Posts by Pete Zahut

14

Watchtower Rebranding

by Fred Franztone in

jw
friends

the wtbts has finally decided to join the rest of us in the 21st century and has begun rebranding.

they've dropped the iconic watchtower sign from their heaquarters, and it's only a matter of time till they drop the now embarrassing watchtower name completely; a name synonymous with failure on the one hand and concentration camps on the other.. the organisation will soon be known solely as jw.org, bringing them right up-to-date with the web 2.0 revolution of 15 years ago, and making them the only company still to use a full web address as their main identifier, very forward-thinking of them.. it's inevitable that they'll gradually rebrand everything.

what methods do you think they'll go with?

Pete Zahut

"The Watchtower & Awake magazines will be phased out completely within 5-10 years,"

"Within 20 years the physical books will be gone as well, replaced with online-only publications"

It's possible that the books and magazines may become a thing of the past, even sooner than that. According to a family member at Bethel, a lot of the "work" they are doing is focusing on the production of videos and the printing is being phased out little by little.

At least the Watchtower and Awake magazines and the books brought in some money when the 8 million JW's paid/contributed for them at the literature counter. I'm not sure how they'll be able to make up for this loss of revenue from the magazines and books unless they convince the JW's that as part of their duty to Jehovah they must contribute to the world wide work, by purchasing a yearly online subscription/membership that will allow them to access the videos etc. at JW dot Org .

64

Wave your phone lights and dance at the Assemblies!

by days of future passed in

my sister sent me this youtube.

in it are witnesses waving their phone lights and dancing in the aisles.

sorry if this vid has been posted before.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k7iw-zisgw.

Pete Zahut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyNh1j3dsp8

114

JW Stumper Questions - List You Best Here

by pale.emperor in

hi guys.

sooner or later we're going to get a jw knocking on our door.

just like when we were jw's doing the knocking, it's good to have a question prepared to get them thinking about their own beliefs.

Pete Zahut

Householder: Are JW's allowed to take a blood transfusion or use blood for other purposes?

JW: No, the bible says to abstain from blood

Householder: Are JW's allowed to eat fat?

JW: Yes, it's left up to the individual as to whether or not they eat animal fat or use it for other purposes.

Householder: What about Leviticus 2:16, 17 ?

…16 The priest shall offer them up in smoke on the altar as food, an offering by fire for a soothing aroma; all fat is the LORD'S. 17 it is a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings: you shall not eat any fat or blood"

JW: We are no longer under those laws

Householder: So why the ban on the use of blood or blood products?

30

Annoying jws

by Jrjw in

jw
friends

a 'concerned' jw in my congregation rang me earlier and said she's noticed my daughter sits miserable at the meetings and said she's a right miserable girl in general.

i said she's happy and hyper when she's not at the meetings they're just really boring and she doesn't want to be there.

apparently i'm a bad parent coz she feels that way.

Pete Zahut

Apparently I'm a bad parent coz she feels that way. She said I Need to sort her out and make her interested. Gave me an example of a single mother she knows who prayed every day with her 3 kids

Sister Big Nose: "You need to be like Sister Goodexample...she's a single mother yet she's able to set an upbuilding example to other mothers in the congregation."

You: "My daughter and I do our part in the Congregation by making you and everyone else look good by comparison and we provide a way for all of you to feel superior about yourselves."

After saying that to her, rest the phone receiver down on the kitchen counter and go on about your day as she replies. Maybe start vacuuming the floor or something equally noisy. She'll get the point and never bother you again.

64

Wave your phone lights and dance at the Assemblies!

by days of future passed in

my sister sent me this youtube.

in it are witnesses waving their phone lights and dancing in the aisles.

sorry if this vid has been posted before.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k7iw-zisgw.

Pete Zahut

There are several things that I see at play in this video:

This isn't really about praising Jehovah....it's more about silly, repressed, gullible and childlike individuals finally being allowed to (or daring to) have fun.
The people in the religion these days aren't really concerned with facts and doctrine. They are more interested in the emotional aspect of having a dream or fantasy to cling to that distracts them from the realities of life.
They are grateful for anything that will break up the monotony of an otherwise dull and uninspiring program.
They are desperate to "feel" something and are forcing themselves to feel as if they are having a spiritual moment.
Others join in because they don't want to seem as if they aren't being spiritually moved as well, or that they aren't on board with this new trend.

I imagine the elderly and or disabled folks in attendance who weren't able to stand, felt a bit cut off and isolated from the festivities, when their view of the program was blocked by all those shimmying backsides. I think we're going to see more of this as this boring stodgy old white man's religion is primarily made up of people from non western lands.

76

Hi, all...I'm a faithful JW who is sick of lies about us

by James Donalds in

i was baptized 30 years ago and have been in the faith for over 35 years.. our organization isn't perfect.

but i'm sick to death of seeing stereotypes about us.

we are not mindless automatons.

Pete Zahut

We are NOT mindless automatons. I smoke an occasional cigar. I've been known to curse a bit. Hell, I even vote. Others in my congregation know all this (except the voting) and I've never been given a hard time about it. Many of us ARE highly educated. I have a Masters Degree.We are not all scraping to get by. I have a comfortable six-figure income

You forgot to mention that even though you admire the governing body, you disregarded their admonition to avoid higher education. If you met them in person you'd probably also hide the fact that you smoke the occasional cigar and visit apostate websites and post comments there as well.

I don't think JW's are mindless drones at all. The problem I have is that most of them are like you. They know on some level that what they believe isn't altogether true or provable so they reconcile this reality with the real world by making an appearance of listening and obeying while secretly picking and choosing which of the governing body admonitions they are going to completely disregard. While doing this, they readily shun former JW's who are actually honest about who they are and the lives they want to lead. This includes cutting ties with close friends and family members who were disciplined for doing the exact same things you have done but they chose to admit that they disagree with the governing Body's direction on certain matters rather than hide it.

Rather than just go away and go their separate ways, they harrass us, make videos maligning us, endlessly whine about us and even go so far as to disrupt our meetings. If I decided to leave the JW's, I'd do just that. I wouldn't obsess over them.

Most former JW's would love noting more than to go away but they've lost their entire family and support system to the religion. They are hoping to salvage what they can of their lives by alerting others to the things they now know about the organization.

12

The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

the most unforgettable man i ever met(by telly walstrom).

this man was a walking contradiction.

he violated every sensible rule of human interaction which might lead to success--especially as a salesman.unthinkable!preposterous!now here is what you must know.philip moh was ugly to look at.

Pete Zahut

People want to believe good things about themselves. My job is to help them believe the best possible thing. A person who pays money month after month for life insurance gets nothing for all their payments. They must be dead for anything to happen! What kind of person buys something like that? I explain. Only a hero does that! A selfless person who truly LOVES others does that. It takes a great person with a great heart to reach out and help their loved ones even after they are dead. If you want to be remembered forever as that kind of hero by your wife and kids--I am there to help them. That is my job. Their job is to become that hero.”

Was he appealing to people's good heartedness or their narcissism ?

If their motivation for buying Life Insurance was make themselves appear as a hero in the eyes of others even after they're gone, it could be that narcissism was the motivating factor. Narcissists believe they are the center of the universe and are greatly motivated by what others think of them.

If the motivation to join a religion is because you've been convinced that not only do you get to think of your self as a do-gooder, but you'll get to live on and on forever, it could be that the narcissistic part of your personality is at play.

It seems to me most people claim they love god, love goodness and their fellow man but in reality, they are more concerned with appearing virtuous and righteous in the eyes of their peers, saving their own skins from some sort of punishment and possibly living forever. After all, it would be a shame for the world to loose someone as wonderful as me, how could the world go on forever and ever without me in it.?

I think religions and sales people know how to tap into the narcissistic part of all of us.

9

Question

by poopie in

jw
friends

if i text my disfelowshupp daughter and it's a normal text do i go to gehenna?.

Pete Zahut

If I text my Disfelowshupp daughter and it's a normal text do I go to gehenna?

Not unless you text her immediately after you've visited an apostate website.

37

You Just Can't Make This S--t Up!

by FedUpJW in

i know this is kind of trivial but i don’t want to partake in something that might have connections with something that jehovah disapproves of.

i checked the watchtower library and i didn’t find anything on gingerbread man cookies.. .

good lord...how incredibly stupid and helpless are jdubs getting?

Pete Zahut

When my kids were in Kindergarten my wife had a few of the little ones from the Hall over for a little kids party at our house.

One of the activities she planned was to make Gingerbread Houses. Everything went well until one Sister arrived with her child and was utterly horrified to see all the little JW kids going to town on their little houses.

From her reaction, you'd have thought they were bowing down to Satan himself. Her argument was that making Gingerbread men and Gingerbread houses was a Christmas activity so it was Pagan. The other mothers were perplexed as to what to do but my wife told her that she was free to go if that's how she felt.

The sister left and later went to the elders, but nothing more came of it. Flash forward about 3 years, this same sister left her husband and 2 kids for some guy she hooked up with on the internet. She ruined the family and the husbands finances. A few years later we heard that the guy she hooked up with, wanted to get involved with "wife swapping". She couldn't tolerate that so she left him and wanted her original life back but her former husband had already remarried an Non JW and her non-gingerbread eating kids didn't want anything to do with her.

Anyway.....the point is that these people who nit-pick over these inconsequential matters are typically one step away from doing something majorly wrong themselves. They are usually heavily involved in some sort of self delusion in order to reconcile the real world and imaginary world they are straddling.

28

So here is my long winded story....

by GTSfromSY in

thanks for the warm greetings all.

wow!

i am very moved, really.

Pete Zahut

So what I did, I looked up facts and reviews on The "Creation book" and found an essay that someone wrote to Bethel back in the day about every point, page per page, wrong with the creation book. Maybe some of you remember it.

Great story...thanks for sharing. Do you have a link to that essay on the "Creation Book"?