Posts by kaik

25

Craziest demon/magic/supernatural stories you heard when you were a JW

by EndofMysteries in

share yours, i'll start if off, i have a few i heard from the platform or from other jw's.

one from the platform, a witch was studying with jw's, and she had a relationship with demons/spirits.

when she was studying they turned on her and threatened her if she didn't stop.

kaik

I heard so many stories that I would not even know where to start. I posted some of them here. I have several favorites from 1980's:

Once I heard that elders met for personal bible study and seated up against wall with a bookshelve. During the prayer, the bookshelve felt on them, scared them sh.tless. When my elder talked about it as an assault of evil demons preventing them from bible studies, I replayed if they made sure that the shelve was secured properly. My elder did not like the remark.
Elder told as on the meeting when he studies bible, his kid's soccer ball started to bounce and annoys him during preparation. Demon wanted to play a soccer and take his valuable time from studies. He said that he would call Jehovah name and this would stop. The guy was always crazy.
Pioneer woman used to see demons faces everywhere, on wood carving, on painting, stains, fabrics, and upholstery. She once recieved a gobelin painting/picture with abstract motif. She believed that Satan was looking at her from that picture and attempted to burn it, but they picture was jumping from the fire and refused to be burned. She had to hold it with poker and insisted that she heard a shrieking sound from the fireplace.

18

JW.org statistics and the decline in first world countries.

by OneEyedJoe in

cross posting from another thread.

it seems that i might not be the only nerd here that's interested in statistics like this so maybe it deserves it's own topic.. so i was playing around with google.com/trends with some jw related search terms.

i found the results a bit surprising, and certainly interesting, so i figured i'd share.. first off, the link to what i tried.. one of the most surprising things that stood out was the regional interest.

kaik

OldHippie. I was born country just south of Poland and seen how JW and other religious organizations had declined over 25 years. Even Poland is less religious than used to be and generation ago. There were three decennial census since 1989 then when religious affiliation is tracked down and overall population had not changed a bit in the term of demographic size. Aging in Eastern Europe is fact that started in 1960's or 1970s (depending on country) and has not much to do with emigration than internal social policies. After 1968 Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, more people left than did 2004 when CZ and Slovakia became a member of EU. In 1990-1994 JWs peaked in numbers and been receding ever since. Even in Poland and Romania. Again, I do not see your point. In 1991 a convention in Prague attracted 100,000 people. You will never make the same number today. Eastern block is getting more affluent and some countries like Slovenia, Estonia, and Czech Republic are wealthier than some older EU members. The increased wealth and general liberal social politics had undermined JW growth.

Again I am standing that increased industrialization, social and cultural liberalism, and higher mobility and communication ate JW growth in middle income countries and they are lost to WT the same way as is in established industrial states.

35

Autumn...

by new hope and happiness in

jw
friends

i've just glanced out my window and i saw the most picturesque countryside.

i do believe we're entering autumn.

so summer has had its day and like an old friend slipped away and we moves on...how do you feel about entering autumn?.

kaik

FHN, I heard that weather in Michigan is colder than in Czech Republic from people who immigrate there. Even winter is more wet and humid than in Central Europe. I am used to cold weather, but we do have long bloom season in the southern Moravia where my grandparents grew mellons, wine, almond trees, peaches, and appricots. I dont mind snow in the mountains and I used to ski alot. But winter should not last more than three months. I prefer Mediterranean weather like in Italy or Croatia, with a lot of sun, dry summer, moist spring and short, snowy winter. I love magnolias, and honeysuckle, but my ultimate favorite are camellias. I have dozen of them, but squirrells love to eat their buds, so it is hard to have their flowers for show. One of my camellia is about to bloom and will bloom through fall till first frost.

18

JW.org statistics and the decline in first world countries.

by OneEyedJoe in

cross posting from another thread.

it seems that i might not be the only nerd here that's interested in statistics like this so maybe it deserves it's own topic.. so i was playing around with google.com/trends with some jw related search terms.

i found the results a bit surprising, and certainly interesting, so i figured i'd share.. first off, the link to what i tried.. one of the most surprising things that stood out was the regional interest.

kaik

One reason behind decline of JW in industrial world is demographic. Wealthy countries had aged and there is less possible chance for middle age person to join a religious organization. JWs had tremendous growth there in postwar era coinciding with babyboom that lasted till 1960's. Once this wave aged in, there is very low probability to recruit new members outside your family. Second issue is increasing communication and education reach, which makes the indoctrination too difficult. And lastly, industrial countries do not base their national and personal identity on religion anymore with an exception of Bible Belt and couple extremes. In 3rd world countries, religion makes a significant part of personal identity, even more than professional life. Countries in Africa are heaven for various extremists basing their crazy ideology on religion. This would not work anymore anywhere in 1st and 2nd world (newly industrialized countries), as majority people would reject such nonsense.

Similar trends are happening in countries which are middle income like Poland, Czech Republic, where religion is not playing anymore any role. 25 years ago, JW experienced significant growth, but this had leveled off and went to slow decline. As more countries wil get prosperous, JW and other crazy groups will experience decline. Even Mormons, 7DA did not experienced extensive growth as they had hoped 25 years ago and most of them had abandoned Eastern Europe all together. The biggest exporter of various crazy religion in past 200 years is USA where most of the new religions materialized in modern era. However, outside they cannot make much difference on the world stage except in deeply impoverished countries.

35

Autumn...

by new hope and happiness in

jw
friends

i've just glanced out my window and i saw the most picturesque countryside.

i do believe we're entering autumn.

so summer has had its day and like an old friend slipped away and we moves on...how do you feel about entering autumn?.

kaik

Quendi, I love Colorado. Beautiful state, nice people, great stakehouses. I hope returning there some day again.

FHN, I would be very depressed living in Michigan due very cold weather. I do not miss Europe due constantly cold weather north of Alps where we say you can even freeze in middle of the summer. I do not mind short winter with snow, but I cannot deal with cold for six months. This year I had experienced one the longest winter in my lifetime and watched as my subtropical garden got devasted by subsequent snaps of polar vertex. I lost all my gardenias, calla lilies, two camellias, anise tree. I just hope that winter is still three months away.

Only things I do not like about late falls is the leafs raking. I had tons of trees on my backyard, but got two cut down this spring, so I hope for less leafs and more grass. Still have one tree to cut down as is nto healthy and started to get hollow, so it needs to go down before nature will take over it. I love on September and October wine tasting. In my childhood, my grandparents had huge wineyards and we used to pick grape just behind the house. I wish to have wineyard here on my backyard, but critters would pick eveyr single fruit from it.

34

The WT's biggest deception?

by BU2B in

jw
friends

it just dawned on me that one of if not the most deceptive thing that the wt convinces the members of is that the truth does not stand up to investigation.

they teach that lies trump truth.

the reality of course is something entirely different.

kaik

The biggest deception for me is their reinvention of >Truth<. Whatever "Truth" is, it is always momentary and needed for current explanation of their twisted biblical doctrines. If WT will say that hell is real because of new truth, cult members will say awesome. When WT will deny it later, JW will not even bother with it. Importance is given on temporary explanation radiated from publishing house and this all what is matter.

27

How Have You Been Affected By Having Been A Jehovah's Witness?

by minimus in

jw
friends

is your life over?

are you totally screwed up?

are you able to move on?

kaik

Besides having my childhood and youth stolen, I moved on. It is past that cannot be changed or erased. I have been living a life as I want now I am not regretting leaving KH. Would be my life better without cult? Or Worse? I do not know, but is better now without it.

8

History of the church/Christianity, etc.

by Joe Grundy in

i have learned a great deal from some of the very erudite posters on this site (thank you).. for many years i've been interested in the history of the development of christianity, not only from its earliest days but through the reformation, etc., and through to the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries when denominations, sects, cults took off in all directions like exploding fireworks.. i was aware, in broad terms, of luther, calvin and the development of protestantism from which so many denominations and sects (including jws) arose.

i was vaguely aware of the schism (1,000 years ago) between the western (catholic) and eastern (orthodox) churches and was tangentially interested as to why it happened (if the 'east' was the home of christianity, how come the 'west' disagreed with it?).

i was quite interested to read, while living in cyprus, a greek orthodox english language bible which had a large section in the back about the schism.

kaik

I have read good deal of books on Roman and Greek history, christianity, and philosophy from Penguin Classic and from Loeb Classical Library. My father used to collect a lot of books on christianity, we had hundreds of books on this topics, on life of saints, catholic church, etc. I heard that he got them from a monastery that commies closed down in 1950's and wanted to set them on fire. My father read every single of them. I remember my elders were extremely displeased with the collection and we had to double stacked books so only approved showed upfront.

35

Autumn...

by new hope and happiness in

jw
friends

i've just glanced out my window and i saw the most picturesque countryside.

i do believe we're entering autumn.

so summer has had its day and like an old friend slipped away and we moves on...how do you feel about entering autumn?.

kaik

September and May are my favorite months. Perfect temperature, blue skies; I love it. In Czech language the word for September can be translated as sunshine. It is dryest month of the year and almost ready for wine harvests in southern Moravia were temperature is still around 20C. Thousand miles in my new country, we still have summer. Temperature were yesterday close to 90F, today they cooled off, and in weekend they will be back to 80F. I hear bugs and cricketts, azaleas and camellias are about to bloom. Cannas and crape myrtle slowly finnishing their bloom season and nature is getting ready for a fall. I spent fall weekends doing lawn, seeding, fertilizing, putting mulch, and adjusting edging. It is great distraction from office work.

10

Has anybody ever co-related what Jewish scholars beleive about the Hebrew scriptures and what jehovahs Witnesses beleive ?

by smiddy in

i`m just curious as to how different they may be.. smiddy.

.

kaik

1) According to Middrash Rabbah: Evil is sometimes allowed by G-d in order good to be known and manifested. G-d appointed a specific angel, Satan to perfrom this function and it is a function of Satan to challenge good. Jews do not believe in Devil. This is invention of Christianity. Satan or Sammael is someone who does not oppose G-d, but someone who is hired by Him to collect evidence on anyone misdeed.

6) The war between two seeds was between descendant of Adam and Samael, Serpent, who seduced Eve and concieve a child with her. There is no conflict between seed of Jesus and Satan as defined by NT. IT is again a conflict between two descandants who had the same mother. Depending on the source, the fall of humans in the Eden was caused by sexual immorality, not by disobedience eating forbidden fruit. There is no future conflict between two seeds, as Jewish Messiah will bring a peace to humanity.

7) No, I have not said that. Angles do not have inclination to do evil, they are good by the nature and presence of G-d. Angels who materialized on Earth and committed sin did it as a humans because they got free will (or freedom of choice). Angels who destroyed Sodom were punished on Earth because they bragged carrying the punishment on their behalf, not on behafl of G-d. Genesis 28:11-12 mentions a ladder between Heaven and Earth which is used by angels back and forth.