Happy Heretic, Freethinker, Apostate - How do you see yourself?

by Seeker4 20 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Seeker4

  In the thread on Agnostic or Atheist, startingover posted an article by a woman who is referred to as the Happy Heretic. I like that phrase.

  How do you view yourself? What terms would you use to describe yourself, say if you were writing your obit and you wanted people to know what kind of person you had been?

  I'll start with my favorite views of myself : Freethinker, Heretic, Rationalist, Apostate, Anti-JW Activist.

  God, I even capitalized them! How pompous. But, it's important to me to accept and honor my new identity, 'cause the power of that old identity - JW, MS, Pioneer, Elder, Assembly Overseer - is still so strong. A lifetime of thinking of myself in those terms has not been easy to shed, and there is power as well in actively identifying myself in this new way, instead of just in negative terms like ex-JW.

  Anyone else understand the point I'm trying to make here? How do you see yourself now? As humans, we tend to become how we define ourselves.

  S4
• 

  fullofdoubtnow

  I would describe myself as apostate, atheist, anti - jw activist for definite. Free thinker? Yeah that as well, and I do think rationally at times.

  Being a woman, I was never able to reach out for all the "privileges" you attained S4. but I did pioneer for 6 years.

  I definitely prefer my new identity to my old one though.

  Linda
• 

  Seeker4

  The whole "privileges" thing was quite seductive. That's partly my point. It gave you a way to "define" yourself, as it were. Some of what I'm looking at with this post is finding a way to re-define yourself (myself), a new way to see yourself in really positive terms.

  Sort of like the idea that one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.

  Words have such incredible power, and the better we understand that, the healthier, and happier, we'll be.

  S4
• 

  uninformed

  For 45 years I shared many of the titles and jobs that you listed.

  I thought I had truly hit life's lottery.

  I still believe in God, Jehovah, and more than ever in Jesus Christ, but frankly, I just don't know what else I really believe is true any more. I sure don't take for granted any of the teachings of the WT BT S.

  Now, I guess I am just an old, confused, bastard.

  Brant Jones
• 

  fullofdoubtnow

  The whole "privileges" thing was quite seductive.

  You are so right there. I always found it interesting to observe how some of the more ambitious brothers sucked up to the elders in our hall. They were almost desperate to become ministerial servants, and if ut didn't happen as quickly as they hoped it would, they didn't make any attempt to hide their disappointment.

  I remember when Trev, my boyfriend, was appointed an ms (he's my bf now btw, wasn't then). He had been baptised less than 2 years, while some of them had been waiting for years to be an ms. I can recall some of the snide remarks from the brothers who had been overlooked yet again. It was the same when he gave his first instruction talk, symposium and public talk, they could all, in their mind, have given a much better talk than him, if they'd been appointed.

  I guess being a male jw creates a desire for power in some. Interestingly, Trev didn't expect to be appointed when he was, but accepted it when the elders approached him. He never sucked up to them like some, just got on with things. I suppose some jws are just too ambitioud for their own good.
• 

  startingover

  S4

  I was spurred to think along the same lines as you on that thread and in fact I was going to start a thread similar to this one tonight.

  I was talking to my friend Gymbob this afternoon about this and we got on the subject of materialism. The ole' JW materialism thing. I admit I like things. And I felt a twinge of guilt feeling that way as a JW, but no more.

  Therefore I want to be known as a Materialistic Apostate Athiest
• 

  Seeker4

  Startingover wrote: Materialistic Apostate Athiest.

  Whoa. Haven't heard that word materialistic for quite some time. Does any group besides the JWs use it like that?

  I think I desire materialistic things way less since I left the JWs than I ever did when I was a JW. Perhaps that comes with time and age and experience.

  S4
• 

  Madame Quixote

  Rabid Questioner; anti-cultist; atheist by god's will.
• 

  The wanderer

  I see myself as an open-minded free thinker. An independent and an agnostic. Wow! To think I used to classify myself as a spiritually strong brother!
• 

  Sailor Ripley

  Daddy and Husband. Oh, yeah and an Atheist, Free-Thinker, Camus Lover, but I still enjoy going to Catholic Mass because I like the homilies. And I watch Squawk Box because I believe the US economy is rockin'! Don’t believe the main-stream media, which is all doom-and-gloom… kinda like the Dubs.
  
  I just wanna live and let live, with a social responsibility, nothing special.
  
  Long live Metal!