how many of us were woken up by some apostate yelling false prophets at a convention?.
how many of us were woken up by someone holding a sign and yelling, what happened to 1975.
how many of us were coerced to investigate the wt because some ex-jw pulled up a bunch of old watchtowers magazines and told us to read the false predictions?.
I woke up by reading about evolution. By seeing the solid evidence for evolution, the next logical step was the realization that WT doctrine (Adam --> Jesus as ransom equal to Adam --> eternal life due to ransom) was fundamentally wrong.
Reading of Ray Franz and ex-JWs on the Internet came later.
woody harrelson and mathew mcconaughey { standing at the back of the k..h..during a meeting }.
w.h.. "what do you know about these people " { who get their higher education reading and studying the watchtower and awake magazines} ?.
"just observation and deduction , i see propensity for obesity , poverty, a yen for fairy tales , folks putting what few bucks they do have into contribution boxes .. i think it`s safe to say that nobody here is going to be splitting the atom.
Indeed! And of course the opening line of the scene, by McConaughey: "What do you think is the average IQ of these people here?"
so i've been pretty good at not going to meetings lately.
yesterday i went for the co's last talks.
older co. his last talk was absolutely shocking.
Absolutely shocking.
I guess that the fact that I'm 8 months clean of hearing such BS, made me to be easily shocked on hearing this cultish stuff again, like I wasn't hearing it for 30 years.
just got back from "imitate jehovah" ca and noticed that the theme was never really used at all.
all the talks were about family, preaching and getting along with others in the hall.
they didn't once go over an account of how jehovah acted in the past and how we should imitate that action.
What the assembly program should be like, if jw's were serious about about doing what the theme says.
"Imitate Jehovah" - How? (literally)
-Kill 70,000 people in random because a friend of yours ordered a wrong census
-Kill all the innocent firstborns of a whole nation, because their leader messed with you
-Stone (or burn) anyone who breaks a little bit of your Law.
-Kill all homosexuals.
-Wipe off the face of the earth seven (7) nations, including women, children and poor cattle, because they dare to live for centuries in the land you want to conquer
-Slaughter some dozens of children using wild BEARS, because they said "go on, bald" to a *bald* friend of yours
-Demand the ritual slaughter of countless animals as a sacrifice, from every family in a whole nation, every day, for a period of a thousand years (imagine the number).
The list could go on, but then it would have to be a 30-day assembly.
hey i was just wondering if you guys had any ideas on how to keep my brain occupied while i'm at an assembly tommorow.
maybe besides tallying the number of times they say jehovah and jesus or counting how many people are wearing red.
i want to keep myself from going insane or having some kind of panic attack lol.
1) Don't go at all.
2) If you do go, stay outside the main hall, at least half of the time. Many do it. Some are tired, sleepy, others have a headache, small children, some clean the toilets or the outside area. If you can do (or pretend) any of these, you can stay out as long as you like.
P.S. The first assembly I missed, I had an awful (and long) pain in the stomach, and so I couldn't go. It was not a pretense, it was actually because of the assembly (having "woken up"). The problem was so severe (and continuing), that I had to take strong antibiotics. The thing is, we should watch over our health foremost, instead of pleasing others.
long time lurker here.
i'm a fifth gen born-in baptized jw.
to say i've been struggling with doubts is an understatement.
there were several families that were visiting my mom today and i was sitting in and just listening to all of them talk..
they started talking about the recent shooting at the university.
and its so easy for them because all they have to say is;.
How ironical that the Creator promises to cure things that He (in His wisdom) created, like paraplegia or Down syndrome.
How ironical that the solution for starving children in Africa and elsewhere, is to wipe them out altogether in Armageddon.
Just these 2 above thoughts should have been enough to make someone wake up, but, alas, they're rarely enough.
something struck me last week.
i have been dealing with what i can only describe as a fear of death.
i'm not old and not in bad health.
It is expected that, when you've been raised as a jw with the fallacious notion that you're "designed" to live forever, once you've realized that this simply isn't true, what comes after is a bit weird: You learn that you have only one life in a much older age than it is normal to do so.
This brings problems. In one of the last jw funerals that I attended, I was astounded by the excessive grief that everyone had, despite the fact that the late jw was far over 90 years old, and had died of natural causes, without any pain. Then it stroke me that that was because jws never reconcile with the idea of death. They are all sure they will live forever, they are SURE that death isn't natural, and when death comes, even in a 100-year-old, it always comes to them as a complete surprise, like they can't believe it.
A person really starts to live, as a grown-up, from the moment they realize there's no second life. An ordinary person realizes that at his adolescence, give or take. Most devout jws never realize that, which means that they essentially remain children until very, very late.
i never really had any studies to speak of, but my parents did have many over the years, and every single one of them was batsh!t crazy in some way.
there was one lady we kids affectionately termed "dirty robin" (her name was robin) and yes, she was very dirty.
her kids were filthy and rarely wore clothes.
The worst cases I remember from Bible studies (mine or others), are those when the subject was completely dumb, or knocking on heaven's door (i.e. extremely old age). Now that I look at it from a distance, I feel such sorrow and frustration that were harassing and exploiting those people, adding to their burdens instead of lifting them, in such an unethical manner, if not to say "immoral".
is it just me, or does it seem like jw.org is returning to some very old methods from rutherford's era?.
- their carts / booths is very reminiscent of the sandwich board system, including the fact that they no longer personally engage.
- showing videos via the tablet / smartphone is almost exactly like the phonograph method they used.
