I've been out of the org for almost 30 years. The first year I was a mess -- anger, depression, hospitalization--the usual dreary story. After that I started to adjust--went to college, then work, made new friends. You will get through it too--have faith (ironically, a situation in which faith is appropriate). At my vantage point now after so long, I can even see that I derived a few (very few) benefits from the experience -- I can now smell hypocrisy from miles away, in religion, politics, you name it. No one will ever put one over on me again. Older but hopefully wiser.
parakeet
JoinedPosts by parakeet
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Hello
by EyesOpened inmy parents became jw's in 1972 - i was 6 yrs old.
i followed their lead, baptized at 15, regular pioneer at 19, ms at 21, elder at 27. have given district and circuit talks, tms overseer yada, yada, yada... .
last september i stopped and haven't looked back.
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I just got this
by fullofdoubtnow ini just took my mum home with her shopping, and she gave me a letter from a sister in my old kh.
the sister was one of my best friends for years, and one of the few people outside the elders who i told i was about to da, and why.
she knows i have moved recently, but doesn't know my new address, so she dropped this letter at my mums this morning:.
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parakeet
She sounds like a kind and loving person (a rarity among JWs). It would be a shame and maybe even an unkindness to throw away the opportunity to keep her as a friend. If your new status as DA causes problems between you, you'll know soon enough and can decide what to do then.
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How much persecution did you expect to come when you were a JW?
by JH indid you expect, that one day, you would be persecuted for being a jw?.
how bad did you expect it to get?
do jw's today still expect some kind of persecution to come because of their beliefs and actions?
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parakeet
The worst persecution for me was encountering large, angry dogs during FS. I was bitten as a young child and remained dog-phobic for a long while. Especially awful were homes with fencing around them and Beware of Dog signs on the fence door. I would stand there for minutes at a time trying to work up the courage to go to those doors, but in the end I passed them by. Even though I was only in my teens at the time, I remembering wondering whether it was fair that Jehovah would destroy someone who had not heard the message simply because they owned large dogs.
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parakeet
Super-perky McDonald's employees early in the morning before I have my coffee.
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Ive figured out our need for religion...
by theinfamousone inor at least i have a good theory as to why we like to think there is a god who cares about us and why we follow his "guidelines" and rules and then go to his churches and follow his religions.... i think our major problem as living breathing entities is that we like to believe the world revolves around us.
no matter how unselfish we think we are, we still do not want to think of a time when we are not around... we do not want to think of being forgotten, we do not even want to think of dying... right?
so we invent a god, who cares and who stretches his hands out to us so that we can one day be remembered by him, and be saved by him, either by reincarnation, heaven, new world, and the list goes on... we are all afraid of nothingness, so we use religion to console our fear and to be able to think that we will never be nothing.... what do you think???.
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parakeet
theinfamousone: "we are all afraid of nothingness." Buddhist thought teaches that we should embrace the "nothingness" of our existence, and by doing so, our fear will dissolve and we will be utterly free and fully alive. Check out almost any of Alan Watts' books about eastern thought and religion. Enlightening!
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What do you consider yourself?
by poodlehead ini have wondered how each of you classifies yourself.
as regards to religion.
this is for my own person interest.
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parakeet
7. Don't care any more about the whole belief vs. nonbelief question. It's a constant merry-go-round with no provable conclusions. I just accept that I'm alive in this world right now, and go from there.
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Anger over disfellowshipping
by jambon1 ini have now spoken with a couple of worldly people regarding the practise of disfellowshipping.
having been out of the org for a few months i now feel confident enough to expose the things that i knew were wrong.
d/f was one of the biggest issues i had.
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parakeet
"REALLY, HAVE YOU READ SOME OF THE SHUNNING ON THESE THREADS?" jw, if posters here practiced shunning the way JWs do, your posts would simply be ignored. Or better still, your posts would never even make it to this forum. Even though some responses to your comments are sometimes less than positive, at least you're getting responses. Even negative communication is better than none at all.
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I've had it. I want to DA myself
by White Waves inbut i am afraid to send a letter to my old kh.
what should i write to make sure they don't just df me?
also, they refused my request to da myself before.
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parakeet
If you want to make sure you're DAd and not DFd, you might try something a JW I know did years ago. He was on the verge of being DFd because he grew a beard and refused to shave it off. At the final JC hearing, he showed up with his lawyer and told the committee that if they made an announcement that slandered his character (by saying "unChristian conduct" or whatever they say nowadays) in a public forum (KH is open to the public), he would sue their pants off for slander and character defamation. He scared the committee so badly that they never made any kind of public announcement at all, either DA or DF! And the now ex-JW went his merry way and became a born-again Christian. If you warn them in your letter that you would be willing to resort to legal proceedings if they don't do the thing your way, it might work. Best of luck.
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The New World Translation
by pratt1 indo you still have your old bible?.
can you bring yourself to throw it out?.
it's the only book from my dub days i can't get rid of.. i guess i still have part of the "old personality" and i haven't fully put on the "new personality"
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parakeet
I've been out almost 30 years, and I still have mine, not for any sentimental attachment to anything JW, but for reference purposes. Sometimes I look up a scripture or two regarding something I've read or seen on TV.
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Sagan and anyone who care toreply
by jw in.
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only intelligent replys.. 2.no big bang replys.. what is your theory on how humans came into existence?
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parakeet
jw, Having observed both sides of the question for a long time (intelligent design vs. big bang/evolution), I've come to the conclusion that there is no satisfactory way to be certain of either theory, although big bang/evolution has more going for it in terms of physical evidence. Since there is no way I can be certain about how we got here, my personal working theory is that it doesn't matter. The only thing I can be sure of is that I am alive now, and regardless of how I got here, I intend to deal with real, here-and-now problems (and there are plenty) and let the past and future take care of themselves. Each day's evil is sufficient; no need to go looking for more. parakeet