StephaneLaliberte

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Posts by StephaneLaliberte

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  17

  Just curious

  by Gorbatchov in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i remember that every time when my father and i came home from the meeting, my mother (who stayed at home for my disabled brother) asked us "who was attending and who wasn't attending".. and then, we took some time to drink coffee and went through the list who was there and who wasn't.

  there after there was an opinion made why someone was absent and what this meant in relation with his strength of believe.. just curious, do you recognize this?

  gorby.

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  StephaneLaliberte

  Yes. My family used to do that. And than, when I moved out of my parents house and struggled with meeting attendance myself... I stopped doing that.
  
  I would say that doing this also largely depends on the size of your congregation and the percentage of attendance. For instance, if 5 people are missing on a group of 75, you will easily know who they were. From there, it will be easy to gossip about the why... However, if there are 25 people missing on a congregation of 130.... you won't even be sure of who was there, who was late, who was on the phone, who left early, etc... So, gossiping will only be happening for people you actually carefully watched for.
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  14

  Advance Directives and the JW Patient

  by Lee Elder in

  1. watchtower
  2. medical

  advance directives are complex legal instruments and widely misunderstood by both physicians and their patients.

  with most jehovah's witnesses their is a significant level of misinformation, and in many cases coercion or undue influence exerted on the patient.

  physicians need to be aware of this and always meet privately with the patient to educate them and then ascertain their true wishes.

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  StephaneLaliberte

  When my wife gave birth, the doctor asked if she could give transfusion to the baby despite us being JWs. I answered: We officially don't agree, but we won't fight you if you do. We know you can simply take guardianship of our kid and there is absolutely nothing we can do against that. So, if you need to give blood, we won't resist at all.

  Now, if something were to happen to any body in my family, i'd say: Fill 'em up!
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  37

  What’s the deal with all the Smart-Educated JWs?

  by John Aquila in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we talk a lot about most jws being uneducated, uninformed, and that they lack critical thinking skills, but in my area there is a lot of jws that went to the university, medical school, law school, and came back to the organization.

  in my circuit, that i know of, we had two electrical engineers, one computer engineer with a ph.d. eight teachers with a bachelors degree and three of those with a masters in education.

  we had two medical doctors, one was a pediatrician who closed his business about 3 years ago and went to bethel.

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  StephaneLaliberte

  I’m an educated professional. Yet, before leaving, I had serious issues with the prophecies for at least 15 years. In terms of knowing TTATT, I’d say that happened about 8 years before leaving.

  What made me stay? I thought that the core teachings were about beliefs such as: No hell, no trinity, earthly paradise, knowing about various biblical accounts. Oh how proud I was when I made comments at the hall for which people thought I had studied for hours! My intellect, my ego, was gratified.

  Meanwhile, though I knew that our actions were very important, I had always taken these for granted and never really stopped to truly think about it.

  So, even if I did not agreed with shunning the disfellowshiped, it wasn’t so bad since I wasn’t practicing it. Meanwhile, I kept convincing myself that the most important things were little details in the scriptures, like, knowing the names of the sons of Noah! I went door to door and told myself: How ignorant are these people, knowing an insignificant fraction of what I know on the bible. Not only did I feel so above the worldly people, I thought I was above the JWs themselves as I didn’t believe in the Adam and Eve story or a universal flood!

  Then, I had kids. And now, I was supposed to do family worship and teach everything these man from NY believed. Suddenly, I realized that if I was telling anything concerning the TTATT, I was at risk of being disfellowshiped! Let me explain: At a district convention, I saw a little girl (about 16) telling everyone from the platform that she now shunned her father who was an apostate. Being a closet apostate myself for well over a decade, I realized that my kids could end up right next to her someday, for what? 15 minutes of fame?

  That is when I understood that my priorities were all wrong, that it had nothing to do with the knowledge, but with the actions. Surely no one else loved that girl more than her own father and yet, that is the one she hurt! That has nothing to do with Christian love. Yet, love IS the most important thing about Christianity. It isn’t about knowing how old Abraham was when he had Isaak!

  So, I left. I could not teach that to my kids.

  The sad thing is: I don’t know if I would have come to that understanding if I did not have my kids. It had to personally affect me.
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  65

  Introducing...ME

  by Heartsafire in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  long time lurker here.

  i'm a fifth gen born-in baptized jw.

  to say i've been struggling with doubts is an understatement.

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  StephaneLaliberte

  Heartsafire: Everyone's reasons to wake up and leave are different and thus, you may have to try your husband on different angles and see what makes the most impact.

  1. Prophecies: 607 being wrong
  2. Changing teachings: Looking at what was though in 1919 when Jesus "chose" the Bible Students
  3. Biblical teaching: The pyramid of Gizeh used by Russell
  4. Jehovah not being actually the name of God
  5. Blood issue
  6. Governing body openly admitting they are not inspired and do not perform miracles and yet, request the same authority as the apostles
  7. Shady way of handling the contributions
  8. Sexual Abuse of the children
  9. Being an NGO for 10 years.

  You could be very surprised to hear that I knew all of the above (For over 8 years) and still had no issues with it... that is... until I had kids of my own. It is only at that moment that I realized that I would not be able to teach my kids what I knew for fear of being eventually disfellowshipped for Apostasy. It is only then that I came to understand that the "good fruits" I thought the organization was showing could be questioned.

  I sat down with my wife, and we reviewed all the blessings we had seen in the truth, over the last 10 years, as a couple. We then compared them to all of the bad things we saw as well. Result: we were far from being in a spiritual paradise! The tree was producing a lot of bad fruits.
  

  Though shocked by our finding, we came to realize what we had done over the years: we'd give credit to the WT for all the good things and blame the individuals for the bad things; as instructed by the WT itself. However, this approach is completely illogical otherwise, the exact same logic could be applied to every religions and groups out there.

  Finally we saw it: the fruits of the WT were not good enough to be the "true" religion. The fruits put forth by the watchtower, such as preaching, meeting attendance, constructions, and other measurable actions have nothing to do with the fruits of the spirit mentioned in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. So that night, we decided to fade out.
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  13

  Geoffrey Jackson's father

  by One_day in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hi everybody, does anybody know if geof jacksons father is still alive?.

  i wonder if he would dare return to australia again, maybe for his funeral?.

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  StephaneLaliberte

  I don't like the man, but I'm still sympathetic to his grief. Lets just hope this will make him question his life and everything he is doing.
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  447

  Does Anyone Still Believe in God?

  by LaurenM in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  do any of you ex-jw's still believe in god?

  even with the new rebranding/softening of this religion, i still don't see how people can believe in him.

  the god of the old testimate is an angry murderer who approved rapes and slavery and killed thousands of men, women and children.

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  StephaneLaliberte

  I don't see proof for a God anywhere. If there is one, he clearly has chosen to be completely absent from human affairs. That being said, I cannot get around and affirmatively say that there is no God either.

  Honestly, I am trying to do my best to be a good person so that when I die, people will think of me as a good man. If I can achieve that, I will be satisfied. If I than wake up, standing before God for him to pass judgement up me, than I will stand up tall and say: I did my best.

  In the end, weather he is there or not, I have chosen to do my best to be a good person.
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  20

  INSTRUCTIONS FOR OUR CHRISTIAN LIFE AND MINISTRY MEETING

  by pixel in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  1. the life and ministry meeting will proceed as outlined in the life and ministry meeting workbookand according to the instructions that follow.. 3. treasures from gods word:.

  the theme and an outline of two or three main points are provided in thelife and ministry meeting workbook.

  this should be assigned to a qualified elder.. 6. concluding comments: 3 minutes or less.

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  StephaneLaliberte

  Seriously, the one good thing they really had... they take that away!
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  20

  INSTRUCTIONS FOR OUR CHRISTIAN LIFE AND MINISTRY MEETING

  by pixel in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  1. the life and ministry meeting will proceed as outlined in the life and ministry meeting workbookand according to the instructions that follow.. 3. treasures from gods word:.

  the theme and an outline of two or three main points are provided in thelife and ministry meeting workbook.

  this should be assigned to a qualified elder.. 6. concluding comments: 3 minutes or less.

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  StephaneLaliberte

  Island Man, the talks given by brothers that are not ministerial servants or elders have been removed. This is a MAJOR change! I'm sure that more than a few will not like this at all. Obviously, this is a move to control absolutely everything that is said from the platform.
  
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  20

  INSTRUCTIONS FOR OUR CHRISTIAN LIFE AND MINISTRY MEETING

  by pixel in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  1. the life and ministry meeting will proceed as outlined in the life and ministry meeting workbookand according to the instructions that follow.. 3. treasures from gods word:.

  the theme and an outline of two or three main points are provided in thelife and ministry meeting workbook.

  this should be assigned to a qualified elder.. 6. concluding comments: 3 minutes or less.

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  StephaneLaliberte

  Hey Pixel, Where did you get these instructions? Can they be downloaded from the JW site?
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  138

  My Mother Died Two Weeks Ago

  by Perry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  none of my jehovah's witness relatives called to tell me or my family.

  just found out this morning.

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  StephaneLaliberte

  Perry, please send us the mailing address of whoever you would have expected to tell you. I will personally send a postal card with a message like this:

  "I'm a friend of Perry and I am appalled that you have not told him about his own mother's passing. You have withhold love from someone who deserved it, and by now, you can't take back the hurt you brought upon him, and by extension, everyone who loves him. I hope that, with this message, you will seriously consider what you have done and understand that it is, in fact, one of the low highlights of your life."

  I realise that this will not dismiss your pain, but at least, it is something that I could do. So, if you want to pm me about it, i'll be more than happy to send that message.