Posts by nugget

31

please help

by joyfulfader in

i am posting to ask this group of wonderful people to help my friend who is with me now.

we are discussing her serious doubts and the barriers she is facing as the wife of an elder with small children.

she is desperately looking for help to pull away without causing dissention in her otherwise very good marriage.

She has my sympathy. It may be worth her reading some of the posts by ex elders on this board to see what it was that caused them to question their faith. The elders have a different experience of the faith from the rank and file so it may help her to see what they do and how they act.

She does need to be very discreet if her husband is firmly committed to the religion it is unlikely he will be open to any talk that questions his faith and it may put their relationship in jeopardy.

I will be thinking of her. I was lucky to be the wife of an elder who also had doubts so managed to leave with our family intact but I know it can be difficult to achieve. For now educating herself is invaluable as is learning from other people's mistakes.

15

Sometimes sorry isn't enough...

by cedars in

i thought you might like to see a rare example of the society saying the actual word "sorry" in the literature.. in 1992 someone wrote in to the awake!

and their comment was published in the july 8th edition in the "from our readers" section, page 30.. their comment read as follows.... "your suggestion that sex education be considered a 'family secret' could accidentally result in great difficulty for some of your readers.

social workers, teachers, nurses, and other professionals are now trained to watch for signs of child abuse.

nugget

Just the one sorry then. Congratulations on finding it shame there aren't more.

61

just support please

by Roberta804 in

i have had to make some very difficult decisions in recent days.

in one way i feel good about takeing care of myself and my mother who is on her dead bed in the room next to me.

mom has live with me since 2005 and started to make her journey to the other side on christmas day.

nugget

I am so sorry to hear you are having this unecessary stress at a very difficult time. You are right to restrict access, if they do not know how to behave appropriately to you then there is also no guarantee they will know how to behave towards a dying woman. Unfortunaely JWs do not know how to apologise. I havre experienced something similar in my own family and it is incredibly frustrating when they are both rude and disrespectful and yet say they have done nothing wrong. If they are harrassing you then block their calls you really don't need the extra stress.

What is important right now is for your mum to get the support and comfort she needs in these last few days so she can pass in dignity knowing she is amongst those she loves and who love her.

33

1/15 WT- Guilt, Guilt, and More Guilt ! Black & White Cult Reasoning !

by flipper in

jw
friends

this particular article was discussed or touched on a couple months ago regarding the wt society's statement concerning jw's putting " jehovah above everything else- including the family bond " .

so i won't address those points in this thread, but there are many other points to address where the wt society uses guilt and black & white cult reasoning to control jw's minds with this information from the article titled, " let nothing distance you from jehovah ".

first off in paragraph 5 the wt tries to make people feel guilty looking for work and insists that if you get any job that takes you away from family- it will distance you from jehovah !

nugget

I was just remarking to my husband how lovely it is to have a Sunday morning without the need to wake up early and how lovely it is to have no schedule. As a witness you have to be focused on the task of worship and nothing else. By intruding into life outside the areas of worship the society is seeking to control every aspect of the person even when they are away from the kingdom hall.

To suggest that a pioneer is waking up at 6:00am to preach on a weekend is just another exageration to emphasise how most witnesses fall short. In other words "do you get up early to spend the maximum amount of time on the service at the weekend?" If you don't then there is something wrong with you. So if you are too tired for the service you need to feel guilt and if you get up for the service arrangement perhaps you could have been out even earlier.

152

How Long has it Been since you Last Attended Meetings and What Caused...

by flipper in

jw
friends

..... you to stop attending ?

injustices ?

disagree with the teachings ?

nugget

Last meeting was a COs visit in March 2010. I had read Crisis of Conscience and Steve Hassan's book and could barely manage to sit through it. I had already been limiting meeting attendance as the meetings were harmful to my son who has Aspergers and the late evenings and forced silence as well as the apocalyptic message played to all his fears. However once I knew about the lies and hypocrasy and could see the manipulation and control I was deeply offended by it and would not dream of taking my children back there.

Once we made the decision to walk away we wanted to get out and stay out.

41

Crazy Weird Quotes in 1/15 WT Article - WT Society Opinions-Nothing More

by flipper in

jw
friends

i won't follow a theme on this thread .

i'm just going to supply weird quotes from the current 1/15 wt article " keep drawing close to jehovah " and then you can draw your own takes and conclusions on these insane " opinions " from the wt society.. paragraph 3 : " marketers cleverly convince people that they must have the latest products.

one young man so passionately desired a particular tablet computer that he secretly sold one of his kidneys to buy it.

nugget

so being sick serves Satan's purpose. Being ill is the last genuine excuse for missing meetings and field service so this statement makes being sick something else to be guilty about. This applies pressure to those that feign illness to quit it and fall back into line. It also means that people who are genuinely ill will be looked at critically by others for allowing themselves to be under Satan's influence. Cults shoot their wounded how long before this too is a reason for Elders to take you aside and tell you chronic illness is no excuse for missing meetings.

147

Weird "new world" artwork from the 2013 calendar

by cedars in

jw
friends

my mother-in-law has a strange obsession with calendars, and orders the society's calendar each year.

this year's calendar is especially weird.

it features images depicting future events - in particular, the society's vision of the new world order.. i've taken the opportunity to scan some of the images for you all to check out.. please note - there are captions for each of the images, but i don't have the english language version of the calendar so i'd rather just quote the scripture used so as not to reveal which country i'm in.. .

nugget

Truly appalling. So they no longer feel the need to give pictures of the preaching work across the globe, I suppose a stall outside supermarket isn't that attractive.

18

what has the watchtower society done to benefit mankind?

by bigmac in

what i mean is---has the wts/jw's/ibsa-- or whatever organisation or legality they hide behind---ever done to really benefit some sector of humanity on a practical basis?---.

it must be me--but i really cannot see some poor person--starving in a third world famine--regarding the chance of a free home bible study as high on their list of priorities..

nugget

can think of nothing but then I didn't try hard, they aren't worth the mental effort.

52

One experience in our old Kingdom Hall that still HAUNTS me

by Newly Enlightened in

the following is a true experience and my daughter gojira101 will verify that it happened to her.

an experience from our family's past that still haunts me and started my questioning whether this is the true organization of god or not.. my daughter, who has always been a good kid, never gave us any problems [she's an adult now] started regular pioneering.

within a few weeks of her starting, she fell on a steep hill and tore open her knee and had to have several stitches.

nugget

Sometimes you wonder why you ever bothered. Your daughter has my sympathy. Where were the elders when she was laid up, wouldn't it have been better for the elders to ask people to bring their studies to your daughter's house so she could get time in whilst convalescing. They could also have arranged for her to go on RVs so she wouldn't have to risk further damage. They could also have taken her off for two months. The fact that they did nothing to support her shows they failed her.

Their insensitive handling of the issue shows their lack of support rather than your daughter's lack of committment. To give such a talk was totally reprehensible and shows that there is no love. However it is true Cults shoot their wounded.

86

The Other Side of the Indian Rape Story

by fulltimestudent in

i'm posting this story, not to defend an indefensible act, but to try to provide some balance.

the fact is that so many indians exist in a poverty so deep that it's difficult for westerners to even understand.

the youngest of the rapists in the now world known rape story, according to this uk, independent newspaper story, grew up in that world that seems hopeless.

nugget

There can be no justification for the brutal rape and murder of another person. I appreciate that they lived in terrible poverty and that they have families of their own but what is telling is that the children in the family are all out at work and the son left education due to being beaten by a teacher and the parents solution was to find him work not fight for him to get an education.

People are commodities even within a family and that is sad. It is also true that women are not always valued in India and are disposed of with violence if they are seen as an inconvenience. However none of that gives and excuse for what happened. Any society that allows men to brutalise someone else and behave with such depravity may have questions to answer but these men knew right from wrong and they knew what they were doing was wrong. The Independent has given a glimpse of the family background of this man but I do not hink it is justifying what he did.