You did the best you could with the tools you had at the time in your mental and emotional arsenal. Nobody can fault you for doing the best you could with what you had. Acceptance means letting go of the hope that things could have been different. How could they, if you were doing your best? Nobody wakes up one day and says, "I'm going to raise my family in a cult and harm them". You weren't malicious. You need to work on understanding how all of this worked and forgiving yourself.
dubstepped
JoinedPosts by dubstepped
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13
Robbing your child of a normal upbringing
by RiverPeace inhappy to be joining you!.
i am a 75 year old, who was baptized in 1968. had the full-on jw experience.
elder since 1974. reg pioneered 20 years.
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To The Australian Government .Have Jehovah`s Witnesses signed the Redress scheme ?
by smiddy3 inmaybe i`m a just a bit more impatient than some ,but the govt.
did say they will name and shame those who do not sign up to the redress scheme didn`t they ?
and take away their special priveledges , etc.?.
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dubstepped
To demonstrate that they are bending over backwards to be reasonable and fair, and that the Org has had absolutely every chance to do the right thing, will not, and have therefore condemned themselves by their own actions...
Haven't they already? Define "every" chance. March is another chance. April? May? 2022? 2023? Why really even put a limit on it?
...and when their tax-exemption is finally revoked, they will have zero legitimate cause to whine about "persecution", or (more importantly from the secular authorities' POV) waste the courts' time and money trying to fight the results.
They already have zero legitimate cause to whine about persecution. Zero. It's been years. They will whine about persecution anyway, this does nothing to change that, and they have never needed legitimate cause to do so. You're dealing with a cult, not reasonable people. Most JWs already believe that the ARC isn't anything but apostate driven lies already. This changes nothing.
This also doesn't prevent the cult from any legal banter.In addition, the public outcry over CSA has become an issue that democratic nations can no longer ignore, the WTS has presented themselves as a near-perfect subject for an example to be made of (something that occasionally needs to be done), and I'm positive the Aussie legal system knows it.
Not to mention that they also know the world is watching with interest, so their tactics can serve as a template for others to follow.The whole world is watching? I doubt many people know or care outside of the ex-JW community. They could also be using the wrong tactics and be giving that as an example. Conflating the world watching with them doing the right thing isn't necessarily true.
Big picture, man, big picture.
Yes, and in the big picture I think that being lenient and lax on the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses never works. They lack boundaries and don't take things seriously because they get away with it their entire lives. Australia set a boundary and backed off it, something that rarely ever garners respect for the boundary set.
I hope it works on some level. I know there is more than one "right" way to do something, and that many tactics can work. I know that some are saying now that the focus is really the CSA survivors and giving more time for the JWs to join so that it keeps the door open for possible redress. How about you just revoke the charitable status now and give that tax money to the CSA survivors as redress and skip the niceties toward Watchtower? Just a thought. I just think they're playing Watchtower's game instead of the other way around, and that is is weak. I hope it works out though.
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To The Australian Government .Have Jehovah`s Witnesses signed the Redress scheme ?
by smiddy3 inmaybe i`m a just a bit more impatient than some ,but the govt.
did say they will name and shame those who do not sign up to the redress scheme didn`t they ?
and take away their special priveledges , etc.?.
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dubstepped
Weak. Why would you give them yet another chance, and why would they take the government seriously when it doesn't.
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Left one cult not joining another
by SnakesInTheTower ini just read this article about dave ramsey and his company ramsey solutions (formerly lampo group).
reading about him and his board, made me think of jehovah's witnesses and the governing body (aka the hateful eight).
i used to like him, listened or watched his show, even visited his new hq in nashville briefly.
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dubstepped
Damn, dude got hella culty. I used to listen to him all the time, even as a JW despite the fact that his Bible thumping made me uncomfortable since he was a false christian according to my own cult. Honestly, I do owe a lot to him financially because his unwavering culty rigid black and white beliefs did truly help me to break some bad habits learned from growing up in an environment with zero financial intelligence. My wife and I are debt free. Ultimately it came from following what he said, though the reality is that we did it our own way within those confines, so to speak.
Anyway, after leaving the JWs I tried listening to him a few times for entertainment purposes. I used to like the stories and such. But I couldn't do it. He was so rigid and it was quite triggering to listen to him. I still recommend his original Financial Peace book or whatever to people at times because it was solid financial advice, but it was never "The one and only Truth" as he basically sold it. I also had issues with some of the ELP services that he recommended and wondered why he would never promote things like low cost index funds for retirement, instead sending people to brokers as he made wild claims about hyperbolic returns on investments while receiving payment for promoting people.
I learned a lot listening to him. But I could always tell that he was super controlling. He got really into the personal lives of his employees and would go over their budgets and interview people extensively before hiring them, even interviewing their spouse. He would talk about how involved he was in the lives of his adult children and it was quite boundary-less for a guy that always had Dr. Henry Cloud on talking about boundaries.
I'll still recommend his financial principles and baby steps, but yeah, the dude is controlling as can be, and I thought he might have mellowed a bit. Sounds like he may have doubled down instead. Yikes.
Thanks for posting that. It was an interesting read and confirmed so much that I had thought might be the case as I read it. I can see every bit of that happening after listening to him for years.
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If only someone had kicked my a$$.. (This is post is not for theists)
by HowTheBibleWasCreated ini think back on the 30+ years of bs as well as my fading almost a decade and even now being low key in person to hopefully save my nieces from the wt.
i'm a wreck in some ways.
i'm other days i'm stable however when it comes to theism i depart quickly and with anger!
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dubstepped
Yeah, you wouldn't have listened. People challenge believers every day and yet there are still lots of believers. In fact, the harder someone comes at you when you have a persecution complex drilled into you, often the deeper it drives you into your beliefs. If only it was as simple as your post makes it we could wake up lots of people around lots of things but that's not how it works. You're ready to wake up when you're ready.
Also, I'd encourage you to talk to someone about your anger. It's not healthy to carry around what you're carrying.
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Keystone XL Pipeline & Watchtower Research
by IWant2Leave inyou may know that president joe biden canceled the permits for the xl canadian pipeline on his first day in office.
this was a controversial move, and there has been discussion and videos floating around the office where i work.
one of my co-workers showed a video of all the jobs being lost.
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dubstepped
I love how the OP's point was simply that it's important to look at sources of information and how as a JW he never did that, and it is then followed by lots of people asserting that their opinions or their source is the accurate one. I agree with the OP. Do your own research, read multiple sides, come up with your own view, realize that it's nothing more than your view and not "The Truth" that everyone else must believe because you and you alone are right.
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Jehovah's witnesses believe in Tranys.
by mickbobcat inso women who are of the anointed will be changed to male?
i know it says there are neither male nor female in heaven but they are never depicted as women always male gender.
so does the cult believe in the transgender crap?.
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dubstepped
Lol, Jesus may or may not have existed, but I enjoy watching people jump through hoops to try to explain the insanity of the Bible or gnostics. I just posted the verse for fun. This whole conversation is dumb and the OP likes to be inflammatory. So have fun! -
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Jehovah's witnesses believe in Tranys.
by mickbobcat inso women who are of the anointed will be changed to male?
i know it says there are neither male nor female in heaven but they are never depicted as women always male gender.
so does the cult believe in the transgender crap?.
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dubstepped
Well, let's see what Jesus himself had to say in the Gospel of Thomas ;)
114. Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life."Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."
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Underground JW in China - Latest Episode of Shunned
by dubstepped ini don't post most of my episodes here because most people here over time know that my podcast and youtube channel are out there if they're interested.
but i just released an episode that i thought people here might like with an ex-jw that went underground in china.
in two weeks i'm releasing an interview with an ex-scientologist, and i'm interviewing someone from the unification church soon as well.. new episode - 82 - geoff is shunned by jehovah's witnesses.
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dubstepped
I don't post most of my episodes here because most people here over time know that my podcast and YouTube channel are out there if they're interested. But I just released an episode that I thought people here might like with an ex-JW that went underground in China. In two weeks I'm releasing an interview with an ex-Scientologist, and I'm interviewing someone from the Unification Church soon as well.
New Episode - 82 - Geoff is shunned by Jehovah's WitnessesThe underground. As Jehovah’s Witnesses we were trained for the possibility that someday we would have to go underground and do our public preaching work in secret. Most of us would never actually do that. Geoff did.Geoff went to China to work underground as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in a country in which the cult is banned. Secret meetings, smuggling cult propaganda into the country, specious credentials, etc. But doing this work would backfire as it forced Geoff to realize certain things about the cult that he was involved in. Even bigger, living this underground life would force parts of his authentic self to come out and be exposed to the light of day in ways he could no longer hide.You can listen on the podcast app of your choice such as iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, Podbean, Podcast Republic (my personal choice), or many others. You can also find the podcast on iHeartRadio, Spotify, Radio Public, and Owltail. **Now on Stitcher, Gaana, Audible Podcasts, and more**There is a player on my website where you can listen at: -
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Just helped my kid get his first used car.
by GrreatTeacher inmy son, only child, age 19, college sophomore, just got his first used car.
most importantly, he learned the fun and exhilarating process of buying a used car from a dealer.
he had saved some money, but everything around the $5000 range was basically a shit box on wheels.
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dubstepped
I won't say my parents actively taught me this, but I watched them growing up and they didn't really do debt other than their house. Always paid cash for cars and drove cheap cars as we were poor-ish. To this day I buy all of my cars cash, find great deals from private parties, never pay more than $3500 or so, and have cars that run mostly problem free for years and years. Again, my parents weren't big on teaching me anything and what I observed was primarily what not to do in life, but this did rub off and I have little invested in depreciating assets and no debt.