....i’m an activist and an author of a book or two exposing and vilifying the destructive jw cult organization.yet i agreed.

TerryWalstrom

If Earl comes across negatively in any way it is my fault for not writing accurately.
He's a special man in many ways. Personable and real. I feel the humanity in him. I can't and we can't judge him as a person for a good reason: he's trying to do the right thing. He could have haughtily cut it off right away and packed up and left dismissing me. He's hanging in there FOR ME. So, I'm doing the same, hanging in FOR HIM.

Hell, in another life, he could be me.
An honest, upstanding JW is like a kid on his way home from school who steps in shit. When he gets home, he tracks it in with him. Once the shoes are removed and the smell is aired out--he's still just a nice kid ...who happened to track shit wherever he went :)

31

The Dub At My Door (is back for Return Visit)

by TerryWalstrom in

the dub at my door ___________________i’d rather have a root canal than agree to a sit down with an active jehovah’s witness.i’m an ex-jw.

for good reason.

fool me once....i’m an activist and an author of a book or two exposing and vilifying the destructive jw cult organization.yet i agreed.

TerryWalstrom

Introducing the Elephant to the room: Bible authenticity, I feel is the single most

important topic for a JW and an Ex-JW to debate. The B.S. fights over the Trinity and false date-setting are interpretive arguments which go nowhere and change no minds.

IF the Bible is viewed dispassionately as a work of men, the foundation of ALL Watchtower claims is wrecked. Their fraud is perpetrated by ASSUMING the Bible is perfect as a source, and only later does the victim discover the bait and switch over to Governing Body nonsense. The Bible is only a ruse. If you remove the ruse you pull the rug out from under "The Faithful and Discreet Slave" shoehorn doctrine.

The Watchtower devotes no amount of HONEST assessment to the originality of text--it is all exactly identical to Evangelical Conservative Christian Seminaries!
The Bible MUST BE infallible and inerrant for hardcore authoritarians to wield their weapon of influence. Both say: "GOD SPEAKS THROUGH THIS, i.e. "us."

31

The Dub At My Door (is back for Return Visit)

by TerryWalstrom in

the dub at my door ___________________i’d rather have a root canal than agree to a sit down with an active jehovah’s witness.i’m an ex-jw.

for good reason.

fool me once....i’m an activist and an author of a book or two exposing and vilifying the destructive jw cult organization.yet i agreed.

TerryWalstrom

I've had years and years and years to prepare for this--and besides--I knew what I was walking into and Earl did not. So the element of surprise is Yuge factor in getting things to go my way.
Witnessing is baking cookies compared to Anti-Witnessing.
Let's face it--the majority of people walking around have no clue who Jehovah's Witnesses really are and THAT right there is a big indictment of the 100+ years of toil.

JW's are like the drunk guy I watched in a Jazz nightclub all those years ago in Manhattan Beach. He'd go from lady to lady with the same sloppy routine. He'd walk up and say something and try to sit down next to her. He'd say something suggestive. (Judging from the reaction.) Then, rejected, he'd get up and go to the next one.
I thought to myself: "What a loser."
I was wrong. He was working the numbers.
Eventually, after a long evening of continuous turn-downs--our guy got a big smile and a welcomed response. The two left together.
That's Witnessing door to door in a nutshell.

Cheerful Earl thought he'd scored and I was on my period.

31

The Dub At My Door (is back for Return Visit)

by TerryWalstrom in

the dub at my door ___________________i’d rather have a root canal than agree to a sit down with an active jehovah’s witness.i’m an ex-jw.

for good reason.

fool me once....i’m an activist and an author of a book or two exposing and vilifying the destructive jw cult organization.yet i agreed.

TerryWalstrom

Religious people almost never think of what they are doing as Superstition. It shocks them to reframe context almost without exception.
The stages of mankind began with superstitious fears and wildly imaginative guesses about how natural phenomena might connect with a controlling domain overseen by emotional beings unseen. The second stage was a more ritualistic and codified superstition: Religion which is distinguished by middlemen, retailers we call priests. They claim authorization like agents or lawyers and must be paid to intercede.
Next came Philosophers asking, "What do we know and how do we know it?" This brought Aristotle and Logic. The last stage has been testing ideas and falsifying theories (Scientific Method) and the resulting technology has been extraordinarily successful at quantifying specifics.

Religion is uncomfortable quantifying. The more I ask the Dub to be specific, the less able GB interpretation will answer the questions. At least, that's my plan thus far.

20

Another Hollywood Memory

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

another hollywood memory____________________“thanks for the pink chablis, marta.

who’s that singing?

sounds familiar.”.

TerryWalstrom

I've made myself really sad the last 24 hrs after having written this. The FINALITY of death is insuperable.
Why didn't I keep up with Marta and find out how she was doing? I guess my own life was just too much in my face. The excuse doesn't change the fact she is out of reach.

31

The Dub At My Door (is back for Return Visit)

by TerryWalstrom in

the dub at my door ___________________i’d rather have a root canal than agree to a sit down with an active jehovah’s witness.i’m an ex-jw.

for good reason.

fool me once....i’m an activist and an author of a book or two exposing and vilifying the destructive jw cult organization.yet i agreed.

TerryWalstrom

Strategy and Tactics have to be a consideration for me--or else--why bother with this?
I'm a boxing fan. I need to be the aggressor and keep the other fellow defending.
Sooner or later, there is a cumulative effect.

What I told the Dub was true--I was shocked to discover there are no original manuscripts! How I went 20 years as a JW and never figure that out is a mystery to me. I think the impact on the Dub will have some effect. How much? Dunno.
____

PS there are readers who despise long posts automatically