A JW family member showed me a video of and elderly Sister who was listening to a Zoom meeting and she walked by the camera in a nightgown and slurping on a glass of red wine.
I said "That must be why they call her Sister Weinstien" LOL!
Pete Zahut
JoinedPosts by Pete Zahut
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17
Zoom meetings
by molybdenum inbeing pimo i attend the meetings regularly over zoom.
( i have to as my wife is a dyed -in - the wool, and stick-in-the mud pioneer witness.
i have no possibility of leaving as it would create havoc in my life and at 68 years of age i just don't want the hassle of having to cope with the ramifications of disassociating myself.
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The Trolley Problem
by Simon inso you've probably heard of the ethical dilemma question which is a thought-experiment where you imagine there is a runaway train-trolley, a junction with a lever that you can pull and two tracks - one with 5 workers on it and another with just 1, but no way to warn them.. all you can do is pull the lever, or not, thus allowing 5 people to die or through your direct action sacrificing 1 to save them.. what should you do?.
this sort of thing may seem silly but it comes up in real life.
should a self-driving car for instance, faced with a certain collision, chose which pedestrians to run over?
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Pete Zahut
This reminds me of the JW "trolley" illustration that was meant to show God's mercy in sacrificing his son Jesus for mankind?
A bridge has collapsed and a train full of people (cursed mankind) is heading toward it. The railroad switch operator (God) can throw the switch and send the train down another set of tracks and save all the passengers but he knows that his son (Jesus) brings him his lunch every day and is walking on those tracks at that very moment. What should he do?
The solution of course is that since he's Almighty God, he could easily stop the train or miraculously fix the bridge but once again the JW's created a false narrative and weren't comparing apples to apples. The switch operator in this scenario wasn't the one who collapsed the bridge the way god cursed mankind and unlike the little boy, Jesus was aware of what was taking place.
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Why does God need to be worshipped?
by RULES & REGULATIONS inthe bible exhorts us to “worship the one who made the heaven and the earth and sea and fountains of waters.”—deuteronomy 4:24; revelation 14:7.. insight on the scriptures, volume 2 pp 1200-1202. worshipone of the hebrew words conveying the idea of worship (ʽa·vadhʹ) basically means “serve.” (ge 14:4; 15:13; 29:15) serving or worshiping jehovah required obedience to all of his commands, doing his will as a person exclusively devoted to him.
(ex 19:5; de 30:15-20; jos 24:14, 15) therefore, for an individual to engage in any ritual or act of devotion toward any other gods signified his abandoning true worship.—de 11:13-17; jg 3:6, 7.another hebrew term that can denote worship is hish·ta·chawahʹ, which primarily means “bow down” (ge 18:2), or do obeisance.
(see obeisance.
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Pete Zahut
As a father, I never required my children to worship me. I just wanted honor and respect. They never needed to thank me for every meal...
Yes... and what father would curse his grandchildren and every generation thereafter to horrible sicknesses and death just because his son or daughter broke one of his rules ?
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Havent gone to the kingdom hall in ten years but may have to go back...
by Joliette inmade a big mistake of talking about being raised as a jehovah's witness to some old friends and family.
people have told me that i am still a jws even though i've never been baptized.
i'm in school for social services, dealing with student loan debt, and a lot of other debt.
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Pete Zahut
Really trying to get myself together in 2021 both economically and health-wise, trying to get my diabetes in check,
A friend of mine was out of work temporarily but because of that, was qualified to get one of those high tech insulin pumps and his A1c has improved greatly. They're quite speedy but not impossible. Might you be eligible for some kind of financial assistance that can help you get one??
trying to finish my human services degree, and hopefully move in the next year or so, maybe to another place, or to another city.
How about changing the words "trying", "hopefully" and "maybe" to.... "I am, "I will" and I'm determined to"
I feel for you because I know what it's like to be "conditioned" to think that in order to be happy, successful, fulfilled etc you have to be a JW. That what we learn through fear is hard to unlearn. Fear is the No1 tactic that groups like JW's use to get sell their program to others. They are scared people who pass on their own fears to others.
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Havent gone to the kingdom hall in ten years but may have to go back...
by Joliette inmade a big mistake of talking about being raised as a jehovah's witness to some old friends and family.
people have told me that i am still a jws even though i've never been baptized.
i'm in school for social services, dealing with student loan debt, and a lot of other debt.
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Pete Zahut
You guys are missing the point. If something ends up happening to me who is going to help me? If I ended up getting seriously sick in an accident no ex Jehovah's Witness is gonna help.
I understand how you're feeling. Any of us who grew up JW did so waiting for the next shoe to drop. We got used to the idea that we had a safety net and were part of a worldwide brotherhood and pitied anyone who wasn't part of it.
Apart from your immediate family and a handful of friends, the feeling of safety was an illusion. From what I've seen, when times of trouble come along, the congregation might be there with sympathetic words, mention you in a few prayers and offer a casserole or two but any real help came from family members or very close friends. Even that was short lived. It was still vital to have health insurance, social security, savings, be eligible for unemployment insurance and have a solid back-up plan. You can do this without having to sit through decades of mind numbing meetings listening to aggravating skewed logic. Why not spend the time working toward being self sufficient emotionally and financially.
So far you've (understandably) talked about others helping you...what others can do for you when you run into trouble. What do you have to offer others?
What if you met a man you were interested in and he told you his life plan was to join a club so that if he ran into trouble, he'd have someone to rely on. You'd likely think of him as a user and a weakling.
Gone are the days when a woman needs to be a dependent all of her life, whether it be emotionally or financially. I can see how going back to what is familiar might help you while you are getting yourself together but I wouldn't make being a JW your master plan. It's not fair to them and it's not fair to you.
If you want to go back to the JW's, do it for the right reasons. Like most avenues one uses to escape from reality, be it drugs, sex, alcohol, religion etc it will ultimately become a prison and eventually you'll have to the face reality you're running from, all at once. "Every form of refuge has it's price".
Scary as it may be at first, why not face reality on your own terms rather than waiting around for it to eventually catch up with you? Often the roaring lion (your fears) become a harmless kitten when you turn around and face them head on.
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2021...what do you foresee?
by minimus indo you think the world will be a better place?
more civil?
kinder?
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Pete Zahut
We'll be told by the media that everything is wonderful, while people are harassed more and wars are started.
We'll be told by the media and by JW's who both focus on and prosper from the relatively few who are causing disruption and who feed their narrative; that the world is falling apart. People will look around them and see life going on as usual until they go to meetings or turn on their TVs. By the end of Biden's term, as with all past Presidents we'll only hear from those who despise him as well as Miss Thing and on it goes....NEXT !!
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Pete Zahut
Just to be on the safe side, our turkey is wearing a mask.
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Circuit overseers wives.
by stan livedeath inor..as i remember the title..circuit servants wives.
but then i left 40+ years ago.. any recollections of those females that led such an unnatural existence?.
those that i recall seemed such aloof creatures..
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Pete Zahut
#1)
My Mother used to be quite a seamstress and was known for the dresses and suits she'd make for herself and my sisters. The Circuit Overseers wife, (J.C.) known for hoity toity manner, her long red fingernails and showy hats with feathers, had admired my mothers clothes and once she found out that she could sew, asked her to make a wool suit for her. My father had been laid off his job at the time and they needed the extra money so Mom agreed.
She gave Mom a pattern in her size and a swatch of the material she wanted. Mom took her measurements and they agreed on a price. She then purchased the expensive wool, the special buttons and the satin for the lining, all with her own money and set about making the suit which involved hours at the sewing machine and a lot of hand work.
A few weeks later when they were visiting a nearby congregation, the Circuit Overseer's wife came by our house and tried the suit on only she had put on a bunch of weight and it was too tight. She claimed that the suit had been made too small. Rather than make an issue of her obvious weight gain, Mom had to let the suit out, including the lining which wasn't an easy job. She stayed up till all hours of the night in order to get it done before they left for their next assignment. Long story short, the suit was altered to fit but after trying it on, the CO's wife decided she didn't like the color of the fabric and how it looked on her and refused to pay Mom for the material and for her work. Mom was too kind to insist that the lowly wife of a servant of Jehovah, pay up so she ate the cost herself.
Years later that same C.O and his wife returned to our territory. The C.O pulled my mother and teenaged sister aside and counseled them for wearing knee high boots out in service. He said he was from Chicago and only prostitutes wore boots and it could give people at the door the wrong impression. My mother got angry and said,
" It's 30 degrees outside and we're expected to wear skirts and dresses out in service. These boots keep us warm. Besides that, around here, only prostitutes wear long blood red fingernails like your wife does. I can only imagine what people at the doors must think as this so called humble Ministers Wife turns the pages of the Bible with those nails of hers....talk about a distraction."
She and my sister turned walked off and nothing more was said about boots. (P.S. This is the same Circuit Overseer that years later made an announcement when Price died calling him a "Brother in good standing", even though he was known worldwide for his makeup, facial hair, and wild hairstyles and gender bending clothing)
#2)
I was 23 and had been engaged for a few months to my beautiful wife who lived in another part of the State, we wanted to wait for a special occasion to announced it to our engagement to our families so know one in my Congregation knew I was engaged yet. The Circuit Overseer and his wife and their 20 year old daughter were visiting our congregation and apparently she was interested in me as a former Bethelite and so unknown to me, a sister in our congregation decided to play matchmaker and invite me over to lunch after the Sunday meeting.
I knew who the daughter was as she had been visiting congregations in our area with her parents since she was I was in high school. She wasn't a very good looking girl, pale and thin and worse yet she was about as interesting as a bucket. One of my friends used to unkindly refer to her as Ol' Brezhnev Brows because like her father, she had heavy dark eyebrows that sort of met up in the of her forehead like the Russian Leader Leonid Brezhnev.
Once I arrived for lunch it became apparent that it was a set up. The C.O was at the head of the table and I was seated across from the C.O's bossy wife and conspicuously next to
Brezhnev Browsthe daughter. The next thing I know, I'm being grilled about my spiritual goals and why I left Bethel and why I wasn't Pioneering and being questioned about my job and what my plans for the future were etc. I could see what was happening so I decided that it was a good time to break it to them gently to that I had become engaged a few weeks ago but we were waiting to announce it at my future wife's parents 25th anniversary party as a surprise.Once I said I was engaged, the girl got up from the table and made some excuse about needing to go shopping and that she needed the car. She drove off and left me sitting there with her Mother grilling me about my fiancé, what her name was, her spiritual standing, who her parents were and doubt our wedding plans. She said she recognized the family name and I proudly showed her the photo of my beautiful smiling dimpled faced finance that I carried in my wallet. She sniffed and flung it back to me and said that weddings were a waste of time and money and that one "spiritual" couple she knew, were putting the Kingdom first and got married alone at the Hall by an Elder and immediately drove away pulling their little travel trailer and had their honeymoon in a rural territory where the "need was great". (she was probably bitterly referring to her husband and herself 30 years ago)
The Sister giving the luncheon got angry and said "I don't care what anyone says, I think It's wonderful that Pete is engaged and is having a wedding. I had a big wedding and I'd do it all over again because it was the only opportunity I ever had to get my Grandparents and other non JW relatives inside a Kingdom Hall and to our reception where they got to see us as normal people !"
The C.O and his wife weren't having any of it and the lunch was suddenly over.
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Collapse of JW Org - Possibly on the Horizon?
by JWTom inthis topics get a great deal of discussion here.
what i find interesting is even some of my pimi family is embracing the reality that all is not well with jw.org and that many current jws are just going through the motions due to not having a good way out of the org.
wondering what could realistically lead to the collapse of jw.org in the not distant future?
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Pete Zahut
Large institutions that came into existence back when the Watchtower did and who seemed unshakable, have been disappearing one by one.
Sears and Macys for example as well huge newspaper and magazine establishments that seemed unshakable have either gone away or are about to. Soon there will be very few libraries because you'll be able to download any book you want at any hour of the day. Large universities will become more and more rare as students will be attaining higher education virtually. The only reason these places will exist is simply because people want to be together.
In my area, in the 3 mile stretch between my house and the Kingdom Hall there are about 7 large churches. Most of them are adding on or remodeling. Besides Sunday and weekly services where the parking lots are full, they offer education programs, sports and music activities and social services for their membersWhat JW's value the most about their religion is the association and that is all but gone these days. Instead of playing up the association aspect and providing a bigger sense of community for the JW's, the folks at Watchtower have always discouraged it and have only allowed association to take place on their own terms. They have always been afraid of what might happen if their members got organized without them.
With the changes that the internet and technology has made in the world, the information the control the Watchtower once had over their followers is dwindling. They need to provide a bigger sense of community if they hope to survive. Attending stale repetitive meetings just isn't enough for people anymore and trudging around from door to door to spread a supposedly urgent message, is making less and less sense, to more and more people.
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Politics and Hope
by lriddle80 inso there are a lot of atheists on here.
my question: where does your hope come from?
that the right people will be put in political positions and will eventually form a utopian society that will meet all needs and we will have equality for all?.
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Pete Zahut
Politics and Hope
Hope is a tease designed to prevent us from accepting reality. We can claim to know what's going on in the big scheme of things but all we really have is the here and now.
Life has some wonderful aspects as well as some difficult realities. Better to face them head and make the best of things within our own capabilities and within the framework of our own circumstances.