speaking to my brother; 30 years in jw doctrine, it became heated.
you guys know the converstaion so i will not bore you with mine and his.
he said i had an ax to grind with the wts and i was biased; yaddy yaddy yaddy.
I have a question for all you 
unkers out there. I was dunked in 1965. As I recall the brother who did the dunking said to me, near my ear, "I baptise you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit." Then he dunked me. How is it done now? Do the questions asked at the Baptism talk cover it or does the dunker still say the Father, Son, Holy Spirit thing at the pool?
Rosco, is that what you mean or was it the questions asked after the "talk" which Big Tex provided?
Loris
i'm writing a book and i need your input.
i'm trying to determin if more people are born into the borg or are converted.
and if they are converted what religion they were before they became a witness.. so please answer these questions.. 1. were you raised a witness?.
1. Were you raised a witness? No
If no
2. What religion if any were your before you became a witness? We went to whatever church was closest to the house. We moved a lot so I got aquainted with several. The most I knew about religion when I was a kid was I was Christian but I was not Catholic.
3. Did you know the person that taught studied with you? Family member or Friend. No
4. Were you a initially contacted by the door to door ministry? If not what other means. As a child I was given the book "Children" by a neighbor. At the age of 16 I was contacted in the door to door work.
5. Were you df'd before you started questioning the BORG? No
6. What was the big thing that made you take the first step into questioning the Borg and start you on your way out? Being ordered to stop speaking to others about the child abuse issue. My response to the PO was, " So much for freedom of speech."
Thanks for asking, Loris
many christians i've met like to pick and choose what parts of the bible they want to live by and ignore others.
for example, i have a friend that goes to church every sunday, reads the bible to her daughter, and prays daily.
at the same time, she lives with a man that she never plans on marrying.
I copied the following from another forum
What about all those other doctrines? For example, Jesus made many plain statements that indicate that we do not just disappear from existence forever when we die; that one day all who ever lived will have to give an account for what they did and how they lived their lives. That being said, does it really matter whether or not the soul is immortal? If we could know for sure that it was or wasn't, would it change anything about the way we live our lives?
What about the Trinity doctrine? Jesus told the apostles to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Did he mean the Trinity? If so, which version of the doctrine did he mean? If we could know with absolute certainly whether a particular version of it were true or not, would we still get baptized? Would we still teach disciples to obey Jesus commands, especially the one about loving one another as Jesus loved us?
I found it to be helpful with my spiritual growth.
In the end we all pick and choose the parts of the Bible that works for us as individuals. This forum is great because we get to share "our" part with others without condemnation (well for the most part) If we love one another and live in peace then we are good to go
Loris
i was told about this site from family members that have all survived/overcome being jw's.
i must admit it is wonderful and so disturbing at the same time, to read all of these stories.
it's amazing what a religion/cult can do to you, first by embracing you then completely consuming you.
.
a mouse whispered in my ear today that the may km was around... sincerely,.
district overbeer of the "faithless and indiscrete slave" class
there's an article in the new km called "make room for it".
the aricle espouses the benefits of remaining single in order to spend more time in the ministry, serve at bethel, etc.
the title though is more of a demand.
Why does the borg constantly push people to spend more time in service? What's the payoff for them?
They have no clue. It's sort of like the study done on the behavior of sheep. If you run a herd of sheep thru a narrow opening where only one sheep at a time can pass, then put up an obstacle that the sheep must jump over. All the sheep jump over the obstacle one after the other. If the obstacle is removed in the middle of the sheep line they continue to jump at the spot where the obstacle used to be. The sheep in the back of the line have no clue that there is nothing to jump over.
The GB and present prisoners of the Watchtower Prison have been jumping the same hoops for so many years they know no other way. The hoops are gone but they still jump and push others to jump. Sad.
Loris
i have no trouble with transfusions to save peoples lives but recently we went to a wedding and one of my little lads had been up to the buffet and come back with a plate of food, on it was little circles of black pudding (blood sausage), he didnt know what it was (i have never brought it home so he hasnt seen it before) but just threw it on his plate anyway.
while he wasnt looking i took it off and threw it away!
couldnt bring myself to let him eat it and i still couldnt eat it because of the background in jws.
after having looked at this site for almost a year and recently made small replies to threads, i should introduce myself to you all and tell you how i got here:.
i was raised as a jw.
it didn't take long to figure out that to have more independence at home, i'd better be a stand-out jw.
theocracy hypocrisy weekly # 2 -- buying and selling with babylon
merriam-webster dictionary's definition of "theocracy": government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided .
why does the watchtower society even need to buy buildings from babylon?
Bravo UD
Excellent post.
In my locale it was ok to purchase things from thrift stores owned by the Salvation Army and others because it was as explained to me simply a financial transaction. Money for goods. The argument was that there are retail stores owned by religious organizations. It is not advertised as such so a buyer could buy from them unknowingly. But those stores are not the only ones in town. If a person truely believed that any money exchanged was contributing to Babylon they would be inclined to avoid them altogether.
You made a very good argument exposing the duplicity of the WT position. They change the rules whenever it suits them.
Loris
poor, poor lafcadio-what do you do when you don't want to be.
"look," he said, "i don't want to shoot any lions, and i .
certainly don't want to eat up any of you hunters.