Posts by Gopher

9

Who's afraid of the Watchtower? Not Me!

by mauddib in

jw
friends

you ought to feel ashamed of letting them take away fear they don't deserve.. now's the time to discover a startling truth those who dared to step into their pit of spiritual punishment have found.

the "pit" of darkness they threaten to push you into is only 2-inches deep with a bottom painted black.

i have walked right across it to the other side.

Gopher

Mauddib, welcome to our board. I was listening to the tone of your first 2 posts. Are you aware that most of the people on the board have separated themselves from Jehovah's Witnesses?

You said you suspect many of us are scared out of our wits at the mere mention of the word "Watchtower". I beg to differ. If fear controlled us, we would still have stayed within the confines of the organization, being good little meeting attenders and trying to please the men who run the organization.

We have hundreds of members on this board. Not all will be able to read your post during a weekday afternoon and respond to your question. But the response you DID get was a fairly representative sample of the opinions of most members of the board. I didn't see any fear of the WT Society in any of their responses, which is to be expected because they are no longer governed by that Society.

However, it is true that fear can hold people "still on the inside" who know they can and should leave. Also, people who do leave the JW's often do suffer irrational fears early on about "Armageddon is coming", "Jehovah is seeing me", and other irrational guilt feelings from not belonging any more. However, with the proper support and unconditional love from non-JW's and even from this board, people can get past their feelings of fear and move on.

So your point about fear is not totally unwarranted. But I believe most members of this board have gone past that point. Do you see what I mean?

BTW, sorry to hear that your ex-wife could not join you in your journey to freedom. I'm going through something similar, and it's so sad and unneeded.

I hope you enjoy your visits to this board.

GopherAlways do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

17

Email from JW Cousin

by Undecided in

jw
friends

hi folks,.

i just got this email from my 72 year old cousin.

what do you think of his advice???.

Gopher

To GodRules,

How judgmental of you! Just because the people in this thread do not accept Jehovah's Witnesses style of "Christianity", you jump to the conclusion that they would reject God and Jesus himself? What in their posts would lead an unbiased person to that conclusion?

What is sad is that the parents in these cases do not show Christian love to their children, and seem to be only accepting them on the condition that their children will give in and accede to a certain "brand" of Christianity that they don't currently accept. Such parents are the ones who are "blinded and proud", and not these posters.

Many people on this forum have grown closer to God after leaving this meddling JW organization that poses as a "mediator". Others choose to re-consider their relationship to God, based on their experiences. Who are you or I to judge people and name-call?

GopherAlways do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

11

Am I Really Hurting Myself?? Prov. 14:12

by Monica in

jw
friends

i've been communicating back and forth with an old friend from my teen years, who is now an elder.

i used to be a jw when i knew him and he was not very spiritual so i was completely surprised at his current status.

(before i get questions on if i am "interested" in this elder, i just want to say that i'm happily married to a super-cool guy and have no intimate feelings for this elder whatsoever.

Gopher

Monica,

Proverbs 14:12 says, "There exists a way that is upright before a man, but the ways of death are the end of it afterward."

Sorry, I don't have a clever comeback for your elder/friend. Everything you say will go through their special "filters" and only reinforce their belief that they are God's only true organization on earth, bla, bla, bla. "Brick wall" comes to mind.

GopherAlways do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

12

Happily gone forever!

by Steve Josef in

i was raised as a jw.

i do believe that what they call a religion is in fact, child abuse and mere brainwashing.

i have since left, but rements of this cult still haunt me today.

Gopher

Steve,

I too was raised from birth as a JW. I remember being excluded from all special occasions as a child, and the embarrassment that went with it. I've been out a little over a year now, living on my own. I have no emotional connection to birthdays and holidays, and like you find holiday greetings very foreign.

Now as for my younger sister, she managed to leave the organization 17 years ago. She is married with children, and seems to have no problem with holidays and birthdays.

Rather than special occasions, I find enjoyment in getting together with my sister and her family, and with new friends I've made in the past year. That's how I've been able to cope.

GopherAlways do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

26

Organised Religion

by aud8 in

if none of you believe in organised religion then who is the "faithful and discreet slave" mentioned in the bible?

Gopher

Aud8,

I'll address the Acts 20:20 part of your post. This has been covered in the past on this board. So please carefully (and with an open mind) read the first post in the thread listed below. Please take careful note of where the Greek phrase used in Acts 20:20 is compared with Acts 2:46.

Again this is not about whether there is a ministry. This is about the appropriateness of the 'house to house' aspect. Acts 20:20 should not be bent to fit an organization's tradition. (I used to quote Acts 20:20 like you did, by the way.)

* http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=2384&site=3#31930

GopherAlways do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

9

Germany, the "truth" is worth lying...

by Norm in

jw
friends

the multinational printing empire and con operation in brooklyn better known as the watchtower society is in a desperate struggle to appear mainstream and normal to the general public all over the world.

after over 100 years of publishing the most insane drivel and countless failed predictions this is of course an uphill struggle.. what makes it even harder is that they merely want to foster the illusion that the watchtower society is mainstream.

they have no wish for it to actually be mainstream.

Gopher

Norm,

Thanks for the well-documented post. Of course the WTS wants to stretch definitions of normalcy & civil service, to gain the benefits without doing the deeds.

You said the WTS wants recognition in Germany? Why is this an issue? Don't they have the freedom to preach? Or do they want more? Just wondering.

GopherAlways do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

26

Organised Religion

by aud8 in

if none of you believe in organised religion then who is the "faithful and discreet slave" mentioned in the bible?

Gopher

Hi Aud8, glad you popped back in.

1. I've been looking, I cannot find the scripture to which you refer, that you must go from house to house preaching the good news. In fact, Paul wrote that not all Christians would have the evangelizing ability. Ephesians 4:11, "He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelizers, some as shepherds and teachers". Not all would have that evangelizing ability, although they would bear witness as occasion arose.

2. Are true Christians to randomly pick doors and head out preaching? No. As a Christian, I'm sure you are confident that God would use the angels and holy spirit to create evangelizing opportunities. The door to door method is extremely inefficient and irritates householders and is tiresome to many JW's themselves. Christians only need to be alert to informal opportunities to share their faith.

3. What exactly is the good news? It's the good news about God's loving provision of salvation through Christ. The Christian Greek scriptures (if I'm not mistaken) contain many more references to the "Good news about Christ" than to the "Good news of the Kingdom". The good news about Jesus being God's loving provision for righteous hearted ones is the loving message that touches hearts.

GopherAlways do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

10

A Great Club For Americans. :)

by Kent in

jw
friends

ban breast-feeding now!

over 200,000 american citizens have signed a petition urging congress to declare breast-feeding a crime.

this primitive ritual has continued to be a violation of babies' civil rights, an unlawful, incestuous relationship with mothers that leads to moral decay.

Gopher

Comment and the others,

Here's the main part that applies, from the Urban Legends website.

David Mikkelson, half of the husband-and-wife team that runs the ever-popular Urban Legends Reference Pages, smelled a hoax right off the bat and confirmed it quite easily by establishing that the phone number in the message is associated with Alan Abel, a notorious hoaxer who once headed up a campaign demanding that "all animals should wear clothing for the sake of decency."

Lampooning prudishness is one way of drawing attention to the issue (in a reverse-psychology sort of way), but certainly not the best way to effect real change.

My 2-1/2 year old girl, a breast feeder her first year, is very strong and healthy. The anti-breast feeding people are either silly or thick-headed. But what do I know? I'm just an American.

GopherAlways do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

8

My Life In the Watchtower

by Number 6 in

it is choice of name i was never happy with.

so to re-introduce myself i chose number 6, after the main character in that superb 60's sci fi series "the prisoner".

six of one, half a dozen of the other i suppose.

Gopher

Number 6,

Welcome to the board! Your life experience certainly covers a wide range of experience. Thanks for sharing, it must have been cathartic to get all of this out.

I hope you'll participate in future discussions, your viewpoints will surely be welcome. It gets a little crazy out here at times, but overall it's very well worthwhile.

There's so much in your post, it's hard to pick a point to respond to. But overall, isn't it great to gain the chance to exercise actual self-control rather than living by the dictates of a group of men running their fiefdom? And life is so much more meaningful, now that you're true to yourself and not merely "going through motions".

We were sold a bill of goods. We endlessly endured the carrot-and-stick treatment. Now it's all changed, and you and your children will be in a much better position. Good for you!

GopherAlways do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

18

leaving Jehovah's Witnesses

by jayhawk1 in

hello, my name is jeremy.

i have been reading this forum for some time.

i asked the elders, they said that i could grow the beard, so i did.

Gopher

Jeremy,

Welcome to the board! Wow, you've been through a lot in 25 years. Thanks so much for sharing. Hope you can stay awhile. There's a lot of good support out here amidst the occasional craziness.

I grew up as a JW too. It's so true, you are forced to be alienated from non-Witnesses, but it's so hard to fit into the "club" within JW's as well. That judgmentalism over your beard proves that it's not "right vs. wrong" that matters, but who you know in the organization! Someone with better connections than you can cause no end of trouble, and it has nothing to do with God or righteousness or anything but petty vindictiveness.

Welcome to freedom. And condolences about your dad.

GopherAlways do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)