not sure if this is a "made up" email or not -- sounds like any other talk you've ever heard..... .
>a talk recently given by brother guy pierce ... .
>safeguard your spirituality by training your perceptive powers .
I really hope this isn't a talk by a GB member...I know things were getting simplistic when I pulled away but not this simplistic. Even if this is an outline, I could hardly consider a mash up of several different themes a full talk...
If this is real then maybe I am just finding it much easier to see the childishness of most instruction talks.
hi all.. many of you have probably seen my posts on here before, but if you haven't let me reinterate my story in short for you.. i am currently dating a wonderful guy, but the problem is he has been considering becoming a jw.
he has studdied with them for about a year.
because of me has agreed to do some religion searching and figure out what he really believes.
but the thing about disfellowshipping is that it doesn't happen without the coaperation of the person who's actually getting disfellowshipped. the only way that action is taken is if that person has talked to the elders about something that they have done and they didn't show a repentant attitude about it. if they didn't want to talk to the elders then they don't have to do it and as long as they don't, they won't be disfellowshipped.
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I have known several former Witnesses disfellowshipped after speaking in confidence of privacy to an elder about a private matter and they were showing a "repentant attitude" about their situation. In fact, in many situations, disfellowshipping someone is used more as a punitive measure (shame the person & deter others) then as a loving measure to get someone to repent.
Also, you say that it is hard to live "your life according to the things god expects of us"...what if living that way comes in direct contrast to what the WTS preaches? Many times throughout the history of Jehovah's Witnesses there have been teachings that were totally incorrect (especially chronology) and yet if you didn't follow those incorrect teachings then you would be disfellowshipped for apostasy...you can honestly say it is correct to not correctly follow God's word just because a man-made organization teaches differently at the time?
BTW, Amelia, your photo looks awfully familiar...have you posted here under a different name before?
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does anyone know?
i heard it through the grapevine, that there is to be one this sunday.. jez
They will be releasing an updated version of the Organized to Accomplish Your Ministry Book and handing out a copy to each baptized JW. I think there is a thread around here on it.
While I find it hard to even look at the literature these days, I am curious to what exactly did they change so that they needed an updated copy of the Organized book. Maybe they made the baptismal questions multiple choice...
the following story sent chills down my spine.
people do go 'crazy' in all kinds of stressful situations, they go into a homocidal 'mode' for who knows what reasons.
it's just when it happens in a church...a place that is supposed to be there for the "peace and happiness" of the members...?
saying his job as a contractor for GE Healthcare in Waukesha was due to end March 25 but he wasn't being fired (what???)
He is a contractor, Blondie, and thusly he had a set time period for the job that he was doing. For instance, there are many computer programmers who do contract work for a year with a company and then do another contract with someone else...basically, his contract was expiring 3/25 so he wouldn't have any more work with the current company he was at.
as a jw, when i'd find out someone got disfellowshipped, i'd shake my head and think, "what a selfish person.
choosing immorality (it had to be immorality) over jehovah.
i hope i never make such bad choices.
I DA'd for the same reason that seattleniceguy did...my family wouldn't of gotten the point that I truly didn't believe in my stance if I didn't DA myself. It might be playing their "game" but to my family it is no "game" so I had to do something on their thinking level which showed that I no longer considered myself a JW and DAing was the best thing to do. Also, I didn't want to have any attachment to the WTS organization...
To answer the topic, I always looked at disfellowshipped brothers & sisters with pity because I felt that they were too weak to do what is right...there were a fair share though that I felt needed it to get themselves in line (oh man, I can't believe I thought like that). Disassociating didn't come up much since I lived near Watchtower Farms and the elders in that area are "on top of things" (translation: they are in everyone's business)...I only remember one brother disassociating and he ended up going back to the meetings after a couple of years.
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i was wondering how many here take special precautions, like deleting internet files and clearing your internet history, so that no one else may use your computer and find out that you're visiting apostate forums and reading apostate literature.. maybe some won't even put a jwd icon on their desktop, just incase a jw family member could see it.. .
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I have no need to...the people I am around now could care less about JWs and my family "socially shuns" me so they wouldn't be in a position to see what I read or do on my PC.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3339730/site/newsweek/
dr. suki tepperberg, a family physician in dorchester, mass., has concerns about those who put too much faith in god?s will.
one of her patients, a jehovah?s witness who has diabetes and hypertension, believes her illness is in god?s hands and she sometimes eats destructively, harming her health.
This is one of those rare occasions where I say that the WTS is a small factor with this lady's feelings...while there have been many stories of prayer supposedly being a deciding factor in someone's health getting better, the WTS also always said that someone should follow proper medical advice of their doctor (as long as it doesn't go against their "bible trained" principles...snicker). I can't stand people who are so self-destructive and then have the nerve to say that God will bail them out...
my wife is getting baptized on the 19th.
there is nothing i can do or say to stop it.
we have 3 children, and i am from a broken home, so i can't imagine divorcing.
My dad wasn't a witness and one thing I definitely remember was that he never pushed his beliefs on me...he also stressed having an open mind and "do the dirty work yourself" (researching, asking questions, don't just rely on other people's word). Although it didn't really click when I was a teenager, the things he taught did help me to resist the feeling that I was wrong in asking questions about the JW doctrines when I did...
i've taken a leaf from holly's book to thank your for having me on the forum - thirteen interesting days but came to realise one cannot achieve much speaking from behind a screen.
people do not know who you really are, nor do you they.
i read many of holly's posts but few others.
To those who are ex witnesses whose hearts may be recoverable. You may know by now that most of the 'information' posted to the forum is not true, and that it would be totally ludicrous if it were not so full of hopelessness, hatred and outright wickedness, and that reading it only deepens your despair. You also know that going to the Kingdom Hall and/or approaching the elders in the congregation of your choice will be the start of extricating yourself from whatever disastrous situation you have gotten yourself into The initiatives should come from you.
That is why the elders didn't know jack about the UN situation when I asked them...or they couldn't answer me about the numerous misquotes I found in various publications...and why my own mother who is a registered nurse can't even follow the changes in the blood policy. There is no malice in my heart though...if someone who I knew as a witness called me tomorrow to just talk then I wouldn't angrily hang up on them but instead welcome the call even if I rather not be preached to.
As for any "disastrous situations" I am in, I laugh because I came a lot closer to a mental breakdown as a JW...now, I am making friends that aren't the Watchtower's "worldy drug using" image of every non-witness. The fact that you immediately pigeonhole all former witnesses here as inept spiteful losers shows that you should open your eyes and acknowledge that the people here aren't some archetype that you have been fed for years but instead living humans who couldn't get answers in the places they trusted most. How can you offer help to anyone when you already dismiss them?
anybody remember this?
two people who are disfellowshipped can't talk to one another and can't even carpool to the meeting.
i seem to remember this vaguely mentioned in a previous thread.
He then said blankly, "Well, that puts it all on us!" (the JW family) to which I agreed and he had nothing else to say. The mind control is so obvious once you're out.
Wonder why he was asking you to write for permission to talk to him...you aren't the one under the mental dictatorship of the WTS, he is. Like he said, it is his own self-imposed responsibility as long as he is a JW...
Back on topic, this is one of the silliest things I have ever heard...once you are disfellowshipped, they have already said you are no longer a JW so how can they dictate who you associate with? I would love for them to take the same stand on their new recruits...
