Posts by Island Man

41

"Jehovah's people as a whole can never be corrupted..."

by cappytan in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zgds4z-h2i.

transcript below (with key points of interest bolded):.

please open your bibles to phil.

Island Man

He said:

"There’s never a reason to stop serving Jehovah."

This statement contains an implicit bait and switch on the word "Jehovah". It baits "Jehovah" but what is really implied and gets switched around in the minds of indoctrinated JWs is "Watchtower / The Organization / The Faithful and Discreet Slave". Brainwashed JWs are expected - no programmed - to read the statement as:

"There is never a justifiable reason to leave the JW organization."

This is one of the most often used tools of psychological manipulation to get awakening JWs to turn a blind eye to the serious faults of the organization - the kinds of faults that JWs would readily point to in other religions as evidence of them being false and the need for persons in those religions to leave them. So it doesn't matter how corrupt, deceitful and foolish the leadership of the JW organization proves to be; or how false the organization proves to be, you still have to be a loyal follower because "serving Jehovah" is very foolishly and shamelessly self-servingly equated with membership in the organization - the very organization that proves to be false which should logically mean you should leave it as per Revelation's admonition to "get out of her my people!". But this fact gets conveniently ignored when it comes to the glaring sins of the JW organization; but readily applied to all others.

They are such unforgivable deceitful manipulators and hypocrites!

99

Golden Rule: Pure Garbage?

by willmarite in

on another thread a poster made the comment that the golden rule was garbage.

she said it was arrogant and made assumptions.. i didn't want to derail that thread so i started another wondering if this is a common thought about this belief on this forum.

i guess i naively thought the value of doing to others as you want them to do to you was generally accepted as positive.. i understand people have different opinions of jesus as a person but i don't want to get into that here.

Island Man

Here's what's wrong with the golden rule:

Different people like to be treated differently. The way John likes being treated may be an annoyance to me. So if John follows the golden rule by treating me the way he wants to be treated, he would be a pain in the ass to me.

The golden rule ignores human individuality. It leads one to act presumptuously by projecting ones own preferences onto others. The Diamond Rule is superior: "treat others the way they would want to be treated."

Imagine being the guest in the home of someone of some exotic culture and he offers you what is considered the delicacy in his culture and which he loves. With the Golden Rule mindset, your host expects you to love the meal because he loves it and is giving you with the expectation that you will love it too. With that mindset, your host could easily be offended if you genuinely do not like the meal and stop eating after the first bite. The Golden Rule facilitates such taking of offense because it projects your own preferences onto others. By contrast, if the host had the Diamond Rule mindset, he wouldn't presume to project his own likes onto you. He may offer you a small sample of their delicacy to see if you like it, and if you don't he wouldn't take offense because the Diamond Rule acknowledges that we have different preferences and seeks to know the preferences of others instead of presumptuously projecting our own preference onto them.

The Golden Rule has a form of love that proves to be somewhat superficial. The love of the Golden Rule is not genuinely interested in the person - for it does not seek to ascertain the person's preferences so as to know how to treat them. It overlooks this because it is more interested in proving itself righteous and so presumes, egotistically to project the giver's own preference onto the person.

By contrast, the Diamond Rule shows personal interest by ascertaining the preference of the person so as to know how to treat them. It shows genuine personal interest instead of focusing on proving the lover righteous at the expense of overlooking the preferences of the one being loved.

The Golden Rule is proof that the book of Matthew is not the inspired word of a superior all wise God whose thoughts are superior to our own. In fact, the Golden Rule is not even original to the bible but has been expressed by others living before the time of Jesus.

The Golden Rule is what some might call a "deepity" - a pithy saying that has an air of charisma to it but upon closer scrutiny proves to lack an intelligible meaning or the great depth of insight or substance it pretends to have. Charismatic sounding slogans tend to be like that. True wisdom is often very lacking in charismatic appeal.

51

I'm my favorite type of JW - Double Life

by thedepressedsoul in

the borg's tactics on most jw work.

they put fear into their mind, they guilt trip them and basically make them scared to do anything when they are away from the kingdom hall.

it allows them to control every aspect of their life.

Island Man

By the way, there's also another kind of JW - the triple-lifer. Believe me, they exist! An example of a triple-lifer would be a JW who is gay but living in a strongly homophobic society and so has to live his gay life secretly from everyone who is not gay . . . in addition to also living a secret, non-gay worldly life outside the kingdom hall. Three lives: gay, general worldly and JW. And that can even be 4 lives if he's a closet atheist who only lives out his atheism anonymously online.

51

I'm my favorite type of JW - Double Life

by thedepressedsoul in

the borg's tactics on most jw work.

they put fear into their mind, they guilt trip them and basically make them scared to do anything when they are away from the kingdom hall.

it allows them to control every aspect of their life.

Island Man

"I'm not sure why but for some reason it makes me feel better than if I just straight up left. There is something about the feeling of hearing their crap and rules beyond the bible and then being able to go home and do as I please."

I think this is the same kind of thrill that some get from stealing and getting away with it. It's the thrill of secretly cheating and getting away with it. Some people steal, cheat on their taxes and commit other criminal cheating acts, not for the material advantage it gives them, but just for the thrill of being able to cheat and get away with it.

If it works for you as an awake JW in helping you keep your sanity, then by all means embrace it. It's one of several coping mechanisms that awake JWs who are trapped can use.

But you're not a true hypocrite. You're just deceitful - justifiably deceitful. A true hypocrite is never honest with himself in acknowledging that he's being a hypocrite. A true hypocrite is blinded by pride and/or self-righteousness from seeing his double-standards.

45

How to Choose a Wife!

by snugglebunny in

jw
friends

back in the day, when my family moved to a new congregation, i fell head over heels with a young sister who was an elder's daughter.

it wasn't long before we were talking about marriage and i was contemplating buying her an engagement ring.

my parents were not happy at all.

Island Man

Village Idiot erroneously said, "I've heard that men outnumber women 2 to 1 making it difficult for a woman to get a husband."
Correction, it's actually the reverse.

And here I thought you were being sarcastic.

94

Disowning the God of the OT is not an Option

by cofty in

it's to their credit that many modern christians prefer the jesus of the gospels to the god of the old testament.. ot god is an embarrassment.

i am not going to list his multitude of moral crimes here but my personal favourite is his brilliant idea that a girl who is raped must marry her rapist.

it's not his biggest crime but it demonstrates a disregard for human feelings that is beyond the comprehension of every moral person.

Island Man

Is the OT God kind and loving but yet commands and condones injustices like slavery, genocide and misogyny?

Then he is not perfectly just.

Is he perfectly just but his sense of morality is so superior to our own that we cannot appreciate that slavery, genocide and misogyny are perfectly moral and just under certain circumstances?

Then we are not made in his image.

Are we made in his image but cannot appreciate the morality of the slavery, genocide and misogyny of the bible because certain details that would help us to see the justness of such occurrences have been omitted from the bible accounts?

Then the OT God is not a wise author as he does a great disservice to his own reputation by omitting such critical details.

Is the OT God a wise author but deliberately omitted critical details needed to get the true appreciation of the morality of seemingly immoral acts, as a means of testing the motives of readers, sifting out which readers he wants as worshippers and which ones he wants to reject him?

Then the OT God clearly wants as his worshippers, selfish, cowardly, might-is-right opportunists who value their eternal salvation over truth and justice and who would turn a blind eye to his injustices for the sake of their own personal benefit.

47

Regional Convention 2015 - Program

by Designer Stubble in

friday morning9:20 music9:30 song no.

5 and prayer9:40 chairmans address: imitate jesuswhy and how?10:20 symposium: lessons from jesus word pictures observe the birds and the lilies have salt in yourselves build your house on the rock11:10 song no.

120 and announcements11:20 follow jesus patternkeep on asking, seeking, and knocking!11:45 keynote address: concealed in him are all the treasures of wisdom12:15 song no.

Island Man

This is not the first time that Watchtower has had a convention featuring Jesus. Have you all forgotten about the "Follow The Christ" district convention several years ago?

This convention is just part of their periodic, token focus on Jesus that they do just so they can say that they're christian. Like another poster alluded to, this convention will just use Jesus to preach Watchtower propaganda. You can bet that Jesus would often be objectified as "the ransom sacrifice" and depersonalized as "spirit creature". Watchtower has no true love for Jesus and this shows in their writing.

To Watchtower, Jesus is just an inconvenient obligation that they have to begrudgingly attend to periodically so they can claim to be christian and justify their claim of having Jehovah's favor. There is no true heartfelt love and honor for Jesus among JWs, as is evidenced by the conspicuous absence of his name on their tongues outside of the formal doctrinal teaching and learning sessions where he is mentioned from the stage.

Just look at all the JW jargon that JWs typically use in conversation: "Jehovah's Organization", "wait on Jehovah", "servants of Jehovah", "serving Jehovah", "Jehovah's people", "Jehovah's direction", "Jehovah's spirit", "Jehovah's blessing" ... you get the idea -- it's all about Jehovah. Can you think of any often used JW jargon that has "Jesus" in it? That says volumes! Even when JWs do try to focus on Jesus they go out of their way to give him measured focus as if trying to be careful not to give him too much focus for fear of being guilty of worshiping him. Contrast JWs lack of use of the name Jesus and lack of verbal praise of Jesus with the NT writers' focus on Jesus and their unabashed praising of him in writing.

19

Changing images

by maisha in

awhile ago i was mentioning how many of the images in watchtowers last year were containing addins with skulls, demon like faces and blatant illuminiti imagery.

i recently went into the download sites again to grab some of those images and blow me away they have all been changed, cropped, edited, i can say that because i have some those original digital images from the magazines of last year, however the images currently on download sites are not the same some completely removed.

one such image of jesus coming on an ass has been cropped, removing the name of the hidden name of the artist,,,, and altering a huge demon like face on the window.... has anyone else noticed this?..

Island Man

Sometimes I wonder who is more delusional - brainwashed JWs, or conspiracy-minded ex-JWs seeing subliminal images in Watchtower art.

56

Question for atheists and nonbelievers

by pressman in

i profess to teach the truth to you all and get you to all to think and believe.

believing in christ through his words and not through evil religious cults, like hoj and jw, can and will save you.

do you all realize that every time you are victorious and receive something of value through your hard work and sweat, it was our holy god who blessed you.

Island Man

The OP doesn't seem genuine. It appears to be satire. It is just one unsubstantiated assertion after another with no attempt at logically convincing arguments whatsoever. It's rather pitiful if it's genuine, but genius if it's satire.

47

Apostasy Trial on YouTube - Undercover spycam part 1

by RayPublisher in

for only the second time in internet history, a video recording of a secret jehovah's witness apostasy trial has been published online on the jwstruggle youtube channel.

follow isaac's story here:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se9rh6qux0o&feature=youtu.be.

Island Man

This is not only the second time.
Why are you overstating the facts, Ray. Using sensationalist, yellow-journalism tactics doesn't help our cause.

Actually, I believe Ray Publisher is correct. Yes, there are multiple audio recordings of JCs online. But as far as I am aware this is only the second JC that is a video recording (Ray Publisher's JC being the first). Prove me wrong by posting a link to another video recording of a JC other than Ray Publisher's -- and I really don't mind you proving me wrong because I would love to see another video recorded JC!