Pete Zahut

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Posts by Pete Zahut

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  32

  Remember the Wife of Lot

  by Addison0998 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for family worship last night, our family watched remember the wife of lot movie since it will be discussed in the meeting this week.

  there’s a few things i noticed that i didn’t think about last time i watched it.. first, the dad is very of course against his daughters going to college or even trying to find a good job.

  yet he does accounting, which is a very good job that almost always requires a college education.

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  Pete Zahut

  Lots' wife was really worth her salt!

  just saying!

  And she was a "Pillar" of the community.
  
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  54

  Explain why you are happy if you believe there is no afterlife vs when you joined JW's

  by Bad_Wolf in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  one thing that has intrigued me are so many who have left, who are wholly convinced everything in existence is merely by chance now, also claim they wouldn't want to live forever, and perfectly fine if this is the only life.

  now, i would understand that if you were raised into the religion.

  i was raised into it.

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  Pete Zahut

  I came to the realization that most people don't necessarily want to live forever, they just don't want to die.

  They are afraid of not knowing what will cause their death and not knowing what happens afterward. Not knowing has always been unpleasant for humans who are wired to preserve themselves alive and who are aware of their own mortality. In most cases, thinking about what "might happen" is worse than dealing with it in real time.
  

  Having the promise that the world will end before you grow old and die, solves both of those problems. My very elderly JW mother in law is realizing that she probably won't live to see the end of the "system of things" and the promise of living forever is of little comfort to her. She just didn't want to grow old and die.
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  15

  Nothing in life is stable as a Jehovah's Witness...

  by silentbuddha in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  at 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

  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.
  
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  20

  Satan temping Eve. Had she not ate

  by pleaseresearch in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  being 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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  14

  The elephant on the street

  by Normalfulla in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  as 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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  114

  The biggest news of the year for Mr. and Mrs. Totally ADD

  by Still Totally ADD in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this 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.)

  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-44672442
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  13

  Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad

  by charonsdog in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  today, 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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  13

  In Search of An Analogy

  by InjusticeSystem in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i 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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  66

  The urban legends we heard as JWs!

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  how 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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  46

  What is the most troubling or disturbing biblical passage you ever had to rationalise when a Jw?

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  now 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.