Posts by new boy

15

Daily text for 12-7-2016 Gods promises "Dynamic"?

by NikL in

jw
friends

wife read me the daily text this morning out of the blue this morning and a couple of sentences stuck out in my head.. all of jehovah’s promises are dynamic, not static, because he is constantly working toward their fulfillment.

(isa.

46:10; 55:11) once a person realizes this about jehovah’s word, what he reads in the bible can exert a powerful force in his life.. .

new boy

Maybe there is a "type and antitype" application here. Better do more research.

You are looking at a turd in a toilet and wondering what it could mean.

Maybe it's just a turd.

1

"50 Years a Watchtower Slave" Chapter 8 Part A

by new boy in

chapter 8. a monkey on a string .

my mother never really had much respect for my father.

according to her, my father was weak and “not a good spiritual head of the family.” she probably knew that deep down he was not buying the program.

new boy

Chapter 8

A monkey on a string

My mother never really had much respect for my father. According to her, my father was weak and “not a good spiritual head of the family.” She probably knew that deep down he was not buying the program. Whenever there was a problem in the family his favorite saying was “just go along for the sake of peace.” This is exactly what he was doing. Years later, I really disliked him. Not because he wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness anymore but because he knew it was all bull shit for years and never said a word to us kids about it. Yes, his just “give for the sake of peace” attitude affected me, my kids and their kids. He told me years later that I would have never listened to him anyway and he’s was probably right. However at least he could say he tried to warn us. No, He was more worried about his relationship with my mother than his relationship with us kids. He had turned over the raising of us kids to my mother. He was MIA. We were on our own. It didn’t really matter anyway. When she did die years later, she never really liked my father up to the very end. All those years of him kissing her ass, got him nothing. It reminds me of the saying “You are as much responsible for the evils you commit as the evils you permit.”

In nineteen fifty nine when I was ten years old my mother took me and my sister to Hawaii for the summer. I found out years later that she never told my father before she left. He came home from work one day and we were gone. She did this three or four times while we were growing up. She would just take off and not tell my father where she was going. However she would always come back before school started. I’m not quite sure what this was all about. Maybe she found out about one of his many infelicities. Maybe it was putting him on notice to shape up. I really don’t know the reason for the separations but when we came back he really appreciated her more than ever.

Maybe she was like her grandfather (not the one who sexual abused her) and just had a wandering soul. He would take off for months during the great depression and never tell anyone. Not even his wife. Sometimes he just wouldn’t come home from work. Instead he would hop a freight train out town. One day on one of his rare visits back home, the noon whistle blow. He came home for supper, as was the custom in many small Midwest towns back then. He told his wife “I’m not working for those guys anymore after today, they’re all a bunch of idiots.” After his meal he went back to work digging a well.

My great grandfather didn’t come home that evening and he didn’t hop a freight train out of town either. That afternoon he was at the bottom of a twenty foot well digging out the muck and smoking a cigarette. There was a small gas pump running on the top of the hole that was pumping out the water that was seeping in. One of the guys he was working for, did however turn out to be an idiot, because he accidently kick a can full of gas into the hole. No more freight trains for gramps. He was burned to a crisp. His wondering days were over.

21

cleveland ohio CA results

by nowwhat? in

1350 in attendance 5 kids baptised.

an astonishing growth of 0.3 percent.

the org charged $13,000 for the wonderful program!.

new boy

3% growth? Maybe not. How many got Dfed in that circuit in the same period time?

2

"50 Years a Watchtower Slave" Chapter 7 Part B

by new boy in

thus they preach against infant baptisms.

how could a baby know what religion they what to join?

you can still be shunned if you are not baptized.

new boy

Even though they preach against child baptism. They say, they want the person to make a conscience decision to join their faith. Thus they preach against infant baptisms. How could a baby know what religion they what to join? This is a very good point. However, it is not unusual for Jehovah’s Witnesses parents to encourage their of eight or nine years old children to get baptized. So I guess infants don’t know what they are doing when it comes to serious decisions but eight and nine year olds do. I got baptized at seventeen. This was unusual for someone who was almost born into the faith. No words were directly spoken about it of course but there was a lot of “what are you waiting for” remarks. The average age of children getting baptized back then if they were raised in the faith was twelve to thirteen.

For many years if you wanted to get baptized, you would just get in line and get dunked. Now a days they will set you down and ask you dozens of questions. These questions are to make sure that you are in agreement with the society policies and that you loyal to their organization and governing body. The governing body is a group of fifteen to twenty old guys who run the whole thing.

There is one very important question they should ask you but for some odd reason they don't. That question should be. “Are you aware that if you join this religion by getting baptized, if you ever change your mind at any time in the future and decide to leave it, you will be shunned? This means your friends, parents, children and relatives will have nothing to do with you for the rest of your life.”

So what is this shunning all about? This is the biggest tool The Watch Tower and Tract Society has to control its members.

The dictionary says shunning is to persistently avoid, ignore, or reject (someone or something) through antipathy or caution. To avoid, evade, steer clear of, keep one’s distance from, have NOTHING TO DO WITH.

So, if you ever decide to leave this religion this is what is store for you.

Maybe it doesn’t matter if they ask this question because most eight and nine year olds would probably say “yes” anyway.

Wouldn’t it be funny if they said no? “Mom, Dad I changed my mind! I’m not getting baptized. Since there is a strong probably I might decide to be a homosexual in twenty years from now. I’ve decided not to get baptized after all. This way we can still be friends and you won’t have to shun me!”

This really isn’t that funny because if thousands of kids could see their lives down the road, many years later they would certainly never allowed themselves to get dunked.

I know it sounds strange but for some odd reason many unbaptized people are treated better then baptized people in the organization. A Jehovah’s Witnesses family could have two children. Let’s say they are the same age, twins. One child is baptized and one is not. They both end up doing an activity that is not approved of, by the Witnesses. If the baptized one is disfellowshipped, he will be shunned for sure. However the unbaptized one, can’t be disfellowshipped because he never got baptized. So he might not get completely shunned. So in reality by making the decision as a child to get baptized you are at a greater disadvantage then your unbaptized sibling. This brings us to our next question.

So you must be baptized first in order to be shunned by Jehovah’s Witnesses later? Well, not necessary. You can still be shunned if you are not baptized. You might be “marked.” This is usually done unofficially. The elders or an elder or just a group of “brothers and sisters” talk among themselves and determine someone in kingdom hall is bad associations. You might not even know that you are marked. Most the time this is done unofficially. Sometimes it is done officially. The elder will make an announcement to the whole congregation. “That a certain person is considered bad associations.” So you might know or you might not know that you are on their shit list. One way you will know is people will start acting very differently around you. Yes, the unofficial shun. I know all of this is all very confusing.

This happened to me in high school. I was shunned. Did I do something inappropriate? Nope, I was the perfect Jehovah’s Witness child. I was guilty by association. Who did I have contact with that was concerned bad associations? My parents…. Yep, good old mom and dad. This interesting story will be told in the next chapter.

So back to the many ways you can be shunned.

There are only four ways of leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses. So there are four ways that could lead to shunning. I say “could” because options three and four has some loopholes.

1. You are “disfellowshipped.” You commit some kind of sin in the eyes of church. For example you commit “Immorality” meaning you have sex before you are married or you are married and have sex with someone besides your spouse. There are other sins you could commit but these are by far the most popular. You meet with three elders in the local congregation. If they feel you are not repentant enough for your sins, the will expel you from the congregation. Sometimes even if you are repentant enough, they will still expel you anyway. They will do this to make an example of you to others. Or they just don’t like you. It’s a “good old boy country club” and sometimes favoritism comes into play. You could be disfellowedshipped in one Kingdom hall and just get a slap on the wrist in another for the same offence.

2. You “disassociate” yourself. You send a letter to the local congregation and resign your membership.

If you do the first or second option will be definitely be shunned. You can never again have ANY contact with any of your Jehovah’s Witnesses friends or family. You are dead to them.

3. So you don’t want to do option one or two. In recent years a new way to leave the Witnesses has become popular. It’s call “fading.” This is a tricky one. It’s done by people who don’t want to make a complete break from the occult. Usually because of family members, the thought of not ever talking with their parents, children, siblings and loved ones is more than they can bear. It works just like it sounds. You move away from them slowly. Many times this requires an actual move to a new town or state. You might even tell your family and friends that you are still an active witness but in reality you have moved on to a new life. Others have called this “a double life” This phrase has been coined to describe mostly younger ones, teenagers and young adults who have two different lives. These are kids who are trying to keep their parents happy and will pretend to be a good witness by going to the meetings and out in field service. However on the weekends they will “party down” and act like “worldly” people. Whether you are a “double lifer” or a “fader” the results can be disastrous if caught. You could end up in the “back room” with the three elders telling them your story. This rarely goes well.

4. The fourth and final option is death. For many who couldn’t make the choice from the first three options, have chosen this one. Yes, you can break free with suicide. There was a time when I even considered this option myself. I have known at least a half dozen people who felt this was their only option to leave. As I have said earlier, I personally have contributed to at least two people choosing this way out. Yes, even dead people can be shunned. Many witnesses have boycotted their family member’s funerals. So for them there can be no forgiveness even after your death. My mother wouldn’t let my father go to his out father’s funeral because it was inside a Catholic church. As Bob Dylan once said “Some of us are prisoners and some of us are guards.”

3

"50 Years a Watchtower Slave" Chapter 7 part A

by new boy in

chapter 7. easy to join tough to leave .

so even though jehovah’s witnesses are pacifist there are some people the witnesses actually do hate.

the people they hate the most, are former jehovah’s witnesses.

new boy

Muddy waters

Hey buddy. I'm half German too. Love the Germans. A little strange that Almost all the heavies back in the forties, fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties were Germans. Knorr, Franz, Swingle, Suiter, Henshel ect ect.....

Darkspilver

Good point I will change that.

27

Do you still go to meetings?

by NikL in

jw
friends

as i was sitting in the meeting last night i thought about this question.. sometimes it feels really lonely because i don't connect with most others in the congregation and i have to be so careful with the ones with whom i do associate.. quick rundown on my life...got baptized at 17...married at 20...became inactive at 28 wife still active though...came back to meetings with her 20 years later just to keep her quiet and see if they had changed (for a while i actually thought they had)...now i am still inactive and haven't gone out in service or anything.

i just go to meetings with my wife who is happy as a lark to have me there with her...just go to meetings and think...and think...and think.... anyway, i just wondered if there are any out there like me who are going to meetings and nothing else?.

new boy

After 50 years of meetings

No I'm free at last

free at last

thank god I'm free at last!

3

"50 Years a Watchtower Slave" Chapter 7 part A

by new boy in

chapter 7. easy to join tough to leave .

so even though jehovah’s witnesses are pacifist there are some people the witnesses actually do hate.

the people they hate the most, are former jehovah’s witnesses.

new boy

Chapter 7

Easy to join tough to leave

So even though Jehovah’s Witnesses are pacifist there are some people the Witnesses actually do hate. The people they hate the most, are former Jehovah’s Witnesses. That’s right, if you joined them and get baptized, you better stay in their faith. Your baptism is for life, with no parole, just like in the Mafia. There is no changing your mind. If you do leave the cost will be considerable.

There are three basic ways people become Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The first is very rare. It’s called “informal witnessing.” A witness will meet a person not in the “field service" (door to door activity) and strike up a conversation. It could be a schoolmate or workmate. I say mate and not friend because friends outside of congregation are highly discouraged. People will say “I have a friend who is a Jehovah’s Witness.” But really, how much of a friend was he to you? Did he ever invite you over for dinner? Probably not. If indeed you did have a Jehovah Witness friend and you did lots of things together they were either doing it on the sly, or they were someone who was not in “good standing” in the congregation. Anyway the conversation will start with the witnesses asking you some questions about how you feel about the current “system of things.” They are hoping you might be looking for a change or better yet, maybe for god’s intervention. From there they will give you some of their literature. Thus hoping to start a “home bible study” with you which of course will lead to your baptism.

The second way is from the “door to door” activity. This is called “field service.” They will knock on your door looking for as they call it “sheep like ones” or “people receptive to the good news.” They will leave their literature hoping you will read it. They will call back every week afterwards until you tell them not to come back anymore, or you tell them you want a “home bible study.” This will lead to your baptism.

The third way is as I mentioned before…is sex. This is how the vast majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses are now created. It wasn’t always this way. From the early years of the church through the nineteen eighties people joined the religion by way of the “door to door” activity mostly. What has changed? Two things. 1. Millions of Jehovah’s Witnesses are having sex with each. 2. People are now more educated. Now with the internet people can really research religions before they join them. Not too many people now a days are looking for a religion that got started in the 1870's by a bunch of Germans from Pennsylvania . A religion that doesn’t believe in any holidays, is very restrictive sexually and has been preaching the end of the world is coming for over a hundred years.

So that is how Jehovah’s Witnesses are made. After you have learn the facts about their religion they will want you to join them by getting baptized. To show the world your dedication to your new god Jehovah.

3

"50 Years a Watchtower Slave" Chapter 6

by new boy in

chapter 6. jesus and the flag.

my mother told me that “the end” was coming very soon.

so at the encouragement of mother and many others in the congregation i was baptized in january 1967 and started full time ministry as “pioneer” in may of 1968.. in fact she told me when i was younger that i would never even get out of high school before “the end” would come.

new boy

Chapter 6

Jesus and the flag

My mother told me that “the end” was coming very soon. So at the encouragement of mother and many others in the congregation I was baptized in January 1967 and started full time ministry as “pioneer” in May of 1968.

In fact she told me when I was younger that I would never even get out of high school before “the end” would come. She was wrong about that. I did get out of high school in 1967. Her grand kids got of high school too. Soon her great grands kids will be getting out of high school also. Yet even to this day fifty years later Jehovah’s Witness parents are telling their children how close “the end” is. The beat goes on.

I was pretty much a loner in high school. Most of the Jehovah’s Witnesses didn’t want to hang around me (Chapter 7 will have the reason for this) and “worldly friends” were not allowed. Anything outside the Jehovah’s Witnesses was considered “Worldly.” Meaning things of this world and not of god. Satan was in control of this world. So we had to stay free from anything he was controlling especially the people. What did this include? School sports, school clubs and school dances where they played the devil’s music.

It was written in Luke “I have written to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from the world.…

High school wasn’t very enjoyable. By the time 1966 and 1967 rolled around the Viet Nam war was going strong. I went from the kid that no one really noticed or cared about to one of the most hated kids in my high school. Nationalism was at fever pitch. My classmates didn’t like it when I didn’t salute the flag. When I didn’t stand up for the “National Anthem” all hell would break lose. I was spit on and slapped. People would ask me why I wouldn’t salute the flag. I would say “What flag would Jesus salute if he was here on Earth? All of them? None of them? Or Just the American flag? I would still get slapped. People are not really interested in logical answers like that.

Or they would say. “So, you won’t fight for your country?” “No” I would say. “Well” They would say. “What would happen if everyone thought the same way as you do?” “Well… I guess there would be no more wars!” They would look at me with a blank look on their face for a second then fire back. “No! I mean if everyone in this country wasn’t willing to go to war.”

Our way or the highway. People love to believe in the “us or them” concept.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are not active in politics. They are neutral and will not take up arms in time of war. They would rather go to prison then fight and kill for the country they live in. They are peaceful people. You know that when your son or daughter goes into the army they could get themselves killed, this of course is always a possibility. They have chosen employment in a kill or could be killed business. So really they have no reason to be surprised if their kids get killed. What would be a real surprise is if it was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses that killed them. The odds are, the people who killed your family, could belong to just about any religion on the planet except Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I had a friend in High School who was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness. By the time he had graduated he had left the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He join the army and went to Viet Nam. In 1987 I found him in California and called him up. He said he went to Viet Nam and had “no regrets.” I said, “I didn’t go to Viet Nam and I had no regrets either.”

I didn’t go to Viet Nam like so many of my classmates did. I didn’t believe in war back then. I still don’t believe in war now. Interesting that no one in my class died in Viet Nam but five guys who went over there came back and killed themselves. I guess some of my classmates had some regrets.

18

Navigating the "real world"

by Minerva in

although i haven't called myself a witness in almost 15 years, i'm still married to one (which has it's own set of challenges and is fodder for a completely different post).

i haven't spent a lot of time on forums with other ex-jws either, but thought i would throw this question out to you all because it's something i still struggle with.... particularly for those of you who were raised in or were in the religion for many years - what has it been like for you to navigate the work world?

i would be a 3rd generation jw on one side of my family and a 4th generation on the other side -- the hardest thing for me has been just knowing how to act and behave, especially among co-workers.

new boy

Well, I like you have been out for 15 years too. I was raised in the "tooth" also, 50 years worth.

The problem that I see is even though you/we are "out" and we think of ourselves as "free" we are still subject to years and years of mental contamination. Yes, in many ways we are still plagued with the "wiring" of that thought system. Since you are still married to a believer, that contamination is with you on a daily basis. So how could their behavior not effect you? In essence you are not in their world but not really in "the world".......the world of endless possibilities.

You have chosen to swim with a fifty pound weight around your feet of course it's going to feel strange. I'm not telling you to get rid of the weight. I'm saying just get use to it feeling strange.

73

Quite Possibly The Most Sinister Speaker Ever?

by pale.emperor in

hi guys.. "brother" jose is quite possibly the most sinister speaker i've ever seen or heard.

and i've seen/head a lot of cults in my time.. he's over the top with his voice tone and gestures.

i see a future governing body member in the making here:.

new boy

I really like his huge skull and cross bones ring he was wearing.