Posts by mindmelda

24

A POLL! How long did your "re-evaluation" take?

by Gayle in

from beginning to end, how long did it take you, when you first started your personal questioning and re-evaluating the watchtower organization and concluding that the wts was definitely not true?

my sister is asking this.

some of us (who left a couple decades ago - pre-internet) are saying it took about 10 years on average.

mindmelda

It took me about 10 years of relative inactivity and curiousity about non-JW sources of information. At some point, I remember going to meetings and every time something was said that made no sense, I'd mentally refute it under my breath or in my mind to resist it undoing the things I'd learned.

Then I finally thought. Why am I sitting here listening to stuff I can refute? I still liked some of the people and the loves and hugs I'd get for showing up, but would sit there almost rolling my eyes at the dumb I was listening too, and wondering why everyone else was eating it up like it was ice cream.

It's rather embarrassing in retrospect how an intelligent person can listen to such drivel for years and never really question it, think it's utterly brilliant theology.I did that for nearly 20 years.

I actually have a fairly high IQ (134), but that's not really what it takes to get past the WTS teachings, its very much based on emotional manipulation, although there is sort of a pseudo intellectualism to the theology (like "see how we know Greek and Hebrew" and "look at these big words we use that you need to get a dictionary to understand") just enough to make you believe that they're the pre-eminent Biblical scholars of the world. Until you read some real ones, people who have actually devoted most of their lives to religious and related historical studies.

But, don't you try to be. You mustn't research anything except throught WTS publications. It's when I started breaking that rule that I began to question a lot of things. Then the internet came and I started nosing around it too. But, the good old public library was where it started for me. There's all kinds of free information there you can utterly deconstruct JW teachings with, especially when you lose that superstitious fear that everything not written by the WTS is the work of demons and apostates and the Antichrist, all determined to undermine your faith in Jehovah.

I soon found out 607 BCE and 1914 were utter crap, pulled out of someone's gin soaked dreams, no doubt. Without that in place, the whole thing is a house of cards, really. Pull one out and down it goes.

8

My own little GB memory

by mindmelda in

i just remembered this, as it happened back in the mid 70s.

my parents had taken my younger brother and i to hear two "special" talks in salt lake city.. the featured speakers were knorr and raymond franz.. i remember being entranced by franz, who was one of the more concise speakers i'd ever heard, very sharp, and rather bored by knorr, who seemed elderly and vague.

i was about 13/14 at the time but had these very distinct impressions.. anyway, after the talks, the crowds were pressing in to get a chance to shake the speakers hands, and my 12 year old brother (who had adhd and still does) pushed impulsively through the crowd and ran smack into knorr.

mindmelda

I just remembered this, as it happened back in the mid 70s. My parents had taken my younger brother and I to hear two "special" talks in Salt Lake City.

The featured speakers were Knorr and Raymond Franz.

I remember being entranced by Franz, who was one of the more concise speakers I'd ever heard, very sharp, and rather bored by Knorr, who seemed elderly and vague. I was about 13/14 at the time but had these very distinct impressions.

Anyway, after the talks, the crowds were pressing in to get a chance to shake the speakers hands, and my 12 year old brother (who had ADHD and still does) pushed impulsively through the crowd and ran smack into Knorr. My brother (he's still irrepressible!) stuck out his hand to shake hands (ignored) and asked the first thing that came to his mind. "Hey, are you a pioneer?"

Knorr replied, looking a little embarrassed, "I don't have time to be a pioneer."

People sort of chuckled in embarrassment that heard and my brother darted back to us, standing a few rows back. "I talked to that Speaker Guy!" he proudly reported to my parents, who hustled him out of there.

One of the funnier JW moments I ever had. I snickered at my brother all the way home.

8

I'm excited!

by Snoozy in

i'm excited.

i ordered the 1910 watchtower a few days ago.

i paid $22.

mindmelda

I think the religion of Russell was considerably more appealing than JWs are now in many ways.

And I hear he was quite a charismatic individual and a great orator, so at least you weren't bored to death as a Russellite.

117

Roll Call !!! I am going to reveal my name, anyone else DARE?

by Leprechaun in

jw
friends

roll call, just as it is written i am not afraid what can man do to me.

my name is shane draney i live in ogden utah, i am supposed to be going to the roy city congregation but i am not going to so there!

but you never know since i was raised in it, its been hard to shed drinking the cool aid.. .

mindmelda

Shane, I used to live in Rock Springs Wyoming and have actually been to the Roy, Utah congregation waaaay back when my dad used to be an elder and I accompanied him when he'd give a talk there.

Our congregation used to exchange speakers with the Salt Lake area congregations, many moons ago in the same circuit.

It's a small world, especially in Jehovahland, ain't it?

It's best to protect your privacy on the nasty old interwebs and not just because of the JWs.

9

After having a baby...

by cognac in

jw
friends

i must say that i'm shocked how any mom could ever just not talk to there own child.

you carried that child for 9 months.

you gave birth to that child.

mindmelda

It's perfectly unnatural, unhealthy and a downright perversion of normal human emotion. Like almost everything else the WTS tells you to do.

4

What do you think would be happening?

by cattails in

what do you think would happen if a lot of dfed folks.

showed up at a kh.

socialized with each other... and.

mindmelda

Well, disfellowshipping is essentially unscriptural so why go there and reinforce that you believe it is by acting contrite and ashamed? Or go at all? What's the point, unless you want to get reinstated?

I don't know if I could set foot in a KH again. The very idea scares me. I don't know if it'd be worth the nightmares. And I certainly couldn't go there and pretend I agreed with the baseless hogwash they pass off as teachings directed from holy spirit.

Let em have it. They're happy to wallow in their predigested WTS misinformation, let em eat it all up.

I'm no longer lining up for the trough.

19

PAGAN.....and other JW Curse Words....

by homeschool in

jw
friends

i remember working at a banquet hall/resturant, and it was just around the time when the jw teachings/actions weren't sitting well with me.

but my mind was still very much a jw.

a lady, whom i clicked with & whom i'd hung out with a few times, came up to me one day and said "homeschool, there's a couple things i wanted to tell you.

mindmelda

Hey homeschool...got her number?LOL

LOL...one of my best internet friends is a Neo pagan bisexual...she's helped me a lot with my problems and sent me some CDs on meditation for anxiety and PTSD that have helped me tremendously.

Just because people find their spiritual expression outside Christianity doesn't make them evil. Maybe God just has a different face for them? I even wonder now if any two Christians view Christ in the same way? Probably not.

As long as no harm is done, it's all good.

45

BASHING the families of disfellowshiped ones

by Pistoff in

as if the first assembly day was not bad enough, talking about the greedy, fame hungry witnesses who go to college and will not get blessings from jehovah, sunday was worse.. .

i could tell the wife was not happy the minute she came through the door.

after letting her get her "lemonade" in a glass, i said, "so, no rough talks today?".

mindmelda

Makes me want to make a list of all the DF'd people I know and invite them over for a big party. Hey, I'd be like Christ then, he ate with the tax collectors, which is how you're supposed to treat those who want to leave.

You know those old bastards that make these horrible, ridiculous, hurtful and UNSCRIPTURAL policies are so twisted, if they ate a bucket of nails they'd shit corkscrews.

Encouraging people to reject their own children should be against the law. If a law like that was scripted, I'd go vote for it in a heartbeat.

Boyzone, I had people I really TALKED TO share their faith with me when I was a Witness and it often shamed me. Particularly when I'd been sititing all day in a car with a bunch of bored, backbiting and bitchy JW women who would rather discuss hair, makeup, fashion, diets and sexual shenanigans with their husbands than anything spiritual. None of that is wrong, but I don't EVER remember discussing anything spiritual in a car group of JW women.

I think Field Slavery was so boring for them, they'd just found it was a good time to shoot the breeze and be themselves for a few hours. Weird to watch everyone go into "proper Witness mode" when it was time to go to the doors. Robo Witnesses, ACTIVATE!

I remember one time a young newly married sister (about a month after the wedding) was squirming around in her seat, and finally someone commented on it. She shyly confessed that she was "sore" because her nice mature elder husband she had waited chastely for had jumped her 4 times in one night and she hadn't enjoyed it one bit.

Yeah, that's the kind of men the WTS is making elders, a bunch of frustrated repressed weirdos who finally get to nail a real live woman and go nuts on it, practically raping them.

Now I'm pissed off all over again...well, better than being anxious, I guess. *G*

20

Gaming Addiction

by desib77 in

jw
friends

just curious, has anyone ever dealt with a gaming addiction or had someone they love that is addicted to online gaming?

(world of warcraft in particular) how did you handle it?.

mindmelda

We all play World of Warcrack in my family, but the only time it got excessive for us was when my husband was temporarily out of work.

He was using it as a substitute, but he's working again and he's back to just a few hours here and there.

Actually it beats going to the meetings and I've actually met quite a few nice people to play with.

My son comes closest to being "addicted" and he's 16, and has Aspergers Syndrome or High Functioning Autism. People with Aspergers tend to be fixated anyway (it's a symptom of autism, the whole spectrum)., so he does everything that way, not just games. It's intrinsic to the condition, so we stop him if he plays too long. Make him go mow the lawn or something. *G*

I play a holy paladin in WOW, which is a Warrior Priest. A paladin is someone who fights in the name of their faith, a Holy Knight, in mythological tradition. St. George who slew the dragon, and Sir Galahad who sought the Holy Grail were paladins. My character or "toon" as they're called is of the Dranei race.

I call them, "Holy goat demons" because they used to be literally be evil creatures from another realm, but became peaceful and loving and now are the most spiritual race in Azeroth. (The Dranei in the game greet everyone with "May the Light Bless you" or "Be kind to those less fortunate" and are extremely warm, tolerant and humorous. I think I like playing them because I wish I knew more people like that in real life.)

They now fight all the evil creatures and monsters on Azeroth and have a special resistance to their evil "shadow magic". They have horns and goat feet...half human, half goat and are various shades of blue in color.

These games have a whole LOTR-like backstory that goes with it, which makes it even more fun for me. I was always a student of myths and such, fascinated with the subject.

I think it kind of helped me get rid of my JW superstitions about demons to play this game, read high fantasy, and nothing bad ever happened...no demons, nothing.

It's part of how I figured out that was all hogwash.

63

Can demons repent?

by heyfea in

it sounded very funny when my little sister asked my mother during their weekly bible study (some 25 years ago) what would happened if satan repented?

my mom thought she was being a smart-ass and punished her for asking such thing.

but now that i think about it, can any of these fallen angels repent?

mindmelda

Secular humanism doesn't have the supernatural coercive element found in a good deal of Christian religion, really. No, Do THIS or ELSE! except a natural amount of social censure and consequence for naughtiness.

I'm sure most of that is about keeping the butts in the seats of a very expensive to maintain church building. *G*

I'm sometimes surprised I believe in anything religious at all, but alas, I do. Nothing too complicated though. I'm too wary and burned out for complicated theological acrobatics these days.

That's why the 1914 thing never got into my brain...too much math, and it's not even a good story problem.

Considering that the people who wrote the Bible probably couldn't even do higher math, I doubt they were writing down this obscure Bible hopscotch code so that sometime in the future Judge Rutherford could gaze into his scotch glass and divine it from the arrangment of the soda bubbles.