if ray franz would have kept his mouth shut and not disfellowshipped, and remained part of the governing body how many of us ex-jw would still be trapped in the cult?.
would we have come this far?.
When I had posted for the first time on this forum, I had yet to ever hear of Ray Franz and his books. The internet was loaded with information that helped me to escape, but it was me that started the search. So take some of it out and there was more to replace it.
But yeah, Ray Franz was just the man to write about the Ivory Tower and what really goes on.
for those who know my story my hubby and i are almost a year out of the organization!
my due date is right around the corner and still no word from my hubby's family.
they are hardcore.
So sorry to read of his family caught up in the JW rules.
and his response.....does anyone know???
Don't get me wrong, but I learned right away that they do things that way when I was appointed an elder. Since there really wasn't anything I could do to stop it, I magnified it instead. Any member in trouble in my congregation was my family member. If I could help them, I would tell them what the body of elders needed to hear or not to hear. But plenty of people got assigned to plenty of different elders. And when they have an agenda, there's nothing you can do. But your husband didn't just "get in trouble." He's outta there. He does need to try to just move on.
i just found this website and im so glad because for the first time in a long time i dont feel alone...i am a born in and in the last two years have been struggling because i thought that i was the problem and i was the reason for not feeling any love from and for the other pubs .i want to leave the org but have no idea how to tell my mother(who is a faithful jw).
Welcome,
You have made a giant leap of a step in seeing the problem for what it is. You will need to take some time to figure out the path you must follow. I assume by your name that you are a teen living at home.
Slow down until you know your next step. Some decide to be brutally honest, others decide to bide their time until they are on their own then slide away from the JW organization. One path may be disastrous for your mother and the other may be too much to ask of you. You have to figure that one out, and maybe even figure other alternatives.
based on information to be found at: http://www.csicop.org/si/show/when_dont_the_highly_educated_believe_in_evolution_the_bible_believers_effe/.
the bible-believers effect.
those who believe the bible is the word of god (bible believers) and those who dont believe the bible is the word of god (bible nonbelievers) differ in their beliefs that humans evolved from earlier species of animals.
As a former cult member, I know that certain totally wrong beliefs and intelligence are not often connected at all. A JW or a fundy Christian may not desire to be "intellectual" but otherwise, the one doesn't necessarily affect the other at all.
It can, though. A person can turn off their logic when it comes to science or when it comes to needing proof of their beliefs. But otherwise, most Bible believers seem to bathe in their cognitive dissonance. They can understand evolution as good as the next person whether they believe it or not, they can have intellectual discussions on issues or philosophies.
Before you go finding plenty of exceptions, there are plenty of exceptions in all belief systems. Plenty of people aren't much when it comes to being "intellectuals."
so witnesses reject many practices or holidays due to their "unscriptural or pagan" origins.. for example, birthday celebrations, mothers or father's day, christmas etc..... most people in the world will say "but the origin doesn't matter anymore, we follow this custom now because it's a joyful occasion that creates happy times and brings the family together".
it is still firmly rejected.. so, if the wrong origin is so important, and should result in rejecting something, why isn't the same principle applied to the actual jehovah's witness faith itself!?.
after all, the very foundation of the organisation was based on wrong understandings of the bible, far fetched teachings and doctrines, links to false religious backgrounds, pyramidology, false predictions, inaccurate beliefs etc...... using their reasoning, it doesn't matter how good something is now, if the origin was faulty to begin with?
Pagan did originally mean "country bumpkin" and morphed into all beliefs non-Christian. It was primarily applied to the polytheistic beliefs of the people of the region of Europe that was under Roman rule. Today, it has a sense of anything sensual or hedonistic about a belief system. Somehow, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims escape the definition.
Because it's a changing word like most words, Christians use it at their convenience to mean anything they don't like outside of their beliefs.
Everything that exists can be described as pagan by defining them as existing before Christianity or existing outside of Christianity. So calling a statue of a duck or a cross pagan is a meaningless statement.
one year ago, this thursday, i went to work as usual.
i got home, ate dinner, got myself dressed for the meeting, and helped my kids get ready like i usually did.. my son had a talk that evening, his second one.
many of my family went to support him.
all i want from this life is to be able to wash windows at bethel.. my story.. when i was fresh out of high school and pioneering, i said those exact words to my friends and family.
all i wanted to do was be at the core of the organization where it was the safest.
i gleefully told people that i'd gladly spend the rest of my life washing windows, waiting tables, doing laundry or cleaning bathrooms.
I didn't sort it out until afterward, but the 2004 tsunami was important to me. It didn't make sense that God would let all those children just die, but that He would spend a great deal of his energy on aiding individual JW's or making sure that some Watchtower books got past border guards.
Bethel layoffs was an enormous problem to me. Just as you were sure that Jehovah would see your strong desire to go there, I was sure that those already there were a special type of family unit. Rather than send some home, it seemed to me that Jehovah would tell the organization to keep them as long as they wanted to stay.
romans were pagans.. why wouldn't pagan romans use a pagan cross to execute jesus?.
should pagans have spared jesus a pagan means of execution?.
hell no!.
Dismissing the cross wasn't about saying the Romans wouldn't use a "pagan" symbol.
Dismissing the cross was a way for JW's to say that Christianity was corrupted by Satan and the cross is part of his corruption. The way they decided to do that was to demonstrate that it is a pagan symbol and say that it wasn't even used on Jesus.
Any symbol was a pagan symbol before it was adopted by those that declare they are not the pagans.
similar views as those presented here are gaining in popularity in christian circles.
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgmrfatdvtm.
Alrighty, you have gone there.
"The Bible tells us......" Those words allow ridiculously complicated theories on what symbols in the New Testament mean.
The mention of an antichrist in 1st and 2nd John seems pretty clear that the intent was to say that anyone who denies the christ is the antichrist. Should be the end of the story.
But you mix that with false messiahs and the lawless one and the beast mentioned elsewhere.
Yet, you declare that human DNA is a mix of rocks bumping into each other in the ocean.
Get your head out of your ass and see what you are doing. You are way over-complicating your beliefs and way over-simplifying those beliefs you oppose.
You are the anti-thinker.
similar views as those presented here are gaining in popularity in christian circles.
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgmrfatdvtm.
Perry, I almost slipped and called you Lars. I thought it was Michael Jackson also. I googled "Christian Circles" and came up with this: 
Something about the Trinity.
Sorry, I don't have the patience to watch the video or decipher what you are trying to tell us about modern politics and someone's theory of prophecy. The Bible doesn't say a word about current politics. Throw enough theories out there and you may get some of them right. Predict that any government will fall and sooner or later they will.
