Welcome to the board, glad to see you here.
iamfreenow
JoinedPosts by iamfreenow
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17
Welcome to a New Poster & Former Bethelite!
by Seeker4 inpost 1 of 1. since 22-aug-07.
newbie.
united states, connecticut(the post below was in response to the thread "have jws ruined your life.
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UK- JW MINISTERIAL SERVANT SERIAL RAPIST
by DannyHaszard inman escapes jail for sex attacksbbc news - 1 hour, 42 minutes agoa jehovah's witnesss gets a community sentence for a series of sex assaults on children and adults.man escapes jail for sex attacks porter was put on the sex offenders registera jehovah's witness has escaped a jail term after admitting a series of sexual assaults on children and adults in clevedon.
michael porter, an elder in the religion, pleaded guilty to 24 counts of indecent assault and gross indecency on 13 victims aged 18 months and older.
among the individuals were others involved in the faith.
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iamfreenow
I am shocked. He should be locked away for a very long time. I feel for his victims and their families.
As for him retaining his privileges, that doesn't surprise me, having seen a case in my former congregation, and being aware of how the elders handled, or rather mishandled that.
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144,000 Changes Coming ?
by Poztate inin the may wt questions from readers they did away with the 1935 cut off date to be part of the original anointed class.
they taught any anointed after that date were replacements for those who had "fallen away".
over the years that doctrine has slowly fallen apart.
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iamfreenow
In the May WT Questions from Readers they did away with the 1935 cut off date to be part of the original anointed class
I would love a JW to explain to me just how they came up with the year 1935 as a cut off year for being anointed anyway. There is no Scriptural reason for it, it seems to be something that Joseph Rutherford plucked out of the air, rather like his prediction of Armageddon coming in 1925.
They still believe that the anointed all have to be gathered before Armageddon can come, don't they? I haven't seen any articles that change this theory, and as they now do not know when the 144000 will be completely gathered, it gives them the opportunity to postpone Armageddon once again in the minds of their followers, just as they did in 1995 with the generation change.
As for whether they will change the 144000 from a literal to a symbolic number, time will tell, but I wouldn't be surprised by such a move, and most JWs would most likely accept it without complaint, thus allowing the Watchtower to retain and perhaps even strengthen their control over the flock, which is what they are most anxious to do anyway.
Over the years that doctrine has slowly fallen apart.
Just like most of the Watchtower doctrines then.
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Makes you want to spit!
by Gill ini aught not to laugh about this.....but it's one of those situations where you either laugh or cry!.
we found out that my husband's sister was df'd a few months ago.
we attempted to contact her but she will not speak to us and is still shunning us as apparantly we are 'spiritually weak' and she is attempting to be reinstated into the congregation.
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iamfreenow
Well Gill you may as well laugh about it. It seems that although she is df'd, the mind control is still very strong. Let's hope that while she's out she realises how beneficial being away from the Watchtower can really be, but I doubt that she will somehow.
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Bible study offered on craigslist...
by orbison11 inbelow is the post on craigslist for vancouver, offering a bs in punjabi or any language,,,.
i emailed to find out what denomination they are and will post answer,,but sure sounded like the jw's..will let you know what they say.
punjabi ~~ free bible course.
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iamfreenow
Things you will learn:
How to develop a Personal Relationship w/ the Almighty Creator of the Universe?
Why is there so much trouble, pain & sorrow in the world? Can we expect God to intervene in human affairs? How? When?
What really happens at death?No mention of developing a relationship with Jesus here, so it looks very much like the JWs to me.
Let's hope that they get no favourable responses.
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when they ask Where will you go...........the answer
by purplesofa inyep, everyone i have talked to -----first question they ask----but where will you go?
i tell them anywhere as long as it is away from the clutches of the wt.
the house is on fire!
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iamfreenow
I was asked that very question when I exited last year. I didn't really answer it at the time, but I can now - I have finally found God through the Baptist Church I now attend.
Since that Church is only a short distance from the Kingdom Hall I used to attend, I am sure that my former JW brothers and sisters are well aware of where I've gone!
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The 16 sexual abuse cases settled this year
by WTNightmare00 ini am puzzled about two key factors.
one is the fact that the victims agreed to settle out of court, and two, they agreed to a gag order.
those two key factors there, tells me something as i am sure it will tell you something as well.
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iamfreenow
WTNightmare wrote
For instance, lets say they did not agree to the gag order, and the press wanted information from them, well they had the choice to tell the press or to turn them away.
WT, I know a family from the Kingdom Hall I used to attend who were victims of child sexual abuse by their elder father. He systematically raped all four of his daughters, beginning with the oldest when she was 8 years of age. He raped the youngest before she reached her 5th birthday. He is in prison now, serving an 8 year sentence, but his daughters are not over their ordeal, and probably never will be. None of them are jws now - the oldest was the only one to be baptised, and she and her mother were disfellowshipped after they had finally given up on receiving any help from the elders, who for years tried to cover up what their father was doing, and went to the police. Their father tried to deny the charges initially, but evidence of his depravity was found on his computer, and he was thus forced to plead guilty, sparing his children of the ordeal, because that's what it would have been, of recounting the details of what they had endured in court.
I have occasional contact with the eldest daughter, and I can assure you that she is more than relieved to have been spared from going to court and giving evidence against her father. She would love to be able to put what happened to her behind her, but doubts that she ever will. She certainly would never want to talk to the press about it, and I imagine that that may be true of many, if not most, victims of such abuse. Knowing how she and her sisters feel, and being aware of the relief they felt when their father pleaded guilty to his crimes, I don't blame the victims in the US abuse cases for settling out of court, or for agreeing not to talk about the cases to the press. If I'd sufferred in the same way that these people have, I would rather try to forget it than have it splashed across the newspapers, and have to relive such a nightmare again, wouldn't you?
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The 16 sexual abuse cases settled this year
by WTNightmare00 ini am puzzled about two key factors.
one is the fact that the victims agreed to settle out of court, and two, they agreed to a gag order.
those two key factors there, tells me something as i am sure it will tell you something as well.
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iamfreenow
WTNightmare,
The fact that the Watchtower were willing to settle out of court suggests that they knew they would lose these cases if they did go to court, and have todeal with all the bad publicity that would ensue from such losses.
The Watchtower has on several occasions published accounts of court cases that they have fought and won, so they are no strangers to court battles. How odd that they should capitulate on this occasion, unless of course the evidence against them was too conclusive to refute.
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Anyone recall the WTS's crazy notions about the literal "heart"?
by fahrvegnugen inback in my dub days, i used to make copies of all the old recorded talks i could get my hands on.
in the process i was surprised to come across several talks in which the "faithful slave" tried to make the case that all the scriptures talking about the "heart" were not figurative, but referred to one's literal heart--the organ itself!
as i recall, they even incorporated some pseudo-scientific quotes as "proof" that the heart could effect your thoughts and motivations.
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iamfreenow
I remember some of those talks, and would have believed every word at the time, however ridiculous. I found this link on Quotes from the March 1st 1971 Watchtower.
http://www.quotes-watchtower.co.uk/heart.html
11 Medical World News (May 23, 1969), in an article entitled "What Does a New Heart Do to the Mind?" reported the following: "At Stanford University Medical Center last year, a 45-year-old man received a new heart from a 20-year-old donor and soon announced to all his friends that he was celebrating his twentieth birthday. Another recipient resolved to live up to the sterling reputation of the prominent local citizen who was the donor. And a third man expressed great fear of feminization upon receiving a woman's heart, though he was somewhat mollified when he learned that women live longer than men. According to psychiatrist Donald T. Lunde, a consultant to surgeon Norman Shumway's transplant team at Stanford, these patients represent some of the less severe mental aberrations [italics ours] observed in the Shumway series of 13 transplants over the last 16 months." The article continues: "Though five patients in the series had survived as of early this month, and four of them were home leading fairly normal lives, three of the nonsurvivors became psychotic before they died last year. And two others have become psychotic this year."
Looking back, it's hard to believe that intelligent people actually swallowed this rubbish, but they did, and still do.
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Why is the # for annointed still in the 8,000's?
by White Dove inshouldn't it be going down but fast?
god, how old are they, anyway?
do new ones keep popping up or something?
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iamfreenow
One of the more impressive "lightning flashes" of "new light" from that recent article was that members of the anointed have NO MORE of Jehovah's spirit than non-anointed. ...........Yes, those skillful and cheerfully uneducated writers at Bethel, led (or not) by jehohah's holy spirit, have opened a can of worms, spiritually speaking
I hadn't really thought of the implications of that particular change, but anyone still in the organisation still capable of independent thought might well stop and wonder about it.
If the anointed have just as much spirit as Bro. Joe Publisher, what gives the FDS thier authority and guidance?
Their statement about holy spirit certainly gives the "non-anointed" JWs a reason to ask this question, if they dare.