Posts by Pete Zahut

19

Do you remember this?

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

when g. was a litle kid, remembering the watchtower study at age 9, hearing all the stuff, the paragraph, the questions, the answers, about topics i could not understand, so it became so abstract that it was not entering my ears and brains.

it felt that i was no part of the group, someone alone on a distant planet.. do you remember this feeling?.

g..

Pete Zahut

Looking back, I realize that I learned early on as a child, how to zone out and mentally leave my body, as a matter of survival and for maintaining my sanity while sitting in the hot sun during those 8 day assemblies that lasted from 9AM to late into the evening.

I remember the drone of the speakers voices and how they sounded like Adolph Hitler in those old movies I'd seen about Nazi Germany and WW2. I remember around 6'oclock on the first night of the assembly thinking...."Oh good, we only have 4 more hours and 7 days left to go".

8

Positive memories as a JW child..

by fulano in

jw
friends

it is based on gorbatsjov's good topic, but we all must have had nice, pleasant, romantic moments in our congregations.. i was always a dedicated boy, baptized at 14. we had our bookstudy at 8:00 pm and before that our fieldservice at 7:00 pm .

most of times, as a 14-16 years old boy i was the only one there with our conductor.

he was from aruba, immigrated to our cold and wet european country.

Pete Zahut

Sounds just lovely...

56

Things you will never hear a good Jehovah’s Witness say (to another Jehovah’s Witness)

by hoser in

i’ll start it off.

boy did we get drunk last night.

Pete Zahut

Is it me or is there something disturbingly odd about Stephen Lett ?

______________________________________________________________

Yes you heard me right....I didn't study my Watchtower in advance because reading it once during the meeting is pointless enough as it is.

_______________________________________________________________

Elder: All in those in favor of sending additional funds to the Society, raise your hand.

Congregation Member: Excuse me....we are all just now hearing about this for the first time, will we be getting a break down showing exactly how these funds will be spent, before we vote?

12

My Dad's Funeral

by Disassociated Lady 2 in

i had not seen my dad for 15 years because i had left the borg.

(i had been out 26 years but there was a few years when the jws permitted contact with outsiders and then changed their minds again).

they made contact with me again just before he was diagnosed with cancer.

Pete Zahut

Many Jehovah's Witnesses are overly officious about their beliefs, it's the curse of belonging to a legalistic religion. Most of them just don't know quite how to behave nor are they prepared to do the right thing, when the realities of life strike. They spend most of their lives side stepping reality and using their religious beliefs as a way to cop out of doing the things they don't want to do. Unfortunately, time has a way of catching up with them and it isn't pretty. Fortunately for you DL 2, you have grown as a person and although you've been treated poorly and unfairly, you'll be better off in the long run for having removed yourself from the vicious cycle they are trapped in. Sorry that you had to go through this....you aren't alone.

44

Watchtower refuses to "Say Sorry" to Australian Royal Commission

by Darth FayDehr in

https://youtu.be/qic5cfkjswu.

interview on melbourne (australia) abc radio - regarding watchtower's refusal to "say sorry" (global campaign).

radio host jon faine interviews lara kaputt.

Pete Zahut

It's a sad sad situation and it's getting more and more absurd....

Sorry seems to be the hardest word - Elton John

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3nScN89Klo

76

Family is now reaping what they sowed and they don't like it.

by Gemmel in

i resigned from the jw's in my 20's over 30 years ago, i was immediately shunned by my entire family and it's remained that way with a few exceptions ever since.

one of those exceptions was being contacted by a cousin a few years back and during that conversation i discovered that my mother had been and still was the prime mover in my complete and continuing shunning.

i then used what contacts i had left to confirm it.

Pete Zahut

Brother: Hey Gemmel....it's me your brother. Yeah....I know it's been 30 years....time really flies huh? Anyway, mom's really gettin' up there and we need you to start doing your part and kick in your share of her expenses.

Gemmel: Yeah....time does fly but still....30 years of being shunned still mostly feels like 30 years. Tell ya what.....not to sound all Biblical or prophetic or anything but since you folks seem to relate to that kind of thing let me say this. A month for a year... a month for a year equals 30 months. 30 months equals 2 and a half years. Give me a call in 2 and a half years and we'll talk about what bearing my entire familys shunning me for the past 30 years has on me doing what you call "my part" and what percentage it knocks off what you consider to be "my share"....."CLICK"

13

What would be just enough so they can guard themselves as they grow up?

by Tameria2001 in

i wasn't sure which topic to ask this question under.

three days ago my very first grandbaby, a boy was born.

so i still have time to think about stuff, and not royally screw up things.

Pete Zahut

If you purposely set out to teach him that JW's and or religion in general is bad news or that the Bible is nothing but nonsense, you are just as bad as they are.

If, when he asks about things having to do with holidays, customs and religious beliefs that he's heard of, you show him what religion is and help him an overall general understanding of the different beliefs out there and how to look at those beliefs critically yet without judgement of others, he'll be able to see things for himself and realize that its ok to do so.

Having grown up as a JW, I was told what to think and believe about every possible topic before I even wondered about them myself. Not only that, I was told that I would be a huge disappointment to everyone I loved and I would even die if I didn't believe what I was being taught.

I think that it's unlikely that any child who is free to look into whatever interests them and is taught that it's ok to come to his or her own conclusions about things without the fear of being judged or a disappointment to his family, would be readily taken in or mislead by a high control religious group .

I think you should relax and enjoy your grandchild and trust that when the time comes, you'll be able to show him how to see things clearly.

10

Cain and Abel

by Freedom rocks in

i love this from the atheists book of bible stories.

cain and abel the sacrifices

for some reason, these two boys got it into their heads that god liked gifts.

Pete Zahut

I was never sure why Cain had a herd or flock when humans were supposedly vegetarian until after the flood. I suppose he could have kept them for their fur or milk.

It seems to me the idea of Cain and Able making sacrifices to God was added later once this practice became customary among pagan nations in the same manner as the spinning sword at the entrance to the Garden of Eden was added to the Bible even though swords and the ability to mine and forge metal came along much much later in human history.

14

Crossword Puzzles in the Awake?

by Wild_Thing in

jw
friends

didn't they use to print crossword puzzles in the awake?

i vaguely remember my mother doing them, and me trying to do them when i was a small child.

is this an accurate memory or could i be thinking of a non-jw publication.

Pete Zahut

I don't remember crossword puzzles but "Watching the World" was probably the only part of the magazines I liked until I realized that they only featured news that fit their agenda.

They used to love news that discredited other religions, especially the Catholic church. The only time they ever said anything positive about anyone from another religion was when one of their leaders said something good about JW's such as " I wish we could get our parishioners to go from door to door like Jehovah's Witnesses do".

I always got the feeling that they were delighted to find awful bits of news to present. It really should have been called " A Negative Look At the World"

15

Those awkward magazines

by Addison0998 in

i’m sure we all remember those really weird, awkward magazines we were expected to place in service.

and it was before we are had the website or the thing on the back to fall back on.

imagine being a 12 year old girl, and having to place magazines on god’s view of pornography, sex, homosexuality.

Pete Zahut

This post reminds me of an experience I had out in service one time

Back when I was in high school my best friend and I were going from door to door one Saturday morning. Neither of us had really prepared well but we had been going out in service and talking at the doors since the first grade so we could usually just wing it.

We knocked on the first door and a woman answered. My friend started talking about world conditions (of course) and he featured one of the typical articles in the Watchtower that highlighted some timely topic that showed how deep into the time of the end we were (this was back in 1974 by the way).

There was an oil shortage going on and there were long lines at gas stations all over the country and after the woman agreed that world conditions indeed looked pretty bad, my friend said very earnestly:

" And along with the Watchtower, we are also offering it's companion magazine the Awake which features many thought provoking articles such as this one, Kop-ping With Seenus Trouble."

The woman and I looked at each other and we both burst out laughing. She said with a smirk " Um...I think you meant to say "Coping With Sinus Trouble" my dear.

She and I were laughing but my friend was mortified because it was so obvious that he had come to her door to recommend that she read a magazine that he hadn't bothered to read himself. There was no coming back from this one....the woman closed the door and we got in his car and got the heck out of there.

Back in the car he exclaimed "Pete....we are the WORST example of Witnesses EVER !!! Why the do they have to have such stupid articles in these damn magazines???? Why are there two magazines and why would anyone who wasn't a JW want to read them??? I barely want to read them !!!

We both agreed how ridiculous it was to be offering two magazines full of JW specific information in them. Somehow we both continued being JW's well into adulthood. He eventually left when he was in his late 30's or early 40's after his JW wife cheated on him and he saw the religion from behind the scenes for the first time and realized that the Elders in his hall were a bunch of buffoons who weren't being directed by anyone.

For years afterward, whenever he was being a bit too cocky or full of himself I'll I had to do was say to him " Kop-ping With Seenus Trouble" and it would put him in his place...he still cringes at the very thought of it.