i shared one of these before in which my approach left something to be desired, and i got some flack for that, and rightly so.
so if this story doesn't go over well i won't share another... but given how it ended, i just had to share.... a few days ago i took a trip to a nearby city by bus.
in the about 20-30 minute window between my connecting buses i walked over to a mcdonald's and got a cup of coffee, and when i came back to the little bus station i saw a literature cart sitting unmanned near the doors.
Trying to get a JW to listen to an anti-JW message is tough enough. When they are confronted with any anti-JW message they immediately go into "You must be 1) An Apostate, 2) Demonized, 3) Influenced by Satan-see 2, 4) Evil Worldly, etc.
They will not listen. Why bother? You don't influence the people around the JWs and very few, if any, people around will care. People going on their day will care less.
I don't miss any of them. A bunch of self-righteous hypocrites. When I have visited my Mother back in the home city and we've gone out, we've encountered local JWs I grew up with. They will look through me like I'm invisible. Won't say hello or acknowledge me. I am not DFd or Disassociated. Just a fader.
That said, I hear from one of them daily.
Yes, daily. My Mother. She calls me at least once and depending on her need to chatter to someone, up to 11 times a day. She has run off all members of the JWs as friends, all other JW family and pretty much has no one to speak to except me, her Apostate child left! How is that for funny?!
whatever we think of it, you have to admit that it's quite "genius".. the door to door ministry as done in western developed countries where the jw quirky religion has probably reached their saturation level was a complete and utter waste of time in terms of the effort expended to recruit people.. at the same time, it was rarely something that anyone enjoyed which led to people being labelled as inactive, being pressured to doing more and maybe ultimately deciding jwism wasn't for them and leaving.. there was also the issue that many jws are actually pretty bad at knowing and articulating their beliefs so were pretty incapable of getting any meaningful message across.. they solved all this with the cart witnessing.
the real point isn't to recruit, it's to make life easier for jws.
now they can stand and chat with their friend, have a coffee, not talk to anyone or make eye contact and still act as a walking billboard for jw.org.
I have to agree.
I see them around everywhere I go. In front of courthouses. In front of Malls, inside of Malls; anywhere they are allowed to set up and not get chased off.
They do seem disengaged and not really interested in actually getting their literature into people's hands. Much more interested in sipping, chatting, looking at their phones or tablets and basically just hanging out.
It does work out for all.
On a side note, my Mom is still going "door to door"...she tells me she and whatever friend she can wrestle up are going to businesses and doctors offices because they "love to get the JW literature for their offices". I held off on the gagging sound and asking if they are putting it in the bathroom stall as a backup for when the TP runs out. She does this every Saturday to fulfill her required hours for the month. And to make Jehovah happy of course.
i hear that a hall was burned down in washington state.
was shot at numerous times.
is the wbts that desperate to merge congo's and collect insurance money and now the land has no building on it the land can be sold with no demo expense.
If you read the comments on the Washington Post article, it is scary how little information there is about the JWs. No one knows their views on gays, the subjection of women, child abuse, the no blood policy, the imminent destruction of all of them at Armageddon (and the JOY the JWs feel about that), etc.
If the base level views of the JWs were known, people wouldn't put out comments like: "They seem like really nice, humble people. They are always doing good for someone". WTF?! Doing good for who?
I hope the perp is caught. I hope it's not an EX-JW as it gives us all a bad name. I do not feel that shooting, burning or doing anything like this does any good at all.
it was only about two months ago she was diagnosed with lung cancer and she was a non smoker .. she was never a jw and she never held it against me that i was for 33 years.. we had a good relationship even though we lived in different states about 2000 miles apart,.. tears are rolling down my cheeks as i type this .
r.i.p.
sylvia .
Very sorry for your loss smiddy.
i came across this website when i was looking for some emotional/mental support lately as i was summoned by elders to explain someone’s report on me saying “i’m promoting homosexuality”.
i’m inactive, not attending meetings or associating with jw outside of my biological family for almost 2 years now.. yes i am gay (you can judge away) and yes it is in a direct contrast to the scriptures, no arguement about it.. i was brought up in a jw family.
my dad is a typical zealot, he literally talks or thinks about the bible 24/7.
Hi Lenny, welcome!
I, like many went through many of the things you've been experiencing. While I'm not gay and I know that add a whole level of complexity to your situation in the eyes of the JWs, I can say that 1) not meeting with the Elders is the safer choice and 2) moving out ASAP is the best.
I was baptized when I was 12 and only did it to make my Mom happy. Oh, and 1975 and Armageddon were right around the corner so I needed to survive the Great Tribulation and all. I guess that tribulation was smaller than anticipated, huh? 😂
i faded in college and they never pursued me in spite of having DFd everyone else in my immediate family. My Mom got reinstated and still talks to me so we just let sleeping dogs lie. She encourages me to return and I use vague language to avoid telling her it's a crock of poop.
Again, welcome and don't let them bully or guilt you into going back, freedom from the cult is awesome!
and has finally succeeded in burning one to the ground.
.
This was just on GMA and the local Sheriff is calling it a Hate Crime.
My Mom has already left me a voice mail asking if I saw the news...this is going to lead to her telling me the Persecution has started, I need to return, Satan has really upped his game and they will have to go underground. 😱
i hope they catch the idiot, jerk who is targeting the dubs and I really hope it's not an EX.
several months ago i finally sent them a letter.
they are from the group of die-hards that continue to shun their father.
the following is a paste of part of the first page.
I have to agree with Good JW.
I loved all of your reasoning behind the 1975 fiasco. I was a little older than your sons and understand all that happened. My parents also broke up about the same time for similar reasons. It took years to get to know my father and as we were just getting to a better place he dropped dead of a heart attack. Try again. Send them a heartfelt letter telling them about you, why you love them, about your love for them and why you need to see them. They need to get some sense of who you are now.
i had an ex-jw uncle of mine visiting me yesterday from another part of the country.
i usually only ever see him at weddings and funerals but we keep in touch on facebook.
we were catching up in my place with his wife when about an hour into the visit there's a knock on my door, this was about 4pm.. strange... the only people who ever knock without calling me first are the postman and my ex-wife.. i open the door and it's a face i recognize from my last congregation.
Then goes into a rambling rant about "the truth" and "the world" and "sticking to our decisions". He claimed that people in "the world" would slit your throat as soon as look at you. Also that he would never keep the kind of company that I keep.
My Mom constantly tells me that Worldly people will slit my throat and knife me in the back. They must really push this thesis in the KH and the WT and other literature.
Odd, in 40 odd years of being gone, I've not had one Worldly friend actually do it; some maybe figuratively, however, it was never over anything life changing and I just dropped them as a friend. Big deal. The JWs drop you over your acknowledging a Birthday. Crazy people.
quite a few years ago there was a poster here that left the religion because he knew it was simply not true.
however, he returned to jws because he wanted to be with his family.
i don’t know how he is doing but gumby was his name.
Weird...
I recently received an email from my DM-DHJW (Dear Mother-Die Hard JW) who told me in no uncertain terms that I'm a flawed person who, while having done nothing "technically" worth DFing over, will still Die at Armageddon unless I return to Jehovah ASAP and ask for forgiveness for all I've done. (Anyone see the idiocy of that statement?)
This email was filled with quotes from the JW org page. It was formatted oddly in a different font. Lots of bible quotes. I didn't bother reading it. She lost me at "you're going to Die at Armageddon". Uh, I'm going to take my chances and see what happens.
She also asked me if I would honor her wishes and follow her "No Blood" card. I said yes verbally. If she wants to die a martyr for those idiots, so be it. You can't fix stupid. My DH is on the fence with this. I'd rather be there when she goes than have the local Elders standing over her telling me and/or the doctors that those were her wishes.
These are the reasons that just make me more determined than ever not to go back to the Evil Empire.
