Posts by ScenicViewer

35

Could you 'Wake Up Happy' if you were an active Witness, knowing what you know now? (A 2012 Convention invitation)

by ScenicViewer in

a convention invitation.

i came home the other day and found an invitation to the upcoming district convention in my door.

i don't believe these are left in the doors of the general public, so a well-meaning witness must have been thinking of me, even though i have not been to the kh in about 7 years.. the leading question on the front immediately got my attention, and made my jaw drop a bit.. i thought i would ask the forum, .

ScenicViewer

irondork said,

"What Is True Love?"

Oh, this oughtta be good!

Yes it oughtta, and we all know that whatever it is, it will include spin that slants it toward Watchtower doctrine.

35

Could you 'Wake Up Happy' if you were an active Witness, knowing what you know now? (A 2012 Convention invitation)

by ScenicViewer in

a convention invitation.

i came home the other day and found an invitation to the upcoming district convention in my door.

i don't believe these are left in the doors of the general public, so a well-meaning witness must have been thinking of me, even though i have not been to the kh in about 7 years.. the leading question on the front immediately got my attention, and made my jaw drop a bit.. i thought i would ask the forum, .

ScenicViewer

sir82,

I noticed that too. 'Live play' usually means with live actors with their own voices. As far as I know they have been called Dramas, and had pre-recorded voices. Now I wonder if they're taking a new approach.

35

Could you 'Wake Up Happy' if you were an active Witness, knowing what you know now? (A 2012 Convention invitation)

by ScenicViewer in

a convention invitation.

i came home the other day and found an invitation to the upcoming district convention in my door.

i don't believe these are left in the doors of the general public, so a well-meaning witness must have been thinking of me, even though i have not been to the kh in about 7 years.. the leading question on the front immediately got my attention, and made my jaw drop a bit.. i thought i would ask the forum, .

ScenicViewer

LostGeneration,

"...just like to drop nuggets like that in his brain when I have the chance."

Tha't probably a very good idea. Most Witnesses are so closed-minded about their religion that a meaningful discussion is often not possible. Dropping a seed here and there is all one can do much of the time.

(Regarding the toes comment, it appears they went for a different body part this year, and not from Daniel's image. The stomach. See Iamallcool's response. )

35

Could you 'Wake Up Happy' if you were an active Witness, knowing what you know now? (A 2012 Convention invitation)

by ScenicViewer in

a convention invitation.

i came home the other day and found an invitation to the upcoming district convention in my door.

i don't believe these are left in the doors of the general public, so a well-meaning witness must have been thinking of me, even though i have not been to the kh in about 7 years.. the leading question on the front immediately got my attention, and made my jaw drop a bit.. i thought i would ask the forum, .

ScenicViewer

Hello AllCool,

I get the same 'green' feeling.

35

Could you 'Wake Up Happy' if you were an active Witness, knowing what you know now? (A 2012 Convention invitation)

by ScenicViewer in

a convention invitation.

i came home the other day and found an invitation to the upcoming district convention in my door.

i don't believe these are left in the doors of the general public, so a well-meaning witness must have been thinking of me, even though i have not been to the kh in about 7 years.. the leading question on the front immediately got my attention, and made my jaw drop a bit.. i thought i would ask the forum, .

ScenicViewer

A Convention Invitation

I came home the other day and found an invitation to the upcoming District Convention in my door. I don't believe these are left in the doors of the general public, so a well-meaning Witness must have been thinking of me, even though I have not been to the KH in about 7 years.

The leading question on the front immediately got my attention, and made my jaw drop a bit.

I thought I would ask the forum,

- Could you 'Wake up happy every morning, with positive thoughts' knowing what you know now about the Watchtower Organization?

- What things would prevent that?

- Did you ever wake up happy as an active Witness?

My own answer to the 3rd question is that Yes, I did wake up happy at one time. I was in my 20s and very naive, knowing nothing about the true history of Watchtower, and believing everything I heard at a meeting or an assembly.

"The former things will not be called to mind"

Isaiah 65:17 is quoted in the tract. This concept, as it is applied by the Society, may be appealing to new ones, but as experienced Witnesses which 'former things' were you the most happy to leave behind?

- The things you left behind to become a Witness in the first place, such as celebrating birthdays, honoring the cross, etc? (Feel free to add more.)

- Or the things you left behind when leaving the Organization, such as the policies of disfellowshipping, denying blood products, looking to the GB as God's sole channel of light and truth, etc? (Add any doctrines, concepts, or policies that are meaningful to you.)

Did you wake up happier then as an active follower of the Watchtower, or now as a former follower?

1

I wonder what the GB would say about this article....

by johnnyblazedog in

i found the following link on the yahoo site.

as i read it i began to wonder and lol at what kinda of bolony the gb would say after reading this article.....too funny.. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/six-living-generations-family-gather-aged-111-years-180408199.html.

its not really 6 generations, its only 1!!!

ScenicViewer

The direct link,

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/six-living-generations-family-gather-aged-111-years-180408199.html

The oldest member of this family, born in 1901, would have been around to see the events of 1914 unfold. At one time the Society said this was the generation Jesus spoke of, that would not end until the 'system of things' ended.

Now, as you noted, all 6 of these generations are viewed as being in the same 'overlapping' generation. This amounts to Watchtower's manipulative thinking at it's best, or should I say worst.

By the way, 6 generations in the same photo is amazing!

65

A Brother Died At Bethel

by MrFreeze in

jw
friends

i got a text from my mom when i got into work today saying that a brother i've known for a while had died.

he was a bethelite and they found him dead in his room.

he was the same age as me.

ScenicViewer

i don't believe they do JW memorials at kingdom halls if it was suicide.

It depends, but sometimes it's done. I attended a memorial service held in a KH, death by suicide, for the wife of an elder. No mention was made of how she died at the service.

69

"some were led to believe that the end would come in 1975"

by Sour Grapes in

last week a young elder giving the public talk made.

the statement that "some were led to believe that the.

end would come in 1975, but aren't we so thankfull.

ScenicViewer

Terry said,

"JoAnn was left without any world beneath her feet. She plummeted."

What a tragic loss Terry. The extent of the destruction caused by false prophets will never be fully known because the fall-out from it just can't be tallied. Your sad experience is just one of how many? No one can possibly know.

This reminds me of a scripture that warns of the bad effects of failed expectations,

(Proverbs 13:12, NWT)
“Expectation postponed is making the heart sick, but the thing desired is a tree of life when it does come.”

Watchtower has caused untold suffering, altered lives, unfortunate educational and career choices, family divisions, and more because of it's many failed predictions. The "thing desired, the tree of life" has never come, and will never come as a result of Watchtower activity.

Broken lives will continue to be the only result of following the WTS.

6

Hardcopy Help! Where can I find some?

by okage in

i've got pdf's of certain watchtower publications, but i need the hardcopies to back up my argument.

it's annoying when you show a witness the jw.org website, download the pdf of the watchtower study issue in front of them, and they argue that you have no point because apostates tampered with the file.

mind you, it's on a wt/ccjw server, so i don't fathom how any apostate can tamper with it.

ScenicViewer

@ Okage,

Ebay and Amazon are good sources for hard copies of the literature. How cheap and easy it is to get will depend on what you are looking for.

- Watchtower volumes, 1960s thru mid-2000s. Easy to find and usually cheap. ($1 to $5 each, plus $4 shipping. Buying several from the same seller saves on shipping.)

- Watchtower volumes, 1950s and back. Harder to find, and more expensive, the farther back you go. Some from the 50s can still be relatively cheap, but from the 40s expect to pay $15 to $90 per year, plus shipping.)

- Awake volumes are about the same as the Watchtower volumes pricewise, but usually they are harder to find. They are fairly plentiful from the 70s through mid 2000s, but earlier than the 70s they take longer to find.

- Early Watchtowers can be had in the form of Watchtower Reprints. The originals, printed by the Society, vary greatly in price depending conditon. They were printed in 2 editions, the first one 1879 thru 1916, then from 1879 thru 1919. $600 to $2500. (For example, see this site. These prices are on the high side.)

- The Bible Students have also printed the Watchtower Reprints, 1879 thru 1916. They can be found on ebay from time to time, usually in good condition, from about $250 to $300. Some sellers want a little more.

- Both the Watchtower magazines and Golden Age -or- Consolation magazines (early names for Awake) from the 1920s thru the 1930s are tough to get.

- The Society's books from the 1950s thru 2000s are easy to get, as are some of the older ones from Rutherford's day (I've paid $1 to $10 plus shipping). A select few are hard to find and expensive. The Society has printed lots of books.

If you only need a few pieces of literature, and it doesn't have to be very old, you can find plenty of it cheap, but if you need to put together an extensive library it will take lots of time and money. In this case, FatFreek 2005's idea about the Watchtower CD is a very good one.

Regarding the arguments that some Witnesses use in rejecting your digital sources, at some point the burden of proof will have to fall on them. If they say your offering has been altered, they should prove it by consulting the correct literature and showing you a scan of it. Of course most Witnesses will not bother to do that. It's much easier to dismiss your proof (any lame excuse will do) and move on.

45

Biting off more than they can chew - why I think the Society's internet approach is good for us, bad for them...

by cedars in

i've been giving some thought to the society's latest decision to reduce the size of the awake, and relaunch jw.org as a revamped site - intended for bringing in yet more converts.

for those who missed it, here is the relevant part of the leaked letter to elders discussing these changes.... the internet is a technology that jehovahs organization is using to good advantage to spread the good news to all corners of the earth.

consider the impact our web sites are having.

ScenicViewer

Pams girl said,

I went searching for an "authentic" Jw forum, and found you lot....

Watchtower has survived until now largely by influencing it's people to be separate, different, from everybody else (no birthdays, no association with anyone not a Witness, look only to the Society's publications for religious information, etc). By isolating people away from others it has been able to control their thinking to a great extent.

But now the Society is going to try to keep it's head above water by jumping into the same pool as it's opposers, such as JWN, JWfacts, Freeminds, and others. This is a dramatic new turn for Watchtower, and I think the results could be disasterous for the Organization.

If the Society had been an early adopter of the internet it might be different, but it seems kind of late now. Opposition sites have developed many thousands of pages in their data bases that will come up in any internet search related to Watchtower, Jehovah, or other key words that Witnesses are sure to use.

Encouraging people to use it's own site will inevitably expose them to the very sites that Watchtower wants them to avoid.

Witness the experience of Pams girl and many others.