hello, i'm a 17 year old born in and i'm done with this religion.
one hundred percent.
i came to the conclusion a year ago that i wanted to leave.
So, my next spiritual goal: "Do NOT get baptized!"
Wish I could put that on my wall.
I'm suddenly seeing a comic of the Ethiopian eunuch saying, "What prevents me from getting baptized?" Then a thought bubble above his head..."I'm not old enough...does this mean they'll be able to shun me if I do?? Maybe I shouldn't..." Then Philip shoves him into the water..."You're doing the mikes!"
--sd-7
i believe most witnesses believe that there is nothing new in their religion....would you agree with them?.
Well, now that you mention it, I've just got to make a list of stuff off the top of my head:
Wow, that was fun. Nah, they haven't changed anything. If anything, our personal view of the truth has changed. Why are you murmuring against Jehovah's wonderful organization?
--sd-7
it's a well known phenomenon i've observed from jwn, my own cos. a new co we had once who was fresh from being a normal elder and after a couple of visits he said, "well i've finally become a true co...i now have food intolerances.".
i mean, only once did my husband and i ever have a co around for dinner and they couldn't eat this, he couldn't eat that, she couldn't eat this...it was so hard to cook something with none of the zillions of things they were 'allergic' to.. and then after all that the wife couldn't come anyway because she had a naturopath appointment or something.. why do all co's seem to have weird dietary problems?.
.
I think it's a matter of survival. Everyone will make their richest meal for you unless you tell them to tone it down. The health consequences would be dire otherwise. I don't believe it's a matter of control at all, just a matter of watching their health, especially since if they get sick from eating too much heavy/fattening/salty food, they'll have to stop their circuit work.
--sd-7
http://www.jw.org/en/news/by-region/americas/united-states/history-exhibit-tour-through-time/.
just saw this on fb.
Pretty cute woman in that photo at the bottom of the page. Otherwise, "Men Have Loved the Darkness"? "You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it. Moulded by it. I didn't see the light till I was already a man, and by then, it was nothing to be but blinding!"
--sd-7
does the bible teach book say anything about dfing?.
.
isn't this dishonest?.
The Bible Teach book doesn't even mention the 'faithful and discreet slave', does it? I think the idea is that it is assumed that that will be learned at the meetings anyway, more or less. Also, handing the prospective JW the 'od' book is the equivalent of notifying them of what DF'ing is, since they're supposed to actually read it. In the strictest technical sense, the information is provided before baptism, but a typical JW is probably not going to read everything they're supposed to before making the commitment.
--sd-7
so we know all the things the wts prevents us from doing, but that's much, much different than the stuff we've grown accustomed to.. for those who have been out for a number of years, what kind of things would end up being abandoned if you suddenly started going back to the kingdom hall?
you know, stuff that you now do on the nights you used to attend meetings, the things you own, the things you wear, etc..
A lot of books (featuring magic or sex [or both, in 'A Song of Ice and Fire') and (R-rated or magical) movies. Sleep. Patience. What little freedom I currently have. The ability to look skeptical when an absurd teaching is explained at a meeting. The ability to say Jesus too much. My beard. My work schedule. Girl-on-girl Internet action (not that I'm into that sort of thing, of course...but I would lose the option, mostly because I'm not good at lying about stuff...). The ability to post on the Internet about JW stuff, as surely someone would probably find out about sd-7 sooner or later. An excuse to not have to deal with my older brother and my mom. An excuse to not have to deal with JWs from my old congregation. 'Self-abuse'. Attending birthday luncheons at work. The option to attend a holiday party at work (I usually don't 'cause I'm not good at socializing).
Honestly, that's about it. The self-loathing has pretty much remained at a fairly constant level for whatever the current reason happened to be, with occasional dips into madness. So that probably wouldn't change too much, maybe a slight increase and then a leveling off with time as my brains turned more into fudge.
--sd-7
richard dawkins closes down his free-thinking/free-thought site (www.richarddawkins.net) for 30 days to reconfigure it 'because too many morons were contributing drivel' (he doesn't put it quite like that!
) he is then surprised because those self-same contributors call him everything under the sun (i won't repeat the names flung at him on our ultra -refined boards).
he now wants the site more or less 'peer-reviewed' (by analogy with papers to learned/scientific journals having to be vetted by vips).
I'm actually starting on 'The God Delusion' right now. He does get pretty visceral with his tone, but he also brings up some pretty darn impressive points about religion. I can accept the validity of his tone when it supports facts or pretty logical argumentation. Certainly religion is no less visceral when it comes to its own beliefs.
I'm actually enjoying the book so far, though I probably would prefer a little more data and a little less slamming, but I'll reserve my judgment beyond what I've already said for the time being.
--sd-7
when jws say this, what are they really saying?
i was pondering this recently, and i was thinking...what they're really trying to imply is simple:.
apostates are thus accused of attempting to be cult leaders.. because the idea is that since they're not getting people to follow christ, but follow themselves, then they want their 'victims'' belief system to be centered around an individual, following that person's directions.
Instead of the implication of the soceity thinking of all ex-JW as potential cult leaders, I think that they are just afraid of increased competition from other religious charismatics pimping their personal spiritual plane.
Good point. Especially since we know that advertising is the name of their game, reasonably then, a big part of their advertising strategy is to slam the hell out of their competition. That seems to make up a pretty large portion of their recruitment strategy--be it attacking Christendom or like with the new brochure they just put out that's geared towards practicers of Judaism or whatever. In this case, apostates are their most dangerous competitors, as exposing them as a complete fraud guarantees they can't win a person back to the Borg if they leave (save perhaps through blackmail). And since clearly thousands are leaving on a regular basis, they need to at least minimize their long-term losses, in typical business fashion.
Also, absolutely loved The Age of Reason--it was one of the first books I read that was critical of the Bible itself. I'm actually thinking of reading a little Richard Dawkins soon. Just read a sample of 'The God Delusion' on my Kindle and I'm already hooked.
--sd-7
when jws say this, what are they really saying?
i was pondering this recently, and i was thinking...what they're really trying to imply is simple:.
apostates are thus accused of attempting to be cult leaders.. because the idea is that since they're not getting people to follow christ, but follow themselves, then they want their 'victims'' belief system to be centered around an individual, following that person's directions.
The main reason JWs 'need' to shun 'apostates' is about information control.
Well, yeah, obviously. I guess it's not really an intentional implication, more so part of the ad hominem attack, to attribute this sort of quality to apostates.
--sd-7
in a conversation with my mum she said, "son the friends love you and care about you so much.
they would die for you.
that's something you don't find in the world.
The situation that really impressed this upon me was right as I was heading to my judicial committee three years ago. My car was stuck in the snow, and I didn't have a shovel as I'd just moved in and hadn't given that much thought. A total stranger let me borrow a shovel, and ANOTHER total stranger took over shoveling and got me out of my space!
All of this to go meet with three elders who are preparing to DF me. I'd already gotten more love from two people in the outside world in that simple act of kindness than I could get from three JWs in prominent positions.
For some reason they believe that by default their apparent 'accurate knowledge' makes them superior in practically all possible expressions of good. For them it doesn't really matter if they show compassion, all that matters is if they show up at meetings and turn in their time.
--sd-7
