I wasn't at the study at the weekend, the reason was family health problems, but even if that had not been the case I wouldn't have been there. Has anybody else who was there or read the article noticed the unbelievable begging bowl being produced for the pioneers and COs and Bethelites, etc? Maybe this has been commented on already but in effect Witnesses are being asked to financially support, not only pioneers, but circuit overseers if they need medical help, and to fill in with dealing with aged parents if missionaries are abroad. I mean, ok, if you are a witness and you want to pioneer, go ahead if that makes you happy, but don't expect others to pick up the tab! My own experience over many years with pioneers is that there were some very nice ones, but a large proportion believed that the world owed them a living and they were, not to put too fine a point on it, spongers.
thedog1
JoinedPosts by thedog1
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the Wt Study last Weekend
by thedog1 ini wasn't at the study at the weekend, the reason was family health problems, but even if that had not been the case i wouldn't have been there.
has anybody else who was there or read the article noticed the unbelievable begging bowl being produced for the pioneers and cos and bethelites, etc?
maybe this has been commented on already but in effect witnesses are being asked to financially support, not only pioneers, but circuit overseers if they need medical help, and to fill in with dealing with aged parents if missionaries are abroad.
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100 yrs on
by thedog1 in100 years on from 1914 and this old eurovision song seems appropriate.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b3xtj5g_sa.
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thedog1
100 years on from 1914 and this old Eurovision song seems appropriate.
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What Was Your Opinion of Elder's Wives?
by minimus ini think that many of them were saints.
some were bitches and others seemed like they hated their status.
many wives were very good examples and were more "qualified" than their elder husbands.. .
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thedog1
So Aunt Fancy, he was one of the good guys. So many elders stay there as it defines what they are. Only being an elder gives them self worth, not what they are as a person. Good on you and him!
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Two things that have really made me think.
by thedog1 injust got to say that two things i have found out on this forum have really made me think over the last year.
one is how the gb say that they were appointed in 1919 and how they always say that it was a small group of anointed ones, and they always stress that it was a collective group who did this.
but from this forum i have found out that really it was all judge rutherford's doing, that he was the sole kingpin at that time until his death in 1942, so no 'collective' slave.
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thedog1
Just got to say that two things I have found out on this forum have really made me think over the last year. One is how the GB say that they were appointed in 1919 and how they always say that it was a small group of anointed ones, and they always stress that it was a collective group who did this. But from this forum I have found out that really it was all Judge Rutherford's doing, that he was the sole kingpin at that time until his death in 1942, so no 'collective' slave. The other thing that struck me, related to this, was all the bizarre inaccurate things he was saying about the ancient worthies returning and all sorts of other weird stuff. The only part of this that I had heard was about David et al. returning to Beth Sarim and I had dismissed it as an errror of judgement. But it all mounts up and the idea that God was personally directing and blessing such an arrangement goes against, not only common logic, but the Scriptures themselves. I think it is only because most Witnesses today have absolutely no knowledge of this, and probably no desire to know about this due to apathy and a focus on the soft focus paradise teachings that it is possible for the whole show to keep on the road.
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What Was Your Opinion of Elder's Wives?
by minimus ini think that many of them were saints.
some were bitches and others seemed like they hated their status.
many wives were very good examples and were more "qualified" than their elder husbands.. .
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thedog1
life is to short would you mind telling us what happened in the end? Only asking because I used to be an elder until not so long ago and it put my wife under terrible pressure. She was always sitting in the car waiting for me, or trying to make small talk with other wives waiting for their husbands. Some of the other elders' wives were very nice but others just wanted all the juicy gossip they thought my wife would know. She never knew anything as I didn't pass on anything, and she didn't want to know anyway! She developed lots of health problems, including emotional and psychological ones, due in part to the demands of being 'an elder's wife', a so-called title that she always said did not exist.
Anyway, things are calmer now as I am no longer serving so all those expectations have vanished. She likes that idea, I think, that we can just be us and concentrate on drawing closer as a couple without all the sometimes manufactured drama of the elders arrangement and the 'needs of the flock.'
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Latest stage
by thedog1 ini've posted on and off here over the past year, but not much recently.
anyone who read my previous posts will know that i started learning all sorts of surprising things about jehovah's witnesses about a year or so ago, well, surprising to me anyway.
i feel very sad now as it is getting harder and harder to go to meetings.
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thedog1
Strange if he is a longtime Elder and he doesn't remember the Awake stating what you said. It was only when this was removed from the magazine that I thought about it, as I had seen it so many times in the individual issues that it was implanted in my own brain until somebody pointed out that it wasn't there anymore!
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one last step..Is being mentally out the same as being emotionally out?
by MissFit inwe talk here about the importance of being mentally and physically out to be really free.. what about being emotionally free?.
i realized for me, i had to be emotionally awake first.
i had been yo-young back and forth for years.
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thedog1
Really enjoying this thread. I'm with you, onthewayout, as the trigger for me in the past year or so has been the teachings. Before that happened I was vaguely unhappy with the whole thing but I couldn't put my finger on it. The ministry was boring and unproductive, the meetings were very unstimulating, but I liked the whole fellowship thing. Then when we had all the changes to the f&ds business, the stressing of the overlapping generation, the bending of scripture with the dukes and the Assyrian attack nonsense, linking this with the obey at all costs which is hammered home all the time now, then I thought my head was going to explode. I am still going for my wife and I still have a lot of emotional attachment to both the people and the 'idea' of what Jehovah's Witnesses say the bible teaches. I would love to live forever in nice surroundings. That's part of the emotional stickiness still there. But when it all doesn't add up you cannot deny the effect it is having on your mind.
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Latest stage
by thedog1 ini've posted on and off here over the past year, but not much recently.
anyone who read my previous posts will know that i started learning all sorts of surprising things about jehovah's witnesses about a year or so ago, well, surprising to me anyway.
i feel very sad now as it is getting harder and harder to go to meetings.
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thedog1
Thanks for your suppport to all.
Data dog, you have it right when you say the nu-light causes problems and that elders are worried about the 'sheep' being stumbled. I have discussed some of these things with other witnesses, one was very cool about it as he has some of the same thoughts himself, but he is also no longer serving. When I discussed some of my concerns, particularly about the funding issue and the money grab by the org, with another still serving brother, he became anxious and I had to steer the conversation elsewhere. He is a friend of many years standing but even though he questions some things, he still believes the org is being used by Jehovah. So no dice there.
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Latest stage
by thedog1 ini've posted on and off here over the past year, but not much recently.
anyone who read my previous posts will know that i started learning all sorts of surprising things about jehovah's witnesses about a year or so ago, well, surprising to me anyway.
i feel very sad now as it is getting harder and harder to go to meetings.
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thedog1
I've posted on and off here over the past year, but not much recently. Anyone who read my previous posts will know that I started learning all sorts of surprising things about Jehovah's Witnesses about a year or so ago, well, surprising to me anyway. I feel very sad now as it is getting harder and harder to go to meetings. I've been looking at the material for this week's service meeting which is all about proving 1914, and after reading both of Ray Franz's books and other information here and elsewhere, especially the new book released at the summer convention which copperfastened the 'overlapping generation', then I realize that for me, the game is up. I'm not sure what to do. My wife still believes it all, but has serious health problems which mean that she misses a lot of meetings, and has some psychological problems, brought on in part by being a witness most of her life. I can't get back to that place I once had, even not so long ago where I kind of still believed it all, even though I have had vague reservations for about ten years, before I had read anything about Ray Franz and all the stuff that went on in the '80's. I know that if I mentioned any of this to the bros locally then I would be out on my ear pronto. I was a serving brother up to not so long ago, but cited my family situation as a reason for jumping ship from that responsibility. I need to keep the illusion of being in still going for my wife's sake and lots of family involved. The truth hurts.
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How have you changed since finding TTATT ?
by Phizzy inon coftys thread about his former pastor trying to re-convert him, which is very long but a tremendous discussion of the problem of evil, a poster, sunny23, wrote :.
" having been 7 months since i first posted on the first page of this topic i have just read those posts and acknowledged a huge transfromation in myself for the better."..
i was only thinking the other day how, as i discovered this site and ttatt, i really changed as a person in so many ways, and i think mainly for the better.. i have been "born again" !!.
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thedog1
Things have changed dramatically for me in the last year. Mostly mentally, as my outlook has gone from thinking I had the truth with some reservations, to realizing that there are huge gaping holes in what I have spent over 30 years believing. In the space of this year I have stepped aside as an elder, and now find it very difficult to go on the ministry. Still at the meetings. My wife knows something is amiss and we have discussed a few things. Starting to think of non-Witnesses as more normal, not somehow people who will infect me in some way.