i grew up as a jehovah's witness.
my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.
i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.
"James Wind" registered today at 16:20 AEST First post began with these words: "Some of you people make me laugh. " Each of the (so far ) 14 posts today in the past four hours have been in similar vein including this thread.
Good work Captain Obvious. Another mystery solved.
i grew up as a jehovah's witness.
my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.
i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.
Let me clarify, why cheapen the sacrifice of people you love? I'm sure many of the loved ones of those hijackers celebrated their sacrifice but personally I would genocide the entire region and start fresh. Here is an example you may be able to relate to. I had a very close friend named Wayne. He graduated early from high school so he could enlist in the marines. He was gung-ho about going to Afghanistan after 9/11 and then to Iraq when his division was redeployed. Personally I couldnt disagree more with the war in Iraq and think its a bunch of bullsheit. However, when he died I did not try and cheapen his sacrifice by suggesting to anyone that he died needless or for a "cause that isnt real." And do you honestly believe any of those young soldiers over there dying have any real idea of why they are dying? They dont.
Most of this is done out of love and appreciation for fellow humans, not out of hate for the Watchtower.
I think the term "most" might be overstating it based on a quick survey of the topics on these forums.
i grew up as a jehovah's witness.
my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.
i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.
Were you REALLY a baptized, meeting-attending, door-to-door-ministry Jehovah's Witness?
Yes, I was baptized at 15 and pioneered every summer and for the 8 months prior to my leaving.
i grew up as a jehovah's witness.
my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.
i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.
But there is another segment (in my experience, large, if not the majority) that truly want to "please Jehovah". It isn't about "rules", it's about pleasing their heavenly father. Except they let the Watchtower tell them what's pleasing and what isn't. He hates "misuse" of blood, so they don't "misuse" it and choose to die instead. What will or won't "get you disfellowshipped" is irrelevant.
People have died for things they believed in since the beginning of time. It could be a political cause, ethical, moral, family, etc. When someone dies for something they believe in what makes it your right to cheapen their sacrifice by suggesting it was a stupid sacrifice. Why not celebrate their sacrifice, even if you dont believe in the cause, as a way of respecting that person and their convictions?
I must admit that there's another issue here. We've all been personally affected by the Watchtower. Some of us (not me) have lost loved ones to the blood issue, to suicide brought on by the effects of the cult, and were in other ways severely affected by it.
I can absolute respect those that are struggling to understand a suicide brought on by the organization. For those people, you can disregard all my posts.
Just like a person who's been affected by cancer may take up a cancer cause, so many of us have taken up an anti-Watchtower cause. Statistically, it may not be the most efficient use of our time. But emotionally -- humanly -- it's fulfilling.
How can dwelling on the hate be fulfilling? I think its like eating lots of twinkies. In the immediate it may feel good, but in the long run its just going to make you feel worse because of all the weight gain.
Question for you: Have you read "Crisis of Conscience"?
No, tonight is the first I've heard of it. Though I have briefly glanced through many similar type documents written about the Mormon church.
i grew up as a jehovah's witness.
my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.
i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.
Dave, Im sorry but there is nothing here that tells me this is all that unusual. Honestly, the Republican party is far more brain washed and displays more borg behavior than the Witnesses. And on a much much great scale. How else do you explain someone with a 4th grade education is president? Nearly 25K American soldiers have been maimed or killed in the past 6 years. Do you spend equal amounts of time slamming the Republican party?
You can't seriously believe that. It's as much a "personal decision" as fornication, smoking, and idolatry is. JW's are told they will displease Jehovah -- put their eternal lives at risk -- over this issue. It is not in any way a "personal decision".
Honestly this is the most bizarre thing Ive read all night. You dont believe that fornication, smoking and idolatry are personal decisions? You honestly believe that having sex with someone or smoking a cigarette is beyond your control? Huh?
I'm glad you've broken free from cult thinking. For you, everything is a personal decision, as well it should be. But for them, it's absolutely nothing of the sort. For the mindless drones of the bOrg, it is an order from God Almighty, and they ignore it at their eternal peril.
So if they are so brain washed that they are beyond reason what makes you think anything you say here will effect any change? If they are as mindless as you believe, it wont.
i grew up as a jehovah's witness.
my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.
i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.
And I've always had a bad reaction to arrogant people.
As I said, I never developed basic social skills. I have this tendency to be very direct and blunt. That is commonly mistaken for arrogance. Especially when the truth hurts.
You're out of the organization and you did so on your own terms. What gives you the right to judge those that haven't been able to leave with their lives in as good as condition as yours?
This is a fair question. I will concede that you have a point. Though my point still remains, why dwell on it to such extremes instead of just moving on?
After reading your posts I think you came on the board looking for a fight. When you didn't get one by making assinine comments on other threads you started a thread of your own to provoke one.
Actually, no. I saw the story and was doing some research. This site came up in a Google search. I read through it for a few hours before saying anything and frankly almost moved along without leaving a trace. But I live in a very large Mormon community and have always been amazed at how fiercly people can hate the Mormon's, especially those that have left the organization (willingly or not). In this regard the two organizations have much in common.
In 18 years this is my first experience with a group of people who's entire focus in developing a community was to slam the Witnesses. It made me genuinely wonder why. I just don't get the hate. Your response is the first to offer any real/legitimate insight into the behavior and thinking of this community. It still doesn't make any sense why grown adults would spend so much time and effort on such a trivial pursuit but at least its more understanding than I had prior.
i grew up as a jehovah's witness.
my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.
i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.
Sweat Pea, Im sorry but Im going to call BS on your post.
No one would be disfellowshiped for a blood transfusion. The primary ingredient required in all disfellowships is a lack of remorse or extreme severity. Blood transfusion does not fall into the extreme severity category (in terms of breaking the rule) and simply acknowledging that you were scared and gave in to a transfusion would qualify you as remorseful. I am certain that people here grossly overexhaggerate or completely lie in their overzealous attempt to garner sympathy for themselves and make the Witnesses look bad.
I have seen the affects of fellowshipping. Ive seen entire families ripped apart by it. Many of my close friends were disfellowshipped. One of them was the son of our presiding overseer. It tore his mother in half. But dont you see the overall hypocrisy of the situation on these forums? There is an entire section of this community devoted to scandles. The posts in their gawk at how the organization continues to shelter these evil doers. But in other communities people gawk at the fact the organization has disfellowshipped someone. You cant have it both ways, which do you want? An organization that actively polices itself and weeds out those people doing bad things at the risk of breaking up families or an organization that is ultra tolerant and allows people to do terrible things without serious repercussions? Do you see the dilemma?
Maybe then you'd understand that some people here are so damaged, cannot heal in a short time and need to get this of their chest to people who they know will really understand and will love and support them.
Im not a psychologist but I am certain that dwelling on the hate for months and years is not healthy and not an effective way to find healing.
Would you blame a woman with a violent husband if she left him and then complained about him or couldn't heal from being thrown down the stairs, having her head smashed against a wall, having her children tortured and abused, set fire to? Unless you've walked a mile in someone's shoes you do not know what they have been through and how they will cope going forward.
If she spent countless hours dogging him and bad mouthing him to other people instead of moving on with her life, I would say there is a problem.
This place has literally saved people's lives
Not likely. Lets keep it real.
i grew up as a jehovah's witness.
my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.
i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.
JW's misinterpretation of not eating blood. How many have lost their lives?
But at the end of the day its still a personal decision. I have known witnesses that took transfusions when push came to shove and there were zero repercussions within the congregation. How many people die from other equally trivial decisions? Can you imagine that some people still refuse to wear seat belts despite all the evidence proving that the risk of fatality and serious injury is dramatically reduced by wearing one? How many children die from head injuries incurred while riding bikes? And yet when I was a kid I never saw one single kid wearing a helmet.
In the grand scheme of things I would be willing to place odds that less than 100 people a year die worldwide from the "no blood" stance. But more than 10,000 people a year in the US alone die from not wearing a seat belt and over 2,700 kids a year die from head related injuries incurred while riding a bike. Why not make your time more valuable and impact more lives by taking up one of those causes?
i grew up as a jehovah's witness.
my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.
i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.
If reading the stories here make you upset enough to want to vomit, I think it's highly likely that you are experiencing symptoms of cognitive dissonance.
I do find it enjoyable when someone on the internet attempts to play amateur behavioral therapist. Unfortunately you are incorrect. What causes the nausea is seeing grown adults act like sniveling children. I have always had a bad reaction to whining.
i grew up as a jehovah's witness.
my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.
i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.
I don't hate its people. Two of my kids, ex-wife are still in. How do I get them out? I hate this organization because they are liars, hypocrates, and murderers. This org has so much blood on their hands which they will never be able to wash off.
Then I assume you are against ALL organized religion. I can assure you they ALL have blood on their hands. Christianity has a long history of lying, hypocrisy, and murder. Millions of innocent people have been slaughtered in the name of Christ. Though something tells me you are just being overly dramatic. Or do you have many examples of times when the organization has been responsible for murder?
