Posts by The Song Remains The Same

24

My first time at a KH - especially to hear the New Light!!!

i am not jw, and never intend to be one either.

however, having read a lot about the july 15 wt, i decided to go to the kh today and check out how the new light was going to be delivered.

i thought i would share my observations;.

The Song Remains The Same

Oops, sorry Quiet One. Your reply has some odd scroll bar so I missed it fully.

I'll take a peek (at both) and see if I can understand it

Appreciate the feedback from all... it was quite an experience today I must admit!!!

24

My first time at a KH - especially to hear the New Light!!!

by The Song Remains The Same in

i am not jw, and never intend to be one either.

however, having read a lot about the july 15 wt, i decided to go to the kh today and check out how the new light was going to be delivered.

i thought i would share my observations;.

The Song Remains The Same

Thanks for the comments. As I said, this is the first time I've been up-close and personal with a KH and so many JWs... so I for sure am no expert in the ways of the meetings, etc.

@Calebs - thanks for the encouragement. At some points I couldn't stop smiling at the audacity of the guy speaking and how he lightly threw out old light. It felt like I could have been at a comedy club.

@Apog - you are right. It certainly did not feel like the time when anyone was going to show up and say 'hang on a minute...' . Also, you are saying that the dual-fulfillment is nothing new, so what else have they got on that list (still) where we are riding a parallel universe to olden-days? Really curious to know these if you can list a couple up for me? My point on the UN would be is that a prophecy or just a refinement of one with a name attached - either way it seemed quite 'prophetic'?

The Song

24

My first time at a KH - especially to hear the New Light!!!

by The Song Remains The Same in

i am not jw, and never intend to be one either.

however, having read a lot about the july 15 wt, i decided to go to the kh today and check out how the new light was going to be delivered.

i thought i would share my observations;.

The Song Remains The Same

I am not JW, and never intend to be one either. However, having read a lot about the July 15 WT, I decided to go to the KH today and check out how the New Light was going to be delivered. I thought I would share my observations;

- Lots of very polite people, well dressed. Happy to come and talk to you (although I was with wife and kids and wife is a want-to-be-JW so goes there regularly).

- When one lady said it was nice for me to be there, I couldn't help but tell her I was only there to hear how the New Light is explained, as to me it seemed a major change in teaching. She shrugged and said 'to them' this doesn't matter, the core and fundamentals are still the same and 'we don't see it as a change'. I asked her if she knew much about her organisation, and she said she did. The conversation was starting to get a little interesting, but the service started and we had to break it up.

Part 1 -

- all about 'poisonous odourless gas' and that gas being Satan really. The other side was clearly the 100% of God. This stuck me very much as the black/white stance that I've read about.

- to be honest, I thought we were going to hear about Syria when the gas comment started...

- I was a bit shocked to hear the comment that non-believers were 'dark mentally' - I think there was a verse read in this part that I missed in my notes. We had a story about a Muslim who said he wouldn't ever convert, as if he was an idiot. I guess Muslims think the same about JWs?

- A part about Satan backing Big Business. Made it seem like all marketing is done by Satan to trick everyone.

- Rom 1 26-27 (I think) was read out. This was a huge leap into sexual immorality from the Big Business comment. No idea where that came from, but to suddenly go on about deviant sexual practices (with kids there too) was a big shocker for me.

- There were 5 points made. Each one made sense on how to live a good life. However, the inference was that it's impossible UNLESS you are in the WT and obeying Jehovah. I found this a bit of a leap too.

Part 2 - this is what I had showed up for, the Main Event…

- Opened with Song 128 'Scene of the World is Changing' or something. I thought that was funny.

- It was all about clarification, nothing really changing, new timing that was all… That was stressed over and over.

- Then we got into reading. It was painful. A guy would read it, then the guy leading the service would ask people to answer the questions. It was very like a 4th grade lesson I thought - read the text, answer the questions based on the text only. The guy up front would give a 'well done' to the person reading pretty much parrot fashion from the mag. I'm sure they were really happy to get the answer 'right'. It was all verbatim form the mag, questions too.

- The person leading kept mentioning that this was all very simple. Even so simple that you should read the Simplified WT on the web. He did. Before he even tried the complicated Study version. I found this hilarious. But it did come across as 'look, this is easy, so simple, that you can't possibly question it, no need to do that, go read the dummy version'… oh and forget everything we said before it doesn't matter now.

- Also, there were lots of shrugs and 'well that was what we used to believe, we don't now…' and a bit of reference to the longer-time JWs as to why all the old stuff was explained in the mag.

- (It seemed) A lot of time was spent on the United Nations being explicitly the thing to look out for. It will attack all the other religions. This sounded like a prediction to me…

- More emphasis on 'fine adjustments' and nothing major…

- The guy ultimately blew everything away, all the complexity of the past, by just saying it was all clear and now everything is in the future, so forget what you used to believe, 1918, 1919 no worries!

- I didn't get the bit about in the (not started) GT Jesus would separate the Sheep and Goats, i.e. in the future. Was he doing that already in the false-start GT? Confused.

When it was over I had a sense of, wow all these people really believe this stuff, without question. That is scary.

Anyway, here are my questions;

1. Is there any other example of a prophecy with 'dual fulfilment'? This whole episode is based on paragraph 4 of page 4 in Jul WT - "a part of Jesus' prophecy about the last days has two fulfillments". Nobody seemed phased by this aspect, yet is is the cornerstone of the whole New Light. I argued with the wife to find me one, either happened, in progress, or to happen. Maybe you guys know of one?

2. By being explicit about the UN attacking everyone else, is that a prediction or prophecy, or neither? I don't think the UN is mentioned in the bible as such, so this is a bold statement. It sounded like a prediction to me... like saying the USA will win the soccer world cup...

3. They make a lot of Jesus judging the sheep and goats. However, is it correct that if a JC (3 men) judge you a naughty person and DF you, then they are preceding the Jesus judgement, or they don't count and only Jesus can judge? I thought that if you're not a JW at the Big A, then you are toast (I know they don't say it that way but we all know the implications made) - hence the fuss of being DF'd, along with the shunning of course.

Now I need to decide if I go back for round two next week. To be honest it was a drag. The songs were terrible. It was warm and stuffy. Everyone was so eager to please the guy up front with the text-book answer. Not one of the almost 100 people seemed to have any worry what they were being told, or any question on the fundamental premise (see question 1).

The Song

184

A picture so outrageous, it deserves its own thread...

by cedars in

i mean no disrespect to sd-7 or his fine thread on which this picture has already featured, but i think it is just so ridiculous that it deserves a thread all of its own.. lurkers and apologists, this is how your precious organization views itself.... behold the madness.... .

.

cedars.

The Song Remains The Same

I might have missed it, but was the (B)Org Chart discussed at any meetings already?

My wife indicated that yesterday they were due to look at this in some way. She only mentioned it to me last minute, despite me telling her I would love to go for that meeting and see how on earth they explain away the points that people have made about it on here

Song

4

If you DF/DA are you then apostate? Just checking...

by The Song Remains The Same in

i listened to the 'human apostate' speech and have to say i was pretty appalled by the methods used to draw their conclusions on how to spot & act towards apostates.

i've never been in a kh and so never had the pleasure of hearing anything like that.

what got me was the way they defined apostates as basically "people who don't agree with us", and then went on to put apostates in a class along with people who have a "deadly contagious disease", and people who are "mentally ill" - thus (loosely) implying that mental illness is contagious, so stay away our you will catch it!

The Song Remains The Same

Thanks for the reply stillin. I am trying to get as well informed as I can be as my wife ultimately wants to be baptized and I am trying really hard to deal with it since I am convinced the WT is a very clever, emotionally damaging, high-control pyramid scheme. I have read a lot and learned a lot from JWN and jwfacts, plus others.

4

If you DF/DA are you then apostate? Just checking...

by The Song Remains The Same in

i listened to the 'human apostate' speech and have to say i was pretty appalled by the methods used to draw their conclusions on how to spot & act towards apostates.

i've never been in a kh and so never had the pleasure of hearing anything like that.

what got me was the way they defined apostates as basically "people who don't agree with us", and then went on to put apostates in a class along with people who have a "deadly contagious disease", and people who are "mentally ill" - thus (loosely) implying that mental illness is contagious, so stay away our you will catch it!

The Song Remains The Same

I listened to the 'Human Apostate' speech and have to say I was pretty appalled by the methods used to draw their conclusions on how to spot & act towards apostates. I've never been in a KH and so never had the pleasure of hearing anything like that. What got me was the way they defined apostates as basically "people who don't agree with us", and then went on to put apostates in a class along with people who have a "deadly contagious disease", and people who are "mentally ill" - thus (loosely) implying that mental illness is contagious, so stay away our you will catch it! I speculate that this kind of association works on lesser educated individuals, and on those who have a real fear of not breaking the WT rules. Very clever IMO. So the question I have is this; if you DA or are DF'd then are you officially an Apostate? I know the flock book defines it as standing away and other things, but it seems to me that the message a DA or DF sends is one of 'not agreeing with us' (either by choice or by a 3 elder decision). And are you apostate by simply saying that you would never join the WT in the first place? Song

18

How many hours per week did you study/devote to the WT?

by The Song Remains The Same in

how many hours did you put in on average every week in doing wt activities?.

this would include:-.

i) the meetings and travelling time to/from,.

The Song Remains The Same

Thanks for all the replies. It seems to be a bit painful to recall for some... I guess it confirms my main fear that the number of hours could go UP from what it is now, seems like 20 is 'floor' taking into account the to/from and prep work. Song

18

How many hours per week did you study/devote to the WT?

by The Song Remains The Same in

how many hours did you put in on average every week in doing wt activities?.

this would include:-.

i) the meetings and travelling time to/from,.

The Song Remains The Same

Cofty - in a week!!!??? You are kidding?

That is a full time job. Did you do anything else?

The Song (staring into the abyss)

18

How many hours per week did you study/devote to the WT?

by The Song Remains The Same in

how many hours did you put in on average every week in doing wt activities?.

this would include:-.

i) the meetings and travelling time to/from,.

The Song Remains The Same

Thanks guys. I'm worried coz already it is at 12 hours a week. And those 12 hours come first, ahead of other daily things.

18

How many hours per week did you study/devote to the WT?

by The Song Remains The Same in

how many hours did you put in on average every week in doing wt activities?.

this would include:-.

i) the meetings and travelling time to/from,.

The Song Remains The Same

How many hours did you put in on average every week in doing WT activities?

This would include:-

i) the meetings and travelling time to/from,

ii) studying with someone (as a study yourself, or in recruitment efforts),

iii) studying by yourself (or with family) and going through the WT to be up and ready for the next meeting(s),

iv) other, but regular weekly, activity.

Looking at the avg # pubs and the hours spent in field for 2012, that gives around 4.5 hours each per week on that activity alone. Then there must be the meetings x 2 maybe 6 hours total? And then more time in self study...

I'm trying to get handle on how much time the WT sucks out of members as the first, and main, priority above everything else as I'm struggling with how much time my wife is putting into this...

Thanks for helping me out.

The Song