don't know if anyone is interested in this as i posted it a couple weeks back and didn't get any responses.
but the first of my jw austin cline articles is up.
the site is at http://atheism.about.com/od/jehovahswitnesses/a/witnessfade.htm if you want to check it out
I also wanted to mention that it's an atheist site. It sounds like Austin will let me try this for a while, one article per week, so if it does okay there will be ex-JW articles out there for atheists to read. Not sure about how he edited them so far (they seem less clear to me now than they did before in some places). But anyway, have a look if you're interested or want to suggest something for future articles.
IsaacJ
don't know if anyone is interested in this as i posted it a couple weeks back and didn't get any responses.
but the first of my jw austin cline articles is up.
the site is at http://atheism.about.com/od/jehovahswitnesses/a/witnessfade.htm if you want to check it out
Don't know if anyone is interested in this as I posted it a couple weeks back and didn't get any responses. But the first of my JW Austin Cline articles is up. The site is at http://atheism.about.com/od/jehovahswitnesses/a/WitnessFade.htm if you want to check it out Sorry about the formatting of this message. I can't get signed in with IE for some reason, so I have to use FF. IsaacJ
they won't go out on austin's rss newsfeed for a week or two, but if you want to see the first 3, he has posted a rough copy of my articles here: http://atheism.about.com/od/jehovahswitnesses/jehovahs_witnesses_watchtower_bible_tract_society.htm.
if you want to check them out, please let me know what you think.
lots of people frequent about.com so a lot more people will hear about "exxers" like us.. if all goes well, he'll let me add ex-jw content to about's "atheism/agnosticism" section once per week.
Sentences like this are what I mean when I say they are less clear than I originally intended:
For Jehovah's Witnesses, the potential problems associated with being disfellowshipped and shunned lead to many choosing instead to just fade away.
I think this would be better:
For Jehovah's Witnesses, the problems associated with being disfellowshipped and shunned lead many to just "fade away" instead.
Anyway, he doesn't really want to change them just now. So please don't blame me for all of the weird sentences you find. At least they're going out, though!
IsaacJ
they won't go out on austin's rss newsfeed for a week or two, but if you want to see the first 3, he has posted a rough copy of my articles here: http://atheism.about.com/od/jehovahswitnesses/jehovahs_witnesses_watchtower_bible_tract_society.htm.
if you want to check them out, please let me know what you think.
lots of people frequent about.com so a lot more people will hear about "exxers" like us.. if all goes well, he'll let me add ex-jw content to about's "atheism/agnosticism" section once per week.
Hello all. They won't go out on Austin's RSS newsfeed for a week or two, but if you want to see the first 3, he has posted a rough copy of my articles here: http://atheism.about.com/od/jehovahswitnesses/Jehovahs_Witnesses_Watchtower_Bible_Tract_Society.htm. If you want to check them out, please let me know what you think. Lots of people frequent About.com so a lot more people will hear about "exxers" like us.
If all goes well, he'll let me add ex-JW content to About's "Atheism/Agnosticism" section once per week. He has edited them a bit, and I think some of his changes actually detract from the clarity in a few places. :-( Maybe some of you can give some opinions? Also, article 1 was meant to come before article 2. I think he posted them in a hurry. Still a couple weeks to go before they go into his main page.
Note that I'm not getting paid for this, though it could lead to something more if it does surprisingly well. So I'm not just pimping it to line my bank account (though I'm pretty much broke as it is...sigh...)
Also, if you go exploring his site, remember that it is an atheist site. I don't think there's anything in my articles that will upset anyone, but there are other articles there that are critical of religion. Keep that in mind. If you don't like what I've written, please don't hit or yell. :-)
IsaacJ
why has your disavowing organized, if not all, religion made you so open and happy and tolerant?.
aren't you concerned about what effect this may have on you and your loved ones?
.
Why has your disavowing organized, if not all, religion made you so open and happy and tolerant?
Aren't you concerned about what effect this may have on you and your loved ones?
I must be kinda on the dumb side today.
Is this a serious question?
IsaacJ
from time to time we hear that the ex jws should have organised themselves to a high level and that doesn't necessarily mean setting up another religion in opposition to the wts but some sort of rather secular organisation to carry out that task.
no doubt this lack of organisation plays in the hands of the wts who escape the nightmare of a highly organised efficient opposition.
the rough treatment of ex members in my opinion is intentional and aims at emotionally stunning them to pre empt the possibility of them having a clear mind with which to fight their fraudulent, cultic objectives.
I honestly have my doubts about whether this is a good idea or not. I know it can sound tempting, but If you're talking about protests and flyers and the like, I think you are only playing into the Society's hands. Witnesses and "worldly" people alike tend to see such efforts as the kind of things only weirdos do. I'm not saying this makes you a weirdo, only that most people shrug at stuff like that and forget it a day or two later. Even worse, it gives the WT someone to point and laugh at. I really don't think it makes much of a difference in the long run. Most people just don't care enough to listen unless they are already anti-WT. Which helps no one. Besides, if you are busy fighting the WTS, then it is--in a sense--still dominating your life. Moving on is far better. Like others have said, living well is the best revenge. I think people who join the Society often do so because they are looking for something. Most of the time, they'll give it a try so long as the Witnesses they meet seem friendly enough. Warnings rarely impress people who are searching like that.
If you are just talking about informing people, then there are other problems. You have to seem trustworthy and reasonable. Yet the bigger your efforts, the less believable you will seem. "Who would spend so much time and money on a project like this if they weren't passionately anti-WT?" they'll ask. "How can I trust this person's opinion? Who should I believe--the pro-Witness zealot at my door, or the anti-Witness zealots? Maybe I should go start going to the meetings and find out for myself..."
The Witnesses can seem very reasonable to people who don't know any better. (At first) It's hard to denounce a group like that without coming off as a little crazy or prejudiced yourself, even if your efforts are fairly mild. You may even help the Society make converts if you aren't very careful. More often than not, groups like the WTS get you coming and going. I doubt many people take the anti-WT sites you see too seriously unless they are already anti-WT. But that helps no one.
How can you put forth any major effort without looking like an anti-Witness zealot with an axe to grind? I think that's the very first question you have to ask before you consider going forward. Why should people listen at all? Why should they believe your story and not the WT's? You have to be subtle and make your message appealing. A big organization will probably undermine those efforts. But that's just my POV.
IsaacJ
i dont have any statistics but am curious if there could be any truth to it; that it might be easier for a witness to stop believing vs a christian.
i dont see this at any of the churches i have attended; people leaving in droves with some totally discarding any belief.. 1 the jw org is the only truth.
you question its authority, then you question god.
I used to think that ex-Witnesses were more likely to become atheists once I'd become one myself. (This happened years after I left the WTS) Psuedo's comments were similar to my thinking at the time. Witnesses have already given up on many typical Christian beliefs, so you'd think ex-Witnesses are already half way their.
But this is the only ex-Witness forum I've found with a decent number of atheist posters. Certainly the only one that's very active. I sometimes wonder how many of us here are atheists compared to those that remain religious, but it seems there are at least a dozen or so that are active in the boards. I suspect the religious members probably outnumber us here nonetheless.
I've even seen forums that claimed to be for secular ex-Witnesses that clearly were not secular at all. I've also seen quite a few forums that seemed predominantly fundamentalist rather than filled with moderates. But I've never found a forum of nothing but secular/atheistic ex-Witnesses that had any activity. It seems, to me at least, that there are far more fundamentalist ex-Witnesses, and even more ex-Witnesses that are generally still religious in one sense or another. I have no idea if the ratio of atheists is the same with ex-Witnesses as it is, say, with ex-Catholics or ex-Mormons or ex-Methodists. If it's higher, my guess is that it isn't by very much.
I'm not sure if there's anything to the idea or not.
IsaacJ
what's the main motivating force behind the average jw?.
i'd say it's a fear of their own death.
fear of dying.
I agree that fear and pride are the big motivators, especially for their evangelism. (I make a case for this in my essay) That's why they get so weird when they preach at ex-Witnesses like us. They are basically demanding that we give them reassurances in their own faith and act as if we owe that to them. They want to know that we are 1) unhappy since we left their truth 2) in denial about the "fact" that we can't hack it in their truth 3) are just believers in denial, or something similar. They often invent evidence to support these views by misinterpreting what we say and do when they go all self righteous on us. Ever had a confrontation with an old Witness friend, only to hear a very different version of those events from the Witness later on? That's kinda what I mean.
Whenever they pull this on you, never let them use the "But I'm only trying to save you from Armageddon!" line, or the "I'm doing it because Jesus says I have to!" line. Make them take responsibility for their own bad behavior instead of foisting it off on God or Jesus, or otherwise hiding behind their religion. They pull that crap on me every time.
IsaacJ
i did a search of the publications - perhaps i used the wrong words, though i thought i used the correct combinations.
i can find plenty of condemnation of catholic church, but nothing that specifically condemns the catholic church for the pedophilia issues within.
i was sure that they had done so over the years - but was i just reading my jw taught judgementalism into articles that weren't specific?.
There's an article in the Dec 1st 1994 WT that goes one better. They are talking about atheism and make the usual assumptions about athiests. Then they go so far as to cite pedophelia in "other churches" (they don't say Roman Catholic specifically) as a reason for atheism (???) because these churches deny God's moral standards. They accuse churches that have these problems of being atheistic because they deny God's authority. (Actually, we atheists are simply unconvinced that God exists, but that's another discussion) That's a pretty good quote to have handy since they are basically denouncing themselves. You can find it in the WT CD.
IsaacJ
i reckon getting promoted in the "truth" means you are more likely to leave.. every mts and gilead class i have heard of have had people leave the truth.
is that just my opinion, or have you noticed that tooooo?.
mtsgrad.
I've often wondered how many WT authority figures really believe what they read and say on the Society's behalf. There were times I suspected some of my own Elders of not really believing in the Society as the one, true religion. They were certainly guilty of cherry picking the things they wanted to hear from the lessons and just shrugging off the rest. That's not so unusual from what I've heard in here and elsewhere.
Not to say that they were "hidden apostates" or anything--far from it. I think some of the Elders in my congregation just liked the perks of being an Elder.
IsaacJ
