Nosferatu - LOL
My PO refused to extend the "15 minute increments" thing to me. He (and my dad) said it was for housebound people. I guess clinical depression and crippling social anxiety weren't enough to justify helping me stay "active"!
Ingenuous
JoinedPosts by Ingenuous
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Service Meeting week of August 22, 2005
by TheListener insong 161.
10 min: local announcements.
read accounts report and donation acknowledgements.. 18 min: local needs.. 20 min: "kingdom preaching-a precious privilege.
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The right way to disfellowship - the wrong way to keep rapists.
by stevenyc inwe know where jehovah's witnesses get the rules for disfellowshipping, matthew 18:15-18, from jesus.
nwt:matt 18:15 "moreover, if your brother commits a sin, go lay bare his fault between you and him alone.
if he listens to you, you have gained your brother.
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Ingenuous
I used to work with kids who'd been sexually assaulted. I saw pictures of their medical exams. This stuff makes me livid.
When any one of Jehovah's Witnesses is accused of an act of child abuse, the local congregation elders are expected to investigate. Two elders meet separately with the accused and the accuser to see what each says on the matter. If the accused denies the charge, the two elders may arrange for him and the victim to restate their position in each other's presence, with elders also there. If during that meeting the accused still denies the charges and there are no others who can substantiate them, the elders cannot take action within the congregation at that time. http://www.jw-media.org/region/global/english/backgrounders/e_molestation.htm
And they add this weird detail:
However, even if the elders cannot take congregational action, they are expected to report the allegation to the branch office of Jehovah's Witnesses in their country, if local privacy laws permit.
Does anyone know the point of this, given that they've already decided to do nothing about the allegation? -
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Ingenuous
JWs can't:
Live life without a perpetual feeling of guilt/unworthiness.
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Ingenuous
Stand up to/openly disagree with my parents.
Be honest about negative characteristics of the Org.
Love myself instead of constantly stewing in guilt.
Like/Love/Pray for non-JWs - especially doing such without the ulterior motive of ultimately converting them.
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"Out There" - For Everyone Still Healing...
by Ingenuous ini love the promise of this poem - and it means even more since i left the org.. out there.
you'll see it all.. the floating ends will meet and mend and you will be yourself;.
your fully-formed self of selves.. every clumsy backward look will pay for itself.. every tear you've cried, or wanted to cry, will set your broken bones.. the rips in your heart will no longer need to be guarded.
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Ingenuous
I love the promise of this poem - and it means even more since I left the Org.
Out There
you'll see it all.
The floating ends will meet and mend and you will be yourself;
your fully-formed self of selves.Every clumsy backward look will pay for itself.
Every tear you've cried, or wanted to cry, will set your broken bones.The rips in your heart will no longer need to be guarded
by steel girders, banyan trees, or even rice paper.Not so much as a dragonfly's wing will you need
to cover the bludgeoned place, to protect the private you
you love so much and hope to save intact
from what has seemed years of relentless pummelingGo live and love in peace my friend, for surely there is love to enfold you,
and life to be feasted upon: your portion is boundless.Love will be the more you've wanted. You will know it when you see it.
You will love yourself as no lover has ever had the courage to love;
and the warmth you've wanted will line your pillowcases,
dance upon your windowsill, and hide at the ends of your socks
awaiting your toes.Deborah Mears
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"are there gonna be meetings in the new system?"
by in a new york bethel minute inthis is what i asked my mom (die-hard jdub) tonight at dinner.
her answer?
"i sure hope not... and, well, if there is i hope there are a lot less because they take up so much time.
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Ingenuous
Of course there're gonna be meetings - gotta study all those new scrolls! (Rev. 20:12)
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"How is the Kingdom Hall abusive?"
by Robert_V_Frazier insometimes i get a question that just stuns me.
this one was from a self-described "ex-jw" who says he was disfellowshipped for some ethical lapse or some such.
he thinks there's nothing at all wrong with the watchtower society, just something wrong with him.
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Ingenuous
How 'bout:
They insist on re-writing history and forcing JWs to agree, especially with regard to the Jerusalem-destroyed-in-607 BCE lie.
When they encourage anticipation of the end of the "system of things" and it doesn't come to pass, they blame the R&F for "rushing ahead" in their expectations and claim complete innocence.
They teach that the R&F don't have a personal relationship with God and that Jesus is not their mediator. That the "great crowd" can only find salvation by complete subjection to the Governing Body as their mediator and channel of communication with God.
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Is this what dubs do on a convention night now??????
by BLISSISIGNORANCE inhi everyone.. there is a huge dub convention on this weekend where i live.
i can remember how spiritually full i felt on those weekends as i enjoyed a spritual banquet and an abubdance of spiritual food at jehovah's table, in the spiritual paradise, surrounded by spiritual people.
so what's going on these days???????
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Ingenuous
Sonnyboy: Because you've had too many Screaming Orgasms! (Hmmm, can you have too many of those???)
I'm more a Georgia Peach Tea type myself (Long Island Iced Tea w/ Peachtree Schnapps).
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Is your heart bigger since you left?
by Ingenuous ini was amazed how, in a matter of days after leaving the org, my heart seemed bigger.
i was free to love people - truly love them as they were and without condition.
i was no longer required to sit in judgement of them because they didn't believe as i did.
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Ingenuous
Vitty: Yes, I have because now I allow myself to feel.
Very true. I don't beat myself up for being human anymore. I'm able to accept my own failings and variety of feelings. In turn, I'm more understanding of/patient with these in others.
As JWs, we were only allowed to "tolerate" others and their feelings. We had to actively "hate" certain responses in others, which, for all our claims, was hard to separate from the person themself.
I don't claim to be this wonderful, pollyanna-type person. But I do feel a lot more human.
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"Heaven Insurance Companies"
by Ingenuous inwhy jws still hold to c. t. russell as their founder is a mystery.
part of it, no doubt, is an effort to make the org seem "antique", as if it had always existed.
but if he were alive today, russell would be branded the worse type of apostate - and he would no doubt loathe the org.. .
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Ingenuous
Why JWs still hold to C. T. Russell as their founder is a mystery. Part of it, no doubt, is an effort to make the Org seem "antique", as if it had always existed. But if he were alive today, Russell would be branded the worse type of apostate - and he would no doubt loathe the Org.
From Thy Kingdom Come, pp. 184-187
There are various degrees of bondage among the different sects of resent the utter and absolute slavery of individual conscience and judgment, required by Romanism, are quite willing to be bound themselves, and anxious to get others bound, by the creeds and dogmas of one or another of the Protestant sects. True, their chains are lighter and longer than those of and the Dark Ages. So far as it goes, this surely is good--reformation truly--a step in the right direction--toward full liberty--toward the condition of the Church in the apostolic times. But why wear human shackles at all? Why bind and limit our consciences at all? Why not stand fast in the full liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free? Why not reject all the efforts of fallible fellowmen to fetter conscience and hinder investigation?--not only the efforts of the remote past, of the Dark Ages, but the efforts of the various reformers of the more recent past? Why not conclude to be as was the apostolic Church?--free to grow in knowledge as well as in grace and love, as the Lord's "due time" reveals his gracious plan more and more fully?
Surely all know that whenever they join any of these human organizations, accepting its Confession of Faith as theirs, they bind themselves to believe neither more nor less than that creed expresses on the subject. If, in spite of the bondage thus voluntarily yielded to, they should think for themselves, and receive light from other sources, in advance of the light enjoyed by the sect they have joined, they must either prove untrue to the sect and to their covenant with it, to believe nothing contrary to its Confession, or else they must honestly cast aside and repudiate the Confession which they have outgrown, and come out of such a sect. To do this requires grace and costs some effort, disrupting, as it often does, pleasant associations, and exposing the honest truth-seeker to the silly charges of being a "traitor" to his sect, a "turncoat," one "not established," etc. When one joins a sect, his mind is supposed to be given up entirely to that sect, and henceforth not his own. The sect undertakes to decide for him what is truth and what is error; and he, to be a true, staunch, faithful member, must accept the decisions of his sect, future as well as past, on all religious matters, ignoring his own individual thought, and avoiding personal investigation, lest he grow in knowledge, and be lost as a member of such sect. This slavery of conscience to a sect and creed is often stated in so many words, when such a one declares that he "belongs" to such a sect.
These shackles of sectarianism, so far from being rightly esteemed as shackles and bonds, are esteemed and worn as ornaments, as badges of respect and marks of character. So far has the delusion gone, that many of God's children would be ashamed to be known to be without some such chains--light or heavy in weight, long or short in the personal liberty granted. They are ashamed to say that they are not in bondage to any sect or creed, but "belong" to Christ only.
Hence it is that we sometimes see an honest, truth-hungry child of God gradually progressing from one denomination to another, as a child passes from class to class in a school. If he be in the Church of Rome, when his eyes are opened, he gets out of it, probably falling into some branch of the Methodist or Presbyterian systems. If here his desire for truth be not entirely quenched and his spiritual senses stupefied with the spirit of the world, you may a few years after find him in some of the branches of the Baptist system; and, if he still continues to grow in grace and knowledge and love of truth, and into an appreciation of the liberty wherewith Christ makes free, you may by and by find him outside of all human organizations, joined merely to the Lord and to his saints, bound only by the tender but strong ties of love and truth, like the early Church. 1 Cor. 6:15,17; Eph. 4:15,16
The feeling of uneasiness and insecurity, if not bound by the chains of some sect, is general. It is begotten of the false idea, first promulgated by Papacy, that membership in an earthly organization is essential, pleasing to the Lord and necessary to everlasting life. These earthly, humanly organized systems, so different from the simple, unfettered associations of the days of the apostles, are viewed involuntarily and almost unconsciously by Christian people as so many Heaven Insurance Companies, to some one of which money, time, respect, etc., must be paid regularly, to secure heavenly rest and peace after death. Acting on this false idea, people are almost as nervously anxious to be bound by another sect, if they step out of one, as they are if their policy of insurance has expired, to have it renewed in some respectable company.
But no earthly organization can grant a passport to heavenly glory. The most bigoted sectarian (aside from the Romanist) will not claim, even, that membership in his sect will secure heavenly glory. All are forced to admit that the true Church is the one whose record is kept in heaven, and not on earth. They deceive the people by claiming that it is needful to come to Christ through them--needful to become members of some sectarian body in order to become members of "the body of Christ," the true Church. On the contrary, the Lord, while he has not refused any who came to him through sectarianism, and has turned no true seeker away empty, tells us that we need no such hindrances, but could much better have come to him direct. He cries, "Come unto me"; "take my yoke upon you, and learn of me"; "my yoke is easy and my burden is light, and ye shall find rest to your souls." Would that we had given heed to his voice sooner. We would have avoided many of the heavy burdens of sectism, many of its bogs of despair, many of its doubting castles, its vanity fairs, its lions of worldly-mindedness, etc.
Many, however, born in the various sects, or transplanted in infancy or childhood, without questioning the systems, have grown free in heart, and unconsciously beyond the limits and bounds of the creeds they acknowledge by their profession and support with their means and influence. Few of these have recognized the advantages of full liberty, or the drawbacks of sectarian bondage. Nor was the full, complete separation enjoined until now, in the harvest time. Now the Lord's words are heard, Come out from among them: be ye clean (free, both from wrong practices and from false doctrines), ye who bear the vessels (truths-- doctrines) of the Lord. Isa. 52:11