That is how it is , getting on in age, but having a friend who has been through such moments of your life.
Aren’t you glad you both had your friendship for so strong and do long?
humbled
JoinedPosts by humbled
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The Old Kingdom Hall, memories of old friends, days and times now vanished...
by TerryWalstrom inold friend (in memorium).
we found the site of our old kingdom hall--no longer a place of cult activity--unless the electric supply business has a dark side.
all those meetings, songs, conversations!
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What is the most troubling or disturbing biblical passage you ever had to rationalise when a Jw?
by stuckinarut2 innow that we have stepped away from the jw faith, how do you feel about the bible itself?.
what about those awkward sections of scripture?
how did you rationalise or justify those sections?.
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humbled
There is no way to understand or explain Genesis 22.
The story of God testing Abraham flies in the face of the scriptures that “cannot be broken”
1) God cannot lie
2) God condemns child sacrifice as evil.
3) God does not test/tempt anyone with . evil
Genesis 22 has him do all three.
I left over this. The only “out” for God in the matter was to say that the original Hebrew word for burn offering was not derived in any sense from the word for sacrifice. The story must be about a strange teaching of blind faith by a god talking to a man with a limited definition of worship.
It is impossible to give God a pass on the story otherwise. He would be evil by his own reckoning.
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The Telephone we take for granted!
by TerryWalstrom inmarch 10, 1876: “mr.
watson —come here—i want to see you” the voice of alexander graham bell is transmitted.
he wasn't the first to invent it but the first to own a patent.. in 1910 telephone "subscribers" had 4 digit telephone numbers.soon, larger cities had 5 digit numbers.mark twain was one of the first to have a phone in his home.. the first phones had no dials or buttons.
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humbled
Blownaway—is that in Prairie Grove?!!
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Where Jesus goes, so do the sex harassers.
by fulltimestudent inhongkong, a relatively small city by asian standards, with a still smaller number of christian believers, still managed to reveal 55 cases of sexual harassment in local churches in a recent survey.. quote: "but a survey of hong kong protestants has thrown up 55 sexual harassment cases in churches, half of them allegedly committed by pastors or church leaders.. the survey, released on sunday by the hong kong christian council, came after a hong kong pastor was accused of taking sexual advantage of women with whom he had built paternal relationships.".
and, another very truthful quote: "the survey shows an inconvenient fact: that sexual violence in churches has never stopped,” council assistant executive secretary jessica tso said.".
https://www.inkstonenews.com/society/hong-kong-christian-council-releases-survey-alleging-multiple-sexual-harassment-cases-churches/article/2152296.
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humbled
There is a pattern:
Vulnerable young women
O, we must forgive!!
Must protect the Church..,,
Take it to the Church elders..
Nothing happens but more abuse
Finally go to police after so much lost time.
And, another very truthful quote: "The survey shows an inconvenient fact: that sexual violence in churches has never stopped,”—from the article
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Are we losing our way a bit at JWN?
by nicolaou infirstly, i want to be crystal clear how grateful i am for jwn.
it's been my place of support for over seventeen years and it's the first online space i direct anyone to if they are taking steps out of the cult.
i am not bashing jwn - i love this place and appreciate the hard work and expense simon puts in to keep it going.
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humbled
When we discuss these things we should always try to reaffirm what the other person actually believes, and discuss from there because many times we all share the same big principles. —
sir 82 —FreemindfadeWell , howdy doo!
I hate to take that back from from Sir82( l bet that is a sentiment he can go with) but it is yours, Freemindfade.
it’s been awhile since we were so closely allied. I will mark this and continue in this vein.
People do go from zero to 60 in some exchanges. As easily as not checking to see who posted that last thought.
Nice thought
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Family members return to the cult years after not being assoicated.
by blownaway ini have a couple of family members who not so much went back but never were associated and joined.
one is a cousin, he is about 60 now.
maybe a bit older.
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humbled
He would piss off roof tops say fuck every other word and just did not care much about anyone or thing.
I would go over for coffee he would take his cup and bang the table and she would run out and fill it up. He would have her shave him as he sat in the tub ect.Peeing off the building! Sounds like a boy raised with a big country porch and that attitude ...some men in these Arkansas counties have a lordly attitude toward women and rule their tick ridden farms like they owned the universe.
maybe his wife just does like to be around the people like used2badub says. Kinda weak but kinda human.
I t can get tiresome alone with chickens dogs and katydids. Go to meeting!
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Are we losing our way a bit at JWN?
by nicolaou infirstly, i want to be crystal clear how grateful i am for jwn.
it's been my place of support for over seventeen years and it's the first online space i direct anyone to if they are taking steps out of the cult.
i am not bashing jwn - i love this place and appreciate the hard work and expense simon puts in to keep it going.
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humbled
When we discuss these things we should always try to reaffirm what the other person actually believes, and discuss from there because many times we all share the same big principles. —sir 82
Good point.We can be massively defensive, Sir82.
certainly our training was to never build on an existing good in the preaching work. It was destroy the existing belief and rebuild— never remodel.
l believed fundamentally before l became JW that there is a common sense of what hurts one person likely hurts another. A careful search for the point at which the branch conversational branch divides is worth the conversation. A conversation that finds its common root can find a solution to a shared problem.
Unless we decide it’s easier to destroy the opposition. Mow it down. Assume that there is nothing that other person agrees with in the least.
Unless we really want blood
we may have to settle for persistent good faith discussion —
assimilation !
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Spiritual "Protection" - a Menace on Psychological Development
by Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho innot quite a week ago, @lost in the fog created a thread entitled: do you have this illness?.
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5187824140681216/do-you-have-this-illness.
in my year of being on this forum, i have browsed many a disillusioned thread of ex-jehovah’s witnesses expressing similar symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder when detailing their awakening - my own story included.
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humbled
A brilliant analysis of the complex of problems caused by Spiritual Protection gone bad. I should copy this and mail it to my old counselor.
And it is useful even now for everyday living. Thanks for putting it together, Wake Me.
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Relative rates of mental illness
by Doug Mason ina report produced 50 years ago by a psychiatrist at a west australian mental health facility ("asylum"l reported that the mental illness rate among jws was 3 times the norm of society.
other similar studies at the time concluded the rate was much higher.. i wrote to the psychiatrist at the time, asking whether the wts attracted people who were already susceptible to mental illness or if the situation was created after the person became a jw.
he responded that they did not know.. being myopically focused on the wts at the time, but more importantly belonging to an alternative eschatological apocalyptic body at the time, i did not think more broadly.. i think that today i would like to know:.
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humbled
The amount of auto immune diseases, depression , wives of elders who suffered illnesses that often prevented their attendance at meetings ( these were,oddly, the kinder sisters)
I have points of comparison with the outside worldly people having years of contact before during and after the cult.
l have spent a lot of time with a wide range of worldly people including folks who’ve been to prIson. The people outside have this going for them: they have problems but don’t have the burden of the teachings and the JW culture. The protections to children may be said to protect kids growing up but also screw them up So that’s a draw.
But for saner thinkers,hands down, l find nonJWs better able to deal with life, generally more open and kind to themselves and others while accepting that they are screwed up or struggling with life. They aren’t constantly on tap to “🎼serve the God of true prophecy” by regurgitating claims made by strangers in a galaxy far away.
of course they have grave mental health problem... and so did I.
I tried to get counseling while “in” but had trouble talking about issues without incriminating my belief system . So l didn’t really get any help at that time.
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Free exchange of ideas
by recovering ini have noticed a paradigm shift on this site .
we used to be able to express opposing viewpoints without being subjected to name calling and censorship.
i wish we could return to how the board used to function.
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humbled
what you describe in the OP is neither new nor unique to this period on this forum.
Stevie—the OP is one of many recent comments on the matter. It shows up on the other thread by nicolau. There you said you avoid the political topics. If that is the case then you have indeed missed some exchanges and deletions that are remarkable—Thus the remarks.