Bugbear

Joined

• started 18 topics
• posted 503 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by Bugbear

• 
  18

  Cart observations from Cardiff South Wales

  by freddo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was in a suburb of cardiff, capital of wales where it was difficult to get near to my customer's offices to deliver and install what i do.

  i had my car parked about a hundred yards away and had to make several trips with goods and tools past a local jw trolley cart.

  as i was working i didn't stop but observed much of the time from an upper floor office window.. in the hour or so i was there, on a warm sunny (for late february) lunchtime/early afternoon - right by a bus stop and several local shops, cafes and banks with plenty of people about - not one person stopped at the cart.. the two women at the cart i guess were about 50 and 75 respectively - pleasant looking motherly/grandmotherly types.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Bugbear

  Good job freddo, I wish I had the same courage as you. And if I remember you phrase, I´ll try to use as well
• 
  40

  What would you say?

  by Freedom rocks in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if you had 2 minutes with an old witness friend or with a family member to convince them the 'truth' is a lie and the gb isnt being directed by god what would you say to get their attention that might make them question their beliefs?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Bugbear

  Freedom Rocks

  I think you will have a problem. You see JW,s are not living in a normal world. They are living in a bisectional world called cognitive dissonance. They perfectly know that that the world and humans are much older than the Bible tells them. They know that the various Bible interpretations always have failed…. And yet they prefer to live in the insane culture that tells them they have the truth. It’s giving them comfort, they always have something they can blame it on. Richard Dawkins calls it the placebo pills. A placebo pills actually has no effect but gives the user some comfort and he thinks it is working. Therefore he or she will continue to pay a lot of money just to get his pills every day. And he or she is also always willing to consult a homeopathic doctor and pay every month the costs. This until they discover that they have paid al lot of money for nothing. When that happened even your JW friend might be willing to listen to your arguments. In our world we cannot with solid arguments persuade a person that don’t accept them because we are the wrong source of information…
• 
  14

  It saddens me to know that marriages break up because of religion and the blame, whose fault it is ?

  by smiddy3 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a jehovah`s witness couple who have been married for many years and some with children of various ages and have been serving in their congregation meeting attendance, fs and bible studies with their children for many years .. and then one of them begins to have doubts about what they are being taught and what they actually are supposed to believe now that some changes have been made with nu-lite.. the doubts grow and then the the use of the internet to investigate further some of the claims of the gb/wt religion .. with the wealth of information available on the www it now becomes impossible to continue to be an active member of the jehovah`s witness religion without being an utter hypocrite .

  you no longer believe them anymore that they alone are gods chosen people in this day.. however your spouse does not see things the way you do not at all and after many months of arguments bickering threats the ultimatum is something like if you don`t believe what i believe that you have left jehovah we can`t live together anymore ,i want a divorce unless you come to your senses.. who is the one here breaking up the marriage ?.

  isn`t it in the majority of cases the jw who ends the marriage ?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Bugbear

  Smiddy

  I have been married to the same wife for more than 40 years. I left the JW:s almost 15 years ago (faded) and haven´t attend any meetings in 10 years. All my children (6) have been grown up in the “truth”!??....and all of them are today successfully out. Still my wife today 70 years of age is attending the meetings and going to the service. Of course there is a tension, when she brings up all the “spiritual” good she got at the meeting, nobody of us comments on that. She has probably not realized that it is not spiritual healthy for her to bring up the subject God/Bible/the truth and religion.

  As far as I remember maybe 30 years ago, the only reason for divorce was if you risky your spiritual health it was OK to separate. Also if your partner had commit fornication you could have your divorce. Not even violence, drug addiction, alcoholism, in your home was an excuse for divorce. I think the same rules still remain. But I am sure that the elders in your cong. recommend that no spiritual talk should take place if they recognize you as an apostate. They know that your partner could lose her faith if you show her all the evidence for TTATT. They don´t want to lose another potential money contributor to the Soc….
• 
  37

  Thank you, George Couch!

  by charonsdog in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i just thought i'd share this story from my past.. back in the 80s i remember the big problem seemed to be about music.

  (today, it's tight pants, i guess) the organization, society, whatever they were calling themselves, were always going on about the music we listened to.

  disco, heavy metal, the whole "backwards masking" thing...couldn't escape hearing or reading about how satan was corrupting us unless we were listening to kingdom melodies or elevator music.. i was assigned to wtf in the late 80s and remember one of the articles stating that "young people know that the rhythm of rock music is the rhythm of sexual intercourse.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Bugbear

  Was Michael Jackson on the lists to?
• 
  21

  Are you affected by Seasonal Affective Disorder?

  by compound complex in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as i intimate in the words below, i like autumn and winter, but there's a downward spiral in my emotions.

  i'm in control, yet, .

  rain, at long last, has touched both our land and my soul.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Bugbear

  CC

  Rain??!! That would be wonderful….Here in Sweden we have almost total darkness, and snowstorm….Light will not be seen from 16:00 till 09:00… No wonder that lamps, D,C vitamin are sold in large quantities. But of course many of us escape to Thailand, The Canaries and other more sunny places. Myself,,, I am hiding in a bears nest, waiting to come out till the end of April….No depression symptom yet???!!!
• 
  26

  What Is The Major Reason Jehovah’s Witnesses Exist?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i understand that cults and religious groups will always exist.

  but why do jehovah’s witnesses continue as a religion that people will join?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Bugbear

  I joined 45 years ago. I was just over 20 and newly divorced. Then I met I girl that I fell in love with. It turned out that she was a JW. She said that she never ever would consider marriage with a non JW man. I was very ignorant when It comes to religion (in fact an atheist). Therefore an easy target when she asked me to take on a Bible study. Of course I accepted and the love bombing from the congregation, and a promise that she would marry me if I become a “brother”……

  When you are week (newly divorced), and in love, you do a lot of stupid things. In her congregation (she is still in) I haven´t seen more than 1 newcomers in 10 years. Obviously the few newcomers that come from outside are mentally very unstable. Many of them (according to my wife) suffer from various diagnoses. And her cong. has in 15 years been reduced from 60 members to around 25. I think this is the situation over all in Sweden. All the enthusiasm we had back in 75 is gone. When I meet an old friend (JW.s) they all look very gloomy and sad. They never mention anything about “the future paradise”. They never ever take up their Bibles and try to show be some scripture as they used to do. In fact they look scared to even mention that they once had a hope…… Pitifully, they now realize that there is no hope, no comfort, and that all their good friends all have been buried and forgotten.
• 
  23

  The Perfect Storm in 2018?

  by Wild_Thing in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have been sadly watching as the number of jws in other countries are decreasing (for the most part), while the numbers in the us are strangely increasing.

  while i question the organization's self reporting numbers, i think 2018 may be the year for another mass us exodus.

  leah remini's show will be focusing on jws in her show on a&e.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Bugbear

  I think the number of registered JW,s will decrease slowly. The org. will keep even people that haven’t been active for years registered as “members”. (Once a Mormon – always a Mormon). This partly depending on the fact that certain states give subsidies to religious organization depending on the numbers of members they can show. But the wallet will talk….
• 
  21

  "This Assembly Hall in Denmark was designed and built by the Watchtower Bible and Track Society" by NoOneSpecial JW Published on 30 Sep 2017

  by oppostate in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  this assembly hall in denmark was designed and built by the watchtower bible and track society before drones and google earth were around.

  the governing body did not count on this being exposed from the arial view.

  according to the 1993 year book on denmark assembly hall.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Bugbear

  gorby

  the increase of the property value....
• 
  35

  The wife told me I think too much...

  by James Mixon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  please tell me how not to think too much and get a good night sleep.

  when i was a jw i didn't think too much because i knew everything, but now my mind works overtime.

  how in the hell can i shut it down and stop the anxiety???

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Bugbear

  James Mixon and neat blue dog..and others,

  It looks like many of us are in the 70 ties. My story is very similar to many of yours. I was an elder, with big doubt’s. But I kept on holding speeches, sheep herding , smiling, doing the service. Studding with my family..this until I totally mentally collapsed. Doctor told me I must “no man can under a longer time keep up with so many missions” it will end in a catastrophe! So I resigned “temporarily” , as un elder, and started to fade…. Missed meetings, slowed down service hours, all with regard to my situation. But my doubts grow. The more time you release for your own thinking, the more you realize the impossibility of soc. teaching. During a period of five years I got 4 hart strokes. This definitively stopped me attending any meeting at all. What a relief. No more high blood pressure..

  Today I spend 2 hours daily obligatory walking in e nearby forests. I count my eagles, my foxes, my moose. Then home, and then spend 2 hours of reading from historical literature, that I can obtain from a nearby university. I have spent 3 years of university studies within the fields of History of Ideas and science. Philosophy and history, exactly the subjects that the socs. thinks no witness should pay any attention to….(I do understand that know)

  But I got my peace in mind, no more hart attacks, no more depression, no mental collaps……but I also got free from a mind prison that unfortunately my wife still is in…

  
  

  and I don´t need no sleeping pills anylonger
• 
  33

  Have you ever thought what the primary teaching of Jehovah’s Witnesses is?

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  it is not “preach the good news” nor is it “believe in jesus and get saved” neither is it “believe in the governing body of jehovah’s witnesses and get saved” although in practice they do teach this.

  no, everything they claim depends on a belief in another doctrine which logic decrees cannot be found in the bible.

  the leadership of jehovah’s witnesses put absolute faith in a protestant doctrine which is given a latin name, sola scriptura, meaning “by scripture alone”.. good evidence of the governing body believing in the primacy of this doctrine was when being questioned by the australian royal commission, they resorted to the ‘authority’ of scripture to defend their stance on having “two witnesses” when they are investigating child abuse cases.throughout the hearing they paraded their naive trust in the bible as the highest possible authority proudly ignoring the fact that most people regard it as having been superseded by modern scientific evaluations of what is true.. .

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Bugbear

  Half Banana

  It looks like you are still looking into some comfort in believing that there are some thoughts in what is said in the “Bible”…Science has shown that there is not. It is only a collection of old ancient “iron age” stories that all of them contradict each other of them. I suggest that you on YouTube, look up Bart Ehrman, to find what the really tell us. Bart is a distinguish Professor I the old Greek language and he knows what is said in all these Papyrus and Pergamum scriptures are. Sorry to say that none of them seems to bee accurate.