Ex Jehovah's Witness here...

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Aren’t JW Hymns interesting?
We Christians sing, “Lift High The Cross,” and “Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow” and “Holy God We Praise Thy Name.”

A typical JW hymn goes something like this (I’m loosely paraphrasing ):

Let’s go pound the pave-ment
Preach-ing Arma-ged-don,
Con-demn-ing oth-er Church-es
with our Noses in the Air…

and

Bab, Bab, Bab, Bab, Babylon
Bab, Bab, Bab, Bab, Babylon
Babylonnnnnnnnnnn will soon be gonnnnnnnnnnnnne
Babylonnnnnnnnnnn
we got her squirmin and a burnin
squirmin and a burnin
Babylon, Bab, Bab, Bab, Babylon

and other drivel.

Jaypeeto3 (aka Jaypeeto4)
 
GungHo said:
Please do not misunderstand my point. I of course fully understand that nothing can be hid from God. My point was that I came to understand that I wanted to be subject to God, and NOT to the Society. So if THEY said something was wrong, and I knew it wasn’t, I felt free to go my own way. BTW, you just have no idea how good it felt to give blood for the first time just a few months ago. Now…do you think God cared if I did that? Get my point? …So many people in the JW cult think they are serving God, but they are just serving man. This is very sad.

Hey…would it be possible for me to speak to a Catholic Priest somewhere? That may sound like a stupid question, but I hope not.
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I would advise you contact the local Diocese and ask to be directed to a priest that is familuar with deprogramming Jehovah Witnesses and who can be sensitive to your needs. You sound like you have a good handle on whats going on and probally realize that there are many people and some priest that are unfamilur with where you have come from.
 
GungHo said:
But I think the main thing was a lack of love being shown.
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You are right! In the Bible, you will learn that Love is the most important thing and will last forever.

1 Corinthians 13:13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Welcome GungHo!
 
disappointed,
Let me be clear: I do NOT believe that JW’s are evil or crazy or whatever else you said many here believe. I think they are sincere, honest, GOOD people who have been terribly misled by the people before them who were terribly misled etc.

NEVER did I say that they were bad people -far from it. Their beliefs are wrong though - totally 100% incorrect. You say that you’ve been to the Kingdom Hall & “known” witness & even studied with them. Sorry, but that doesn’t make you an authority on them. It’s not until you’ve been baptized & served as a witness for a few years that you really get a feel for the Organization. Up until then, you are being love-bombed and only told what they want you to know so you’ll progress even further.

I loved my witness brothers & sisters very much. I pray for them often in hopes that their eyes will be opened & they will learn the truth about Jesus - a truth not found on any page of the Watchtower.
 
I joke about the JWs, but I love them too.
I pray for their enlightenment and conversion to the Holy Trinity and to the Holy Catholic Faith.

But JW dogmas and practices made me paranoid for many years, so I’m entitled to joke and jest about the Watchtower Society’'s eccentricities.

Jaypeeto3 (aka Jaypeeto4)
 
GungHo said:
So, I call and make an appointment?
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You can do that. That’s how I started my investigation of the Catholic Church. However, in those days, the mid-80s, I was in a very sort of enclosed atmosphere, stationed at West Point. If I were to do this again, today, as a civilian, living in a good size city with many many Catholic Churches, I think I would just start attending Mass, going to a different church each Sunday, getting a feel. There is a fair amount of variety among Catholic churches. Different priests, different congregations, different styles, etc. My own personal preference would be to find a priest with whom I felt I could sit down and talk at some length.

But just picking out a name from a phone book is a good thing, too. There should be a Catholic church close to your home. Maybe start at that one, close to home. When I returned to the practice last year, I started with the church right down the street from my house, but I ended up registering at another church about two miles away, simply because I preferred the pastor there, and the mix of people in the parish. So, personal factors can, and should, play a big part. If for some reason you don’t hit it off with the first priest you speak with, go to another.
 
Allweather said:
You can do that. That’s how I started my investigation of the Catholic Church. However, in those days, the mid-80s, I was in a very sort of enclosed atmosphere, stationed at West Point. If I were to do this again, today, as a civilian, living in a good size city with many many Catholic Churches, I think I would just start attending Mass, going to a different church each Sunday, getting a feel. There is a fair amount of variety among Catholic churches. Different priests, different congregations, different styles, etc. My own personal preference would be to find a priest with whom I felt I could sit down and talk at some length.

But just picking out a name from a phone book is a good thing, too. There should be a Catholic church close to your home. Maybe start at that one, close to home. When I returned to the practice last year, I started with the church right down the street from my house, but I ended up registering at another church about two miles away, simply because I preferred the pastor there, and the mix of people in the parish. So, personal factors can, and should, play a big part. If for some reason you don’t hit it off with the first priest you speak with, go to another.
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I heartily agree and I add if you feel negatitivity creeping in or have a bad experience, the light at the end of the tunnel is Jesus the savior. In the church we are beginning to approach the best part of the year. If you go to the Easter Vigil, when you are holding the lighted candle, if you wish to hold one, it can be an electrifying experience. When I start feeling the negatitivity creep in I just remind my self that inspite of the failings I precieve in the people around me and my self, Jesus, saves. If you proceed as far as taking communion in due time and Jesus is on your tounge and in your throat there is nothing in the world that is a more reassuring experience that he is there so you can talk to him in person. Peace in Jesus.
 
I just want you all to know that I’m reading every single word of each of these posts. I feel the love, and want to thank you. And I really would like to speak to a priest that knows how JW’s have been taught. I’m going to call the Diocese tomorrow. BTW, which one would I call for Northern California?
 
Jaypeeto3 said:
Aren’t JW Hymns interesting?
We Christians sing, “Lift High The Cross,” and “Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow” and “Holy God We Praise Thy Name.”

A typical JW hymn goes something like this (I’m loosely paraphrasing ):

Let’s go pound the pave-ment
Preach-ing Arma-ged-don,
Con-demn-ing oth-er Church-es
with our Noses in the Air…

and

Bab, Bab, Bab, Bab, Babylon
Bab, Bab, Bab, Bab, Babylon
Babylonnnnnnnnnnn will soon be gonnnnnnnnnnnnne
Babylonnnnnnnnnnn
we got her squirmin and a burnin
squirmin and a burnin
Babylon, Bab, Bab, Bab, Babylon

and other drivel.

Jaypeeto3 (aka Jaypeeto4)
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This is the correct wording for the song:
Rev.18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. {abundance: or, power}
**4 **And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
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I wouldn’t exactly call this “drivel.” I hope that is not your official Church teaching on same!!:rolleyes:
 
He was calling drivel, the preaching of fear, this was not quoting that part of Revelation. If he was going to quote the Bible I am sure it would be a little more accurate than Bab, Bab Bab, which is more like a pop song, Barbara Ann
abba-world.net/songs/lyrics/bann.htm

Of course a Catholic would uphold the Bible, every passage as it is the Word of God. If you would like to learn more about Rev 18:2 I would invite you to post in the Scripture forum, we probably have some different insights than you would, if you are not Catholic.

There is no problem calling drivel such as fear mongering, drivel. I am pretty sure he was making light of the fear mongering and not quoting Scripture. Have you had much experience with Jehovah’s Witnesses, this is a common theme that many preach as JW’s.

In Christ
Scylla
 
disappointed1 said:
Ok, I took you up on this. I was already aware of the man Charles Russel and one thing I think you have them on is that the Catholic Church has been around alot longer but man I am shocked at the orgin of the Catholic Church. First of all, where did you get that it was founded by Christ?
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Try Matthew 16:18 “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.”

That’s where Jesus appointed Simon the earthly head of the Church. That’s where he appointed him the first pope.
disappointed1 said:
I tried to find that, I could not. Christ died in about 33 A.D. or thereabouts. He should have been in his early 30’s. The Catholic Religion came into existense some 280 years later if I am not mistaken.
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You are. 🙂
disappointed1 said:
The sad part is that it seems to have taken a bunch of pagan beliefs and tried to make them Christian. I don’t know I fundamentally have an issue with that. I am looking for truth not convenience. I truth says something is bad I want no part of it, that’s why I have issue with the Catholics. They were founded on pagan worship. Adopting them and making them Christian Friendly sort of gives me a weird feeling.
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That sounds like Fundamentalist propaganda- nothing more. Any serious historian- even a non-Catholic historian like Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels, espouses that the Church that exists today with Benedict XVI as Pope is the without doubt the Church that was founded by Jesus and his Apostles.

Look at history-- around and about 200 AD there died at Lyon in France the Bishop of that city, Irenaeus by name, one of the outstanding Christian leaders of his time. It happens that a letter of his has come down to us, addressed to an old fellow student named Florinus from whom he had been seperated for many years. The letter brings up reminiscences of their student days together at the city of Smyrna in Asia Minor. In particular he recalls how they used to attend lectures by Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who died about 155 AD at the age of at least 86. He must have been getting on in years when Irenaeus and Florinus heard him. Irenaeus reminds his old companion- and there would have been no point in it if Florinus could not confirm his recollections- how Polycarp used to tell them stories about ‘John, the disciple of the Lord’, whom he had known personally many years before. Iraneaus, then, in France shortly before 200 AD was able to recall at only one remove, a man who had known Jesus intimately. When the Bishop of Lyons brooke bread with his little congregation as a memorial of the death of Jesus, he was not thinking of something he had found (where Kipling’s Tomlinson found his God) ‘in a printed book’, but of something that he had been told by his old teacher, whose friend had been there and knew. That is what the memory of the Church is like. A corporate memory handed down from generation to generation become what we call a tradition. Our knowledge of about the origins of the church and about its Founder, rests primarily on a living tradition, which had its beginnings in the actual memories of those who had witnessed the events and had personal dealings with the principle Actor in them.
 
I used to read all the conspiracist material against the Church I could find, I started to read things that just didn’t ring true and began to investigate it from the other side. It didn’t make sense that billions of people followed a faith that was so obviously based on lies.

You don’t have to look very hard to see how the Catholic Church is based on a profound love of human life, how it is gently guiding through the centuries, how it endures and engages. How every teaching is intricately interwoven with all the others.

Interestingly, hearing people attack the Church is probably what has led me to a deeper and renewed love of the institution and what she offers. I would hear people would attack the Church and I would feel hurt. I would read more about what they said and in almost all instances I found incredible discrepancies. I found that there were so many blatant lies spread about the Church and the reality of history- objective history—led to quite separate conclusions.

Church history is often dismissed as peripheral and irrelevant today, but we should never underestimate the power of the historian. ‘Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’ as George Orwell put it. By spreading lies about the past, dictators and oppressors have successfully deceived their people into following them in the most monstrous crimes. Catholicism is about truth—truth available to all and so it is important that one tries to ascertain an unbiased version of the truth in order to make a judgement on historical situations. Cardinal Newman taught that truth for it’s own sake has always been the essence of the Church’s message. We must not be mislead by an oversimplified version of the evolutionary hypothesis to imagine that because humanity is evolving it is therefore improving, every generation being that little bit brighter, stronger and fitter than the previous one. Our mediaeval ancestors were not hairy brutes—they felt, thought and prayed just as we do. The only advantage we can claim over them is what we learn from them, how we add their knowledge to our own and build on the foundations they established. It is not necessary for everyone to invent the wheel. If it aint broke; don’t fix it!

There is a large industry devoted to the spreading of lies about the Catholic Church, as search for the truth is rewarding. If you are serious in your search, I emplore you to look at some Orthodox Catholic sources to try and discover the Catholic perspective to the answers you seek. The Church has a rich 2,000 years history that is so obvious to any real student of history, it hurts to hear it dismissed in the way you did in your post.

Good luck in your studies!!
 
Last one…Honest!!

If you look at an independent source like Wikipedia, you find a model like this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6d/Christian-lineage.png

Make no mistake- Restorationism refers to unaffiliated religious movements that attempted to transcend Protestant denominationalism and orthodox Christian creeds to restore Christianity to its original form. The term applies particularly to movements that arose in the eastern United States and Canada in the early and mid 19th century.

The people making the claims that the RC Church is founded on pagan beliefs have a clear agenda. That in itself is not a Christian ethic.
 
scylla said:
He was calling drivel, the preaching of fear, this was not quoting that part of Revelation. If he was going to quote the Bible I am sure it would be a little more accurate than Bab, Bab Bab, which is more like a pop song, Barbara Ann
abba-world.net/songs/lyrics/bann.htm

Of course a Catholic would uphold the Bible, every passage as it is the Word of God. If you would like to learn more about Rev 18:2 I would invite you to post in the Scripture forum, we probably have some different insights than you would, if you are not Catholic.

There is no problem calling drivel such as fear mongering, drivel. I am pretty sure he was making light of the fear mongering and not quoting Scripture. Have you had much experience with Jehovah’s Witnesses, this is a common theme that many preach as JW’s.

In Christ
Scylla
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hey, thanks scylla!

I appreciate the heads up on that. I also did not know that you had a “Scriptures” forum where non-Catholic forum members could go to do as you suggested. I have been wanting to see official Catholic interpretations of a number of texts in several different books of the Bible. I will look for this forum on the week end.
 
Thanks, Scylla.
And thanks for noticing my stealing of “Barbara Ann” for
Bab, Bab, Bab, Bab Babylon…
Witnesses are constantly told that their preaching work is torturing the clergy class of Babylon the Great prior to her destruction, hence "we got her squirmin and a burnin, squirmin and a burnin, Babylon, Bab Bab Bab Bab-ylon.

Protestant 101 needs to lighten up a little.
He doesn’t realize just how much the Society ingrains hatred of all historic Christianity in it’s members. You get a dose of it when you “study” with them, but once you are “in” the organization, you are saturated with it.

God bless,
Jaypeeto3 (aka Jaypeeto4)
 
I have a question. I know you can’t believe everything you read on the internet but if this is true it is very interesting. My question is what goes on during a JW service. I read that someone up front reads from the watchtower then someone off to the side reads some scripture. This happens throughout the service then at the end some carries around a mic and they anwser questions about what was in the watchtower message. If so what I read compares this to Freuds rule of clinical hypnosis. So members are getting brainwashed during a service. Any info appreciated.
 
Yes, during the Sunday “Watchtower Study” meeting,
an Elder stands at the podium and reads the paragraph, another elder may read the scriptures quoted in the paragraph. Then the mike is passed around to whomever raises their hand to answer the question attached to the paragraph. Whoever answers, reads the answer to the question about the paragraph (the answer is usually read verbatim from the paragraph itself, with maybe a little personal spice thrown in.

This same procedure is followed at the Tuesday evening
“Book Study,” which studies another WT Society book.
Before the meeting, the JW reads that week’s chapter of the book at home, and underlines the answers to each paragraphs questions in the paragraph itself. At the meeting on Tues night, the paragraph is read, a scripture may be read in support of the paragraph, then people raise their hands to answer, and again, the answer is always straight out of the paragraph, usually verbatim, but sometimes with the individual JW’s personal spice thrown in along with the pat answer.

You are correct, this is brainwashing.
And this is exactly how the “Free Home Bible Study” is conducted as well for newcomers interested in becoming Jehovah’s Witnesses. A JW comes to their home and they study a Watchtower publication, reading the paragraph, finding the answer to the question in the paragraph, answering the question, and moving on to the next paragraph.

Jaypeeto3 (aka Jaypeeto4)
 
So members are getting brainwashed during a service. Any info appreciated.
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In my opinion, you are correct. I remember this well, (after all, I was on the inside from birth to age 47…though the last 10 years I was in serious “fade mode.” At one time, I was even selected to be a “reader” on the platform, many times.) Sunday Watchtower study…words straight from Jehovah, via the Governing Body aka the Faithful and Discreet Slave. Paragraph is read by brother on platform. All follow along. Question is then asked. Only permitable answer is one from the paragraph. Answer given by someone in audience. Scripture (from “their” Bible the NWT) is read to back up point being made. Many times the scripture is stretched to the breaking point and beyond, but no one seems to care.

It is all a very “Orwellian” experience. Especially when they talk about things that they never said, or did…that I KNOW they said and did, because I was there!
 
Trick75 said:
I. So members are getting brainwashed during a service. .
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Yes - you are correct.

During the meeting, when members raise their hands to answer, it is ALWAYS from the Watchtower paragraph - normally word for word. And this is what’s so freaky - a person would NEVER raise their hand and say they disagree - never ever. It is not up for question or further explanation - the JW just accepts it as it is written. In fact, if the Society has said for many years that the sky was green and then all of a sudden they printed that the sky was red - no one would ever question that or say, “Hey…what happened to green?” A good JW would sooner dance naked on a table than question anything written by the Society.

Total mind control. Seriously.
 
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