so my cousin gave up her fight against bowel cancer a couple of weeks ago.
yesterday was the funeral.
i haven't experienced a green burial before.
What a strong woman to go through all that and leave a beautiful legacy for her loved ones to remember. It was very moving to read the experience. Thank you
In the context of exiting the cult, it makes me realize how much of humanity the jws miss learning from with their blinkered, isolationist and rule bound policies.
so after almost a year of complete inactivity and non attendance, i ran into a nice brother from the local congregation.. after some nice chit-chat, he says "we really miss you and your family...etc...you were always the kind and supportive one, the approachable and encouraging one in the congregation.
your absence has confused so many".
i thanked him and said "oh no, no individual has stumbled us.
Yeah I was told I was thinking too much too and that if I had doubts and niggles I should "put them in a drawer and close it". I.e. Put your brain on the shelf! Naughty independent intellectual reasoning!
the wts has gone off the rails and is "unrepentantly" hateful.
they are blatantly requiring mothers and fathers to disown/hate their own children that they have loved and cared for since birth simply because they don't comply with the orgs demands.
how is this love?
The shunning video is extreme indeed.
It could be a good thing tho, it was an article on shunning that started my awakening, it said that parents shouldn't use email to stay in touch with df'd children and I was like "why on earth not?", it was the start of my research, I remember thinking, nothing would ever stop me from communicating with my children. Now they are saying don't even answer a phone call, which for all you know could be an emergency, hopefully there are some caring parents In the audience thinking 'what is going on?', I mean, what happened " necessary family business"?
Just watched Cedars rebuttal video on jwsurvey and thought it was pretty good....
will you be a survivor of the last days?.
serving with jehovah’s unified organization.
move ahead with jehovah’s unified organization.
Some become critical, saying that Jehovah does not have an organization
May say that loving one’s fellowman is what really counts or that having a personal relationship with God is the really important thing or even that personally reading the Bible is sufficient (rs 326-8)
Those who adopt such viewpoints are like Satan
Wow, really?!?! That's so nice, so loving and Christian. You conscientiously leave an organisation that you believe to be corrupt, hierarchical, self serving and harmful to sincere individuals , to worship God in your own way and that makes you like Satan!!
Unbe-f-ing-lievable!
circuit overseer guidelines (tg-e) october 2015. http://bit.ly/1utgizt.
had an interesting conversation with my wife recently.
she struggles with physical, emotional and psychological problems which have often caused her to miss meetings.
she mentioned how she is equally tortured by guilt if she misses meetings and ministry, and severe stress if she does them.
it has been 21 years since the 1995 article that pretty much buried the idea of the '1914 generation'.. remember those guys?
the ones born in 1914 that would still be alive when the end of the system arrived.. i'm glad i'm old enough to remember going from door to door, preaching this belief.
the reason i say that is because i have a lot of 'still in' jw friends and family.
I came in to the org. around 1990, we had a big influx then where I lived, we were all fired up with the generation will not pass away teaching. Firmly believed that the end was imminent and would come before the year 2000. I remember my study conductor telling me at 17, that she would be surprised if I reached 25, in fact she would be surprised if I reached 20 before Armageddon came. The gulf war came and we all thought it was a prelude to the end....
what astounds me now is the power of the mind control, just a few short years later they were changing this teaching and we lapped it up, content to be guided by the chosen ones into leaving our precious doctrines behind. Why did so few question? Honestly now I'm over the f.o.g it's mind control element of this religion which amazes me, it's fascinating and scary.
during the wt study yesterday i had a confused look on my face the whole meeting.
more of a, wtf, face.
one paragraph says, "therefore,the number of partakers does not accurately indicate the number of anointed ones left on earth.".
Explaining the JW memorial: only the anointed can partake at the memorial - but some who do partake won't be actually proper anointed ones - they are just mentally unstable - but we don't know who is really anointed and who is mentally unstable - but we can't judge anyone - and they aren't allowed to talk about it much... I mean what the???
What a laughable 'Christian' religion. We used to deride the traditional churches but at least at this time of year their services talk about love, mercy, forgiveness, thanksgiving ...the jws are having to sit and study more and more convoluted explanations of strange manmade doctrines, to try to make it all fit.
...and as for this labeling of certain ones as mentally unstable! Just awful, so now we've got a situation where people's sincerity, motives and even their sanity is questioned, what a judgemental, horrible group.
Is no one sitting there thinking, 'how do we know that Stephen Lett or Anthony Morris Jr aren't mentally unstable'?!?!! They certainly sound a bit odd talking about tight pants and apostate driven lies!
had an interesting conversation with my wife recently.
she struggles with physical, emotional and psychological problems which have often caused her to miss meetings.
she mentioned how she is equally tortured by guilt if she misses meetings and ministry, and severe stress if she does them.
I was like your wife, severe problems with guilt and stress. Especially as a mum, as a jw you are supposed to keep the house very clean and be on top of everything there, support your husband in his privileges, hospitality etc, teach your children, work (at least in my case) , attend all meetings, prepare for all meetings, ministry as much as possible and help your kids to do the same. Then I would feel guilty and extremely stressed if I slipped up in any of these areas. Inevitably there would be some item on the assembly about 'doing more' with some demo about a super pioneer disabled mum of triplets and I'd end up in bits afterwards. It's pure mental torture.
Try to help your wife to start enjoying life, ask her is this what God really wants for her to be stressed, guilt ridden, loaded down, or to be happy and healthy and heartfelt in anything she does for God. It's men who put the burdens, rules and demands on us, nothing in the scriptures has it so. The only statistics counted converted new believers, never hours.
my wife and i had business to attend to out of town today and i had thought if we made it back home in time, we'd go to the memorial.
as it turned out, we didn't get home in time and we missed it, but we had a real good talk with each other on the way home.
we are largely successful faders and at the very least, i like to try and make the memorial.
Hey silent. You are in the limbo stage of half in half out, I was only there for about 6 months and I felt like I was having a breakdown. Once youve made the decision to walk away and make a clean break, you will start to heal, for your own mental state you have to do that.
in terms of your faith, read In Search of Christian Freeedom by Ray Franz, he negates the need of an organisation and together with Crisis of Conscience, reveals the false practices and doctrines of the org. If you do feel you need a church, find a tolerant, non offensive one. We know now the witnesses have got a great deal wrong in terms of their hierarchy, judgementalism, lack of love, judicial process, shunning, blood, birthdays, worship of the governing body etc...... . So why is it such a big deal to attend somewhere that might have some other doctrines wrong. Let's face it the chances are they're all a bit wrong, if there is God, then he hasn't made it very clear.
