i really did not know what to title this post so i just put how i felt.
where do i begin?
well due to my past experiences with religion.
Lady Kay I echo Flying high now. So sorry about your brother. And hell is an unchristian doctrine, (JWs are at least right on that score!). The (un)christian lady seemed to be talking about bad karma coming your way, but this is an empty superstition and has no place in christianity.
I hope you are with kind friends and family right now.
since fading, i've noticed my 'self-control' is better.
i mean by that, things that i really believe are wrong or not good for me, i find easier to resist.
not that i did anything 'gross' before, but just things like being gluttonous, bitchy, dishonest, materialistic, all those things that i don't want to do because i know they have bad consequences but do anyway sometimes (because of being 'imperfect'?).
Since fading, i've noticed my 'self-control' is better. I mean by that, things that I really believe are wrong or not good for me, I find easier to resist. Not that I did anything 'gross' before, but just things like being gluttonous, bitchy, dishonest, materialistic, all those things that I don't want to do because i know they have bad consequences but do anyway sometimes (because of being 'imperfect'?). And this in spite of me having lost any respect for the WTs 'guidance' and rules (unless they fit in with my view/conscience).
I wondered about this, and my theory is that JWs are expected to have SO MUCH self-control over things like meeting attendance, witnessing, personal study, submissiveness, even their thoughts and attitudes, that they just can't do it all and end up lapsing into 'sin' . There is only so much self-control a human can have and we have to direct it at the things that matter and that we truly believe in, not a set of rules dumped on us from an external source over which we have no control. So the WT's emphasis on self-control can backfire through sheer overload of expectations.
What do others think of my theory about self-control? Anyone had similar personal experience?
trumangirl
i was raised a witness for fifty years to watch world events, now i am aproching my retirement years and still no armagedon.
where is it?
Matt 24:23 - "Then if anyone says to you 'Look! Here is the Christ' or 'There!' do not believe it". v 27 - "For just as the lightening comes out of the eastern parts and shones over the western parts, so the presence of the son of man will be".
Jesus did warn us not to believe claims like what the WT makes. If only we'd listened earlier! When/(if?) Jesus kingdom does come, it's going to be as obvious as sheet lightening!
AND most importantly, we won't be judged based on how much marketing of WT magazines we did!! YAY bring on the kingdom I say!
trumangirl
i was looking back and a month ago there was a topic about e-watchman and who he was and why he would expose the wt with one side of his mouth and encourage loyalty with the other side.
i wonder if these might be the reasons.... 1. he himself claims to be of the anointed and truly believes he is helping to expose the "evil slave" amongst jehovah's people.. 2. by encouraging loyalty to the wt he doesn't scare away the numberous active witnesses who read his columns and send in questions.
they read and stay in the congregations.
I was quite taken by ewatchman when I first discovered him - in fact his site was the first JW-based one I ever visited as a borg - a relative emailed a link to it to me. It enabled me to realise that to leave the org does not necessarily mean abandoning faith in God and the bible and having no hope. It broke through the sense of 'loyalty' I felt for the 'faithful and discreet slave'. To use a phrase, it was like 'scales falling from my eyes'.
Ewatchman is great on prophecies - he demolishes 1914 and the WT's other erroneous interpretations of prophecy. And he relates his interpretations to real life history and current events - most intriguing and plausible. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating - ie if the precursors to armagedon happen as he says, then we'll be justified in sitting up and taking more notice.
Where he falls down in my view is his unreasonable insistence that JWs are "Jehovah's organisation" despite so much evidence to the contrary. It is possible to take the concept of armageddon seriously without believing that God presently has a chosen organisation. Some ewatchman fans will try to stay in the org, but I tried this and found it too stressful - I found it stressful trying to stay quiet about things, having had my mind opened I wanted to study everythingelse besides the WT, and my social life was a nothing anyway because I was labelled as 'weak'.
Overall I think the net affect of ewatchman will be a loss of JWs out of the org. Which is good.
trumangirl
hey watchtoer dubbies!
i dare you to disfellowship me at the meeting!
my parents are david & patricia bush.
Oh and Valis, is that really your nipple? It kinda grosses me.
trumangirl.
hey watchtoer dubbies!
i dare you to disfellowship me at the meeting!
my parents are david & patricia bush.
Onacruse, are you really from Afghanistan?
Also, what is a cajone? Is it testicles?
trumangirl
you know, the last little thing that blew your patience out of the water and forced you to face up to the fact that you were in a cult that doesn't believe in the bible so much as it believes in it's own power structure?.
for me it was beards.
stupid i know and possibly the most trivial of things to be 'stumbled' over but to me it was the epitomy of what was wrong with the witnesses - arbitrary rules poking their noses into the lives of people where they had no business.
THX1138 - what is that? is it like DDT or TNT?
Trumangirl
exactly what does it mean to have "an elder mentality"?
i'm curious.
elders didn't exist when i left the jw's.
Last year, before I left, I noticed our congo had 9 ex-elders - all good, mature family men as far as I could tell - but worn down by the quick-build hall preparations. The remainnig elders either really old, or young ministerial-school trained single pioneering replacement elders.
The elders who are really caring give it up, or suffer a breakdown. I feel sorry for the ones who care, weighed down with administrative work and talks, when they would rather be helping the flock in practical ways. No glory for the latter things though in the org.
trumangirl
you know, the last little thing that blew your patience out of the water and forced you to face up to the fact that you were in a cult that doesn't believe in the bible so much as it believes in it's own power structure?.
for me it was beards.
stupid i know and possibly the most trivial of things to be 'stumbled' over but to me it was the epitomy of what was wrong with the witnesses - arbitrary rules poking their noses into the lives of people where they had no business.
When i started parttime university I cottoned on that you can't say you know what's true till you've considered the counter-argument, which we weren't allowed to do because that was apostate territory. At the same time a close relative got DF'd and I realised how cultish the DF policy was. These insights helped me take the step to go on internet when a close relative sent me a link to ewatchman. Internet confirmed my doubts, along with Ray Franz' books.
After learning all the hypocrisy and untruth of the GB, I thought of staying on to the odd meeting for some social and spiritual fellowship, but realised that I would eventually talk, be labelled and possibly DF'd. So my efforts to build friendships were hollow. So stopped attending.
Trumangirl
what do you find yourself doing differently?.
do you ever feel a little shocked when your opinions on certain things have changed?
things that you were once so adamantly against?.
Deep down, tho being brought up in truth, i've always been a feminist, non-judgmental, non-black-and-white, a bit risque on the joke side. But then there was the JW side ... A colleague once said I was an enigma. Now there's no JW side, I'm just ME, what a relief!
And I now say "I believe.." not "We believe..".
Trumangirl
