As a former regular pioneer MS and Bethelite from Mircronesia. I can say everything you said is true. When I was in Bethel I made good friends with one of the Branch Committee members, however I also saw each member would have very different opinions with one another. One of which gave me very hard time while I was serving in Bethel. I left many years ago but I won't forget the self-righteous attitude that I had to put up with. It was sickening and made me sad during the time I was serving.

No scripture found that says God has an earthly organization , we are warned from jesus Do not follow men!!

You are a delight, thank you for this smart and thoughtful video. If I ever had a son (which I'll never have since paradise was where I was to have all my children), I'd be so pleased if he were just like you. ❤️ Keep 'em coming, they're helping. 😊

Considering I reported abuse and Watch Tower stole everything and tortured me and stole credit for everything that I have done and rewarded perpetrators.

Love the card that says Happy fucking whatever 😂😂. I really hope people take your closing comments to heart. Too many ex JWs leave the cult but fail to deconstruct and relearn and they end up exhibiting so many of the toxic traits of Watchtower or end up forming an "us vs them" mentality just like the organization peddles. It's so easy to leave a cult and be stuck with a cult mindset. Keep up your good work Ben.

I very rarely watch ex-jw content- coz healing, coz life on the outside is happily busy. I am glad though that I watched this one, Thankyou Ben! You have given this girl yet another stamp of 'yes, these people are confused as f and in great denial.'

Hi New subscriber here! I was a born in as well and left when I was 42 years old! Next month I will be out 10 years! I’m so thankful my grown children got disfellowshipped and left and I stopped going, always thinking I would go back. When no one ever even checked on me, I started thinking and my son told me about KZfaq and boy did I fall down the rabbit hole and knew I could never go back! My own mother shunned me for the last 8 years she was alive and that’s when I saw how “conditional” the love of the JW’s was. They even disfellowshipped my daughter with NO JUDICIAL MEETING! There were a few others that had the same thing that happened! Ironically, I live right across the street from the Kingdom Hall and not one sister even came by to see why I wasn’t attending meetings, and try to encourage me! No elders, NO ONE! My best friend, lived 5 doors down from me, she never called me or came by and we were service buddies and were with each other almost everyday! Her husband was the COBE! I used to go when they went to give another congregation for him to give a talk. I can only imagine or think that he must have ordered her to not contact me🤷🏻‍♀️ and I never did anything wrong! I was discouraged! I’m thankful that no one came by, because I may still be trapped! My children were the fifth generation of JW’s. I still struggle with the guilt that I raised them as JW’s and missed out on a true childhood. I still did special things for them on their birthdays & things but, it’s so freeing to know I don’t have to listen to anyone and I can celebrate any holiday I choose! My family loves Christmas! I just decorated the house for fall! All of this to say, I’ve had one lingering question after almost 10 years. Where is all the money? Who has it? Who is using it? Tony Morris, to buy more liquor? Clearly, the governing body don’t live a vow of poverty. Stephen Lett had a real estate deal with his brother not too long ago where he made $250,000 or $500,000. I can’t remember which. Did he give that money to watchtower? I highly doubt it. So, where is the money? Are the governing body members going to hop a flight and go to some island and live off all that money? That’s one question I’ve never found an answer to! Do you know? I would love to hear from you if you know! Great video by the way!🌺🌺🌺

Lol . My brother in Bethel said those exact words. When I asked him why he thought there was a higher death percentage 4 JWs to 1 non JWs during Covid. He said where did you get your numbers. I said the governing body update 6. He said “ the governing body are good people you don’t know them” Still didn’t answer my question got mad and hung up on me. 🤷🏼‍♂️

When I first heard about "New Light's" I immediately knew that there was something desperately false I was involved with...🥀😬☹️

I was put in danger on a frequent basis! We had several territories that were in a very rural area. Let’s just say people who weren’t very happy to have anyone visiting unannounced. Bottom line I’ve been shot at MANY times, and this was as a minor teen going out to make my Auxiliary Pioneer hours. There were four of us teens who did this together. The elders just told us to be careful. Never once did they tell us to NOT go. Thankfully we all made it home safe and now we are ALL out and free! (We are all in our 50’s now)

I absolutely love the way you break things down and explain it ! Thank you ❤️

Brilliant. Your closing comments really resonate.

My dad literally often said that if he said jump, we should ask how high. He was at bethel for 4 years; I think he wanted to be a GB.

Many groups say that God talks to them, that God works through them. ... and we were told that these groups (including WT) shall deceive many... Matthew 24:5-8 A cult is a cult is a cult

They confuse unity with conformity

I really like your POV, and the way you keep a positive tone in your message while encouraging your audience to think for themselves. I recently unsubscribed from several exjw channels, but I kept yours and I’m glad I did . This video is going to make many JW’s want to think for themselves. 🙌🏻

Well done hon. Excellent reasoning! You have information that we don't have access to. And your reasoning exposes the ridiculous and dangerous assertions that JWs have to agree to without having any choice.

Excellent video! I’m definitely looking forward to more videos like these!

I can only hope that the Ex-JW community will take heed of the closing words. I've lately discovered how toxic this community can be. Sadly, many leave one cult to hop on another.

Well done, mate. Very well articulated and presented.

Thank you for having a female voice read the letter.

Absolutely love your content Ben. I fear that bringing logic to illogical people seldom gets results. I applaud your attempt to be reasonable though!

Famous saying from Mussolini: Let us all pick up arms and you go to war. Same principle. Governing Body send the ranking file in the front line and the leaders staying behind in a safe place.

A really well presented and thoughtful video. Thank-you for sharing. Looking forward to the next one

Loved the reader on this video. What a great voice and the reader really applied study 21 “ scriptures read with proper emphasis” 😂😂😂

G'day from Australia. As a student of Logic, I am amazed how quickly since leaving the organisation, you have picked up some wonderful logical arguments. I've been exit counselling for 39 years and your progress is staggering. One of the tools I teach is logic to ex cult members. Please keep up your use of logic. It's wonderful to see.

So glad I stumbled on your channel about a week ago and I enjoy how you methodically and logically put your points across. It comes as a surprise to me about the jw in Central Europe going out in service during the middle of the pandemic. And very good point about the jws not caring about the lives of others, even their letter was focused on just themselves. People often miss that point completely. Look forward to your next video. Thanks man 💯🙏🏿

A splendid overview of this topic, Ben. Well presented and succinctly argued. You are straight up and focused. Thank you so much. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Hi Ben! Well presented and argued case as always! The tension between an organisation confessed to be perfect and humans prone to error is a hard one to reconcile, and if done the wrong way can prove dangerous, as you show here!

Love it bro. Love your style and the way you present your logic. Keep it coming.

Excellent points made in your conclusion here. Great episode! Good to see your content.

Great video. It comes down to this, if they’re not inspired, and they admit they’re not, and they’re not infallible, and they admit they’re not; then they’re just men. And prone to the same errors as anyone. Then they have no special qualifications. Then they have no authority. Then making the decision myself makes more sense. But, it takes logic and reason to boil that down. And most of them haven’t had those things in a long time, if they ever did to begin with.

SUCH a fantastic video, man. As always I’m proud to call you a friend

You don't have to go that far back in history to know that they don't take their members safety and consideration remember Malawi as one example!

I keep praying that The eyes of many more keep opening up!

Really important video, thanks Ben

Always enjoy your videos... Thank you for your channel ‼️😃

I love how they label a correction or change an "update." They'll never admit they messed up....or that Jeehoober messed up. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Brilliantly done Ben

Great video thanks 🔥🔥🔥

I think something to note as well (speaking as a former JW) is you are not really given the opportunity to ask questions or make you feel like you can ask questions. During Kingdom Hall meetings you are trained to just regurgitate (in your own words) what is printed in the material you are given “to study”. You aren’t allowed to raise your hand and ask questions during these meetings. I knew a sister that did this and she said she was reprimanded by the elders. She was even one of the “anointed”.

1:55 You got me here, what you said took my breath away, for a moment i was shocked.

One of my best friends is a 34 year old born in who is a die hard flat earther.....and he believes in flattening Kingdom Halls also 🤔

I never felt any connection with the Governing Body and never will.

New subscriber thank you for your content love it!

It's life threatening when you don't prepare for retirement ,and you end up in a card board box !.....all through the seventies and eighties they tried to humiliate the faithless witnesses who were preparing for retirement ....it was a constant thing !.....I faded in 2004 and retired two years ago !.....lucky me

I remember when Lloyd helped you break out! I love what you've been doing since then, please keep it up!

Before that Cartgate and the pandemic, we had an elder on our doorstep telling us there is a six page diatribe ordering the expulsion of the ‘undesirables’ from the cart. I would describe us as ‘the Ubermenchions’, of human garbage. We noticed that 12% of the Shuswap congregation was targeted with this draconian order. We asked for a reason, but Gordon said it is none of our business. I wrote the GB twice, and no reason was given. That was our Cartgate. So happy to get out of that cult, but I saw the emotional damage it did to the most vulnerable. One very dedicated said ‘it hurt me to the very core’. I have not heard anyone mention ‘the Cart Edict of Discrimination’ on any pod casts? We gave some money to the homeless, and in that way, it made more sense than the banging on doors… .

You are bringing up some good points look at what happened in Jonestown. Now they are trying to reach people through media. Keep sharing.

Great video 💪🏽👏🏽👍🏽

Great video!

Top tier mate.

Thanks for your video I’ve subscribed to your KZfaq channel from Ireland

Will watch later but dropping a comment for the god's

Hello PIMO here , just today in person meetings are closed down also for meetings!!😂😂😂🎉🎉🎉🎉❤

Thank you for your info I was a JW for thirty + years of my life totally wasted, and you are so right, hope that other people can see your videos and learn.

Great video

I really love what what said at the end about not needing to be all in with any group, idea, etc. I follow a lot of atheists because I like points that they make, and I love their logic (logic in general at this point in my life). But I myself am not a Complete atheist (not a big fan of the Bible either). And it's good to be reminded that that's okay. Not like in the org when we had to be an exact match to be allowed to have any sort of relationship.

Ray Franz - Former Governing Body Member. 1914 Chronology “Months of research were spent on this one subject of “Chronology” and it resulted in the longest article in the Aid publication. Much of the time was spent endeavoring to find proof, some backing in history, for the 607 B.C.E. date so crucial to our calculations for 1914. We found absolutely nothing in support of 607 B.C.E as the date for the destruction of Jerusalem. Everything pointed to a period twenty years shorter than our published chronology claimed. Though I found this disquieting, I wanted to believe that our chronology was right in spite of all the contrary evidence. Thus, in preparing the material for the Aid book, much of the time/space was spent in trying to weaken the credibility of the archeological and historical evidence that would make erroneous our 607 B.C. E. date thus giving a different starting point for our calculations and therefore an ending date different from 1914.” - Crisis of Conscious PG. 29-

Good video!👍

When I worked under the Finnish branch, I knew several members of the branch committee. The brothers at the branch were almost like family, whereas the world HQ was totally abstract. I don't think JWs should have changed anything during the pandemic.

I thought that letter was signed Jehovah's Burger at first lol. Then I went to Burger King. Damn power of persuasion!

We should be well trained to obey, do they mean obey like a dog ??

Keep on mind that a large minority, 40% or more of people, don't actually think there was any danger to begin with, so for them this will be less convincing. The best takeaway from the the video is the juxtaposition of blind trust with admitted imperfection. A comeback I can think of to this is that, "you could still in principle be choosing the best probability of good outcomes for yourself, especially when the infinte reward of paradise is inclided in the analysis" IE even if there is not a perfect correlation between their decisions and the outcome trusting watchtower appears to be the best alternative available. The argument is basically the same as anyone who trusts any central authority completely. Take for example the flipfloping of the CDC, yet they are not just willingly trusted completely by many people but also have authority to force people to comply with their decisions. Why is this so? Because trusting them is supposed to give you the highest probablility of positive outcomes, they just get there with knowhow rather than promises of something that cannot be falsified like the paradise. (Although you could draw a parallel with the negative consequences that they claim were avoided by following their direction, even though it was in fact falsified by a Johns Hopkins study which proved that lockdowns had no statistically measurable benefit overall)

Cmon Ben we are ready for another vid 😊

Not everybody was scared. I was pissed off. I lost a chance to get out of Europe due to the lockdown, and then, when I was hoping for covid to end me, I recovered in a week with no medical intervention.

Very Good & Information

The whole world was Jim Jonesed the last year in a half, I am sorry for all those who drank the kool aid, that is the reason I left, I will not make health desicions based in a real estate corporation suggestions.

It's All Corrupt It's All about the 💵

They wanted to take advantage of the peoples vulnerability ,

I was already PIMO when I first heard of cart witnessing. I laughed so hard deep inside I thought to myself, “so now they need a cart to haul around their heap of trash!” And not anybody could haul a cart around, it took a very special JW who qualified to lug this four wheeled piece of trash. To this very day I get a kick out of it. Can you imagine Jesus qualifying his followers in order to drag a cart of lies and deception around with them? The governing body lies awake at night figuring out ways to get rid of the publications from a book publishing company. Even the public libraries are refusing to allow them in to their facilities. My god, what next??? Thanks Ben, you are doing a magnificent work showing the criminality of this cult!

I want to thank you Ben for your videos. I will admit that your content was significant in waking up and seeing the organization without the rose-colored glasses. Once again, thank you so much.

This was really enlightening.. I never thought about the branch committees making rules for their individual branches. And I was active in the organization for 61 years. 18 years as a regular pioneer and 2 years as a special pioneer. But I am only a woman so maybe that explains why I didn't get all the info.

I love your videos and calm reasoning. What I find hard to watch is snippets of the videos produced by the Org. If I was spoken to like that by anyone I would think they were talking down to me as if I was a child. How does any thinking person put up with this? (I left in '93).

Just Happened To Scroll By An Saw Your Face. So I Said Let Me See What He Has To Say Interesting And Very Good Speaker

I'm glad to see you are doing just a few video's, enjoy learning new things outside the org. I walked away and didn't think about it for years. Build a life, enjoy Saturdays, enjoy freedom. I'm not inclined to do video's myself because frankly religion is kind of boring to me.

Nice channel! Liked/Subscribed. This is what I told my PIMI wife when they started writing letters in the USA: People will blame these letters as carrying covid to their mailbox, whether it happened or not.

I actually remember jw broadcasts continually reminding people not to go out in the ministry or to have home bible studies with people outside your own home… I’ll bet this was also an issue in other areas as well.

The decisions GB has made in the past about military service highlight this danger of blind obedience. Many JW felt individually that they could participate in civilian alternative service but for a time they were told that was not acceptable. This could endanger their freedom and their safety depending on what punishment or coercive tactics were used to try to force them to join the military. Later the GB changed it's stance and alternative service became acceptable. All those men would have saved themselves a lot of hardship if they had been allowed to follow their own conscience, or been allowed to question the orders from the GB. The events surrounding being told to refuse mandatory registering for political party cards, in Malawi I believe, and how many were terrorized over that, while in Mexico the GB allowed JW to bribe officials to obtain fake cards for military service, shows another terrible result of following GB directions without question. They made one rule for part of the world and different rule for other parts of the world resulting in horrible consequences.

Both family still PIMI told me to "just take the hit for the organisation, Jehovah will sort it". They *would* literally walk of a cliff, they are brainwashed that much, and they would love the privilege of doing so!

On JW website they said c-19 jab jab was personall decision but in mexico they were asking the brothers who took the faith va and who didnt

Hi Ben missing your videos . From Australia . Would be very interested in hearing your slant of the shooting in Germany.

Merci 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

Thanks

At least their uninspired direction this time didn't last over 10 years like when they banned transplants. Cuz "cannibalism".

Great closing words Ben! Skepticism is a valuable tool that every human should exercise. Ironically, as an ex-JW I can really understand the words of Jesus: "the truth will set you free." Yes. free from the Watchtower.

Kiitos!

As a former jw now fading i was often put in harms way as a once upon a time regular pioneer single woman i used to do the business territory without any support from other publishers often in areas that were away from the local communities whatever the weather here in thr uk so this information re the cart work is somewhat a surprise to me yet back in the day as a female full time in the ministry my safety or support was never the concern of the field service overseer .It was all about the fact i was doing the so called important work for the good of the congregation and the so called fella in the sky

MALAWI 🩸

FAAABulous use of gestures!

Woooo!

And lo and behold the org is telling their witnesses to gout and do public preaching stuff again. Even though the pandemic is not fully over.

The most bizarre thing with the letter is the "jehovah's witnesses" signature. What the hell is that supposed to be? Is Mr jehovah's witnesses signing the letter? Is God signing with it? The "jehovah's witnesses" isn't just God's organization but also a person, that's insane ^_^

I was doing other stuff during part of this so you could have explained what "cart witnessing" is and I just missed it. What is it?

Great Job Critical Thinker Courage

Excellent presenration, how can we get a copy of those cov19 letters you read from?

As a former JW I would just like to clarify that while the teachings do help people in many ways and do a lot of serious harm (I am first degree witness to both) my experience was that almost all of them were well meaning people. Please treat them as such if you cross paths with them. In other words, if anyone gets to scream at my mom about it, it will be me and I don't want to so you can shut up too.

Yes true. I eventually realised I worshipped an organisation and did not know God. 30. Years later I read a small novel Why Margaret left the Building by Cary s Smith that confirmed my decision was c correct. So glad I left.

You vill okay..Shnell Shnell vou sheeples

The bible and the Koran both say the earth is flat! Come on maann!