....that is not sure if you believe in god?
i envy those of you who have moved through this space.
wings.
that is not sure if you believe in God? ....or not sure if you don't?I'm not sure, and that is concerning to me.
I am exactly there right now.
Somedays I feel close to God and I pray to know Him. I pray my own prayer while the "brother" prays at the KH.
Other days I feel like there is nothing. Darwin was right and I have wasted my youth in this org at my one shot at life.
I know where you are at and it sucks
after much deliberation, i decided to go "out" at the end of a public talk.
it didn't go down too well, but at least i was able to give some of my reasons for leaving.. i've put some of the details on my homepage.
i'll update it more when i get the time and the strength.
well I just read it for the first time... WOW! definitely balls of steel.
I cant believe over 21 thousand views on this thread too. You truly made history here LT !
as you may know from my previous posts, i am fairly new to being an xjw, having taken may decision about 3 weeks ago.
during this time i have read the information about blood on jwfacts and in isofcf, for example,.... so yesterday, much to my wife's chagrin, i tore up my blood card in front of her.. i wanted to drive home a point... she will be needing surgery soon, and has told me that she does not want blood.
i wanted to demonstrate to her that i no longer agree with the blood policy.... and i even went so far as to check about donating blood.
I told my wife that I wanted to donate blood, in case a JW needs a blood fraction, they can take it out of my blood...
i mentioned this point to an elder and he thought about it for a minute and then agreed with me. So many dont even think about the double-standard here.
as for tearing up your card - congrats. I shredded my in an actual paper shredder a few months ago. Lately with all the talks about filling out the blood cards I am hoping my wife doesnt ask about it!
i am in a situation that many of you have faced... whether to stay with my spouse or not after having learned the falsehood of the org.. my wife is diehard witness who gets upset whenever i talk about the org negatively.
she is not happy that i am on jwd... in fact the other day she picked up the keyboard and wanted to throw it accros the room or bash me with it when she saw i was on jwd... she is also very upset about me making friends with "apostates" and worldly people, and told me never to bring them to our home!
this concerns me, since i am not going to have any friends in the org, and i need at least a few friendships...she doesn't want me to talk to the friends in the cong about my decision so that i don't share my doubts.
the other day she picked up the keyboard and wanted to throw it accros the room or bash me with it when she saw I was on JWD... She is also very upset about me making friends with "apostates" and worldly people, and told me never to bring them to our home! This concerns me, since I am not going to have any friends in the org, and I need at least a few friendships
I often imagine my wife developing similar behaviour if I were to tell her the depth of my "un-belief" with the org. I think she suspects it but hopes it will go away. As much as I know she loves me I fear it would turn bad.
I dont know how you broke it to your wife but I wish I could. Anyway, if she is a die-hard she will either join you or leave you.
Despite the adultery rule, the "spiritual harm" clause was created a few years ago and as an apostate nobody will encourage her to stay with you. I guess Jesus forgot to mention that part but it okay, the org covered it for Him.
Still.....
loving and forgiving are a huge component of jesus' message to his disciples.. in answer to the question as to how many times forgiveness should be offered to an offender, jesus gave the reply, "seventy (times) seven.
" (variously interpreted as either 77 times or a multiple of 70 times 7).. an example is given of a man who owed a considerable sum of money whose debt was forgiven.
this man failed to forgive a much smaller debt owed to him.
Disfellowshipping has changed over the years:
A personal friend of mine was DF'd for a time about 15 or so years ago. At the time of her DF she had kissed one boy and smoked one cigarette.
Today I know of unmarried sisters with children, in one case - 3 children from 3 different men - and these have never been DF'd. The same friend of mine mentioned above could not believe the way these "sisters" were "dealt with" vs the Sanhedrin she faced as a teenager.
I guess Jehovah has become more politically correct over the years and/or is afraid of getting sued. I agree with the general consensus that we personally decide whom we shun should they blatantly continue in sin. Jesus showed love and so do we. We can forgive their sin against us, Jehovah forgives the sin against Him.
No human can sit on Gods throne and speak on His behalf. This presumtuousness amounts to self-proclaimed inspiration as a prophet.
the elder conducting the wt study said that changes were imminent but did not elaborate so unless someone spills the beans between now and next week, i guess we'll all have to wait.. right now we have three possibilities:.
1) the meetings are being restructured - rumors suggest that the congregation book study may no longer be held at private homes.
however, if they are held at kingdom halls, this will have significant impact on congregations that already share a kingdom hall.. it has been suggested that most announcments are made at the service meeting and i concur, but if this is a restructuring of meetings, then it would make sense to announce this on a sunday as the public would be present and the handbills will have to change.. if the book study stays perhaps it will be conbined with the school and service meeting with a question and answer review of the material with no paragraphs read.. .
Now having them stay in only designated motels? This suggests to me that somehow they are or are expecting some kind of organized attacks against the witnesses. Maybe more organized apostate literature and information given out at the conventions!! These may seem like little measures but it allows for greater control. It's easier to watch and monitor the flock if they are all in designated areas.
oh JC, why do I even read some of your posts?
The rooming dept. have been arranging cheap hotel accomodations for assemblies for decades. The more JW's stay at hotels not on the "list" the less hotels are willing to offer a discount for conventioners. Big whoop.
I guess the WTS has been dodging thousands of extremely organized apostate attacks on JW's for years now... damn they are good!
.
old timers on the board may remember that i was the first to mention the november 06 blood insert in the km.. http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/121104/1.ashx.
the same very, very reliable source has confirmed that the book study will be amalgamated with the tms and sm.. this same source recently had a long and private conversation with a gb member.
With gasoline at $3.50 a gallon here in the U.S
WOW you are so lucky.... I just paid $1.20 per LITRE !! $4.80/GALLON in Canada
You Americans have it all!
cabasilas made a comment at http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/156586/2869313/post.ashx#2869313 that seems to have been missed, as was new for me.
the first printing of studies in the scriptures series vii - the finished mystery was june 1917, in which the end of world war one was predicted for october 1st, 1917. subsequent printings retrospectively stated the war ended 1918. .
(see comments on rev.
The 3 1/2 days of terrible darkness over the land represent the 3 1/2 years of the great war, that indicate its close shortly after the publication of this final witness to the Church.So, instead of admitting they were wrong about the war ending about October 1, 1917, they tweaked with the data and stretched the prediction a few more months!
These passages are hardly recognizable at all in the 1926 edition (though the 1926 edition changes the 3 1/2 days back to 3 but does not connect it with the end of the war.) Page 256 of the 1926 edition reads:
The 3 days of terrible darkness over the land of Egypt represent the 3 years of mental obscurity respecting the cause (influence of the demons) of the World War ending with the publication of this book in 1917.
I ----- AM ----- SOOOOOO ----- PISSED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I WANT TO SCREAM THE "F" WORD WHEN I READ SHIT LIKE THIS !!!!!!!!!!!!! 33 YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i made a big effort to get to the watchtower study today.
i have not been to the meetings much for months, but i figured this was a pretty historic "study" and i wanted to see reactions and how it would go down locally.
well a few things struck me as a bit odd in the study itself, and in the audience response as well.
i was at the assembly for this one. Got to hear the Watchtower Summary.
When he got to this point he talked about how if you were sitting there listening to Jesus speak you would have know that he was speaking about you -the annointed. Funny thing is, without extreme hand gestures and an awkward level of word emphasis there is no way that this would be the way I would understand it. To insinuate this is to insult Jesus as his language skills and communicative skills would be have to be severely poor to speak this badly.
The best part was when he said "it just makes sense that we would understand Jesus that way. And that's probably how they understood it too."
Probably???? LOL - That is just too much!! I couldnt believe he said. Of course nobody even cares. One bro. says to me: "well the WTS is the only org that is trying to figure these things out so we have to give them credit for that."
the elder conducting the wt study said that changes were imminent but did not elaborate so unless someone spills the beans between now and next week, i guess we'll all have to wait.. right now we have three possibilities:.
1) the meetings are being restructured - rumors suggest that the congregation book study may no longer be held at private homes.
however, if they are held at kingdom halls, this will have significant impact on congregations that already share a kingdom hall.. it has been suggested that most announcments are made at the service meeting and i concur, but if this is a restructuring of meetings, then it would make sense to announce this on a sunday as the public would be present and the handbills will have to change.. if the book study stays perhaps it will be conbined with the school and service meeting with a question and answer review of the material with no paragraphs read.. .
The position of Auxiliary Pioneer may be rendered obsolete and Regular Pioneer hours cut to 50 but again, this is the sort of announcement that would best happen at the Service Meeting.
no way, they may drop hours but they will NEVER drop auxilary pioneers. No way!
