Posts by dorayakii

34

My story - part One.

by diamondblue1974 in

i have never posted my story on jwd and it was only recently that it occured to me that i should really make more of an effort to; here is the first part....sorry if its longwinded.... .

i was brought up in the borg from the age of 18 months old and as you can understand i have known little else.

previous to being in the truth my mother was an unwanted child and beaten by her mother, sure enough she fell into an abusive relationship with my father which left her with minus zero confidence and on the verge of a nervous breakdown; apparently my mum was considering throwing us both off a railway bridge she was that depressed and to her there was no point in living.

dorayakii

Enjoyed reading your story DB74, i also saw in it so many parallels with my own childhood... Although my experience has made me a very meek and unassuming person (as opposed to the brash, self-important people who have recieved no discipline), i still feel an acute sense of sadness that parents can treat their children in such an extreme way...

The meetings were no different; although the discipline was kept for after the meeting at home; she would whisper on every occasion ‘that’s one smack’….that’s two smacks’ etc etc…I remember her losing count on one occasion but of course I hadn’t…needless to say I didn’t tell her; she would later in time often ask me how many I had counted probably because she had lost count again…so I chose a number which was lower than what was actual but enough to ensure she believed I was being honest. I also remember my constantly seeking approval from my mum by asking whether I had been good during the meeting…and hearing her grunt with little praise or encouragement.

I also was in a one-parent family until my elder father re-married to a pioneer. Throughout my childhood, my father also used to count the smacks. "That's one smack"... "That's two smacks"... If i even questioned why i was being smacked or anything like that, he would add to the tally. I soon learned to just shut up. He'd then give me a lecture that the only reason he was smacking me was because he loved me, then told me to pull my trousers down. He'd then stike me a number of times with a belt which would have left my skin visibly and explicitly bruised for days had my skin been caucasian. I would then cry for ages, during which he would stike me several more times for crying so loudly. I'd end up sitting in a corner wanting to cry, but not daring to. I'd just be there in shock, shaking and gasping large gulps of air.

She couldn’t do that of course and after a conversation with this guy things returned to normal; I cant describe how it felt but I look back and it sends shivers down my spine even now but again things were building up inside me that were coming to a head; as a teenager I was very angry and aggressive and one evening I remember my mother losing her rag with me because I had dared to go against one of this guys rules and she swung back with the stick to hit me across my arms and I grabbed it off her and feeling it sting against the palm of my hand I snapped it in two or three pieces and still remember to this day what I screamed at her…I am not proud of it but I screamed that if she dared even think about hitting me with a stick again I would ram the stick ‘down her throat and make sure it fucking well choked her’.

At one point at around age 9/10, my father struck me with the belt and in a rage i turned around, grabbed it out of his hand and wrought the thick belt in two with my bare hands... Sometimes my dad would chase me round the house (funnily he never shouted and viewed shouting as excessive...)

At other points, my step-mother (who tried to avoid hitting me, but was just as hurtful with her caustic words) would slap me across the face for a minor wrong-doing, and beat me to the ground by slapping me in my face... Once, and only once i slapped her back, and she never did it again... My father once unprevokedly called me a piece of dirt on the ground; i stormed out and slammed the door behind me breaking the hinges off... they still hold the view that i was in the wrong, no matter how much i tried to reason that you just don't speak to a person like that...

I never ran away, i was too scared to, but my father twice locked me out of the house for 3 hours at about 11pm-2am, when i was 9... They still both feel no remorse for the way they treated me, althought they admit theywouldn't do the same if they had another child... Meat in due season huh?....

Now i feel no anger for what was done, but i don't love my parents in the least, i would love to have feelings for them, but i am cold...its affected my other relationships with people as well, i have a warm smile and genuinly feel for people, but im just not able anymore to feel deeply about anyone apart from my grandmother and my aunt and her family... I still feel uncomfortable in physical contact because i never have had any loving physical contact... i don't think either of my parents have touched me for years, unless i have made the move to shake my fathers hand or put my hand on my step-mothers shoulder... Such moves toward intimacy are always met with a shocked "Oh!"... I've given up on my parents now, they are too far in the organisation, but i think one of these days i'll go to one of those pshycholo-wotsit people and try to learn to feel again...

34

Very Very sad. Typical Jdub Love

by Ticker in

i wanted to share this recent incident and it really pi$$es me off.

i called my grandfather yesterday who is a believing but inactive jw due to health reasons.

he is 83 and in very poor health and is alone since his wife died 3 years ago.

dorayakii

I know of a case which unfolded in exactly the same way. A sister in her 90s who was bed ridden had visitors only to leave magazines with her and then shoot off... i used to go and sit with her once in a while, usually once a month, just to have a chat with her about good old times, how she used to ride a bike to do the ministry in the late 20s, how the building across the road was bombed in the 2nd World War and they put up an ugly block of appartments in its place which soon filled with poorer teenage, one-parent families, who didnt discipline their children and how she saw graffiti start creeping into the area, and a general decrease in the prestige of the area. It was fascinating.

I'd always end up sitting there for a good 2 hours, just listening to her and sharing my own experience with her. She used to appreciate the magazines, but got really get upset that since people don't see her anymore at the Hall, they can't be bothered to come around for a chat or drink. Later, a program was put in place where an elder would visit an older one in the congregation, but obviously, due to its programmed, scheduled nature and not being done out of genuine concern, it soon fizzled out... The sister is still alive but has moved to a city further up the country...

46

long years of brainwashing finally come to an end.....

by girl_interrupted in

hi everyone, i'm new here......basically, i found this website a couple of weeks ago when i was in dire need of some like-minded souls who had felt screwed up about the jw's.

from about the age of four/five, my parents and i were involved in the organisation, and all three of us are stil messed up because of it.....we are no longer involved in it, but it took quite a few years before my parents found the strength to leave.

to begin with, i was quite a zealous jw, was baptised at twelve and disfellowshipped at fourteen, because as i got older i began to grow ''weak in the truth'' as people so kindly described me!

dorayakii

Many things prompted me to start thinking, really thinking about the true nature of the organisation,
You had such deeps thoughts at such a young age

I believed she qualified her statement with the below...

one example being that when a wonderful JW family friend passed away, another 'friend' made the comment that it was the best thing that could have happened as she was not strong in the Truth..... (what a load of s*t!!!

Even at 14, hearing such a blatant statement can be eye-opening...

21

Experience being 'out of the loop' of helpful information in the cong.

by out of the box in

a post in this thread by dorayakii in this thread: .

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/95493/1.ashx made me think about this thread.to me, even from the outside, the society has always seemed legalistic and cold, eager to find faults, which is precisely the opposite to how jesus formed christianity.

however, many people don't see that perspective, because they are not in a position of imtimacy with the leaders of the organisation.

dorayakii

Although being "in the loop" gives you a unique perspective on certain things, it often results in being unapproachable. People whom i've considered my close friends have concealed important aspects of themselves that friends really should know about, simply because i am the son of an elder and there exists the possibility that i would go and tell my father. I've always tried to be approachable and i've never been a tatter-tale especially in light of the cold, non-communicative relationship i have with my father, but often i've overheard things about my friends from other people that they've viewed as having "slipped out".

I think that because of my outgoing way on the platform and my logical way of bringing out an arguement from the Bible (i always tried to avoid the Watchtower if possible), many in the congregation viewed me as "super-fine" and "ultra-spiritual", when i was in fact openly admitting that i had "weaknesses" (never directly stating what they were, because if i had, i would have been thrown out before you could say "judicial comitee").

You admit you have "weaknesses", then people say "Woooow, he is so spiritual for admitting his weaknesses, AND hes the son of an elder, he must be sooooooo spiritual... i could never tell him about this, i'd look so inferior next to his elevated spirituality"... Its a Catch-22 that i could never get out of...

Being the child of an elder can be pretty lonely...

Coming back to the point though...... yes, toladest, i also agree... i see the pattern unfolding many, many times, of people being put in unfavourable situations and then the seriousness of it being shrugged off as as inconsequencial. OutOfTheBox, you should have been informed of the the elder's son's tendencies. However if they felt uncomfortable telling you this, they should have used their discretion and not have allowed the two boys to be alone together, what-alone share the same bed. It seems they have a warped view of homosexuality. They seem to have believed he would "grow out of it", that it was a "phase"....... Well, he might have done, but this does not seem to be the case here. It had happened more than once, evidently because "the elders knew about it", and the boy was obviously struggling with what the meetings had told him was wrong.

Think about it this way: if your child had been a girl, and this situation had taken place, there would have been a lot more candour and less dismissal. Discilplianary action would have been put in place because deviations from "normal" heterosexuality are viewed as permanent abnormalities. As homosexuality was involved, it is merely viewed as a "phase" or a "one-off sin" (albeit a more serious one) ... Its precisly this attitude that was manifest in the Questions from Readers in the 1972 Jan 1 Watchtower. Anal sex does not constitute adultry because the two individuals do not become "one-flesh" there is therefore no reason for divorce... Fantastic reasoning...

They don't view homosexuality as a normal sexual development, and consequently they don't view abusive homosexal behavior to be of any particular importance, so therefore they have caused their son to view it in the same light. This is the reason i believe that he was moved to do this abusive act, because he felt subconsciously that his feelings were already wrong, so it wouldn't phase him to stretch this wrongness-in-his-mind to actual wrongness. (This is a key reason i believe why in the past, a higher ratio of adult gays had multiple sex partners, because of this cultural indoctrination that what they are doing is already wayward, so whats the harm in being even more extreme?)... If the boy was taught that he could be "normal" and still gay, i doubt he would have done this to your son... Obviously JW doctrine leaves no room for this "liberal" thinking, and i've heard of a similar incident in my own KH which proves its not just a one-off thing in the organisation.

We understand and felt people had different ways of living after all I had discussed life with them and I continued to discuss this insident with him so that he could tell me how he felt and we worked it out.

It is good that your son learnt this lesson, and i hope the other boy also came to realise this, instead of going through life feeling wrong.

My first visit to the "Common Bond" forum last week, left me gobsmacked at the amount of gays who stay clinging to the organisation and view themselves as disgusting, some even avoiding meetings because of the shame, but clinging to the idea that this is the Truth. I fear that they will never be at peace, that they will never find balance, that they will not be able to settle down in a normal monogamous relationship, that they will continue to be involved in socially "abnormal" activities and they will go to their grave with a guilt-ridden conscience.

17

Am I am Apostate??

by Sushi Crow in

i know what "apostate" means to most of the world.

i am interested in the jw perspective.

i grew up a jw, but was never baptised.

dorayakii

The word "apostate" is taken from the Greek "apo-" which means "away from" and "stenai" which means "to stand"... Therefore "apostenai" means "to stand away from" in Greek...

The dictionary definition further limits the meaning to standing away from a set of beliefs or principles whether political or religious.

The word therfore means "renouncing former beliefs", and does not necessarily define a person who actively promotes a set of beliefs different to or contrary to what they formerly believed. It can simply mean someone who no longer believes.

The above-quoted "Pay Attention" book's definition of "apostacy" as "a standing away from, a falling away, defection, rebellion, abandonment; it involves teaching false doctrines, supporting or promoting false religion and its holidays or interfaith activities" is a tainted definition. It can involve rebellion and teaching, supporting and promoting "false" doctrines, but that definition is merely the in-definition of the religious group in question.

Therefore, yes, if you once believed JW doctrines and now do not, you are an apostate. If you were merely brought up as a JW but never believed, although you are not an apostate by the normal definition of the word, you may still be called an apostate by JWs, because you were associated with them and it was assumed that at some point in your childhood, you must have believed.

57

Would you date or marry outside of your race?

by Dimples in

jw
friends

i am bi-racial and was wondering would you date or marry outside of your race?

how would you feel if your children dated or married outside of their race?.

dimples

dorayakii

I've only ever dated people who are a different race than myself ;)

It was the same case with me until recently... although i am still more attracted to people of a different skin colour to myself.

26

Running Man's Book

by startingover in

i find it interesting now that quite a few chapters of runningman's book are now posted that they are so avoided by the christians on this board.

at least it sure seems that way as few if any comments are made by them.. if there is a christian apologists thread started, the athiests are usually there posting because they have a reasonable argument and can debate it.

apparently for the christians there is no way to do that with runningman's writings.

dorayakii

Putting a person's opinion as fact only muddies up the debate

Exactly Daunt, there is a real fear of people not holding the exact same opinion and belief as you. Our natural reaction (enhanced even more so by being associated with Jehovah's Witnesses) is to defend our point of view.Intolerance of diversity is a root cause of a lot of heated arguements and even wars in the world. Everybody must be yielding because

A new friend of mine who i care about, just cannot understand why i cannot see the governing body to be "god's channel"... on the other hand, with all the evidence i have accumulated, i cannot understand why he accepts that channel... i could tear his hair out and punch him and scream at him and perform a frontal lobotomy to physically remove what i see as pure foolishness from his head, but that will achieve nothing, because he sees clearly because of his proof and his evidence. He might feel the same for me, and he might in addition feel pity that i'm missing out on something which he views as precious. The paradox is though, that i feel he's missing out on the preciousness of what i believe...

If you want to convince others, you calmly put across evidence which you think proves the point. Unless what the person is doing is hurting or harming others, if that person doesn't see exactly what you see, then tough... This is a lesson that i am constantly learning and i sometimes fall short in it and im sorry if i offended him or anyone here by being overly dogmatic in my judgement...

26

Running Man's Book

by startingover in

i find it interesting now that quite a few chapters of runningman's book are now posted that they are so avoided by the christians on this board.

at least it sure seems that way as few if any comments are made by them.. if there is a christian apologists thread started, the athiests are usually there posting because they have a reasonable argument and can debate it.

apparently for the christians there is no way to do that with runningman's writings.

dorayakii

If I was in a group of people trying to discuss some spiritual subject with an individual and the rest constantly tittered and catcalled, what would be accomplished? Or, what about this: why would I take the time to argue with someone who has already made up their mind? Now you see the whole 'pearls/swine' thing.

Honesly, i think the whole "pearl before swine" thing is a cop out... if something is true, then it will have proof and many open minded people will accept it. If it is false, it will inevitably look really stupid, and no matter how open minded you are, you cannot accept something that is stupid and illogical to you...

If i tell you that 2 + 2 = 4, you will be able to go out and prove it, and come back believing. on the other hand, i can tell you that a ² + b ² = c ²... you may see that this is true when applied to right-angled triangles, you may then take it as an ultimate truth to guide your life... but then, you discover that the sum doesn't work when applied to isoceles triangles, circles or squares. you then have to reject this formula, because it is false. it may seem true, because you are putting your own spin on it, but it is false.

the bible is like that second forumula. There are shining examples of good morals and kindness being hown, examples that any good person should follow... you accept the whole formula as perfect... you then some become unable to reconcile its message of love and fairness, with god's track record of contradictions and assumed moral inferiority. The formula you now have, does not seem to match up with what you know to be morally correct. It turns out that the formula, (the Bible) is useful after all, but not for what you thought it was useful for and can be just as misleading as a ² + b ² = c ² when it is stretched to be an all-encompassing and perfect rule and to mean something it doesn't. It just doesn't fit, and seems rediculous. What appears to be a pearl of mathematical wisdom becomes foolish, and the people who see the formula as foolish are referred to as swine, just because there is no logical, proved method of testing the claims... The unbelievers are required to just believe and be saved.

If you were to present your truthful arguement for WHY you think a ² + b ² = c ² applies to triangles, squares and circles, then people are more likely to listen. If you throw everything up in the air and say, "oh forget it, its like pearls before swine" then people will continue to view you as illogical, unreasonable and erroneous.

It requires faith to see, in the case of a circle or a square, that a ² + b ² = c ² , because "faith" according to the bible is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (KJ)

People without faith take what they have seen, heard, sensed felt or witnessed to be their evidence. They are not satisfied that their mere hopes can come true, just because they wish it so strongly.
People with faith, on the other hand, are able to take things they have NOT seen, heard, sensed felt or witnessed to be their evidence, they see substance in their hopes without empirical evidence, or even with negative empirical evidence, and use that to propogate their beliefs.

I'm not saying that this is wrong, i believe that faith can be a useful thing that serves its purpose of among other things, dispelling hopelessness in our human mind, human beings do it every day, even atheists. In fact we have to do it everyday, it is a needed part of the human psyche which keeps us sane.

However, i also believe that faith can be dangerous if it is dogmatically said to be the ultimate truth. Faith is an extremely personal mental process that brings personal satisfaction. Atheists feel exactly the same way as you, that trying to convince you of their logical arguements is like "pearls before swine". They get frustrated that people just cannot see the world throught their eyes, because to their eyes it looks so beautiful, and trying to super-impose god into that world unbalances their formula and makes it look ugly. Likely people with religious faith feel exactly the same way about taking god out of that formula.

65

Do you secretly wish for a demon attack - serious question

by stillajwexelder in

jw
friends

.

i am not trying to compete with fmz as he has a supernatural thread going already but - do you secretlyt wish for a demon attack - serious question - the reason i ask this is because - if i had a demon attack it would mean there was a satan the devil and if there was a satan it would mean there was god.

what i am trying to say in a nutshell is "a demon attack would actually strengthen my faith" where at the moment it is non-existent almost

dorayakii

I am not trying to compete with FMZ as he has a supernatural thread going already but - Do you secretlyt wish for a demon attack - serious question - the reason I ask this is because - if I had a demon attack it would mean there was a Satan the Devil and if there was a Satan it would mean there was God.
What I am trying to say in a nutshell is "A demon attack would actually strengthen my faith" where at the moment it is non-existent almost

Yes, i used to think in this way also... its amazing, i had always thought that the thought was unique to me... The existance of anything spiritual that i could actually sence, would confirm at least one aspect of the teachings i had recieved, and thereby act as a domino effect to bring me at least mentally under the protection of Jehovah.

When i come to think of it now, even at the age of 8 and 9 i had thoughts like this, showing that even at that age i just wasn't recieving enough solid proof, i was not able to build my faith, and i didnt know how to because faith was being assured of something not beheld, not seen, felt or senced in any way. Even though my family has been a bulwark of the congregation for many years and we never "forsook" and open family study based on the bible reading portion, i was always confused as to how i couldn't build my faith. Everything else was so easy, the love, the joy, the hope, the long-suffering and the mildness, etc... It was just the faith that eluded me... It just goes to show...

I prayed and prayed fervently to Jehovah to give me strength... i read and re-read the gospels, the epistles and the psalms in conjunction with my normal bible reading... i prayed to "Jehovah" and then apologised if i was addressing him in the wrong way; at one point i even addressed him as something like "Dear Heavenly Father, Jehovah, or Yahweh my Creator and my God", i stated that i hoped i hadn't offended him in my prayer and that he could see that my heart was open and that i was genuine.

I asked him forgiveness if he deemed me audacious for asking for a "sign" like the crowd that listened to Jesus did, but i also asked him if i was being unreaonable in expecting to experience something before believing it, and if i was unreasonable or audacious, for him to please change my thought pattern so it can be in line with what he thought of as submissive. (I never believed that submissiveness was just accepting being spoon-fed, without at least inquiring, after all that is what the other churches do, don't they?)... I asked him for compassion and mercy, and most of all for faith, so that i could worship him with the strength and conviction as i saw others worshipping him. i tried absolutely everything...

It wasn't until my mid-to-late teens that i actually wished the demons would just attack me and get it over with, that i'd be able to see some unexplained levitation or even that a demon could strangle me at night so that i could shout out "JEHOVAH!!!", and he would be with me and protect me and bring about a peace in me that would stregthen my faith... I prayed to God to stop protecting me, just for even a moment, so that i could see their evil... I tried talking to Jesus once, and made it clear that it wasn't a prayer of worship, just a few words of gratitude. At another point in my late teens i prayed directly to Jesus... (My faith was totally shipwrecked long before i even got a chance to pray to Satan the Debbil for the same thing)... I looked and looked for a way, even a subtle way in which my prayer could have been answered, but nothing happened, all i got was the typical legalism of the Watchtower... and Jehovah lost a sheep... so much for leaving the 99 and looking for the one...

17

just read 'crisis of conscience' by Ray Franz...

by Lynne Y in

unbelievable.... matters presented were really disturbing and hurting... not that information presented in this book is new, but i didn't think it could be this bad... .

especially thins one.. a letter written by the society to all circuit and district overseers.

(p.293)keep in mind that to be disfellowshipped, an apostate does not have to be a promoter of apostate views.

dorayakii

I just finished reading it yesterday. To me, it didn't tell me anything new or surpising about Jehovah's Witnesses or the Watchtower Organisation, but it brought in full crystal clear detail the thoughts i already had. I was surprised to find that Ray wasn't bitter and vindictive, but presented very well-documented and researched facts.

To me, even from the outside, the society has always seemed legalistic and cold, eager to find faults, which is precisely the opposite to how Jesus formed Christianity. However, many people don't see that perspective, because they are not in a position of imtimacy with the leaders of the organisation. Maybe it's because my father is a particularly cold and legalistic elder that i've been exposed to so much of the society's "dirty linin". This insight into the central core of the organisation was like opening a box and seeing with my own eyes what i already knew was there.

There is an immediate questioning of loyalty as soon as you find you cannot conscienciously agree with even a minor, insignificant doctrinal matter (the definition of the Greek word naos strikes me as an example). It has always amazed me, that the society says that if we read the bible alone, without their guidence, we will believe something different. This is in fact an admission, that the "Truth" is not solely based on the bible, and that the bible does need embellishing. The definition of "sons" at Romans 8: 15 is also a stiking example of scripture taken completely out of context but that i'm sure not many of Jehovahs Witnesses have noticed before, unless they have read the whole chapter or even the whole book to discern its real meaning.

One particular point he made in the book was as to the definition of the "deeper things of the scriptures". I had always been interested in the complex prophecies, and many witnesses believe thosecomplex prophecies and intricate explanations to be the "deeper things"... but Ray put forward, by using Matthew 7:12, the proposition that the deeper things are actually love and kindness, putting into practice what you have read. Although i may not be a christian and not be religious, this is a point that will stick with me for a long time.