Posts by mentallyfree31

43

Was There Anything You Liked About Being A Jehovah's Witness???

by minimus in

jw
friends

anything at all???

?.

mentallyfree31

There were definitely some good things over the years. I like to be objective about things: Yes, being in a cult is awful. Especially when you realize you are in a cult. But there were some enjoyable things:

(1) I became quite skilled at masonry, while working at KH building projects. Over 40 of them in fact.

(2) The brotherhood of the JW's is really quite impressive. Anywhere you go, there are people who will "be your friend". True, it's a shallow, conditional, cult friendship - but in some situations this often proved helpful. I broke down once, and discovered from a friend that a JW mechanic lived only 2 miles from where I was. He was able to help me. It was after business hours.

(3) I gave quite a few public talks over the years. I have enjoyed some fantastic food when people cooked for me in their homes.

(4) The cult training ruled out ANY possibility of me becoming a father while I was still a teenager, since I was a pretty hardcore follower of JW morals.

(5) I was friends with lots of people that were experts in many different fields of work. I often got tons of suggestions about things, and often it turned out to be valuable advice. Computer things, construction, etc..

No, I don't want to return to the cult. LOL But objectively speaking, there were things that helped and benefited me as a direct result of this cult. On the other side of the coin, if I were to list all the things I HATE about this cult, the list would be much much longer than 5 points.

-mentallyfree31-

40

How Often Do You Check To See If You've Got Mail Here?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i find that i check 2 or 3 times a week and generally have no jwn mail..

mentallyfree31

I try to check every time I log in.

-MF31-

24

Officially announced at meeting: I am an ex-parrot......

by not a captive in

jw
friends

i mailed my letter of disassociation three months ago.

no response.

i saw a friend(was once?

mentallyfree31

Congratulations.

-mentallyfree31-

41

Help Please - Wife Misses Friends, Wants to return to KH

by Mad Sweeney in

jw
friends

the topic says it all.

i am frustrated and dumbfounded.

i understand that she misses the social activity with her "friends" but we have been "very" busy socially the last several months with new friends and she's been having a great time.

mentallyfree31

Here's my thought: maybe once she associates with some witnesses and realizes that she has to "pretend" the whole time and hold in her true feelings she will see the light. Because if she ever reveals her true feelings to dubs, they will not have anything to do with her from that point forward. I realize that you don't want her to get sucked back into the cult, but if she knows it's a joke I just don't see how she can listen to dubs talking about all their crazy and ridiculous ideas and still "want" to be close friends.

Just my thoughts.

-mentallyfree31-

24

Were You A Happy JW or An Unhappy One?

by mentallyfree31 in

when you were a witness, were you happy or miserable?.

i feel like i was pretty happy for over 20 of the 25 years.

only the last 5 years and especially the last 1-2 years did i really burn out and just wasn't that into it.

mentallyfree31

When you were a witness, were you happy or miserable?

I feel like I was pretty happy for over 20 of the 25 years. Only the last 5 years and especially the last 1-2 years did I really burn out and just wasn't that into it. Of course, when I say happy I refer to how I would have rated my happiness if somebody had asked me during that time. As a mind controlled robot, I had really convinced myself that I was happy for the first 20 years.

How did you feel?

-mentallyfree31-

23

Brothers, did you like being asked to say a prayer?

by sacolton in

jw
friends

i dreaded it!

i've seen brothers freeze-up doing prayers with long uncomfortable silences to think of what to say.

sometimes my mind would just go blank and i would panic at the thought if i paused.

mentallyfree31

We had one brohter in our hall who will go on and on and on. Five minutes or more was not uncommon. He was 94 years old. The book study conductor would run 10 mins over lots of times and then ask this brother to say the concluding prayer. It was dreadful.

-mentallyfree31-

7

About the Preaching Work

by Mad Sweeney in

i think it is intuitive to most of us that the preaching work is a collosal failure if the goal is to recruit new dubs.

it's been mentioned that the growth rate of other religions, even some that do pretty much no recruiting, is as high or higher than jws.

does anyone have a link to some data about religious growth rates either internationally or in the usa and how they compare to jws?.

mentallyfree31

I baptized three people, and none of them were related to house to house work. It was all referrals from family members. Nothing ever panned out in the hundreds of bible studies that I conducted as a result of meeting people door to door.

-mentallyfree31-

6

Book - A History of the End of the World? Have you read it?

by mentallyfree31 in

i'm about 80 percent through the book "a history of the end of the world" by jonathan kirsch.

i have enjoyed it immensely.

it focues exclusively on the book of revelation: who wrote it, the context of what was happening in the times in which it was written, along with the way revelation has affection generations over a span of 1900 years.

mentallyfree31

Update: I only have about 40 more pages left to read. The author carefully traces the pages of history and highlights in one example after another people that have read revelation and thought God was talking to them, and started preaching their message to others. He brings it right up to Charles Taze Russell and other modern day apocalyptics. Very interesting. It makes so much sense when you see hundreds of people over thousands of years reading Revelation and trying to discern it's meaning, then thinking they figure it out and start preaching it to others. Then they gain large amounts of followers and they make a mark on history.

-mentallyfree31-

25

Did Russell ask that no publications be written after he died?

by ackack in

there is a debate brewing on wikipedia over whether russell's will stated that no new publications be made by the watchtower society, and if rutherford violated his will.. the relevant portion from his will reads:as the society has already pledged to me that it will publish no other periodicals, it shall also be required that the editorial committee shall write for or be connected with no other publications in any manner or degree.. .

what's your opinion?.

ackack

mentallyfree31

Thanks everybody for this information. I'm sure I have read some of this somewhere during my months of research, but a lot of it I had forgotten. Very interesting.

-mentallyfree31-

13

Why the Numbers Keep Increasing

by Georgiegirl in

jw
friends

have you ever read that riddle that asks if you would rather have a million dollars or a penny doubled every day for 30 days?

it shows how the penny eventually adds up over $5 million dollars in the course of month.. i think that's what's happening with the wtbs - it's not (obviously!!!

) holy spirit or anything other than simple incremental increase.

mentallyfree31

OTWO - i surely hope you are right. I'm not quite as optimistic as you, but I really do hope that you are completely correct. I'm very curious to observe the numbers over the next 2-3 years.

-mentallyfree31-