Posts by rebelfighter

49

A philosophical question .... what does the word God mean to you personally ?

by Finkelstein in

to myself it means to seek knowledge and understanding of are selves and the world in which we live.. unfortunately history has shown whenever one tries to connect to god and of his knowledge through men who say they themselves are connected to god through spiritual wifi ie.

gb members of the jehovah's witnesses for example, one usually ends up finding a accumulation of only man's acquired knowledge.

over thousands of years of trying to connect to a god(s) for help and answers, mankind has eventually relinquished himself to seeking answers through scientific investigative acquired knowledge of the world in which we live in.

rebelfighter

Never a JW, raised Lutheran but walked away from religion completely when I was 50. I believe in God and I am very spiritual. I worship my way normally four hours per week and feel I have a very close connection with God. We have walked many rocky and smooth roads together, and the knowledge that he is there to lean on has gotten me through some very tough times. He listens long into the night at times.

When bad things happen I do not blame God. A lot of times we as a society have created the elements that cause these bad things to happen yet we are very quick to blame God.

31

The Demons were messing with me last night!

by olongapo joe in

jw
friends

so said my pops one morning.

we were visiting my sister in eastern tennessee and the night before after everyone else went to bed pops was watching tv when all of a sudden and completely on it's own the tv changed to the tonight show, holy smokes!!

must be demons cause pops didn't change it!

rebelfighter

When we were young we purchased a very large 4 story colonial. Our only child was 9 months old. Every night at bedtime we would go through and turn off everything. Get in bed and once everything was quiet we could hear a very low radio playing. Get up search the entire house to find nothing. This went on for weeks. It turned out to be the a combination of 2 things. First the phone in our bedroom had a speaker phone. Second the previous owner of the home was into ham radios and had an elaborate antenna system in the crawl space of the fourth floor. So what we were getting was a local radio station on the speaker phone. Swapped phones problem solved. No demons.

18

Has anyone seen "The Prodigal Son Returns" on JW.TV? A Masterpiece of indoctrination

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

i'm watching the jw movie the prodigal son returns.. it is a masterpiece of indoctination and what i would call a "cult" classic.. it's about two brothers who work for their father's construction firm.

the older one is the most spiritual and the younger one isn't.

he befriends al, a weak brother, who persuades him to take a job in the city and move there.. it shows the "world" in the worst possible light.

rebelfighter

Never a JW but the "Elder" gave me the book on Families to see how I would react. I never did get to fully discuss my feelings on how children were raised in a JW family with the "Elder" but as a single mother of two, one boy and one girl and they were raised the same to enter this big bad world as self sufficient ADULTS. My goal was by the age of 18 they should be able to make life decisions on their OWN!!! When I read in the book on Families that high school students were going to their parents for approval about school activities, the book took flight across the room and my blood pressure went through the roof. At what age will these kids become ADULTS will Mommy and Daddy be holding their hands forever. Both of my kids made ALL of their curriculum and after school decisions and college decisions on their OWN!!! They graduated with honors, have excellent manners and were brought up to believe in God but if they choose to follow a religion that is up to them.

I do not think the JWS prepare their children for life on their own in the least bit. They are not prepared to make decisions, they are not prepared to live on their own and far from critical thinking about any subject matter.

Rant over.

17

Wear were you in the "Pecking order" in the congro??

by karter in

we were right down with the very lowest.. father never a jw we had a po with little mans syndrome and love to pick on sisters that had no husband to stand up for them,he picked on my mother only to find out he picked on the wrong person,she came from a hard up bringing and didn't take any s###t from anyone particularly this little bully and we were very poor...how low can you get!.

karter..

rebelfighter

Talesin, sorry hit dislike on the smart phone by accident instead of like. These tiny things and these fat fingers are not compatible.

66

The wt has now changed Jesus definition of neighboor

by poopie in

jw
friends

the man asked jesus who is my neighbor jesus stated the one who acts mercifully toward other humans.

not good enough for watchtower neighbor must fit in three catagories only according to yesterdays wt wow changed the words of the son of god.

rebelfighter

In the "Elder's" final email he stated all our conversations were mentoring and counciling and based on the Bible. When my daughter who is in her early 20's read that line she said I would like to see that version of the Bible cause I surly do not remember the Bible that I read covering what you two discussed.

13

Just realized this recently - as a JW, I never "owned" any of my accomplishments or talents & abilities....

by Muddy Waters in

just realized this recently - as a jw, i never "owned" any of my accomplishments or talents & abilities....we were always told how we are nothing, just specks of dust, grasshoppers, worms.... lowly, despicable sinners in need of redemption, born into sin & misery, constantly facing temptations that we could never handle on our own but only with "jehovah's help"... so we were continually marginalized, all our abilities and talents... they would even quote scriptures that said things like "why should we boast as if we didn't receive these abilities..?

"it was a weird mentally psychotic dichotomy -- being told we were worthless sinners, undeserving of god's kindness -- and on the other hand being the only ones who would survive the great day of jehovah the almighty god at armageddon.

(well, probably, maybe, if we did enough and *kept* doing enough...)so we didn't "own" any of our abilities and accomplishments.

rebelfighter

Excellent post

24

'Worldly' man looking for a little more understanding...

by Verecocha in

saw similar title in a google search so thought i'd read more and now simply have to share my experience if anything to hear that i'm not insane and it is that simple.. met and fell madly in love with a witness, and her with me.

what began as love at first sight turned into a 6 year relatiomship which simply ended very bluntly.

there were many painful twists and turns along the way, first from her inability to leave her husband, then my mistake in finding someone else as i simply couldn't take the pain of her coming and going with such simplicity, but in the end she got a divorce and suffered many consequences within 'the truth', and i sorted my issues which were many and admittedly dug with my own hands and stupidity in trying to protect a young girl who had done no wrong in this long affair.. eventually we found ourself on what i believed to be the home straight.

rebelfighter

Verecocha, I am so sorry she put you through this whole emotional mess. They seem to live a double life I have found out. Press on my icon and read my intro to this forum a year ago. Five years an "elder". Who by the way for 5 years seemed to forget to ever mention he had a wife at home.

38

Most Poorly Written JW Book

by JW_Rogue in

so i was thinking the other day that the wt corp has produced thousands of books over the years.

although the writers have changed the style is almost always the same.

however, some books are just worse than others.

rebelfighter

Well never a JW I have not read any of those but the "Elder" after 5 years did give me even though he knew very very well that I was a child's advocate and a woman's advocate. As he said to see how I would react he gave me the one on Families. I never told him how many times it went sailing across the room. Our discussion started out mild through emails progress gently up to heated over a couple of months. Ending with him saying Good bye have a nice life.

11

Are you related to me?

by Coded Logic in

the chances that anyone on this forum is my biological brother or sister, purely from a statistical point of view, is rather low.

but how many generations back would we have to go to have a fair chance that one of my ancestors married one of your ancestors (or procreated anyway)?.

i was born in 1985. less than 20 years before my birth my two parents were being conceived by a combined 4 parents of their own.. and if we go back even further, to 40 years before my birth, then i'll find an additional 8 ancestors.. around the 60 year mark i have another 16 ancestors.

rebelfighter

And at 63 I found a brother I never knew I had. He is wonderful and we get along great. We grew up just miles from one another.

11

Are you related to me?

by Coded Logic in

the chances that anyone on this forum is my biological brother or sister, purely from a statistical point of view, is rather low.

but how many generations back would we have to go to have a fair chance that one of my ancestors married one of your ancestors (or procreated anyway)?.

i was born in 1985. less than 20 years before my birth my two parents were being conceived by a combined 4 parents of their own.. and if we go back even further, to 40 years before my birth, then i'll find an additional 8 ancestors.. around the 60 year mark i have another 16 ancestors.

rebelfighter

I was 62 when I found out from the clerk of the court that my mother had lied to me my entire life and my "dad" was not my father. So I sent my DNA in to Ancestry. None of us were every JWS but obviously both my mother's and my father's sides of the family believed in what you might call very large families. Now, my mother was never a family person so we really did not meet much of her family so a lot of this came as a shock. So currently I have alive waiting for me to make contact with over 200 first and second cousins LOL. When you go down the report into third through sixth generation it just gets crazy there are 5,000 cousins. I grew up thinking there were only like a handful of us.