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...
cypher50
JoinedPosts by cypher50
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45
My wife is joining, how do I keep her from leaving me?
by Check_Your_Premises inmy 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.
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78
and its 'goodbye from him'
by dostprefer ini'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.
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cypher50
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?
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37
WT Rule: Disfellowshipped Should Shun One Another!
by Swan inanybody 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.
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cypher50
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...
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30
Brother Being Duped by Warlock
by Sparkplug infor the sake of being legally correct... today i was told a person i work with is a jw.
there is a man at work who is not...he is apostate too.
really off the deep end though...conciders himelf a warlock and trys to cast spell, shapeshift and be a jedi.
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cypher50
trys to cast spell, shapeshift and be a Jedi.
Maybe he cast Magic Missle on the poor JW...
LMAO, this sounds like a script to a sketch on Saturday Night Live..."The Jehovah's Witness & Stan The Emo Goth Geek".
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33
Are/Were California witnesses REALLY different?
by TMS inrumors and urban legends abound with respect to california .
witnesses.
my suspicion is that envy and the hollywood personna.
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cypher50
I was told that the further away from NY Bethel you got the more relaxed the congregations. But then you find that brothers wear cowboy boots and string ties on the platform out west and that JWs in urban areas are more "stylish" than in the country congregations.
So true...I grew up by Watchtower Farms (Middletown North & Bloomingburg congregations) and the difference was startling when I moved to Atlanta in 1998. For one thing, there seemed to be more of a relaxed atmosphere at the congregation but people also seemed to not study scriptures & doctrines as much once you are away from the Bethel sites. It didn't strike me till I was away from that strict Bethel atmosphere how much this religion is more about a slave mentality then actual substance.
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25
JW DF'd for Eating Candy Cane
by blondie innews
jehovah's witness accidentally eats candy cane .
above: kimberly flemmel mourns her excommunication from the jehovah's witness congregation after eating a candy cane .
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cypher50
Damn, that was hilarious...when the writer started using the word "Jehovian", I was literally laughing out loud. Sad part is that at first I could imagine something this silly actually happening ...
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21
Why is it that a JW can't say Happy New Year?
by kls innew-years eve my husband and i went to my sister's house to bring in the new-year.
my sister knowing much about jws cornered my husband and said " happy new-year don" and he replied" yep it's a 2005".
i have been away from the bs of jwism for a long time and for the life of me i can not remember why it is wrong to celebrate a new year.
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cypher50
Growing up, one of the few times I saw my family on my dad's side (the non-JW side) was when we had a big family reunion on New Year's Day. I wasn't crazy about my cousins but it was special to be around family and just having fun...then my Mom had that stopped because she felt it was another way of celebrating a holiday. :-|
Thank god I am out of that BS.
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WATCHTOWER IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK!
by badboy in.
i see in the 1 january 2005 watchtower that it has a r surrounded by a circle indicating that watchtower is a registered trademark.. when did this happen?
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cypher50
I would think that it has been trademarked for an extremely long time...
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32
Reggie White died :(
by xenawarrior indead at the age of 43. a sad day indeed.
i had the pleasure of working with reggie and his wife sara on several community projects when they lived in green bay and he was an awesome human being.
huntersville, n.c. dec 26, 2004 ?
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cypher50
I find America's obsession with professional sports distressing, when tens of thousands of lives are ended, and one man's death gets equal attention in the media because he can do tricks with a ball.
That is a generalization that I think is unfair & untrue...I have seen much more coverage on this earthquake & tsunami then on Reggie White's passing. Unless you are constantly watching ESPN or live in maybe a city where White played, that statement you made isn't close to being true; also, if you aren't a football fan then you wouldn't know that White was known for his outspoken views on Christianity (well, outspoken for a football player)...I would expect to find at least a couple of people posting about his death here given the religious nature of the site. No one in this thread even tried to establish that this was more important or less important then other news of the day...it was just important enough that it warranted a thread to discuss it.
As for Mr. White, I find it funny that a reporter on ESPN who was working on a piece about Reggie stated that he hadn't attended a church in 4 years and was learning Hebrew because he felt that he didn't know the truth of Christianity. He also did state that the biggest regret he had in life was that speech he made in front of the Wisconsin legislature...
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Fortress Kingdom Halls
by Gill ina new kingdom hall has just been built very close to where we live.
it is taking on the appearance of fort knox now, much like some other khs near us.
the high fences with nasty sharp bits are just going up and there are floodlights on at night.
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cypher50
at your list, fjtoth. I remember a friend asking why JWs have such fortress-like places of worship and all I could respond was that JWs don't build elaborately expensive edifices (I was still a JW). I never noticed until I left how incredibly stark the Kingdom Halls actually look...even the Puritans had churches that looked inviting to visit.