There are so many things that show the jw organization is not God inspired. The thing that got me researching is when I found out an elder had to have a background check run on him before he could pick up members of the gb at the airport. That doesnt sound very loving. They dont trust their own people. Then I found jwfacts.com and I looked up all kinds of documentation that proved they were not from God. Just please dont let this organization drive you away from God. You can still have a relationship with him without any group or church.
HELP needed for a friend, please. Anyone?..
by defender of truth 23 Replies latest watchtower bible
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defender of truth
" Apparently you said that your friend may read what is written on this board. Do you think that the title of the post: "HELP needed for a friend, please. Anyone?.." would attract them to read it? "
Don't worry, I've given them the link to this thread.
Any informative links or general support would be great. Imagine that you believed that Jehovah may want to kill you. What could someone say or tell you to help get past that fear?
Thanks to everyone who's replied.
Bye for now. -
Apognophos
Honestly I'm not sure I understand the issue your friend is experiencing. When I learned TTATT, that included the fact that the Society could not be God's organization. I don't believe that it's really even necessary to accept what I said in my earlier post in order for someone to overcome the fear of dying at Armageddon. They can believe in God and everything in the Bible. All that needs to be accepted is that the Society does not have the truth.
Which leads me to wonder if your friend really knows TTATT or if this is one of those situations where a JW has left the org. physically and acts as if (and believes that) they know it's not the truth, but really hasn't done their homework. Has he/she spent much time reading jwfacts.com? There's enough info there to make it clear that whatever the Society thinks they know about God's will is wrong.
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Dagney
Fear and control comes from what you give power to. Once you take the power away from Satan, demons, whatever...they are nothing more than words.
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defender of truth
Apog- I'm sorry for being imprecise.
They have only very recently begun to consider that JW's may not have the truth. They're full of doubts but still have a belief in Jehovah, which is pretty normal for a born-in. Letting go of the Bible and its vengeful God, as well as concerns about 'demons', does not happen overnight.
Thanks for replying, good points.
Dagney- That's very easy to say once you have got past the anxiety and stress, and proved to yourself that Jehovah doesn't exist..
I won't be back for a while. -
FirstLastName
The entire story of Noah's Ark did it for me.
I believed, blindly, for my entire young life. I had long seperated myself from the JW's, for other reasons, but still feared Armageddon and demons. Then I met my husband, who was just amazed that I actually had believed in the story. I had not given the story much thought, and just blindly believed cause I was told it was so. I did the research, and was embarassed at my gullibility. I became eager to learn more about what the Truth really is.
Its tough in the beginning to get over the fear, cause the Witnesses will tell you they are the only ones with the truth. I did a lot of reading and talking with outside people and realised my view prior was very narrow.
I wish you the best.
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JWdaughter
God did not instruct that women could be stoned if they did not have proof of virginity. If God was really the Creator and God had anything to do with the Bible, God would know that a bloody cloth is not proof that a woman is either a virgin or a harlot. A bloody sheet or the lack of it proves nothing at all regarding a womans sexual history or morality-even if one wanted to argue that having had sex makes one not a virgin and therefore impure, 25% of women are sexually abused-I doubt it was lot different thousands of years ago and therefore, a girl could have had her hymen "compromised" and not even KNOW it. She would be an innocent, still. (See Deut. 22)
No just or true God would use this man made judgement to declare a woman an immoral harlot and stone her.
A truly ignorant man came up with that one. Not the all knowing creator of the universe and women!
So, don't worry about what the Bible is saying to condemn you or scare you.
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likeabird
When I woke up to the TATT I did a huge amount of study, from all the WT publications and compared them to scientific and historical facts. I had to check everything for myself.
One example was the June 1st 2011 Wt pages 20-23 entitled "When was the Bible written?". I went through the article with two different colours. One colour was to mark the specific external historical or scientific evidence that was cited to back up the points given. A second colour was used to mark 'deduced' evidence, such as "the bible says..." or "Jesus refered to the Hebrew scriptures, so this must prove their accuracy" or "it is logical to conclude that..."
The seemingly simple exercise was hugely enlightening and I was able to use it with my study to help her wake up too.
I did the same thing with the reference books like Insight. No, I didn't study them from cover to cover, but I went through key articles, for example those pertaining to prophecies and the flood and key biblical events. I used the two-colour system to see where they were trying to pass off supposition as fact and where they were completely playing down historical facts. Yes, they would mention the historical and scientific facts, but then persuade you why they weren't trustwothy.
I compared keys events with actual historical events and archaelogical evidence, scientific descriptions with scientific facts.
I looked up all the references in the Creation book and even bought some of the books to see the quotes for myself. After around two chapters of that book I had seen enough to merit not finishing the whole book.
I checked all the calculations. For example, the one regarding how the Israelites multipled from the time of them arriving in Egypt to their departure. Even using the WT explanation it was very twisted. The poor women would have been no better than brooding mares to birth all those people (sorry for the crude comparison). And that's if they all lived to at least 100 years old, had little or no maternal mortality or child mortality! Take a look at the life spans for Egypt at the time WT says the events took place, calculate in maternal and infant mortality rates and see where that takes you.
For me, the key was to do my research on my terms and also to get rid of that WT spell or 'what if...' that is indoctrinated into each of their members. If you don't break that spell or power over you completely, you will always have that subconscious voice nagging you. However when you undress that power and hold they had over you, only then can you move forward in confidence.
There is one more thing I would like to speak about. Especially for those of us who were born into the organization (perhaps this may also be true for those who came in later, I don't know) and who experienced the indoctrination from an early age - images of armageddon, wild beasts, people in the throws of death - these are things a child, especially a young child, should never be exposed to. Many of these concepts are too much for a child to grasp as they have not yet developed the mental capacity to assimilate them properly. Psychologists I have spoken to consider this a clear form of child abuse.
Having been brought up in a climate with exposure to psychological fear, terror, death, having to escape, run, obey, beware of demons, told there are invisible armies of things out there trying to attack us, it is inevitable that this will remain in our subconscience. Even if we no longer believe it and are not afraid of it, they will stay there, just as images of a traumatic experience remain engraved in our memory. With time they will fade, but at times, something may trigger them and we will have flashbacks, we may even have nightmares.
It probably doesn't happen to everyone, but discovering you've been lied to your whole life and that your whole life was a lie is something very intense to go through. Just know that you are not alone in your feelings and questionings and experience. Each person must make their path and carve their own future, but just know that we are all here if you need some help and support.
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Simon
The 'Interview with an Apostate' series we did a while back may help with any feeling that they are 'alone' and it really could be 'the truth':
They start here:
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Doug Mason
The first step is to recognise the Watchtower Society’s deliberate dishonesty. The WTS consistently misquotes and misrepresents. The following provides just a minimal start; there is so much more.
Doug
-----------------(1) Blood.
http://www.jwstudies.com/Handling_Medical_Evidence.pdf
(2) WTS history.
http://www.jwstudies.com/Changed_MD_and_SS_words.pdf
http://www.jwstudies.com/1984_Watchtower_Cover_1914_Generation.jpg
http://www.jwstudies.com/Watchtower_1894_07_15_page_226.pdf
http://www.jwstudies.com/1917_Correspondence__landscape_.pdf
http://www.jwstudies.com/The_List_from_Hourglass.pdf
(3) Scholars.
http://www.jwstudies.com/Soncino_commentary_on_Ezekiel.pdf
http://www.jwstudies.com/Response_from_John_Steele.pdf
http://www.jwstudies.com/Critique_of_When_Was_Ancient_Jerusalem_Destroyed.pdf (page 26ff)
http://www.jwstudies.com/The_June_2012_Awake_Citation_of_Ephraim_Stern.pdf
http://www.jwstudies.com/Mantey_to_the_WTS_1974.pdf
For one example of the WTS’s misrepresentation of George Howard, see pages 1 – 2 of: http://www.jwstudies.com/The_Divine_Name_in_Shem-Tobs_Matthew.pdf
also: http://watchtowertruth.blogspot.com.au/2008/11/july-1-2008-wt-lies-about-divine-name.html
http://www.amazon.com/scholastic-dishonesty-Watchtower-Michael-Buskirk/dp/B0006Y4BTG
(4) Use of “Jehovah” in the NWT Christian Greek Scriptures
http://www.jwstudies.com/Translating_with_prejudice.pdf
http://www.jwstudies.com/The_Divine_Name_in_Shem-Tobs_Matthew.pdf
(5) Truth keeps changing, and it becomes a lie, until that is changed
http://www.jwstudies.com/The_Truth_Changes_in_the_simplified_Watchtower.pdf
http://www.jwstudies.com/The_Truth_Changes.pdf
http://www.jwstudies.com/2010_change_to_generations.pdf
The following is the WTS’s official definition of “Lie”:
LIE: The opposite of truth. Lying generally involves saying something false to a person who is entitled to know the truth and doing so with the intent to deceive or to injure him or another person. … People have told lies to escape deserved punishment, to profit at the expense of others, and to gain or maintain certain advantages, material rewards, or the praise of men.
Especially serious have been the religious lies, as they have endangered the future life of persons deceived by them. … The exchange of God’s truth for “the lie,” the falsehood of idolatry, can cause a person to become a practicer of what is degrading and vile.
The case of the religious leaders of Judaism in the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry shows what can happen when one abandons the truth. …
While malicious lying is definitely condemned in the Bible, this does not mean that a person is under obligation to divulge truthful information to people who are not entitled to it. (“Insight on the Scriptures”, Volume 2, pages 244-245, article: “Lie”)
