This is a very interesting topic because I know a sister who was married to a homosexual man and stayed with him for years. Back in the earlier days JW's were told that "adultery" was sex with a married person and someone of the opposite sex. So if a JW women found out her husband was having gay affairs she could not scriptually divorce her husband. Or if a JW man found out his wife was having lesbian affairs he could not divorce her. What are JW's rules on this subject now with all of the homosexuality hitting the congregations and at Bethel? Have they changed their rules on this? I use to think it was stupid that a JW could not get a divorce if his or her mate was gay or lesbian.
booker-t
JoinedPosts by booker-t
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Can a JW get a scriptual divorce if mate is "gay or lesbian"?
by booker-t inthis is a very interesting topic because i know a sister who was married to a homosexual man and stayed with him for years.
back in the earlier days jw's were told that "adultery" was sex with a married person and someone of the opposite sex.
so if a jw women found out her husband was having gay affairs she could not scriptually divorce her husband.
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What are the new Discipline terms that JW's use now?
by booker-t inwhen i was associated with jw's in the 80's and early 90's they had terms such as "disfellowship" or "public reproof for conduct unbecoming of a christian" or they would say so and so has "disassociated" themselves from the christian congregation.
now my friend tells me they have added a few more terms such as so and so is no longer an "approved associate" or so and so by their course of action has "disassociated" themselves or so and so is "no longer" one of jw's.
whats up with all these vague terms.
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booker-t
When I was associated with JW's in the 80's and early 90's they had terms such as "disfellowship" or "public reproof for conduct unbecoming of a christian" or they would say so and so has "disassociated" themselves from the christian congregation. Now my friend tells me they have added a few more terms such as so and so is no longer an "approved associate" or so and so by their course of action has "disassociated" themselves or so and so is "no longer" one of JW's. Whats up with all these vague terms. Is it a way to get out of a lawsuit. A sister that has been in the org for over 40 years told me that at one time the elders would annouce that so and so has been "disfellowshipped" for homosexuality or so and so has been "disfellowshipped" for fornication or so and so has been put on "probation" for drunkardness. I think that eventually the JW's will do away with disfellowshipping all together with the numerous lawsuits they are facing in courts all around the world.
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Did you ever report yourself to the elders for wrongdoing?
by booker-t ini remember when i got baptized in 1983 i tried to forget about a sexual encounter that i had had while i was going over my baptismal questions.
the night that i was going to confess all to the elders a friend of mine in the same congregation was "reproved" for conduct unbecoming of a christian.
before the reproof was read the elders gave a 20 min talk on premarital sex that was going on in the congregations.
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booker-t
I remember when I got baptized in 1983 I tried to forget about a sexual encounter that I had had while I was going over my baptismal questions. The night that I was going to confess all to the elders a friend of mine in the same congregation was "reproved" for conduct unbecoming of a Christian. Before the reproof was read the elders gave a 20 min talk on premarital sex that was going on in the congregations. And that anybody caught will be disfellowshipped or reproved. My mouth literally dropped to the floor because I felt that my friend had snitched on me. I told him about my encounter and swore him to secrecy. I was trembling all over and a nervous wreck. I was wondering what should I do tell the elders or just keep quiet. Since I was newly baptized I was wondering if my baptism would become invalid due to the sexual encounter. Finally the elders called me in the back of the kingdom hall and said that they wanted to meet with me. I just knew my friend had snitched on me by now. When I met with the elders I could not believe how cruel they were to me. The were asking me all kinds of questions about the sex. Did I like it? Was it the first time? Was the girl another JW? I admitted everything to them and asked them when did my friend rat on me before his reproof or after his reproof. To my suprise the elders informed me that my friend did not tell them what I had did it was my own mother that reported me to the elders. Apparently she overheard a telephone conversation I had with my girlfriend and ran to the elders. I could not believe me mom would not have come to me first but ran to the elders. The elders put me on "private reproof" and had another talk on the subject of premarital sex and the young ones. They never mentioned my name like they did my friend I think because I was not baptized at the time of the affair. They did tell me that they would publicly reprove me if it happened again. I moved out of my mom's home and got my own apartment and went buck wild. Parties, sex, everything I had always wanted to do but couldn't. That was 20 years ago and I am now DA'ed and feel that I made the best decision of my life. But as I asked in the title Have anyone out there reported yourself to the elders or kept quiet.
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How do you know Armageddon is not coming??
by Jez in.
one reason i know is because i can't believe that god would destroy billions of sinners to save millions of sinners.. i would love to hear what makes you so sure?
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booker-t
I think I have to agree with Scully on this one. Jehovah has come to be a very "Hitler-type" god that demands total controll or else he will murder you and your children at Armaggeddon. This just not seem like a god of love that the NT keeps telling me. I think that Jehovah enjoys to see people suffer. Because if he did not he would have done something by now. How long must man suffer in order to prove the point that Satan is a Liar? This just not make any sense to me whats so ever! I am tired of living on eggshells trembling that I might get destroyed, hoping that Jehovah and Jesus will show mercy on me. I think living like this has caused many people to go crazy and lose their minds. I will not live like this any longer. I am sick of JW's, I am sick of Born-Agains, I am just sick of religion period. I think that Athesist and Agnostics have a very valid point to doubt God. It is just too many rules and regulations to serve God and Jesus. Enough is Enough.
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Is the "Holy Spirit" a person or a "force"?
by booker-t ini just love the information i get off this website.
all of your(posters) comments and criticism have truly been educational to me.
i have another question that i have been pondering since leaving the wts.
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booker-t
I just love the information I get off this website. All of your(posters) comments and criticism have truly been educational to me. I have another question that I have been pondering since leaving the WTS. When I was discussing the trinity doctrine with a JW elder who has been a JW for over 40 years, the subject of the Holy Spirit came up. I just wanted to focus on the Holy Spirit and not the "Trinity" per-se. He said that the early church fathers taught that the Holy Spirit was the "influence" of the Deity and that many early church fathers believed it was "power" from the Almighty. He said that they never believed it to be a person or they would have called the Holy Spirit by a name. He asked me "Where in the Bible do we find a name for the Holy Spirit?" He also told me that if the Holy Spirit were a divine person he would have been called by a name just like the father is called Jehovah or Yahweh and the son is called Jesus. But nowhere is the Holy Spirit called by name. I mentioned to this elder that the scripture states at Matthew "baptize in the name" of the Holy Spirit. He showed me a scripture in Revelations where Jesus says his followers will have the "name" of the father and the "name" of the Lamb and the "name" of the new city on their foreheads. He asked me is the new city or Jerusalem a divine person? He told me he has showed this scripture to many born-again pastors and ministers and they never have an answer for him. He also says that the whole book of Revelation never mentions the Holy Spirit along with the Lamb and the One on the throne(the father). Again he says this proves that the Holy Spirit is not a person along with Christ and God. Also he mentions Acts 7:59 where Stephan has a vision of God and Christ but never mentions seeing the Holy Spirit. I asked him about the scripture at Acts 5:4 where it says that Annaias "lied" to the Holy Spirit. How can you "lie" to a power or force. He said the same way people can "lie" to the court or "lie" to their country or "lie" to their job. He asked me are the courts, country and a person's job a person? I was totally confused by this time after talking to him for 3 hours on the subject I left his house in a daze. What are your taughts on this subject posters this elder had an answer for just about everything I threw at him. What made it worse is that he teaches Hebrew and greek at a college so he is no amatuer when it comes to the old and new testaments.
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Do any of you ex-jws find anything wrong with Born-Again Christianity?
by booker-t inmy friend from my jw's days ran up to me on the street the other day and to my suprise he is no longer with the jw's.
it has been about 16 years since i last saw him.
he was a "devout" jw's and we used to "pioneer" together.
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booker-t
Mulan thanks for your comment. I always love your responses because you never sugar-coat things. I see many ex-jws that are now born-agains defending and closing a blind eye to whatever christianity comes out with. I think they are so angry at the WTS that Born-Again Christianity can do no wrong to them. But you always honestly admit that christians have flaws just like jws. I appreciate your honesty because I feel the same way you do in many of your comments.
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booker-t
I was visiting a friend of mine who is heavily into the "apostate" movement picketing at every assembly and I mean every assembly of JW's. He has been doing this since he was DF'd in 1993. He has asked me numerous of times to go along with him and picket in front of the assemblies but I always tell him no. One day we were having lunch and I mentioned to him that the "Trinity doctrine" just does not make sense. And he told me it does not make sense because it is false. My mouth almost hit the floor. I just assume that ex-jws that are anti-WTS and picket in front of the assemblies are now trinitarians. He said that is a stereotype people assume that just because you leave JW's that automatically you will start believing in the Trinity and Hellfire doctrine. He said that he still denounces the Trinity as unbiblical as well as the unbiblical Hellfire doctrine he just feels that JW's are wrong on alot of things. So I am taking a survey how many ex-jws out there still feel that the trinity and hellfire doctrines are false?
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What Made Things Finally "Click" With You To Know This Was Not The Truth?
by minimus infor me it was the realization that there was no "faithful & discreet slave", that all the prophecies "proving" that jehovah's witnesses are the only religion approved by god is bogus and the realization that this is a "cult" and there is no real normal sense of love and affection in the "truth".
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booker-t
I think the thing that clicked with me about the JW's was the way JW's constantly deny the WTS history of failure or gloss over it. I never knew about Beth-Serem and when the elders came to my house for a apostasy trial and I mentioned Beth-Serem they just laughed it off as if it was nothing. By this time I was fed up with the JW's for their lies and half-truths. Also what clicked in my head was the Johannes Greber scandal. JW's tried to lie and say that they only discovered that Johannes Greber was involved with the occult and that they quit quoting him in their publications in 1980 when they discovered his involvement with the occult and spiritism but again this was another lie because in 1955 and 1956 they devoted a whole Watchtower series on Johannes Greber and his occultism so they lied in their 1983 watchtower question from readers part. And the constant "new light" fiasco just did not cut it with me anymore. I began to wonder how many more things will they change in the future. And sure enough in 1995 the generation of 1914 "new light" came out in the Watchtower. But this was 4 years after I had DA'd myself in 1991 but I knew something had to change in this doctrine because all of the old-timers were dying off. And finally I resented the fact that all of the GB members as well as all of the major JW leaders were all Caucasian and none were black, hispanic or native american or women. I realized that racism existed as well as sexism existed in the lily white WTS.
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Do any of you ex-jws find anything wrong with Born-Again Christianity?
by booker-t inmy friend from my jw's days ran up to me on the street the other day and to my suprise he is no longer with the jw's.
it has been about 16 years since i last saw him.
he was a "devout" jw's and we used to "pioneer" together.
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booker-t
My friend from my JW's days ran up to me on the street the other day and to my suprise he is no longer with the JW's. It has been about 16 years since I last saw him. He was a "devout" JW's and we used to "pioneer" together. I was abit shock to see him and was alittle nervous because we were very good friends and I did not know if he knew if I was Disassociated or not. Before I could open my mouth and tell him he hugged me and said that he was so glad to see me. He told me that when I moved away from the old kingdom hall the elders went crazy and acted like a gestapo. He told me most of the JW's that I would hang out with were disfellowshipped or reproved or just faded away. He told me that he heard about my disassociation through his mother and that she told him that I was an apostate now. That is why he was glad to see me because he had many doubts and he wanted to talk to someone he felt comfortable with and not be afraid that they would run to the elders. I told him my story and what led me out. Afterwards I invited him to church with me and he shouted "no way" I could never go into a church with all of the "sins" that the churches do. He asked me how can I sit thru a church service and not feel some sort of guilt seeing all of the condoned wrongdoing. This leds to my original question As ex-jws do we turn a blind eye to the churches conduct just because we don't want to go back to the Watchtower? Why don't we as ex-jws denounce the wrongdoings of the churches the same way we do the Watchtower. I think my friend made a very good point. What are your thoughts on this posters?