Posts by Retrovirus

61

JWs and the Family Unit - Calling Maze to defend assertions

by Retrovirus in

in the thread about the wt in russia, maze made the assertions below.. .

jehovah's witnesses as an organization acts as a protection to the family unit.

andthe lie that jehovah's witnesses ruin families is apostate poison.. to aviod derailing that thread, i ask maze to defend them here.. my experience is that the jw religion destroyed my brothers' marriage.

Retrovirus

Hi again Maze,

As to the Pew survey, GL Tirebiter has provided the needed refresher on statistics. I notice that you didn't address the misuse of stats in the wt as quoted from jwfacts. So by the evidence we'll agree that jw marriages do not have lower divorce rates than the average of "worldly" marriages.

You say without any support

The vast majority of divorces in Jehovah's Organization (where both marriage partners are Jehovah's Witnesses) fall into two categories.

1. A spouse turns their back on Jehovah and their family out of selfish motives.

2. Young persons raised as Jehovah's Witnesses ignore counsel in the Bible and Bible based publications and get married before they are mature enough to shoulder the responsibilities of marriage

Setting aside that the first point presumes guilt (who are you to judge motives?), this is all irrelevant. It does nothing to demonstrate that the jw religion supports the family unit.

No, not all parents inculcate multiculturalism in their children

Sigh. Where did you get the idea that exposure to religious beliefs, or tolerance of another's beliefs is multiculturism? Please check a disctionary or here. And now let's return to topic.

A person should get baptized when they're mature enough to know right from wrong

A person should get baptised when s/he is ready to make a lifetime spiritual commitment which is at least as profound as commitment to a marriage, yes? Yet in the same post you are concerned about marriages contracted by immature people. So it follows that until a person has the maturity to be a committed marriage partner they should delay baptism, right?

Now, if an immature child is baptised and subsequently changes their spiritual beliefs how can it be right to shun them? How is that not harmful to the family unit?

I'd also be grateful if you addressed the questions I asked earlier, namely

1. Can a jw parent allow their child freedom to choose their religion?

2. You say you know many jw's with UBMs who respect their partners' beliefs. Does this respect mean that they don't persistently try to change those beliefs? If they didn't try, wouldn't they be "bloodguilty"?

Look forward to your reply.

Also, Thanks for the great quote, jwfacts!

Retro

61

JWs and the Family Unit - Calling Maze to defend assertions

by Retrovirus in

in the thread about the wt in russia, maze made the assertions below.. .

jehovah's witnesses as an organization acts as a protection to the family unit.

andthe lie that jehovah's witnesses ruin families is apostate poison.. to aviod derailing that thread, i ask maze to defend them here.. my experience is that the jw religion destroyed my brothers' marriage.

Retrovirus

Sorry Maze, i didn't read far enough. Thanks for addressing my concerns.

Atheists claim to be absolutely right. Theists claim to be absolutely right. These individuals are no different than Jehovah's Witnesses are on their stand on certainty. Agnostics are somewhere in the middle

Not all atheists and theists are so certain, and not many theists claim that people who believe differently will shortly be destroyed. AFAIK, no atheists do.

Jehovah's Witnesses don't treat the world with contempt

When someone comes to my door to tell me I follow the wrong religion, I don't feel respected.

You do know that atheists don't allow others to take their children to church. People rear their children according to their core values and beliefs

Another over generalisation. Some may not; others prefer to teach their children critical thinking and let them choose. My father was like that; he had no time for religion but we belonged to a church and he joined in many of the social functions and supported the Seniors' home.

Also that sidestepped the question again. Can a jw parent allow their child freedom to choose their religion?

I know plenty of Jehovah's Witnesses that have unbelieving mates and respect their spouses stand and beliefs

I'm glad that is your experience. Does this respect mean that they don't persistently try to change those beliefs? If they didn't try, wouldn't they be "bloodguilty"?

61

JWs and the Family Unit - Calling Maze to defend assertions

by Retrovirus in

in the thread about the wt in russia, maze made the assertions below.. .

jehovah's witnesses as an organization acts as a protection to the family unit.

andthe lie that jehovah's witnesses ruin families is apostate poison.. to aviod derailing that thread, i ask maze to defend them here.. my experience is that the jw religion destroyed my brothers' marriage.

Retrovirus

Hi and thank you all for all your replies!

jean-luc picard, you expressed it better than I did. To keep a family together, members need to be open minded and willing to compromise, and that is completely opposed to wt teachings.

ihadnoidea wrote My question would be does the Jehovah Witness faith actually better at keeping people married then other faiths? I do not think you can support this assertion with any marriage statistics Exactly. And jgnat's citation from jwfacts showed that they have at least the same number of divorces.

diamondiiz, you may well be right, I did post in a rush of indignation!

possible-san, Thanks for adding the link, I shouldn't have rushed it so, but was at work. Your other links are very interesting!

charlie brown jr So sorry about your family!

VoidEater, great points, I hadn't even thought of the incest, molestation and abuse issues. It is very sad when the top priority is the cover up to preserve the image.

jgnat, thanks for the link to jwfacts. I was thinking more of religiously mixed marriages, but you are very right; if all the marital advice from the wt were divinely inspired, they should have a much lower divorce rate!

Maze, thanks for posting. As jgnat replied, jwfacts gave the source of the statistics. It is ironic that the same article showed the wt as misusing statistics to give a false impression:

"That hate can be replaced with love is illustrated by a survey taken in 1994 of 145,958 of Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany. ? In some countries one marriage out of every two or three ends in divorce. But the above-mentioned survey indicated that presently only 4.9 percent of the Witnesses are divorced or separated from their mates." Awake 1997 Sep 8 p.11

jwfacts continues:

The above article is a classic example of deceptive use of statistics. The Watchtower compares two unrelated figures - 4.9% of Witnesses are divorced; with 50% of worldly marriages ending in divorce - to make it appear that Witness marriages are significantly more successful than "worldly" marriages. The reality is that only about 5% of the general population is divorced, a figure almost identical to that amongst Witnesses.

You continue with literature quotes, but that dodges the point of the OP. It's not what the wt says, but what actually happens. I hope you will respond to what was asked.

Palmtree, that was funny!

16

An update on my recent developments

by umadevi in

my last visit to kingdom hall was on memorial day.

since then i have decided skip to meetings and preaching.

the co and his wife visited my congo in the last week of april.

Retrovirus

Hi again, Umadevi!

As another single mother, can I suggest that you make sure your son is de-programmed? I mean, it seems you are fading quickly (and I can well understand that!), but maybe he's not at the same place after months or years of meetings, hearing about Armageddon etc. Perhaps it's all taken care of, but some kids are sensitive and it takes much less than that to give them nightmares about being out of Yahweh's shelter etc. My youngest was a sleepwalker.

Good luck with sister A! With my jw ladies when they got a bit heavy about meeting attendance I became unavailable (work) or "sick".

Retro

61

JWs and the Family Unit - Calling Maze to defend assertions

by Retrovirus in

in the thread about the wt in russia, maze made the assertions below.. .

jehovah's witnesses as an organization acts as a protection to the family unit.

andthe lie that jehovah's witnesses ruin families is apostate poison.. to aviod derailing that thread, i ask maze to defend them here.. my experience is that the jw religion destroyed my brothers' marriage.

Retrovirus

In the thread about the WT in Russia, Maze made the assertions below.

Jehovah's Witnesses as an organization acts as a protection to the family unit

.

And

The lie that Jehovah's Witnesses ruin families is apostate poison.

To aviod derailing that thread, I ask Maze to defend them here.

My experience is that the jw religion destroyed my brothers' marriage. Both he and his wife were responsible, compatible people who did everything in their power to preserve a stable relationship for their children.

But when one partner belongs to a religion which claims to be absolutely right, and teaches contempt for the rest of the world, how can you compromise? Can a jw parent allow their child freedom to choose? Can they really respect their partners' right to believe differently?

I cannot address the more direct ruina of families when disfellowshipped members must be shunned as I lack the personal experience, but hope that others will do so.

For the sake of lurkers this must be highlighted.

Maze, your quoted statements are not true. The jw religion does destroy families .

36

45 JW Rules/Teachings that "go beyond" writings of the Bible

by oompa in

(1 corinthians 4:6) .

.that in our case you may learn the [rule]: do not go beyond the things that are written,.

.. 45 jw rules/teaching that "go beyond the things that are written" in the bible.

Retrovirus

Hi Nugget, thaks so much for your additions. Could you please add some more for when a jw wife is married to an UBM?

There was so much we didn't understand when my brother's wife got baptised.

Retro

9

I don't want to go !

by hubert in

jw
friends

i haven't posted in a long, long time, so many of you don't know me.

one of my daughters is involved with them, and will be baptized soon.. anyway, it's my anniversary, 43 years today, (may 11), and my j.w.

daughter calls me and wishes me a "happy anniversary", then invites my wife and i out on sunday to "celebrate" it.

Retrovirus

Hi Hubert,

Like you, I'm not a jw but have family and friends in. I'm so glad you are keeping the door open for your daughter. I find it so hard to offer unconditional friendship and love in return for all the religious hints and manipulation - but then, it's what keeps us from being cult-minded ourselves in the end.

All luck in your situation and hopefully one day she'll see the organisation as it really is.

24

The greatest man?

by Satanus in

he was just a man, according to the wt, albeit, a 'perfect man'.

he wasn't god, he didn't even have a spirit.

he was just a mechano-electrochemical organism.

Retrovirus

Great fractals, thanks!

This thread helped me define another area where the wt "bible study" really turned me off.

Everything has such a mundane, mechanical explanation! Yet this explanation is "the truth" and every scientific dicvovery that supports it is "fact" and all others are "inspired by satan". Until the next "new light".

No room for the unknown, mystical or mind expanding perspective. The gb knows it all.

Don't often see a reference to Psalm 8!

7

Wonder what will happen?

by umadevi in

i wonder what will happen if i just call one of the "sisters" and say that i don't want to attend meetings anymore?

any ideas anyone?.

Retrovirus

Umadevi, I can't be certain as I was never a jw, but believe it will depend on your local congregation and elders. It could be anything from renewed pressure and "encouragement" to being disfellowshipped. It might be best to slowly miss more meetings over time.

Do you have "outside" friends and/or family? Does your son? Build such contacts before taking a decisive step.

Godd luck and keep posting, Retro

36

Everything is "Satan" ... Now what?

by roxanesophia in

firstly, i'm a study who initially believed every word of the jw's.

figured "no other religion takes the time and effort to help people understand the bible by publishing the watchtower and the other literature" not realizing that all it does is pick and choose scriptures to suit whatever sentence they'd just written, which can be done using any book, not just the bible.

i felt foolish, after that.. .

Retrovirus

It's a horrid feeling, isn't it? I'll let the jw's give the details, but depending on the number of hours per month, jws are classified as "publishers", "auxiliary pioneers" and "pioneers". Pioneers have the highest status, and being a pioneer is the only way a jw woman can have any rank in the org, as the little tassel is all-important. Any other rank is a reflection of her husbands'.

So why would rank matter in an organisation full of love? You've been there, and probably know better than I