the setting: i live in a big house as a renter of one bedroom.
there are four other bedrooms and roommates.one of the more recent move-ins is robert.
robert drives a very large blue truck with a 50mm machine gun mount on the hood, stenciled lettering: zombie assault vehicle, and --well...i've come to think of him as robert the zombie killer.then, there's a young fellow with wild, long, bizarre hair, and another guy with dozens of tats... fun and roommate games___ i received the text about an hour after i arrived back at the house.
It sounds like an episode of Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia, you should turn that into a screenplay.
In one episode Danny Divito's character plans to propose to his prostitute girlfriend, but she dies before he can pop the question. After much discussion they end up dragging her out into the hall and leaving, "because she would have wanted it that way".
taking a walk down memory lane at those looooonnnnngg, tedious conventions... .
(boy, they weren’t kidding when they spoke about being long-suffering and having endurance!).
but what were some of your convention highlights, or lowlights, from back in the day?.
Dodger Stadium, with two small children, a real test of endurance. We had those clip on umbrellas in an attempt to not to die from the sun, but it was still really hot. Cranky, tired children and an hour long bus ride at the end of it, next day get up and do it again.
this is my first post and hopefully i can get some advice and input.
i have been actively involved with the organization for a little over 10 years now.
i began studying in high school, got baptized and my family fortunately did not.
I don't see how being honest about your reasons for leaving would be hurtful to your friends. They might not like it, but I doubt if anyone is going to be crushed by the news that you no longer feel this is God's organization.
Keep it brief, keep it kind, but don't pretend
i am now officially 'inactive' so am no longer chased by an elder a for a report.
the congregation i belonged to never had much time for me anyway, i said once i could drop down dead in the k.hall and no one would notice.
so i never expected anyone to be particularly bothered that i wasn't there and they aren't.
Some people make better cult members than others, please don't take it personally, it's not a measure of their feelings for you, but of their fear, fear of displeasing God or fear of what others will say, or the elders.
The pain will diminish with time and as you make new friends, and you will make new friends.
i started studying with witnesses about 21 months ago.
started going to meetings in march 2017, went to the memorial and attended my first convention.
i love it.
You have dodged a bullet, learning fairly early in your association that this organization will never accept you for who you are, which tells you that this is not, nor ever could be, the truth or anything you want to be a part of. They most likely will want you to assume the gender of your birth.
Walk away and be happy, many of us wasted years before we figured it out.
it's bitter sweet to find a site like this..i was born in the truth.
when i was 16 i given the option to stop going.
father and mothers family are both witnesses.
You should consider yourself as having gone through a traumatic event and may suffer from PTSD, just as anyone who has suffered a traumatic event, especially since you have family that continues to perpetrate the abuse. Give yourself permission to do whatever it takes to deal with this and move on.
Not to criticize you, but referring to this sham of a religion as "the truth" tells me that you may be still internalizing some of the Watchtower ideology. These are loaded words that they use to keep people mentally enslaved. There is nothing about this religion that has anything to do with truth. I get it, old habits die hard, it took years for me to root out this mindset, but just be aware that is part of the reason it's so hard to break free
https://www.revealnews.org/blog/jehovahs-witnesses-double-down-on-scripture-used-to-ignore-abuse/.
jehovah’s witnesses double down on scripture used to ignore abuse.
by trey bundy / november 9, 2017. gary breaux, a senior jehovah's witness official, speaks on the religion’s official internet video channel.
The comments on the article are great.
"Is this really a religion? Shameful."
i'm just curious to get people's views on this.. the bible students seem to start of as quite a liberal group under charles taze russell, albeit he had some whacky teachings going on.
obviously things began to change under rutherford.
but what decade did it become abundantly clear that the society was indeed high control religion or even labeled a cult?.
I would say when they started disfellowshipping people, which I believe was the 1950's. I joined in 1969, they were a cult then, imo. Prior to that they may have had wacky beliefs, but people wouldn't necessarily loose their family if they chose to leave or simply choose not to buy into everything.
it was the paragraph talking about people who don't want to be j.w's being executed, and it being an act of compassion from jehovah towards his witnesses..
This is why they like to study with people for a while before bringing them to the kingdom hall. To the the uninitiated, the JW beliefs are simply abhorrent, it takes a cetain amout of conditioning to make people not be revolted by the concept of the painful death of billion of people, while the witnesses look forward to it with glee.
one of my jw sons seems to be putting pressure on his non-jw brother apparently to scare him into accepting the troof and start coming to meetings.
wild statements like our topic title, which i know are not supported at jw dot org, have been made to my non-jw son several times over the past year or so.
while i haven't been privy to the actual phone conversations i tend to believe that the jw son is being pressured by the local elders to cut ties with the non-jw since their conversations seem to degrade into arguments -- therefore tending to weaken the jws faith in wt teachings.. either my jw son is lying about what i would call rogue teachings (and this would disappoint me greatly) or he is in some close knit clique in his congregation which has secretly chosen to go rogue on certain wt issues.. based on many of the recent posts here about drastic money and wt organization problems this could be a sign of pending splits of certain congregation members.. what do you think?
I guess it's tempting to speculate that Armageddon is imminent, because otherwise, what else do you have to look forward to in life as a Jehovah's Witness, more years of boring meetings and field service? Inevitably some people take that speculation too far and start thinking they know something that others do not. The organization doesn't care that much because baseless speculation is useful for keeping the flock fearful and faithful, as long as the elder involved isn't trying to start his own religion they won't do anything. In two years time collective amnesia will set in and everyone will have forgotten such a claim was ever made and it will start all over again.
My mom once told me "Brother Blowhard thinks Armageddon is coming any day now, and he must know something, because he's and elder!"
