Pete Zahut

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Posts by Pete Zahut

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  26

  Observations from an Ex-Elder Part 2 - Cart Work

  by doubtfull1799 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  up until i left recently i was participating in the cart work.

  in the location where we used to set up near our local mall we never had one person stop and take literature or stop and chat - other than fellow brothers.

  i thought maybe it was just a bad location or something.

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  Pete Zahut

  I'm guessing Phase 2 of the "cart work" will involve JW's dragging the carts along as they go from door to door, ringing the door bell and then simply pointing to the cart (if and when) a householder answers the door.
  
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  26

  Observations from an Ex-Elder Part 2 - Cart Work

  by doubtfull1799 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  up until i left recently i was participating in the cart work.

  in the location where we used to set up near our local mall we never had one person stop and take literature or stop and chat - other than fellow brothers.

  i thought maybe it was just a bad location or something.

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  Pete Zahut

  Every Thursday morning there are two carts set up outside the main doors of our local library. Each cart has 2 JW's manning it. I can see from my office window that dozens and dozens of people pass by without so much as a glance. As others have said, the JW's look at their phones or chat among themselves. Then they pack up at noon just when things begin to pick up in terms of people coming and going and off they go.
  

  Last week it was in the 20's around here and 4 women stood there stone cold in their skirts, freezing their magazines off. I thought to myself, "what a colossal waste of time" they could just leave the carts there and it would have the same effect. People almost seem intimidated by the crowd of over dressed people hanging oddly around a bunch of religious brochures.
  
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  22

  I need some serious help

  by bulldogg1877 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i grew up a jw kid until the age of twelve.

  since then i have lived a worldly life.

  i have enjoyed alot of my life experiences, but i now feel like i am lost.

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  Pete Zahut

  We often look at the past with rose colored glasses and forget the difficulties we had, only remembering the good things. I'm wondering if you are looking back on your JW life this way.
  

  There is a saying "You can't go home again". I'm not saying you shouldn't revisit the JW religion if you think it may help but don't expect to be able to go back to the naive state you were once in and rebelled against once you grew out of it. People often need structure and any structure is better than no structure at all but remember, you can find real and practical guidance as well as the structure you crave via many avenues besides JW's or with religion itself.

  Whatever you do in this regard, make sure it's done based on provable facts and tangible evidence in the here and now rather than based on fear or in sentimental hopes and dreams that can only be kept alive by ignoring reality.
  
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  37

  WT Society Creates the Atmosphere which Spawns Child Abuse in Congregations

  by flipper in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  been thinking about this lately after almost 14 years out of the jw cult myself.

  when you think of the language used within the jehovah's witness organization in such a closed society environment in how the wt society promotes almost absolute " trust " in the elders , the governing body, and trust even in the " friends " in the congregation themselves- is it any wonder that unscrupulous child molesters can enter any congregation pretending to be " spiritual " and take advantage of unsuspecting children or the parents ?

  think about it : an individual is judged as a " spiritual " person within the jw organization based on what wt functions or duties they are good at performing.

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  Pete Zahut

  Besides their tendency to judge a persons trustworthiness by their meeting comments and their dress and grooming (no beard, short hair= good) the other danger is the magical belief that Jehovah would never allow such a thing to happen in the Congregation.

  Because of their tendency to be overly trusting with one another, JW's are also sitting ducks for any JW related business scam and for pick pockets at the assemblies where they leave their belongings lying around on seats.
  

  I have a male relative who was hired by a "sister" to do chores when he was 14. When it was time to pay him, she told him to come into the bedroom where her purse was. She proceeded to teach him the facts of life and it sent him off the rails...changed his whole life in very bad way for a time. It sickened him that she could sit in the meetings with her husband and kids and answer and give talks while he felt so horrible about himself. He was too ashamed to tell anyone for fear of the shame it would bring his JW mother, after all JW boys are supposed to be like Joseph and run away when they are seduced. Instead, he ran away from home and lived on the streets and found odd jobs. He joined the army as soon as he was old enough and somehow managed to pull himself together. He never got to go to high school or college but he did get married and raise a nice family (non JW of corse) His wife despises JW's for what they did to her husband.
  
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  53

  Best statement a householder made to get you to leave them alone.

  by Esse quam videri in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  knocked on a door on a saturday morning.

  a window opened on the floor above me.

  a grizzled old man stuck his head out and said, " we're all heathens here!

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  Pete Zahut

  This post reminds me of the urban legend that was going around, about the JW hating woman who threw a bucket of water on a JW brother who called on her doorstep. The brother left and went on down the street and saw a little boy sitting on the curb crying. The little boy told the brother that his mother wouldn't give him any money to buy an ice cream from the ice cream man who was coming their way, so the brother gave the little boy some money.

  It turns out the boy was the child of the woman who threw the bucket of water on the brother. The boy came home with an ice cream and told her about the nice, but very wet man who bought it for him. The mother was so ashamed she ran after the brother and of course "a bible study was started" and the bucket lady is faithfully serving Jehovah to this very day.

  The End
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  65

  My Introduction - An ex-elder's story of waking up later in life.

  by doubtfull1799 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  background:.

  my parents got the “truth” while i was in primary school.

  i was baptised at 14. i loved school and was extremely studious.

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  Pete Zahut

  Thanks for sharing your personal "JW story". I was particularly touched by the part where you said you cried for days after losing your hope of everlasting life. That's a tough one isn't it ? My wife and I faded in our early 50's after being raised in the religion. Like you, it was a perfect storm of events and doctrinal conflicts that made being a JW intolerable. We had to come to grips with our own mortality in a matter of days rather than over a lifetime as most people do. Sometimes the pain and emptiness was unbearable, but here we are, years down the road, making more than just a go of things. Coming to grips with ones own mortality is a very freeing thing once it happens. It's much easier to deal with than having to constantly convince yourself that you're going to live forever in a paradise when you know on some deep level that it can't possibly be real.

  It's difficult at first but try not to spend too much time on "what might have been". When those thoughts come up, shoo them away just as you'd shoo away flies buzzing around at a picnic you were trying to enjoy. Why let those kinds of thoughts spoil your day? After all, what is wasted time really? Time passes and is gone, whether we do something productive with it or not. What if you'd have been allowed to attend University and you'd been hit by a bus a week after graduating? None of us knows if things would be any better if we'd have turned left instead of right at a fork in life's road.The main thing is that you're still here and will do better now that you know better.

  I found that most if not all of the depression and anxiety I suffered over the years was due to suppressing my own common sense and from attending those bleak and mind numbing meetings. Once I was away from all of that and I had recovered from the rude awakening that I had been duped, things began to get better and better.

  My hope is that this will be the case for you as well. It would be great if you could manage to continue on as you are without the JW's doing any more damage to your life than they already have. I hope that by formally disassociating, you won't be burning any bridges or making things more difficult.

  You know what's best in your own circumstance but the main thing is you are moving forward and no longer spinning your wheels chasing after a fantasy.
  
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  58

  Assembly Dramas:They were so bad.... but.... you waited for them to break away from the monotony!

  by RULES & REGULATIONS in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

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  you do remember the four day assemblies... sitting outdoors being fried in the sweltering heat,getting heat stroke in the middle of july in an outdoor baseball stadium.sitting outdoors from 9:45 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. was so much fun while you wore a suit,long sleeve shirt and a tie while your brain fried.

  mom's who had children to take care of,lug strollers,feed all the kids,take them for bathroom breaks and try to not faint from the heat.. the sound and audio was always breaking and barely audible from the wind,airplanes flying over and (if you attended the cicero,illinois circuit )you would smell horse manure from the horse stables next door.. you know that you are a jehovah's witness.... when the only excitement waiting for the drama... where brothers and sisters dress up in ancient cloths,fake beards,fake rocks and fake soldier uniforms and wave their hands incessantly to pretend that they are acting out a drama.the excitement was unbearable!.

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  Pete Zahut

  At one assembly I was at, there were tennis courts adjacent to the stadium the that you could see from your seats and still look as if you were looking at the stage and were paying attention. The players were only a speck in the distance but watching the matches broke up the monotony of being at the assembly. A couple of the players decided they'd create a little drama of their own by playing a set naked just to shake things up for the religious nuts at the stadium. It was hilarious to hear the murmuring of the crowd rise to a crescendo and to see all the righteous JW's with binoculars straining to get a better look.
  
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  19

  JW.ORG Now requires personal address

  by AverageJoe1 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  logging on to the user area access today, there appeared a message saying that they now require a postal and physical home address to attach to your profile, with a note saying that the branch may change the details as they see fit.

  this raises several questions in my mind:.

  why would they need to have your physical address on file?.

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  Pete Zahut

  Perhaps there was a problem with people logging on and pretending to be interested in a free home bible study and JW's were being sent to a fake address ??
  
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  66

  Was There ANYTHING Positive That You Experienced Because of Being a JW?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  was there anything positive about your jehovah's witness experience?.

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  Pete Zahut

  Children from abusive homes can often find something positive to look back upon but that doesn't negate the fact that although they had a roof over their heads, were fed and sent to school, they were still abused.

  I attribute my good health and still youthful appearance to the clean lifestyle I lived and also due to the fact that I never got to do anything because I spent decades preparing for meetings assemblies and service, attending meetings, assemblies and service, coming home from meetings, assemblies and service and trying to recruit others to attend meetings, assembly and to eventually go in service.
  

  Ships are safer when they're tied up in the harbor but that's not what ships were built for.
  
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  22

  The Timing of Telling My Parents My College Plans.

  by WeatherLover in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i know that at some point i have to tell my parents that i'm planning to go to college.

  i basically have two options:.

  1. tell them early.

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  Pete Zahut

  It's a crazy thing that your going to college would be considered bad news.

  Is the college you plan on attending nearby so you could live at home if your parents are favorable or would you have to move away anyway?

  Are you certain you'd be kicked out if you went to college?

  Why can't you attend college and not mention ending the JW thing just yet. Let them get used to the idea of college and then gradually fade away sometime in the future.

  Perhaps you could sit them down and have the following conversation:

  You: Dad...Mom, play along with me here but can you give me 3 examples of things that no parent ever wants to hear about their kid?

  Your Parents: No parent wants to hear their child is sick, or they've been in an accident or they are in trouble with the law.

  You: What about if they heard their child had been accepted into college?

  Parents: Well...no, that wouldn't exactly be bad news....why are you asking us this?

  You: Well it occurred to me that even though parents all over the world are overjoyed when their kids go on to higher education, it might come as bad news to you, if I were to tell you I got accepted into a college.

  Then take the conversation from there, hopefully you'll have put things into perspective for them.