did anyone have other jws try to guilt trip them when they were leaving or if you were making a decision which jws felt was wrong but wasn't unscriptural?
i'm getting people guilt tripping me to eventually get back with my emotionally, spiritually and mentally abusive husband who i'm separated from.
i feel sick at the thought of getting back together and putting myself through that nightmare again but i'm being told its what jehovah wants coz he doesn't want families to be apart.
Are you kidding? Of course other JWs try to guilt trip, it's practically an art form in the religion. I think when others seem to slack off in the religion it makes them uncomfortable, like if you don't believe in it fully it makes them question their own choices. They also could be a little jealous.
Brush it off.
i was talking to someone a few years ago and he said in his congregation they have a rail of white shirts prepared in the cloakroom for if a speaker doesn't have a white shirt on.
it was a rule in their hall that all brothers in the platform must wear white shirts when going talks and if the speaker won't comply when asked to change into the shirt they provide an elder in the congregation will do the talk instead.
i have never known any other halls do it so it must be a rule the elders have made up without gb input.
It's how this organization is; all about petty rules and obsessing over minutia, as the bible says, straining out the gnat, but swallowing the camel. They believe their personal opinion about shirt color is more important than anything, keeping a good relationship with a fellow elder, or respecting that elders own judgement, or just not being a petty tyrant. It's most likely not even about shirt color, but one upmanship.
from http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2002/07/26/overweight/index.html.
obese man sues fast food restaurants.
a man sued four leading fast food chains, claiming he became obese and suffered from other serious health problems from eating their fatty cuisine.
Well, anybody can sue anyone for anything, so there's that.
But there does seem to be a certain mindset of avoidance of personal responsibility by some people and a willingness to blame others for everything. I once heard a program on the radio that tried to make a case that poor people are being preyed on by the fast food industry. They gave the case of a woman who was overweight from eating fast food hamburgers for lunch because they were cheap and convenient. She had a long commute and said she just didn't have time to make her own lunches. I found it to be patently ridiculous. It takes five minutes to make a sandwich, you cannot tell me that woman couldn't spend a few minutes less sitting on the couch every day, she chose to be lazy and blame her weight on others. We all have the same number of hours in the day after all.
Which is not to say there isn't some culpability by some food industries. It's now well known that the sugar industry buried some information about how unhealthy sugar was back in the sixties. Still, it's up to us as consumers to educate ourselves about nutition. I personally don't find an occasional fast food burger to be a problem, but I skip the soda and fries. Mostly I try to eat a lot of fruits and veggies, moderate protein, eat very little sugar, limit bread and potatoes and don't worry about healthy fats. I am 63 and a healthy weight with low blood pressure, blood sugars and cholesterol and no medications for any of it.
just wondering if this is a common thing for you guys and girls?
when i left the jws it was hard to make a connection with people, much of the time i felt that whatever they wanted to talk about just didn't seem relevant/deep/meaningful.
i find myself filtering my mind to get to a level with others (small talk mostly).
Learning that everything you believed in was a lie is very traumatic, it's not unexpected that you will feel temporarily adrift and without purpose. I think this is what keeps so many stuck in the organization, they are afraid of this very thing, the ambiguity. The Watchtower belief system was so black and white, it left no room for doubt.
Yes, small talk right now seems boring, because you are grappling with much larger issues, who can be concerned with the weather when you are dealing with issues of life and death and what is the very meaning of life? I also think some of us are just more prone to these types of feelings by nature and trust me, I'm in that club. Here's the deal, life has the meaning you give it. You had that meaning given to you, now is the time to find meaning for yourself, and it's so much more fulfilling that way.
Now is the time to reflect and learn about yourself, what makes you tick, what inspires you, what makes you, you. It's a journey, you won't get there in a day. Think about what you liked as a child, what passions you wanted to explore but couldn't because you were in this crazy religion. Even if it seems silly, or impractical, or crazy. Give yourself permission to dream. There are clues there, follow them. It doesn't mean you have to do that thing forever, but it's a start, you need to get some forward momentum in your life.
I personally found meditation and journaling to be very helpful in this journey of self discovery.
Good luck!
despite decades of the feminist movement, watchtower's attitude of woman being inferior has changed little, with pauline sexism justified as inspired, on the basis that women are lesser emotionally, intellectually and physically.
jehovah's witnesses seem to accept this with little resistance.
is there anything about the #metoo movement that may wake followers up?
The religion still teaches that women should be submissive, they are light years from any type me too movement.
each individual may have their own views as to why they feel the meetings are boring and uninspiring.
in my case i find the midweek meeting so, because of the constant emphasis on pitching watchtower literature.
its just monotonous and one big yawn.. i watch other christian faiths where they open up a chapter of the bible and discuss it's contents.
You have a situation where the content is dictated by the Watchtower, and clearly designed to maintain obedience to them at all costs, and where virtually nothing is spontaneous or reflects the personality or viewpoint of either the elders or any individual involved. How then could the meetings be anything but boring? I found them suffocating and could barely stand being there for much of my association.
if you see someone about to be struck by a car or otherwise step into harms way but choose not to call out a warning or act in some way to prevent disaster, are you responsible for any harm caused?.
what defence, if any, can be offered for choosing inaction?
.
Imagine a hypothetical situation where saving a life requires almost no effort from you and presents you with no personal risk.
Things are seldom that black and white, but yes, you are morally obligated to save a life in that circumstance.
today, i took the day off to go with my husband to san francisco on bart to see shen yun.
coming out of the station, were two elders at a watchtower cart!
my husband loves to witness to them.. started off with a smile and they smiled back and he told them he had been associated with jehovah's witnesses and now he is not but he wishes to tell them that even though they are going to hear things that are upsetting in the news, there is life after jehovah's witnesses.. they smiled and asked him if they could ask what religion he has gone to, or what he is doing now.
I have heard that Shen Yun is part of Falun Gong, a cult, although I do not know if it is true or not.
w95 5/15 p. 19 part 1—flashes of light - great and small: “jehovah’s witnesses do not celebrate birthdays because these observances have pagan origins and tend to exalt the ones having a birthday.” (jw broadcasting doesn't exalt the gibbering body??????).
in order to be “faithful in what is least” and to “stop touching the unclean thing,” j.w.
's should abhor & shun all of the following traditions and practices due to their pagan/demonic origins - especially using the names of weekdays and several of the names of months.. “it was believed that sneezing was the way for the body to rid itself of the devil's evil influences.
Pagan, smagen, it's just customs people had before christianity, nothing to get excited about. It's really just a way for the cult to set themselves apart and feel "holier than thou" and also completely arbitrary, as they accept many things of so called "pagan origin"" while rejecting others for no good reason. It reminds of when Jesus warned about "practicing your righteousness before men", all for show.
When people say "bless you" when you sneeze they aren't worried about demons, it's just a social pleasantry, nobody cares about the original meaning, when a JW brings it up It just makes them seem deranged.
is it because we were in the cult watchtower compound that we talk about being ex-jw's when we stop being active?
i have never heard anyone say that i was an ex-catholic or an ex-lutheran or an ex-baptist.
they just stop going to their church and don't talk about it.. years after not stepping inside a kingdom hell, many of us still have to talk about being ex-jw's.
A very small percentage of ex JWs ever post on message boards like this. Of those who do, most come here, post for a while, then move on with their lives. A few stick around for various reasons, maybe they are still pissed off, maybe not, you really can't make generalizations.
Yet it is different than being an ex catholic, because the Catholic religion is not a cult and generally does not damage people in the way that this religion does, since they were not controlled to the same extent as members and are not shunned when they left.
