Rashawn: Do you seriously believe the bible prevents you from seeing your brother? You have been severly abused and mistreated by people who use the bible as a place to hide behind their own lack of love and their own inadequacies. There is nothing biblical about any thing they did.
Learn first to take care of yourself. Your faith is shaken, honor that and find your own love and place in this world. Your story is very sad and my heart goes out to you. Many of us on this board, myself included, have had very similary life experiences with JW's. Faith can be shaken, but the human spirit is a wonderful thing. As you read stories from others on this board, you see that spirit take many forms, humor, sadness that helps people grow, anger, joy, and a reaching to tomorrow. Heal your pain, find yourself and you will find your brother.
NEVER, EVER, EVER, would I go back. I don't allow JW's to come into my home, nor will I take their literature. There is a great book called "Courage: the art of living dangerously" by Osho. Part of what attracted me was his stand that the ability to be sure makes a person stop thinking, and once you stop thinking, you stop living. Living is a wild, joyous, roller coaster ride. When I was in JW, I knew everything - who would be saved, what the new world would look like, when the world would end. It does not get much more sure then that. Along the way, I missed living. I missed people who enriched my life because they were not "saved". I missed Christmas, and holidays, and birthdays, and I must have missed the end of the world, because we are way beyond 1975.
dont blame the witnesses, its the bible's fault.. well you can blame them for trying to stick to the thing, but belief in the bible is the main problem.. i've heard the gb and witnesses be called evil by some, as though they have gone out to hurt people on purpose.. but i doubt that this is true, at least in recent times.. no the problem comes from believing the bible is god's word and trying to interpret it and follow it.. what happens when you do so?.
you get the catholic inquisition,people burnt at the stake,you get jews fighting for a promised land, religious groups who let their children die and a host of other problems.. i ask a question.if you were god and were going to have a book written on how man should live, would you do it in such a way that if misinterpeted or taken too literaly or mistranslated slightly , could result in the death and suffering of thousands of people,and would enslave people to false religious beliefs?.
yes there are good points and principles in the bible, mainly the words of jesus, who didn't write any of it himself.. but a few good principles don,t outweight the bad done in the name of the bible through the past 2000 years.. the society has tried to follow the bible, and take it for real .in doing so they have had to take on beliefs and ideas that can ultimatly cause harm.. it is like me reading a instruction manuel for my car, that is a fake written by a non-expert.if i follow that manuel , although it may not be all wrong, some instuctions could be in error and cause damage to my car and risk injury to other people.. if people then come along after and say "well its not the manuel thats wrong , you've just misunderstood it , look if you do it this way,that way..".
People use the bible over brains and good common sense. The bible has some good information in it to be sure, but there is no other text that is over 1000 years old that anyone would quote as a source of knowledge. People say it is "inspired by God." However, slaves be in subjection to your masters hardly sounds godly.
I have worked with JW's who say the "bible says beat their sides," in reference to why they had taken two belts and beaten their children. The wives say "the bible says he is the father and I have to follow him." This is nonsense. The ability to quote scripture has nothing to do with Jesus Christ, it has to do with the ability to parrot back and parrotting has nothing to do with the qualities of goodness and mercy.
You are right, the ability to parrot gave us a full history of Christians mistreating people. Good post!
easter, what's the real truth: previously, and as found in most encyclopedias, most scholars took the view of "the venerable bede" who in 8th century england speculated that the name easter may have come from the name for the anglo-saxon goddess eastre.
but closer research shows several other possibilities.
one is that the name more likely came from the latin for "white week" that spring week when people wore white to be baptized as christians.
I am always amazed at these things! Does God really have nothing better to do then to look down and be upset because people color eggs and celebrate? With millions of starving people in the world, what difference does it make? If a day to God is as a thousand years, in the incredibly small amount of time that one 24 day means, do you really think God is paying attention?
I have to worship a God who doesn't care about such things. Colored eggs, decorated trees, turkeys, etc., are just social expressions. They make people smile and children's hearts happy. The rest is speculation and posturing.
he's been bedridden, paralyzed, and tube fed for nearly five years, so it was more release than tragedy.. those of you who know my story will understand the miserable mix of emotions his passing has caused.
the whole guilt and forgiveness issue shoved itself right up my nose into my forebrain.
My thoughts and prayers are with you. My very abusive father died 4 years ago and I am still struggling with the idea of forgiving him. It is easier to forgive mistakes, but abuse is planned and that makes it much harder.
My best advise (take it for what you are paying for it!) is to take good care of yourself. First think about you, what do you need to heal your pain. If forgiveness comes, that is fine, but if not, keep working on you.
i have read a couple of threads the last couple of days that dealt with what you have to give up when becoming a jw.. most posts that i read said they have to give up getting a higher education.
my question is this: is that still a trend today?
that elders frown or discourage young jws from going to college or university by telling them to put kingdom's interest first?
When I was in the organization in the late 60's, I heard an entire lecture on college "being the devil's playground". This attitude has continued to the present, as I have a relative who feels the same way, and speaks of members of the congration being shunned because they have sought higher education. A case in point is a JW mother who went back to school for additional nurses training. Her daughter, also a JW, no longer speakers to her.
The best way to keep people's minds, hearts, and dreams depressed is to keep them from getting an education. In such cases, a religion like this one, can seem appealing. What else can you do?
It also contributes to the sense of entitlement. When I asked my aunt why it was right for JWs to send their children to school to be taught by people who had gone to college, or seek medical help from people who had gone to college, I was advised that they (JWS) were God's chosen, so it was right that others should take care of them.
last night, it struck me that stockholm syndrome has a lot to do with life in a cult.
i have started to research this connection, and found the following article at http://www.m-a-h.net/inkdroppings/sl-captivity.htm concerning child abuse including child sexual abuse.
i thought it was very interesting.. --------------.
out of the many things from the bible i wonder about there was one i thought i would share with you all and see if you may have any interesting insights on this issue.. according to the bible man was suppose to live forever, no sickness, easy childbirth for women, just your basic paradise, right?.
so ok, we all know that because that wretched eve screwed it up for all of us and everything we now have suffering and death.. my problem with all of this is this: what if all the people who had ever lived had never died?
Actually, I have always had questions about this. In my JW training, the Garden of Eden was a paradise. No pain, no problems, no death. But surely there were venemous snakes or spiders, or even stinging bees in the garden. Did they never bite or sting? Were there no cliffs in the garden that Adam and Eve might fall off of, or bodies of water where they might drown? There had to be germs, so they certainly could get sick! Of course, everytime I asked, I was also told Jehovah would have taken care of that. However, the human spirit is meant to develop, to learn and grow. To be in a paradise where everything was just "perfect" all of the time would more of a hell than a paradise. It is not that I want bad things to happen, but day in and day out of perfect days of doing nothing would not be paradise.
recently in another thread, dannybear mentioned jim jones and the mass suicides at jonestown.
about two years ago when the issue of cults in france was a hot topic in ex-jw discussions, i became curious about jim jones and his followers.
i had seen the news reports and horrific footage, but i wanted to understand how a man could convince 638 of his adult followers to kill themselves and 276 children.. for me, jim jones's story is also close to home.
Ginny: Thank you for the information. It is very significant that the alarms should go off when people say one right way. In all of the universe, there is no "one" of anything -- and certainly no "one" right way. The need to believe outside of ourselves starts early. My experience in religion is that we as humans are filled with sin, women brought original sin into the world, the body is evil, this life is evil, etc. It is very easy to want to be delivered from the sin that we carry with us all the time.
It is sad that so many people have given up their lives for this, Jim Jones, David Karesh - Waco (why would anyone follow a leader that claims he had been told by God to have sex with 15 year old girls?), the group in California that dressed up and committed suicide carrying quarters that they would need in the next life! Life here and now is to be enjoyed, fully, joyously and completely in all the many ways that we can.
After suffering years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse by my JW father, and emotional abuse by my JW aunt, I also suffered from post tramatic stress syndrome. What helped me was therapy, talking about it to someone who listened and understood. The other thing that helped was learning to live my life on my terms! When I did that, I found great joy in friends and in doing things with people who openly, joyously, lived their lives. Unlike I had been taught by the JW, life today is the grand gift. There is incredible beauty in this world, in its scenery and in its people. Take a few mnutes and find it in yourself and in others. Give yourself time and take good care of yourself. And tell anyone like that idiot below your entry to kiss your fine ass! Few things have helped me feel less victimized and defeated then getting a fight back attitude!
