berrygerry
JoinedPosts by berrygerry
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37
10 Pragmatic facts why Jehovah's Witnesses can't face reality
by Terry in1.the organization itself denies access to reality and substitutes its own version, interpretations and meanings.. a.only watchtower approved publications are allowed.. b.no higher education is to be pursued.. c.no non-jw friends or associations are encouraged with their "outside" points of view.. d.no free-style questioning of doctrine or criticism permitted.
curiousity is verboten.. e.threat of being "marked" or disassociated looms over them.
2.between every real-world event and the rank and file jw's mind is a roadblock.. a.the moment of identifying is short-circuited by an interpretive moment of re-labeling in watchtower-speak.. b.all things happening are forced into a narrow storyline and propagandized as end times happenings leading to armageddon.. 3.social and personal identity is expunged and replaced by a collective persona: "jehovah's witness".. a.private thinking is red-flagged as selfish and sinful.. b.personal improvement, welfare and ambition is crushed and door-to-door ministry substituted as "worthy" endeavors.. c.self-conscious obsession permeates witness awareness as each person is transformed into a public spectacle of performance for judgement.. d.since you aren't an individual you don't really have a right to fall in love and marry or educate or earn.
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120
A serving elder's take on the new "tithing" arrangement
by TTATTelder inthe gb can kiss my ass.. i'm writing "0" on the little slip of paper they pass out.. hey here's a thought:.
you know that "widow's might" stuff they're always talking about?
well i'm pretty dang sure that the lady was giving from the heart not because she filled out some dumba$$ piece of paper pledging two small coins several months previous!.
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berrygerry
TTATTelder
PM sent
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22
Just asked for a bible study on jw.org
by trujw inmy name was false prophet.
my address was october 1968 awake is it later than you think.
my town was this generation will by no means pass away may 15, 1984. to be honest i am going to request again but this time with my real name and address.
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berrygerry
"Just keep asking for studies using bogus addresses. They will get deluged with many bad requests, and will have a miserable time trying to track them down. Each one will waste more time, so if someone really wants a study, their resources will be stretched too thinly. The more you can keep wasting their time, the better."
Send in the addresses of neighbors of your ex-friends in the KH.
The neighbors will probably be impressed.
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26
The reason the Society keeps everyone busy with "campaigns"
by stuckinarut2 inim sure that many have had an experience where we try and keep little kids "occupied" while on a boring trip, such as a car ride or plane flight.. we come up with "games" like..."lets see how many green cars we can count", or "lets try and see who can sit still for the longest time".
"the winner gets a prize!".
obviously, until they are wise enough to cotton on, all we are doing is keeping them occupied to prevent them asking things like "are we there yet?!".
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berrygerry
Our territory is large - so the campaigns do not use H-H records to return on NH's, thank goodness.
However, it still seemed to me from the first one that we're simply delivering bloody pizza flyers, especially when we near the end of the campaign, and at that point, we don't even ring the doorbell, just pop the tract in the mailbox.
The 2008 YB bugged me: "A congregation of nine publishers in an isolated area was puzzled about why they had received only one Memorial invitation from the branch instead of the 500 they had ordered. They later found out that the local post office had been unable to determine the destination of the parcel mailed by the branch because the mailing label had come off. Post office personnel had opened the parcel to try to determine who the recipient or the sender was. When they saw the Memorial invitations, they concluded that the invitations needed to be distributed, so post office personnel placed one invitation in each post office box, thus distributing the entire shipment themselves. The brothers were alerted to the situation when they received, not a complete shipment of invitations, but a single invitation in the congregation’s post office box. How thrilled the nine publishers were, though, to have 42 at the Memorial, many of whom arrived with their personal copy of the invitation that had been placed in their post office box!"
I'd happily give the local Post Office the .xx cents per flyer to have them deliver instead of me.
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43
DF'ed and Confused...
by Stumbeline inso i think the title pretty much says it all.
i have a tendancy to be long winded about things, so i'll just give a general introduction and maybe tell things as i go along.
i don't even really know what i want from this site (ironically i remember jehovahs-witness.net mentioned from the platform as a site not to go to).
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berrygerry
I'm not sure of your existing friendships, but my daughter had a number.
I've only been finding out that MANY MANY young witnesses see through the DF "doctrine" for what it is, and regularly ignore it (not openly at the KH, of course).
That may apply for you.
I've been reading a business book "Can't Buy Me LIKE" (referencing the LIKE button on Facebook), and the changes that the Internet, and esp. social media, has forced on corporate marketing. The story about Coca-Cola's learning of this sea-change and their EVENTUAL recognition, acceptance, and then embracement, brought obvious comparisons.
However, Ray Franz's disclosures make it seem like "The Society" (After DECADES of that term seeming so normal, it seems so abnormal to use it the way we do) will be the last to change.
He references the 1971 WT: "Hence it [the organization] is patterned according to His design for it. It is a theocratic organization, ruled from the divine Top down, and not from the rank and file up."
But, with young people as the only future, it should be interesting how things play out.
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berrygerry
BURNED OUT- I second LEAVING WT's opinion. Do be careful. Most JW's will not listen to reason and many of them feel they have to be faithful to the WT organization over blood relatives.
Went through the Kangaroo processs like a moron - totally blindsided, bought the friendliness at the 2-minute "investigation" meeting in the 2nd school. Not so friendly at the next. (drunkenness was the reason - KS10 reference to 1983 WT quotes, of all sources, AA, which recommends "jolting" the individual, instead of the previous 2 paragraphs which were pertinent.)
I had been inactive for too long, and attending few meetings, hence the real reason for "jolting," however, haven't been to a meeting since, although I did listen to the Memorial on the phone.
Sorry for the run-on - but throughout the Kangaroo process and trying to "reason" with my wife over the unscriptural and VERY inappropriate behavior, she said: "If I have to choose between Jehovah's organization and you, I CHOOSE JEHOVAH," and walked away. OUCH.
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6
Matt. 24:15 - WTS membership in UN
by berrygerry inhas anyone offered the theory that wts membership in the un was fulfilling matt.
24:15, and that consequently the fds began to turn into the evil slave?.
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berrygerry
Has anyone offered the theory that WTS membership in the UN was fulfilling Matt. 24:15, and that consequently the FDS began to turn into the evil slave?
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43
DF'ed and Confused...
by Stumbeline inso i think the title pretty much says it all.
i have a tendancy to be long winded about things, so i'll just give a general introduction and maybe tell things as i go along.
i don't even really know what i want from this site (ironically i remember jehovahs-witness.net mentioned from the platform as a site not to go to).
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berrygerry
Hi.
The experience of df'ing is probably one of the most traumatic that a person can have.
I have no real suggestions but that you take one day at a time.
My daughter went through your experience (progressive intimacy until simulated sex - I was present during the grilling. It is beyond normal human thinking the questions that areasked. I honestly do not know who decided that every inconceivable detail must be brought out. [Do you masturbate, did you have an orgasm?] My daughter says that they were "getting off" while she was talking. It seems like they want this as a perk for their sacrificial work - I.e. some mental porn or vicariousness or other stimulation for themselves later that night.).
I am what I would term a 95 percenter - strongly believe in the fundamentals (doctrine, Christian living, etc.).
Don't beat yourself up about college.
My do-over in life is to have a degree, and to have married a sister with a degree.
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11
GB started when???
by johnamos indoes anybody know when the wts started having a governing body???
what year??
?.
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berrygerry
December 15, 1971 WT is the first to use upper case "Governing Body" instead of "governing body." (our Bethel elder CoBE made this a trivia question a few months ago)
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44
More WT Propaganda: 10 Year Old Children Should Get Baptized!
by Oubliette ini just caught this in an upcoming study article which will be "studied" in the congregations the week of 11/18-24/13:.
he and his wife were elated when their eldest daughter, age ten, told them that she loved her parents, loved the brothers and sisters, and loved jehovah very much.
she said that she wanted to dedicate her life to jehovah and get baptized.
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berrygerry
I did a lot of research on youth baptism, having a df'd child.
If you search thoroughly, the older WT's acknowledge that NO ( not just no infants ) CHILDREN were baptized by first century Christians. The articles used expressions such as attaining age of reason and "when they grow up." The April 1, 2006 WT article actually sneaked it in, but no one seems to have picked up on it:
"Regarding first-century Christians, historian Augustus Neander states in his book General History of the Christian Religion and Church: “Baptism was administered at first only to adults, as men were accustomed to conceive baptism and faith as strictly connected.”