Posts by ABibleStudent

25

After fading for over a year...I finally cut my ties by posting on my Facebook page

by eyesropen323 in

i was 8 when my mom brought us into the jw's.

i am in my late 30's now.

many knew me from school.

ABibleStudent

Hi eyesropen323, Awesome, simple, and factual post on your Facebook page, but JW family and friends will not understand. I wish you and your family the best and hope that your JW family and friends will awaken soon.

No matter how your JW family and friends react to you, I hope that you will continue to reach out to them. Even something as simple as sending them emails with lots of pictures of your family having fun together, could help to awaken them. Of course on the flip side, their cult persona will be soooo upset with you.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

40

Fading with children in tow

by brainmelt in

ABibleStudent

Welcome brainmelt, You brain has not melted: you have awakened! The more that you think for yourself instead of letting the Watchtower and its leaders think for you the better you will feel. Have you read Steve Hassan's books (i.e., "Combatting Cult Mind Control", "Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves", and (his latest book) "Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults and Beliefs"), visited Steve Hassan's website, or watched videos of Steve Hassan like the following video? If you are financially secure, I would recommend contacting Steve Hassan to locate a cult exit counselor who lives near you to help you, your husband, and children awaken and heal.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw-oF-Z_I7U

Enjoy the rest of your life, because you are a Dangerous Cult Survivor. Think, do research, and make plans to fade from the Watchtower. Go slowly with your husband, because he may surprise you with how indoctrinated he is. Post often on JWN to help you release your emotions so that you can get through the stages of grief that will occur because of your loss in belief in the leaders of the Watchtower, as well as get advice about awakening your husband, children, and other JW family and friends. Do independent research of the Watchtower, and encourage your children to learn to think critically and do independent research. Go out and meet non-JWs who you and your husband may share common interests. Get your children involved in non-JW activities where they can meet non-JW children. Encourage your children to make play dates with non-JW children, who you and your husband like the children and parents. Send you and your husband's parents lots of emails with pictures of you and your husband having wonderful times with your children and new non-JW friends doing new and fun activities.

Also, if you do not go through exit cult counseling, please read the thread We're both out 2 years now- crossroads by LittleMac to understand how important it will be for you and your husband to improve your communications with each other as well as to understand how your personalities may change so that you can grow together instead of apart.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

21

Candace Conti: WTS Notified Re Opening Appellate Brief

by DNCall in

jw
friends

according to the docket, wts was notified that their opening brief has not been timely filed.

their appeal will be dismissed if there is no further activity by february 22, 2013.

ABibleStudent

The WTBTS is trying to stretch the case out for as long as possible. Luckily Candace Conti is young and thankfully the case is being appealed in California, so hopefully in a year or two the WTBTS will no longer be able to advertise that they are not protecting pedophiles.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

50

not ready to go over to the "dark side"

by nowwhat? in

after spending a lifetime in it, no one is as fed up with the wt as i am.

[my golf game would have been a hell of alot better if i was'nt banging my head against the wall on saturdays!

lol ] this forum has taught me alot more than i thought to confirm my suspicions.

ABibleStudent

Hi nowwhat?, Which side is the dark-side? The WTBTS's side or the non-WTBTS side? I remember an elder trying to teach me Bible truths as a bible study. What he was really trying to do was to indoctrinate me so that I would obediently say yes to whatever he said. So, I repeat, which is the Dark-Side?

Have you read any of Steve Hassan's books ("Combatting Cult Mind Control", "Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves", and (his latest book) "Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults and Beliefs"), visited his website, or watched videos about him, like the following video? After reading Steve Hassan's books you might start to realize that as a JW you are on the "Dark-Side" so why not come into the "Light"?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw-oF-Z_I7U

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

33

A keyboard confessional...

by nibbled in

you guys don't know me, i'm new here.

i'm typing on an iphone (pardon any random weird iphone auto-spell corrections) and could walk home to get to my laptop but i might lose the courage to post what comes to my heart to share right now.

worse and more likely, i'll simply not be able to express what i felt right now... if i wait until i have a proper keyboard.

ABibleStudent

Hi nibbled, I'm sorry that you feel down. When you feel down or frustrated, take a break from JWN. The nice thing about JWN is that members do have an opinion and you can chose to listen to it or not. I read some comments to threads that you started. The comments by the atheists and theists to your threads were actually fairly nice to you because you did not come across as discounting their opinons like some posters have in the past.

I sometimes get frustrated posting on JWN also. When I do, I take a mini-vacation from JWN. There are very few members of JWN who want to actively empower JWs to change what JW's don't like about the WTBTS. I sometimes wonder if JWNer's are waiting on Jehovah (i.e., the GB to make another mistake). I wish that okage would return.

Don't get discouraged about offering to help other people to empower JWs. Barbara Anderson is busy with helping others as well as doing recordkeeping for her husband's business. I have written to Barbara in the past and she has eventually responded, especially if I asked her for help about a unique idea that I wanted to promote. You have a unique prospective as a JW so offering to help people like Steve Hassan to connect with JWs is a good thing. I like to promote Steve Hassan's books either in welcoming threads or as comments to WTBTS informercials as a way of helping him, since he has helped me to understand the mind set of dangerous cult members. Also, maybe you could help Steve Hassan with helping to form a coalition of exJWs across the country to help awaken JWs using Steve Hassan's methods.

By the way, if you want to reach out to JWs and exJWs near you who still believe in God, have you considered joining or starting an exJW meetup group near you, such as “Ex-JW” near San Francisco, CA ? I prefer talking with live people instead of typing to them.

Best of wishes for you to find what you are seeking. Kuddos for helping a heron addict.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

62

Hello??

by franticfran in

jw
friends

i have just joined this website and just wanted to say hello to anyone out there.

i am so nervous,after thirty odd years in the "truth" i feel as though my husband and i have just walked into a room full of smiling strangers and we are just standing here hoping to god someone will come up and speak to us.

scared and excited and hoping to wake up one morning and not wonder what we do now???

ABibleStudent

franticfran - . . . The children stopped coming and finally we gave up ourselves and so for the last year we have sat here not talking about what we were all thinking about,but I hope thats coming to an end.

Welcome franticfran, You and your husband have done nothing wrong. Other posters have given good advice, especially about reading Steve Hassan's books (i.e., "Combatting Cult Mind Control", "Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves", and (his latest book) "Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults and Beliefs"). I would also recommend visiting Steve Hassan's website and watching videos of Steve Hassan like the following video. If you are financially secure, I would recommend contacting Steve Hassan to locate a cult exit counselor who lives near you to help you and your husband heal and possibly to help awaken your children.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw-oF-Z_I7U

Enjoy the rest of your life, because you are a Dangerous Cult Survivor. Post often on JWN to help you release your emotions so that you can get through the stages of grief that will occur because of your loss in belief in the leaders of the Watchtower. Go out and meet non-JWs who you may share common interests. If your children are shunning/marking you, send them lots of emails with pictures of you and your husband having wonderful times with your new non-JW friends doing new and fun activities. Also, if you do not go through exit cult counseling, please read the thread We're both out 2 years now- crossroads by LittleMac to understand how important it will be for you and your husband to improve your communications with each other as well as to understand how your personalities may change so that you can grow together instead of apart.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

3

Characters Unite!

by ABibleStudent in

jw
friends

i would like to nominate candace conti for a characters unite award, but i do not know contact information for candace conti.

if anyone knows candace conti's contact information, please file out the characters unite nomination form, so that i can vote for her.

nomination for awards ends by 11:59pm et on march 15th, 2013.. please post to this thread when candace conti has been nominated.. while i was visiting the characters unite website, i posted the following comments:.

ABibleStudent

H'mm 130 views and no one has posted a comment.

Does this mean?

There are few individual characters on JWN,
Most JWN members do not care about helping non-JWN members,
Most JWN members like to vent a lot about their personal issues,
Most JWN members are turned off by my user name,
Most JWN members are afraid of getting involved and reveling their identify,
Most JWN members feel that nominating people for the Characters Unite Award will not make a difference,
Other?

If you feel other please share your opinion, by posting your comments to this thread.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

37

Do's and Dont's on debating JWs online

by Emery in

jw
friends

recently i have seen an increase number of former members trying to argue ttatt with jws on youtube, news articles, facebook and public forums.

for the most part, i do not see a lot of vicious or hostile debates when former members are trying to show ttatt, but i have seen some arguments and approaches turn out very ugly, to the point of many face palms.. i remember there were several instances that completely turned me off towards ttatt as a believer because "apostates" would be entirely reprehensible and would fit the bill of what the society termed "mentally diseased".

i cannot fault ones here who have gone on a similar rampage now that i understand how people lose everything and everyone they love.

ABibleStudent

Hi Emery, I agree with you that confronting JWs on line is not productive. In my thread Gone Fishing . . . I search the internet for WTBTS informercials and post comments to them. I have read Danny Hazards comments to the informercials and do not find them offensive but I can understand how JWs might react to them based on my experience with Mike McPherson on line. I did not feel that my comments were that offensive, but Mike McPherson an exJW did. I carefully chose my words in my response to dispell his WTBTS indoctrination and hopefully encourage him or JWs to use the weblinks that I provided.

Protecting Americans from Dangerous Orgs This article by Jennifer Davidson sounds like an informercial for the Watchtower. If you want to learn the "Truth" about the Watchtower visit www.jwfacts.com and www.watchtowerdocuments.com, or visit www.freedomofmind.com to learn how the Watchtower uses BITE control techniques to victimizes JWs. Reply · Like · Follow Post · Wednesday at 6:43am Mike McPherson · Macon, Missouri I was a witness for 20 years and all your accusations are bunk or sour grapes. People who have been decieved feel the need to get back at the org. Even though they're beliefs are wrong it's not from any desire to deceive, but from honest belief. They are no better or worse than any muslim, jew, or christian. If there is an entity it's not the spoiled maniac god of the hebrews. Reply · Like · Thursday at 12:09am Protecting Americans from Dangerous Orgs I invite you to visit www.jehovahs-witness.net to meet other JWs and exJWs who love JWs and awoke by doing independent research about the Watchtower. Many felt the same as you did until they started thinking for themselves instead of giving into Watchtower induced phobias. My user name is ABibleStudent on www.jehovahs-witness.net and look forward to your visit. Reply · Like · 2 seconds ago

After posting my first comments to WTBTS informercials, I toned down my comments to leave just breadcrumbs for JWs to follow like the following comment.

Protecting Americans from Dangerous Orgs If you want to learn more about the Watchtower visit www.jwfacts.com, www.watchtowerdocuments.com, www.JWSurvey.org, and www.jehovahs-witness.net, or visit www.freedomofmind.com to learn how BITE control techniques are used to victimize JWs. Reply · · January 31 at 1:15pm
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Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

3

Website

by goddidit in

i'm thinking of building a website to allow anyone to add tags and notes to multiple bibles.. for instance, a subscriber could tag all the verses that mention x so they are easy to hand when trying to argue through creationist lies about x (e.g slavery).. the tags, and other annotations could be public so others could use them.

eventually, each version would be highly annotated.

tags/notes could be shared between different versions of the bible.. i'd be very interested to hear your ideas of what else might be helpful.

ABibleStudent

Have you visited http://www.biblegateway.com/? I would check it out before you build your website.

By the way do you consider all religions deceptive or just the ones that are Dangerous Cults and use BITE control techniques to victimize their members? If you are just trying to confront members of Dangerous Cults, your idea will not help when confronting members of Dangerous Cults that are Jewish, Muslim, or some non-Christian religion.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

38

What is it about the game Soccer that brings out the most destructive behaviour of a minority of fans,which seems to be a global problem

by smiddy in

in europe ,south america ,and elsewhere ,riotous behaviour seems to go hand in hand with soccer fans , destruction of property and even death has occured why is that ?

we have just recently had an episode at etihad stadium in melbourne this past weekend where thousands of dollars damage was caused and flares ignited which could have caused injury to spectators,who , would have included families with children who just wanted to enjoy the game .i beleive their were something like 40000 spectators present ,which in all fairness mostly were well behaved,except for this lawless minority.. melbourne is not used to this behaviour at sporting events ,many of our events host thousands more spectators without anywhere near the trouble that was had at the weekend .. australian rules football , afl in victoria ,certainly produces fanatical supporters , me included , at some games 60 , 80, 100,000 in attendance ,yet never apart from a fight breaking out here or their , have we ever experienced something like that .. so , what is wrong with soccer league fans .

smiddy.

ABibleStudent

Is the correlation between the perceived violence in the game football (soccer), the soccer game itself or the availability of alcohol, low cost of admission, and size of the crowds? I like watching soccer games and I have noticed that soccer games are cheaper to attend than other professionally played games.

People with low self-esteem who work in low paying jobs are more likely to be able to pay for a soccer game and enjoy a few beers with their friends. Large crowds of intoxicated, low-self esteem people, who closely identify with THEIR team is a volitile mixture. Do you know of anyone who brawls at a soccer game that actually owns a team?

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

P.S. - The best soccer game I watched in person was in the semi-finals of the World Cup in Seville in 1982 between France and Germany and went into triple overtime. It was a magical night and I saw no fights.