Posts by Pete Zahut

21

JWs shunning other active JWs

by Roger Kirkpatrick in

jw
friends

how many others have noticed how common it is for active jws to ostracize and shun other active jws?

as far back as i can recall, jws have had an ongoing problem with cliques within congregations, and special needs talks would be given from time to time to address that trend.

but, it seems to me that the practice has become even more pronounced with entire congregations actively shunning other congregations.

Pete Zahut

I think JW's are just like anyone else. Certain personalities tend to attract others and people naturally gravitate toward those who have commonalities or similar personality traits.

The difference is, JW's boast about how "different" they are and how much "love" they have among themselves. They set you up to expect more from them than they can actually deliver. This high expectation level is hard to live up to and people continually disappoint one another. In a culture where it's OK to shun anyone who is doing wrong in your eyes, it's easy to carry it over toward those who have simply disappointed us as well.

61

Anyone recall someone disfellowshipped for gluttony???

by James Mixon in

gluttony seems to be a sin that jw's like to ignore .there are several scriptures that point out that gluttony is a sin, proverbs 23:20-21 "do not join those who gorge themselves on meat".....also i read somewhere that 1% is the number of disfellowshipped jw's each year......how do prove someone is a glutton and not just a person who love food???

?.

Pete Zahut

I visited a K Hall in West Palm Beach Florida a few years ago and the Circuit Overseer was visiting. He was morbidly obese, I'm guessing 5'10 or maybe less and well over 300 lbs wearing what had to be specially made suits. He looked like he was about to explode.

He gave a talk that highlighted the weeks activities and then started talking about how much Jehovah's people "loooove to eat, yes we looove to eat don't we friends?" He went on to mention how anyone could tell his favorite part of his visits are sharing meals with the friends. (he patted his giant stomach as he said this) everyone chuckled as if it were the cutest thing they'd ever heard.

I couldn't help think about gluttony and how that topic is completely ignored when obviously there were plenty of JW's with eating disorders (bless them) that needed help and understanding and a good example rather than having a dangerously overweight man, making light of his own problem.

10

What is Ibid?

by Belladonna75 in

hi all, i'm diving deep into historical jw literature research and i keep seeing ibid as a frequently cited source - what is this?

i've tried the old google, but no luck.

does this stand for something (i'm probably missing something incredibly obvious) or have i spent too many hours reading 1930s the golden age magazines and depleted all my electrons already?

Pete Zahut

I had a nagging suspicion it was something ridiculously obvious to everyone else

I'm glad you asked Belladonna 75....I hadn't encountered the term before and now I'll know what it is, when I do.

332

The most successful teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses and an amazing new book on the divine name

by slimboyfat in

jehovah's witnesses have had to revise their chronology and various doctrinal interpretations due to events and scholarly corrections.

but the one teaching where they have been consistently ahead of the curve is the importance of jehovah's name.. .

i'm going to run through a (necessarily selective) timeline of jw events and scholarly publications that demonstrate the phenomenal success of this teaching in the last days.

Pete Zahut

Would Almighty God have allowed this group of Christians to champion his name at this crucial time if they did not enjoy his blessings and support ?

The "importance of his name" is just another trumped up JW belief where connect the dot scriptures are used to prove it's importance. When you read the verses and chapters around the scriptures they use, you'll find that once again, they've created an issue that doesn't exist.
If his name is so vitally important it seems as if he'd have revealed it's true pronunciation along with all the other supposed important "revelations" he made to them (important revelations that were later changed when time bore them out to be wrong).
The early Christians weren't called Jehovah's Witnesses. Why would that be so important now?
Isn't it considered disrespectful for children to call their father (or anyone else they are in subjection to) , by his first name?
Since "No one knows the day nor the hour" why is this time period any more "crucial" than any other ?
What proof is there that they are "enjoying" his blessings and support? It seems to me that if the God of the universe were blessing them, they'd have had the job done by now and they wouldn't have gotten it wrong so many times.

54

JW Kids Bullying My Daughter

by pale.emperor in

trying not to type swearwords as i write this so bare with me.. my little 3yo attends meetings with her jw mum (who doesn't believe watchtower anymore but is stuck in because she relies on her family for help).

my mum (the one who tells people im dead) had a party for her grandchildren.

that's my 4 nieces and 1 nephew aged from 3yo-11yo.

Pete Zahut

This just makes my blood boil....kids can be pretty black and white and unfeeling toward other children but in this instance this is purely a reflection of what they've heard from their JW parents.

It seems to me, it's this kind of behavior that demonstrates that JW's are just another religion with a "form" of godly devotion but proving false to it's power. They are more interested in feeling morally superior and extra virtuous over your ex and daughter, than they are in being kind and "Christ like". Who could be that cold to a little child?

I wouldn't be surprised of this puts your ex one step closer to the exit door, for good.

20

Lessons learned from the wife of lot drama

by purrpurr in

the video drama shown at the recent comvention was called "the wife of lot".

i noticed some stuble lessons being taught in this soap opera style video.... firstly, all the bad influence comes from women, its the wife and the mother in law whose pushing for more money and a better lifestyle.

while the men remain loyal to god, can't show the men going astray now can we?.

Pete Zahut

They made a point of taking off the shoes to show how Oafish the worldly guy was in comparison to the soft spoken and oh so patient Witnesses man and how clean, pristine and unsullied by the outside world, their home was.

Most people I know kick their shoes off at the front door, this isn't a JW or Asian thing only. As per usual, JW's think the have the market cornered when it comes to knowing how to live and behave decently. They love to compare themselves to the worst examples out there so they can paint every non JW, with the same broad brush.

The sickening thing about that video was how manipulative it was. Subtle things such as the harshness of the wife's makeup and the change in the color of the daughter's hair, were all very intentional. I'm guessing the average JW (especially the younger ones) picked up on this.

Most people resent being manipulated and JW's are no different.

64

My jaw dropping OMG moment at the end of the convention

by UnshackleTheChains in

yes folks.

over the past few days i can honestly say the convention was relatively quite good.

most of the talks, videos, symposiums were in line with scripture if you have faith in the bible.

Pete Zahut

For an organization that "isn't serving with a date in mind" and who claim that number of memorial partakers doesn't matter, they sure talk about dates and the "nearness" of the end a lot. They also keep a careful count of the number of partakers as if in fact the number is in fact important to them.

15

Theocratic warfare. Great video

by stuckinarut2 in

we all recall the appalling example of vin toole during the australian royal commission when he was questioned about"theocratic warefare".

here is a great video that shows how the society has used, and in turn tried to lie about "theocratic warfare".

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cixj9b6sd34.

Pete Zahut

Using the excuse that he never read a 1957 watchtower as proof that he didn't know what "spiritual warfare" is, was in itself an example of "spiritual warfare". Also, comparing the act of reporting pedophiles to the local authorities, with the turning over of ones fellow congregation members to Hitler during time of war, is another example of "spiritual warfare". His answers were purposely evasive and he used them as a smoke screen to avoid answering the questions put before him directly. This is proof that he knew exactly what he was doing.

6

Confession: I, Safecracker

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

i, safe cracker _______________.

this is one story i doubt i’ve told before.

for obvious reasons…it was 1969; the place, fort worth; the location, the star-telegram building in downtown fort worth, and i was a lowly janitor working for $1.60 an hour on the midnight to 8 am shift.you might wonder what a tall, good-looking 22-year-old was doing struggling at a no-future employment for slave wages.

Pete Zahut

It would have been easy enough for anyone to have figured out who cleaned the office and I'm sure you'd have cracked under the pressure when they lined everyone up and questioned them. Besides, I'm sure they'd have gotten your finger prints off the dial and you'd have been back in the slammer only this time it would be justified. What if old man Kuykendahl keeled over with a coronary when he discovered you had taken all of his employees payroll money? What if someone else were blamed instead of you.

Doing the right thing is never stupid no matter how tempting it might be to rationalize doing the wrong thing.

53

JW renaming things: "It's Not this, it's ....."

by Muddy Waters in

this was brought up in another thread, but i thought it should have its own thread.

feel free to add your own observations and experience.

the jws are so duplicit, and they rename things to somehow justify their own irrationalities.

Pete Zahut

It's not a flip-flop of our beliefs or a contradiction of everything we've called the truth for the last 100 years, it's an adjustment, it's new light just when we needed it most.

It's not materialism...It's Jehovah blessing us for our efforts. He's "adding all these other things to us" for putting him first.

We're not soliciting Church membership or looking for new recruits, we're inviting honest hearted ones who are sighing and crying, to study our literature and attend our meetings, build their lives around our religion and get baptized but only after first acknowledging that they now identify themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses.