Why am typing this post:
Some of you have been following my posts and my story for a while now. This open to all but it is mainly for the ones who have been doing just that.(Following my story as it unfolds)
Many of you still think i'm some sort of TROubLLe because you may find some part of my situation hard to believe, that is having problems understanding my going to unsual lengths to obtain information, which may help me to find a way to get someone out of the Organisation known as the Jehovahs Witnesses. Persistence is just one characteristic of my personality, it can be very annoying but in this case I think it serves a good purpose, alot of you here are comited to the same cause.
What have I learned about the forum in the time spent here?
I think I have been here for little more than a month now, and my association here has paid off in many respects. When I first came tothis board I had not the slightest idea that this arena was one of the biggest forums geared at informing the public of the dangers of association with the Watchtower Bible and Tract Scoiety. I thought that this was simply just a reasonably sized gathering of people who were once in the organisation and wanted to share their experience and converse with others with whom they had something in common. Now I have foundout that I have been conversing with the head apostates on the face of the Earth who run many of the websites that i recieved my information regarding the Watchtower from, pratically in person. Surprise Surprise...
Well I amamazed at the number of adults that actually use the internet on a regular basis simply because I thought that older indivusials not born in the information age tend to shy away from the computer, farless know how to access and use the internet. Pratically anything Watchtower related can be access at this site. I would advise any newcomer to this board to do a bit of lurking here before they actually tarted to post as they might recieve a bad reception as I did if they went about things the wrong way.
In away I am imperssed at the amount of knowledge posessed by the indivisuals on this board judging from how the Watower has discouraged the persuit of higher education among its followers.
I have also learned that spending time here can become somewhat addctive because the issues presented here tend to be able to hold a very captive audiance with the greatest of ease, even though many issues seem to be repetative, at times old issues seem to accuire a new spin because someone always manages to tell it another way or bring it up when you have forgotten the details and you wouldent mind a quick reminder. The amount of time spent here was now even began to cut into other activities that I inended to seriously persue. Hopefully I will loose enough intrest in this matter and be able to spend more time away from he board.
Now for an update on the situation.
Yesterday after much beging and pleading I was finally able to sit down and have a reasonably cooperative discussion on a Watchtower issue which reflected negatively on the Organisation. When I say reasonably cooperative I mean that there was much less tension and defense on either party but obviously there would have been a certain amount of animosity with any negative statement regarding the WTBS.
It did go fairly well though.
It took me 3 weeks of harasing her for me to get her to actually agree to sit down listen and discuss a Watchtower related issue because I had gone about it the wrong way before, she was most unwilling to see any documents I presented as there were mostly judgemental without leaving much room for further explaiation. This was when I said in an earlier post that I needed to do some damage controll. I have learned that if you are to present information to a Witness that it shouldent contain a conclusion according to the facts presented and that it should also not contain too many issues to me dealt with because that would cause the discussion to go off course and the real matter in need of addressing would not recieve the attention it is due. If a Witness recieves to much negative informaton all at nce they will reject all of it. From the very begining I was told that Witnesses donot have the ability to make pratical observations from a a given set of information and that they need to be encouraged to make decissions for themselves. I dident know how to do this so I presented information which I thought would allow any thinking indivusial to come to the realization that there is something seriously wrong with the beliefs that they hold to be well sounded and factual. Witnesses can think for themselves but when it comes to matters regarding teachings of the Watchtower Scoiety they go into a defensive mode which rejects any conclusion that is contary to what they believe as taught by the Watchtower.
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Thanks for the info.
Many people have been giving me advice all along on what to do in this situation. For the most part the advice was to loose the girl or you yill loose yourself.
That advice was taken to heart but I have decided to stay with her and try my best at getting her out of that dangerous situation situation. I just have the feeling that thereis just one buton that i have to push and that will start the cascade effect. There is no reason for anyone to worry about me person being lost to the organisation because after spending soo much time here on this board I have to wonder how anyone can think that this organisation is of God Almighty and has his sole backing. Some of you may rember that in earlier post I said that you misrepresented the situation to some extent because Witnesses always gave me an explaniation for just about everythiung that i threw at them and they dident seem so bad. In one post I even stated that the organisation wasent as strict as you made it appear, well I now eat those words. They have good exlaniations but when you look into it youy see how decptive they really are. Even in writing this I still cant imagine how anyone can be so decptive and still have a clear conscience.
I especially have to gi give special notice to the poster known as Amazing who has set an example to follow by getting his his family out of the Org.
Well enough of that lets get to the actuall discussion.
Watchtower Propaganda vs. Apostate Literature
Ok the discussion occured yerserday, I would have posted this last night but I was Just too tired. I got her to come over and have the discussion. I was well prepared, a little too prepared in fact. I say this because I couldent even begin to go into one tenth of the issues I wanted to address. I chose not to do this because I know that she would probally be turned off by such a unslaught of negative aspects of the Watchtower.
Let me explain. Some of you may think that my skull is and I havent taken any of the good advice that many of you have been giving me over the last month. That may have alot of truth to it but I have always listened to many of the points you raised earlier. One thing stands out in particular. One of you said that Witnesses generally cannot take information in large amounts at one time that they have to be feed this information in bits and pieces so that they may decide to start to look into it or themselves. You always said that if they recieved too much information all at the same time that they would most likely reject all of it and that you would have lost your chance. I learned this all too well. At one point in time she wrote a letter to me saying thankyou for showing me that I am in the truth. This happened because I showed her too much negative information all at once. I hope that the feeling she had has subsided somewhat, well at least so that she would listen to me still. sigh...
Well for the most part it seems that way.
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Bearing all of this in mind, I decided to hold back my old Watchtower photocopys and quotations until a suitable time. I wouldent want her to be pushed any further into the organisationas than has already occured.
So I focused on the attention getter, the issue that I when I told her about the first time she got really pissed and called me a liar.
Well in the days after that incodent when she called me a liar I got her to ask one of her Elders if the UN issue was true. She hasent gotten a reply from her that Elder in question as yet.
I used this to my advantage. I had actually planed to talk about prophecy but rather than sit and have her explain to me why the false prophecies that the watchtower has promulgated are not that fals prophesy but they had mistaken expectations of a certain event, I decided to focus on the issue she had no previous knowledge about or that she couldent easily run to one of her insight books and give me an anwser.
In the future I think that I will be able to better handle any discussion with her or any other witness for that matter once I avoid doing a few things like being judgemental and refuting anwsers right away. All you have to do is to make the Witness feel important and put them in charge so they donot feel threatened. And when a matter arises that they are poorly equiped to handle make that the main focus of discussion.
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Here is what happened she came over to my house.
I talked to her for awhile before I started to get into the discussion.
Boy girl talk... I thik this made it feel more relaxing to her.
Well anyway I started the discussion by asking questions that should have lead me into the topic of false prophecy but while in doing so I asked her if she got back an anwser from her Elder in relation to the UN issue, she was supposed to have gotten an anwser by now but she said that he dident get back to her as yet (I wonder why...), with this in mind I decided to take advantage of the fact that he dident anwser her yet and let her know the explaination that she would most likely recieve in advance. This would give me more credibility in the future.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$
I started by asking what she felt about the United Nations.
I got the usuall jw reply .... the disgusting thing in Revelation, Satans organisation, yada yada yada....
I then showed her one of the many written responses that the Watchtower give in relation to this issue that I have printed out so that she could see something solid that would support my claims as to Watchtower being associated with the Un as an NGO.
She read it reluctantly and then started to explain to me why becoming associated with the UN to use the libary would not conflict with their Christian beliefs. And she gave me some Biblical story about one of the diciples appealing to Ceaser (sp?) and the Bible dident view that as something bad.
Then I said that to use the libary that they dident need to become associated as an NGO in the first place. And that most of the information that they would have been looking for would be available at the depositorys and I also informed her that I think that there may even be a depository near Bethel!
This is when she mysteriously got a headache and said that she wanted a minute of rest but would still listen to me.
After her moments rest I asked her if she new the criteria for joining the United Nations?
This sparked her interest! I took her to freeminds.org and I showed her the outstanding aspects of the UN Charter and requirments for association as an NGO, especially the having to support the objectives of the United Nations inorder to become associated. I neglected to inform her that it was an apostate site, hmmmm now why would I do such a thing? I also told her that while being an NGO that they would have had to disseminate information to the members of their organisation and that the Watchtower used the Awake! for this purpose. This was to make it absolutely clear that the fact of the matter is that the Watchtower did cooperate with the UN by distrubting information to their followers. Just incase she dident believe me I took her to Watchtowers own offical website and typed the prase United Nations in their search engine and showed her an Awake! article involving The International rights of the child as declared by the UN so that she could see how they actually distrubuted the Devils propaganda in the Lords own magazine!
Anyway showing her the UN charter provoked the most curiosity about any anti-watchtower issue and it got her to make this statement to herself outloud:
I cant possibly see what intrest the UN would have that would be in common with our Christian beliefs...That was it, I dident need to say anything more. I let her ask her own question regarding the Watchtower being associated and left the rest to her. I dident need to force her do do anything as she was doing it herself.
The discussion wasent very long but that was because it served its puropse.
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My question to you the readers of my longest post now after veiwing that comment is this:
Does that sound like this was a seed of doubt firmly planted?
Do you think that this could be the start of the long road to realization?
I await any response.
The Bible is a two edged sword wield it for evil and it you may get hurt.