by BU2B 19 Replies latest jw friends
You should be concerned that a man in his 50's turned down going back to work because he had committed to pioneering! Will he be able to get that job back after his month is up? How will they support themselves? Jobs are not plentiful. Will you have to help support them? You may want to address that issue first.
They are completely brainwashed, B. Sounds like they will just stick with the company line. Sometimes we have to deal with the hand we are dealt. So sorry!
WTF.....??? That sucks. Why did we wake up? I sometimes wish I wouldn't have.
DD
Jehovah's spirit is moving them along like an unstoppable locust plague! It's like they have wings on their shoes!
Holy $#*t. I spent three decades in the ministry and I never saw any locusts; all I saw were snails. "Unstoppable"... like what??? A McDonald's restaurant will stop them dead in their tracks. "Wings on their shoes"... during all my thirty years it wasn't wings on their shoes; it was lead.
Fascinating to see how his faith only grew stronger through the wrong expectations and adjustments in understanding.
JWs are the only people on earth I know of who make being wrong a selling point. You can't win with them. If they're right, it's good; If they're wrong, it's good. They can't lose. They turn all their faults and wrongs into something good. If their numbers are increasing, it's Jehovah's blessing - speeding up the work. If their numbers decline, "Oh, the love of the number is cooling off; we're so near the end. Isn't it wonderful?" Again, they can't lose. They can bash everybody else, but nobody can bash them.
edit: I somehow missed Oubliette's post before I wrote the above. I guess we were thinking the same thing. [see below]
Oubliette: So being "wrong" is somehow PROOF of being "right"?
B2BU,
I feel like parents at this stage would be incapable of realizing what they did was wrong, and will just be wrecked with grief at your impending death, rather than ever conceed you have a point. My mother "sees problems", but if sin was what God counted "who could stand?"
With thinking like that, where can you possibly go? He doesn't see the parallel (and clearly responded in an over the top way to show you it had no effect, and illustrate how YOU should be viewing it), because it has never occured to him. Simple enough. You have a different vantage point.
Who is it that said nobody has ever changed someone elses mind simply by proving they were wrong? I think that is ESPECIALLY true in this case. Yopu almost have to be equally frustrating to them, as they are to you. How? By not being specific. Here are a few of my go to statements.
Keep in mind I sometimes use the bible not because I know how to feel about it, but because its meaningful to my audience. #JWtraining. Haha.
(If they bring up Moses you can mention that Moses was a prophet and they are not one.....usually clears that up)
Anyways.....there is no easy way, but I agree you have to tell your parents at some point. If you would liek to bring up the crazy parts of scripture, I say go for it. there is some really indefensible stuff from a moral perspective in there.
Problem with many JWs are like donkey following the carrot stick and they will never figure out that they been decieved and worship false, man-made religion. Some do weake up, but many will stay in the cult until they die waiting for a reward that will never come.
It takes humility to admit you have been a fool and allowed yourself to be fooled all your life. Many are too proud to do that.
I have noticed though with elderly JW relatives of mine, that many do not exactly go "happy to their grave", a number of mine have got severely depressed as they faced their own mortality, I guess for the first time they were asking themselves "Is all I have believed in really true ?".
As it takes a long time to adjust to a totally new worldview, and to make a new life outside of the cult, I too have decided not to try to deliberately wake up my JW relatives who are now in their twilight years.
I shall be here for them should they wake up on their own, and I have high hopes for the youngsters.
ruderedhead- I do not care what the expactations are that a son do for his parents... I cannot and will not support them in their pioneer cult recruiting behaviour. They are able but unwilling to work. I am poor so I could not help them if I wanted to. They are grown adults and should use their brains. It may sound cold, but I will not subsidize their selfish short sighted lifestyle.
Fascinating to see how his faith only grew stronger through the wrong expectations and adjustments in understanding. He could see Jehovah's hand through the years.
What if NASA had a similar mentality? I can imagine their promotional material:
"NASA. We've had 100% failure in all our space missions for over 50 years and crashed every one of our shuttles....which only proves how successful and smart we are. Come be an astronaut today! At NASA, our failures are our successes."
" his faith gullibility only grew stronger through the wrong expectations false prophecies and adjustments bat shit crazy understanding speculation"
BU2B I'm sorry you have to go through this. I tried similar tactics on my parents. I never told them or implied to them I had left, distance making this possible. I too wanted them to see I was not crazy, could still be successful, etc. And I definitely didn't want to give them any reason to shun me.
Result: They still fully shun me. They never even once came to me to check anything before they started the shunning stuff. Not once. Not even once. Nada.
This is really cognitive dissonance.....failed prophecies make their faith stronger...
