Jehovah's Witnesses: How Their Subculture is Fading Away. (page 2)

I can't answer for anyone else, BeautifulS, but when you have given so much of your life to something, allowed yourself to be enslaved by it, based important life-altering decisions on what you were told was truth straight from Jehovah...and then find out it was all false...you want to understand. For me, there's a certain amount of trauma in realizing how very thoroughly I was duped. I need to get a grip on why and I allowed that to happen.

I'm finding that knowledge is important to my personal recovery. I doubt I will ever attend a meeting again, but I find it interesting to hear the experiences of those that do. I enjoy getting a clear-headed view of what's currently happening in the congregations. I would imagine I'd be even more interested if I still had family in and was looking for ways to open their eyes.

Honesty

ok there's one thing i don't get here
once you have left the religion why would you bother to keep track of what they do or don't do or go to any of their meetings to observe anything?

Because there may be something I hear about the cult I can share with my two beautiful children who are trapped that will awaken their hearts to the truth about the WT lies.

Satanus

wiser men would have reasoned that 'we can't expect people to be 'separate from the world' without building an infrastructure to support that separateness

I never thought of that. So true. Maybe apocalyptic cults have a built in fuse till they decompose. The mormons are way ahead of the wt in this. Also, the catholic church did build substructure for it's converts in the coopting of their pagan stuff as well as other things. Possibly, the church will be around long after the wt is just ink stains in a few history books (or bits on a disk).

S

ezekiel3

Great statement.

JWs live in a cultural vacuum. Even their language is bent on production: labeling the rare recruit as a "Bible Study" or "Return Visit".

No one is a noun -- only verbs -- marching on like empty husks.

Seeker4

On my way to work today I drove by a Protestant church, and the parking lot was full of teenagers. Seems this rather vibrant, though fundamentalist, church was doing some special activity for its teens.

I was reminded at that moment how another elder told me years ago how it seperated us from Christendom that we had no "special ministries," such as a youth ministry or a married couples ministry, and how much better our way was than the other churches.

But as you wrote Met, and so well may I add, this has really worked to the detriment of the JWs. Give up all these things, and the Org replaces them with nothing - no big get-to-gethers, no education, no sports...nothing.

You nailed it, man. Thanks.

S4

roybatty

Sooooo what are they up to?

BTW - I do remember those days when hot meals were served at the DC. I remember working with my father in the food department cooking all that chicken, watching armies of people preparing meals that were actually pretty good. You're right, it was a good way to meet new people, someting to look forward to.

Do the boys in Crooklyn just not get it? That what keeps many / most JWs going are those certain things we use to look forward to?

in a new york bethel minute

well-written met. unfortunately, any well-rehearsed jdub is only going to respond with "the society has been simplifying for years now. the concentration is on spiritual food and association. we don't need food at the assemblies or more than one awake per month"

bethel minute

observador

"...and time will quickly turn that into compost and dust."

Not on my watch. Me and a group of friends are turning some of those pearls into PDFs for posterity. :)

Posterity needs to know. Oh yeah!!!

Observador.

Preston

..Heck, even the Mormons have their own University!

JW's don't necessarily leave behind a physical culture per se, because I was thinking about this the other day, instead they Primarily leave behind their mark on history in terms of the creation of certain laws which made their niche into American society like the flag salute issue, the medical stuff, how they've used the legal system to their advantage, etc.... Secondarily, they've given people lots of chuckles with all the ways they've been made fun of (movies, cartoons, the far side, Michael Jackson, etc...).

- Preston

Jehovah's Witnesses: How Their Subculture is Fading Away.

Country_Woman

luna2