Posts by OneEyedJoe

11

Today's Text - Shun Your Disfellowshipped Family Members & Friends!

by Divergent in

jw
friends

yet another sickening reminder for jw's to use emotional blackmail!.

wednesday, june 22. stop keeping company with anyone called a brother who is sexually immoral.—1 cor.

5:11.. a heartrending experience for aaron’s family is recorded at leviticus 10:1-11. they must have been devastated when fire from heaven consumed aaron’s sons nadab and abihu at the tabernacle.

OneEyedJoe

There's no explicit scriptural reason not to attend a wedding in a church, so why are they bringing this up? They claim scriptural principles apply, but provide none. If you go to the referenced watchtower article it links to a QFR from way back and the only apparent scriptural principles are:

"do not become unevenly yolked with unbelievers" - How does this apply? If they're saying that you shouldn't go to a wedding in a church because there will be unbelievers there, wouldn't that also apply to any wedding of an unbelieving family member, even if it was held at the courthouse or in someone's home? This "principle" does nothing to make their point that you shouldn't go to a wedding in a church.
"Get out of her my people" - I think we can all agree that this was not intended to literally mean to get out of a physical church building. Paul went to pagan temples to preach, so this scripture would condemn him as well if that were the case. There is no prohibition here on respectfully observing a wedding in a church. You're not joining up or donating money to false religion or providing any support or adherence simply by walking in the doors of the church building.

I have a scriptural principle for them. Do not go beyond the things written.

Edit: I guess I went off on a tangent a bit there, but this sort of thing shows them trying to go beyond even shunning DFed family to include breaking ties with family members that never converted. They influence the R/F JW to basically be a dick to anyone who's not a JW in hopes that any connections to normal people will at least die of attrition. So even if there's not explicit command to shun people that were never a JW (though lumping these things together will almost certainly result in some JWs interpreting it that way, and they know it) they are happy to try to get JWs to behave in a way that will result in their family cutting ties with them or otherwise "persecuting" them in order to keep the JW in the cult and "prove" that non-JWs are evil, selfish, and a bad influence.

38

Should I just tell my parents

by BlackWolf in

jw
friends

lately i've been feeling just so fed up with this stupid religion i really can't take it anymore!

i'm starting to think that maybe i should just tell my parents how i really feel.

if they treat me too badly or kick me out i could probably stay with my non jw aunt.. ive just reached my breaking point, i don't really care what people think of me anymore.

OneEyedJoe

Sounds like you've got a good head about you, you'll do well. I wish you all the best.

20

My life has ended (be careful what you wish for part 2)

by nevaagain in

jw
friends

noone and nothing can really prepare you for the burning pain you feel when your spouse leaves you after 8 years of marriage.

from one day to another, all your dreams, hopes and plans are shattered.. i still have so many questions which will remain unanswered in eternity.. the thread i made a few weeks ago, is part of this story.

after learning about ttatt my plans involved to wake up my wife as well and exit the truth.

OneEyedJoe

how can someone say 7,5 years into the marriage that "you are my perfect soul mate, I want to grow old with you" and half a year later, "we don't fit, we should have never married"?

It'll take a while to come to terms with things, but people change. Particularly when they realize that the majority of their life decisions have been made based on bad assumptions (i.e. the cult is true). Your wife has been living under the thumb of an oppressive cult and is now free and is probably rethinking everything that she thought she knew. Unfortunately it seems she's come to the conclusion that your marriage was something that she realized she wasn't happy with too. That's hard to take, but it happens to the best of us sometimes.

The key thing to focus on, I think, is that you now have a level of freedom to direct your own life that you've never had before. You're the boss, you control where your life goes from here. Take advantage of that and start doing the things you've been putting off for one reason or another. Start working to make your life look like you want it to look. It's painful to feel as though years of work have been wiped out, but starting from a clean slate can be liberating, too. Just because your marriage didn't last forever doesn't mean it was all bad or that it wasn't worthwhile. You had some happy times and you learned some things - the outcome doesn't invalidate that.

Give yourself time to get over it, but don't accept excuses from yourself to wallow in misery longer than necessary. Keep making progress. Keep challenging negative thoughts - for example when you think "I'll never be able to move on" stop for a moment and see if that's really true - you've got many years ahead of you and there are many examples of people moving on from this very situation - why should you be any different? Remember to take good care of yourself as well and find ways to reduce your stress. Divorce is typically considered to be the second most stressful event someone can experience (second to death of a spouse) so you're going to be dealing with a lot. Assemble your support system and rely on them to get you through. It's not selfish to ask things of people during this time, most people love having a chance to help the ones they care about so you're really giving them an opportunity that they will cherish. If your support is a little thin from your departure from the cult, then I would suggest talking to a therapist (especially if you have EAP through your job, if now's not the time to use it, I don't know when you would) or find a support group for people in a similar situation. If nothing else, you're doing a good thing by coming here to vent.

You will get through this, people manage to do it all the time. We're all pulling for ya.

11

Protest

by Coded Logic in

had a great turn out today protesting against the baptist minister who praised the orlando massacre.

my best guess is there were around 1,200 of us there.

it was an entirely peaceful protest as we chanted "love conquers hate" and "we are orlando".

OneEyedJoe

Well done, sir.

3

Reason for New Songs

by berrygerry in

i had a dream the other day of going to the meeting - did a checklist:.

songbook - check.

bible - check .

OneEyedJoe

I agree. I think the new songs are their way of testing the waters and getting people used to either using a tablet/phone for everything or having to print things out themselves.

38

Should I just tell my parents

by BlackWolf in

jw
friends

lately i've been feeling just so fed up with this stupid religion i really can't take it anymore!

i'm starting to think that maybe i should just tell my parents how i really feel.

if they treat me too badly or kick me out i could probably stay with my non jw aunt.. ive just reached my breaking point, i don't really care what people think of me anymore.

OneEyedJoe

That's a really tough spot to be in. I'm usually of the opinion that you're best off bit boxing yourself in, i.e. try to keep as many future options open as possible. Would it be possible to pitch living with your aunt without going full apostate on them? Depending on what your parents are like, they may be more likely to let you go if you don't tell them your reason is to get out of the cult. Telling them you don't believe it may mean they try to push it on you harder.

Also, try not to limit yourself to thinking there's only two options. There may be other choices that are less obvious that get you the desired result, perhaps with less cost.

Sorry this probably isn't too helpful. I feel for ya, you're in a shit situation. It is temporary, though. You'll get through this no matter what happens.

95

slimboyfat joins the Mormons!

by slimboyfat in

i know that some people on the board have experience of being mormons, so i would be interested in your feedback.

at church this afternoon it was an uncanny experience.

in the past i've read a lot about mormons, so i thought i was prepared in general for what it would be like.

OneEyedJoe

The second talk about about a lapsed member who returned to the church after 20 years. What was keeping him back? The obligation to tithe. But when he returned to church he realised people worse off than himself tithed so he felt moved to meet his obligation. Again not a talk you would hear in a Kingdom Hall.

Sounds to me like that's a talk you'd expect to hear at a JW cult meeting. Maybe not about tithing, but they love to give examples of people who come back after realizing they were being too prideful or whatever.

JWs also love to play the "there's people worse off than you that are doing/giving more" guilt game. I remember not too long ago a CO gave a talk in which he went on and on about how the impoverished brothers in Africa had such a giving spirit that they often donated more for the literature that they used than it cost, but there are some congregations in the US where they don't cover the cost of their literature. He asked "how bad would you feel if you learned that someone in poverty was subsidizing your literature?"

Anyway good luck with that. It may not be as bad of a cult as JWs but it's on the cult end of the spectrum. Remember that the experience of a newcomer is often specially tailored and not representative of reality for the rest of the group. Cultists justify lying to potential converts, so who knows if what he said about shunning is the full truth. I just can't imagine joining a group like that just to have a shortcut to superficial friends and a little song and dance when you know the doctrine is so insane. Not to mention the cost... I could have a much better time if I blew 10% of my income on going to fun events vs going to a church.

133

Why Are You Here?

by Believer in

i'm wondering why believers remain members of this forum which is clearly hostile to believers.

as one member said, nonbelievers pounce on any semblance of belief like piranhas on prey.

as former jws we should have had our fill of judgmental know-it-alls, but here we are.

OneEyedJoe

I don't see this forum as hostile to believers. Facts are hostile to belief, though, and there are several here that prefer to have discussions based on fact. There are also many that don't like to let statements that are unsupported by evidence stand unchallenged. That can also be hostile to belief if that belief isn't based in fact.

6

Moments Of Clarity As A Born In JW

by JW_Rogue in

-when i was in my early teens we were studying the revelation book for the second time.

the first time i didn't understand much but the second time i remember that my family had quite a lengthy discussion about the lake of fire.

they were trying make sense of the scripture and the jw interpretation.

OneEyedJoe

I actually went to college and continued as an auxiliary pioneer, I think for a short period they relaxed on the higher education thing as long you weren't leaving home to go live in a dorm.

Yup. I was lucky enough to be of college age during the belief period in which it was 8 conscience matter. When they started try demonize it again, i couldn't help but refute every one of their arguments based on personal experience. I was not subjected to pressure to do drugs or engage in sexual acts (well I was pressured to have sex, but only by my own biology) or anything else. My education even paid for itself in the first year of my employment in the industry. I was, however, taught to think logically and exposed to worldviews that went contrary to that of a JW. Looking at it objectively, I saw that their stance only made sense if they were trying to keep people from looking at their doctrine from the perspective of someone that isn't already indoctrinated.

6

Moments Of Clarity As A Born In JW

by JW_Rogue in

-when i was in my early teens we were studying the revelation book for the second time.

the first time i didn't understand much but the second time i remember that my family had quite a lengthy discussion about the lake of fire.

they were trying make sense of the scripture and the jw interpretation.

OneEyedJoe

In honor of Kurt Vonnegut, I call these vin-dits.

I remember the talk about the statue of Daniel and thinking "that's new?" Only to find out that this was something of a flip flop back to a previously held doctrine. Maybe that's not entirely accurate (I never actually researched it) but it made me realize that new light wasn't really important since it would only change again one day.

My moments of clarity were mostly with regards to shunning and the higher education ban. Everytime i listened to speakers extol the virtues if either of these, I found myself thinning "if I were leading a cult, that's definitely something I'd include." It's amazing how long one can continue in the cult even while suspecting the truth.