(Belated) Hello Everyone,
I joined this forum and the JWSF in June/July’10. I have posted 46 times on the JWN before realizing that new members traditionally introduce themselves and I have not. I guess, I was too interested in freeing the minds and the Holy Spirit of JWs to tell my personal story.
Compared to many of the stories that I have read on this forum, mine is not very tragic. I live in California. I have two college degrees, have lots of interests (i.e., flying, biking, golf, tennis, dancing, etc.), have dated numerous women, have been unemployed for about a year, and I met a JW at a night club in Dec’09. From the moment that we met each other, we were both very strongly and mutually attracted to each other. She was very honest about not dating Worldly men, how much she loved Jehovah, and telling me that she was a JW. We started exchanging text, emails, phone calls, and seeing each other for non-dates for more than a month. She always seemed conflicted and afraid. It seemed that she wanted to get to know me better but something was preventing her. She encouraged me to study the Bible with an elder (the first time) and a publisher the second time. What could have been a very awesome relationship between two people with a lot of common interests was terminated because of her religious conscience (and encouragement from her JW family, friends, and elders).
In the last year we have still maintained infrequent contact with each other. Currently, it involves accidently running into each other on trails near my home. I know that she could walk on other trails that are not near my home, but I am grateful for seeing and talking with her when we do meet.
I am moving on in my life trying to balance my many interests with helping others. I still feel this very strong urge to empower JWs, former JWs, and individuals, who have been adversely affected by the WTBTS, to free the minds and the Holy Spirit of JWs. I do not want to destroy the WTBTS. I do want to free the minds of JWs so that they can change the policies and doctrines of the WTBTS so that the WTBTS will no longer try to control the minds and spirits of JWs and encourage JWs to live their lives to the fullest without being a slave to distributing WTBTS literature.
I have been exposed to some of the dark-side of the WTBTS. I observed that JWs talk in double-speak like what Orwell wrote in his book 1984 (which was written in 1948). I recognized that the elder, who was studying the Bible with me, was lying to me and using indoctrination techniques to try to convert me. I saw how afraid my JW friend was of not living up to the expectations of the WTBTS, Brothers, and Sisters (this bothered me a lot!). I saw how the WTBTS cherry picked scriptures to justify the WTBTS stances and to change WTBTS’ doctrines. I have read about how the policies and doctrines of the WTBTS have helped to break-up families and relationships, to kill and abuse children, and to enslave people to serve a publishing organization.
I hope that by writing this post people will better understand what I post and why, because sometimes I might use words that offend others, I might offend people by quoting from the Bible, and/or people will be offended by my using the moniker “ABibleStudent”. I use the name “BibleStudent” on the JWSF, because my devout JW (former) friend labeled me a Bible student one time because she was afraid that I might tell people that I was a JW. I use “ABibleStudent” on the JWN because “BibleStudent” was already taken on this forum.
Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,
ABibleStudent