Only thing I ever did was throw away the magazines in the bathroom. During the memorial I tossed a couple bibles and a bible teach book while I was at it. For the last 6 months I was going to meetings I probably threw away between 30 and 60 magazines per month.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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Pranks to play in the hall...
by purrpurr inwhat pranks could you/would you/ have you played in the kingdom hall?.
i have never but here's two i've thought of, 1) replace the liquid soap with glue 2) smear nutella everywhere in the bathroom!.
what's yours?.
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Watchtower Paralells Mormonism
by Saved_JW inafter leaving the watchtower i had a 2 year lapse where i was studying mormonism.
not because i believed it, but because my girlfriend at the time was one.
i took the time to attend ward meetings with her, attend after church activities, join my in-laws for "family home evening" i was pretty much immersed in the culture.
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OneEyedJoe
From what I understand the severity of the excommunication punishment can vary from family to family. I know that in some cases it's every bit as bad as the JW DFing. -
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My fade might well start today.
by StarTrekAngel inmany here whom have read my previous posts know more or less my situation.
wife is not hardcore but we still bump heads from time to time.
if it wasn't for this cult, and while it was not an issue, we had an almost perfect marriage.
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OneEyedJoe
Oh I do believe she means it. But I am not fully convinced of is that she is considering all the consequences. She doesn't think there is going to be any outsider inflicted friction in our marriage. I tell her that people are going to start looking at her with pity and begin to act accordingly. She says she doesn't care. It would not be the first time she says she doesn't care of what others think of her... that is until she does.
One thing that my therapist (more subtly than I'm going to be) often points out is that it's not really that worthwhile worrying about the possible negative consequences in cases like this. You need out of this cult. You're going to get out of this cult. Your wife says she's ok with it. Get out of the cult and if there's problems that come up between you and your wife contrary to what she says, you'll deal with it. Expecting problems can sometimes create them, and since there's not much you can do about it until it comes up, best case you've just stressed yourself out for nothing.
Take it or leave it. While your situation is certainly unenviable and something that nobody should have to endure, it actually sounds like you've got a great chance of things working out pretty well. Your wife doesn't seem to be nearly as phobic and mind-controlled as many, which means there's a reasonable chance that merely showing her the way you may lead her out.
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Do I count my time for this?
by username inhttp://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2101981.
on page four you will see the active witness, its unmistakable by the lack of any structure in this persons post.. my username is mebiscuit, i decided to reply to the active witness post ;) .
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OneEyedJoe
There are plenty of points to discredit Jehovah's Witnesses than bringing up the possibility that their founder may have been a freemason.
This. At best, calling CTR a freemason is an ad hominem attack and doesn't really mean much anyway. So what if he started out that way - God could conceivably use anyone to accomplish his will if he so desires. And personally anytime I hear someone talking about freemasons I immediately stop listening. There's too many wingnuts that go on and on about all that stuff and even if that's a valid criticism here it gets lost in the noise.
On top of that, criticism of CTR is practically irrelevant to the modern JW. I wouldn't be surprised if many JWs don't even know who he is beyond recognizing the name. I honestly can't remember the last time he was mentioned at a meeting (I mean I've been out for 6 months, but before that it must've been 5 or more years gone by without hearing him mentioned) so it's just not something that's valuable to bother with in most cases. There are so many very real, very current issues that can be raised with the cult that it seems much more worthwhile to start with that than to worry about things so far in the past.
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Do I count my time for this?
by username inhttp://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2101981.
on page four you will see the active witness, its unmistakable by the lack of any structure in this persons post.. my username is mebiscuit, i decided to reply to the active witness post ;) .
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OneEyedJoe
Yeah, the way JWs are they'll see the thing about 10 hours and immediately write off everything you said.
I'd also have left out the freemason stuff and stick more to things that are easily and completely verifiable (i.e. UN membership, etc) since anything that can't be verified (or sounds a little like a conspiracy-theory) will immediately be used to cast you as a liar in the mind of a JW.
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My fade might well start today.
by StarTrekAngel inmany here whom have read my previous posts know more or less my situation.
wife is not hardcore but we still bump heads from time to time.
if it wasn't for this cult, and while it was not an issue, we had an almost perfect marriage.
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OneEyedJoe
So sorry it's going this way for you. Especially with kids in the mix, it's tough.
You can help your daughters to learn to question things, and you'll probably have better luck with that if you're out of the cult. Maybe you can reach a compromise wherein they stay at home with you for half the meetings? That would probably be more than enough to help them see daylight and want out. Or maybe insist that it be their choice as they get to the age where they can decide for themselves.
Your situation may be, in some ways, too early for the couple's therapy to really be helpful. After you've left the cult maybe you can get her to go back to deal with whatever problems arise. That way you'll be working on "what is" rather than "what may be" and that's always a much more productive conversation.
Good luck to you. The good news is that your being out will give your children an anchor to be able to escape themselves. With most kids leaving the cult eventually, having one parent that's out increases the chances by a huge factor.
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Disaster Demonstration in Kingdom hall
by Newly Enlightened inhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwr9w_i02di.
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OneEyedJoe
While this is ostensibly not about preparing for armageddon, I think most JWs connect this to the fear of armageddon that they have on some level. It serves to reinforce the fear under the guise of offering "practical reminders."
I believe another motive in pushing these parts is to encourage people to fill out the little "emergency contact" forms that the elders keep on file for everyone. Having never been an elder, I can't say for sure but my suspicion is that these forms are used for situations other than emergencies - i.e. to get people's address/phone number so they can harass them if they stop going to meetings or spy on them if someone makes an accusation that they're having a member of the opposite sex spend the night.
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How To Test a J.W.'s Loyalty/Stupidity
by The Searcher in"would you do absolutely anything which the governing body instructed you to do?
for example, sell your home and possessions, move in with another witness, and send all your money to the org?".
if 'no', they're showing that they will pick and choose which org directives they will follow.
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OneEyedJoe
TS - that's a fair point. I was looking at this from the perspective of you trying to get someone out. I guess it depends on the person too, but in my experience using a tactic like this to try to get someone to think tends to lead them to shut down and you won't get anywhere. -
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How To Test a J.W.'s Loyalty/Stupidity
by The Searcher in"would you do absolutely anything which the governing body instructed you to do?
for example, sell your home and possessions, move in with another witness, and send all your money to the org?".
if 'no', they're showing that they will pick and choose which org directives they will follow.
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OneEyedJoe
I don't think asking this is really a test of their loyalty so much as their honesty. Asking something like this is overtly backing them into a corner and many JWs will feel forced to toe the line. When you push someone like this and force them to affirm their loyalty (even if they're only saying it and wouldn't actually follow through) you're actually doing more harm than good. If they profess loyalty in spite of having some reservations, this will cause cognitive dissonance which will then have to be resolved by them bringing their thoughts in line with what they've said (they can change their feelings but they can't change what's already been said).
I made this mistake with my wife at one point - asking if she'd take a cyanide pill if the GB somehow managed to cherry pick some scriptures to justify it and she said she would. Meanwhile she'll watch shows like true blood and masters of sex, etc. Her loyalty isn't absolute, but she'll profess that it is to prevent me from finding a crack that I can drive a wedge into.
It might be 'fun' to joke about but I wouldn't recommend actually doing this with anyone that you care about. It's unlikely to give you accurate information on their commitment to the cult and antagonizing people will only further damage your relationship with them.
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You contemptible worms aren't giving us enough! GIVE US MORE! Service meeting part December 21, 2015
by sir82 infrom the october 19 letter to the body of elders:.
to all bodies of eldersre: service meeting part for week of december 21, 2015dear brothers:the service meeting for the week of december 21, 2015, includes a ten-minute part entitledshow appreciation for jehovahs generosity.
this is to be a talk based on the november15, 2015, watchtower, pages 14-15. sometime during this part, the video a gift in hand to jehovahshould be played for the congregation.
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OneEyedJoe
How is Jehovah's generosity manifested? By asking for money all the time? Doesn't add up...