Danni,
According to the timestamp on the post, at 20:31 you said: "Hi, I see most of you have read about the meeting."
Then at 21:42 you said: "Teejay, I want to say this one last thing to you. Any of you at any time could have asked me to hold back. But instead, you all encouraged me because you said, you didn't want to do it yourselves for one reason or the other.."
I don't know if you've taken the time to read this entire thread, but I mentioned earlier that even though I've known about you posting here, I haven't followed every one of your notes since you got here a couple of weeks ago... whenever it was. Since that time, you've engaged in dialog with perhaps no more than ten or fifteen people. As far as I can tell, you've primarily spoken with AlanF and Dave. I could very well be wrong about that... as I said, I have not followed your every exchange.
Do you know how many there are that have registered to post here? The last time I checked it was over 4,000 people. With that in mind, do you think that even 1/10th of us have read this thread or know anything about you?
YOu said that we all read your note... that we all encouraged you to go ahead. Perhaps on second thought, you can see how that is most likely untrue. Even if you did get the 'go-ahead' from all of us, you were still free to do as you saw fit. The poster "detective" has already provided you with some insights that you should've already known and guided you on what you should do.
You asked if I was a Witness. I am in my mid-40s. I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness from the time I was five. Several of my family members (including my mother and siblings) and most of the friends I've ever had in life are still loyal to the religion. I am what they call "inactive" since for several years I no longer participate in any of the religion's practices or go to any of their meetings. Personally I don't believe much of what I was taught all my life and will never be an active JW again.
Still, by far the great majority of JWs everywhere are decent people. They are not perfect but try to live good lives just like everybody else. Despite my personal feelings about the religion, I will not bash the religion like some do because there is some good any it like all other religions.
Some of the exJWs here are as judgmental and as intolerant as they accuse the JWs of being. They are as mindlessly hateful of the religion as the religion is mindlessly hateful of them. I won't do that. Your saying above that "you all encouraged me" was not true because most of us did nothing of the kind. I know *I* didn't.
If you had as your goal an honest investigation of the religion, you did nothing wrong. But if you thought you were on some kind of witch hunt because of what you've read or heard or because of emails you got from fifty some strangers, if you abused your power as an elected servant of the people in your community... you were wrong. Stuff like this should not happen. We have freedoms here.
I asked you some questions earlier in this thread that you have not answered. Some of the questions I'm merely curious about because of the way you related the events of yesterday. Another of the questions I'm a bit more serious about and so I've asked you that one twice and you still have not answered it. I will ask again:
Did you accomplish your goal in going to the Kingdom Hall?
peace,
tj
