Posts by Stumpy

43

Do you find it hard to be around active JW's now?

by EdenOne in

i do - actually, it's become close to unbearable.. and herein lies the paradox: i tried to fade in the illusion that i might keep contact with family and friends still "in".

was it worth it?

because not only most of them shun me anyways, but i find it almost unbearable to be around them, especially when the cult chit chat kicks in: every cute animal video clip triggers endless comments about glimpses of the future paradise and how "god did it"; those greasy praises to the organization and the governing body; the dumb awe about every jw broadcast and those cheesy music videos; the endless drivel against other religions when one knows perfectly well that we're no better than them; the endless flow of "experiences" of field service or spectacular conversions into "the truth"; the relentless congregation gossip; and so on .... i ask myself: is this why i am fading for ...?

Stumpy

Yep jw conversation is definitely getting on my and Mrs Stumpy nerves.

We were visiting family last week and some super zealous jw's popped in and ended up staying for dinner. The conversation was excruciating to listen to and I threw up a little bit in my mouth numerous times during the evening. We gave each other 'it's-best-to-stay-quiet' looks all night.

The conversation started off talking about the Royal Commission - how Satan was out to get us, how wonderful Bro. Jackson was, that obviously the holy spirit was helping him, how jw's are way better than the Catholics because we don't hide pedophiles like they do, how horrible the lawyers were to the poor elders, how jw's better not be made to pay compensation because that's not fair and the ones that were "allegedly" abused are just being greedy! I wanted to stab someone in the eye!!!

Then the conversation turned to the SKE school and how wonderful it is that older ones and single sisters are able to be used in a larger capacity now (not at all because no brothers are reaching out!) and how jehoober is obviously speeding things up before armageddon. They haven't even applied yet, but because of all their prayers and plans they are 100% sure they will be blessed to go. Everyone was oooing and aahhing in agreement. (Vomit moment) Then they say they are flat broke, are living with family, and have absolutely no retirement plans in place when he stops work in 10 - 15 years time. But it doesn't matter because the CO said the end HAS to come in the next couple of years. (Once again I try to control the puke rising in my oesophagus). I actually felt sorry for them at this moment. What a shock they'll get.

Then the conversation turned to the abortion protesting. Someone said how unfair it is that we are targeted when our kids die because of not accepting blood transfusions but thousands of kids are murdered every week by abortion, which then turned into a huge pat-on-the-back fest about how awesome jw's are by single-handedly making the medical field advance in non-blood surgery. If it wasn't for them doctor's wouldn't even know about it - more puke. It was mentioned that there are far less blood related incidents lately as well which shows jehoobers blessing. I actually broke my silence here and said that maybe that has a lot to do with the fact that jw's do accept many blood products now! Wow you should of seen the death stares I got.

And that's only half of the crap we had to sit through. Thank goodness I had a bottle of single malt waiting for me when I got home! Sad thing is we might have agreed and joined in with a fair portion of that a few months ago

7

CONFESSION OF A GERMAN WIDOW (A short story)

by Terry in

jw
friends

confession of a german widow.

(a very short story by terry edwin walstrom).

the widow, rosa hoffberger, stepped out of her large farmhouse and adjusted her gloves before toddling off down the cobblestone path leading into town.

Stumpy

Great story Terry. I loved the ending You have quite the writing skills.

205

Hi Everyone. Answer to prayer countdown...

by Stumpy in

jw
friends

i've been lurking for about 3 months now and thought i'd better finally sign up.

you have all been an immense help to me as i have come to realize that this isn't the truth so i want to say a great big thank you!

what a crazy, emotional ride it is to finally face the truth about the doubts that i have carried for many years.

Stumpy

Right you are Finkelstein

46

London Bethelites Are Agitated!

by The Searcher in

a source has informed me that a relative who's in london bethel has said that a number of bethelites there are very uncomfortable and embarrassed because the branch has received "quite a few letters" querying why members of the governing body were wearing flashy rings and jewellery on some of the monthly broadcasts, but on the broadcast when the g.b.

asked for more money from the congregations - their gold and jewellery was not on display!.

will probably emerge one day wearing sackcloth, begging for yet more donations..

Stumpy

Maybe this is why people are upset...

205

Hi Everyone. Answer to prayer countdown...

by Stumpy in

jw
friends

i've been lurking for about 3 months now and thought i'd better finally sign up.

you have all been an immense help to me as i have come to realize that this isn't the truth so i want to say a great big thank you!

what a crazy, emotional ride it is to finally face the truth about the doubts that i have carried for many years.

Stumpy

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.

EdenOne that was good timing hey :)

Hi Magnum...

The JW culture is so goody-goody and self-righteous and bragging and condescending.

It looks so different now that I'm looking at it from the outside. Some stuff disgusted me all along, but I just put up with it. Now, though, I see the big picture.

I hear you mate. It's weird looking in from the outside isn't it. Like you're in a strange dream sometimes. It's frustrating though because you wonder how they can't see what's so obvious... until I remember that was me too for sooo long :(

Hi ToesUp...

Two more people the org can not "use" for free labor and donations! Yippie!

No kidding hey. To be honest though, we haven't donated a cent to the org for at least 5 years. When we were in some of our assignments we witnessed a horrible amount of waste of donated funds by certain missionaries and bethelites. So we decided to give that money directly to needy families instead. One jackass missionary in particular made sure he spent every cent of the home funds every single month, regardless of whether they needed to or not. They lived like kings. Yet in his cong there were very poor families struggling to pay for medication for their sick kids, let alone 2 meals a day and they were guilted by him almost every service meeting into donating more and more. Makes me mad just thinking about it!

Hi leaving_quietly...

My issues with WTBTS are mostly doctrinal. Not that I'm burying my head in the sand on other issues, such as child abuse. However, for an organization that claims to be the ONLY true religion and GOD's organization, it MUST be able to stand up to scrutiny on doctrinal points. My own research shows it does not. Not by a long shot. I look forward to reading what you put together. I woke up when I was an elder and I resigned because I could no longer stomach teaching falsehoods. That's the bottom line for me.

I was exactly the same. That's what my research focused mainly on. What really did it for me was 607 - 1914 - 1919 but I couldn't share this with my wife at the time because all the research was outside of the WT publications. What hit her the most was the issue of Jesus not being our mediator. I also couldn't stomach teaching falsehoods and resigned quickly. Sorry to hear you don't have your wife with you yet mate. I hope you can reach her one day. I hate this religion for doing this to families!

Saintbertholdt, Lisa and Tornintwo you're more than welcome. Yes it took a while - about 600 hours all up but well worth it to be free. My biggest concern was to end up as one of those that still has doubts deep down as to whether it is the truth or not. I clearly remember all those that raced back to the kingdom halls after 9/11 because they still deep down believed. I wanted us to be able to walk away and never look back. I also wanted to have ample documentation as to why we left, so when we are questioned down the road we can quickly refer to it.

29

Mrs. Eden sends her regards to you all .... =)

by EdenOne in

jw
friends

mrs. eden is laying here by my side reading the forum latest posts with me and asked me to send you all her warmest regards.

more to follow soon.... .

eden

Stumpy

EdenOne that's awesome news!

We're so happy for you. You've both been through so much. Big hugs from me and Mrs Stumpy.

205

Hi Everyone. Answer to prayer countdown...

by Stumpy in

jw
friends

i've been lurking for about 3 months now and thought i'd better finally sign up.

you have all been an immense help to me as i have come to realize that this isn't the truth so i want to say a great big thank you!

what a crazy, emotional ride it is to finally face the truth about the doubts that i have carried for many years.

Stumpy

Hi everyone!

I can’t believe it has been 5 months since my first post here. So much has happened in that time. We thought it would be wise to hold off posting until we were completely out, just in case we accidentally gave something away about our identities.

Mrs Stumpy and I wanted to let everyone know we are both doing good and well into our fade. It hasn’t been easy by a long shot but we are excited about living the rest of our lives together without our heads in the sand and controlled by that high control religion/cult.

I’m no longer an elder, we haven’t been out in service for over 2 months and our last meeting was over a month ago. There’s been good days and bad days but lately there are way more good ones. It’s been fun planning our future together. It’s also been fun doing and planning certain things together that we couldn’t/wouldn’t do as witnesses but had always wanted to.

My sadness and heartbreak transformed into anger and I’m now well on my way to indifference which is where we both want to end up.

For a long time we were grieving the thought of losing all our friends… but now we realize that we can’t stand being around witnesses and their pompous, mind-numbingly ignorant conversation anymore. After a night of listening to couples talking about wanting to go to the SKE school, their take on blood transfusions and their disturbing thoughts on the Royal Commission we wanted to shoot ourselves. It’s gratifying to realize we have moved on from them, not the other way around. I can’t stand to think about the amount of drivel, crap and nonsense that must have fallen out of my mouth over all the years I was a witness! It’s painful to listen to… and embarrassing to realize I was once in that zombie like state. No more though.

I spent over 6 months deeply researching the “truth” (we hate calling it that now) and collecting and collating information to wake Mrs Stumpy up. I knew she wouldn’t read anything that wasn’t from the society’s publications and definitely nothing from “apostate” books or websites – so I put together folders of scanned articles in different subjects just from the WT literature with minimal handwritten notes. This is what woke Mrs Stumpy up. We would like to share these with everyone to give a little back to this awesome community. Hopefully they can help wake someone else up too.

Here they are in PDF format…

Read First:

https://mega.nz/#!ysYnGAoQ!HCKOTvFFSbv7ENExiX25ZSRIKMNVrU95TAAetRj6px4

Generation:

https://mega.nz/#!eoQChBiZ!nW6QrGsmLyxJwA6vH8JVLTjiUnsxJu9E4XUauAR2RwM

Light Brighter Part A:

https://mega.nz/#!LlBigZIQ!nBHhw_Gxa54F8l8HpLT4J2q7FvgsgZdDBPYGsj0AyXI

Light Brighter Part B:

https://mega.nz/#!Lwok3Rpb!tjKDZ_0TcZWXR-Z1btbCFvAGgChMh0usT_o0iBC2lSA

Lies:

https://mega.nz/#!atBAhayK!Xa1MjqRyRYIZLzUye2i3AnB4CfYc7RAzq3G5RncjB4I

Deceit and Half Truths:

https://mega.nz/#!XkZD1LSa!Oz0ocoEDwhXUZthLJsf34Es__e3Y0siuFpO850GNn8Y

Re-Writing History:

https://mega.nz/#!rtRw0AIB!0l_hzObsu9nHdc8L_vCgH6G3f3MrdFGZGxETr5LFf-s

Double Standards:

https://mega.nz/#!TsIFWLoa!KPuvx5_3ps-gGmjU8SbEXQ8m6KSv8ErFerx_Z9qxydI

Fallacies:

https://mega.nz/#!T8RVwBhI!QLCTtjN1lkxxkPaFxTH8EWLua97ceDEtFTCpKkASAPs

Propaganda and Manipulation:

https://mega.nz/#!O4QWgapL!sfkxSG7hEamDrwHiXGoQpeqIMH4IPd25pfGbT00hKgw

Sex and Divorce:

https://mega.nz/#!HhIwXbzZ!vTOf8I1YQZEQ3OPLSM5BmeFaqXyqhKKjFsq-sigBH4U

Armageddon:

https://mega.nz/#!q94lSbaS!a3ZHBG3mOumWlX3okax8oddZfvC3PcAd5wY9c0DZ3gI

Baptism Questions:

https://mega.nz/#!mtRk0YZR!OCaOZ_QtiSRvTI6WUN-f4sxCqF6-R5ZjDzk79gp0IrU

Jesus Mediator:

https://mega.nz/#!y5hASKJQ!C9vBExl7QNkRwbNv6Hz2lEuH401PKZvtgzlgdb-RbTo

1925:

https://mega.nz/#!qxxVXI6Q!483VXJt86asmPnAAI-5uvaM7uy9W_sNFkIUkQtySN3g

1940s:

https://mega.nz/#!a0IxSDzA!AEA0VRGx96qfztFbJcf1CXbOig3Ha4HENibBixEYl_U

1950s:

https://mega.nz/#!G8QjWLSb!WxXDFNaKNmiMUytoBb5tkMlPqL91MSBzDuQFwu7qdMs

1960s:

https://mega.nz/#!e54lmRYB!_SKbI5zTzXFfsBUy93djPzRHWKUtAXQ938a64ROBG70

1975 Part A:

https://mega.nz/#!GhBxVIyQ!nljtQgaF7luzwVRXG8uKpTamR7x5AzTJj8zGz-rsED8

1975 Part B:

https://mega.nz/#!f5hikK6b!e1txHw19qzkc6leEP9LnEKL3KuTgvR8OXl6Ieg99bX4

2000:

https://mega.nz/#!jxhzwYxa!CnxlvkOLqA0FHZ5bXc7D5ZNXJ5Oezbdu_JQ2loUVwx0

Failed Dates:

https://mega.nz/#!q5RSELgb!HTEXeQlF73dCG1PkeYEHVGf1aDgK1NvO_DdvNEdqGws

1260, 1290, 1335 and 2300 Days:

https://mega.nz/#!vsgRET5Q!luqtO7TnVPebyYFOA0-LqvshsWgB_kmEMqTSj383GCc

Read Last:

https://mega.nz/#!SxBQiDoY!wPgSP5DHp9_YYZGd1xEw1xQbUrPCY3fcx5tvA4j4Hkk

Hope these can help someone.

Thanks again for all the help and encouragement you gave us.

Mr and Mrs Stumpy

205

Hi Everyone. Answer to prayer countdown...

by Stumpy in

jw
friends

i've been lurking for about 3 months now and thought i'd better finally sign up.

you have all been an immense help to me as i have come to realize that this isn't the truth so i want to say a great big thank you!

what a crazy, emotional ride it is to finally face the truth about the doubts that i have carried for many years.

Stumpy

Giordano and SloppyJoe2, thank you so much for posting that! I had read about the UN thing but never gave it much (actually any) weight in my decision to leave. But after your experience with the pool Giordano and that Question from Readers article... yes, I see why it is such a big deal!

James Jack, yes I'll eventually get that written. I've been focusing on helping my wife this week through all the emotions we've been dealing with. I should have some time soon to write my story of how I woke up.

205

Hi Everyone. Answer to prayer countdown...

by Stumpy in

jw
friends

i've been lurking for about 3 months now and thought i'd better finally sign up.

you have all been an immense help to me as i have come to realize that this isn't the truth so i want to say a great big thank you!

what a crazy, emotional ride it is to finally face the truth about the doubts that i have carried for many years.

Stumpy

Hi Freddo. Thanks for your concern, it means a lot to me. And please don't worry, I will be very careful.

Like I mentioned above, at the moment we're not in Australia, we're in a country that doesn't speak much English and most of the locals don't have internet yet. I wanted to be very careful and that's why when I originally wrote the draft for my OP I mentioned Australia because it was the furthest place away from us I could think of and I was paranoid. I thought I'd better play some "theocratic warfare" to be obscure. I actually meant to delete that sentence before posting because it was unnecessary and I didn't want to lie, but I forgot and then I couldn't edit it! Sorry to mislead everyone, I hope I haven't offended. Paranoia makes you do weird things! I've been using a VPN while here too which shows how paranoid I'm being.

I can't believe the lengths you have to go to to leave this religion!!! I'm a fully grown man for crying out loud and I'm acting like a little kid that's about to be caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Shouldn't you just be able to say "sorry, I don't believe this anymore" and just leave??? This alone has helped my wife immensely to see TTATT more fully. She now sees first hand the fear and control they try to have over everyone if you want to leave but still keep in contact with friends and family.

As I have Australian residency, we most likely will be moving back there in the future to completely fade. That will take a bit of time and effort to make happen though. For those that have PM'd me from there, thank you and I hope we can meet in person one day. We will move to a city far, far away from where I grew up so the chances of running into old 'friends' from years ago will be very slim. If we do run into them then we can easily fake being still in for them I guess.

It was foolish of me to post that picture of the program though because it could draw unwanted attention on someone else and I will feel terrible if that were to happen I'll definitely think things through better before posting in the future.

Thanks again everyone for your support. By the way, after lots of walks, lots of talks and plenty of research these last few days, Mrs Stumpy is completely on board with me now. She said she has known it wasn't the truth for a while now but was scared to admit it to herself and finally accept it. I know how that feels, as do all of you I'm sure. She even said to me at the meeting last night that it's hard to sit through this when you know it isn't true. She's a great wife and I'm so fortunate to have her!

Now it's just a matter of playing the frustrating game of figuring out how and when to leave.

48

How many here gave up having a family for the sake of the "truth"?

by stuckinarut2 in

this is a sensitive topic for many of us i know, but i am wondering how many here actually gave up the idea of having a family "in this system" for the sake of "kingdom activity or service"??.

start the count here with my wife and i.

Stumpy

Yeah the last reference I could find Absalom is in the April 15 2012 Watchtower page 18.

Sorry for the situation your in, that's very tough. I hope it changes for you one day.