Surviving Paradise

The battle for your mind starts early in Jehovah's Witnesses. Each repetitive meeting, convention or piece of literature serves as a reminder that your thoughts need to be in line with the nine guys in upstate New York. In addition, each publisher, young or old, is reminded that Jehovah lives inside your head, examining what you're thinking about at any moment... anyone else find that … creepy? 

TWITTER: @exjwpodcast
INSTAGRAM: survivingparadisepodcast

Love is in the air... until it's not. Your marriage is not your own when you're a Jehovah's Witness. Life's most intimate relationship includes a 'three fold cord': the 'organization.' We look at divorce among 'god's people,' including the potentially dangerous, man made rules that 'allow' people to separate and remarry. 

TWITTER: @exjwpodcast
INSTAGRAM: survivingparadisepodcast

How does Jehovah compare to Bugs Bunny and Ironman? Jehovah's Witnesses have been told 'violence is bad' for over a century, including endless counsel regarding entertainment, sports and more. It begs a few questions: have they read Jehovah's book the Bible? Do they know how he has handled problems in the past? Why is Star Wars so bad, but violent convention videos okay? Even more important, are they familiar with how Jehovah ends this whole story?

TWITTER: @exjwpodcast
INSTAGRAM: survivingparadisepodcast

The culture of Jehovah's Witnesses is filled with pitfalls. When your schedule every week includes another meeting in a windowless building where you listen to the same messages year after year, your mind begins to wander... and it usually wanders into everyone else's business. Despite the Bible's command to shun gossipers and those that slander, the body of elders will do nothing to stop the runaway mouths and imaginations of those in their congregation. Many times, the elders and their wives are top contributors. 

Let's take a look at the damage and hypocrisy caused by the 'dynamic duo' of gossip & slander!

TWITTER: @exjwpodcast
INSTAGRAM: survivingparadisepodcast

What does friendship look like inside the world of Jehovah's Witnesses? Will they truly give up their lives for each other? How about a better seat at a District Convention? Like every relationship within the organization, friendships are dependent on many conditions... and decades of loyalty can be gone in seconds.

TWITTER: @exjwpodcast
INSTAGRAM: survivingparadisepodcast

The world of a child within Jehovah's Witnesses is wrought with danger. Aside from the refusal of 'god's organization' to protect children and turn predators over to the authorities, there are other, more subtle dangers a child faces when they are born into the organization. Dangers surrounding discipline, medical help... and perhaps the most insidious of all: a calculated brainwashing that the Governing Body encourages from infancy. 

TWITTER: @exjwpodcast
INSTAGRAM: survivingparadisepodcast

Let's put the 'Jehovah' of Jehovah's Witnesses to a personality test! The Governing Body claims he has four main personality traits: Love, Justice, Wisdom and Power... but what do we find when we examine that claim? What happens when we put each quality to the test? The answers may surprise you. 

TWITTER: @exjwpodcast
INSTAGRAM: survivingparadisepodcast

The subject of marriage in a perfect paradise earth has set many Jehovah's Witnesses into a panic for decades. Based on Jesus words at Luke 20:34-36, the Governing Body has made claims that we will not be able to remarry a resurrected spouse in paradise and they get to live alone for all eternity while still seeing you daily. What about single people? "The faithful and discreet slave" have gone back and forth on their future and most of it depends on if or when they die!? Listen in as we watch Jesus guys tie themselves in knots trying to explain their reading comprehension issues. 

TWITTER: @exjwpodcast
INSTAGRAM: survivingparadisepodcast

When you're directed by the Jehovah and his Son, you're bound to produce some of the universe's most memorable moments! In our first ever installment of JW Greatest Hits, this former elder reaches into the grab bag to look at three unforgettable gifts given to mankind by the leadership of Jehovah's Witnesses: The Golden Age magazine, Beth Sarim and one sentence in a 1986 book that had some of the brothers preparing Star Trek uniforms (now that Tony Morris is out, tight pants are back in!).

TWITTER: @exjwpodcast
INSTAGRAM: survivingparadisepodcast

Jehovah's Witnesses have had a lot to say about the Bible book of Revelation. Starting with Charles Taze Russell, who claimed he was 'the mouthpiece of God', they have written and claimed as fact FIVE publications interpreting a book that God wrote himself. Listen in as we take a look back at those five books, including claims that Revelation prophesied about vacuum cleaners, that angels blowing trumpets is about Ohio U.S.A …. and much more!

TWITTER: @exjwpodcast
INSTAGRAM: survivingparadisepodcast