oppostate

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Posts by oppostate

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  16

  The Bible Does Not Say - But ...

  by berrygerry in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  painfully reading an article of may 15, 2015 (extra-simplified edition) and again observed this phraseology: the bible does not say, but .... so, did satan hope to tempt her with the luxurious palaces of pharaoh and abimelech?

  did satan think that she would betray her husband and even jehovah by marrying one of those kings?

  the bible does not say, but it is very likely that the devil would have been overjoyed if sarah had lost the opportunity to become part of the messiahs family line.. .

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  oppostate

  When they say the "Bible does not say but" they're really saying "we have no Biblical proof for this and we just pulled it out of our butt" and since it's been approved by the GB then all Witnesses must believe it as the Truth(R) or else.
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  78

  Am I the only "witness here besides the admins?

  by TheOnlyRealWittnessHere in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  with all the negativity here i was wondering if i am the only one here that's a witness.

  .

  the topic pretty much says everything..

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  oppostate

  @"a watcher"

  So if you say you are a "real witness" because you believe the GB is the FDS then call yourself a Governing Body Witness or a Faithful and Discrete Witness or a We-Keep-Selling-Bullshit-As-Truth Witness. But if you really "witnessed" for God and Christ, for Jehovah and Jesus then you'd be calling yourself a "Christian".
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  48

  The shift: from follower to wanting to leave

  by paradisebeauty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  this week has been the week when my whole way of thinking shifted.

  i still cannot believe how this can happen so fast.

  over a period of seven days i went from not even imagining that i could ever not be a witness to wanting to get out of this organisation.. .

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  oppostate

  Hi Paradisebeauty,

  English isn't my first language either.

  I thought you explained the position you now find yourself in very clearly.

  I went through a similar state of mind. It was a very formative experience in my faith. I call it an epiphany, where almost scales of misbelief fell from my eyes and "the truth about the Truth" became obviously clear to see. There was a focusing on beliefs and practices of the JW religion that left me emotionally torn yet happy that I was seeing real truth, real light not any false "new light" nor the speculated truths of the WT society.

  I did a lot of research and CoC was a big help. I came to understand that no organization can lay claim to being God's representative on Earth, nor his "Channel".

  Like at no time before in my life, the parable of the wheat and the weeds made sense. It is all about our personal relationship with a higher power and a higher consciousness. I accepted Jesus words to go following his ways as best I could, and I've been trying to do so in my life. And... it is ok if we fail from time to time, because life is, after all, a chance to try and better ourselves, to come to know that we can learn from making mistakes and this results in our having empathy for others and the realization that we would be hypocrites to judge others, for we are all trying to find our way through life.

  But having faith that Jesus is "lfe" and "truth" and "light" was an epiphany for me in the truest sense and I don't expect others to understand my personal experience without having bee through something similar themselves. It was an experience, a realization, that came slowly like a healing sore, but then all of a sudden the scab fell of and the sense of relief was immense.

  In Ray Franz's writings he says that for him it was like a sense of rejoining the human race, as if being in the JW religion had sequestered him away from other human beings. I find truth in those feelings.

  Although I feel constrained by my wife's continued loyalty and servitude to the WT cult, I am by no means enslaved to it, I know I am by choice bound to her, and I do not want to lose her over the cult. Coming to finally realize this was a very difficult time for me. I cried tears of anguish for the years of wasted life I spent in this cult. But what followed, for me, were tears of joy as well. I was now free of the mental control, and the anxieties of JW life. But most of all, I felt the fear they had ingrained in me, the fear of dying, the fear of being judged at Armageddon for not having done enough in the cult--I felt it dissipate. I no longer am afraid of the "hounders", the elders of which body I was a member and was expected to do my part in "hounding" the congregation. Oppose them and they will flee, has been my experience.

  So I hope that answers some of your question about how I got away from the Org and my change over from belief to disbelief in this "false" religion.

  When I thought long and hard about what to do next, one thing did help me a lot. I listened to Ed Dunlop's experience on tape, it's available on the net, and others from that time of trouble at Bethel. Several of the victims of that witch-hunt were latinos and I found I related very emotionally to their experience and it made a big impact on my decision to stand up to the JW higher ups. I was not going to be "processed" and sifted like a defective product, the defect wasn't mine. It is the organization that has the dent in its mold. I rejected them and their hold over me and my mind.

  Although, I'm now just considered inactive, I feel I've broken away enough for comfort. Perhaps in the future I'll separate even more from this cult. But the world is full of "cults". I now see Catholicism and Islam as cultish. Hinduism, Buddhism and any other 'ism' is now just a belief system founded by men, full of men's thoughts and failures.

  Among this fog of isms, I've decided to follow the simple and worthwhile moral codes that Jesus preached: To love our neighbors as ourselves, to apologize for our shortcomings and seek forgiveness-- through our belief in something greater than ourselves. This is truth, for me, and it's become my guiding light. I take pleasure in reading the gospels with the understanding that men are fallible and not everything needs absolute accuracy in the telling, but that the precepts and the commands expressed by Jesus and his disciples in the New Testament (those so called "Greek Holy Scriptures), to have the moral decency and empathy for those less fortunate that we are is what leads me from day to day, as I try to live the rest of my life free from the mental repression and influence of the JW organization.

  So you do well to consider your own path and your own future steps. Even if you stumble from time to time it is your own experience and your own opportunities to learn from "missteps". Having joined a high control religious organization was probably a bit stumble for you like its been for many here on JWD forum network. But look at it this way, you have company, we have share experience and we can support each other as we progress in our lives. Take what is good from the counsel you receive in reading these posts, throw away what you deem unhelpful.

  Sometimes difficult situations bring out the best in a person. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, but when you make them, seek to learn from them. Painful mistakes can also be great opportunities to know yourself better and make your character even stronger and prepared for other challenges in life.

  So then forge ahead, do what you understand to be good for you and others. That's been my experience of what has worked best for me in seeking a calm spirit free from religiously forced anxiety and distress.

  I wish you peace.

  
  
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  27

  Have anyone here ever told a elder he is full of poop.

  by James Mixon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i wonder what the report to the branch would say.. he said " me, you and the wt organization is full of poop".. do we df him?

  ?.

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  oppostate

  sounds very brazen -- just sayin'
  

  
  
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  43

  How a Gay Jewish Boy from New England Came to Be and Leave the JWs (and what he did next)

  by CalebInFloroda in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  born in cambridge, ma to a liberal couple that escaped the conservative south, my parents raised me better than to become a jehovahs witness.

  funny thing was they got mixed up in it first.. while that is a story for another time, i myself had to go along as the third of five children in my family.

  dads job transferred him to texas and my mom worked fulltime herself, but eventually we found ourselves drinking the kool-aid of ambiguity intolerance and full-fledge belief that the bible was literal fact and that salvation was found only by those who were smart enough to enter the confines of the watchtower.. its weird how many people claim they fear children raised by two gay parents will grow up to be gay.

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  oppostate

  Shalom CIF (is floroda a misspelled State reference?)

  I'm also from Sephardic stock (from my mother's side of the family) and spoke non-standard Castilian, but unlike you, quite happily straight, married to a very loyal JW wife, who like me was born in Europe and moved to this country as a kid, so both thoroughly Americanized. I too studied languages in school, liked to research, and got taken to the back room of the KH to answer for using the ASV and the KIT (the WT's Diagott) at the meetings instead of the NWT.

  What's your ancestral connection to the Nazarenes?

  I know a family who we are very close to, named Chavez, from NM and they too have these quaint kasher customs that are done because that's how it's always been done.
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  45

  Hold Me, Thrill Me

  by Hold Me-Thrill Me in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm going to be honest and from the heart when i say that for 40 years in the jw religion i was very happy in my ignorance!

  man, what a trip it was.

  i loved every minute of it but then i was absent the bad in my religion.

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  oppostate

  Welcome, HMTM.

  I still attend as well, for family reasons. When I woke up I went through a lot of soul searching and questioning. I came to see the trinity teaching as not something that prevents one from being saved through faith by God's grace. Wheat grows among weeds and that's ok by me, there's a lot of good people out there and none are perfect just like me and you, and we are all searching to know ourselves better as we try to make sense of the world we live in. Wouldn't you agree?

  Agape' my brother.
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  36

  ...Which Way is the Cat Going?!...

  by OUTLAW in

  1. social
  2. humour

  i found this on yahoo news... while it doesn`t raise an important question... it raises an interesting question... .

  ........................................... ..........................

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  oppostate

  cat's goin' down!
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  80

  In a nutshell, what is the wackiest jw thing?

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  what is the wackiest...strangest....most unusual jw teaching or practice?

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  oppostate

  That a baptized young brother can't ride alone with an octogenarian pioneering sister because worldly people may think that some dating/hanky-panky may be going on.
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  6

  Moneybox's Slit Smile

  by TheFadingAlbatros in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  the gb member's smile in the shape of a moneybox's slit speaks volumes about predictable entries in cash expected by jw's org.!!.

  i.

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  oppostate

  Two things that cry more money, more money and there's three that will always want more money. The contribution box slit, Mr. Splanes tight lips, and the accounts department at WT Bethel.
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  33

  Inactive ones are not JWs

  by gone for good in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  years ago, the insinuation was often presented, that those who were inactive were actually not witnesses at all.

  the point being made was that ''...winesses is a verb, not a noun...''.

  i know there were published assertions to this end in the older books and magazines, with possibly even quotes from the likes of rutherford or knorr ,.

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  oppostate

  If you want to be inactive and not be held to judicial action by any JW committee, just send the congregation you were last an active member of a letter saying you are exercising your legal right to leave the so-and-so congregation but that your letter of resignation as a member of this congregation is not to be regarded as somehow no longer in association with other JW's.

  You are separating yourself legally from this congregation and reserve the right to join another JW congregation when you find one that you feel would better meet your spiritual needs. Since you are not breaking association with JW's you will consider any effort or threat by the JW elders to disfellowship you as reason to take legal action (as supported in the U.S. by legal precedents such as GUINN V THE CHURCH OF CHRIST OF COLLINSVILLE decision by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, January 1989 and THE NORMAN HANCOCK LAWSUIT of Mesa AZ 1985) to defend your good name and reputation without fear of intimidation or retribution.