my wife and i have been witnesses for almost 50 years.
we are both third generation witnesses and raised in the "lie".
we raised our kids in it also.
Welcome! I walked away in 1974 and have been snubbed, shunned, ostracized, yelled at, and slandered by my Witness relatives for years. If they left the JW's, I would go back in just to get away from them.
There is no current Witness I would like to see quit distributing religious literature for free for the Watch Tower Publishing Corporation. They are with their peers and are where they belong.
The Way I See it http://www.freeminds.org/buss/buss.htm
hi all, my name is eric, i'm 22 years old i live in kansas, and i am the new guy on the forum.
just looking to meet some people who, like myself, have decided that being one of jehovah's witnesses was not for them.
i stopped going about 1 1/2 years ago and have been feeling quite alone.
Welcome Eric,
I look forward to reading your posts. Thanks for being here!
gary
it has become apparent to me, through many of your stories that jw's seem to have a hard time staying with their spouses who leave the borg.
i was wondering if this is just a case by case thing or are they in fact encouraged to leave spouses who no longer believes.
it seems strange that they would encourage that seeing as how we are instructed to stay in marriages even with a non-believer if they are happy to stay in the marriage.
The owners of the Jehovah's Witness franchise, The Watch Tower Publishing Corporation, encourage and even require separation of spouses and shunning parents and children under the "absolute endangerment of spirituality" guideline.
i don't mean to sound morbid, but we're all mortal.
just as we are wise if we plan for our financial future, we are also wise if we plan for our demise (timely or otherwise), so that our relatives know our wishes and are not burdened with difficult decisions in the case a fatal event befalls us.
so for those of us who are currently unchurched -- we all know that if you wish to "tie the knot" you can quite easily get a "justice of the peace" to perform a wedding.
There is a slight possibility, by definition, I might not be a theist. I do like a Catholic High Mass. My personal favorite building to attend a funeral as a rite of passage is at the Cathedral Catholic Church here in Sioux Falls. I had considered becoming a Catholic so I could have a funeral Mass at the Cathedral.
A funeral is a rite of passage and I attended a wonderful secular funeral for the brother of a friend at the funeral home chapel. It was a eulogy given by his friends and relatives. They all brought their favorite pictures and had those on a board in the chapel. One brother was a minister and he used his time to share to read the scripture that comforted him. There were no lectures or religious laws read. Just sharing from the heart and honest grieving.
I have told my wife to do as she wishes if she has to deal with a funeral for me. I do hope to die before her and before all my children and their children.
A couple years ago my wife's mother's memorial service was conducted by a Witness in a funeral home chapel with a community pot luck lunch at a local restaurant. I attended both and that lunch was the last time I got to sit and talk with my oldest son. I still grieve his loss and I cherish that memory. It was a good, bad day.
There are no more big deals. Funerals fit with that for me.
The Way I See it http://www.freeminds.org/buss/buss.htm
in my research i came across this topic "investigating the society"which asked six questions, before you joined the society.
i answered no to all of them.i'm interested in what your answers are if you care to express them.i posted my answers below.. question #1:how did you investigate the watchtower society before you joined it?did you read books both for and against the society to help you judge it accurately?no!.
question #2:had you read the bible in its entirety?no!.
The Watch Tower group is more of a gang than a religion.
what was under your tree this morning?.
it's snowing here in tn.
which is what i wanted!!!.
Lawn equipment from my wife.
Cool!
i would love some support since i am scared and confused, but i don't know where to turn.
my husband and i are both having our eyes opened wide after years of doubts.
we have finally read the "apostate literature" over the past few weeks and have checked and rechecked their sources.
I lived as a believing walkaway for years before I read Crisis Of Conscience in 1992. From then it was downhill. I did not wait for the elders and the Witnesses I know to come to me, I went to them with things I had discovered like the verses I had read in my Bible about the example Jesus set by associating with the prostitutes and tax collectors and the example Paul set by traveling and doing his lecturing in Synagogs and the accepted practice of observing Jewish festivals.
I asked them to answer the issues Ray Franz raised in his books about the behavior of the Watch Tower Corporation in Mexico and I questioned them about the appointment doctrine and similar questions I had. I was not going to reject them until they had an honest chance to explain and defend their practices and instructions.
No Witness could or even would answer even one of my questions and I was soon marked by them for shunning and snubbing. That was when I decided to draw my line and make my stand. I want to live my life open and honest without fear that some religious high control group can take something or someone away from me. I started to run an ad in the paper and recorded messages on a dedicated phone line.
Soon the daily paper interviewed me and other shunned Witnesses and ran a big front page article. My wife and two of my 4 sons came with me and all my other JW relatives and 2 of my sons stayed with the Publishing Corporation.
The children need the re-education aka exit counseling the most. If they are not well counseled, they may enter the group later in life. My oldest son entered when he was about 20 and in college and living away from home. More than a few children raised as Witnesses who were removed or left group association at a young age returned to the Corporation when they had their first child or had a life crisis.
I have many resources available and am open to being contacted.
Steven Hassan is doing a seminar in Los Angeles in March. I suggest trying to attend that if at all possible.
Best wishes, gary bussleman
The Way I See it http://www.freeminds.org/buss/buss.htm
so much of the watchtower is written in "code".
so much of the circuit and district overseers comments are spoken in "code".
for example, you are not told directly that you shouldn't read any other publication but the society's, but you are asked, "how could anyone spiritual ever have the time to keep up with their bible-based reading of all the spiritual food that we must take in, and still have time to read "worldly" books?
The Watch Tower Publishing Corporation only has two rules.
#1. We are always to be treated as if we are always right.
#2. If we are ever wrong see rule #1.
from everything i've read here, the jist seems to be that if you're disfellowshipped, you have little chance of winning a lawsuit against the borg because the government still gives them the right to "shun" members if they see fit.. it occurred to me that perhaps we're ignoring a potential ray of light at the end of the tunnel.
what if we tried to lobby the government into changing this, so that it would be illegal for any religion to shun former members?
it's a long shot maybe, but if it could be shown (maybe on another program like dateline) of how unfair, cruel and inhumane it is to tell people they must shun family members or close friends simply because they don't think the same way as them, then maybe eventually, one day, a law would be passed forbidding shunning in any religion.. it's not just ex-witnesses that would support this: ex-mormons, ex-scientologists, ex-seventh day adventists etc.
Trying to beat the huge Watch Tower Publishing conglomerate in court on a religious freedom issue like shunning is like trying to bankrupt a Las Vegas casino by playing one of their own machines.
this is an issue that i've had to look into due to the extreme paranoia of my mother.
it's getting ridiculous.
and it get's worse everytime she reads the publications.
I grew up with a mother who suffers from untreated mental illness. She is paranoid, has a percussion complex, is neurotic, anti social, and prone to extreme mood swings and episodes of violent rages. My father is in complete denial that there is anything wrong with her. Both are Witnesses. He spends his time manipulating people and things to try to appease her. He has ended up nearly as sick as her by living in her delusions and trying to pacify her. She became dependant on prescription drugs years ago and has abused those terribly. She has migraines, eczema, and every allergy imaginable. He is treated for asthma and has become as hateful and resentful as her.
Now they are in their 80's, isolate with the shades drawn and live with constant resentment and fear. They have dispensed with me years ago, as has my only brother, also a Witness.
Sorry to hear of your challenges. I hope it gets better. Best wishes.
The Way I See it http://www.freeminds.org/buss/buss.htm
