A reality check for JW's and ex-JWs... (page 2)

ashitaka

Logan, really great post. I love the 'experience'. I wonder if they told that one on the platform?

ash

JeffT

I agree, the average person thinks of JW's as these nutty people that sell magazines and that's it.

Dantheman - I had exactly the same experience. A college roomate who's mother was a dub, got himself converted, then came after me. It was 1973 the end was right around the corner. Took fifteen years to get out.

blondie

It doesn't say much about almost 80 years of preaching door to door. The WTS says that the message of the JWs is the Kingdom of God but few if any JWs use that in their introduction (which the WTS says should be 30 seconds). Few JWs read a scripture let alone one where Jesus is speaking.

So it is no surprise that few know why JWs are at their door. All they see are people peddling books and magazines.

Good post, Bradley. I used to work in administration and the press room. I used to wonder where the press was. My secular job brought me into daily contact with the press in my area. When they did show up, they made the mistake of thinking I, a lowly woman, was the contact.

Blondie

lisaBObeesa

Thanks for the Interesting post!

JWs do think they are the center of the world. It is part of their identity.

I took a cultural anthropolgy course not long ago and I learned a lot. I don't know about you, but I couldn't wait to go to that class each day! That class really changed me and opened my mind.

I even did a term paper on "Jehovah's Witness sub-culture: The Value of Unity". Got an A :)

-LisaBObeesa

asleif_dufansdottir

I took a cultural anthropolgy course not long ago and I learned a lot. I don't know about you, but I couldn't wait to go to that class each day! That class really changed me and opened my mind.

Me too. I love to hear stuff like this!! That's why I'm starting a PhD program in cult anth this fall! (despite the fact that my dad is horrified I'm leaving a "good office job" to get a degree he thinks I'm not going to be able to "do anything with." Those of us who are rather obsessed with anthro just love it when people say the class gives them way different insight (professors and potential future professors worry about that, you know )

run dont walk

Great post !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it is true most of the world could care less, and that is understandable.

But, for all of us we HAVE been hurt by the Watchtower and family because of their crap. And I'm sure the Muslims and the Catholics and the Protestants etc etc etc could all say the same thing.

This is our area we are "stuck" in. We will ever really get over it ???? don't know, but it's hard when your whole family is still stuck in it, and you can't carry on a normal life or conversation with them.

jws

Maybe I wasn't the average JW and maybe that's why I'm here. I believed it to be the true religion, and I maybe bought into a little of the self-importance, but not all of it.

Like the convention proclamations being fulfillments of scripture, angels blowing horns and bowls of wrath. Even as a JW I thought that was a bit weak because I knew I could ask 1000 non-JW people off the street about them and be very lucky if any of them had even the foggiest notion of these proclamations, much less world religion and the governments. Hell, I hardly knew about them. Other than knowing they were supposed to have happened, I couldn't quote a single one. (Hey, maybe that's a point for my next JW encounter - if these are fulfillment of Bible prophecy, show me exactly what was said - which will probably amount to a bunch of statements that are now "old light").

They've also got the notion of being persecuted. I've been in circles who knew I was a JW and those that weren't. I saw no evidence of any scheme against them, except for the typical jokes. And when they did know I was a JW, I never felt any persecution for it. People just thought it was a wierd religion, but mostly respected it as just another religion.

I learned real quick that the outside world had no idea what our common vocabulary meant. I remember thinking everbody must know what a Kingdom Hall is. I eventually just started calling it Church when I talked to wordly people, though my parents didn't like it. If they don't know what a Kingdom Hall or going out in Service is, I figured out they knew nothing of us.

While JW rhetoric promotes this idea that they are so important and in the crosshairs of the outside world, I wonder if the majority of the rank-and-file JWs believe that.

As for being an ex-JW, they're still on my radar because some of my family is still involved. I like to keep in-the-know so that if the chance ever arrives, I can help them out of the religion.

Soledad

When one of the elders was asked by an observer why a press center had been established, he said that the Society had taken positions against draft registration and the Equal Rights Amendment, and they wanted the public to understand that their views were based on Scripture.

that's interesting. I thought they always needed to remain neutral with regards to politics.

Pork Chop

Strange, since they've never had a problem with registering for the draft and every year there's an announcement that 18 year olds are required to register. I've also never heard one thing said about the Equal Rights amendment. Where do people get this stuff?

Vanant

Hmm . . . ::googles up the Equal Rights Amendment::

"Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification."

What's the Watchtower doing taking a political stand? And on something like this . . . hmph, leave it to them to support something as barbaric as sex discrimination . . .

A reality check for JW's and ex-JWs...

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