Posts by OnTheWayOut

64

My jaw dropping OMG moment at the end of the convention

by UnshackleTheChains in

yes folks.

over the past few days i can honestly say the convention was relatively quite good.

most of the talks, videos, symposiums were in line with scripture if you have faith in the bible.

OnTheWayOut

Speaking as a former (blinded) believer, the fake partakers answer makes sense and the rank&file will buy it.

30

Finds in Jerusalem shore up biblical account of Babylonian conquest (586 BCE date)

by Hecce in

this is a nice article about archaeological finds, what caught my attention is the use of 586 bce as the date for the destruction of jerusalem.. according to biblical descriptions, in 586 bce, the babylonian king nebuchadnezzar vanquished the judaean king zedekiah and razed his capital city, jerusalem.

the babylonian captain of the guard nebuzaradan was dispatched into the city, where, as told in the book of jeremiah, he “burned the house of the lord, and the king’s house; and all the houses of jerusalem, even every great man’s house, burned he with fire.”.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/new-jerusalem-finds-shore-up-biblical-account-of-babylonian-conquest/.

OnTheWayOut

You guys and all this math. GEEZ!

All you need to know is that 1914 must have been right. World War One started that year. That's all you need to know. Any prior dates were just people running ahead of Jehovah's chariot and any perceived thoughts about 1914 that didn't happen were the fault of followers, not leaders.

If 1914 was right, certainly the math (we don't need to know) must have been right or else they never would have (missed a few times and then) gotten it right.

27

Worldly people

by Akid48 in

as i have come to see i have way more friends at school than my kingdom hall but if i get asked about school and i say something about my friends or ask to hang out with my friends to my aunt she gives me a talk about not to like worldly people to much.. for example i ask to go to my friends house (that is a girl)i have known her from 1st grade and my aunt gets mad at me saying what if she says i raped her or something but she lets me go by my self with brothers to hang out if i want but theres a chance i will get raped there to.. read my other posts to understand my story .

akid69.

OnTheWayOut

Speaking from a very religious Christian point of view, they are correct that there are dangers of isolating yourself with a girl. But it's not really accusations of rape- it's the probability that you will violate the religion's rules and do something quite normal with the girl, or at least start down the path of having a normal relationship.

JW's often just try to put a stop at step 1 to such things.

Do yourself some favors while you are working out what to do as a teen trapped by family beliefs: Don't volunteer everything you think and do to your JW family. Find a way to keep it quiet if it will cause problems.
And don't get anyone pregnant. That's huge. I won't try to say "Don't fall in love" or "Don't let passion get in your way in life" because these are normal teen things. You probably won't wind up in a lifelong relationship with your first crush, but don't let a little baby derail you and someone else from higher education, better opportunities in life.

39

Family of Jehovah's Witness who died after refusing blood transfusion can't keep suing doctors

by pale.emperor in

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/07/court_nixes_lawsuit_by_family.html.

the family of a jehovah's witness who died after repeatedly refusing blood transfusions can't sue the hospital where doctors begged for a chance to save her life, a state appeals court ruled.. the case, outlined in an opinion by superior court judge jacqueline o. shogan, involves a convergence of religion, medicine and the law.. its focus is on what happened before terri seels-davila, a jehovah's witness missionary, died after giving birth at hahnemann university hospital in philadelphia in november 2010.. seels-davila, who had been serving on mission with her husband in nicaragua, chose hahnemann because of its "bloodless medicine" program for patients who won't agree to having blood transfusions, including jehovah's witnesses, shogan noted.

the treatment plan for seels-davila called for recycling her own blood back into her system.. yet that proved to be inadequate when complications of her delivery required seels-davila to deliver by cesarean section.

OnTheWayOut

OrphanCrow5 days ago5 days ago

On the WayOut: So, they would have otherwise just let the patient die in a regular hospital setting in some horrible way instead of taking the risks of bloodless delivery ....if they better understood the risks that their expert was going to say were withheld from them.

...ummm, I don't think that is what happened. The father of the woman who died was trying to make the claim that the hospital's "bloodless surgery" program was deficient.

Can you explain what you mean by "the risks of 'bloodless delivery'"? What is bloodless delivery?

==================================

I stand by what I said. You read and dissect like legal counsel. Complications turned it into a need for C-section. If they were not concerned about such a thing, they would not have been found to seek bloodless doctors. Despite their efforts, doctors said blood was needed. I (and you) don't know whether the doctors made errors or not, and maybe the bloodless surgery program was inadequate, but what I said stands- they signed off on the risks which are greater in the situation.

I don't need to know everything to know that these people attempted to appease cult rules and that the doctors probably could have overcome the complications (be they doctor-caused or inevitable) by breaking cult rules.

46

Believers: How do you know your view of your chosen holy book is the correct one?

by punkofnice in

don't start fighting, darlings.

i am genuinely curious.

after all i was a jobo 50 years and thought the wbt$ was 100% correct.. i ask this because i see that, for example, christian denominations (or whatever), likely have differing interpretations of the same writing.

OnTheWayOut

scratchme1010

Believers: How do you know your view of your chosen holy book is the correct one?

My two cents: why limiting it to believers? The same question can be asked to any person who has a belief (or non-belief).

Okay. I went to the books and documentaries that discuss the development of the Bible. I read so much until it became clear- the Bible was a great gathering and editing of man-made stories intended originally to unite the various peoples in Babylon that were once ruled by Saul, David, and Solomon. The writers, editors borrowed from other legends and stories from other groups. The "God" of the original writings was a warrior god. "El" was the chief of the Canaanite gods and "Isreal" is based on his name, not on Yahweh which El probably became. No matter how well they edited, the written language skills of these people in Babylon was still primitive and developing and they did not fully remove traces of conflict in their stories and did not eliminate "El" to fully replace him with "Yahweh" whom they morphed into the creator of the entire cosmos. The idea of a single "god" further developed when Cyrus returned the Jews and the priests of the temples became ambassadors to Persia.

Jesus stories are similarly loaded with borrowed thoughts from other legends and god stories from other groups. While the Greek gods seemed to be falling out of favor, the worship of Isis, Dyonysus, Mithras, and various pagan gods was popular. And writing was quite advanced by that time. Expressing faith and reason in writing was all the rage. Still, philosophy heavily included belief in deities as people had not developed ideas that the cosmos could have come about without gods or a single god.

And somehow, against all odds, the Romans chose Christianity instead of other belief systems, as the state religion to unite the various groups they ruled over.

It's a much easier story to understand if we ignore all of the above and we go with the promoted story- Abraham worshiped a God who was known by various names, one group of people went from Abraham to Allah and another went off in captivity to Egypt until that same God of Abraham revealed to Moses that He was to be "Yahweh" (or Jehovah) and immediately told the people in 10 commandments to have "no other gods" before them. That fits so nicely with the idea that Yahweh later sent Jesus.

So there's your answer. How do I know? I did the legwork. If any details are slightly off, the general idea that the stories of the Bible were invented and taken from others and that the writings were about giving people a reason to stick together and be controlled by politicians and priests still remains the constant "truth" of my beliefs.

34

My mums dying she refuses blood transfusion...the horror.

by Witness 007 in

mum has a mild form of lukeimia if she took blood like normal people she could live to be 100. but no, anointed sisters dont compromise jehovah wont allow it.

so here i am moving to sydney for one month going to hospital everyday putting my life on hold to watch my mother die slowly.

watching her gasp for air, struggle to breath.

OnTheWayOut

I support people's own decisions to decide that they won't go through medical treatments. But it is sad that we all know your mum isn't deciding this on her own, but is supporting the cult.

My condolences. Say your goodbyes the best you can, assume she won't be able to respond to you by tomorrow.

Strength to you and I wish you good thoughts of her.

39

Family of Jehovah's Witness who died after refusing blood transfusion can't keep suing doctors

by pale.emperor in

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/07/court_nixes_lawsuit_by_family.html.

the family of a jehovah's witness who died after repeatedly refusing blood transfusions can't sue the hospital where doctors begged for a chance to save her life, a state appeals court ruled.. the case, outlined in an opinion by superior court judge jacqueline o. shogan, involves a convergence of religion, medicine and the law.. its focus is on what happened before terri seels-davila, a jehovah's witness missionary, died after giving birth at hahnemann university hospital in philadelphia in november 2010.. seels-davila, who had been serving on mission with her husband in nicaragua, chose hahnemann because of its "bloodless medicine" program for patients who won't agree to having blood transfusions, including jehovah's witnesses, shogan noted.

the treatment plan for seels-davila called for recycling her own blood back into her system.. yet that proved to be inadequate when complications of her delivery required seels-davila to deliver by cesarean section.

OnTheWayOut

Let me just join the chorus.

They signed off on "We know and assume the risks."
After they wouldn't back down on the risks at a critical moment, they try to blame the doctors.
They go so far as to seek out a so-called expert against bloodless surgery, probably to say that they did not really understand "the risks" that were actually involved.

So, they would have otherwise just let the patient die in a regular hospital setting in some horrible way instead of taking the risks of bloodless delivery ....if they better understood the risks that their expert was going to say were withheld from them.

What a waste of money to the legal system that had to tell them to finally stop their nonsense.

Deep down, they probably wanted a court-forced order of blood put into the patient to save her life and to appease Watchtower, and to sue the state for doing that.

42

To Fade or Disassociate

by Jules Saturn in

hello to all, so i did want to talk about this topic because i think it is very important to me.

i have a grandfather who faded several decades ago.

he occasionally attends an assembly and the memorial but no longer attends meetings or goes on field service.

OnTheWayOut

I voiced concerns about the religion to my wife as I started my fade. It didn't help matters with her, so I went ahead and did a very quick fade- from resigning as an elder in August to completely inactive by April the next Spring.

I have a mother still in, and it makes a difference to her. It's easier with my in-law family of JW's to be faded instead of DF'ed.

I gave up the JW "friends" with only really one exception. My wife's best friend moved to the Caribbean and she doesn't treat me different because of my inactive status. But my own best friend distanced himself from me to "protect the family" from my apostate cooties. Some faders manage to hang out with JW friends, but it would have been too risky in my case (other than the wife's friend thousands of miles away). If I "fellowship," they may feel a need to "dis-fellowship." But not the case if I am not around.

I do what I want, my wife won't report me to them for sharing birthdays and Christmas with non-JW family and close friends. I go to ex-JW gatherings locally and even travel to Flipper's annual Tahoe gathering, but I am not really in-your-face about anything to my wife and certainly not to my mother. I could probably register to vote, but haven't bothered.

If I had children, I would probably have DA'ed and taught them about the vast difference between Mommy and Daddy's beliefs and how they should feel free to decide things for themselves instead of having Watchtower dictate everything.

If they "caught" me eating with DF'ed ones or celebrating dear old Dad's birthday and tried to DF me, I would write a legalistic "Doc Bob Letter" (see http://www.docbob.org/wordpress/letter-2/) that would probably make them stop. It would at least be a terrible burden upon them to pursue me. If, ultimately, they decided that totally inactive members should be DF'ed or DA'ed, I would pop in once every 5 or 6 months, dressed in Hawaiian shirt with no tie, and turn in 1-hour of "recruiting." I would arrive late and leave early too. They would hate me.

To accomplish the needed feeling of closure that disassociating might bring me, I had a private ceremony where I denounced my baptism, declaring that "they" withheld the entire truth from me about their failures and methods and that I was free to use the same types of deception and withholding of information from them in order to keep contact with my family. I burned Watchtower literature to counter their water ceremony with fire.

55

Why do ones that got out come back in?

by moreconfusedthanever in

i have not been to a meeting for about 2 years now.

i do not intend to go back but one thing has me baffled.

why do ones that have faded and been out for years return?

OnTheWayOut

As stated, many never totally left. They stopped, faded away- but still believed. They may have gotten involved in breaking the rules.

Some go back when they feel they will be destroyed at Armageddon. Something scares them or shakes them back in line.

Many go back for "fellowship" with JW family. In that category, some know it is all lies and still go back.

24

What changes would JW.org need to make to become a normal Christian denomination.

by UnshackleTheChains in

i am interested in getting people's thoughts on this.

on average 40 thousand people leave the organisation yearly for one reason or another.

the experiences all over the media are proof of this.

OnTheWayOut

Hey, don't forget to end Hospital Liason Committees and tell members that Watchtower is not a medical organization so it should not have any say so in any blood issues.

It's really too late. Even if they did all the things we ask, there would be so much winking from the platform when they say stuff like birthdays are your business, college is your decision.