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garyneal
JoinedPosts by garyneal
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SECRET SANTA 2012 ........... Wish List ....... GO ON YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO
by finallysomepride infor those of you joining the secret santa this year, please give some thought to what you would like to recieve, remembering us$15.00 should be the limit.. just through out some ideas.
the secret santa thread.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/241894/1/secret-santa-2012.
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So if you tell a JW they were raised in a cult...
by NeverKnew inyeah...it was wrong.
i got upset and blurted this truth.
seems kinda screwy that telling someone a truth could be wrong.
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garyneal
You seem to really care about him and while I can respect and appreciate that given that I am married to a witness, I would say that you are better off without him. Too much emotional baggage as he juggles you and his Watchtower friends around. He actually said that Jehovah would be disappointed by your marrying him? Seriously, you deserve much much better than that.
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garyneal
Been thinking about this thread and the ups and downs over the past three to four years when my wife decided to go back into the witnesses.
I agree with most of the posters on these main points:
- Read Steven Hassan's books Combatting Cult Mind Control and Releasing the Bonds.
- Learn as much as you can about this religion, if for no other reason than to see for yourself how it is NOT the truth.
- Give your spouse space as this will need to run its course.
Obviously, as others pointed out, he is looking for something that he feels is missing in his life. That was my wife when she went running back to the Watchtower. In spite of what society and especially religion sells us, a marraige partner cannot totally fulfill your every need. If yours was anything like our marriage, there were a lot of rough patches that made both of us wonder what is so good about being married.
While people are different the best way I've found to combat this is to show the freedom I have that my wife cannot possibly attain in the religion. She recognizes that her friends in the 'truth' are conditional, that her mom (while truly dedicated to her religion) would do better to live her own life and not be so quick to 'sing like a song bird' to the elders because her cousin is seeing a non-witness, and that she cannot truly express how she feels about some of their strict rules openly to other witnesses.
The fact that your husband is still doing celebrations with you shows that he is truly not a witness in a strict sense. Use that to your advantage by practicing and talking about those things openly. My wife has an advantage that your husband will not have, if she is caught doing something like celebrating any holidays she can hide behind my headship by claiming that I made her do it. In fact, I encourage her to do that and would defend her on those grounds should she ever get called on the carpet by the elders for it. Having a copy of the 'super secret' elder's manual gives me an ace in the hole should anyone in my household get called out by the elders. I respect my wife's right to wanting to associate with them even if I do not agree with everything they do.
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Watchtower softens position on Jehovah' Witnesses and blood transfusions? Canadian National Post Story.
by Balaamsass inwithout fanfare, jehovahs witnesses quietly soften position on blood transfusionstom blackwell, national post staff | dec 20, 2012 9:59 pm et.
more from national post staff.
calgary herald/fileslawrence hughes broke with the witnesses, and the rest of his own family, when it tried to prevent his teenage daughter, bethany, who died in 2002, from receiving a blood transfusion while being treated for cancer.twittergoogle+linkedinemailcommentsmoretumblrpinterestredditdiggfarkitstumbleuponfor years, the jehovahs witnesses fiercely held belief that blood transfusions are contrary to gods will led to emotional and very public disputes, hospitals clashing with parents over whether to infuse sick children.. that long history of messy legal confrontations appears to be vanishing, however, amid changing approaches to the issue on both sides, health-care officials say.. the churchs ban on accepting blood still stands, but some major pediatric hospitals have begun officially acknowledging the parents unorthodox beliefs, while many jehovahs witnesses are signing letters recognizing that doctors may sometimes feel obliged to transfuse, they say.. as institutions show more respect toward parents faith and try harder not to use blood, witnesses often seem eager to avoid involving child-welfare authorities to facilitate transfusions, and more accepting that canadian case law is firmly on the doctors side, some hospital officials say.. they get it that were going to transfuse where its medically necessary.
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garyneal
marked
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Bible Study with JW Starts with the book of John
by FingersCrossed injohn and onwards for a start?.
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garyneal
Ask him what does John 20:28 mean to him. This should be interesting.
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garyneal
One that was constantly hammered into my head growing up is the one in James about "faith without works is dead".
That one was hammered into me a lot too by my wife when we discussed our differences in what constitute salvation. I personally do not accept that salvation requires any works because the amount of works that would be required would never be enough to measure up to what God requires of us, total perfection. He had to come down to us because we could never amount to His level.
Remember, the Jehovah's Witness is working for the hope that he or she will be saved. The never know if they have it in spite of them being baptised, pioneering, reaching out for privileges, serving in Bethel, whatever. They could literally be a saint and still don't know that they will not die at Armageddon. This concept is totally foriegn to your average Christian.
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garyneal
Why don't you Google it? Is this a question for your Bible study with your witness friend?
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SECRET SANTA 2012 ........... Wish List ....... GO ON YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO
by finallysomepride infor those of you joining the secret santa this year, please give some thought to what you would like to recieve, remembering us$15.00 should be the limit.. just through out some ideas.
the secret santa thread.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/241894/1/secret-santa-2012.
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garyneal
Be creative.
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Study the Bible with JW - Any advice?
by FingersCrossed ingoing for a word by word bible reading/study with a jw, no literature involved and maybe using more than one versions.
is that a wise move and is there any advantage?.
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garyneal
Gary gave you great advise. He probably has always had in his mind what a perfect family is, and what would make him happy. He is probbaly trying to "settle down".
More like discovering myself. Truth is, my wife and I did have these visions in our minds of what we thought a 'perfect family' would be like as it pertains to our religion. We both changed, but not in the ways either one of us expected. She and I both have attachments and sympathies for our respective religious backgrounds due to upbringing and experiences but we are now both skeptics (leaning agnostics).
I respect and support my wife now as she tries to maintain ties to the witnesses and even encourage her at times but caution her as to what she can say to them (as if she don't already know). She shares with me how she truly feels and says things that would never be allowed in a kingdom hall and I share with her all the dumbness I see in the churches now. She nearly tipped her hand to a witness friend one time when she casually said to her, "If I weren't a witness, I'd probably be an atheist." To say this raise eyebrows for her friend is an understatement and she realized VERY quickly that you watch what you say amongst the witnesses.
I wish I could get her to meet other witnesses who still maintain a very simple faith in God but has issues with the witness doctrines. That is where she is right now. jwstruggle might be a good place but she is not ready for that.
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Study the Bible with JW - Any advice?
by FingersCrossed ingoing for a word by word bible reading/study with a jw, no literature involved and maybe using more than one versions.
is that a wise move and is there any advantage?.
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garyneal
Well, as my posts and my links suggest, I think this is largely an exercise in futility. However, if you are intent (as I can tell you are) in going through with this, here are some suggestions.
I think you stated that this person is not an active witness. Like a christian who does not attend church regurlarly but still believes in the Bible and God, he or she may envision a 'perfect family life' that involves regular church / meeting attendance, mutual studying of the scriptures, and family prayer. Both the witness and the christian may harbor this hope for the idealic family within their respective religions. If either the christian or the witness feel that his or her religion is right and/or the other's religion is wrong, prepare for a lot of disappointment as it will be hard to shake the faith of either one of them.
Think about it, sure Christ Jesus was not born on December 25th but the typical christian sees nothing wrong with celebrating the first advent of Christ around the holidays and for many of them adds to the meaning of this time of year. The witness, on the other hand, sees this as wrong since it is based on a false premise. Likewise, the witness knows that Watchtower does get a few things wrong and may be wrong about things today, but the witnesses are good people trying very hard to serve Jehovah through an imperfect organization and that does not make them all that bad. At least that is the reasoning of the witness but the christian, on the other hand may wonder why the witness is so hard on outside religions when looking at their blemishes while simultaneously giving their own religion a pass concerning its own imperfections.
In the cases of both the witness and the christian, if neither one of them is very active in their chosen faith, they are probably holding this idealic view of their individual churches' teachings while recognizing that they just need to work on themselves to attain this 'perfect life.' The life that will probably not happen until after they get married, settle down, have kids, and THEN want to get more involved in their faith. If this describes either you or that witness in the slightest, prepare for a lot of disappointment unless either one of you is willing to give up your cherished beliefs (and I am assuming that you have a belief) and come together somehow. This is the voice of experience talking.
So let's say you manage to extract this person away from his faith in the Watchtower and the Jehovah's Witness teachings. Then what? Do you expect that he will embrace Christianity? Some might, but judging from the posts I read on this board, the words that my wife says when she is truly examining things, and from the words of one of my co-workers who was once raise a witness but is not one today, the most likely path for this individual is extreme skepticism that will most like lead to him becoming an agnostic leaning atheist. After all, if he believes that most christian churches are wrong and later discovers that his own church is wrong, how can he possibly prove that any one of them is right? As Terry pointed out, there are NO signed original writings of the various books of the Bible, there are only copies of copies. Add to that the fact that the collection of books that currently make up the Bible were all chosen by religious leaders over the centuries coupled with the fact that not all Bible canons are the same will ultimately lead anyone who is seeking the truth to wonder what exactly it is. The truth is, most people who have accepted a 'religious truth' cannot handle the truth.
Good luck to you, and feel free to post your progress with this individual as we will all be happy to critique your position and his most likely responses based on Watchtower teachings. However, I believe that unless he sees the dishonesty and double standards in this religion for himself, you are not going to get very far in cracking his JW armor. He is trained to ignore outsiders when they say things that attack their faith.