questions (page 3)

TheListener

DanielC, I am married to a witness. The witness religion affects every aspect of their life. Even if she isn't a strong witness now that switch can be flipped at any time. Usually as soon as you have relationship problems, married or not, they get really into the witness stuff. Life will not be the smooth ride you hope for or deserve. This isn't even mentioning the family, the congregation and the elders that will have their nose in every aspect of your relationship. Yes, every aspect, including sex and what types of sex are acceptable and clean.

Remember, her status now is probably weak because she's dating you, a worldly guy, but that weak status could change at any point - usually happens with any stress that comes into their life or if you progress to have kids. You can almost gurantee that if you ever have kids she will 100% do everything in her power to make them witnesses. Trust me, that's a mess you don't want to deal with.

Good luck Daniel.

Ding

Becoming a Witness in order to please get a girl and please her parents would be a terrible mistake.

Fernando

Welcome to JWC Daniel.

Your questions and discussion are also most welcome.

All of us would like to be of any assistance we can in such a life changing decision.

From a (SBNR or Spiritual But Not Religious) believer's perspective if you would like to develop faith and spirituality, religion is not the way to go. Religion and spirituality are antithetical or opposite.

Finding a believer to talk to who has the gospel message in their heart and on their lips is the way to go.

I would start with the gospel according to Paul, and especially starting with the book of Romans.

Religion is a bad road to go down. And the Watchtower is one of the worst religions of the lot. The Watchtower has deception down to a fine art. The Watchtower is 500 years behind the Catholic Church in terms of mending their ways, especially in the area of incest and pedophilia.

A life in the Watchtower always ends badly. Please do not even consider it.

In essence the Watchtower will lead you onto the wrong playing fields: doctrinal ethnocentrism, legalism, moralism and Gnosticism (PM me if you'd like me to unpack these).

The playing field where the real game is on is the unabridged gospel message.

And it would be wrong to get your girlfriend and her family's hopes up that you might be interested and join their religion.

That having been said you and and your girlfriend could potentially benefit from privately making a study of the gospel or "Good News" in the electronic Watchtower library. I'd be happy to provide a 1-page summary/map/framework. What you will find in print differs markedly from what is allowed to be taught, discussed and believed. The Watchtower and their hierarchy are rabidly hostile to the gospel or "Good News" but will deny it. Their deception is easy to spot if one is very intimate with the full gospel.

The issue is largely about control over others. Specifically clericalism, sectarianism, denominationalism, magisterium and hierarchy. All things that the gospel directly challenges. (Once again PM me if you'd like me to unpack these).

Best wishes

Fernando

SEQ, Australia

Sauerkraut

Fernando, I'd have to say that the Watchtower theology is as far from gnosticism as can be.

confuzzlediam

i've been dating a JW girl for about 4 years and we've recently had a lot of issues with the fact that her family doesn't like that i'm not a JW. I've been looking into the religion and am interested in it. But is it wrong to join just so I don't lose her?

I am finding it hard to write down my thoughts on this. Part of me wants to tell you to run! The other part of me wants to tell you to look into it and make an informed decision based on what is right for YOU, not what is right for you and your girlfriend. If you are doing it based ONLY on not wanting to lose her, then you need to think long and hard about that. Essentially you would be putting on a false facade, which would not be fair to her.

If you are doing it because you genuinely are interested in what the religion teaches, then you also need to think long and hard on that as well!! lol Becoming one of Jehovah's Witnesses is a lifelong commitment. It is a lifestyle that revolves around a religion telling you exactly how to behave. Once you are baptized, your every move will be under scrutiny by the entire congregation, your girlfriend and her family. You are not allowed to question beliefs once you are "in". One false move and you will lose everything. I know that from personal experience.

I try not to judge others by the way they believe. If you think that this is the religion for you, then who am I to tell you what to do. Again, this is a decision that only YOU can make. Just make sure that you don't rush into it. Research and question EVERYTHING that you are told. Don't believe it just because they said so.

My kids are 17 and 21 and were raised as Jehovah's Witnesses. After I was disfellowshipped, 5 years ago, we pretty much stopped going as a family. I left and divorced their dad a year ago, but he does not go either. My daughter (21) recently broke up with her boyfriend/fiancee of 5 1/2 years (who was NOT a witness) and she has her cousins trying to set her up with JW's that they know. I teased my daughter and told her she was forbidden from dating a witness! LOL She is good with it!!

I wish you the best with your decision. Again, ultimately you have to do what is right for YOU, and only YOU know what that is. The worst thing you can do is not be true to yourself just so you won't lose someone else. I did that for 25 years in my marriage. Tried to be what my husband wanted me to be. Now I am dating someone who loves me for me...no false facade now!! It is a GREAT feeling!!

OnTheWayOut

In the movies, they show one of the chief recruitment methods of dangerous mind-control cults is to have pretty girls out there gaining the interest of young men. Jehovah's Witnesses do not intentionally use that method, but it happens. The young girls are often seen as pure and innocent. The young man sees the only way to have her is to join her religion.

If she's slightly bad and dates outside the religion, she typically won't "go all the way" and that makes the guy want her more.

She's violating JW rules by dating you. If she allows any touching or sexual contact of any kind, she's violating more rules. Eventually, she will feel guilty about it and drop you or go to the elders about her guilt or she may leave the JW's. Either way, you are making her near future a crazy one.

If you care for the girl, find out the truth about her religion and tell her. If she chooses her family and friends in the religion over you, try to understand it's all she knows and let her go.

DJS

Daniel,

You should do what you need to do. You asked, however. I have no reservations telling you to RUN. There are billions of women on the planet; finding her replacement will be far easier than you think.

Fernando

Hey Sauerkraut

The specific type of gnosticism I am referring to is that salvation is based on obtaining (special) knowledge (gnosis) that only the Watchtower has (supremacist).

This can be seen where the Watchtower has altered John 17:3 to read "knowledge" instead of "knowing" (relationship).

NWT (John 17:3) . . .This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.

RNWT (John 17:3) . . .This means everlasting life, their coming to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.

Clambake

If she is not baptized, I wouldn't worry about it.

DJS

Clambake,

I don't mean to be mean but I'm still waiting for you to make one single response on this site that makes any sense. Daniel has made it clear that he has "Never been invited over for dinner or ever invited to a family event." In my book that is called relationship destroying behavior.

This is almost certainly the tip of the iceberg. This young woman is controlled by her family, and the family is controlled by the Dark Lords. Even if they are Dub-lite, the control exists and it can change, as many posters have noted, in an instant. That isn't likely to change. It is more likely that this situation will only get worse for Daniel.

One of these days you just might say something that makes sense. I doubt it, but we can hope.

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