uk congregations of jehovah's witnesses[a].
aberaeron.
aberdare.
When you list that many (what is the total number please ?) it looks as though they are doing so very very well. But when you compare it with the other christian denominations in the community they really are a VERY minority religion.
In my area for example, we have two JW congregations, and about 60 to 70 other churches.
does anyone else get the sneaking idea that perhaps the borg is worth a lot more $ than even we suspect?
do you think it is possible that over the past 100 + years they have managed to hord tens upon tens upon tens of billions of dollars?
i wonder that because.....they aren't completely retarded.
I trusted them when I was in, but since I have left, and I have analysed the lack of transparency, sorry, that is far too polite, the deliberate obfuscation of income and expenditure, and simply thinking, if every member only gives a $ a day, they have 7 MILLION BLOODY DOLLARS A DAY coming in I asked the question :
Where the f**k do they salt it all away ?
They sure as fate have a lot of Dollars or Yen or Swiss francs tucked away somewhere !
i can't say my life was ruined because i was a witness.
still, i wish that my upbringing was different.
there's a lot i don't like at all about the witnesses but by the same token, there are some very good people who happen to be jws.. i'm sure some of you hated your life as a witness and i'm sure you have valid reasons..
Not really, I was born in so knew no different, but as I matured I made my own niche , Elders knew not to mess with me or they ended up holding the shit*y end of the stick, and I did what I wanted and did not do what did not please me.
I had a wide circle of friends whom we socialised with, all Jw's, or their partners maybe UB's, I had the respect of the whole Circuit etc etc all my family were in, in the "other half" of our split Congo.
I was in a very laid back congregation of really lovely people on the whole,a couple of exceptions but they gave me no problem.
All of the above explains why I stayed in for 58 years.
Of course after I left I realised the problems with the cult and the pressures they put upon you that you just don't register as a problem when you are in it, i.e Cognitive Dissonance etc and the mind control etc but on the whole my life as a JW was far from horrible.
to all the posters on this board, your thoughts, experiences, and research have helped me more than you can imagine!
until recently i was a true believer of more than 50 yrs.
as my name implies, i am third generation from both parents going back to the turn of the previous century.
Hi 3rdgen , and HUGE Wobble WELCOME !!
I was born in, and stayed in for 58 years, so I sympathise and empathise with where you are now, please be assured that we are all here to support and help you in your journey along a road we have travelled much of, as you are now FREE to choose, your journey may take a slightly different route to ours, but I'm sure we can be of help to you, if you want.
Please tell us more about yourself, if you feel inclined, what is especially helpful to others is how the "waking up" process occured for you.
Looking forward to hearing much more from you !
who have added and who has taken away.
not have to be a genius to understand these words.. god says, "this is the end".
don,t tamper with it, his.
It always made me sad that the Pericope de adultera was considered by the WT to be spurious, at the time I trusted their judgement in such matters.
I always thought it seemed so much like the Jesus I knew and loved to have dealt with the matter as he did. It now seems that we may have in the story a very early example of the kind of stories that were circulating about Jesus' teaching, good.
Dear Jam, it is refreshing to see the way you have accepted the new knowledge offered to you by posters on here, I too have many times been shown to be in error in my thinking on here, but I take it as all part of my(Free - thanks all !) education.
What a pity that the JW apologist types are too proud to admit that they need "readjusting" and they just continue to fight against what is true, there are none so blind as those who do not wish to see.
on this forum, i have carefully read most of the experiences of those who left the jw religion, i have even read experiences that have dated back to 2001, i have read the different circumstances surrounding their exits and what ensued upon leaving.
for the majority, i observed they are better remainning in the religion than leaving.
what benefit is there to strain family relationship because you want to be free?, please tell me, of what value is that freedom?,.
Manny said "leaving doesn't give you any assurance " , no, but staying would only assure that I would have to listen to lies, false doctrine and have to pretend to revere and worship the Governing Body.
How could that be better than living a life of integrity and honesty, as I do, away from the WT ?
even though i knew some of the doctrines were so convoluted they couldnt be genuine, every prophecy mentioned in the bible was simplistic and direct i still felt it was the best place to raise a family.
i felt like i could ignore the hypocrisy, manipulative and fake personalities and still have true friends and unbreakable family bonds.
even though my concience would bother me i would always try to forgive.
With me the tipping point came from realising that the 1914 doctrine was hogwash, after that the whole house of cards that is WT doctrine, fell down.
Looking back on my feelings, I had been reversing out for years,and the constant demands for loyalty (worship really) to the Governing Body made me really annoyed. I could not see that they had earned my loyalty, they had not at that point even earned my respect, and of course they never did.
I did not bridle too much about their heavy handed attempts at control, because I never did anything unscriptual, and if one of their rules wasn't in the bible I didn't care, I just did what I wanted anyway, hence they were always wary of promoting a rebel like me to Elder, not that I would have accepted, as I made plain on a number of occasions.
Everybody has a different spur that actually makes them walk away, but the control has got to such a level now that it must become the main reason people wake up and scream "CULT!"
please discuss why you don't believe in god and that which could convince you to believe in god ??
?.
I do not believe in anything, using belief in the sense that you are trusting that something is true without any proof.
if proof for "god" were forthcoming, we would not have to believe, just acknowledge the facts.
In the present situation where there is no proof that any kind of "god" exists it would be plain silly for a rational person like me to profess any kind of trust that one or more gods existed, it would be verging on insanity.
That aside, what difference does it make if there are many many people like me ? We are not suicide bombers, manipulators of others lives and busy extracting their hard earned cash from them, we are not waging war with carnal weapons on those who do believe, we are simply a group who do NOT do something.
I do not play golf, I do not believe in god, neither affects my fellow man in a bad way.
has anyone been successful in getting their disfellowshipping rescinded?
i specifically do not mean getting reinstated.
i want to know if anyone that was disfellowshipped was able to officially and through the congregation and/or the organization have their status as a "disfellowshipped person" changed without getting "reinstated" through the normal procedures?.
This is slightly off topic, but just to illustrate that the H.Spirit has NOTHING to do with JC decisions, a number of young B&S's had a party, a number stayed over, a Bro and Sis shared a bedroom for the night, only one bro. knew this for sure,(layout of the house, attic rooms) others guessed.
He, the one who knew for sure, was called before a JC and asked if they had shared a room, he lied and said "No", so the young couple got off. The "Bro" that gave false witness no longer believes any of the WT BS but attends to protect his mother from his abusive Elder father, the Elders are not aware that he no longer believes.
Holy Spirit ? It isn't in any JC proceedings.
OODad , why the question ? from the above, it has happened but rarely, so good luck.
the watchtower teaches that there is no such thing as a spirit or soul leaving the body that can consciously experience anything in heaven unless you are annointed and you die.
and the body certainly couldn't go in their view.
however the apostle paul plainly taught otherwise.
I read this section of Paul's writings and wondered about it when I was a YoungDub, having been raised a JW these words read as very strange to me.
If I recall (I do not have accesss to the WT CD or vols) there was a very unsatisfactory answer to a readers question on this, where they try to talk down the implications of Paul's words, perhaps one of you guys will find it.
