by Gilberto 25 Replies latest jw friends
...the phone rings. The Witness answers it and someone is on the other end, but they are speaking in French. Luckily the Witness speaks French. The caller asks where he can find Jehovah's Witnesses! Any way the man had a bible study and is now a baptised Jehovah's Witness!
Just heard this, the dub relating it was so excited about it.
Did you believe these stories when you were in?
Hi Gilberto
I would listen to stories like that and be excited along with whoever was telling them but it would also feel like part of my brain was screaming out in pain.
I look back now and wish I had been more vocal with my cynicism (sp?). I wonder if those who start these stories are having a good laugh at our expense and will push it further everytime to see how truly gullible their members are.
I mentioned on another thread the story I heard last year about a girl forgetting to read her days text so went home instead of going to work, this lead her to miss the train with a bomb on. (This was 07/07 last year in London.). My study conductor afterwards would say that wherever you are, if you have your days text booklet with you, you will always be protected from harm. I wish I had the courage to tell her how utterly ridiculous she sounded, I was so embarrassed to be amongst these people.
Sorry for the rant.
Moomin
I'm embarrassed to say yes I did believe these stories when I was in!
And I believed the one about the sister who knocked on the door of a violent rapist/murderer who has just raped/murdered/canibalised the occupant of the house but who did not attack the sister because as he told the police later of the two burly men (
I used to believe crap like that, but not any more.
It's like the story of someone throwing a tract out of his car window, and someone else picking it up and becoming a jw because of it, great to hear at the time, cos it "proves" we have the truth, but looking back such obvious bs.
It's just another jw fairytale, like the whole religion.
Yes I did … well, most of them, depending on who related it.
Remember this one? A householder receives a book and shows it to her husband as he came home. He flings it out the window in disgust. It hits a man walking by on the head. The man picks it up, reads the title and is instantly interested in reading it and takes it home. He begins to read and can’t put it down. The next day he returns to the house where he got hit in order to return the book. As the husband to the door the man thanks him for the book and says it has changed his life since he has now found the truth and asks the householder for a bible study. The householder is so impressed that ha wants to know more about the book, he invites him in. So the man who read the book sat down with the husband and wife and tells them everything about the book. They all become JWs. fts
Hi Gilberto:
Did you believe these stories when you were in?
Yes, Mr. Gullible (at the time) here!
Hey Crumpet, I heard (and believed) that one, too!
Ian- who doesn't take any crap these days!
He begins to read and can’t put it down.
Actually - I never believed these stories. Has anyone ever ever had a watchtower publication that was unputdownable! No - didn't think so!
Once you'd skimmed the pictures - that was it wasn't it until it came time to study them and I always found it intensely difficult to concentrate - the long meaningless sentences wouldn't make sense to me and I used to get upset because I felt stupid.
Of course now I know that is deliberate - you aren't meant to understand - it is incomprehensible for the most part to confuse and hypnotise you into blind obedience.
I'm sure that when were all JW's that we believed many of these stories. But there was never any real facts behind them. It was alway "some sister or brother" or this or that happened. Never any names or places. The one about the sister calling on the rapist/murderer etc. I have heard the same story from Mormons, Moonies and Christians.
Crumpet
Know what you mean about the magazines.
I recently went to see someone who was having a "bible study" with JW's, she was getting a bit suspcious of some things. She had a couple of the latest magazines there. I had seen the odd one since I stopped getting them 6 years ago. On looking through them it was like I had never left, the wording, the articles, the pictures were just the same. On looking through the study book "What Does the Bible Really Teach?" again its wording and phrases haven't altered. Important subjects were just glossed over or dealt with in a couple of paragraphs. The subject of the "cross" was dealt with in three short paragraphs. It came across as "Jesus didn't die on a cross because we say so" apart from the usual juggling with the word "stauros" no in depth discussion was made. I thought, with the evidence I now know I could get an hours discussion out of it easily. But if you are dealing with someone who doesn't know the real evidence then you can just gloss over it.
Better stop there I feel one of those moments were I'll just go on and on about them.
This is a true story. The ending isn't quite like the classic stories, it's better.
The event told here has turned into an important reference point for me. Quite some time had passed after this incident before I accepted the lesson that came to me that sunny day in the mountains and plains of Montana on a motorcycle trip.
In 1992 Nancy and I were on the way home and in our last week of a four week motorcycle trip. We were just leaving Glacier National park in Montana after our second run on 'Highway To The Sun" and headed east on our 91 Goldwing 1500 when it gave a spit and a sputter and wouldn't run right at all. We limped along for about 20 miles or so and pulled into the first gas station we came to. We were rounding up a drain pan and stuff at the station when a guy who I hadn't noticed, who was riding an '86 Goldwing 1200 came over and asked if everything was okay. I told him I didn't know yet but I hoped I had located the problem. After dumping what I thought was the bad gas, and filling with fresh we were back on the road again.
Everything went good for about 15 or 20 miles. We were cruising along 55 or 60 miles an hour when the bike just plunged down to 15 - 20 miles an hour. I hadn't noticed but we had left ahead of the guy on the 1200 at the station. Well, I was just putting along when I saw a light coming up from behind. I expected this guy to blow right by. Heck, we're out in the desert now and it's hot, flat, and dry. But he pulls up beside us and asks us if the bike is okay. I yell back over the engines that it is not, and he pulls back behind us and stays there. We decided to head into Great Falls to a Honda dealer and after an hour we stopped at a rest stop. This guy visits with us and I told him that he didn't need to stay with us all that way but he said he would.
He had spent the last couple days visiting his brother west of where we met him. He asked us what we would need at Great Falls because this was his home. I told him that we needed a spot to camp and directions to the Honda dealer the next day. He says "No problem". He followed behind us at 20 -25 miles an hour for altogether about 5 hours in that heat. At Great Falls he pulled ahead and led us to his home since on one of our stops he had offered his backyard for us to camp. At the house he invited us in for coffee and when I asked where to set up the camper he said "Don't bother. Just sleep in my guest room."
We accepted his hospitality and as we were bringing our bags in, I see Watchtowers and other JW books around. So I asked him if he was a Jehovah's Witness and he said he was. I told him that Nancy was also a JW and when she came in he re-introduced himself to her. Then he wanted to take us downtown in his car to eat and he picked the best place he knew of and he picked up the check. After dinner he drove over to the Honda Dealer so I would know the way in the morning.
In the morning he gave us coffee and let Nancy stay at his house while I spent the morning getting the bike fixed. We left at noon. His name was Marvin Catchpole and I'll never forget him.
Gary B
Yeah. I used to believe those stories until I started taking the tablets of reality.
