there was a knock at my door and i thought it was my take-away being delivered.. long story short, it was 2 elders calling to see me.
i guess to re-activate me.
once they said who they were i recognised them.
PUNK OF NICE:
I had JWs come to my door last summer (two brothers). I am a longtime ‘Fader’…
They were just in the area and weren’t specifically looking for me because nobody knows me here.. I was polite to them but told them plainly that I am Out and would not go back and would never tolerate JWs coming up to me asking for money.
the watchtower—study edition | august 2024. help for those who are removed from the congregation.
14 does what we have considered mean that we would completely ignore a person who has been removed from the congregation?
not necessarily.
RULES & REGULATIONS:
Yes, all these changes are probably as a result of the JW lawyers advising them.
I was reading a Reddit post where somebody said some CO told an elder to reinstate as many disfellowshipped (um ‘removed’) people as they can.
The religion must be hurting with so many leaving! It didn’t seem so long ago that they were eager to disfellowship people from the religion.. They arrogantly imagined somebody was going to come crawling on their belly to come back. Meanwhile twisted idiots with an axe to grind would withhold reinstatement from somebody they didn’t like. They were playing ‘God’ with people’s lives.
Now they are begging people to come back! Years ago banks would offer free gifts as an incentive.🤣 Just kidding but you get my point.. The religion needs some ‘rice Christians’ to fill the empty seats there!
i had a teacher in jr. high in my advanced education class talk about givers and takers as a subject.
looking back, perhaps she was going through a rough patchmakes me wonder.. this morning i had one of those moments of realization, basically from reviewing recent events, and even more so because i was mentally rehashing some conversations with someone who means a lot to me.
it dawned on me the role she has come to play in one of the major events of her life, as well as who she became because of it.
HOSER:
I’m sorry this happened to you, but Jehovah’s Witnesses are Users with a Capital ‘U’.. I hope you did well and are okay all these years later.
It sounds like you were raised in.. I came in as a young working adult. Being from the ‘world’ 🙄, I was not raised a ‘people pleaser’, but was taught to look out for myself and therefore was less susceptible to the Users and opportunists in the Witness religion.. I was viewed negatively since I worked full-time, so I never gave handouts to pioneers who didn’t like me because I worked.. They could go ask somebody else for charity!….But I was hypersensitive to the issue and made sure if someone drove in FS I gave them money for gas or paid for their lunch.
So many problems now for older people because the religion told them not to get careers but to be in the ministry instead.👎
As an observer, I believe the JWs are a failing belief system and all the chickens are coming home to roost!! .. Armageddon didn’t come to save them from the fallout of failed predictions and faulty teachings… They have lawsuits galore and are changing teachings many people based their lives on and suffered for.👎 They look very bad.
so: the mystery has been clarified as to more "new light" / clarifications of decades old doctrine and procedure.
august watchtower has finally been leaked.
disfellowshipping?
WING COMMANDER & EVERYBODY:
I was just talking to an old friend who is also an ex-JW.
This person is beyond words and feels all these changes (and those yet to come) are meaningless after so much victimization, guilt and emotional distress.. I agree.. Nobody can ever get justice for what was done to them or what they experienced. Hell, the perpetrators could be dead. Even if they were alive, would you get an apology? No. Even if somebody did, it does not erase lost Time and lost potential, etc.. It cannot be undone.. So, I was shunned because I worked.. So what?.. (I’m Glad now actually!)
I know a lot of the people on the forum are ‘hoping’ for a kinder and reformed religion because they still want to belong to it. Maybe they have family there. Well, I wish them luck…I’m Glad I’m Out.
i was born in 1964, so, i was 10 when the buildup to 1975 was happening (and watched the subsequent failure of that).then, when i was a teenager, i got to see the fallour of the big apostacy events in the 1980s.during all of this, i was told by my parents and by people of my parents' peer group that "this old system won't last much longer, and won't the new system be great!
"it is now 2024. i am going to be 60 years old in a few months.
over half a century.my mom died two months after her 80th birthday last year, after suffering for years of chronic poor health (some of it brought on by a very sedentary lifestyle, but also plagued by emotional and mental issues and family drama which did not help overall.
CAPTAIN SCHMIDEO2:
You are certainly correct that the person who warned them would be more hated than the crook who took their money.
To compare this to the JWs: at their 2023 annual meeting, the Jehovah’s Witnesses did away with their century old teaching about reporting hours on a time slip.. While this may make some happy because they no longer need to do it; what about those that DID do it for years instead of having a decent job and a retirement?
I was a person who worked full-time. I got judged over this.. I was a ‘low hour publisher’ who never got invited anywhere. Well, today I am delighted it turned out this way because where would I be if I had listened to the JWs and hardly worked??? They would certainly not be supporting me!.. They don’t even have social programs to help anybody. The few Witnesses I know who pioneered resent me for saying this !!
But, the reality is what it is.
i was born in 1964, so, i was 10 when the buildup to 1975 was happening (and watched the subsequent failure of that).then, when i was a teenager, i got to see the fallour of the big apostacy events in the 1980s.during all of this, i was told by my parents and by people of my parents' peer group that "this old system won't last much longer, and won't the new system be great!
"it is now 2024. i am going to be 60 years old in a few months.
over half a century.my mom died two months after her 80th birthday last year, after suffering for years of chronic poor health (some of it brought on by a very sedentary lifestyle, but also plagued by emotional and mental issues and family drama which did not help overall.
CAPTAIN SCHMIDEO2:
Great post. I am a Boomer who is a longtime ‘Fader’. Time flies. However, I was raised Catholic and never entirely bought into the ‘paradise’ even if it was a nice idea. Thankfully, I had my ‘worldly’ father’s wisdom and I kept my job until retirement.
I never agreed with the Jehovah’s Witness idea of not preparing for retirement. This ignorance extends to many other things as well, like not having insurance. But, I kept my thoughts to myself as there is no arguing with “the End is almost here”.
I am glad you were smart enough to set up Wills/Trusts since you have family. Keep this business to yourself. You also mention that 1995 was what woke you up. It woke me up as well. Oh, there was a list of things that didn’t sit well with me. But, when I heard this, I knew my time in this phony religion was over!
I am glad I am not around it now.. It must be miserable in congregations with people unprepared and others passing away who thought they were supposed to be in the ‘New System’ by now.. But, what can you do?.. In the last two years I have lost two old friends (not JW).. Just take one day at a time and enjoy your family and the small things in life.
from reddit.. a summary of changes: .
we are all sinners, so we have to be reasonable how we punish sinners.
if elders and congregation do not quickly help someone come to be reinstated they would be imitating satan the devil, not jehovah (yes that actually is what is said in the tagalog version in translation!
FRAGRANT ADDENDUM;
As far as ‘avoiding’ those who don’t work secularly, etc.. a person would have to avoid many Jehovah’s Witnesses because these people are allergic to work - and would rather be out in the ministry.
I believe this latest information is to fool non-Witnesses who might read this into thinking Witnesses are all for secular work, which they certainly are not.. Maybe the old timers who had jobs before they joined the religion and MYSELF fell into this category.. Otherwise, this is a downright lie and contrary to the religion’s culture and teaching.. At best, they urge members to work part-time - which is a joke and nobody could survive on those wages.
The impression I got was that the goal of many younger Witnesses (as urged by the religion) was to do the LEAST amount of secular work - so they could be out ringing doorbells.. The more lazy and nervy among them tried to get money out of people there and all sorts of freebies as well.
YET, these hypocrites made sure I was knocked for having a full-time job. Many JWs wouldn’t be caught dead doing what I was doing.. I was pretty much panned there because of this.. But, if I were there now I would be cornered by fools asking for money - which is why I’m Glad I’m Out.
But hearing this latest news tells me they are wanting to portray themselves to the world as something they are not.
blondie's "highlights" from the may 2024 study wt paragraphs 11-17 part 2. may 2024 study article comments #2. what we do know.
paragraph #11. what basis will people be judged at armageddon….
a) “people will be dealt with on the basis how they have treated christ’s brothers” (but those know that christ’s brothers are only jws who believe they will go to heaven?).
WING COMMANDER:
Oh, IF the rank & file Witnesses only knew even half of what of what you posted (which is the God’s honest truth) maybe they would snap out of their trance!
It’s really very tragic when you look at the JW religion honestly and add up all these negatives.. Too bad the world doesn’t know these things… The religion has NO redeeming qualities as far as I am concerned.. But, how can anybody who wants to leave escape unscathed?
Worst case scenario some people are devastated by their experience.. Others may not have it so bad but there would even be some residual damage to the ‘luckiest’ person there who leaves.. Maybe they have a few phobias that remind them from time to time of their experience.. I had a little OCD which I managed…I consider myself ‘lucky’ I was scoffed at and avoided because I was that low hour publisher who worked full-time.. But their meanness made it so much easier to ‘Fade’ when the time was overdue to make my exit from this awful thing.
now that the long-expected kingdom had become an established reality in heaven, surely its growing interests in the earth after 1919 would not be left in the hands of a novice organization of spiritual babes.
and that proved to be true.
it was the 1900-year-old “faithful and discreet slave,” the old christian congregation, that was entrusted with this precious kingdom service.
KALEB OUT WEST:
Yes, I believe you are right and that ad hoc is a perfect way to describe the Jehovah’s Witness religion: they make things up as they go along to fit a particular situation.
Their heyday was in the decades before 2000. People hoped against hope that the millennium would be ‘it’.
The religion has lost its credibility, in my opinion. Nothing scholarly or deep. They pathetically try to entice people back. But, people would have to be out of their minds.. One of the first cracks in the armor years ago for me was when they had those calendars. One of them had a cover that looked like something from the days of PT Barnum (as in a sucker is born every minute). Was this a subtle hint to everybody?? I couldn’t even hang that thing up and I never got their calendars again!
I think the jig is up for them. They had a good long run.. Maybe for some it was good while it lasted.. But, it’s good riddance as far as I am concerned.
i have not read a wt for many years, but a comment on jwn prompted me to check out this one study article #19. i was stunned, they addressed many observations i have made in the "comments you will not hear" over the years.
this segment will contain comments on the section called what we do not know paragraphs 1 through 10. i will post what we do know” in another original post covering paragraphs 11 through 17”.
1) definition of "king of the south" and "king of the north.
WING COMMANDER:
Again, you tell it like it IS in the Jehovah’s Witness religion and I agree with everything you said.
Yes, everything that made this the religion of some people’s youth is gone.. I’m thankful I wasn’t raised in it.. When you say it’s now ‘jaw droppingly stupid and filled with infantile gibberish’, I agree.. I get the sense they do this to pacify the mind-numbed gullible followers who are crying because they cannot deal with anything! ..They were told they’d be in the new system by now.. Meanwhile, the hateful religion has zero charity to help needy JWs who were told not to get a career
As you say, the religion is making things up as they go along - meanwhile judging anybody who didn’t conform 100% to their nonsense.. I got shunned because I had a full-time job.. but boy, am I glad now I never listened to these detestable phonies!.. They deserve all the contempt in the world.
