Whathappened, you are awesome! Amazing how well you approached your daughter, and that so quickly after you discovered everything yourself. This must have rocked your daughter to the core though. As you know your daughter best, you know how to handle it. Maybe pretty soon we have another family member on the board. It would indeed be great to have this booklet available on pdf. Wishing you all the best.
Hoffnung
JoinedPosts by Hoffnung
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I told my daughter I was leaving "the truth" this weekend.
by whathappened inlast week, i told you i was going to tell my daughter that i was leaving the truth this weekend and you all gave me sound advice.
but, i cannot keep a secret this heavy from the person i love most on this earth, my only daughter, who is beautiful inside and out.. well, i have always had an open and honest relationship with my daughter, and i guess it paid off.
this weekend i visited my daughter (who lives in another state) and i told her i was leaving "the truth.
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New Board members within the last 1 year.....
by stuckinamovement ini can't believe the amount of new posters this board is getting.
it seems as if every day there are at least 2 to 3.. if you are a new poster, what made you decide to stop lurking and start posting?
how many of us are there that have joined in the last year?.
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Hoffnung
Dear Franklin Massey, thank you for sharing, and please come back often. I agree with you most elders are well intended, there are quite a few in my family. However I would like you to ponder about the following: The way the elder arrangement is set up and the tasks involved make it very heavy. Do you agree? Just to highlight one big item: Why are you put in these JCs in the 1st place? When Jesus makes his statement in Matt 18, he refers to the congregation and not the older men as last resort. The same idea you find reflected in Paul's letters to the Corinthians. What is actually practiced in congregations worldwide is step 1 (the accuser goes to the accused) and step 2 (there is a witness involved, in the congregation it reads, the accuser goes to an elder and the COBOE sets up a JC if it is DF offense) of Matt 18, and it NEVER reaches step 3, the congragation is never informed, because either the person is reproved and he is admonished not to talk to anybody in the congregation about it, or he is DFed and he is not allowed contact with JWs any more (the announcement in the local congregation, never mentions the offense, but the offense is documented and sent to bethel for filing, whereas the congregation has the RIGHT to know why, as per Matt 18). If matters would be handled less secret and more biblical, the child abuse issue would never have become so big amongst JWs, and your burden would be considerably reduced as side effect. And when James writes in chapter 5, that when somebody commits a sin, and the older men pray with this person and give counsel, his sins will be forgiven. You know that in many cases, sins are not forgiven, people in the most difficult time in their lives just get a good kick in the butt, and find themselves unprepared alone in the world for the very 1st time. I feel that the JC arrangement is not in accord with bible. Please feel free to correct this. I hope I am not putting you off with this. Please take care with warmth, love and feeling of the poor sheep in your fold, because they need it.
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New Board members within the last 1 year.....
by stuckinamovement ini can't believe the amount of new posters this board is getting.
it seems as if every day there are at least 2 to 3.. if you are a new poster, what made you decide to stop lurking and start posting?
how many of us are there that have joined in the last year?.
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Hoffnung
The 1st time I came across this board it felt there was too much anger and bitterness, and I could not identify with most of it. So i continued on other places on the internet, read Crisis of Conscience, and woke up. after seeing my research and the bad stories confirmed and repeated amongst family and friends, came back for lurking and made my post another 6 months later. The overlap doctrine is beyond what I am able to swallow, and I am quite sure many have disconnected over it.
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You just couldn't write this stuff better for a novel - and they do it without trying
by therevealer in*** w82 8/15 p. 10 endurance by faith in jehovah ***.
my first assignment was feeding the booklet our lord's return onto a stitching machine.
the overseer explained how to do it and, pointing to a huge pile of booklets, he said: "hurry up and get the job done because armageddon is coming!".
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Hoffnung
The pile is done, and Armaggedon is not here yet. The booklet is out of date since a long time.
Here's another one: on a quick building project, on Saturday evening some of us are tired and want a break. The top administration brother saw it and to encourage us to continue working said the following: "during the march of death during WWII, the brothers walked for more then 24 hours!"
This were my thoughts at the time: 'None of the guys in the march of death were volunteers, they were all prisoners, sentenced to walk to death or to be killed later on. The guys having the lead were the SS. The top administration guy in this was Adolf Hitler. Do you really want to compare yourself and us to this?'
Boy did I have a hard time to keep this to myself.
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Remnant Check by WTS
by Band on the Run inthere is a debate about the nature of the eucharist once consecrated, a church mouse appears and runs off with the host.
is it still christ's body?.
when i was a witness, only a literal handful could be annointed.
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Hoffnung
Years before I really woke up, I already researched the issue and found the WT teaching incorrect. The last WT article about this subject is such a mess, that just showed that even the society itself cannot come up with valid arguments, the best it can do is confuse everybody. The matter is so easy to grasp, it is a clear command of Jesus to do something, there exist no single verse that states that a certain group should not do it, and John 6 makes it a-life-important thing. As I did not like the idea of shocking everybody at the KH by starting to partake, I do a private mini-memorial on my own every year where I eat the bread and drink the wine.
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Do Ex-JWs have reason to be disgruntled?
by sabastious ineverytime i have ever told an active jw about this forum and described it's designation they all, in essence, say the same thing.. they say that we are nitpickers, that we are all just rubbed the wrong way and can't get out of the state of disgruntlement that we have allowed ourselves to enter.
some throw in supernatural elements some just stick to human imperfection and call it murmurings.. these kind of assertions highly imply that our anger is exaggerated or misguided; that we don't have all facts and are drawing highly speculative conclusions.. as participants on this forum how do you refute such a claim?.
my first thought would be to point out that "murmurings" is what created the watchtower to start with.
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Hoffnung
Disgruntled? Nitpickers? Some of us harbor some anger. Most of it is quite justified, though. If you believed the teaching about armageddon-just-around-the-corner, and now you don't believe it any more then You realize you never made any plans for more then 5 years ahead. This is an absolute catastrophe as it had an extremely negative impact on my parents for example. My father quit university after one year in the early 70s because of 1975. He became a carpenter instead, and was the sole bread winner for a family of 5. My mother has never had a job, as it was considered unnecessary as Armaggeddon would come way before the kids would leave high school. (stated literally over and over again, needless to say I am working already for many years). They were never able to buy a house, so their pension will be just enough to cover the rent. Although it definitely had advantages that mom did not have a job, it further ensured our growing up as self rightheous JW, looking down on all "worldlings". This harmed severely my social skills, on top of a fear controlled conscience, and I have this load the rest of my life. This is a common problem among born-ins. As a consequence of parents discouraging university and the lack of financing capabilities, none of us kids went past high school. We are all close to minimum wage earners. The negative effects of just this one teaching is multiplying itself over several generations. Just imagine if someone would have told them in the early 70 that Armaggedon would not come before 2010. Boy, my life would have been VERY different, and most probably a lot better, that is for sure. And guess what? I cannot be angry on the local bros. and sis. in the congo. They are in general nice people trying to live up to the heavy burdens laid upon their shoulders by the society. I cannot even be angry on the local elders, as they try to enforce the stupid rules from the very same society. They have the best intentions most of the time. They just never realized that the rules are not christian at all, and only serve to protect the society and to enslave the minds of the bros. and sis. even more into this fear and mind control.
If we then consider all the torn apart families of DFed ones, where grandmas of 80 NEVER saw their 10 grand children, where mothers are made to believe it is right to shun their daughters an ENTIRE LIFE TIME because they married an unbeliever and had 3 times sex before marriage, or the mother that died during her 1st child birth, because she refused the life saving treatment, and the child growing up without mum, the victims of child abuse that were silenced by idiot elders applying an even more idiotic policy, the gossip, slander and unjustices rampant in so many congos, a complete incorrect set of doctrines, easy to prove with the bible, I believe some disgruntledness is understandable.
Just to consider, this board would not even exist if the society was not as bad as it is. The rapid increase of members is telling about the worsening of the society.
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Have you answered the knock on your door?
by Inkie inhave you answered the knock on your door?.
[b]e like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks.luke 12:36.. .
behold, i stand at the door and [song 5:2 ] knock.
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Hoffnung
Hello Inkie,
Thank you for sharing. I am a born-in, that is why I became a JWN. Being misled once by a religion big time, am highly sceptical in accepting quickly something else, and I guess I am not alone in this regard. Although I would like to understand the Jesus from the New Testament, I feel the need for more explanation on doctrine before I can accept that such a manifestation is coming from Jesus. What was your journey in life before you got to this point? What are the non-emotional parts of your faith? How do you live your faith and what changes did you make?
Hoffnung
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Tyrant of a wife!
by whatistruth inif i divulged just a few things she had done to me, you would never believe it.
i don't believe in this utter nonsense at all!
it is make belief brainwashing fear and guilt.
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Hoffnung
It is not going to save your marriage, but Ephesians 5:33 is mistranslated in the NWT, it should be "fear" and not "respect". it should read: " the wife should fear her husband.” See in the Kingdom Interlinear if you have one. And even if it would be "respect", you do not have to deserve it. The respect or fear is a result of a position and not of your actions as husband. A CEO of a company gets respect, even if he is not a nice guy and is screwing parts of his life. He gets the respect and the fear because he is the CEO. Your wife submitted herself to this arrangement when she maried you and has to fear and respect you, even if you are less smart than her and might have done some stupid things in the past. you will find a more in depth explanation on http://www.perimeno.ca/Ephesians.htm. Stand up for yourself man! Every husband has to show his wife the limit once in a while and you tell your wife to shut her mouth and listen to what you have to say. It is going to be tough, but both of you will feel better if you succeed.
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Tyrant of a wife!
by whatistruth inif i divulged just a few things she had done to me, you would never believe it.
i don't believe in this utter nonsense at all!
it is make belief brainwashing fear and guilt.
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Hoffnung
Ask her to open her bible and read aloud Prov 21:9,19. ... Tell her that she is more than a contentious wife, that she makes you feel like pooh, and that unless there is a complete turn in her behaviour, you are choosing the wilderness land above living with her, and that the bible is backung you up for doing so. I hope you can sit through that without her going bananas. Salomon was a great guy, and he had firsthand experience with women it seems.
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Question on Donations By Credit and Debit Card
by lurker inrecently there has been mention of assemblies with credit card machines for contributions.
it was also mentioned on the last six screens call i think at the stanley theatre.
has any one seen this taking place?
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Hoffnung
In Germany this is already available since at least 3 years. I was very surprised the 1st time I saw it with my own eyes. I thought we ridiculed other religions for the very same thing in the past. It was one of the contributing factors in my Awake!ening. I used to make a fixed monthly contribution over my bank account. I canceled it 2 years ago. I am saving lots of money now on the gas I used to spend in Field Service. My conscience is more than happy with it, as I am polluting less by being an inactive JW.