Posts by Mr. Neutron

16

Early Christianity - a cult?

by serendipity in

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i was wondering if anyone has applied the criteria that identifies a cult to first century christianity, as described in the bible, and historical records from the first three centuries.

have any of you run across a discussion like that while reading books on cults, hopefully by an author that is either supportive of, or tolerant of christianity?.

Xians have rarely let people simply walk away from their cult... Those who have tried to reform or remove themselves have often been met with violent persecution... I site as an example the Anabaptists...

http://www.thirdmill.org/files/english/html/ch/CH.Arnold.RMT.10.HTML

Check out paragraphs C and D for specifics... And while this is but one source a simple google search of the term "Anabaptists" will yield quite a number of results detailing just how free these people were to walk away from or attempt to change the Xian "faith."

Read a few of the stories at www.exchristian.net to see just how free people of today are fairing under Xianity...

14

Is the Christian god a spoiled brat?

by free2beme in

jw
friends

i was thinking today, as i dealt with my son trying to throw a fit for not getting something he wanted, "you know this kind of behavior makes him look like a spoiled brat.

" yet it also makes him act like the christian god, so maybe that is something the world would accept.

you see, when the bible mentions this loving god, then describe him like this .... god created mankind (the first couple) with free will.

Mr. Neutron

What about inflammatory statements made about JWs? What about the way JWs are shamelessly derided- often through half-truths, spun-truths and outright lies, or just childish name-calling (i.e. "borg," "drones," "stupid," "uneducated," etc.)?? The majority of posters shamelessly deride JWs as well as asserting that the ones that they are familiar with represent the beliefs of ALL JWs... Would you respond to the majority of posters who act this way when discussing JWs as you do to this person because she doesn't limit her comments to just JWs but to Xians as a whole?

35

Dating/relationships and ex-dubbyness

by devinsmom in

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ok, so i allways thought that dating someone who used to be a witless would be cool , since you would both kinda know what the other had been through in his/her life.

so my question is: how many of you date/have dated ex-witnesses, why or why not and does the relationship benifit from it...and just your ideas about it in general.. .

Mr. Neutron

I never dated anyone in the organization while I was active... But not long after I was out I started dating a girl with an Evangelical Lutheran background... One evening I found her looking through some witness material I had... I wouldn't say she became "interested" but she was curious. I didn't think much of it, but apparently she revealed the information to her mother... At that point my entire relationship with her family changed..

Her family was pretty much the way most people on this board describe witnesses...

They didn't tolerate dissenting opinion- often starting fights when their views were challenged...

They were eager to hurl out accusations about what I "believed" though at the time I was neither practicing nor was I interested in practicing, though I have to admit that I was upset when they accused me of having all sorts of crazy beliefs that I NEVER had-- they picked off a lot of stories from freeminds.org and silentlambs.org as "proof" that witnesses were rotten people. Not having much interest in being a witness or an opposer of witnesses I really had no clue as I'd never heard of either website.

Well my ex continued to ask questions about what witnesses "really" believed as she wasn't convinvced that what she was reading on freeminds.org or silentlambs.org was entirely acurate (I myself agreed with her both then and now), but I didn't really want to talk religion with her because I didn't want to be drawn back into the JWs nor did I want to be involved with the Lutheran Church...

When they decided there was no way they could bring me in I basically had to deal with all kinds of threats of "burning in hell" and she faced threats of being disowned by her family if she ever started to study with witnesses... This was all really disturbing to me as I had been out and had no desire to go back...

How many of you have had to deal with people giving you a hard time even though you had made a choice to leave the JW religion?

'N'

20

Has anyone read "In the Truth" - by Paul McCool?

by AK - Jeff in

just wondering if this novel written about witness life would be worthwhile to read, and then pass on, with a view to slow deprogramming of my niece who was df'd a few months back and i think still believes it it the truth?.

anyone read it?

thoughts?.

Mr. Neutron

Thank you for your greetings...

Nothing in the writer's preface leads me to believe that the story was a "true" one...

Different situations described throughout the book led me to believe that the author had heard the information through a gatekeeper as opposed to experiencing the details himself...

Particularly disturbing was the account near the end where the son was left to die under a tree rather than seek any sort of medical help... While it's common knowledge that JW view on blood transfusions is a negative one I have a hard time believing that any parent would just let their child die rather than attempt to find ANY way of treating him/her. But I don't know "everyone" so who knows... Maybe I'm wrong ;)

I was also disturbed when reading about how an elder in the novel was insinuating that he would help a study to find a mate other than her opposing husband... I know MANY MANY people who are married to witnesses and, though they may not agree on religious matters, are able to coexist very well. I'm sure there may be situations out there where a person just can't stay married to a witness, but I've found these to be the exception and not the rule. And in most situations it's the non-witness mate that leaves or "shuns" his or her mate... So my own personal experiences lead me to believe that while some witnesses take shunning to an extreme, the same applies to all sorts of people (no matter what religion they're part of-- even atheists) when they don't agree with someone else's ideas...

Plus I felt that important details were left out of the story. The father seemed to be a very loving and caring man, and his wife seemed to be reasonable as well. Why did the two divorce? Was one unfaithful, or is this further insinuation that the step-father "stole" the true father's wife? How did the other man get into the picture?

'N'

20

Has anyone read "In the Truth" - by Paul McCool?

by AK - Jeff in

just wondering if this novel written about witness life would be worthwhile to read, and then pass on, with a view to slow deprogramming of my niece who was df'd a few months back and i think still believes it it the truth?.

anyone read it?

thoughts?.

Mr. Neutron

Ordinarilly i wouldn't take the time to critique a work of fiction based on its acuracies... But I had a unique reaction when I read it- I was both throughly entertained by the struggles of the main characters and apalled by the gross inacuracies...

Each character was written in such a way as to cause a certain emotional reaction, and it delivered. Truly a fantastic work of FICTION... Unfortunately the author in his preface makes this comment: "...the vast majority of the public is not aware of Jehovah's Witnesses' true eccentricity, which this novel has attempted to reveal."

In other words, Mr. McCool wrote a work of fiction using fictional characters with fictional personalities in a fictual situation and his put his own spin on their supposed beliefs and expects the readers to decide whether or not the WTBS is an "authoritarian religion."

How is someone supposed to make a decision based in fact on a work of fiction, exactly?

This is my first post, so maybe I should introduce myself...

I'm an ex-Witness, lapsed Witness, whatever you want to call it... I was raised a witness and later in life decided that I didn't want to live my life the way witnesses are taught to live. That was the begining and end of it- I had no experience in leaving the religion that comes in any way close to the stories that I've read on this website or any other. I've examined certain claims made by anti-Witnesses about 1914, blood issues and child abuse. I've found little merrit in these arguments; they played no part in my decision not to remain a witness. All through my life I had friends who were both witnesses and non witnesses. I still have contact with my family. (Only my parents and one aunt are active witnesses). I was not shunned, though i wont say my decision to leave wasn't disappointing to my family. I still have contact with certain witness and ex witness friends.

I have never known anyone who has had an experience similar to the ones described on this website. I don't consider myself to be very interested in religious things... An experience with an ex-girlfriend's family (not witness, Evangelical Lutherans actually) turned me off to ANY sort of religion. My experience with them taught me that "shunning" and all the bad treatment that most posters to this website ascribe to witnesses are common to all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons. The long and short of it was that my ex's family wanted me to join their religion; I refusesd. From that point I was treated very badly by them and it caused no shortage of problems in an otherwise great relationship. She found some witness material in my home one day and expressed an interest in it, though I at the time was not practicing. When her family found out our relationship with them was totally altered. They actually threatened HER with shunning if she tried to engage in a study with the witnesses, though that the time nothing had been offered to her- she was simply curious about some reading material she came across. Her family also used material from such websites as freeminds.org and silentlambs.org to discourage her from trying to learn anything about witnesses except from those sources. It was through one of those sites, I forget which, that I learned about the McCool novel. I was curious and I read it.

Like I said it was both upsetting to read it and enjoyable because I felt that it was a good "story." I was upset because I can't stand hypocrisy. I couldn't stand it as a witness, and I still can't stand it as an ex-witness. I have read stories on this site and on others that talk about how despicable the WTBTS is for appealing to emotions concerning the future of the world but see no problem with a fiction author appealing to emotions the way Mr. McCool does in his book.

I was moved by the story, emotionally. I was upset with Jack and Susan's mother and step father and the elder who assisted them. I looked at their father as a hero who loved his children and who sincerely wanted what was best for them. I had to stop myself and realize that I was reading a work of fiction designed to give people a negative impression of JWs and lead them to make a judgement about them as though they'd just read a book of facts, not a book of fiction.

Assuming every charge of deception and falsehood against the WTBTS was true, I'm left with the question after reading ITT, "why is using deception and appeals to base emotions evil and rotten when it comes to the WTBTS, but praiseworthy when an author writes a book with anti-witness leanings?"

It's like I'm Glen Larson, and I've just put out my new Battlestar Galactica mini-series, and after it I put up a placard for my viewing audience that asks them, "is research into cybernetics something that will destroy humanity in the future? Let the viewer decide..."

So I ask you, how can someone draw a factual conclusion from a biased work of fiction, no matter how stirring to the emotions it may be?

N