Posts by done4good

Shunning tends to comes in degrees. I don't think I ever shunned anyone hard, however I do know that I made the awful mistake of ignoring friends that left, which was more than bad enough. It never sat well with me, but knowing that does not make me feel any better about it, nor should it.

I tried reaching out to some of those folks after I left, and I can tell you the relationships were never the same. I deserved that.

Funny thing was, when I left, being shunned didn't bother me all that much. It took the loss of a very personally meaningful friend years later to experience that kind of immense pain. It was then when I finally understood why I stayed away all those years after leaving, and also how incredibly hurtful shunning is. Talk about karma.

I tell myself now that they cannot help it for the most part, just like I could not when I believed. Evil fucking cult. No one should ever be made to dehumanize themselves to that point.

d4g

12

Jersey City Assembly Hall Memories

by LexIsFree in

so i was watching clips from the annual meeting.

i must say i do miss the jersey city assembly hall.

i loved going to that place as a kid.

done4good

I remember working on the large addition they put on the building in 1992 or so. I was working on the roof at the time, when another crew was redoing the concrete steps to the roof. I somehow missed the announcement that was made that the stairs were going to be closed off for the remainder of the day...meaning climbing onto the scaffolding, which had no planks at all...just an overgrown set of monkey bars...all the way down to the ground!!!

Nearly shit myself over that and never was so glad to be back on the ground.

I do miss the ice cream, however...

d4g

47

2015 Jehovah's Witnesses Annual Meeting Lett warning about apostates CLIP

by Watchtower-Free in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja4z2-sf4ky.

done4good

They wouldn't care about "apostates" if the people in question were not winning the war...albeit ever so slowly.

Their paranoia tells all you need to know.

d4g

212

Why Do You No Longer Believe in God?

by Tenacious in

i know this question has popped up from time to time but i really would like to know how you guys, those that no longer believe, came to that conclusion?

was it the wts and all its crap?

was it something you read?

done4good

I know you will probably get many flippant responses to this question, however this is a fair question, and deserves a fair answer. Yes, it is true that no one is born believing. Neither was I, however I know that is not what you are asking. Most here were believers at one point, as I was. Becoming an atheist was not an overnight decision, and just like making a decision to join another religion, should not be a decision made in a hasty manner.

After leaving the JWs, I considered myself a christian in the non-denominational, broad sense. I had many questions, and spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours researching the answers to those questions. While most questions started out from a religious context, in order to make sense of the complete picture I always considered both historical and scientific sources of information, alongside the religious sources. I soon found many inconsistencies in both the historical and scientific realms that simply did not align with what I understood christianity to be. Even most of the christian doctrine itself was very shaky, at best.

That in of itself did not break my faith, however it certainly was cause for a level of concern. In short, the research I did particularly in the area of physics really drove home the point that my understanding of things religiously could not be true. I considered myself agnostic for about 5 years.

Nothing really changed beyond that other than my understanding of the definition of atheism. Atheism is simply to not believe, which was an understanding I really came to 5 years prior when I declared myself an agnostic.

d4g

31

The fade did not work

by BeautifulMind in

not long after learning ttatt, my hubby and i decided it would be best for us to fade.

his entire family is in, but not in the same cong.

we made it to the region convention and one sunday meeting after that.

done4good

Sure it did. You are out!

Those that fake it are not "fading" usually...they are double-lifers.

d4g

40

Last Days? Are you serious ....?

by Aleph in

believing we live in the last days?.

done4good

Hmmm....Do these sound ideal to you?

1. Would you rather die from Bubonic plague, (insert any thousands of diseases here), ?

2. Plant, cultivate, pick crops, churn butter, and shit in an outhouse every day, (by the way, this is your kids life also)?

3. Live in a 2 class system of extremely rich aristocracy and extremely poor? Which do you think you might be?

4. Have little to no access to information, music and other forms of art, books, etc.? (Did I mention most of the fucking world was illiterate until the invention of the printing press?)

5. Exist in a world full of Xenophobic, homophobic, religionists whose world is dominated by myth?

6. See the last point concerning those that believe in "end times"...

d4g

28

How Cultish are the JW's?

by xjwsrock in

first off, i certainly agree the jw's are a cult.

but i'm sensitive to black-and-white thinking now.. so, where do they rank on the scale?

think of a cultish religion scale from 0-10.. consider the likes of unitarian universalism vs baptist vs amish vs charles manson.. where do you think jw's fall on the scale?.

done4good

Maybe less weird and isolated than Scientology or the LDS, but at least equally as controlling as those, and certainly more so in the practical sense.

There is a reason that JWs have the lowest education and lowest income among the "major" religious groups in the US, as well as some of the most significant mental/emotional health issues. JWs do whatever the GB instruct them to do. "Don't purse higher education"...done. "Don't desire a 'worldy' career"....done. "Shun your ex-believer best friend"...done.

The evidence of the cultishness is in the empirical results. The statistics and end results don't lie.

d4g