I just stumbled onto this website whilst messing about on the internet and I've taken exception to quite a lot of what I've seen here.
Now there's a first, someone took exception to what they read on the Internet. Better call UUNET and have them shut it all down. (Just kidding, welcome.)
Incase you think I'm some irate Jehovah's Witness idiot who's been offended by the terrible blasphemy that he's read on here, I'm not. I was raised a JW, but now I'm not one.
Were you ever baptized? At what age did you leave?
First of all, given the url, I thought this website was in some way affiliated with the Jehovah's Witness organization, whereas in reality it seems from the posts I've read that most people here are either former Jehovah's Witnesses or soon-to-be former Jehovah's Witnesses. Is this ambiguity deliberate? I think you should make it clearer you're not affiliated, unless it's some deliberate ploy to snare Jehovah's Witnesses, which brings me onto my next point.
I can see how you might have made that assumption, but as you said, it takes very little time to clear it up. If you go to
quilting.com, how do you know if it's a site affiliated with the National Quilting Society of Botswana, or just a site ABOUT quilting.
Who cares? If it offers good information, read up. If not, move on.
Why are you all so bothered, well, maybe not all of you, about getting JWs to leave? Why should it matter to you in the slightest?
I don't think there are that many who have a mission to destroy the Watchtower. The vast majority come here to talk to people who share a common background. Many need help dealing with the damage resulting from being in a cult/high control group. As has been pointed out, many have family members in the religion who won't speak to us, or wouldn't if they knew how we feel, and are looking for understanding and maybe some help reasoning with our loved ones.
It's worse than them going around preaching, seriously, you were Jehovah's Witnesses once, now you're not, you've learnt from your mistake, now get on with your life.
Easy for you to say. Many people need help "getting on with their lives" when none of the friends they grew up with will speak to them. When their children have never seen their grandparents because they're being shunned by their entire family. When they wake up every day to the pain of remembering the death of someone they loved who wouldn't accept a blood transfusion because a group of men who claim to Speak For God told them not to. When they live with the pain of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by members of the group who remain in good standing--and are even PROTECTED by the group--because maintaining the illusion of a chaste, God-fearing group was more important than protecting little children.
Finally, given that, from what I can gather, most of you are now former JWs, why do you make such a big deal about people within the Jehovah's Witness organization being fallible, some trifling bit of alleged corruption within the organization itself or them have a poor policy for dealing with thus and so forth? First of all, everybody's fallible, JW or not, so the fact that when you were a Jehovah's Witness a few people were nasty to you doesn't really mean a lot, it certainly doesn't mean that Jehovah's Witnesses are all hypocrites, just the people who were nasty to you.
The answer to these questions could get pretty long and complicated. It deals with the organizational hypocrisy of claiming to speak for God and allowing NO disagreement, then falling back on human imperfection when your guesses cost people their lives.
Secondly, given that the actions of the "faithful and discreet slave” are not really being directed by God, it means nothing if they deal with a few things badly, other than that they are human and make mistakes.
Where did you get that? Not really directed by God? But they claim that they ARE directed by God. When you claim to be the ONLY way the creator of all life in the universe has chosen to communicate with humans, and you "deal with a few things badly" you cost people their lives. Some teen-aged kid who refuses blood because it's all he's ever been taught (and he's never had the chance to look in to the matter on his own) dies, and you think it means nothing? Millions of people eek out a subsistence living or put off needed medical care because they believe any day now God is going to sweep down and take care of all their problems, and you think that's nothing?
What I really want to know is why? Why are you so obsessed by them? Why couldn't you just either leave the religion or stay? Why must you now spend your lives "exposing the hypocrisy of the WBTS"?
What I really want to know is why? Why are they so obsessed with us? Why can't we just either leave the religion or stay? Why do they force everyone we know to treat us like we're invisible, already dead? Why can't we say we disagree with some minor teaching or interpretation and be allowed to stay--maybe discuss it?
Welcome and stick around. You might learn the answers to some of your questions.
Hmmm
