was there an official or unofficial reason that anyone knows of?.
it seems to me that pretty much every publication was studied at the book study, but we never did that one..
So, you guys are saying that NO JWs ANYWHERE...EVER...studied the Search book? Why is it so hard to just allow that SOME JWs studied the Search book in a bookstudy setting? Whatever.
Darkuncle: It is so hard to allow because all JW's everywhere have to follow the same book study schedule. I will allow that there may have been some apostate bookstudy group somewhere that decided on their own to study this book. Happy now?
i had coffee with my jw mother today.
it was the weekend of her circuit overseers visit.
"a very nice man" according to her.
nicole: You are nothing if not succinct!
i had coffee with my jw mother today.
it was the weekend of her circuit overseers visit.
"a very nice man" according to her.
I had coffee with my JW mother today. It was the weekend of her circuit overseers visit. "A very nice man" according to her. I nodded and smiled.
I suppose that may have encouraged her to continue with an interesting tidbit from his talk today. It seems he has printed out a graph from the internet showing the increase in earthquakes since 2001. He qualified that this information was not to scare people into "the truth", because people will either want to learn about Jehovah and worship him or not.
However, every time he hears someone say that there have always been earthquakes, he pulls out this graph to show them the proof that there is a steep rise in earthquakes since the 1900's and especially in the last decade.
I don't reply to this but change the subject. I want to say that I would want to make sure his graph came from a credible scientific website and that even if it had, there may be other reasons for the apparent increase that have nothing to do with the impending doom of Armageddon. I know this will hold no sway with my mother though, and I want to have my facts absolutely straight, so I said nothing at the time.
When I got home, I immediately typed "increased in earthquakes" into my search engine and the first site to pop up was a geological survey page with many scientific articles, including the following article explaining the reason for the seeming increase in earthquakes.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/increase_in_earthquakes.php
Since this was the very first site that came up, do you suppose the CO really didn't see this or truly doesn't understand simple science written in layman's terms, or is he purposely being misleading? Hmmm..... I'm starting to doubt the sincerity....
Anyway, I emailed this article link to my mother. It's the first time I've ever actively tried to convince her of anything different than she hears at the Kingdom Hall. At her age, I don't consider it a kindness especially since she is already prone to depression. However, she did bring up the topic and this is a credible science site, nothing apostate about it. What could be the harm? We shall see.....I'll update if I get a response from her.
first of all, is there a way to keep this topic available?.
some would like to see authoritarian repressive watchtower gone, others want reform among jws now!
... "don't curse the darkness light a candle" - a chinese proverb?.
I choose neither.
One cannot reform or dissolve something over which they have no control. We can only educate ourselves and others who are willing to learn and hope that one day the WTBTS will die out from decay.
No, I'm not that superficial.
Are you obsessed with butts or something? Seems to me you're the poster who dissed a perfectly fine companion because you didn't like the shape of her butt.
Perhaps you should remove your head from yours and you will be able to see people with a more refined perspective.
i have been testing the waters with a fade.
waiting to see the reaction.
my friends and family still talk to me, although i haven't been to meeting since november of last year.
What Steve 2 said...what an incredibly controlling friend, but yet so absolutely typical of JW's. The only cure for it, I'm afraid, is to stand up to people like that and tell them to butt out, otherwise you will be a slave to others your entire life. Do you really want to live someone else's version of your life? You only get one, you know. You'll probably lose a friend, but hey, there are 7 billion people on this planet, my guess is you'll find another.
spoiler alert!
if you haven't seen the movie, don't read this thread.
.
Meh....I stopped caring somewhere around level 3 of Fisher's subconscious.
I trust absolutely trust AGBM... to post another ridiculously unbelievable thread before the week is out.
ASO: You might want to think about engaging your brain before you open your mouth....that way you have a slightly better chance of looking like a partial ignoramous instead of a full blown jackass. If that's not possible, perhaps you could try living up to your pseudonym?
i'm mostly here to meet new like minded friends.
growing up in the religion has jaded my perspective.
most of my believes the wts is bs, but there is that part in the back of my mind that fears they have the truth.
Welcome to 2 new brits!
An old poster, Hillary Step, also a UK, bethel elder at one point, gave some good advice, long ago, to those who had been in many years and were contemplating leaving. After years out, and watching some slowly fade and some go out with an apostate bang, I have come to believe that it is very sound advice, indeed.
He said to do one's research, read, read, read, but keep your own counsel. Don't make any moves or changes without first knowing where you are going. Put a life in place for yourself and your family (if you have any) first.
I know many will disagree and call you a hypocrite if you stay and fade slowly, but we don't owe anyone else on this forum and especially in the JW organization any loyalty or any integrity. We only owe it to ourselves and to our families and that means leaving at a pace that is comfortable and the least distressing for ourselves and for them.
And yes, leaving can be very distressing! Some go off the deep end, panic attacks, depression, losing their entire family and social network all at once. The longer we have been in, especially if born in, the more stressful that scenario is and who needs more stress in their life?
My advice, regurgitated from Hillary Step, is to start slow. If giving public talks makes you feel sick, then call in sick and cancel. They don't have to know why you feel sick, just that you do. That could segue nicely into health problems that, after a while, cause you to step down as an elder. After a time, those health problems can also cause you to miss meetings and your service hours to drop dramatically. Transfer those "sick" feelings into physical ailments. (In my case this was easy to do as I do feel physically ill when I'm around toxic, abusive, judgemental people). If you are not one to actually somatize your emotions, don't worry. You don't own any of the elders and explanation for your truth. They certainly haven't given you the real truth over the years, have they?
Shepherding visit? No worries. Tell them you are struggling with various health and family issues, and looking after your family must come before the congregation. Word it in a theocratic way, throw in a few scriptures and they will not be able to do or say much.
In the meantime, if you have a family study, continue it, but change the format somewhat, encourage additional research, ask questions out loud about stuff that makes no sense, encourage wife and kids to do the same, but do not provide the answers to the questions, especially apostate answers. Here you must be subtle if you don't want to lose your family. Let those questions and doubts just hang in the air until they arrive at their own conclusions. They must see them as coming from themselves, not you or apostates. I did this with my son, and was very successful, he left the org with me even though ALL our relatives on both sides are devout JW's. After a while, start missing the family study for more fun events that come up. After all, you can always make it up later. (Hint: later never comes).
Make a few worldly friends. Dont' go crazy or anything, but have a nice neighbour or work family over for dinner. Let your family see that worldly people are normal, not depraved and debauched. Take up a worldly hobby or sport or two and allow the kids to join some of those school activities. From that point, you can start letting them miss a few meetings to take part in other activities when schedules conflict. Don't come right out and celebrate the holidays overtly, but do subtle holidayish type things, like planning a special time or day with your kids on their birthdays. Or buy them a gift but don't wrap it. (oh, was it your birthday, I forgot, what a coinicidence!) Break them in gently with gradualism (even the society acknowledges the success of this one of Satan's ploys).
It is a case, not of severing ties with the organization, cold turkey, and then being left in no man's land, but a case of gradually filling up all your time with non-JW activities and friends so that eventually the JW religion becomes totally crowded out of the picture. The end result is that you will have another (better) life in place by the time you are ready to cut ties with the org. You will find that JW's will slowly begin to spend less time with you anyway, since you are weak and not around as much. You will not even miss it, or them, by that point, but it will spare you and your family the trauma of being suddenly df'd and shunned.
Cog
ps: OK, blast away all you rabid, anti-JW activists!
