Quit Quietly now more than ever

by gone for good 80 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Phizzy

  Fading has never been easy of course, but now, they damn well notice if you miss a meeting, and Elder Noseybugger will be on your case if you do. I know you can kinda fake attendance at a Zoom meeting, but it is not the same as when I faded.

  I just walked out of the K.H one evening, looked back with regret actually, but thought " I will never step back in there again".

  Up until then, i had been the very best meeting Attender in our Congregation, I was never ill, rarely took an annual vacation, just was always there. I heard not a beep from them for six months ( they are so loving ha ha ), and only then, because two Nazi Elders thought they could lay a charge of Apostasy on me. ( They failed.) ( Twice actually). Now, you would not be left in peace, I would have got away with it scot free, in those days, if I had not been imprudent.

  " Quit quietly" yes, but be oh so careful, as you have to be these days.
• 

  Fadeaway1962

  Harder

  Until recently a family member who is a elder was sending me a link so I could stream the meeting , only checked to get title of talk In case they asked but now he be instructed that zoom should be used so been encouraged to contact local elders so I can join , never had any contact with elders for about 4-5 months .

  They don't have a contact number or my address (because of a family issue not trust them to reveal my address) expecting that soon the stuff will hit the fan as I have no interest in contacting them esp with the redress issue and the Swiss court case .

  So only been playing along for my family (7 members) never been overly outspoken about about my feelings about JW beliefs ,knowing that when they find out that I no longer believe that they will shun me as they have done to other family members.
• 

  gone for good

  Phizzy-

  Thanks for your comments.

  Many who wish to free themselves of the JW religion still wish to exercise their legal right to associate with family and loved ones who are members.

  Info Sekta made the case clear that to forbid the free association of and suppress the natural affections and protections of the nuclear family is a violation of basic Human Rights.

  Justice and human rights are the issue - don't be sidetracked by cult-speak.

  .Disassociation is an intentionally loaded term that should never be used in your freedom letter. Elders instantly conflate any use of the term with apostasy requiring nosy questions.

  Apostasy is not a crime, but a basic human right, and never stray from the goal to maintain association with loved ones as a free person yourself.

  The letter pre-empts the elders' ecclesiastic authority. They cannot convene a judicial committee because you are not a member. You have a document proving that defining point.

  Your letter should also rescind any documents you may have signed allowing the collection and use of personal information (remember foolishly signing that?) and specifically mention that to have your name or religious status read or published by any congregation will be pursued legally a violation of your personal privacy.

  As Phizzys friend the elder said "So there was nothing we could do."
• 

  gone for good

  Anna Marina -

  I am sorry for appearing to demean your interests in Biblical history. I too have spent many hours researching the same fascinating stories.

  I was hoping to clarify to Sea Breeze that the real issue with religion is not the truthfulness of scripture or myriad doctrines derived from them.

  The real issue and the Achilles' heel of damaging cults will be their disregard for the modern and just basic human rights of their own members and especially those who choose to be no longer so.

  Modern courts care deeply about such issues and it is these issues which will bring to heel these greedy, hate-filled cults, not their theology or lack thereof.
• 

  Sea Breeze

  BTW, all religions are grounded in deception

  gone for good,

  We will have to just agree to disagree on this point.

  Here's a video illustrating the deception employed by JW's. I can't imagine Christians like Baptists, Presbyterians or Lutherans engaging is such deception. There, you pretty much get what you see. With the WT, there are doctrines for the public display and doctrines for the insiders. Typically, a new convert doesn't learn about the insider doctrines until they are already members and can't leave without forfeiting their conscience (and freedom of worship rights) in order to keep their family in tact. If they leave, they must suffer a lifetime of abandonment from those they love the most. It is a very cruel trap that is carefully set for the unsuspecting public.

  That is religious persecution directly caused by deception.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqwH_USEzpU
  
• 

  Anna Marina

  Thank you for explaining Gone for Good. I was hurt, but not now :)

  The reason why I do what I do is related to that Achilles heel, but I know I can't bring the Watchtower down.

  For whatever reason, I am and always have been immune to the Watchtower's worst tricks. However, I can imagine the crisis that it puts some people into and if I can say anything to help and console such ones I will. What has happened to them IS NOT THEIR FAULT.

  Watchtower can break your faith, your sanity and your powers of reason. The bottom line is, Watchtower does this through arithmetic (the use of numbers) or as some call it maths. Incidentally, the disciples in Greek are called the mathete, it means learner. This is all to do with knowledge and the ability to take information in and process it in a sound and proper manner. Watchtower stops all that. Sound thinking must be a basic human right. This organisation robs people of their minds. If banks get done for miselling financial products, maybe one day someone with get it, that this advertising/media company is miselling verbal products/trust. Its a con trick. It destroys more than your life and your natural ability to love. It destroys your mind, while leaving you alive to be their puppet and destroy the lives of others.
  
• 

  Sigfrid Mallozzi

  Wouldn't just writing a statement with a date and having it notarized, or just signed by two witnesses, (NOT JW's) and keep the document for yourself be about the same? For some of us after making the mental decision to leave we have only a few other acquaintances.

  I have heard several experiences of family's being out for 15 years and someone stirs up a drama storm and the elders are writing letters requiring a signature and a formal response from the individual family members. The family's response was they wrote letters and they also mentioned how petty the elders were to pursue someone that has had no association for 15 or more years.

  The family also mentioned the mental and emotional "pain and suffering" created by the Local Congregation and said that if the elder's bothered them in any other way, pursued them, stalked them, or if an announcement was made concerning them they would sue the three elders personally and then the congregation. The congregations' pursuit was dropped immediately, but the "elders" defended themselves and made the assertion that the pursued family was causing the trouble, saying, they said they would get lawyers and so and such.
• 

  Beth Sarim

  ""Vidiot:
  

  So...

  ...are faders finding doing so easier...

  ...or harder?""

  I'd say it's harder now. ExJWCriticalThinker uploaded a video recently. JT was knocking on a door in FS as an introduction. LadyC answered. The video went on and JT explained beautifully that it has too be tougher than ever to 'fade' thanks to zoom.

  But it's harder from a perspective. If you began fading like myself, and distancing like myself well before the lockdowns and quarantines began, people don't even notice that I'm not even there, because they don't expect me. People have left me alone, because I was welllll into my 'fade'. Many months or years before coronavirus.
• 

  greenhornet

  well I went through a horrible divorce and the elders that were meddling in my affairs were given a cease and desist letter from my attorney. It worked 25 years and ticking not a peep from them.
• 

  Anna Marina

  There is someone who has faded BUT recently had to leave the country to escape WT.

  Another thing - they are all locked up in their homes. Usually they are out standing sheepishly or arrogantly beside a trolley full of literature that no one wants. If they are not doing that they are tootling around housing estates either getting caught on householder's CCTV, or starting, what they imaginatively call, free home Bible studies. Or both.
  

  Unable to persue their usual modus operandi, they are contacting those who have faded and I can report that locally there has been success. Someone has swallowed the bait.

  A fader will have faded for a reason. But if you go back you find yourself in a radically different environment to that which you left. Now you either accept their ways or go immediately, no fade.

  Also as lockdown eases, they are off out again. I am just waiting to see pictures of them, wearing face masks on electric scooters or segways with sandwich boards strapped on them. Or maybe just the magnetic trolley sign stuck on the front of their scooter. Look out for them at Halloween, you never know they might do a cracking trolley sign in pumkin orange with the phrase 'is Satan real?' written all over it.