I believe you stop being a victim when you want...
Now that we are no longer JWs, how much can we continue to blame the WTS for how we live our life NOW? Since we are no longer JWs, we now have the freedom to pursue life choices that were never available before. If we wanted to go to university, what is preventing us from going now? If we wanted to change careers, what is stopping us now?
Are all the obsticles we have in our life entirely the WTS' fault? How much of it can we change, and are we willing to change our lives in order to achieve our goals? Or are we too happy to sit down and complain, blaming everyone and everything but not ourselves? Or are we willing to admit that we made mistakes, and that it is now up to us to make our lives the kind of lives we want to live?
However, I do not believe in *reparations* for *lost anything*.
Nonetheless, I also believe in some accountability ... and ... since the WTS refuses to be accountable, they must be forced into it, spanked, disciplined in the courts. They need to have their assets seized to get their materialistic attention ... and the attention of the rank and file JW ... and then they might pay some restitution to the most harmed victims ... and hopefully learn and grow as a religion.
Blaming the WTBTS for not having kids, not getting an education, etc. is ridiculous. Every court in America, even California, would throw it out.
Donkey put up a thread about stealing $1 million from the WTS....would you do it if you were not caught? I said NO. Below are my responses:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/56058/1.ashx
So for all who answer NO to scenario 2: If someone wrongfully imprisoned you or if someone deprived you of an education that would have enabled you over 25 to 30 years to have earned in excess of a million dollars and you had the opportunity to take a million dollars from them without you knowing it would you do it? You say No - then you deserve to be suckered. You say yes - I say what's the difference between that and scenario number 2?MY RESPONSE:
Wrongfully imprisoned? How? Please explain.
Deprived of an education? That one is parental and a personal responsibility. I happened to have a *progressive* mother who didn't think I could/would make it as a pioneer (read spiritually weak) therefore no good JW boy would want me, therefore I needed an education to get out of her house ASAP. Because I was, in her words, "A milstone around my neck."
Fine. You know what I did? I got student loans. I got grants. We were poor. I worked, I went to class and I lived at home. 10 years later, in 1994, I payed off my last student loan.
Blaming the WTBTS for your lack of education is another form of "I am the victim" mentality and really pisses me off.
Every single person on this board is smart enough to go to college. If you can use a computer, you can enroll in on-line class.
If you didn't get to go when you were 18 the only thing you missed was beer poisoning and panty raids. BFD.
WHHHAAA!!!
The Watchtower convinced my parents that I didn't need an education. So what is stopping you now?
You have a computer. You have *some* money. You have time. (time being: time to sit here. get your ass in a class and learn something!!) If it takes you 10 years to do it; DO IT. It is worth it. The personal satisfaction is tremendous.
The WTBTS does not *owe* anyone here anything. Yes they fucked up many, many lives. However, you are out. You are responsible. You have more options than I had 20 years ago. 20 years ago it was *go* to college. NO on-line, No computers. If someone had a typewriter, they were popular.
Stop whining, take responsibility and pay your own way. I did and I was 18.
Shouldn't I sue or steal the money from my mother for not providing me with an education? Same thing? Right?
Donkey wanted to kick my ass; here is my response:
Not huh? Interesting...please be sure and tell people like Shunned Father or the Berry Girl or Erica or the scores of others who were hurt or THREATENED with losing their families. As far as wrongfully imprisoned - ever experienced the prison of the mind or physical prison? Ever experienced either for the "truth"?
Go ahead, rip me a new one for improper grammer and sentence structure.
Well, let me count....
My sister--she ran away from home at age 17; I was 14. My mother told her never to come back. Told her she was a whore and a slut and would never make it to the new system. Told her she was throwing her life away on a worldly guy who only wanted to fuck her. Yes, my wonderful, JW mother used language like that. All the time.
When my sister got pregnant, my mother told her to get married. Sis didn't want to get married. She wanted to come back home. Mom told her she was a whore with a bastard so she could not have her in the house until she was married. Sis got married and mom said you will have to repent and get reinstated. Sis said no.
Their relationship is still scarred. My sister and I have no relationship. She and her husband moved away and she refused all contact with my mother and I for years. My mother apologized just last year for what she said 25 years ago.
My mother's family is all JW. Due to my mother's paternal grandparents being JWs from the early 1900s, there is lots of baggage. As a result, there are lots of family fights. All in the name of the WTS. All in the name of *good association*.
My mother cut off her youngest sister, because she was fornicating, in 1968. Her sister never forgave her. Neither did the other 2. As a result, I have no relationship with 3 aunts and 7 cousins. Or their families.
Because of the WTS my fathers family wanted nothing to do with us. They were not JWs. We were the nutty ones. We were cut off from them because they were *worldly*.
So out of a family of 4 immediate aunts, 6 immediate uncles, and 10 first cousins I *know* none of them. They are strangers. All because the WTS created divides that only other JWs understand.
Was it easy going to college at 18? No. I had no idea what I was doing there. I was supposed to be pioneering and getting married. And having kids.
I ended up stumbling through it somehow. Am I proud of that. Yes. I earned it. Coming from a family that did not value education, at all, it was graifying to finally graduate. Am I bragging, no. If I can do it, anyone can. Believe me.
The WTS has fucked up my family in more ways than I can or will document for you. I don't have to prove to you or anyone else the negative effect they have had on my life. I lost my family because of the fucking Watchtower and all their fucked up head games. They took my mother and made her into a Stepford Wife. She cannot think without the Watchtowers approval.
That is devestating.
Are you happy? Feel good to know you drew that out? Is that less important or less worthy of money? Of *taking* a million if you could not get caught?
Prison of the mind is thinking your mother is going to throw you out for being a whore or a slut; all because the WTS said loose conduct was unbecoming. Watching it happen to your older sister is incentive to not do it.
I have lost all my family over the *truth*.
I lost just as much as anyone on this board due to the WTS. I have an education. Big deal. I cannot invite my education over for a barbeque or take pics of it to savor years later. I have NO family. Only my JW mother. I talk to her once or twice a week...she tells me about Sister and Brother So and So. We have nothing in common.
I do not want their money. Period.
I hope they get taken down. Let the money be used for deprogramming, mental health, training on how to spot a cult and not get caught again, adult education, etc. This should be put into a trust that is treated as a fund for the damaged. BTW, all their assets won't go to far when you think about all the people who will have their hand out.
NO individual should benefit with a windfall, unless they file an individual lawsuit, and win. I do not believe in this pack mentality of *let't take 'em down and share the wealth."
It is not going to happen!!!!
