How much harm have you caused your congregation? (page 3)

gypsywildone

Harm them???? Oh honey, I entertained them!

iiz2cool

How much harm did you cause to the people in your congregation?

I haven't caused anyone any harm, either while I was a JW or since I left. Why should I? I have nothing to gain by it. I'm sure they don't care for my opinion any more than I care for theirs, so I'm not prepared to expend any of my energy to try to "harm" them in any way.

If any of them want to leave the BORG I'm willing to help if I can. They know where to find me.

Walter

Edited to add that the congregation may have suffered when I left. I'm sure my leaving lowered their Holy Statistics somewhat. That's always a cause for great concern.

Joker10

how many people are you hurting by not sharing what you have learned here?

Nobody.

Are you really willing to share the blood guilt of the WT org by continuing your support by your silence?

I am not silent; garbage doen't come out of my mouth.

jst2laws

Joker,

I am not silent; garbage doen't come out of my mouth.

Are you really making "sure of all things, hold fast to what is fine"?

This is you responsibility to God, not the Watchtower.

Jst2laws

Edit to add, Joker, I'm not giving you a hard time. I am prodding you to think about it. I have been where you are. If you check my first post here I came on JWD as an elder defending the WT. Please keep an open mind to the facts.

seattleniceguy

Joker,

I am interested in your response to my post.

SNG

sandy

I too was what the jw congregations refers to as a "fine, outstanding example" of a christian. It suprises many even now that I am no longer active. Most have no idea I will not return,

I was always honest, polite, sweet and caring in the congregation. Like everyone else I have my flaws. I have been known to listen and spread gossip on occasion. Hopefully nobody was effected by it.

I don't think any of us should take blame for any harm done to friends and family by our leaving. Sure we may feel bad over emotional pain some may have suffered but that is not our fault. We have a right to our own thoughts and opinions about God and religion.

dorothy

Any minor harm I may have caused is different in this respect:

I didn't go around teaching everyone to "spread the word", try to get everyone to repeat my stupid actions, try to convince others that the way I hurt people is the way everyone should treat everyone else. I"ve never tried to mass-teach something I wasn't sure about or knew damn well was wrong. My hurts weren't cpmpounded by trying to drag everyone else in.

Iforget

Joker,

Your entire post made me tired. I suppose in the end it would be up to the individual person to define "harm". As my father likes to say, accidents don't happen, they are caused. Harm doesn't work the same way because it is such a personal thing. What may cause great harm to me would not do the same to you and vis versa.

On top of that how are some of the friends who post here supposed to know for sure when their families and/or congregations won't speak to them.

Nancy Drake

I used to talk about my friends behind their back a lot, because that's what all the girls did to each other. We were a bunch of backstabbing, bored little demons.

I used to break into my dad's briefcase and read his notes from his judicial committees. Then I would tell all the horrible juicy details about people's affairs and such to my little friends. We had a nice little circle of this gossip for a while until one of the girls finally told her parents that I was snooping.

Another thing I did to hurt people was have parties at my apartment after I moved out of my parents house before I was disfellowshipped. I would get some JW girls drunk with the cover story that they were at my house to help me spiritually! We got busted when we walked into the KH all hung over and smelling like cigars. I got up during the meeting to go to the bathroom and ended up tripping over an elder's bookbag. That was my last time in a kingdom hall. All the other girls that were at my house got in trouble that day.

Also, my dad told me that when I was disfellowshiped, lots of people cried.

rocketman

I was well liked and respected, and to my knowledge caused no harm aside from a stupid comment or two when I was an elder. Any harm I did was when I was an elder blindly following WTS policy, and fortunately even that was relatively minor.

I'll add that I was never, thankfully, involved in any child sexual abuse cases when I was an elder. I honestly would have a lot of trouble living with myself had I followed WTS policy in a case of actual abuse in which there was no second witness to the matter. To think that a child could still be subject to such abuse on my watch would be too much to bear. Thankfully, such a thing never happened. I can't see how elders can live with following WTS policy on such matters.

How much harm have you caused your congregation?

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