Posts by neverendingjourney

26

Observations from an Ex-Elder Part 1

by doubtfull1799 in

i was thinking about the fog model this morning, particularly about the "obligation" part.

my mind went back to the last elders school i went to.

one of the parts in the section on appointments was discussing how we should not place too high a bar (human standards) for brothers to try and jump over when we are considering them for appointment as a ministerial servant.

neverendingjourney

I shared my views on this topic here:

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/6310981636456448/elders-getting-burnt-up?page=2&size=10#/5149556712931328

19

My awkward elders hearing

by Andamormonjustbelieves in

i was baptized when i was 14 years old.

i hadn't had any real relationship with a girl up to that point.

but when i started going to high school i learnt the joys of experimenting with girls, so i did not stay a faithful member of the congregation for long.

neverendingjourney

Where did you ejaculate"?

Aside from the obvious, this question is particularly odd because where he ejaculated doesn't bear any relevance to the question of whether or not a disfellowshipable offense had been committed.

In other words, the outcome of the JC wasn't going to turn on where the guy dumped his load. If she put her mouth around the rim of his tool, that's oral sex, a disfellowshipable offense under JW standards, regardless of whether or not he climaxed. The question of where his load ended up is even less relevant.

What a weird little world I used to be a part of.

19

My awkward elders hearing

by Andamormonjustbelieves in

i was baptized when i was 14 years old.

i hadn't had any real relationship with a girl up to that point.

but when i started going to high school i learnt the joys of experimenting with girls, so i did not stay a faithful member of the congregation for long.

neverendingjourney

I just can't imagine how anyone would put up with being questioned in this way?

Several years later I brought one of the elders of my JC along to a bible study. The guy who studied with me was a recently arrived immigrant with no connections to JWism other than his boss who was also a study.

Out of nowhere the elder asks "Do you know what masturbation is?" The study nervously shook his head. "It's when you manipulate your penis with your hands to create an ejaculation. You've never heard of this?" No, he answers ever-increasingly nervous. "Well, the Bible says that masturbation is wrong and you should pray to Jehovah if you're struggling with this habit."

The poor guy never opened the door for me again. I tried and tried and was never able to reconnect. I wonder why?

19

My awkward elders hearing

by Andamormonjustbelieves in

i was baptized when i was 14 years old.

i hadn't had any real relationship with a girl up to that point.

but when i started going to high school i learnt the joys of experimenting with girls, so i did not stay a faithful member of the congregation for long.

neverendingjourney

By the way, this is how your handle appears on the front page:

And a Mormon just believes in Jehovah's Witnesses. Thought it was funny.

19

My awkward elders hearing

by Andamormonjustbelieves in

i was baptized when i was 14 years old.

i hadn't had any real relationship with a girl up to that point.

but when i started going to high school i learnt the joys of experimenting with girls, so i did not stay a faithful member of the congregation for long.

neverendingjourney

"Did you put your hands below her shirt?

Did you kiss her exposed breasts?

Did you fondle her genitals? Did she fondle yours?"

These were all questions asked during my JC when I was 19. Good times.

65

My Introduction - An ex-elder's story of waking up later in life.

by doubtfull1799 in

background:.

my parents got the “truth” while i was in primary school.

i was baptised at 14. i loved school and was extremely studious.

neverendingjourney

Welcome.

I had the same bout with borderline-suicidal depression 13 years ago and now the religion is something that's mostly a distant memory for me. It gets better.

It's also encouraging to see that smart people are still leaving the Witnesses after discovering the logical inconsistencies and flat-out lies. I was beginning to wonder whether they'd already been purged. I wonder how I would have reacted had I still been a Witness when the overlapping-generations teaching was rolled out. That might have been a step too far even for me at the peak of my involvement.

16

NPR News: Lack Of Education Leads To Lost Dreams And Low Income For Many Jehovah's Witnesses

by breakfast of champions in

http://www.npr.org/2017/02/19/510585965/poor-education-leads-to-lost-dreams-and-low-income-for-many-jehovahs-witnesses.

can't comment on this right now because i'm heading off to school .

transcript:.

neverendingjourney

@LongHairGal

I completely agree with you. I don't have any use for their nonsense and haven't for almost a dozen years. I've just seen embittered forces win out time after time. If a congregation becomes known for being "liberal" it usually doesn't take very long before outside forces make their voices heard and usually the CO will bring the hammer down.

I specifically remember a congregation who became known for having particularly compassionate elders, except for one nasty SOB. A few of the elders allowed the youth to have large, supervised parties (gasp!). Eventually the SOB was able to get the CO to remove a few of those elders on dubious grounds and the congregation quickly returned to its prior condition, a fertile land for him to rule over as a tyrant.

A major driving force was the complaints the CO received from JWs in neighboring congregations who complained that such parties were wrong and they were having trouble keeping the youth in line when the neighboring elders were allowing it in their own congregation.

29

The true cost of being raised as a witness

by stuckinarut2 in

how do you view your upbringing as a witness?.

most of us who were raised as witnesses would appreciate that some aspects of our upbringing were ok. a foundation and measure of stability came with it.. but, it struck me too, that we also lost so very much!

and we lost a lot of potential.. by this i mean, we need to look at not just what we lost, or what was deprived of us, but what that ended up costing us as adults into the future.. if i take $10 from you, you have lost just $10.. but, if you were going to use that $10 to buy something that would end up earning you $1000, then i actually took $1000 from you!.

neverendingjourney

I struggle with this question. On the one hand, you can find some good in the most miserable situations. For instance, a cancer survivor might tell you how the experience made them view each day as a gift and helped them cherish each and every day. Hell, even a prisoner can tell you they get three meals a day and clean water to drink. On the other hand, the religion makes you sacrifice in ways that are counterproductive materially and harmful to the soul.

In my personal experience, it's possible that growing up a JW was a net positive, but for reasons outside of my control. My mother was completely unequipped to raise a family. My father had no interest or was incapable of providing any kind of guidance. He wasn't a deadbeat. Although poor, we never went to bed hungry.

We grew up in a poor neighborhood and attended failing schools (the kind that have two or three armed police officers on permanent patrol). The average classmate is divorced, working a menial job and living day-to-day. A lot of my classmates have felony records and have spent time in prison. At least three classmates are in prison for murder. Gangs were rampant.

The religion gave my mother the justification to become a zealot about protecting us from "the world." I did not have friendships outside of school growing up. My mother was inactive, so we didn't have friends at the KH, either. My entire childhood consisted of going to school and coming home to watch television or play Ninetendo. My childhood and adolescence were robbed from me.

But by the time I turned 18, I didn't have any of the baggage that I might have acquired had my mother not been as militant as she was. I could very easily envision a scenario where I would have been an accomplice to a crime because I was hanging out with the wrong crowd or a situation where I got a girl pregnant in our teens. The last meeting I attended was when I was about 25 years old and I felt like I've been running 7 years behind ever since. My 25 was essentially 18 for most people. I've managed to do fine and am currently in a really nice spot in my mid/late 30s where JWism is mostly a distant memory I reminisce about here once or twice a week.

I'd love to take a peek at the parallel universe where my parents never became JWs and see how things would have played out. It's possible I'd be in a worse position now simply because my mother was not equipped to raise us properly and JWism at least made her skew to the overprotectionism side of things.

None of this means all is well in JW-land. As others who left much later in life have attested to, the longer you stayed in the cult the more severe the ramifications.

Edit: The better solution would have been having parents who could skillfully navigate the challenges of raising kids in near-poverty without the unnecessary burdens of JWism, but given the hand I was actually dealt, this might have been the best possible outcome for me.

16

NPR News: Lack Of Education Leads To Lost Dreams And Low Income For Many Jehovah's Witnesses

by breakfast of champions in

http://www.npr.org/2017/02/19/510585965/poor-education-leads-to-lost-dreams-and-low-income-for-many-jehovahs-witnesses.

can't comment on this right now because i'm heading off to school .

transcript:.

neverendingjourney

My oldest son (degree in computer science) is a ministerial servant in a congregation where the majority of those his age have degrees. It's the "hot" congregation in our district.

In my experience, these places usually don't last very long. They're usually done in by a combination of JWs waking up and leaving and outside pressure exerted from embittered forces who aren't going to stand by idly while other JWs operate happily with impunity when they and their families were forced to pay the cost of no college in order to maintain good standing in the organization (If my kids couldn't go to college, it's not fair for others who did go to college to maintain their privileges).

4

NPR: Lack Of Education Leads To Lost Dreams And Low Income For Many Jehovah's Witnesses

by silentbuddha in

i'm just going to leave this here.. http://www.npr.org/2017/02/19/510585965/poor-education-leads-to-lost-dreams-and-low-income-for-many-jehovahs-witnesses?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170219.

neverendingjourney

@Magnum

Welding is not unlike painting. You either have a skill for it or you don't. Some people who don't have a natural talent can learn techniques to help them become adequate and some people will never be able to draw anything more elaborate than stick figures.

There was a student there (ex-con) who had an incredible talent for welding. Within 3 or 4 months he was welding every alloy they put in front of him on every kind of surface imaginable. I was just so-so at it. There was another guy there who was a janitor during the day and was going to the school 4 hours a day, every day, after work. He could never get to the point where he could string together a bead on the easiest flat surface. The teacher bullied him and made it seem like it was his own fault. The poor guy appeared to have an IQ just north of mentally retarded and I don't mean that in a mean way.

A lot of young JWs from my generation got taken in by IT schools that promised to prepare you for professional IT certifications yet were unable to deliver the goods. There was usually weasel language there where they didn't guarantee results. There's a whole industry out there of schools that receive accreditations required to participate in the student loan program although the results just aren't there.

I remember reading that the Obama administration had begun efforts to crack down on these institutions, requiring that they meet certain post-graduation employment standards in order to continue being eligible for the student loan program. There was a huge backlash and lobbying effort against it. I'm not sure where those efforts ended up.

With respect to the trades, that's what I'm seeing now with JWs from my parents' generation. Men who never thought they'd grow old still working in manual labor. These jobs typically don't offer health insurance, much less a 401(k) or a pension. My parents subsist on social security alone. It's sad.