Posts by ambersun

21

Quick question, what does it mean when its announced that someone is no longer a Jehovah's witness?

by Joey Jo-Jo in

as the title asks, does this mean that the person has been disfellowship on the basis on what the wb&ts considers as a sin or would this more like the person no longer wants to be a jw?.

ambersun

Skeeter, I think you may be right, the way me and Hubby are being treated certainly does not appear to be the norm by this board's standards. I was a regular pioneer (under pressure and not choice) back in the 1970s under the Franz regime, but it was such a long time ago that most of the JWs who are still alive and kicking (apart from family of course) would probably only remember me from when I managed to stop pioneering and me and Hubby took more of a back seat until we finally faded away altogether. Also we changed congregations a few times due to moving house, so that probably helped us to fall below the radar.

Having said that, I am a bit worried about the July 15th study article and if this is going to affect the way people treat us. Is there a time limit on how long after fading that announcement can be made, that ambersun and Hubby are no longer JWs?

Time will tell I s'pose

21

Quick question, what does it mean when its announced that someone is no longer a Jehovah's witness?

by Joey Jo-Jo in

as the title asks, does this mean that the person has been disfellowship on the basis on what the wb&ts considers as a sin or would this more like the person no longer wants to be a jw?.

ambersun

This is a good question. Please forgive me if this is slightly off topic but it raises another query that never ceases to amaze me regarding the different ways people are treated by their former congregations when they D/A themselves. Some seem to manage to fade successfully (like me and Hubby) and maintain a fairly good relationship with most family members and close friends, with just a few minor problems that we can live with. This is despite that fact that we openly celebrate birthdays and Christmas, and have done for the past 20 plus years. We are quite openly no longer JWs but have not been disfellowshipped and as far as we know, no announcement has ever been made at any of the KHs we attended. A couple of years ago we were even invited to a congregation reunion at the KH we grew up in, despite it being known we had not been to the meetings for years!

Yet, I am constantly reading about other poor souls who have done nothing more than fade away but who are treated the same as if they had been DF'd. They get an announcement from the platform that they are no longer JWs and are therefore shunned by everyone. How is the decision made and why this apparent inconsistency?

26

...and then, something Amazing happened! (Don't view if you don't want to cry)

by Terry in

jw
friends

game winning homerun turns tragic - but then something amazing happenedwww.godvine.comafter this girl hit her first ever home run, she tore her acl running to first base.

just when tragedy was inevitable, something odd, yet amazing, happened.

watch this very touching video to see the inspirational outcome.

ambersun

That was great, thanks Terry. Amazing compassion and self sacrifice shown by 'worldly' people who are destined to be destroyed horribly by a loving God at armageddon unless they humour the JWs who come knocking at their doors lol.

21

Need awesome suggestions!

by the_raisin in

jw
friends

for the last four days, every morning i take donut out for her walk, i always find jw's preaching door to door across the street.

i always cross to them, and wait with dread at what i think is inevitable: they will try to preach to me.. but it never happens.

four days, seen three diifferent groups, nothing.

ambersun

The young women always grin and turn their noses up (seriously, it looks ridiculous when they attempt it) and the older people just smile patronizingly at me.

Rise above it and treat them like any other people you pass on the street. Smile politely and maybe comment on the weather as you pass them. If they ignore your pleasant greeting it will just show them up for what they are. Ignorant and selfish. Please don't let it get to you, they're really not worth it.

Take care

39

Your Age at Baptism (into JWs, not Catholics or Baptists - duh)

by undercover in

jw
friends

leavingwt mentioned on another thread the age of his wife when she was baptized.

she was a child.

how can you expect a child to make such a decision?.

ambersun

I was an immature 15 year old and was baptised along with my parents. This was in the 1960s when armageddon was soooooo close that bible studies were expected to be ready for baptism after about 6 months of studying.

We had been subjected to huge doses of love bombing by the whole congregation which I for one thought was genuine and was desperate to become a bonefide member of this wonderful new 'family'.

Needless to say, as soon as we were baptised all the love bombing stopped and the scales soon fell from my eyes.

77

How HIGH did you climb the ranks as a JW? Did you like the STATUS?

by unshackled in

jw
friends

so what were your biggest jw accomplishments as a rank & file?

curious as to what level you climbed the r&f ladder while in the org, or if you still are in.. did you regular pioneer, or auxiliary pioneer?

bethel?

ambersun

Like blondie, I was also a mere, inferior female and therefore pioneering was the limit to how high I was allowed to climb. I certainly didn't crave status enough to marry an elder or ministerial servant just in order to get it as I didn't fancy any of the ones I knew, they were all far too nerdy.

12

RIP Elizabeth Sladen AKA Sarah Jane Smith

by cantleave in

just heard she has dies of cancer.

.

loved in dr. who and our kids fell in love with her in the srah jane adventures.. i am truly saddened by this news..

ambersun

Very sad.

59

Descended from animal? Explain language.

by StopTheTears in

jw
friends

if, as evolutionists claim, all of mankind evolved from the same primitive life-source, then how did we end up with 7,000 different languages?

did one gorilla get angry at another gorilla and decide to start a new language?

i'm intrigued to know.. .

ambersun

Did one gorilla get angry with another gorilla and decide to start a new language?

This debate falls at the first hurdle in my opinion, as the op is suggesting that humans evolved from gorillas. Evolution indicates that although humans and gorillas are related, we evolved over millions of years from seperate lines therefore the fact that humans have developed the power of speech and gorillas have not is quite inconsequential.

Divergence of the human lineage from other Great Apes

Species close to the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans may be represented by Nakalipithecus fossils found in Kenya and Ouranopithecus found in Greece. Molecular evidence suggests that between 8 and 4 million years ago, first the gorillas, and then the chimpanzees (genus Pan) split off from the line leading to the humans; human DNA is approximately 98.4% identical to that of chimpanzees when comparing single nucleotide polymorphisms (see human evolutionary genetics).

16

Proof That The "Truth" Is A Cult

by metatron in

jw
friends

once upon a time, an elder approached brother discouraged in the back of the kingdom hall.

he said, "we've missed you at the meetings.

is there some problem?".

ambersun

Is it a cult? I've had a long think about this and here's my two penneth worth.

My JW family choose to believe I no longer go to meetings because I have been stumbled in the past, resulting in my 'temporary' loss of faith in God, but they choose to believe that given time I will come back to 'The Truth'. They are OK with this and are loving and sympathetic towards me.

However, losing faith in God is one thing. If I were to tell them that I think their GB are unispired men running a glorified publishing company using them all as unpaid labour, I doubt if I would be treated with such gentle sympathy and understanding. Lovely as they all are, they are trained to never tolerate such apostate thinking so I constantly bite my tongue when I see my loved ones with health problems dragging their poor tired bodies out in field service auxilliary pioneering and 'placing' WT literature when they should be at home resting.

So, I feel reasonably comfortable knowing they realise I have doubts about God but instinctively I know never under any circumstances to critisize their GB. I don't think I need to spell it out whether I think it is a cult or not.

62

The classic features of a JW wedding are:

by highdose in

firstly a wedding/sales talk that mostly features heavily on how the woman should behave (hint, doormat) and lightly brushes over the fact of the husbands bevhaviour ( oh yeah he should treat her well).

the reception normaly at some crummy comunity hall with yellowed ceilings and chucks of damp plaster falling off the walls.

the seats normaly arranged facing eachother all around the edge, so that theres a huge unused space in the middle and everyone is climbing over everyone elses legs to get to their chair.. a big spread donated by everyone, normaly an ode to food poisoning.

ambersun

they always had polkas, waltzes, and the chicken dance thrown in at the reception. (in wisconsin anyways)

Yes, this was also the case in England before I left the borg. Chairs lined up against the walls all round the reception hall, the centre space left free for dancing, which usually consisted of groups of little girls twirling around being carefully sidestepped by middle aged and elderly JW couples who were trying to dance, as the music was always the sort that required a knowledge of ballroom dancing steps. This automatically excluded anyone under about 45 who hadn't received any ballroom dancing lessons. We all knew there would be no music played that evening that wouldn't be suitable for a pensioner's tea party.

Then after a while they would liven things up with the chicken dance and barn dances that everyone could join in. This bit was actually quite enjoyable!There was always a variety show where various talented members of the congregations showed off their acting or musical skills.

Then waving the happy couple off on their honeymoon, more ballroom dancing, mainly the older ones again with some young ones shuffling around the floor joining in out of boredom. Engelbert Humperdink's waltz "Save the Last Dance for Me" was ALWAYS played to signify the reception was over (at around 11.30pm) and everyone should go home to their beds so they could be up bright and early for fields service in the morning. Of course, there were eagle eyes everywhere monitoring the alcohol consumption and any 'improper' behaviour.

In fairness, I am going back a long time here, so hopefully things have changed these days.