6 weeks ago some jws came to my door.
i've been inactive for 8 years.
after they gave their presentation i told them i was inactive.
I have been out longer than you, but from what I have read there is a great deal of apathy on the part of JWs these days. People do the bare minimum of door to door work and no one has time or the will to devote to others in the congregation, much less getting back lost sheep. The focus is on the Website and literature carts where JWs stand around chit chatting while people walk by.
If you don't mind my asking, why do you want to return?
i have just found out that my brother (who was one of a bunch that shared this login) has died.. he and his wife were living in another country where they once pioneered.
i didn't see him that often.. such an empty feeling.....
i've met a few.
i'm not talking about the jw who, whether df'd or not, falls off the radar and just gets on with living a normal life - good luck to them and may there be many more!.
i mean the former jehovah's witness who is now enjoying all the benefits of a cult free life thanks to the efforts of many bloggers, posters and activists, but is critical of the efforts of someone close them to free more jws.
I think some people who leave are still under cult mind control to a certain extent and feel uncomfortable with criticising the Watchtower. I was that way at first, I was happy to be out but I thought the Watchtower was just misguided. It took eight years before I ventured on line and found JWN and realized how much I had been manipulated by the Watchtower.
and remember your boosters as adults!.
currently there is a measles outbreak in the u.s. the outbreak is clustered into communities where parents choose not to get their children vaccinated.
vaccination works primarily on herd immunity.
The problem is that some children have compromised immune systems and cannot get vaccinated. Children whose parents choose not to vaccinate are a danger to them, as they can pass the these diseases on, If there are unvaccinated children in school they cannot attend and are forced to home school.
I am glad Caifornia now requires vaccinations for children to be enrolled in school. Parents who choose to not vaccinate their children are free to do so, but they will have to take responsibility for that choice and home school.
The problem with natural selection in this case is that the child is innocent in this and didn't ask to have an idiot for a parent, and they also might not die, but become disabled and a burden on society. It's no different than JW parents who refuse blood transfusions, sometimes you have to protect children from their parents.
They have them here at the BART stations (San Francisco bay area rapid transit). My never a JW hubbie is always tempted to ask them an inconvenient question, lol. He says no one ever approaches or takes literature.
how long till the wtbts gets wise and reverts to boozerford's more plausible explanation of "generation"??
let's "face the facts" ( lol!!!
) and admit that this is the best explanation that the wtbts ever had.
They should have just stayed with that, but they just couldn't resist using impeding doom and date specific predictions to bring in new recruits and keep the faithful afraid to leave.
thinking of leaving the jws for good is frightening.engaging a quality fade is nerve racking!there can be horrible consequences that can leave one shunned.even the most careful fade can be undone by many means and loved ones.. one must weigh the consequences of leaving with true freedom.yes, that kind.
where you always make the decisions in your own life.. no need to be reckless and wild to destruction.
be like almost everyone else in society that enjoys life to the full and looks out for their fellow.look around you at happy, friendly people in your community.
Well, I wouldn't say I went through gehenna to get out, my gehenna was my first marriage. As stressful as the divorce and leaving the religion was, it was still better than being married to the wrong person, that will just suck your soul right out.
My leaving the religion was a long drawn out affair, the last ten years I was mostly inactive but attended meetings. My ex was disfellowshipped, my children not interested, I don't know what stubbornness kept me going, just fear of the unknown I guess. I finally became a stronger person and started to realize their was no reason to stay in a lousy marriage and a religion that gave me nothing back either. I knew I had to get out of the marriage at least. A chance encounter (online, nothing naughty, classmates.com) with a guy I knew in high school gave me the kick in the pants I needed to cut the cord. I asked my ex to leave and started making plans within the week. He was not surprised, he knew I was done, he had many opportunities to improve, I believe he wanted me to be the bad guy. I also realized the Watchtower had given me really lousy marriage advice and that was the kick in the pants to ditch the religion as well.
A funny story about my ex that will give you a glimpse of why I left. The day he moved out I was really sick, a high fever, shakes, etc. As I lay there in misery he comes up to me and says "There's no clean towels!" I lifted my head off the pillow and just looked at him, he, not taking the hint said "What will I dry myself off with tonight?" I was too stunned to say anything. Lord help me, did a grown a$$ man of fifty just ask a sick, soon to be ex wife to wash his towels? The divorce was final in early July and it was really independence day for me.
Despite some nastiness from him, It went pretty smoothly after that, sold the house, wrote my JW mom and told her the news. I thought she would be upset but she never thought I was a good enough JW anyways, so she took it pretty well. Within months months I got a job transfer and moved out of state to be with my high school friend, we've been married fifteen years now, very happily I might add. Yes, there were transition issues, it's very hard to make huge changes in your life like that, but everything worked out.
Some want to take the band aid off slowly, but by bit (fade) but I ripped that sucker right off, a big dramatic, no turning back statement, which was the right choice for me. I never DAd or anything, moving out of state makes it hard for them to df you, although my JW family still treats me as if I had, but yes, it was totally worth it.
sometimes i get a strong curiosity to start dabbling into other religions, other faiths, you know?
really different ones such as islam, judaism, hinduism, etc.. has anyone here looked into something else?
has your spirituality been satisfied by any other than christianity?.
say you could go back in time to when you were 15 years old.
no watchtower in your life.
but the experience you have now you could keep.
That is so hard to answer. The person I am now is partially as a result of my experiences as a JW. As bad as the JW experience was, it made me a better person in some ways. Having been disfellowshipped at one time made me a stronger person, but I also made many bad decisions because of the religion too.
I probably would not have gone to college anyway because classroom instruction was always difficult for me, I found out as an adult that I have ADHD. I was a system analyst for many years and enjoyed that, but I may never have gotten into that had I chose a different path in life, it wasn't something I grew up wanting to do.
I guess knowing what I know now I would have probably chosen to do what I do now, which is my own antiques related business. l
hot topic on topix seems to be candace conti settlement.
but it's all quiet here.
are you guys aware that your hero, who was not in it for the money but to change policies, settled without changing anything?
My point is, just because someone molests a younger person once (as in the instance you mention) does not automatically mean they become a pedophile or predator. It seems this was the premise the elders were going along with.
That's true, although the odds are not good. I wouldn't ever leave my child alone with a man who had acted out with a child sexually no matter how long ago that was. Why would you risk that?
I am not condoning what happened to your friends child, and it's easy for me to say because it did not involve my children. Heck, if anything like that had happened to my son I would have wanted to scream it from the rooftops, there is no worse wrath than the wrath of a mother. Actually I would have reported it straight to the police...but that's just me. I probably would have warned the sister he was marrying as well.
My friends actions were entirely honorable and appropriate. When did it ever become a sin to tell the truth and be concerned for the welfare of a child? That she did in fact get in trouble says volumes about how this religion handles sex abuse.
Presumably if they are still married and all is well with his step children (as I am sure if it wasn't you would have heard about it) it looks like it was an isolated incidence, and if it was, it would go to prove he was not a pedophile and that if your friend would have told everyone that he was it would have constituted gossip.
You can't know if it was isolated or not. I wouldn't have heard about it if he had, I moved across the state shortly after. Some children are molested their whole lives and it never gets reported. The attitude of the elders seemed to be that since he was getting married he wouldn't be tempted to diddle little boys, but that is ridiculous, men who have a sexual preference for children do not change because they now have an adult woman, that preference is fairly well hard wired.
The problem of pedophilia is very complex, nothing about it is cut and dry as some like to make out...
I agree, it's not impossible for a pedophile to stop acting on their preferences, but my feeling is that you don't risk innocent children, ever.
