.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/xjwrg3/permalink/10152034643265835/?qa_ref=qd.
lamallcool - Did he tell you to consider getting a university degree ?
Did he tell you to go to community college and get some real employable
skills to take care of yourself and contibute to your community and your family ?
I am thinking he did not.
had a conversation with an aspiring elder.
he said the end must be close because people are so discouraged that the organization can't last more than 10 years.
this is before we received the please come to the international convention letter.
Kneehigh - hahaha may be you just woke up and noticed the weirdos
who were always there. The last talk I went to was an embarassment to
listen to delivered by a complete bumpkin who praised himself and said
people used to make fun of him in High School and now look at me , he said.
I was looking and it was not a pretty picture.
had a conversation with an aspiring elder.
he said the end must be close because people are so discouraged that the organization can't last more than 10 years.
this is before we received the please come to the international convention letter.
DJS - I think you summed it up beautifully - love the "mini me rules"
Cults do eat their own, and the Borg keeps the pressure on and divides
brother against brother, in so many ways, from sexism, to classes of people,
to the depressing ritual of passing around wine and bread and guilting people
into being afaid to partake, as if they are unworthy, is sadistic.
it's been a few years since the organization ended the book study arrangement in private homes.. gone was the last opportunity to have tea and biscuits and a natter with the friends afterwards.. do you think people regret losing the book study?
for some, it may have been the only time they were able to get some "associaton".
.
I remember how avidly and intensely I studied the Babylon Book
and now I realize how ironic it is that the statements about "the waters
drying up" was to shortly be "people abandoning the Churches of Christendom."
And then the nations were supposed to turn on orgainzed religion.
Instead what happened was the local churches in my home town over thirty years,
all increased into huge churches, while the Kingdom Halls were being sold off
and numbers of witnesses dwindled as the Evangelicals built a huge thousand seat
church and the Catholic church was ever packed it spite of its troubles. While the
Kingdom Hall had a handful of hangers on, 15 or 16 people for a Sunday Watchtower.
seeds of doubt.
what was it about the jw religion that first gave you serious doubts as to its truthiness?.
for me it occurred in late 1984 when we were studying the brochure the divine name that will endure forever which had been released at the summer convention that year.
Treatment of disfellowshipped people. I remember a very young girl weeping
in the Kingdom Hall bathroom, she and her little girl were neing shunned.
It was very disturbing and I found no justification for her public humiliation,
and the cold thoughtless "brothers and sisters" who turned ther back on her.
for the new members and guests viewing posts, can we summarise the basics of disclosed watchtower scandals that have happened and come to light.for the sake of the reader, can we have a brief summary and a secular source for the information, or a direct quote from the literature please.. .
owning a military company.. the watchtower accepted, owned and managed the largest shares in a military navy company.
funded by naval investment, the company was building diesel engines for navy pilotless drones and other vehicles.
Here is: the Watchtower owns, 50% of this company that makes
engines for miltary strike drones, weaponized.
These are qoutes directly
from the official government report.
"The engine will be of all ceramic construction to permit
high temperature operation,without cooling, to effectively
burn heavy oil. This new motor will be developed for
powering the U.S. Navy's new Smart War-fighter Array
of Re-configurable Modules (SWARM)
low cost unmanned aerial vehicle."And how many men here, as youths,
went to JAIL for "taking a stand for WT doctine"
and refusing military service
,even refusing to be medics or non-combatants ?
Raise of hands ?
"Rand Cam Engine Corp. is a privately held company
whose stock is reportedly owned 50% by
The Watchtower Society, a religious organization"
.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/xjwrg3/permalink/10152034643265835/?qa_ref=qd.
14 years, taken to an assembly by a school friends mother, she gave me
a bathing suit of hers, and told me to get baptized. My parents knew nothing
about this and in todays world I think she would have been guilty of some sort
of crime. I was too afraid to tell my parents and feared that the WT now pretty
much owned me and had life and death powers over me. When I talk to kids of
that age today I realize how much of a child and magical thinker, I was.
it took the better part of 15 years but i believe we have finally arrived at that point where there is now a critical mass of former witnesses.. thousands of exjws come together on forums like this one and discuss findings, ideas and research.
there have been documentaries and even a movie made about life in the jehovah's witnesses.. ex jw websites, online forums, and discussion boards that set the wheels in motion in the early to late 90s have matured into powerful tools of social change within the organization.. the lies and false doctines taught by the watchtower bible & tract society are plainly accessible with just a cursory google search.. active elders leak boe letters, often weeks before they hit the notice board in a kingdom hall.. social media has allowed exjws to connect with those still in as well as those who have left.. the society have no game plan because information is power and they have lost the information war.
all they can do is cry wolf and warn the rank and file not to listen to apostates.. i don't know what future the society will face in the next ten years, but changing world events, social trends, and reactionary change from headquarters based on their own faulty biblical chronology has got them cornered like a raging animal.. it doesn't look good..
Hard core dubs are what I would like to see free.
seeds of doubt.
what was it about the jw religion that first gave you serious doubts as to its truthiness?.
for me it occurred in late 1984 when we were studying the brochure the divine name that will endure forever which had been released at the summer convention that year.
The "straw that broke the camel's back" was the realization the WT
was capable of lying and deception. Believe it or not I trusted them.
I had seen things all along that disturbed me, notably when at some book
study the Matthew 25 scripture where Jesus is saying " I was naked and you
clothes me, hungry and you fed , me ...." etc and the book was saying this
was applying to the other sheeps treatment of the faithful and discreet slave class,
and I said out loud "No its not." But I didn't leave at that point, I should have.
It was only after I was diagnosed with cancer and told I did not have a good
chance of survival, that I really examined things. Then one day a Watchtower
referred to a book/pamphlet, Millions Now Living Will Never Die, BUT they re-named
it Millions Now Living May Never Die, and I said "That's not the title." They were
trying to deceive people into thinking they did not set dates or timelines. I went to
the local library and they did an international inter-library search for this book.
It coast me $20 through Library Services, and they found the pamphlet, photcopied
it and gave it to me. It was entitled Millions Now Living Will Never Die, just as I had
remembered it. That was the beginning of the end for me.
The next great breakthrough was realizing there were not two classes,
or a large group who wasn't supposed to have communion with Jesus Christ,
and just sit there while the wine and bread is passed around.
I learned of the concept of the Body of Christ, that everyone was equal in this Body.
history of women in christianity.
https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/women-in-the-early-church/.
"the involvement of women continued in the first few decades of the church,.
History of Women in Christianity
https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/women-in-the-early-church/
"The involvement of women continued in the first few decades of the church,
attested by both biblical and extra-biblical sources. A number of women served as
leaders of the house churches that sprang up in the cities of the Roman Empire
—the list includes Priscilla, Chloe, Lydia, Apphia, Nympha, the mother of John Mark,
and possibly the “elect lady” of John’s second epistle.
In the 2nd century, Clement of Alexandria wrote that the apostles were accompanied
on their missionary journeys by women who were not marriage partners,
but colleagues, “that they might be their fellowministers in dealing with housewives.
It was through them that the Lord’s teaching penetrated also the women’s quarters
without any scandal being aroused.
We also know the directions about women Deacons
which are given by the Paul in his letter to Timothy."

