Pete Zahut

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Posts by Pete Zahut

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  18

  Living forever

  by jws in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  someone on facebook posted john 3:16 where it says people will live forever.. not that i believe it, but i just cannot imagine this.

  this, to me, would be the true hell.. if i'm very lucky, i will live to be 100. at nearly half that, already some parts of life no longer hold much interest to me.

  even tv shows.

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  Pete Zahut

  Every morning I let my dog out into the back yard and although he recognizes where he is, you'd swear by his excitement that he'd never seen the place before. Each day he seems as if it's a brand new world to him.

  To live forever and be happy about it ones sense of the passage of time would have to be altered and ones memory would in some ways have to fail them so that things seemed new again.

  Maybe when they talk about Adam and Eve having lost their innocence and their eyes being opened, this is what is what they mean. Maybe (if they truly ever existed) humans were supposed to be more innocent (like my dog) and their concept of time was meant to be different. Maybe our current concept of time and tendency to become bored is part of the "imperfection" we inherited. Maybe our concept of time and the passage of time is all fouled up.
  

  At any rate, it's hard for me to imagine that all those years ago when my parents randomly conceived me that I was intended to live for all eternity just because the sperm that swam the strongest at that moment, was the one that made me instead of one of the other thousand that could have been someone else. If they'd have gone to bed 10 minutes sooner or 10 minutes later I wouldn't even be here.

  Maybe wanting to live forever is part of the human tendency to be greedy or to be self absorbed. We always want more, even when sometimes more would be the worst thing ever.
  
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  17

  Just curious

  by Gorbatchov in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i remember that every time when my father and i came home from the meeting, my mother (who stayed at home for my disabled brother) asked us "who was attending and who wasn't attending".. and then, we took some time to drink coffee and went through the list who was there and who wasn't.

  there after there was an opinion made why someone was absent and what this meant in relation with his strength of believe.. just curious, do you recognize this?

  gorby.

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  Pete Zahut

  Who was there at the meetings and what they had to say afterward was always more relevant and newsworthy than the meetings themselves.

  The only time the meeting program was discussed was when there was disfellowshipment announced or there was a rumor of an exciting announcement that was forthcoming from the society which could possibly be about the beginning of the tribulation.
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  30

  Who would you like to hear of leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses ?

  by wozza in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'll start off with this one:.

  some years ago when i was formulating my exit, i employed for some time an ms brother from another congregation.. i'd had a couple of young "worldly" lads work for me but they proved unreliable as they used drugs or alchohol and consequently would'nt arrive at work and such like.. so when i was was contacted by this brother and spoke to him and heard he'd worked at the australian bethel for some time on construction and wanted an opportunity to learn the trade of bricklaying ,i thought ,"great someone to finally trust and be reliable".

  he was in his 40's at the time and he worked like a trojan ,was honest ,really likeable and interesting ,could play the classical guitar beautifully ,had a beautiful family.

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  Pete Zahut

  Besides seeing the guy in charge of overseeing the Watchtower finances leaving under mysterious circumstances, I'd like to see Caleb and Sophia do a video that chronicled their exit from the cult
  
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  50

  OMG JW Sea Org

  by sherrie11 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i found this picture and i just can't believe it?

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  http://www.jw-archive.org/post/130152768378/jw-booth-at-a-book-fair-in-brazil-photo-shared-by#.

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  Pete Zahut

  Ladies and Gentlemen...

  In the unlikely event of a water landing
  

  our literature should not be used as a floatation device.

  
  
  
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  112

  Did an EX-JW wake you up to TTATT or did you put the effort to wake up yourself?

  by John Aquila in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  how many of us were woken up by some apostate yelling false prophets at a convention?.

  how many of us were woken up by someone holding a sign and yelling, what happened to 1975.

  how many of us were coerced to investigate the wt because some ex-jw pulled up a bunch of old watchtowers magazines and told us to read the false predictions?.

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  Pete Zahut

  A lifelong JW friend who was like a sister to me, sent me an "interesting" email about Beth Sarim. She thought it was wonderful to see the old photos and so interesting to see how much brighter the light has gotten and she shared it with all her JW email contacts.
  

  I on the other hand was shocked that as a life long JW, a former Bethelite and as someonene who tragically lost a loved one over the blood transfusion issue, couldn't believe that I had never heard of this Beth Sarim nonsense before and wondered what else I didn't know about this religion and it's crazy founders.

  A google search ensued and all the missing pieces about the religion that I had wondered about but had dismissed, began to fall into place. The rest is history.

  I often wondered if anyone else who received that email from my friend, had the same reaction as I did. When that friend later discovered that my wife and I were no longer Witnesses, (5 years after our last meeting) she said she loved us dearly but if we were leaving the organization, she would no longer be able to remain in contact with us. She asked me what happened to make us want to leave the truth. I told her that her email about Beth Sarim gave me the go ahead to do a google search to find out more and to verify it's accuracy and that's when the JW house of cards came crashing in.

  Let me tell you...she was horrified but I assured her that we were the same moral and decent people and this would have happened eventually anyway. She said that out of loyalty to Jehovah, she would have to cut off contact with us. I told her that loyalty to Jehovah and loyalty to the Watchtower organization were two different things but she didn't see it that way. We made several attempts to visit her and her husband after that but phone calls and emails weren't returned.

  About 9 months ago she was killed in a freak accident and we attended her Memorial which ironically was not too far from Beth Sarim. (we visited the Beth Sarim site while we were there) It was our first time in a Kingdom Hall since Memorial of 2008 and it was strange and bittersweet to hear the old JW speak again.I sniffled and sobbed through the whole thing especially when one of the old kingdoms song was played at the end. It was such a terrible loss and under the circumstances never to have been able to say goodbye.
  

  Her family was delighted to see us and we were invited to the dinner after her memorial and they were truly glad that we came. Other than the family, we didn't know anyone else in attendance at the memorial. Everyone assumed we were JW's and treated us as such. It was heartbreaking that she wasn't there with us like it used to be and such a shame that we never got to speak to our dear friend in the last few years of her life because of her loyalty to a man made organization.
  
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  28

  Is the end of Watchtowers hated No Blood doctrine in sight?

  by nicolaou in

  1. watchtower
  2. medical

  i won't pretend to know things that i don't but just look at the incredible rate of change we've witnessed recently.

  it seems that since candace conti and the australian royal commission the watchtower are scrabbling around to shore up their finances in the face of unprecedented legal action against them.. abuse settlement claims are one thing but what happens when children die as a result of your religious teachings?!

  you can bet wt legal are arguing for a complete rewrite of policy to protect the organisation from litigation.. do you think their religious privilege will protect them forever?

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  Pete Zahut

  I could see them holding fast to the old party line with all the old doctrines but making some kind of announcement to the effect that this wicked worldly system of things has gotten so corrupt and is ready to find a way to prevent the preaching activity to continue, which is our main purpose. In view of this, our spiritual strategy is for the Elders to contain their spiritual guidance and authority to within the walls of the Kingdom Hall and no longer be regulating the activities of individuals rather, letting each one stand before Jehovah on his own merit. From now on the Elders will be focusing 100% on organizing the preaching activity and the meeting programs.
  
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  32

  Impressions of the Governing Body; who's smart, who ain't?

  by Room 215 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  based on what we've seen, it seems to me that of the seven, splane and jackson are the smartest; herd, lett and morris the least intelligent; and sanderson and losch somewhere in the middle.

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  what's your impression?.

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  Pete Zahut

  I don't know who's smart or who isn't but I do know that they've been drinkin' their own Koolaid so long that they seem to have lost touch with reality. This is the result of having surrounded themselves for decades with yes men and women who are afraid to give their leaders a reality check. From all the changes we've seen lately I get the sense that they've realized this themselves (perhaps too late) and have hired some outside agency to make them over or they are making some last ditch effort to put a new(ish) spin on the same old stuff and are still listening to their own narcissistic reasonings and are failing to realize that no matter what they do, people are seeing through the whole set up.
  
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  44

  It's not the same religion anymore.

  by punkofnice in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  that was a quote from a dyed in the wool jw recently.

  it was a complaint.. we all know that with 'new light(tm)' that the watchtower corporation's version of 'religion' has kept changing for a long time.

  since i remember.....and i go back a long way too.

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  Pete Zahut

  It isn't. My JW Wife commented to me after the big mid-week meeting announcement "are we still called JW's anymore??"

  More like "Website Witnesses" what with all the promotion of JW dot ORG.

  We are Website Witnesses,

  We click our mouse with fearlessness,

  Ours is the God of Search Engine Accessibility

  Google his name and you'll see

  My husband always said the KH's look like funeral homes.

  I've thought that same thing for years and toward the end of my JW career, the meetings seemed more and more like attending funerals rather than uplifting events that gave you the strength to carry on. It finally dawned on me why so many JW's are depressed. (including myself)
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  44

  One of my JW friends posted this on Facebook. Totally cringeworthy!

  by Divergent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

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  Pete Zahut

  People in Cults don't realize they're in a cult until after they are out of it, otherwise they'd have never gotten involved with it in the first place. Most of the time they spend as a cult member, seems perfectly logical to them. It's only when personal hurt or betrayal within the cult occurs, that they begin to allow themselves to see things as they are.

  How many of us sailed along rather uneventfully as JW's until we were hurt or betrayed by someone in the cult or when we crossed paths with the unkind/unfair policies of the organization or discovered the organizations past history that was hidden from us?

  (raises hand)
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  16

  Recent incident with lion and JW Governing Body member in Africa

  by JWchange in

  1. social
  2. humour

  i dont know if you are aware but i was informed recently that jw governing body member tony pants morris was in a safari park in africa.

  he stumbled across a skinny hungry looking lioness with cubs nearby.

  not seeing a way to escape, he got on his knees and started praying, pleading for help.

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  Pete Zahut

  Attempting to follow Bible principals, the Lioness bleed her prey before eating him but was only to able to extract a little dust from his veins.