Somehow I picked this up (I'm only 30). I remember shopping for t-shirts and seeing one I liked that had a small skull somewhere on it and thinking that I couldn't buy it because of that. The thought was definitely because of the cult, but no idea where it originated from.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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28
help me understand: My wife seems to be utterly detested by skelletons and skulls. Why?
by goingthruthemotions inso, here i am again....asking more questions to help me understand my wife.
she was brought up in the cult in the 70's and 80's.
so i can only imagine what kind of indoctrination she deals with.
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Wife Equates Having A Good Marriage With Being "Spiritual"
by JW_Rogue inso i've noticed lately that my wife seems to think that in order to have a good marriage both people must be "spiritual".
she thinks being close as a family is all about family worship night, field service and praying together.
i know where these ideas are coming from but it is very hard to combat them.
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OneEyedJoe
I don't really feel like I can talk to her openly about how I feel about the org. Sometimes she will complain about the Elders or say that she doesn't see any point in going to meetings. However, when she says those things she is looking for me to set her straight and tell her what she needs to do. If I agreed with her then I'd be letting her down. According to her thinking I'm supposed to be the "more spiritual one" as the head of the household.
Been there. My wife tested me in so many different ways and treated me like shit every time I disappointed her with my lack of zeal for the cult. While it was rough for a while (and things are still very much up in the air in a lot of ways) it turns out that just being honest with her was the best thing and I wish I'd done it earlier. Your wife is probably scared. She knows something is going on and since you're not telling her she could very well be inventing stories in her head like mine was and that's likely making her very insecure and unsettled about your marriage and her future. That tension isn't going to result in anything good - even if you're not open with her about your issues with the cult, I think trying something to reassure her of the strength of the marriage (buy her flowers, take her to a nice place she's been wanting to try, take an afternoon off work to spend time with her, whatever) and your commitment to it would be a good idea. If you can make her feel comfortable about things without bringing the cult into it, you'll only be making your relationship stronger for the difficulties it's likely to face in the near future.
Just my $.02, take it or leave it. You obviously know your wife better than I do and you know your situation better than I, but hopefully this is a little helpful. At the very least know you're not alone in this and whatever happens you'll get through and have a great cult-free future.
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Wife Equates Having A Good Marriage With Being "Spiritual"
by JW_Rogue inso i've noticed lately that my wife seems to think that in order to have a good marriage both people must be "spiritual".
she thinks being close as a family is all about family worship night, field service and praying together.
i know where these ideas are coming from but it is very hard to combat them.
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OneEyedJoe
That's one of those things that I think is difficult to really convince someone of just by talking about it. Especially when it comes to someone that's insecure about the status of their marriage. Most effective way is probably just demonstrating that being "spiritual" has nothing to do with having a strong marriage. Do things together that you enjoy (other than cult related nonsense) and hopefully she'll soon realize that you're together because you enjoy each other and that your family relationships are strong because of shared experience and mutual support, not because of your level of involvement in a cult.
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JW's Approach To Bible Interpretaion
by JW_Rogue init will come as no surprise to many here that the jw approach to interpreting the bible is greatly flawed.
the reason that it is so flawed is that before anything is examined there are already some false assumptions that are made.
jws believe the following about the bible without evidence:.
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OneEyedJoe
JW method of interpreting the bible:
1. Decide what you want the bible to say.
2. Take scriptures out of context to support your claim of what the bible says.
3. ???
4. Profit. -
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Someone updated the AM Hack list LOL
by ApostaCee inlong time lurker here!
there's an email circulating amongst those in the org saying that "apostates" are updating/have updated the ashley madison hacked list with gb members, cos, and elders/elderettes.
can anyone verify this?
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OneEyedJoe
yeah, smells like they're just covering their asses so that they don't have to punish any of the higher-ups. The imperfect men excuse only plays so well in some cases I guess. -
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Caught in LIE Head of Bethel Australia service desk Rodney Spinks by Angus Stewart Australia Investigation day 6
by Watchtower-Free insixth day of live testimony .
this bethelite head of service desk at australia jehovah's witnesses headquarters lied under oath and is caught here by by angus stewart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6lwmalzc-s.
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OneEyedJoe
The way I heard it he was saying that all the elders did it differently than the flock book. I wish the judge hadn't volunteered that this might simply have been a case of the documentation being inaccurate, he really seemed to latch on to that out. -
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FAVORITE DRINK....
by brandnew inme personally.....i think....if it was meant to be mixed ...it would come in the bottle that way.. that said...bacardi gold.
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OneEyedJoe
Has anybody tried DEVILS CUT ?
If you like JB's regular stuff, you'll probably like it. It's the same thing just with a little stronger flavor.
If I had to pick just one favorite I'd probably have to go with Ardbeg Corryvreckan. But that's a little heavy for summer months so I usually end up drinking something with gin or an old fashioned or just rye neat.
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What went wrong in your congregation?
by The Rebel inthe target is converts.. why does it seem such an outrageous aim for a congregation to recruit new converts?.
in my old congregation, the enthusiasm was there but the knocking on doors produced zero " baptisms" in my final years.. a) why so little interests?.
b) was it the internet ?.
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OneEyedJoe
I admit to being a potential convert. The members whether they realize it or not have pretty much scared me away. Every time that I visited the hall, I would hear about not associating with worldly people that you are not to be their friend. I wanted to signal or raise my hand and say,"Hey, you know. I'm sitting right here. Maybe you should keep this kind of talk for another time". (Like, when worldly people aren't in the audience). Made me feel like a complete outsider. Another beef that I had with the hall was local needs night. A total gossip passive aggressive session for all to enjoy. (sarcasm), I admit to enjoying the the study articles. The only reason why I would attend, It seems to me that the members don't want outsiders to join.
Yeah, when I was in I always thought it was odd that we were trying to recruit new people and always encouraged to get them to come to meetings, but then in the meetings half of what went on was just badmouthing the people we're trying to convert or badmouthing their religions. Even on Sundays during the public talk. I would think to myself "they should at least save this stuff for tuesdays where it's less likely that potential converts will be there" and when I realized I was advocating deceptive recruiting tactics it made me suddenly uncomfortable. After that I started to notice many of the existing deceptive tactics that were already institutionalized, and that made me even more uncomfortable...
Edit:
Welcome to the site, Silvia! I hope you find it as useful as I have.
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What woke you up?
by Israel Ricky Gonzales inin march of 2014, i was a very active jw, a ministerial servant, gave a public talk, was an attendant for the memorial, and one of 4 cleaning captains for an international convention of 40,000+ attendees.
so what woke me up?
an innocent comment from a co-worker about the candice conti court case rang a bell that could not be unrung.
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OneEyedJoe
There are so many small steps that woke me up, but I'd have to say that the overlapping generation nonsense was probably it. That's what finally made me uncomfortable enough to look online, and when I did and found the misquotes/lies in the creation book it was all over. -
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Sister attendants not able to give directions to a brother..Misogyny
by Theburstbubble inat our recent rc i was advised by a sister who was an attendant that they have been advised not to be able to give brothers directions as this should be dealt with by the brothers.
apparently at the pre-convention attendants meeting, the sisters were asked to stay behind.
this was when they were given the news that the brothers should deal with brothers.
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OneEyedJoe
When did this happen? I haven't been out that long...
I guess that's progress. Though I'm a bit torn, it's always much more validating when they double down on the stupid.