Posts by LongHairGal

19

Teachings "Unique to JW's" They Hide From You Before Baptism

by Sea Breeze in

jehovah can't be your father in this life.

'they [jw members] address him prospectively as "our father.

jesus is not your mediator:.

LongHairGal

SEA BREEZE:

Decades ago when I got involved with the religion it was certainly misrepresented to me what it was all about. This was before the days of the internet and instant information like you have now!

I was interested in End time prophecy and was made to feel they had some ‘special’ bible knowledge 🙄. I was also told they had ‘no clergy’ and that everybody was equal. In fact, I didn’t really see JWs as a religion, per se. It wasn’t until I was in that they lowered the boom.

Then came all the criticism about me: my clothing, getting rid of non-JW friends and being made to feel I shouldn’t be close to my family and that the JWs should be my ‘new’ family. (What a joke.) Also, I was told that I should quit my full time job and take up housecleaning and ‘pioneer’. (I am so GLAD I never fell for this shit. I wouldn’t be Retired today.)..I was also expected to follow in the footsteps of other single women and do favors for all the Users there. (They were delusional if they thought I was stupid enough to do this.)

So, in my case there was a mountain of things that were not told to me upfront. I suppose if they laid all their cards on the table I would have run like crazy!

33

What Are Reasons You Are Happy Not Being A JW Any Longer?

by minimus in

jw
friends

freedom!

not having to adhere to man made rules and regulations.

not being afraid of maybe “stumbling “ someone..

LongHairGal

JHINE:

I do understand that other people are interested in religion and that their experience in their own churches is pleasant. I’m not a basher of people who are churchgoers or deeply involved but I’m just personally not interested. And, Yes, I’m sure there are many differences between JWs and other groups and these other groups can run rings around them in being charitable and Christian.

FEDUPJW:

Yes, the religion’s intrusiveness has got to be seen and experienced to be believed! They have it perfected to an art form..

It’s easy in retrospect to see how it happened. It starts with the love bombing you get when you’re new..then followed by the erroneous belief that everybody there is your ‘friend’. Not true. Then over time a person’s sensibilities are eroded and they tolerate things the average person would think are crazy and run from.

33

What Are Reasons You Are Happy Not Being A JW Any Longer?

by minimus in

jw
friends

freedom!

not having to adhere to man made rules and regulations.

not being afraid of maybe “stumbling “ someone..

LongHairGal

MINIMUS:

I’m happy for many reasons. I am Free and able to be myself the way I was before I got suckered into the religion! I was only interested in End time prophecy anyway.

I am Out twenty years and am no longer interested in religion anyway. For one thing, I would never tolerate the intrusiveness I experienced in the JW religion. These people don’t know what boundaries are and are not acquainted with the phrase ‘none of your business’. Anybody who wants to tolerate this is welcome. The person I am at this point in my life would NEVER tolerate this or the disrespect they dish out in general and especially to women. Adding insult to injury would be never ending appeals for money for people there who never wanted to work! 👎🏻

All the changes that have happened there in the last two decades have made me Very glad I walked away from it all.

22

Jehovah is steering the new Ramapo Facility, but somehow needs volunteer labor and donations

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

life and ministry meeting workbook | september 2020. living as christians.

can you contribute your time and energy?.

ramapo, new york.

LongHairGal

HAPPY DAD:

Well, that’s true. Except I think that ALL religions are about certain people ‘living off the fat of the land and not doing any REAL work’.

I agree with all the comments on here and OVERRATED made me laugh about putting fake money (washers) in the contribution box. NOWWHAT: I agree that this could be built for free in the ‘new system’..I guess the ‘End’ couldn’t be any minute now if another colossal building project needs to be done.

HOSER: I’m also glad you woke up in time to salvage a decent part of your life. Me too.

ROCKETMAN: I am also glad, now that I’m Retired, that I never listened to the criticism and labeling I got because I worked full time and never pioneered! ..This ‘Not Spiritual’,🙄 ‘Independent’, ‘Low Hour Publisher’ has NO regrets about that one fact!

17

Zoom meetings

by molybdenum in

being pimo i attend the meetings regularly over zoom.

( i have to as my wife is a dyed -in - the wool, and stick-in-the mud pioneer witness.

i have no possibility of leaving as it would create havoc in my life and at 68 years of age i just don't want the hassle of having to cope with the ramifications of disassociating myself.

LongHairGal

MOLYBDENUM:

If you were single, though, you could have done a ‘Fade’ like I did years ago!

But, you are married and don’t need the drama at your age! I don’t consider you a ‘spineless coward’. As long as you are not actively trying to bring people into the religion, though. I couldn’t do that and live with myself!

As far as your birthday coming up in February, that makes you an Aquarius I think. Happy upcoming birthday! Just keep your head low and don’t rock the boat in your home. If your spouse wants to stay in the religion, let them.

I am convinced that a great many people who identify as being Witnesses are really Physically In and Mentally Out. I suspect most of these people are older. This is bad news for the religion because when these older people are gone..that’s it. No way do I believe the JW religion will survive for long!

Meanwhile, you just want peace and quiet. Regards.

64

Havent gone to the kingdom hall in ten years but may have to go back...

by Joliette in

made a big mistake of talking about being raised as a jehovah's witness to some old friends and family.

people have told me that i am still a jws even though i've never been baptized.

i'm in school for social services, dealing with student loan debt, and a lot of other debt.

LongHairGal

JUST FINE:

You are super-right that you have to take care of yourself as a female..and I’m glad you learned how when you left the religion!

I came into the JWs as a young working adult. I couldn’t get over how much resentfulness I got from people there (both male and female) because I worked to support myself! This concept was so alien to them! I had Stepford-type wives with a 1950s mentality who acted like I was an aberration and I had very few friends there. Years later I ended up walking away from the religion and in time I Retired.

This past year (2020) with the Covid crisis I read how the JWs wanted people to donate all sorts of goods (food and otherwise)..and THEY would decide who was needy and would get whatever, etc. I thought to myself: if I were gullible enough and did not prepare for MY future I would have been so screwed it wouldn’t have been funny!.. I would have found MYSELF looking for charity and would have been at the mercy of petty elders and other JWs!!! 😳 So, all the idiots who criticized me and made remarks about not being ‘spiritual’ because I worked full time...can go take a flying leap.

I cannot stress enough that if a woman does not get married and have a man support her..she HAS to get an education and a career of some sort to provide for herself!!! And she has a relatively small window of time to do it. It doesn’t matter that we are in the 21st century. This fact did not change.

The OP is still young enough to do this and I wish her all the best.

64

Havent gone to the kingdom hall in ten years but may have to go back...

by Joliette in

made a big mistake of talking about being raised as a jehovah's witness to some old friends and family.

people have told me that i am still a jws even though i've never been baptized.

i'm in school for social services, dealing with student loan debt, and a lot of other debt.

LongHairGal

JOLIETTE:

I read your post and am sorry to hear what you are going through. Yes, living in the world is tough, no lie.. It is especially so for people raised JWs who never really got established with a decent job/career. Those who leave the religion now know they have to jump feet first into getting their education, etc. as there is no time to waste.

Your concerns about your financial future and situation are valid and the reasons you want to go back, because (as you say) you are struggling now and worried about student debt and worried about possible health issues, etc.

However, are you absolutely certain your family/mother are going to let you live with them? Will they support you or let you live there jobless? Do you have an expectation of inheriting a house or property?..Even if you were to inherit a house, you need money and income to maintain it (taxes, utilities, repairs). Um..Do you think you are going to get monetary assistance from the JWs in the congregation?? 😬 Please say you don’t believe this..There are fewer people there even able (or willing) to give $$. They are being hit up left and right.

This is where your job/career would come in. If you became a JW again..you would be strongly discouraged from having one. This is what they DO - especially to a woman. They tried to do this to me and I wouldn’t be Retired if I listened.

Nobody can tell you what to do as the decision is ultimately yours. I wish you all the best if you decide to go back to the religion.

14

If The Jehovah's Witnesses Stole Your Past...Don't Let Them Steal Your Future!

by The Bethelite in

jw
friends

yes, many here have lost many years of life due to being infected by this cult like religion.

for many it is very hard to let go of that life and those wasted years.. of course people need time to heal and this web site is a great place to do that, swap war stories and commiserate.. i was in for over 50 years.

so of course it will be with me for the rest of my life.

LongHairGal

LONGLIVETHERENEGADES:

You said it correctly that our Time is the currency of life itself! And, we have a limited amount of it.

Every person on the forum has invested a different amount of time in the religion. Myself, I was not born in but came in as a young working adult. I wasted about twenty+ years there (even if I was on the fringes) and am Out that amount of time. Many others were born-in and/or spent more time there. The longer somebody is in the harder it is for them.

While I am angry about failed prophecies and the deception which got me in, I am more angry about how I was treated.. Even though what I experienced personally can never be forgiven in my book (and I would never again subject myself to this treatment anywhere).. I do believe we have to move on.

We all have a New Year in which to work on it.

13

How Life May have Started on This Planet Without YHWH

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

some may be interested in this research from the scripps research institute.. this research and its conclusion builds on previous work, quote: "in a study published in the chemistry journal angewandte chemie, they demonstrated that a simple compound called diamidophosphate (dap), which was plausibly present on earth before life arose, could have chemically knitted together tiny dna building blocks called deoxynucleosides into strands of primordial dna.. the finding is the latest in a series of discoveries, over the past several years, pointing to the possibility that dna and its close chemical cousin rna arose together as products of similar chemical reactions, and that the first self-replicating molecules -- the first life forms on earth -- were mixes of the two.".

read more at this science daily web-site .... link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201228095428.htm.

LongHairGal

PISTOLPETE:

Very good posts and thoughts.

With regard to us being created as an experiment and (they) didn’t quite know what they were doing. Possibly. I often felt that when I read the biblical story of the flood I wondered why He didn’t know his creation was going to displease him..and to destroy a whole world as a punishment??

With regard to what you last said: “those being(s)(?) who created life on earth are long gone”..that could very well be the reality - depressing as it is. To be abandoned. Otherwise, where the HELL are they?

I had read somewhere that ancient mines in Africa were found (hundreds of thousands of years old) and that the first humans were supposedly created (Ancient Alien theory) to be a slave race to work these mines. This is also depressing and far from the noble beginning some imagine the human race had..But, will we ever know the truth about any of this?

33

Are Jehovah Witness willing to end studies?

by Maria Nieves in

https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/watchtower-study-october-2020/how-to-conduct-a-bible-study-that-leads-to-baptism-part-two/.

i recently came across the above watchtower article which spoke about conducting bible studies which lead to baptism.

it progressed to say that if the bible study instructor does not see growth within the student or the desire to work towards baptism, then the studies should end.

LongHairGal

MARIA NIEVES:

I believe they would be willing to end studies if someone doesn’t ‘progress’ in a certain amount of time.

They are lucky they can hang onto the JWs they already have! They will not want to risk having these JWs around a so-called worldly study that possibly has more education than they do, thinks too much and asks questions they cannot answer!