How could anyone be stable after attending 3 indoctrination sessions a week where all the flaws of everyone else in the world are highlighted and everyone is preparing for a cataclysmic event that never occurred.
Pete Zahut
JoinedPosts by Pete Zahut
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15
Nothing in life is stable as a Jehovah's Witness...
by silentbuddha inat least in hindsight it would appear so.
i remember as a small kid not making friends because ultimately they were going to die.
i never saved anything because money would be useless in the new world.
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Pete Zahut
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Satan temping Eve. Had she not ate
by pleaseresearch inbeing the loving god that he is :).
how do you imagine this playing out.
let's say eve didn't eat and so we didn't fall into sin.. what do you think god would have done with satan and his demons?.
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Pete Zahut
How do you imagine this playing out. Let's say Eve didn't eat and so we didn't fall into sin.
The whole story is nonsense from beginning to end but according to JW's the issue that Satan brought to the forefront was God's "universal sovereignty" and needing to prove to the myriads of angels that God had the right to rule.
Satan tempted Eve with the fruit but even if she refused, by his actions Satan had challenged Gods authority and even told Eve that she could be like God herself and would not die. When God eventually confronted Satan about this matter, Satan likely would have made the same challenge, that of being able to turn everyone away from God. If God destroyed Satan there and then, just as in the original story, it would have looked as if he was afraid of Satan. If "universal sovereignty" was the real issue, he'd have had to let Satan continue in order to give him time to prove himself without any interference.
The only way the human race would win out in this scenario is if Adam and Eve were able to have at least two perfect children before someone succumbed to Satan's devices.
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The elephant on the street
by Normalfulla inas a contractor i travel around for my job, i was stopped this morning to buy some milk at a store in a small village i guess and as i turned a corner i saw 2 elders i know personally manning a cart in the cold outside the store with not a soul in sight and an unlikely place for much traffic even though it was outside a country store.
1 elder is my brother in laws father and the other was in my old cong when i left, i said hello, talked about the weather and general chit chat and was my usual self, they were pleasant also but nothing was mentioned to me about anything spiritual etc.
i know they will be aware of some of my reasons for leaving (the few that i talked about initially before shutting my trap) but they were unwilling to engage in saving my life with their work!
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Pete Zahut
Apart from a pathetic excuse for witnessing, I thought it odd that these guys can be pleasant to an obvious org deserter but others I. E family and friends act as I'm pretty much dead.
When JW's are manning those literature carts, they are not being their true selves rather they are merely actors playing a part they've often rehearsed for decades. They also feel particularly vulnerable and exposed while standing out there. Many times their backs are up against a literal wall . Standing against a building and watching the public pass by, they feel they are a spectacle, Even though no one notices them, they feel obligated to put on a happy face because they are representing the organization in public.
You had the upper hand over them as soon as you approached their cart. The dynamics would have been much different if they were on their home turf or in a situation that gave them the upper hand instead. Disciplining those who disagree with them is the only personal power they're allowed to exercise and they often revel in it.
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The biggest news of the year for Mr. and Mrs. Totally ADD
by Still Totally ADD inthis is bigger than christmas and birthdays wrap into one.
thanks to the australian royal commission our youngest son has woke up.
we received a e-mail from him tonight where he apologized to us for shunning us all these years, how bad he felt for doing this.
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Pete Zahut
I'm sure there are many many more who's eyes were opened by what was revealed during the ARC hearings. May this bring your family closer together and make up for all the time that was lost. Keep a close eye on your son though because typically there's a mourning period for those who loose a known way of life even if it was their choice to do so.
(You and your son may be interested to see this news article I saw this headline yesterday.)
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Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad
by charonsdog intoday, july 1, i wrote what has become my annual contact with my parents.
it is their 51st wedding anniversary.
i e-mail them from across the world where i now live to let them know that i haven't forgotten them, i still love them, and that i'm doing okay.
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Pete Zahut
Them: 'Thank you. Glad you are okay. Praying for your return to Jehovah- who forgives in a large way... Love you'
You: Love you too and I'm confident that Jehovah will forgive those who judge others and who punish them in his name.
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In Search of An Analogy
by InjusticeSystem ini hope this finds all of you well.
i'm also hoping some of you might be able to help me with a particular type of de-witnessing strategy that i'm trying to develop more in my own discussions with active family members.
it seems to me that analogy and metaphor plays a prominent role in the society's teaching (critical thought killing) techniques.
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Pete Zahut
JW's say: The Bible forbids eating blood and taking blood into the body via a blood transfusion is the same as eating blood.
If this is so, why is it that a person who is starving to death, would still be starving even if he was given a blood transfusion?
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The urban legends we heard as JWs!
by stuckinarut2 inhow often have we heard some sort of sensationalist urban legend as jws?.
here is an example i was told as a kid:.
the experience of a sister who knocked on a door and was greeted by a big fierce looking man- intimidating and mean.
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Pete Zahut
I remember a heartwarming assembly experience as a kid where some JW's were smuggling a carload of watchtower literature over a border into a communist country where the preaching work was "under ban". Apparently they were stopped by the authorities who were searching through all the cars that came over the border. When the trunk of their car was opened, the border guard looked in and saw nothing even though the trunk was full of colorful Watchtower publications. He closed the lid of the trunk and sent them on their way.
The claim was that Jehovah's holy spirit caused the guars eyes to be "unseeing" so that his message could be brought into this communist country. There was a resounding round of applause from the audience.
Now we realize that the "Truths" contained in those books has long since been considered to be incorrect and was later discontinued and has been replaced many times over with literature containing "new light".
It seems that the owner of the car placed himself in great jeopardy just to bring books full of misinformation across the border (if it even happened at all)
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What is the most troubling or disturbing biblical passage you ever had to rationalise when a Jw?
by stuckinarut2 innow that we have stepped away from the jw faith, how do you feel about the bible itself?.
what about those awkward sections of scripture?
how did you rationalise or justify those sections?.
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Pete Zahut
What about the time when God allowed Satan to cause Job's house to fall in and kill all (10 ?) of his children but then made everything OK by giving him 10 more.
Apparently in his infinite wisdom his solution was for the already aged Mrs. to be pregnant 10 more times so that she'd be too exhausted and or busy to mourn over the loss of her previous family.
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Drop Off in Mentioning 1914
by steve2 invideos from the summer jw conventions ("be courageous) show the "urgency" about the end racheted up several notches.
paranoia rules supreme!.
curiously, though, very few, if any, statements in the convention program about 1914 and the overlapping generations.
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Pete Zahut
As someone who grew up in "the truth" I remember back in the 1960's and 70's hearing about certain beliefs that early JW's had and I remember how everyone use to chuckle over how cute and quaint the old understandings were.
I remember how was easy it was to dismiss how important those beliefs were to the JW who went ahead of us and who held them as the gospel truth and were ready to die (and did die) defending them. I suspect that when it comes to the year 1914, many young or new ones today couldn't care less about what that date meant to us. I also know that many of those who relied on the significance of those dates and what they meant in terms of them growing old before the end came, are gone now or are close to being gone.
It's human nature to be predominantly concerned about ones own lifetime and saving ones own skin. No one ever predicts the end will come after they've gone, they want to believe it will happen during their lifetime. Each Generation of the Watchtower Leaders made sure to predict that the end would come during their lifetime so they not only wouldn't have to worry about growing old and dying themselves, it ensured that they could string their followers along and keep that the donations they were living on, kept rolling in.
Now because of the accountability of the Internet, they are keeping things more generic and providing a "feel good" religion that tickles the ears of their followers without being too specific about anything lest they get called on the carpet in a few years when once again, nothing happens.
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Pete Zahut
"Do you think Tony Tight Pants hated Tom Jones in the 70s?"
Back in the 70's Tony Morris was involved in the Vietnam war and was likely too busy participating in a war to be concerned with such trivial matters such as tight pants.
Today, in gods name he is busy condemning people who wear tight pants even though he himself was involed in a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people.