Posts by hoggieman

21

Heard from the grapevine I am DFd. Here is my letter that did not work!

by hoggieman in

it is ok though...my life had nothing to do with them.

here is my letter: .

xxxx xxxxxx.

hoggieman

oh gheezzz i did not think of that! they probably do think it was a blessing from God. He was too busy to save babies getting killed in Haiti...but had just enough time to save them from a lawsuit.

21

Heard from the grapevine I am DFd. Here is my letter that did not work!

by hoggieman in

it is ok though...my life had nothing to do with them.

here is my letter: .

xxxx xxxxxx.

Thanks everyone for your replies. No I did not actually retain an attorney…it was a bluff. I was not going to go to the JC meeting and I just felt like I needed to do something…just did not want them to win. Unfortuanly I don’t have the means to get an attorney. But if I did it would be on the defamation of character basis.

I was just surprised that i dropped off the letter on my JC hearing time and I never heard anything from them. I assumed they dropped it until my cousin told me the other day. I don’t know exactly what was said, he heard from my grandparents that they read “the letter”. I called the elder spearheading this campaign against me, and of course he won’t call me back! I was surprised bcs I was expecting the notice, right to appeal etc. Not that I would have…just surprised how this all when down.

I did not really write the letter with the intent of it being a DA letter…I guess they could have read into it that way, but that is not were I was going. More of a cease and desist…and the part about not making any announcement. Interesting they assumed that and went ahead with a DA scenario (if that is what happened). Not that I really care, I am so over these people but part of me is mad with the way this all goes down. I left not to sell crack, kill people, or live some debauched life (like they always describe people who leave). I left to do the best for me my wife and family of 3 small kids. My “worldly” life consists of spending time with my family and trying to be a good person. But because of this announcement all these people I have known for the last 30 years assume I a have done some horrible thing. I just hate them so much.

I am over it…but just though I would share since there was some question on the board if these letters worked or not.

21

Heard from the grapevine I am DFd. Here is my letter that did not work!

by hoggieman in

it is ok though...my life had nothing to do with them.

here is my letter: .

xxxx xxxxxx.

hoggieman

it is ok though...my life had nothing to do with them. Here is my letter:

XXXX XXXXXX

XXXXXXX Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses

XXXX and XXXX,

We are receipt of your letters dated December 13, 2010 that you mailed individually to XXXXX and XXXXX. Please be advised we will not be attending the judicial committee hearing or acknowledging your charges on the following basis:

We have repeatedly expressed to you that we did not want to discuss our religious viewpoints or engage in any other discussion regarding our standing with the XXX XXXXXX Kingdom Hall. You have continued to call, email, text message, and come to our home on a regular basis over the past year against our wishes. We have expressed to you that we view this as harassment and wanted it to stop. We have clearly stated that we do not want to be communicated with, and that any discussion we desired would be initiated by us. However, our wishes have been repeatedly disregarded.

Your persistent harassment and stalking falls under California Civil code section 527.6. This code (in part) reads:

(a) A person who has suffered harassment as defined in

subdivision

(b) For the purposes of this section, "harassment" is unlawful

violence, a credible threat of violence, or a knowing and willful

course of conduct directed at a specific person that seriously

alarms, annoys, or harasses the person, and that serves no legitimate purpose.The course of conduct must be such as would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, and must actually cause substantial emotional distress to the plaintiff.

(3) "Course of conduct" is a pattern of conduct composed of a

series of acts over a period of time, however short, evidencing a

continuity of purpose, including following or stalking an individual,

making harassing telephone calls to an individual, or sending

harassing correspondence to an individual by any means, including,

but not limited to, the use of public or private mails, interoffice

mail, fax, or computer e-mail.

Your consistent harassment has caused our family a great deal of emotional stress. It has been threatening and an attack our family’s character. Based on your tactics, including relentless harassment and trespassing on private property owned by the XXXXX Homeowners, we do not feel a response to your charges is warranted or reasonable. Any “evidence” of any “crime” you think was committed was obtained illegally by you, the XXXXX XXXXXXX Congregation.

Additionally, your relentless vendetta and threats are clearly discrimination against our family. We are inactive in the congregation and not associating with any other Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is well documented in the Watchtower Society publications that inactive individuals do not need to be pursued. We don’t know why, but you are singling our family out and acting unfairly and inconsistently with regard to your normal policy. We know first hand that XXXX XXXXXX has knowledge of inactive Jehovah’s Witnesses who celebrate holidays and/or have taken blood transfusions and he has not pursued any action against those individuals. Your actions have been purposeful discrimination against our family and our religious views. This is a violation of our constitutional rights, which guarantee religious freedom. At this time, we have referred the situation to our attorney for review and possible legal action regarding the harassment and discrimination.

I want you to clearly understand and be aware of the following:

Any efforts to make a public announcement about or take action against XXXXX and/or XXXXXX XXXXXXX status’ as Christians, our moral character or any other statements which may possibly affect our relationships with others will be viewed as a violation of XXXXX and/or XXXXXX XXXXXXX constitutional First Amendment rights.

We have retained legal council to defend and ensure our rights are not violated by you, the XXXXX XXXXXX Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. In addition, our attorney will seek assistance from the Superior Court of XXXXX County and/or from the United States District Court, Northern District of California to protect those rights if necessary. In doing so, we have instructed our legal council to seek attorney fees from you, the XXXXX XXXXX Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses if these rights are further violated in any way.

Please note a copy of this correspondence has also been forwarded to our attorney.

Signed,

33

Got a letter inviting me to my Judicial hearing- should I go?

by hoggieman in

hey everyone, my family and i have not gone to meeting in over a year.

rumors have swirled about us, but i have always dodged the elders calls and never said anything about my feelings.

so after a while the calls/visits dwindled, but in october they came by again and saw our halloween decorations.

hoggieman

Oh and Farkel, that is almost how this letter read. It was the most 3 rd grade letter I have ever seen. Half was tabbed the rest not. The whole thing was scrunched to the top of the letter, and both letters were signed by the first pen ever invented with the ink running out. Apparently the KH only has a budget for sending two separate certified letters to the same house….and not any $$$$ left over for pens.

33

Got a letter inviting me to my Judicial hearing- should I go?

by hoggieman in

hey everyone, my family and i have not gone to meeting in over a year.

rumors have swirled about us, but i have always dodged the elders calls and never said anything about my feelings.

so after a while the calls/visits dwindled, but in october they came by again and saw our halloween decorations.

hoggieman

Thanks everyone for your comments. I don’t post much, but when I do I always get lots good feedback…so thank you for that. Today my wife got the same wonderful invitation, so looks like they want to make it a party. We decided if we did go we would bring our 3 kids under the age of 6, our dog, drag in our xmas tree, and a 36 pack of Coors light!! Though, seriously…. I am going to go the letter threatening legal action route….i don’t think I have time to mail it, so I will probably hand deliver the letter on the meeting date and just leave. That way they will still need to go to the hearing and take up their evening.

I am almost leaning in the I don’t care route all together…but it just seems with all they have put us through, I don’t want to make it easy for them and just roll over, so I want to do something to make their life difficult. I am going to call out the one elder who I know has knowledge of several others celebrating holidays, people who have taken blood, etc. and not done crap.

Walk Tall: I cant agree more..that is all I have been thinking in this whole process with not only these elders but my family. Our “come out” party was my daughters birthday last year. It is just mind boggling that so much time is wasted and families torn apart about the most petty BS ever. This kind of stuff is what cemented my decision in the early stages that this religion is a total lie.

Mkr32208: that sounds really funny about denying your baptism. I was thinking of saying something similar since I was baptized at 16 and still a minor, and basically forced to do it when I had no clue what the religion was about….but that may muddy up the point of the letter.

Awakend at Gilead: I do actually have some leftover Christmas cards! Hmm….

Thanks again for all your input.

33

Got a letter inviting me to my Judicial hearing- should I go?

by hoggieman in

hey everyone, my family and i have not gone to meeting in over a year.

rumors have swirled about us, but i have always dodged the elders calls and never said anything about my feelings.

so after a while the calls/visits dwindled, but in october they came by again and saw our halloween decorations.

hoggieman

Thanks everyone for your replies so quick! I don’t think I could ever go in there and repent for my horrible crimes…I am gone this far and it would seem like I was crawling back, almost like they were winning. I did not really see any good in going to the meeting…but just seems like I should do something; I have seen that letter before, so thanks for giving me the thread…I was actually going to look for it. One thing I was not sure is when to send that letter. Now….or wait until they do the meeting without me saying they are going to DF me? I don’t have a desire to go to that hall, or any hall for that matter…so I could care less what they think about the letter. Kind of sad actually, one of the people who is doing this to me is a family member.

33

Got a letter inviting me to my Judicial hearing- should I go?

by hoggieman in

hey everyone, my family and i have not gone to meeting in over a year.

rumors have swirled about us, but i have always dodged the elders calls and never said anything about my feelings.

so after a while the calls/visits dwindled, but in october they came by again and saw our halloween decorations.

hoggieman

Hey everyone, my family and I have not gone to meeting in over a year. Rumors have swirled about us, but I have always dodged the elders calls and never said anything about my feelings. So after a while the calls/visits dwindled, but in October they came by again and saw our Halloween decorations. They did not specifically ask if I was celebrating Halloween, but just observed the decorations. I was pretty vague in the conversation and it ended with them saying they will have to figure out how to handle “the situation”. Anywhoo, today I get this letter saying 2 witnesses have observed me celebrating holidays and that I have a judicial meeting…..and if I don’t come, they will conduct it without me. Assuming that means Df’ing me???

At first I did not want to get Df’d because of JW extended family…but at this point they don’t talk to me anyway and I pretty much despise JW’s….so I don’t really care if they DF me. But I am not sure if I will go to the meeting, or just not respond? Also they never actually saw me celebrating Halloween, just saw the decorations. What if I just really like pumpkins? I did not have a graveyard on my lawn or anything…just a couple things by my door.

Any thoughts would be appreciated….thanks!

23

What is the point of praying?

by hoggieman in

hi, i dont post here too often, but i was reading the other post about why bad things happen, and i am curious for everyones thoughts on this: i have recently left about 9 months ago.

at first i thought i was closer to god and was reading the bible more than ever.... praying asking for help, clarity, etc.....but after a while i started to ask myself why would god answer my messily little prayers when hundreds of thousands were dieing in haiti?

the witness mindset that i remember was not to pray for things to happen, but for strength for yourself to do something.

hoggieman

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the late response…have note been able to get on this weekend. So it sounds to me like the field is divided: some feel the way I do, and don’t think prayer does anything…and the other side sounds to me like more doing it for yourself (not in a selfish way), just for your own peace. I guess it is possible just to talk and not ask for anything (for me or anyone else), but that is not what I am used to in a prayer.

Anyway…I really appreciate everyones time and comments.

23

What is the point of praying?

by hoggieman in

hi, i dont post here too often, but i was reading the other post about why bad things happen, and i am curious for everyones thoughts on this: i have recently left about 9 months ago.

at first i thought i was closer to god and was reading the bible more than ever.... praying asking for help, clarity, etc.....but after a while i started to ask myself why would god answer my messily little prayers when hundreds of thousands were dieing in haiti?

the witness mindset that i remember was not to pray for things to happen, but for strength for yourself to do something.

hoggieman

Hi, I don’t post here too often, but I was reading the other post about why bad things happen, and I am curious for everyone’s thoughts on this: I have recently left about 9 months ago. At first I thought I was closer to god and was reading the bible more than ever…. praying asking for help, clarity, etc…..but after a while I started to ask myself why would god answer my messily little prayers when hundreds of thousands were dieing in Haiti? The witness mindset that I remember was not to pray for things to happen, but for strength for yourself to do something. But that sounds the same thing to me. Not to mention the stupid experiences (JW’s and all religions) of “I needed $241.67 to pay my rent and I found that exact amount in the gutter walking home from meeting”. At this point I would never want to ask for one thing…even asking for something for someone else. Because if something ever was answered I would be like, why was my request more important than babies dieing all over the world???

At this point I don’t pray. Don’t pray with my kids either….sometimes I feel bad about this, but I just cant bring myself to do it.

Any thoughts?

25

A Thought on DFing: Shafting the Hounders

by Farkel in

the wts has repeatedly stated that one of the main reasons for disfellowshiping is to "keep the congregation clean.

" another reason is to shame the offender into toeing the wt party line, although they don't quite put it that way.. on the other hand, there are numerous examples of elder hounders hunting down and dfing people who have totally and voluntarily extricated themselves from the "congregation" and its members for years.

obviously, they aren't bothering the congregation(s) or active dubs at all, and obviously they aren't interested into being "shamed" in order to get back in.. one can only conclude that the motives of the elder hounders are vindictive.

hoggieman

Thanks Mr Filpper, think about it and GL Tirebitter for your feedback.

It seems like the efforts have stepped up ever since I responded to them. When I was just NOT returning emails or picking up the phone, they were still calling/emailing…but now they are just getting nasty since I responded. I did think about asking for specifics on the charges…but I don’t know if that will add more fuel to the fire. The absolute only thing they have on me is a birthday party for my little girl. While I don’t want to be DF’d the thought of getting DF’d for that is just about the most absurd thing I have heard of. Not saying I don’t believe they would do it….just hilarious. The harassment angle is good, I will do some research.

This whole thing is insane, I am not bothering anyone. I don’t associate with any other JW’s…and the ones I did in the past have a laundry list of crimes even more horrendous than my birthday party. Just trying even harder than before to be a good person and do what is right in Gods eyes.