Posts by Pete Zahut

65

Would You Ever Go Back To The Witnesses??

by minimus in

jw
friends

every once in a while you hear people say they actually “miss” their old witness friends and or family.

some would have even stayed in the organization if they became a bit more liberal and open minded.

.

Pete Zahut

a watcher9 hours ago
I did, twice, because Jehovah was not the problem. I was the problem. I'm on my 3rd try and I've been active for a decade now, and doing better than ever. Jehovah is merciful

Well if A Watcher has mended his ways and quit stumbling people I might give it a try. Trouble is, he goes to meetings and yet leads a double life being an A-hole here. I suspect he's that way every where he goes and there are plenty of others like him doing the same. Jehovah isn't the problem...it's the people who claim to be his people. The more sure they are about being right....the worse the are.

13

Shooting outside Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses

by annihilator in

gastonia authorities respond to shooting outside kingdom hall of jehovah’s witnesses https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-laxczssvgs

Pete Zahut

Like WiFi apparently the Holy Spirit only works inside the Hall and doesn’t reach the outside of the building.

13

Documentary Examines Alleged Child Sex Abuse Within Jehovah's Witnesses

by annihilator in

in february, oxygen will premiere a two-part documentary about the jehovah’s witnesses in which a journalist who has spent five years looking at the group alleges “an abuse story that has layers of coverup.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wy4qx7lraa.

Pete Zahut

annihilator20 hours ago

As of February 2015, approximately 77.5 million American households (66.5% of households with television) receive Oxygen.Under its current format, the network primarily competes with Investigation Discovery and HLN.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_(TV_channel)

12

PIMI relative complains about convention venue.

by joe134cd in

i have just got of the phone with a relative complaining about the convention venue.

as far as my relative is concerned wt can do no wrong, so for him to say what he did it must of been bad.

the venue where the convention was held was described to me as a “tin shed with no air conditioning”.

Pete Zahut

Tell him to cheer up. Maybe his experience will be mentioned at an assembly in some third world country where they have to wade through alligator infested swamps but they don't have to endure the cold.

34

Circus Assembly Jaw Dropper

by Slidin Fast in

the co got on his hind legs for the public talk and repeated twice "tolerance promotes division".

then backed it up by saying that if one group march for some right, another group will march for the opposite.. so jws are intolerant and proud of it.

f@@@k me sideways.. may explain that the baptism tally was 0..

Pete Zahut

"Tolerance promotes division"

To be fair, typically JW's promote tolerance “Continue putting up with one another and forgiving one another freely if anyone has a cause for complaint against another. Even as Jehovah freely forgave you, so do you also.” (Col3:13)

I suspect that the above statement may have been taken out of context a bit. My guess is that this talk was about not tolerating that which is considered to be "wrongdoing" within the JW organization. There will be those who think that the Elders should be lenient toward certain "wrongdoers" or certain types of "wrongdoing" but if they tolerate wrongdoing of any kind, it will cause divisions.

32

After the death of a spouse, how long did people wait to get remarried?

by RubaDub in

jw
friends

i was on the phone with a long-time friend from my original congregation north of new york city and she told me that the 'shit hit the fan' when a brother (long-time elder i know well) got remarried about 6 weeks after his wife died.. he was about 60 and his new wife (a pioneer that i also know) was about 50 and had never been married.. it became a huge issue when the co came.

due to all the talk and chatter in the congregation, he even included in one of his talks without naming names, that marriage is something sacred and that when and how people get married is a personal matter as long as it conforms to bible standards.. anyway, it shut everybody up.

any similar experiences in your current/former congregations?.

Pete Zahut

There was a young couple in a local congregation in our area and the father of the young wife, married the single mother of the young husband, a few months after his wife passed away. The young couple were very upset not only because the parents didn't wait a "respectable" amount of time, but this marriage, made them stepbrother and stepsister. The daughter was especially upset because she felt her father showed disrespect for the memory of her mother and it made it seem as if the older couple had something going on previously.

Loneliness is not fun to deal with but they say one should go through a complete grieving process before making any big decisions and marriage is one of them. To be sure that grief isn't influencing your common sense, the rule of thumb is to give yourself one months grieving time for every year that you were involved with the thing that you lost. ( ie wait 24 months after losing a spouse of 24 years of marriage)

2 years would be a long time to wait to remarry if you were suffering from loneliness, especially since dating for 2 years in the JW world, is so restricted.

37

Were You Willing To Die For Jehovah?

by minimus in

jw
friends

we were supposed to be dedicated unconditionally to jehovah god.

we were willing to be persecuted to the death if need be.

if it came to taking a blood transfusion or dying, we were loyal to jehovah and would be a martyr for god.

Pete Zahut

As a side note about blood transfusions and dying for Jehovah...

My sons non JW girlfriend recently received her Nursing Degree and was immediately hired at a world famous local hospital.

Part of her new employee training dealt with how to handle Jehovah's Witnesses.

She told us that the hospital requires the nurses to visit the JW patient after the liaison committee leaves, to make sure they really don't want a blood transfusion. She said this is because once the Liaison Committee members leave, the majority of JW's (especially younger ones) beg them not to let them die and to do whatever it takes to keep them alive. They want to live but are afraid of what will happen when their Elders find out they didn't follow through with their refusal of blood. The hospital staff then assures them that their privacy will be upheld and their decision will be kept private.

It's scary to think that I went around all those years thinking that I'd die over this matter when in reality (at least at this major hospital) most JW's secretly accept a blood transfusion....so much so that it's become a standard operation procedure for them to follow up on this with their JW patients and to include it in their new nurses training.

37

Were You Willing To Die For Jehovah?

by minimus in

jw
friends

we were supposed to be dedicated unconditionally to jehovah god.

we were willing to be persecuted to the death if need be.

if it came to taking a blood transfusion or dying, we were loyal to jehovah and would be a martyr for god.

Pete Zahut

My question is... Were YOU loyal to the death for Jehovah God or if push came to shove, would you have “compromised “ yourself??

Fortunately I never was in a position where it was a life or death matter but both my my non JW father and my wife's elder father died early (48 and 62) because they didn't take a blood transfusion. (My father was only studying with JWs)

I struggled as a child with this issue because we were told that we would most assuredly be persecuted and would likely have to face dying for our faith. I never could understand why failure to do so would result in me receiving the same punishment from Jehovah (everlasting death) as would be received by the one persecuting me.

We were told that our non JW family members would even turn on us. I tossed and turned many a night because I had 2 little sisters and since my father wasn't a JW, I figured he'd be against us and I'd have to get my sisters through the tribulation.
Fast forward a couple of decades, I struggled with this regarding my own kids. Would I let them die over the blood issue and how would I cope with a situation where they were taken by the "authorities" during the tribulation.

At the time I liked to think I wouldn't compromise but who can really say until it happens nonetheless, however I truly believed I SHOULD be willing to die for Jehovah and that he expected it of me.

30

Montana News

by AuntBee in

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/montana/articles/2020-01-08/court-reverses-35m-verdict-against-jehovahs-witnesses.

Pete Zahut

Disappointing, yet even though the verdict was overturned, it has been in place since 2018 and it has been established for all to see, that along with many many other court cases, there was abuse that took place and reproach has been brought upon the organization.

If nothing else, the folks at Watchtower had this hanging over their heads for over a year and it cost them a bundle to defend themselves and others were encouraged to come forward as well.

54

Adam could have put Jehovah In Paradox!

by JohnTron72 in

i'm going to be the first and throw this out there for others but, from careful study of the scriptures i've found a loophole that even adam who was perfect at the time missed!

i'm sure everyone has heard the conundrum about ,"can god create a rock he can't lift?

" and if he can't create one he can't lift, then god cannot do everything" well that doesn't really matter since we know jehovah says himself he cannot lie right?

Pete Zahut

John Tron 72 : What you said in your latest post might makes sense if you only read JW publications and don't look beyond the JW world. You are seeing things in a very one dimensional way. If you believe all of what you've said, I'm not sure why you even made your original post.

If you were God and gave man and woman everything to the eye on Earth freely, how would you know they truly were appricitive of the gift?

What would you think if a father built his children a play house and put a pile of broken glass over in one corner just to see if they'd show their appreciation for him by not playing in that corner? I'm guessing you'd think he was a pretty sick man and you'd wonder why he needed so badly to be appreciated.

If he hadn't placed the tree there for them and later thier kids to substain from they might have ended up like the people on The Time Machine who had become lazy and unconcerned like when Weena fell in the stream....

He could have created us any way he wanted...he could have made us so that we didn't even need oxygen if he chose to. Perhaps he should have created people that could live forever without this problem as well.

Man through the centuries proven they can't get along without God.

How would we know? God supposedly cursed mankind and made everything difficult for him. If a human father hobbled his children and inflicted sickness and disease on them just to prove how needy they are, he'd be considered a monster.

There has to be respect for God and others even with free will.

I want my children to respect me because of the admirable things I do. It's would be meaningless if I had to threaten to punish them if they didn't.

At some point the badness of this world teaches the children to become self absorbed and hate and lose that innocent quality. You cannot deny this fact is true.

Children are born self absorbed....they are wired that way, thats how they survive. They make sure that above all else, that their own needs are met. Have you heard how loudly a newborn baby can cry when it's hungry or wet? It's only as we grow older that we learn to have empathy for others.

God is the one who intentionally brought sickness and death upon humankind and made our lives difficult instead of punishing Satan, the one who deceived his "innocent child like "creation. If humans are self absorbed and hateful and if the story of Adam and Eve is true, then God is the one who made it so by choosing not to follow his own rules about forgiveness and returning evil for evil.

It would be unjust of a father to punish his small children after they had been deceived by a much older sibling punish them in an equally harsh manner. If the story of the Bible is true, Satan has been alive since before Adam and Eve were created and is still living yet billions of humans have suffered, grown old and died. How is this the act of a loving father?