had a phone call from my son today.... he rang his jw mother to give her some news and found out the school his little half siblings go to was having an end of year play.
he was pretty excited apparently and asked if he could come along and this is how it went.... "no, it is for family.
for our family not for children who never speak or visit us.".
Wow! Just WOW! Aussie. What a stark contrast between a thoroughly indoctrinated cult member and those who are normal. Lucky for him he is 19 and able to start a NORMAL family and have a NORMAL life. On the other hand I feel so sorry for his mom for replacing her son with a cult. So sad for your family. But one normal parent is better than none.
Reopened Mind
ps; Wish your son and his girlfriend a Merry Christmas
as some of you may know, about two years ago my brother contacted me on fb.
i hadn't seen or heard from him in roughly 12 years before that.
things progressed well once he found out that i and the wife had left the jws.
Uncle Chris --- that has a nice ring to it! Glad to hear you're doing well. And congratulations to your wife on her new job.
Reopened Mind
i guess the stars aligned for this one.
this morning i dropped my car off to get it fixed and the shop i always go to is a lot closer to my mom's house than mine so i asked her if i could stay at her house while it got fixed.
she was out in service doing returns at the time and offered to ride me to her house.
MrFreeze,
The elder who visited you was right about one thing----nothing you can say will make him think it isn't the Truth. If only he would do his own unbiased research with an open mind. Some things are too much to hope for. Well at least it seems you have a good relationship with your mom.
Reopened Mind
it has been a long time since i have posted here, so, here it goes.
i have been back and forth for the last two years on whether or not to stay in this religion or not.
most of me wanted to stay for the same as many others, fear.
Theredeemer,
You, too, are admired for standing up for what you believe in. Posting here is a definite stand.
My husband and I left together. We left mentally long before we were able to leave physically. We had children and grandchildren in the cult when we began to wake up. We moved 1000 miles away to start a new life free of the cult. O, and did I mention we were in our late fifties so transitioning to a whole new way of life was difficult.
I don't know your circumstances but I hope you are young enough not to have given the majority of your life to a publishing company. I know it's daunting having to make new friends and learning to think for yourself. Keep posting. Someone here has been through every aspect that you will experience. You have help.
Reopened Mind
when asked who was the wisest man, socrates said, "i know one thing, that i know nothing".. i can definitely say that what i thought was immutable truth 25 years ago is not what i now believe.
the older i get, the less certain i am of what is definitely true.. ageing and life experience teaches us in the end that we really know nothing.
life is very humbling.. do you agree with socrates?.
The more you know, the more you know you don't know.
Reopened Mind
was a jw for 40 years.
stopped attending 2010...resigned officially in 2011. still a little shell shocked but beginning to feel much better now.
awesome revelation....people in the world are not all that bad.
arrakis1,
Welcome!!
I was a JW for 38 years, my husband, a born-in, was in for 57 years. We left together last year and moved 1000 miles away from all the people we had known. I must say we have made some wonderful new friends here, some of whom are aware of our JW past. It isn't easy. We have a lot to learn and a lot to unlearn.
Best of luck. Looking forward to reading your story.
Reopened Mind
david turned 18 yesterday.
(he is the one who walked from orlando, fl to washington, dc a little over 3 years ago on behalf of homeless children) i wrote about that on the forum back then.
what i didn't write about is that david has grown up without a father....not because he doesn't exist, but because his father has chosen to live his life of drugs and violence.
coffee_black,
You have an awesome grandson----and handsome too!!
May he have a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Reopened Mind
a practical question concerning human psychology .
it very well be that it was the jws who were.
responsible for first approaching this posing question to people to incite their interest and concern.. i can confidently say it was for my 20 something year old mother back in the early 50's.. unfortunately people who did so, weren't completely discerning the probable commercial .
Armageddon became less and less real especially after 1975.
Reopened Mind
what attracted you to the watchtower?
were you raised in it?
if not, what caused you to convert?
Christ Alone,
I am a convert. I first began studying with the Witnesses when I was 14 with two girls I met in school. Probably the first thing that attracted me was the promise of living on a paradise earth forever. I knew there was no burning hellfire and I didn't want to go to heaven. I loved animals and liked the idea of being at peace with all of them. The time period was the mid sixties. The Vietnam War was in the headlines. The Witness' neutral stand on all things political appealed greatly to me. Also there was no collection plate passed, just a contribution box at the back of the hall. I liked the fact that none of their ministers were paid but served voluntarily. I had a belief in God but couldn't wrap my mind around him being part of a Trinity, and him having a name made sense.
Did I do research? Yes, I can honestly say that I did. Before I was ready to commit I wanted to know the history of the organization. The only book available at the time was "Jehovah's Witnesses in the Divine Purpose". I naively thought that if I wanted to know about Jehovah's Witnesses I needed to go to the source which would be their own books. So I read many other of their publications. I would also ask different Witnesses the same question just to see if I got the same answer. I usually did. I did look for books about JWs in the library but found none.
I had an interest in science which changes as new facts are found. Faultily applying this to religion, I reasoned that because the Witnesses changed their beliefs over the course of their history that they were open to new ideas. So when I saw some things that didn't make sense I became sleepily content to wait for "new light".
After a few Bible studies indoctrination sessions I was ready to believe that Armageddon was due in 1975. And by this time I greatly feared being destroyed.
Thirty three years later researching on the internet started my journey out.
Reopened Mind
well it's been about 8 months since my final wake up.
as some may remember for my intro thread, i panicked and was way too aggressive at first with telling my wife all about this scam we're a part of.
she freaked, thinking satan had me for sure.
Captain Obvious,
Sounds like you have a very good relationship with your wife. Your attitude and high morals will go a long way in helping your wife see that you are not a "crazed apostate". LOL You are so so lucky to have a wife who says she loves you no matter what. That should make it much easier to talk to her.
My husband and I both began to wake up at the same time but were afraid to tell each other. For me I was beginning to see the fallacy of the blood issue and he was having doubts about there being a global flood. Being the researcher of the family I offered to look up information on the flood. Pardon the pun but this opened the floodgates to our conversation. It also made it easier to start looking into other subjects as well.
Since you say you are the researcher in your family, I suggest you listen to what concerns your wife and then offer to look up information on the subject. BE PATIENT!!
It was 4 1/2 years from the time I started having serious doubts until my husband and I walked out of the organization for good. My husband had been in the organization for all of his 55 years by the time we left.
Captain Obvious, you are doing just fine. I am looking forward to reading your success story.
Reopened Mind
