Posts by itsallgoodnow

37

cleaning the mind and the implanting of right thinking . . . 1970 Yearbook

by garybuss in

jw
friends

yearbook of jehovah's witnesses 1970 p.9.

watch tower bible & tract society of pennsylvania 1969 need for mental cleansing.

it is evident, therefore, that there must be a cleaning out of the mind if there is to be an implanting of right thinking.

itsallgoodnow

I substituted all gut feeling for what the watchtower taught. Dear God, please forgive me... ;)

It's a great thing our gut doesn't give up on us long after our brains have shut down.

162

Goodbye everyone

by holly in

jw
friends

its time to leave.

i have had all the answers i need to make a firm decision.

thank you so much everyone for your replies, for talking to me over the last few weeks and for some of the humour.. i believe the jws are right and that they have the truth.

Hate filled creatures....

by a friend in need in

jw
friends

i should have started an new thread ... didn't realize so many would jump in on holly's post.

i may have used too strong of words in saying 'hate filled' by why do you all call someone who disagrees with you a 'troll'.

i disagree with lots of people without resorting to name calling.

itsallgoodnow

AFIN, it sounds like perhaps you don't understand the meaning of troll? In this context, it's not being used as a random insult. It means someone who posts under some ruse to stir up trouble, etc.

Yeah, I think AFIN is all too aware what the internet meaning of "troll" is... I use that expression all the time, and I don't mean it as a personal insult, but in this context. While you are up on your high horse over name-calling, AFIN, "hate-filled-creatures" is a good way to get the mudslinging going!

26

Am I a bad person to ask Why?

by rockhound in

in the light of thinking that i am a person of reason, having a measure of good sense, and not wanting to go against the flow of the main stream, i now look back and wonder "why did it take me 40 years to wake up and smell the roses" about the organization?

when the big fiasco, and i mean big fiasco, of 1975 came and went, didn't i know down deep that i had been chasing "parked cars" spiritually?

with my spiritual nose bleeding i just hung in there with the rest and didn't make a fuss.

itsallgoodnow

FDS-

You all are talking like it is so clear NOW but so unlcear back when you were active? I tend to think that if one was so moved to leave the WT over a date that would see an end to the work then they were working towards that alone, THEY desired the world to end and when it failed they felt like all the work that was done was a waste. Yeah I question motives, you bet ya. Not all witnesses left for "good reasons" yet the mentality is any reason is better than no reason" but that does not MEAN that the Witness is now a good person anymore than he was being in a cult.

You are completely forgetting the social pressures involved that keep people trapped even after they have started to feel uncomfortable about things, and sometimes even after they are sure it's all lies.

I can really tell you have not fully left behind your judgemental JW mindset. Now everyone who has left needs to prove to you their motives for leaving were pure? Yeah, right. All you really accomplish here is letting us all know you think yours were. Still waving that finger at everyone. I shudder to think what you might have been like as a Witness, if this is improvement.

People leave cults for different reasons... kicked out, found out or walked out. And what they go through afterward sometimes depends on how they left it, but how can you sit there and think people on a JW support board aren't doing something about it and becoming better people? Sure, some JWs were jerks and after they left are probably still jerks, but I still can't figure out what that has to do with anything, unless you are talking about yourself?

Again, not one WITNESS takes any blame for his actions, it's all the bad-cultic-organization's fault, we were blinded by the light, "How were we to know". Take responsibility in your actions

Obviously, you haven't read the many, many posts where we talked about our own roles in all of this. Moron.

but do not preach to me about my responces on a public message board being unkind or unfriendly. Unlike the Kingdom Hall we can talk about our feelings openly, you don't have to like what I say but I will say it regardless.

Oh, please. Your posts #2-7 are spitting fire, you deserve it. Thanks for your permission to not like what you say, I don't - most of it seems very hateful. I don't know where you get with that attitude if your intent really is to lend support on a SUPPORT forum.

Rock, I am glad you left, I really am but do others who do not at present share your feelings about leaving, there are 1,019,000, active Jehovah's Witnesses still stuck in the Watchtower who have not let "75" bother them enough to leave. Sure many did who spent their time preaching the end was soon but this falls on deaf ears now. What it seems to me is that it takes a PERSONAL issue of sorts to cause the questioning in the first place. It's just that you are out, it's time you share more than "75", certainly after 40 years you have seen other things that will effect (help) others who might be reading this web site. Remember how you felt and thought of folks like yourself when you were active, it's an easy thing to see lies and falsehoods once you are out but you already know the "Wait on Jehovah" syndrom effecting current memebers. If we are to reach others then we need to meet them as THEY are, not as WE ARE.

Rockhound is just posting his thoughts, he's not speaking directly to an audience of JW believers. If you were counseling him on an address he had just given to an audience of current JWs, I would understand the point you are making here, but why jump all over him for a message on a forum about 75, etc.? Jeez!

Although I am interested to know how is that working for you - - focusing on the personal issues instead of dates, etc.? In my experience, you can't talk to a current JW about dates and failed prophecies. They have to begin smelling a rat on their own before they are ready to talk rationally about that.

26

Am I a bad person to ask Why?

by rockhound in

in the light of thinking that i am a person of reason, having a measure of good sense, and not wanting to go against the flow of the main stream, i now look back and wonder "why did it take me 40 years to wake up and smell the roses" about the organization?

when the big fiasco, and i mean big fiasco, of 1975 came and went, didn't i know down deep that i had been chasing "parked cars" spiritually?

with my spiritual nose bleeding i just hung in there with the rest and didn't make a fuss.

itsallgoodnow

Rockhound - that was interesting information - thanks very much for posting it.

FDS - you seem to be speaking out of both sides of your mouth when you say...

do you ever look into the mirror and wonder how many of those you personally lead to the organization have let themselves of their children DIE because the organization said so?

Every person is different but if someone tried to sit down with you and show you these things while you were on fire for the organization would you have listened? As for dates, that is EASY, anyone could have read up on the Watchtower prior to joining. Kingdom of the cults comes to MIND and that has been out long. Specifically one could even gets hints of this in the Watchtower and their books but if one really took the time to check into all this then maybe just maybe they would have not joined but I know a few right now who already are showing the JW mind-set and they are not baptized. Truth is an active JW does not let old light bother him much, there are countless thousands who went through 75 yet "wait upon Jehovah" to clear matters up (they will be waiting a long time). I believe every witness has "heard" of past failures unless you were not one to knock on many doors....

So you are asking Rockhound to have a guilt trip over all the people he brought into this cult who physically lost their lives because of it. How can you assume he brought anybody into it? And if he did, then according to the second statement above, they should have checked it out themselves and Rockhound isn't the guilty one, but the deceived individual himself is. Pick a side.

Also,

I find it amazing that one who spent fourty years going door to door let something so trivial as the 1975 thing break your faith. Let's be honest for a moment, certainly you must of had issues prior to the 1975 failure? Could it really have just been a nail in the coffin so to speak? I question this because the 1975 thing was not that big a deal, well anymore than 1925, 1918, 1916 and 1914 had been.

Who are you to decide when Rockhound should have started smelling a rat and what should have made him think it was time to re-examine his beliefs? From my own personal experiences, I had questions which I just swallowed and didn't think about for a long time, much less do anything about them. And how would you know what effect 1975 had on Rockhound personally? Maybe he put off important decisions and missed opportunities he later regretted. When you get out and realize it's all crap, that could hit you kind of hard.

And, 1975 was not a big deal? From the quotes I have read from the Watchtower's publications about it, I can see how a person who fully trusts the Watchtower in everything could believe it.

So sit here on a WWW site and tell the world how many wasted years you had as one of Jehovah's servants, whos fault was that Rock? You might have not had any sharks but perhaps thousands of gupies nipping at your heels to have got some idea that something was wrong.

I think the point Rockhound was making was why did it take him so long to figure it out. Why are you so relentless in attacking him for not seeing it earlier? I hardly think a person with your attitude could be very good at helping anyone out of a cult.

A cult. This too is very subjective and depends on who is making the claim. Many Fundemental Christians can be labeled as a "cult" and in fact many who claim to have the "truth" do this very thing. You don't believe in the body of Jesus raising from the dead? You're a "cult" No Trinity? Cult. Cult becomes a free for all based on IF one disagrees with the speaker's beliefs. Many religions claim to be the truth, many ex JWs now claim to have found the "truth" in another reiglion based upon the Watchtower and it's mistakes. Again, just because the organization has made some false statements does not make another religion's teachings right.

I agree it's difficult to determine if a group really fits into the definition of a cult, and that the term is used by different cults against other cults to keep their believers from defecting to another cult. I think it's safe to say Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult, based on a few characteristics that they meet full-on...

1. The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
2. The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
3. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
4. The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel.
5. The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members.
6. The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
7. The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
8. Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.
9. Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group.
10. Members are encouraged or required to socialize only with other group members.

FDS also said...

I did not say that the Watchtower as a GROUP has not praticed lies. They must for the better of the flock.

For the betterment of the flock, or for the protection of their own authority?

Better ask yourself this, "What am I doing to help those I personally mislead into the organization"?

I cannot help but feel revolted by your thinly veiled contempt in this question. Besides the fact it almost sounds like a Watchtower "how can I do more to reach those in my neighborhood/job/school?" or some shit.

You may be riding high about how much you are "doing" to personally help others, but it's rather difficult to believe if that's really what you are about you would come out here and try to bring others down this way. Rockhound is doing fine by investing his time on this discussion board. If he finds an opportunity to help someone "personally" I have no doubt he will take it.

37

Opposition to this site

by Crumpet in

jw
friends

i have only been a recent user of this site.

the other night i explained what it was i was spending time reading online some evenings when my boyfriend is out and tried to explain how it is helping me finally let go of the jw beliefs that i have clung to for so long.

i thought he would be pleased, but he got really angry and now is very difficult any time i try to use the internet at home.

itsallgoodnow

Hi Crumpet!

I think it's strange that he got really angry about you visiting the site. I've seen people mention their S/O's don't like how much time they spend on the forum and stuff, but I don't know. Is he a jealous type? Does he mind if you have friends or go out with people when he's not around? Or would he mind if you joined a different kind of message board that was unrelated? I can't see why an ex-JW support group should bother him. If it's what you need right now, he should be more understanding. I would be really bothered by this. Hopefully he'll come around and begin to understand how much this could help.

23

Wanderlustguy and his addiction to JWD - admitting he has a problem

by wanderlustguy in

jw
friends

you...you...people.

i blame all of you, every stinkin one of ya.

i just looked up and realized i lost 3 hours of my day to this place.

itsallgoodnow

I used to have that same problem, too! This is the first message board I ever started using regularly and I think it got me addicted to message boards. I thought I was getting better, I can even skip looking at this board for several days at a time now with no trouble, though I've really only replaced one addiction for another. Now a sports related forum has been taking most of my time... it's hopeless.

25

Do you let JW's make you feel insignificant?

by Dragonlady76 in

i have read so many posts and topics about how people are treated after leaving the org.

so i would like to share with you my take on this.. i cannot help but notice that most people seem to feel that they are looked down upon by the jw's.

whether it be from shunning: a mean look,comments, avoiding someone etc... i can honestly say that i have never felt this way, and i have run into several jw's since i left.

itsallgoodnow

I totally agree with what you're saying Dragonlady. I secretly think they are idiots and I while I know they have a low opinion of me, I realize their opinion is tainted with moronic brainwashed stupidity, and they are really angry that I have the guts to think for myself, mostly that I don't get pushed around by them anymore.

40

Are boxer briefs gay???

by Elsewhere in

jw
friends

i was just watching a sit-com and someone made a reference to boxer briefs as being a sign a guy is gay.

i like boxer briefs!

they are the best of both worlds... a combination of boxers and briefs.

itsallgoodnow

What is this? Underwear day? There's an "are thongs sexy?" thread, a "is going commando gay?" thread, or something like that, and now this one. I guess we've got underwear on the brain today!

Boxer briefs are delicious. Not gay, definitely.

290

New brother in here!

by defd in

jw
friends

hey yall just wanted to say hi.

today is my 1st day here.

i hope this is a good site for jehovahs people.

itsallgoodnow

Wow, this must be a record breaker or something. Viewed over 5000 times since started this morning and 13 pages already! I guess we like this guy.

Yeah, he knows what he's doing.