Posts by Aunty

32

Do you still believe the WTS doctine's?

by TheRecordCollector in

man is a soul,.

christ was created, .

holy spirit a real person, or god's active force?.

Aunty

All of these posts are very interesting to me. I haven't been a part of any posts in the past debating if God exists. I'm just starting to contemplate the possibility, but my mind has a hard time adapting to this type of thinking after being raised a witness.

I too find it hard to believe that God would make a sacrifice to save sinners on earth to prove a point to Satan. Why not just destroy him? Why not just say, I'm the boss and you listen to me or else. Why be so vague? You may say because God doesn't exist and someone made it all up. Maybe, but I see drastic flaws with evolution, and I'm not sure I can believe that either. Maybe there's a happy medium that we're just not seeing. Maybe we find out when we die.

7

Where do you stand?

by Elsewhere in

jw
friends

i keep coming across posts of people who appear to be sympathetic to the jws.

instead of calmly explaining their position, they start spewing obscenities or cursing or harass people they disagree with.. if these people were "christian" or a "loyal jw" they would not do these things.

this leaves me confused.

Aunty

I always try to remember that the jw's are intolerant of opinions. You're not allowed to have an opinion (or at least not state it). When we come out of the WT, the first thing we can do to be different is become tolerant of others opinions. We don't have to agree and argument can be stimulating, but name calling is just childish - no it's jwish.

29

Do you ever feel secure?

by flower in

jw
friends

today i had a thought and it sickened me to think it.

i thought to myself 'it is possible that satan has blinded all of us and led us away.

so i started to list the reasons why i know that the truth is a lie.

Aunty

Flower -

I've had the same thoughts you're having periodically over the last 10 years since I've been out. I'll tell you about an experience I had when I first moved to CA.

A few months after I moved out here, I decided maybe I should go to the KH - I had those same thoughts you did - what if I'm wrong? This was before I had done any real research on the WT. Anyway, a young elder's wife took an interest in me and we had many nice conversations about my life and where I came from. I remember sharing with her my guilty feelings for being out of the organization and she said "don't forget, Jehovah remembers what you've done in the past for him." - well, I still think about this comment, but not in the way she wanted me too.

You see, I figure if God really exists and loves me, he knows I want to do what's right. He would know I'm doing what I think is best. Now, years later after I see the WT for what it is, I still remind myself of this comment. I've recently been considering the question of weather God really exists in the way we believe he does, but I think that's irrelevant because we're talking about "what if". I think if you try to be the best friend, neighbor, person you can be that's all God really wants from us. JMHO

37

How will Gen-Xers contribute to the fall of WTBS?

by LDH in

jw
friends

is it because we're a cynical lot?.

maybe because we were the first generation of latch-key kids who learned how to raise ourselves?.

what is it that makes it so 'hard to lie to a gen xer?

Aunty

Speaking from my personal experience in leaving, there came a point when I said "is doing this really that bad". At the time, it had to do with dating a certain someone I worked with. I opened my mind long enough to tell myself, well if I get caught it will be worth it! Also, I was tired of being told what to do by the men in the congregation. I couldn't see respecting someone that wasn't as intelligent or educated as I was just because he was a man. No offense to those men who are more intelligent than I am

I'm not saying it's a disrespectful thing either. I just think we're a generation that's more aware of our surroundings, of what's happening in the world than our parents were. My Mom is always telling me she was so naive when she graduated from hs and got married. We're also more skeptical of people in general - all I know is 90% of the people I grew up with in the congregation are either DF'd, on the fringe or out.

11

Jesus sweating blood

by Simon in

just watching a programme about the gospel accounts and one thing struck me - the notion that jesus sweat blood.

apparently it was the stress of his impending death.. now, as a sceptic, the problems i have with this account are:.

it's medically impossible to sweat blood.. there is a disease (hematohidrosis) where plasma cells can color the sweat to make it appear to be 'as if blood'.. jesus was supposed to be perfect!

Aunty

The account by Luke is supposedly what he observed at the time. Could have been possible that Jesus was sweating profusely, that the sweat beads were large and thus reflected light making them look red? This would have been a time of stress for Luke also, and people under stress are the worst witnesses - they often see things that aren't there. This wouldn't necessarily make the account untrue, just this particular detail.

18

Witness Self Hatred

by metatron in

jw
friends

i do wonder if the average witless has been beat down with so much.

propaganda that they hate themselves.

willing to blame themselves for anything - and react fanatically.

Aunty

Flower -

Your post had some great points. I think the pressure is from thinking Jehovah is not blessing you, and is directing the elders, etc..to treat you that way. There are many religions where you're told that if you sin, God doesn't love you - but the witnesses extend that to family and friends which makes it all the worse.

39

Struggling to keep balance

by Lee Elder in

jw
friends

dont overstate matters.

the situation in oregon is a terrible tragedy.

the watchtowers policy on shunning likely contributed to the tragedy, it may have even been a primary factor but there are any number of other factors that could have contributed as well - too many to even mention!.

Aunty

There are many problems in life that cause us to be depressed. Certain people react differently to different stresses in their life. Most of us are rational enough to deal with these issues and move past it, some like this man just can't deal with life's pressures. If a person has a tendancy to become easily overwhelmed by the jw system, most likely this would have happened from other pressures in life as well. We all have disappointments, but some can't deal as well as others.

55

I've been shunned from my sister's wedding

by Quotes in

the following is the contents of a hand-written letter i just received from my (21 year old) sister, who is getting married may 18. for some reason, i thought that she would let love and compassion be stronger than wt programming.

but i was wrong.

yeah, it sucks.. *** my question for the board ***.

Aunty

Quotes,

I just read your post and thought, this could be my nephew. His brother is getting married in April and invited him and his wife only to the ceremony. They had already bought a present and everything, but will be returning it. I told him they should crash the reception anyway - what are they going to do force him to leave? Actually, they'd probably get 4 big elders to drag him out kicking and screaming. What's funny is they did invite me - go figure they must have known I wouldn't go anyway.

35

Leadership is missing among the xJWs!

by IslandWoman in

jw
friends

i know the word, "organization" has a bad taste.

but it is a fact of life that to get anything done on a grand scale in this world, good leadership and organization are a must.. we lack organization, much of what is said and done is a hit and miss thing except for the u.n. problem.

thanks to those who took a lead and the others who followed their lead some damn good work got done!

Aunty

It's true that we all have the "salesmen" skills, but the biggest difference in being out of the WT is that when we use our skills now, we're paid for it. If this was a money making venture, I'm sure some would be willing and able to "get the word out". What we don't want to do is be used for our skills and get nothing in return.

Oh sure, we'll have satisfaction from turning right-hearted ones out of the evil organization... Sound familiar?

36

Hi - I'm New!

by Aunty in

jw
friends

just wanted to say hello - i've been lurking here for about a month and decided to join.

i was raised a witness, but have been out for almost 10 years.

i just faded out - it was easy since i moved to california from ohio.

Aunty

Thanks JT!

I'm one of the lucky few that even though I didn't go to college, I have a great job. Must be due to the training I received at the KMS!