after carefully evaluating the my current life situation, i've come to the conclusion that returning to the hall will be best for me.
i simply just don't fit in with the rest of the world.
i don't drink, smoke, have sex, go to clubs, listen to worldly music, watch movies, or gamble.
PP, I'm confused.
When you started to post, you were planning to return to the jws in about a year. So, is this a continuation or have you changed your mind back and forth since then?
Not that there's anything wrong with changing your mind.
Also, knowing what you do about the governing body, could you go out in field service and try for new recruits?
Best wishes in any case, Retro
i'm really distraught about the fact my 23 year old daughter is ready to abandon a potential career in writing where her talent lies, and become a jehovah's witness.
i banned the study being held in our home, but it only hurt my relationship with my daughter, who screamed at me "i pay to live here and i'm not hiding, you're sabotaging my relationship with god!
" so i gave in.
Welcome, Camicia!
I'm a non-jw with some friends and family in, and I remember how worried my children were that I even had discussions with jws.
It sounds like your daughter is attracted to the wt for emotional reasons (hell, perhaps everyone who opts in is). In this case opposition would be futile, even counter productive, and I know they teach new studies to be prepared for "satanic attacks" on their progress.
Perhaps you could just ask her questions, as if you were really trying to understand the religion. If you look at Black Sheep's posts, he has a lot of good ones. JWfacts is also very helpful.
Try to engage her with discussions and activities she enjoys, and will not have as a baptised jw. As a mother myself, I know you will work to keep close to her, and will be there for her even if she does take the dip. It sounds as if the has some doubts but is willing to ignore them, and this may not always be the case.
She is lucky that baptised or not, you are there for her, whatever she believes. This cannot be said for her jw "friends". I hope she realises this soon.
Good luck and keep in touch! Retro
http://www.anxietyculture.com/contents.htm.
if someone wants to make it clickable, or put it here.... that would be cool;).
s.
just a shortie to say hi as a newbie and thanks to all for the encouragement this site brings.
i have found a new and good way to fade, not having been to a meeting now for 8 months, it was triggered by a meet with a local elder who seemed to be playing the same record i had listened to in 1966 when i was baptised.
gb is recommending put marriage and having children plans on hold as there cant be long to go, amd forget college .. i am now living in the philippines having left good old uk where i am married to a filly who has a catholic backgound but hardly practising.
Welcome, Damosa!
I'm a non-jw with friends and family "in", and I'm seeing that the jws are getting more and more hard line about education etc.
Congratulations on your successful fade and I envy you the rainforest!
Retro, from Australia
on the news the other day they showed a young man after graduating from high school went out and got drunk and had a bad car accident.
he was paralyze from the waist down.
instead of going into deep depression of what he did to himself he started his life over and went to college and was involved in inventing a exoskeleton for disable people.
AGuest, I only assumed so because she used to be Alice in Wonderland
on the news the other day they showed a young man after graduating from high school went out and got drunk and had a bad car accident.
he was paralyze from the waist down.
instead of going into deep depression of what he did to himself he started his life over and went to college and was involved in inventing a exoskeleton for disable people.
In her third post here, Maze says
With a second witness to Biblical matters, now I can remain mild-tempered and lowly in mind.
“Happy are the mild-tempered ones, since they will inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5
Yet in Post 68 above, it's
OK... Spew a bunch of slanderous, unsubstantiated garbage you conjured in your warped imagination and maybe someone reading will lick it all up verbatim
The mildness didn't last long. Are you sure you'll inherit the earth?
i've never been a jw, and i'm having a difficult time trying to understand the perspective of a born-in jw.
i want to ask questions that will cause this family member to began to think outside the box, but i don't want to trip off any apostate alarms and have him put his guard up.
i also don't want to waste time and energy asking questions that he can easily brush off and give the prepackaged watchtower answer without having to really think.
I'd just add, keep the tone earnest and inquiring. Encourage chat before and after on non-religious topics.
This is because a standard way of dealing with difficult issues is to shoot the messenger, so they need to see you as something other than an "opposer".
Good Luck!
i realize that i avoid using their name for god.. i can say it................. jehovah.
but i'll avoid it almost always..... if i'm talking with you,.
on the rare occasions that i am in conversation with any jdub family,.
Not saying "Jehovah" was one of the main things that brought my "bible" studies to an end. At first they were quite tolerant when I substituted "God". Then the sighs and stony looks. I tried "Yahweh" instead, they had initially said that it was allowed. OK for a month or two, then more stony looks. But no way could I bring myself to say it.
Finally I was clearly told that since "Jehovah" was the most popular pronounciation in English, it must be approved by God. I asked how you could rely on worldly popularity if as they said the world was controlled by Satan. Didn't play well.
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.
Thank you all for your help with this. Welcome, Kramseivad, and I'm sorry for your family situation
any religion that breaks the bonds between parent and child is not healthy . . .couldn't agree more.
Thank you Nugget, for your post; it helps me as an outsider to understand.
Maze, I don't think you're a troll, although your name changing and habit of running away from debate is troll like, but then running away is also characteristic of jw when asked hard questions.
It has been established that the wt does not support the family unit and it is not a lie to say that jws ruin families - nor an apostate lie, because I am not an apostate.
I started this thread because in my experience, believing jws accept any answer, however illogical and unsupported, to a question that they find difficult. Didn't want any lurkers to be reassured by Maze's post.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/us/11presbyterian.html.
presbyterians approve ordination of gay people.
after 33 years of debate, the presbyterian church (u.s.a.) has voted to change its constitution and allow openly gay people in same-sex relationships to be ordained as ministers, elders and deacons.
Sorry for the badtempered post above, Maze! But real Christians would always make sure they were guiltless before fulminating about the mote in a neighbour's eye, right?
