Posts by neverendingjourney

32

Beardless Jesus. Why?

by UnshackleTheChains in

beardless jesus in watchtower publications between 1930s and 1960s.

a simple detail 'deliberately' left out.

the question is why?.

neverendingjourney

I read a while back that it had to do with the huge cultural changes that went into effect when Rutherford took over in the 1910s.

There was a cult of personalty around Russell and his followers tended to dress and groom in his style (beards). Rutherford was clean shaven and his sycophants in turn groomed themselves accordingly in order to show their solidarity with Rutherford (and not with the many Russell followers who were defecting in droves).

In other words, wearing a beard became associated with loyalty to the prior regime, which was being lambasted in the publications as "the evil slave."

Eventually the hippie movement got underway and the antagonism against beards was further solidified in JW culture. There was a tremendous amount of growth in the 1950s and 60s to where the cultural norms of that era calcified with little change with the passage of time. Hence, the desire to see sisters wearing flowery dresses and having men with cheap suits "sell" literature door-to-door like vacuum cleaner salesmen of the era.

35

How long did people like Methuselah really live?

by dubstepped in

i was working today and my brain was working in circles like it often does and i started wondering about what i was always told about people like methuselah in bible times, and their incredibly claims of longevity.

i've tried researching things but have a hard time getting through all of the bible thumpers to some real evidence, and figured that some here may be more informed or have done the research previously.

so, did people really live longer way back when?

neverendingjourney

Less than half as long as Gandalf, who roamed Middle Earth for 2,019 years.

17

1917 - What REALLY happened?

by neat blue dog in

regarding what happened post russell in 1917, if you ask a jw, they'll say it was the fault of the ousted board members who were 'self willed'.

if you ask an ex-jw, they'll say it was a 'power grab' by rutherford.

the latest yearbook elaborates on the situation:.

neverendingjourney

Also, the yearbook account presupposes Rutherford's faction was the legitimate one while the others were opposers. That was not a settled matter at the time. Russell expected all of these men to work together and did not authorize Rutherford to act as his successor.

Both Rutherford and Johnson had competing claims. Rutherford won and his successors got to write self-serving accounts.

17

1917 - What REALLY happened?

by neat blue dog in

regarding what happened post russell in 1917, if you ask a jw, they'll say it was the fault of the ousted board members who were 'self willed'.

if you ask an ex-jw, they'll say it was a 'power grab' by rutherford.

the latest yearbook elaborates on the situation:.

neverendingjourney

Russell screwed up by leaving instructions in his will. A corporation is a separate legal entity. You can make provision for the distribution of your own property through a will, but you can't control a corporation (separate legal entity) beyond the grave via a will.

Rutherford had the ambition and knowledge to take control over the legal mechanisms of the religious corporations and he apparently had enough of a following to execute on it.

It just goes to show how unsophisticated Russell was in all aspects of his life.

46

Some apostates are coming across as crazed psychopaths

by jambon1 in

jw
friends

i'm not sure whether or not my view on this is correct so please leave your input.

in recent months i've been viewing youtube videos.

again, it might just be my view but there has been an increased amount of random people grabbing a camera and doing vlogs.

neverendingjourney

I agree the behavior is counterproductive. It's unsettling and unlikely to sway public opinion against the Watchtower.

However, I'm a lot more sympathetic than I used to be. No one would be taken seriously if they said "Boy, a lot of those victims of Bernie Madoff's pyramid scheme come across as crazed psychopaths."

A great many ex-JWs are dealing with significant psychological damage from the effects of feeling like they've devoted their lives to a religious cult. No two people are the same. Some people are able to walk away relatively unharmed. Others have significant trauma and are never able to fully recover.

Looking back, I was borderline suicidal for many months after I wised up to the "the truth." Twelve years later I still have lingering issues I'm dealing with, but I woke up in my mid 20s and have been able to more or less remake my life.

Having a fair number of "crazies" lash out is to be expected from a group of people who used to belong to a religious cult.

10

All Memorial Attendance Data from 1896 to 2016

by ILoveTTATT2 in

jw
friends

i have made a spreadsheet of the reported number in attendance to the memorial since the first report of 13 people appeared in an 1896 watchtower.. since it can be very hard to find the numbers for the early years (anything previous to 1938), i will slowly make a note of where i found the data.some of the years i had to manually add hundreds of entries, since the wt did not provide the full number.i am building on the statistics of 1988-2013 that appeared here a while ago.soon i will be starting this but for other sets of data: # of publishers, hours, etc...here is the link: link.

neverendingjourney

It's interesting to see the progress from astronomical growth to a sort of equilibrium being reached.

If my math is correct, memorial attendance increased the following percentages over the past 75 years:

1940-1964: 1,000%

1965-1989: 415%

1990-2015: 99%

33

Leaving the jws is a "lifestyle choice" according to a counsellor

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

so i had my first appointment with a counsellor, of course i explained about being a born in jw, mentally leaving, the penalty of doing so and therefore the mental strain of pretending to be someone i'm not.

her response was that she couldn't help me with that because leaving a cult was a "lifestyle choice".

i tried to say to her that its a cult not a religion and how it brain washed me but no.

neverendingjourney

The vast majority of people are incapable of fully understanding the trauma associated with leaving the Jehovah's Witness religion. Psychologists and therapists are no exception.

I saw a psychiatrist a few years ago. I had four or five sessions with her. She tried her best but just couldn't really relate to what I was struggling with. She said my symptoms were almost PTSD-like and kept trying to help me find the root cause of my trauma even though all I wanted to talk about was JW-related.

I found the following book to be the most helpful:

http://journeyfree.org/leaving-the-fold/

The author was not a Witness but grew up in a fundamentalist environment. I got a lot more value out of the book than I did from the various sessions with the psychologist.

58

Mexico branch......Now closing!!!

by krismalone in

a circuit overseer friend of mine serving in latin america called me today to say hi.

i asked him what's new and he dropped the news that they have received notification that the branch in mexico will be closing!!

this branch also called the central american branch (although located in mexico) oversees all of mexico's 800,000+ publishers plus all 7 countries of central america of over 100,000 publishers.

neverendingjourney

I haven't read through all the responses, but there's been speculation in the past that COs would be dropped in favor of super-elders who get to fill CO responsibilities without actually being financially dependent on the WT. Maybe you have a superelder appointed to oversee four or five congregations. The WT could pick men who are retired, own their own businesses or otherwise have more time on their hands than the average elder.

With the GB's increasing embrace of modern technology, many of the former CO duties could be filled via direct videos with instructions from the GB. It would also help create separation (legal liability) between the various Watchtower corporations and the local congregations. Dropping COs in favor of scripted information direct from the GB would be in line with the general direction of the religion over the past decade or two.

As others have undoubtedly mentioned, COs couldn't be expected to work in addition to their current responsibilities. If anything, this conversation might reflect this particular CO's fear that his role is being phased out and that he'll soon be expected to care for himself in line with the way hundreds of lifelong Bethelites have been treated.

50

No updated Watctower's articles on Evolution

by opusdei1972 in

as far as i know, the "creation" book is out of print ?, am i right?.

well, i was searching for new watchtower articles trying to debunk, for instance, human evolution.

so, i did my homework, for the first time, so as to read past and updated papers and books on human evolution.

neverendingjourney

Evolution happens. What is everyone so afraid of?

The Watchtower admits as much. If all the variety of life arose from an ark full of animals only 4,000 years ago, how else could you possibly explain the millions of species on our planet without it? There had to have been some sort of super-evolutionary process that almost instantly resulted in the tremendous variety we see today. However, this process wasn't really evolution because it only occurred within certain undefined "kinds" that trace back to the ark. What the ever-loving f*ck?

I read the God Delusion but it's been 7 or 8 years. I seem to remember an online breakdown that I ran across by accident back when I was a Witness around the year 2000. I'd been warned not to search for anything JW related online and curiosity got the better of me. I thought I would discover a wealth of academic sources praising the book but the actual truth shocked me. I didn't stare at it for long. I quickly exited the website. I think it might have resided on a predecessor forum to this one, but I could be misremembering.

50

No updated Watctower's articles on Evolution

by opusdei1972 in

as far as i know, the "creation" book is out of print ?, am i right?.

well, i was searching for new watchtower articles trying to debunk, for instance, human evolution.

so, i did my homework, for the first time, so as to read past and updated papers and books on human evolution.

neverendingjourney

@schnell I've forgotten exactly their analogy but I think it was something along the lines of a house not building itself. You could have all the construction materials on site but no matter how much time passes, you'll never find a fully assembled house. Setting aside quantum mechanics and the passage of eons, that's a true statement. But of course that's not how natural selection works. It's a strawman built by creationists.

I remember running across a page-by-page takedown of the book years ago that addressed both the logical fallacies and misquotes. I've had no success rediscovering it, though.