Pete Zahut

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Posts by Pete Zahut

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  35

  out for a long time

  by Sledracer in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  my husband and i have been out for a long time, maybe fifteen years, i must say we are in a bit of a nowhere land spiritually, we find it impossible to attend any other church.

  we really resent so much of how they messed up our and our children's lives.

  we can't get back all those 25 years we were in.

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  Pete Zahut

  I have felt the way you do. I used to think to myself, I'll move and just go back to a new Hall on my own terms just so I'll have a network of friends again. I'll ignore all the non-sense and never let them have a hold on me....just play along.

  Then I come to my senses and realize that:

  • We often look at the past with rose colored glasses and remember things better than what they were.
  • When we try to re-create the past, we are often suddenly reminded why it was we left it behind in the first place.
  • We made friends much easier when we were young, the problem often isn't that there isn't an abundance of people to be friends with now, the problem is that as we get older we don't have the energy to invest in making friends, aren't as patient when having to adjust to new peoples idiosyncrasies and want things to be like they used to be without having to invest any more time in getting there.
  • You can't go home again...once you've seen behind the Wizards curtain, once you've grown in your understanding and overall view of things and once you know better, it's never going to be the same as it was.

  Perhaps you could sneak in to a meeting somewhere and duck out early just to see if you are remembering things clearly. For me, I just couldn't stomach the repetitive nature of the meetings, the doctrines full of holes, the JW lingo I'd be expected to parrot, explaining why I missed a meeting or a day in service, being expected to give talks and go from door to door. There's also the real life experience with the blood issue that opened my eyes in the first place and the fact that there'd be endless questions, files that would be transferred from my old Hall and the years of suspiciousness one would have to endure before one was truly accepted (if ever).
  
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  53

  Disturbance during Memorial 2016.

  by Ben131895 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  two documented disturbances during memorial 2016. type 'memorial 2016' on youtube.

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  Pete Zahut

  Quietly taking a mouthful of wine that was offered would be enough of a statement for that occasion but standing up during a quiet somber religious ceremony and interrupting the speaker and the proceedings with a loud declaration and toast is not a cool thing to do. Not a crime but since we're discussing this occurrence, it was an obnoxious, inconsiderate, self serving and plain old tacky thing to do, in my book.
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  84

  I COLLECT QUOTES. . . Here are some of my favorites

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  please post your favorites too.

  my favorite quotations:.

  you cannot change what you refuse to confront.. sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.. don’t think of cost.

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  Pete Zahut

  On the topic of worrying about the future and crossing bridges before you come to them....
  

  “I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”

  -Mark Twain

  
  

  
  
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  33

  Disturbing/Puzzling Skit at JW Function Last Night Plus Odd Choice of Music

  by Cadellin in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  so i attended a fairly large jw gathering last night with my active, elder husband.

  it was a good-by party for a former special pioneer couple who have been demoted to reg pios and have now moved to a larger city to find work.

  anyway, there was music and skits.

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  Pete Zahut

  I always found it nauseating the way anytime JW's got together as a group, they had to do something religious or Bible based. Why couldn't they have had a humorous skit where the plot simply expressed the groups well wishes to the people who were moving? Why did they have to drag growing old and dying, or the "end of the system" into the occasion? Don't they have ample opportunities as it is to think about these big picture topics?

  Don't get me started on how they'd make meeting style "announcements" and then insist on thanking Jehovah for the refreshments our loving sisters provided.
  
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  53

  Disturbance during Memorial 2016.

  by Ben131895 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  two documented disturbances during memorial 2016. type 'memorial 2016' on youtube.

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  Pete Zahut

  

  Listener 31 minutes ago

  Seems that there are some on here that would say Jesus was wrong in turning over the Money changers tables in the temple.

  Not really a good comparison, Jesus was (supposedly) the Son of God....not a mere man who simply disagreed with what was being taught at some "kingdom hall" he no longer attends, as was the case in that video. To Jesus, the temple was his fathers house and a place of worship rather than a marketplace and he was (supposedly) sent to earth by GOD to personally carry out his will. Who does this guy in the video think he is that he can just walk into someone else's place of worship, intentionally stand up and disrupt their proceedings with an inflammatory act and start dictating how they should do things?
  
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  23

  JW Hypocrisy Rears It's Ugly Head...As Usual

  by babygirl30 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so about last night.... i am out at a local club (not restaurant, not event venue - a club) to see a rap concert.

  now, i am with some friends minding my own business, and i find that i am standing right behind 3 active jw's - one of whom used to be my best friend.

  this girl is as fake as they come: 1) she used to live with me and would bring non-jw guys home all the time, 2) was living with a man when she lived down south - until he dumped her, and then she decided to go back to jw's the 1st time and got reproved, and i supported her.

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  Pete Zahut

  "You were my best friend for years. And I miss you everyday. But if this is some attempt to incriminate me or just saying hi, then please remember what is going on with this world, and that you still know 'the truth' and what you should do to come back"

  Your response was great but what if you said:

  "I will come back to meeting, (preferably a Watchtower study) if you promise that while I'm there you will raise your hand and tell the audience about your experience at a recent Rap concert where you and the other JW's saw me, a former JW and suddenly had a guilty conscience and ran away. Tell them about how I called you out on it and you tried to flip the situation around and make yourself sound like a spiritually strong JW by ignoring the fact that you a JW were in a Club dancing to Rap music when you know better. Tell them how instead of explaining your own "untheocratic" actions, you had the gall to lecture me about the closeness of the end and the wickedness of this world.
  

  Until you are willing to do that or something similar, save your preaching about world conditions and the importance of my returning to "the truth" until you actually believe it yourself and are acting in accordance to your beliefs.

  (Don't be surprised if she is pretending that she wasn't at the club, you are mistaking her for someone else and are using this as an excuse to contact her.)
  
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  47

  How My Husband Helped Me See TTATT

  by corruptgirl in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i wanted to write my experience on how my husband helped me see the ttatt (the truth about the truth).

  first, let me mention that he wrote his own experience a couple months ago under the name sanchy.

  for his story please click here….. http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5148261828526080/walking-thin-line-resigning-elder

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  Pete Zahut

  C-Girl,

  Loved your story and the way you presented it. Your husbands past post was a memorable one as well.

  I instinctively followed the same course as he did when dealing with my Wife and she was able to see, in her own way and in her own time, what I had already come to know. Whenever I talk to JW's I take the approach that I want to understand what it is they believe (and I do, I'm still open to the possibility that they can teach me something). Rather than blindsiding them with scary outside information and scary new ideas, they come to their own conclusion after seeing the holes in their beliefs that become apparent when try to explain them to someone who has real life questions.

  Thanks for sharing this with us and wanted to let you know that my brother and I are 16 mos apart and my wife and her Sister are 13 mos apart. In both cases things turned out well and both moms are sane and healthy
  
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  26

  Hashtag "BESTLIFEEVER!!"

  by Lostwun in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  is it just me or does it grind your gears when you see #bestlifeever hashtag after every damn jw post on fb and instagram?.

  i rarely get on instagram anymore because i dont want to deal with the jw propaganda but i swear sometimes i just want to comment on one of those pics 'jw life is the worst life ever wake up already'.

  does anyone else know what i'm talking about?

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  Pete Zahut

  It is annoying until you remember that more often than not these public proclamations are mostly a way of reassuring and convincing themselves that what they say is so, when deep down they know it can all vanish before their eyes like the morning frost.
  

  When you are truly sure about something, it's a given, a constant and as certain as the sun rising in the east. You rarely even think about let alone feel the need to exclaim it or prove it to anyone.

  Pity is called for here rather than annoyance.
  
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  53

  Disturbance during Memorial 2016.

  by Ben131895 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  two documented disturbances during memorial 2016. type 'memorial 2016' on youtube.

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  Pete Zahut

  See folks! Activism isn't all or only about reaching JWs. I dare say activism should be primarily about reaching non-JWs! Stunts like this reach non-JWs! It is far better to reach the non-JW public than attempt to reach JWs.

  I guess I don't get the popularity of "activism" for the sake of activism, these days. It's the fashionable thing to do to rally around something publicly or blast others with your opinion on every topic. It seems like some people are looking for a bandwagon to jump on or a cause to engaged in it to make themselves feel as if they are part of something important. I've seen groups invade/disrupt Council meetings and Press Conferences and they always come off badly in my opinion (even when I agree with them).

  When I see some of these X-JW's doing their thing, I get the sense that they may be showing off to the rest of us, showing us how it's done. Why else would they need to video the whole thing other than to show their handy work to others and get a slap on the back from those who enjoy seeing the ensuing drama without having to risk anything themselves. It seems to me that when these same folks were JW's they might have the ones we remember who were over the top about "the truth" as well. The ones who'd get a head of steam worked up at the meeting or at the assembly and go out an blind side the public with their gusto and be perplexed as to why no one would listen to them.

  As far as reaching non JW's who may have been in attendance, it's more than likely that this demonstration served as an opportunity for the seemingly nice kindly balance JW's in suits and ties, to give their startled guests the JW version of what took place and to give them the low down on these scary imbalanced apostates whom the Bible foretold would be in abundance, in the "last days".
  
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  21

  Commercial activism.

  by Ben131895 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in his last couple of vlogs, john cedars is wearing a t-shirt saying shunned.

  some people liked it and asked him if they could purchase one.. in his last vlog (#111) he is advertising it and mentioned the link www.apostee.com, based in the us.

  comments attached to vlog # 110 mentioned the fact that this company will close in april and that the business will be continued by cedars itself, who has also a stock of anti-witness items.. besides that, he was not the owner of jwsurvey.org, but since january 16, 2016 he is.. it looks (as mentioned before by simon in an earlier thread), this guy is making a living from his activism, a paid career.. one should seriously question his true motives, demonstrated in his activism.

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  Pete Zahut

  "I said Money....Money changes everything"
  

  (well...not always)
  

  I could see how someone could complain if Cedars were claiming to use the proceeds for the "cause" and then keeping them himself or if he were pretending to be behind said "cause" but only in it to turn a dollar. To me,for a long time "activist " like Cedars to sell T-shirts that people want and are asking you for, seems perfectly ok, especially if it enables someone with his motivation and abilities to keep going.
  

  Should he give the T-shirts and his time away for free?