There are really TWO Watchtower Societies

by Terry 67 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Finkelstein

  There's no question to the fact of cognitive dissonance and the variance of that dissonance within the members of the JW organization.

  It appears to me because there is so much power and control complacently devised and set over members of the JWS , that CD appears

  more so than most Christian beliefs/faiths.

  Man made constructs of power can be observantly damaging when those constructs come from a single man alone or a small group of

  men because those controls mostly are created to support those specific men and their perceived power.
• 

  Terry

  Nikolas, you've been married to a Jehovah's Witness who has been active for 35 years. You yourself were never one.

  I'm sure you are aggravated beyond all measure at the neverending ambience of all things Watchtower!

  Yours is a rational assessment.

  Religion and the sometimes negative impact is irrational emotionally.

  But, the damage is real.

  Call it Post Traumatic Stress, if you like. Putting a "symptomology" on it doesn't change the experience of it, however.

  Just as you--although never a JW--have been on JW.net for two years simply through the "contact high" of association with your wife's involvement--

  try and imagine what 20 years of BEING one might drive you to do.

  Denial. Anger. Fear. Bargaining. Acceptance.

  Those are the phases a terminally ill person must pass through. That last state of being "acceptance" is what you are urging for me (and others) to hurry up and embrace.

  May I offer a different perspective?

  When you become what is known as a "Person of Faith" you pretend to know what you, in fact, do not know." It is sort of a clumsy mis-step of positive thinking, if you will.

  Once it translates into everyday behavior (ritual) and conversation with an invisible person (praying) there is something that happens I'd call "sliding off the edge of the real world."

  You let go.....of....most of reality.

  You enter an alternate "better" and more "hopeful" one. Except the word "hope" is misleading because hope desires something to happen while remaining aware it possibly may not.

  Faith requires that you block out the part about "possibly may not happen."

  Boing! Magic time!

  Your life as a REAL person stops.

  You become an impersonator.

  You are impersonating a minister, for example.

  You impersonate a counselor, a psychologist of sorts and a confidante to others listening to problems and offering bogus solutions.

  What do you suppose is more damaging than embracing a state of mind which is so illusory and yet so absolute that you'd willinging DIE FOR IT?

  And then---the shock.

  The cataclysm of discovering you have been stuffed full of shit! Not Truth!

  Life goes from being an absolute to being a popped soap bubble.

  You have fallen off the edge and how do you get back from Wonderland?

  Well, Alice woke up.

  Nikolaus, as a man---to have experienced having another man trap me, hump on me and attempt to rape me was the most devastating experience of my life (except for the death of my 6 mo. old grand-daughter).

  You don't just....walk away.

  Well, you do---but---it stays like a dueling scar.

  If you go through my thousands of posts and discard the silly ones and playful nonsense you'll see what emerges is a lot like the

  Denial. Anger. Fear. Bargaining.......but---NEVER the "Accpetence".

  Why?

  If I simply shrug it all off and go about my business I won't be there with what might be "the right word at the right time" somebody

  else might NEED TO READ and have it make all the difference.

  That's all I'm saying.
• 

  Nickolas

  I understand, Terry. I am not as generous sharing my background story as you are. There are things that happened to me many years ago that when brought to mind probably have the potential to curl me into the fetal position in a dark room if I allowed them to. But I don't let them and, I admit, I don't talk about them either, not even to my closest friends. PTSD may be an appropriate diagnosis. If taken to extremes it brings to mind the wartime experiences of my father and father-in-law, in particular the latter. He left divinity school - he had intended to follow in the footsteps of his father - and enlisted in the Canadian army not long after the outbreak of the second war in Europe. He spoke on occasion of his experience while stationed in England ahead of being deployed to the continent but he never, ever, spoke about what happened to him while serving in Italy, Belgium, Holland and Germany before the end of hostilities. Not even his family knows, only that he was there. It's as if there is a three year hole in his life. He also never spoke to me about God and religion. Never. Not once. Not even when I was actively studying to become a Jehovah's Witness. In fact, I never heard him address the subject of faith to anyone. Rather remarkable for a man who was going to become a Baptist minister. It's apparent something terrible happened to his psyche, probably many things. He was regardless a man who loved life, was generally happy in it and was exceedingly kind and generous toward others. I may be extrapolating but I believe had he not found a way to set aside his wartime experiences and move on, his life and the lives of those he cared about would have been much different. Certainly not better. I think, though acknowledging my line of thinking may be facile, a parallel can be drawn with people like you who bear the scars of their association with the Watchtower. While I would not advocate bottling up indelible memories I would advocate finding a way to isolate them so they no longer cause you pain. Not easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.
• 

  never a jw

  Nickolas,

  I get what you are saying. It's easy for me to avoid looking at the big picture about life because I learned about the "secrets" of the WT leadership only few months ago. Even as a non-JW, learning what I know about the WT angers me, and digging more about them absorbs so much of my time, but I realized, that I have to move on. I selfishly want the Terry's, the Leolaoia's and the Farkel's to stay a little longer to feed me everything about the WT, but I realized that they also should move on.
• 

  Scott77

  	"...It shows that really nothing has changed since your experience in 1967, and that the Watchtower is as deceptive as ever..."
  	AndDontCallMeShirley

  Yes, the Watchtower should be criminally liable for what happens to those who follows its orders.

  Scott77
• 

  Mum

  Thanks for the reminder, Terry, that men in the WT world are abused and manipulated and disrespected as well. Some of us women (just below pond scum in the WT world, according to Farkel) often think it would be fine to be a man and a JW because, no matter how lowly you are, you still get to be a big shot in a sense that no woman can ever dream of.

  Your story makes me glad I was a female JW in the '60's and '70's rather than a male.
• 

  Terry

  The women inside the Watchtower Society have fewer actual choices than going along to get along.

  Women are regarded as having more time than men to participate in the evangelizing process. Child-rearing competency is measured

  by how still the child sits and how little noise they make. A superb Christian wife is awfully quiet except when she dons the scarf-upon-the-head amongst

  her closest friends or conducts a bookstudy with another female.

  The quest for excellence, sooner or later, actually becomes a question of fault-finding. That's the only way to get ahead: minimize the achievements and value of other women.

  Gossip provides relief and entertainment in the shrouded world of JW's. Not all sisters participate, certainly, but the grapevine is never silent.

  As long as a husband "provides" some measure of food, shelter and clothing and manages to drag his family to the Kingdom Hall he is off the hook.

  In my experience, brothers indulge in more double-life activity than women could ever expect to get away with.

  A brother who drinks is a good old boy but a sister who drinks is a problem, for instance.

  A brother can leave the house and go off and do whatever and not really have to answer to anybody. If his wife gives him "grief" he can characterize her

  as way out of line before a committee of men and get results.

  The distaff population of 8 million Jehovah's Witnesses is by far more probably oppressed, suppressed and depressed women.
• 

  ballistic

  Terry, when you said there were two types of witnesses, for a minute, I was thinking of the POs wife, who used to come up to me and say things with a concerned look on her face like, "have you seen this new light on the generation changing?", me, "yes I don't really know what it's all about", her, "you know I've seen 100's leave this hall over the years, they come and they go, they come they go, 100's". To this day, I'm not sure if she was saddened to see me wasting my life in that hall. This is someone in the truth and wishing everyone could be free of it and dropping little nuggets. Well that's one interpretation anyway.
• 

  cha ching

  First post... kinda scary.. even for someone who is not really afraid to share her opinion.

  I was just about a "born in." Very young when my mom started studying.

  It was this "overlapping generation" thing that really got me started. Laughing at Harold Camping (and his failed prediction date) and at the same time saying they "evidently," after "reviewing" & "looking back" had a "better understanding" of what Jesus was saying to his apostles. (and don't forget, they are "led by God's spirit")

  I actually called the "Society," and asked them about it. I also asked what the difference was between being "inspired" and being "led by God's spirit" was. The brother was very sweet, listened, and sounded just like the WT in his answer... so brain bogglingly foggedly twisting that I can only remember him saying "the brothers here work so hard, they truly love us, wait on Jehovah, the answer will be in a WT soon."

  So, we waited.... 2011 came... then the WTs... Oct & Nov... about "When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?" My husband & I sat down, made charts, dissected (I was mad that they couldn't construct simple sentences, or put the same subjects in the same place on the same page, but jumped from one thing tothe other) re-constructed, etc...

  Very clever, their use of questions.. "Could others have ruled during the reigns of these kings?" (WT 11/01/11 pg 24 pgph 2) I used the WT library CD looked up every mention of Nebuchadnezzar, Amel-Marduk, and the rest of them. I wanted to make sure I didn't use any "outside sources" for my conclusions. So sad. They lied. Hoisted by their own petard.

  This is how it relates to Terry's point:

  Once we saw that 607, 1914, 1919 was a scam, we ventured onto other sites to gather historical evidence. We came across this site, and whooaaa! Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, someone else had already! found out wht we had just taken 2-4 weeks to assure ourselves of. They did it years ago! Years and years ago.

  It was very enlightening, and reassuring to me to see that others had gone on this same adventure, and had come to the same conclusions, and had said some of the exact same things that my husband & I had said to each other!

  Personally, at first, it is sometimes it is hard to put in words the way the WT bends your brain. You need to be able to understand it, to be able to help someone else.. I believe.

  I tried explaining it to a girl at work, who has ex JW friends... and tho I tried to sum it up AFAP (as fast as possible) I realized how hard it is to convey the depth of layers explained to someone on the outside. As many have said, only a JW can truly understand (at least as fast, or with the depth w/o explanation)

  Perhaps part of the reason I appreciate hearing others points of view is that I have come to realize (w/the help of my sister.. haha) that different people, different brains, different backgrounds think differently, have different reactions, draw different conclusions... and my way of explaining may not be the right way, or only way, best way to explain, or get thru to people. I'd rather learn faster, thru the experiences of others.

  When Terry, and others, put things in definable terms, it helps people to sort thru their feelings, and why not? When I express myself it helps me. I think that more and more people are going to be feeling uncomfortable with this 'new light'... and, when they come across discussions such as these, it will help.

  thx!

  cha ching...

  (ps... Why did I use "Cha Ching" as my name? When I decided "that's it!" I said to my husband, I am going to drop a post card in the mail to the Society with the phrase "Cha Ching Cha Ching" "You ain't gettin' no more of my bling!" Can you tell I don't like the "Please don't forget to include your gold fillings in your will when you decide to name us sole heirs" in the ever so humble, increasingly numerous meeting parts?)
• 

  *lost*

  cha ching .. lol .. welcome. very good comments. I am also newly awakened and yes, to try to explain it to anyone is, well, a bit of a no brainer, you may as well be talking about aliens, lol. you have to to be part of it to know it. and I was 'in' 'in' in a big way like I'm hearing here from other peoples stories.

  I have found this place and the people and their stories and knowledge so valuable. Thank God they are all here wiling to help others.

  welcome

  lost