there was a post recently where the person was df'd (or da'd or fader?
) and had a friend who had already died.
let's call the fader/df'd person joe and the dead friend bob.
It's whatever's most convenient to manipulate the target audience into (re)joining or staying in the cult.
If it's someone who can't bear the thought of shunning their apostate child and is saddened by the prospect of spending eternity without them, it's the latter - the former things will not be called to mind. If it's someone that you want to guilt into coming back, it's that people will miss them - put the grief of a hundred people on their shoulders to make them feel guilty and return.
some of my old jw friends are sickly and getting on in age.
so far, i’ve only gone to my mother’s memorial and have avoided the kingdom hall altogether.... your thoughts please?.
For anyone other than my parents - no way. My parents are getting older, and my father isn't in fantastic health so I've given this some thought off and on. I'm still not sure what I'd do, but it'll sure be a fight with my living parent and still-in brother for it to not be at a KH. I think I'm simply going to insist that the speaker actually talk about the deceased and completely omit the cult sales pitch, being prepared to walk out should the sales pitch begin.
i was talking to someone a few years ago and he said in his congregation they have a rail of white shirts prepared in the cloakroom for if a speaker doesn't have a white shirt on.
it was a rule in their hall that all brothers in the platform must wear white shirts when going talks and if the speaker won't comply when asked to change into the shirt they provide an elder in the congregation will do the talk instead.
i have never known any other halls do it so it must be a rule the elders have made up without gb input.
I've heard of the exact same thing regarding white shirts playing out elsewhere, I think it was the policy made up by the crotchety old PO at the time.
In some congregations in west texas there were some near-rebellions when a CO insisted that cowboy boots were inappropriate for a speaker. The culture there is such that in many cases a man's boots are, by far, the most expensive shoes (and indeed article of clothing) that he owns and they are thus considered formal wear. In comes a CO from another area and he wants to make up rules to suit his sensibilities...
I had a friend of a friend that got DFed for fornication in his 30s (even though he'd married the girl he had sex with, and she was only privately reproved) because he'd been reproved for fornication a couple times in his late teens/early 20s and the BOE had a 3-strikes rule. Therefore, regardless of his repentance (he absolutely was) he got the boot.
I remember lots of rules about service time and privileges - in various congregations I was in, there were limits of somewhere between 6-10 hours a month required to have any "privileges" including carrying a mic.
I was once told that because I didn't comment often enough at meetings I wouldn't be allowed to read the watchtower because "people might be like 'oh, who is he?' when [I] get up to read." I was told at the same time that my wife would also need to comment more for me to get to read the watchtower at a meeting.
There was once a local needs talk given because an elder got wind of a group (ages ranging from 25 to 33) that went to a twilight movie. Apparently there is no such thing as a "good" vampire, and any fictional depiction of a vampire is to be avoided at all costs.
My mother was once told not to wear a pair of earrings (they were small, hardly noticeable pendants with a sun, crescent moon and a star) because they might stumble someone.
I'm sure there's more. Basically whatever the most pious asshole on the BOE deems to be wrong - that gets banned. Sometimes it becomes a race to the bottom as each elder tries to outdo the others to prove how righteous they are by finding fault and restricting even the most minor things.
is it because we were in the cult watchtower compound that we talk about being ex-jw's when we stop being active?
i have never heard anyone say that i was an ex-catholic or an ex-lutheran or an ex-baptist.
they just stop going to their church and don't talk about it.. years after not stepping inside a kingdom hell, many of us still have to talk about being ex-jw's.
Great question. You've inspired me to go on a car forum I frequent and ask those guys why they're always talking about cars.
1972 : we started studying with the jehovah's witnesses when my uncle became an elder and put fear into our family that armageddon was close.
1974 : my mom, my brother and i were all baptized after all the convention talks and watchtower magazine articles that 1975 would likely end this system of things.
1999 : being told that the year 2000 was going to mark the 6 thousand years of mans existence and that the 1000 year kingdom in the new paradisewould come in the year 2000.
They were smart enough not print anything about 2000
There were a couple places where (in the context of talking about the completion of the preaching work, I think) they said something like "all before the end of this millennium" and then it was changed, essentially, to "soon" in the bound volumes and on the library.
i am new to this site, want to know who in the admin and are we all jw?.
if yes, i am from nigeria, west african.
as an active and dedicated witness i want to tread safe.. need to make some friends here; i love honesty in all things.. best regards.
I think you'll find that, generally speaking (there will be exceptions in any group, including JWs) people here are very honest. That said, the vast majority of members here are victims of the watchtower society at some point in the process of leaving the JW organization.
one word for it.....apostate!
!.
I remember doing some reasoning along the lines of the unexpected hanging paradox (i.e. you're going to be hung this week, but you won't expect it - you know it can't be friday because if friday comes you'd expect it, therefore it can't be thursday for similar reasons, etc, etc) when I was in my late teens (I think it was about 1998) and declaring to my mother that armageddon couldn't possibly come before 2000, because everyone expected it to come before then and it was supposed to come unexpectedly. That earned me a stern rebuke, and I was told never to say anything like that again.
“the first episode will be about jehovah witnesses and another episode will be about nxivm, a controversial self-empowerment group, according to the source.”.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/leah-remini-returning-to-ae-to-investigate-other-cult-like-religions/amp/.
amnesian.
Am I missing it or did it not say when the new season will air? Will it be called the same thing (seems like they might change the name since it's not about scientology anymore). I want to make sure I don't miss this.
seen in the 03/2018 watchtower study :.
"during the 2017 service year, more than 284,000 “rightly disposed” individuals symbolized their dedication to jehovah by water baptism.".
https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/watchtower-study-march-2018/baptism-requirement-for-christians/.
The numbers for the US are pretty telling, though. 28k baptized, with a publisher growth of only 3k. No matter how you interpret that, it's not promising. Even without the typical calculus that would leave you estimating that 25k left (obviously this is only an estimate and relies on these numbers being typical and sustained since baptisms and publishers aren't exactly aligned). Looking at the publisher growth as people that are soon to be getting baptized actually makes it look worse in my view. Yeah, they baptized 28k last year, but if the publisher growth stays at these levels, baptisms will inevitably dry up too.
this is one of the featured articals on jw.borg at the moment.
could it be because the young ones are googling their parents religion?, seeing the bullshit?, and calling their parents out on it?
i hope so.. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/wp20120201/adolescent-questions-faith/.
This article brings back memories for me.
Yeah, same here. The strategy of "you have doubts so we're going to study with you more" is exactly how my parents approached my questions starting when I was about 12. Repeatedly being punished with stern looks and monotonous drudgery for asking questions or expressing negative emotions taught me to repress my emotions and has had far reaching effects for my personal relationships...
