Posts by kaik

46

I had breakfast with 50+ JWs on Sunday

by zimunzucz in

jw
friends

we pulled into a hotel parking lot saturday around 6pm on the return leg of a wonderful family vacation to new england - an then fate stepped in---a man in a suit got out of a car with the rest of a picture perfect family.

i immediately noticed all the name tags--- and my blood pressure spiked 50pts- damn!!

i was booked in a 4 story hotel full of jws-- the only time they took off the name tags was in the swimming pool- they were so proud of themselves.. at 6:30 am the hot water went cold in the wife's shower- what do you expect on the 4th floor when a herd of jws is trying to get ready at the same time?

kaik

Faye, back in the Czechoslovakia under commies, the publications were done on the xerox or some kind of hard film, that was like scroll because they were not cut or assembled into notepad format (around 1975-1980). Later they came printed on yellow paper without pictures in small A4 notepad format. However, I remember books were always bound with pictures as far as 1970's and blue cover. My mom has these WT printed on yellow paper bound, because over time the were falling apart for that reason. I believe she has these on the xerox foils in her basement in the box if they did not fade completely. Last time I was at her place, she still kept my WTs from 25 years ago with my notes in it and she tried to leave them with me. Wasn't sure it that was an attempt on her side for me to see what I have missed or not.

During the 50's JWs depended on books published immediately after war and prior WWII. In Czechoslovakia, JWs were legal in interwar period as it was parliamentary democracy, and immediately after war until communist takeover in 1948. JWs were outlawed later in 1950 during the crackdown against all religions under Stalinist regime. We had one old JW who had these books visible at her bookshelf like Harp of God printed in 1920's and entire Rutherford collection - all in Czech language, but she never allowed anyone to read it or borrow it. During liberal 1960's and under Prague Spring events, communist regime tolerated JWs and I do not remember ever my mom had issue with the regime for being JW.

9

Being marginalised by JW's and family, how to combat it?

by Crazyguy in

when one leaves the religion and fades it starts to become obvious that they move on with out you but this is not enough for them so they also marginalize you, loose respect for you etc.

they even tell stories about you.

example my wife talking to my mother tells her that i now believe aliens came to this planet and created man.

kaik

The best way is to start your own family. Move away and live your own live without worrying about something that you cannot change.

46

I had breakfast with 50+ JWs on Sunday

by zimunzucz in

jw
friends

we pulled into a hotel parking lot saturday around 6pm on the return leg of a wonderful family vacation to new england - an then fate stepped in---a man in a suit got out of a car with the rest of a picture perfect family.

i immediately noticed all the name tags--- and my blood pressure spiked 50pts- damn!!

i was booked in a 4 story hotel full of jws-- the only time they took off the name tags was in the swimming pool- they were so proud of themselves.. at 6:30 am the hot water went cold in the wife's shower- what do you expect on the 4th floor when a herd of jws is trying to get ready at the same time?

kaik

My mom is witness for 40 years, but I think she was studying with them through my relatives already in the 1950's or so. My relatives are three four generations of JWs. Over the time, my mom accumulated all these WT publications and she got them bounded and has them in her bookcase. Her elders asked her several times to surrender these prints, and even sent my cousins to acquired from them. Couple months ago, my mom asked me what to do, she does not want to give up old publications and even my sibling accused her that she keeps apostate literature. My advice was to give it to national archives or university instead. I am not surprised that witnesses are extremely reluctant to acknowledge mistakes from their old prints, but they still consider their organization as a God's channel of communication. They will never learn, but it is always good to use their BS for counter-argument(s).

46

I had breakfast with 50+ JWs on Sunday

by zimunzucz in

jw
friends

we pulled into a hotel parking lot saturday around 6pm on the return leg of a wonderful family vacation to new england - an then fate stepped in---a man in a suit got out of a car with the rest of a picture perfect family.

i immediately noticed all the name tags--- and my blood pressure spiked 50pts- damn!!

i was booked in a 4 story hotel full of jws-- the only time they took off the name tags was in the swimming pool- they were so proud of themselves.. at 6:30 am the hot water went cold in the wife's shower- what do you expect on the 4th floor when a herd of jws is trying to get ready at the same time?

kaik

Love it!

The best is to use their literature against them, dig some old print from WT.

17

Convention Invites are Idiotic

by cookiemaster in

so, like every year, there's a campaign going on about giving people convention invites and urging them to attend the convention.

what an utterly moronic waste of time.

we live 500+ kilometers away from the convention hall.

kaik

Also nobody mentions that large gathering make easy to spread a propaganda. It is indoctrination. While many people are oblivious to WT doctrines and lag in field service, the convention attempts to stir up the association of one individual to a large pool of people by production of well measured hysteria. In that moment, people became spiritually delirious and feel the moment of being Chosen people. I witnessed several of these conventions where tens of thousands JWs gathered in one place like in Strahov 1991 with 80,000 to 100,000 people, and the mass spiritual hysteria had occurred.

The mass gatherings are not specialty of JWs, they were invented in the 19th century by German nationalists. Mass rallies became popular for other nationals in Austria-Hungary as early as 1868 as a result of Pan-german conventions. Later they had political context and were used by both Stalin and Hitler totalitarian regimes. North Korea also stages mass rallies like this, were people are introduced under strict guideline to the state propaganda. I remember this form of brainwashing from communist rallies in the 80-85, which were extremely similar to the one I attended in Strahov: Enemies (political/spiritual like Satan), better future ahead (classless society/paradise), new goals... etc.

6

Growing up gay in North korea

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

how do you know you're "gay", if you've never heard of "gay?".

does something exist if there is no word to describe it?

consider the experience of jang yeong-jin.. .

kaik

"1. This can be regarded as normal behavior in East Asian societies (and, probably as non-sexual) for boys and young men to hug, walk hand in hand and be close to each other in ways, that may invite abuse in western (Americanized societies)."

Having many visits to Italy, this is very common for all southern European countries, and Romania. In Sicily young men walk hand in hand as nothing happens, and it predates Christianity to the time of the Roman Republic.

3. Pressure to marry is very strong in ALL East Asian societies.

It is still valid? This used to be in the past, but Japan and South Korea have one of the highest population of people who never married nor never dated. Especially educated women there have a less desire to be married in order to end up as unpaid house servant of her in-laws. This issue was well described in WashingtonPost couple years back.

9

.org gameplan

by Lemonp in

i have been thinking about this after all the recent money grabbing done by the org.

i believe that now it is in a strong position financially, and it may even get better!.

firstly the congregation bank accounts being emptied out must have supplied millions upon millions of dollars.

kaik

WT is moving from money creation to wealth preservation. This is normal situation when empire stops expanding, and the needs turns from generating wealth to preserve a wealth. WT knows it hit a limit on expansion in rich countries in Europe, Northern America, and Asia while poor countries see membership growths but it will not offset declining revenues in OECD countries. The leadership is aware of it, and it will try as much to preserve its wealth without burning it. Also the global recession since 2008 cut into money flow, and this may also cause some panic in the accounting department as they see their wealth evaporate by global crisis.

17

What's the Watchtower's latest view on "The End" or "The Second Coming of Jesus Christ"? Most act like its not coming!

by MagicMItchJensen in

i posted that article from the miami newspaper, others posted the united kingdom's articles on jws and isis.

what's the official position of the watchtower about the last days, are we in them or are we going to wait another 2,000 years like the jews believe?.

i remember arguing at work with friends that nostradamus end date of 3000 was wrong, are there other past prophets you know of who predicted the world's end past our time?.

kaik

Armageddon is not coming in anyone lifetimes. In 1970's my JW aunt insisted that Armageddon will happen around 1975, she told me that I will never have to go to school, because Jesus is arriving. She died 12-13 years ago without ever set a foot in the New World. My mom told me bitterly last week that she will never see Armageddon and she will die without ever to get into Jesus kingdom. My elder cousins are between age 50 and 60, one is battling cancer, and still hold on hope that new system will fix his illness.

38

How do you distinguish Americans?

by paulmolark in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igk4xvzwocw.

apparently americans are all chubby, baggy clothes wearing optimistic fast food eaters.

who knew.

kaik

"I'm sure ISIL "freedom fighting" ar$e hole$ are fit as all get out."

Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, and all of Gulf states have one of the highest obesity rates in the world, probably ahead of USA at this point. Morbid obesity there is also cultural, synonymous with wealth and health since ancient ages. Sultans kept harem of morbidly obese women, and we do not talk about couple pounds overweight. Many of these women were so huge that they could not move. This channeled to the rest of the culture all over Islam. Some countries women are deliberately overeating to become extremely fat. That the region has with one of the highest BMI recorded on level of Samoans. In Mauritania, Mali, Djibouti have one of the highest female obesity in the world, because skinny women are not desirable marriage material. Families prior marriage will keep girls in stall like setting where they would be fed with incredible amount of sugar (from dates and mangoes) and minimize their body movement. After while, they expand into BMI > 35 but often to 40 and more, and they finally became a wedding material.

European culture with exception of Baroque epoch never had fatties as their cultural icons. Christianity condemned gluttony, and many European leading females suffered with anorexia like Empress Sisi, Marie Antoinette, and Josephine.

75

What was your eye opening moment?

by WasOnceBlind in

if you had to pinpoint the time or experience that finally made you open your eyes, what would it be?.

i think for me it was the time i saw my dad shun his brother who he had not seen in decades just because he was a da'ed jw.

i thought to my self "no way jesus would do that.

kaik

I had doubts, but I grew up in it. My mom got baptized around 1975, but my dad said after yeas of study, that much of the theology in WT does not make sense. He said that WT just invented too much things, but nothing is based on Bible. After couple years of constant pressure from JW relatives, he quit to study and never got baptized.

After my dad's death, I believed that the negative influence on my JW thinking was gone and I was attending like crazy, been on conventions, did field services, etc, but doubt were there. We eventually started to study book Revelation, and I just could not reconcile most the BS in that book with Bible. For example we were talking about pouring of wrath from Rev 16:1 and they said it was some convention in Ohio around 1920. Everyone around me was, awesome - me what BS. I just could not reconcile the book study with what I knew and suddenly came to me that if the material is BS, than the religion is BS. After the book study, I never returned to KH.

WT believes that their existence is outlined in the dooms prophecy; and the best way to justify a prophesy, is to prophesied the past.