The Governing Body’s take on education is for the rank-and-file, as others have noted. They couldn’t care less how outsiders perceive it as these same outsiders will be destroyed at the ‘rapidly approaching great tribulation.’ The aim of their disparagement of education is to keep their followers under tight mind control. Higher education would break that hold by allowing their minds to function and think critically again. That is something the ruling elite wants to prevent at all costs.
Quendi
40+ yrs ago when i moved into this congregation's territory i became good friends with a brother in the congregation, about 20 yrs older than me and about mildest, most easy going person you could meet.
he was just full of old fashion country style common sense, taught me a lot about country life, like heating with firewood, (yes, there is a lot to know about cutting and heating with wood), taught me how to skin and cut up deer, he would help anyone who needed help........., so about 30 yrs ago he was df'd.
we would occasionally bump into each other, i would never not say hello, but him knowing i wasn't suppose to talk to him he would (and i) just move on.
What a wonderful story, pontoon, and thanks so much for sharing it. I’m sure you made your friend’s day much happier by extending human love and kindness. That future visit will be a joyful one as well and I wish you and your friend every happiness as you reconnect.
Quendi
i da'd so i doubt i could ever qualify for reinstatement, even if i wanted to.
.
i'm curious what criteria you have to meet for a jc to reinstate you..
What DOC wrote about the reinstatement process is correct. I will also add that it also depends on whether your judicial committee actually wants you back. As for the amount of time required, there is no set limit although they usually require you serve a year before making an initial request. That first request is usually denied as “more time” is needed to consider it.
I had decided that I would give the committee one last chance to agree to reinstate me. If they did, I would then quietly fade. If they refused, I had no intention of ever going back to a kingdom hall again. When we met (over the telephone), I was told, “We need more time. Yeah, we know it’s been five years, but we just feel we need more time to decide. We don’t want you to be discouraged by this decision. Just continue to come to meetings and everything will work itself out in time.”
That was all I needed to hear. I simply thanked them for their time, hung up, and not one word has been exchanged since. Five years of meeting attendance and letter writing had gotten me nowhere, so I felt I would no longer waste my time. Since then, I have not been contacted about the possibility of the annual visit elders are supposed to make on disfellowshipped people. It would seem that they are just as glad not to see me again as I am not to see them.
Of course the entire procedure, from convening a judicial committee to making the announcement to the rules for reinstatement, is completely unscriptural. But this has been the modus operandi for decades now and nothing is going to change that. For my part, I realize that getting out of this cult was the best thing that could have happened to me. I didn’t realize this when I was first disfellowshipped and did everything in my power to be reinstated. Now, wild horses couldn’t drag me into a gathering of Witnesses again.
Quendi
however- many jw's who have come into the jw organization from like 1985 forward virtually may have no knowledge of the wt society's 1975 debacle and false predictions of the end times or armageddon predictions.
just like in in the book 1984 by george orwell the wt society has a way of not only erasing it's history so no newer witnesses will be aware of their false predictions, but also they are re-writing their history as if those false predictions never happened.. so for those of you here who may have never read or heard of how whipped up into an emotional frenzy witnesses were in the years just before 1975 by the wt society claiming the end was any day now- this threads for you.
to see the pressure that was put on jw's by the wt society to get rid of everything before " armageddon " .
They say that living well is the best revenge, and with respect to the WTS that is something I fully intend to do. Like flipper, I am now widening my horizons and doing the kinds of things I want to do. In some cases, that will involve getting back to my landscape/nature photography and resuming my study of the classical guitar. I want to take up swimming this year and will also delve into calligraphy. Plus I will once more travel widely in Colorado and the American West, seeking adventure in new places with new faces.
For too long I chased the mirages, the rainbows the WTS put before me. No more. Seeing that I now have more years behind me than I have ahead of me, I am going to use them to the full. That doesn’t mean a headlong plunge into dissipation and hedonism, but it will mean becoming what I might have been and was meant to be. For the first time in years I am excited about the future and that is as it should be.
Quendi
do you hold god accountable for the corruption of the borg?
i've noticed there seems to be a bitterness, by some, that includes "god" in the equation, when discussing the borg and their policies, the governing body, elders actions, etc.
do the borg's transgressions originate with god, or does he feel the same disgust as we do?
I do not blame Yahweh/Jehovah for the corruption of the WTS. I completely agree with what lost and jeremiah 18:5-10 have shared. For now, I am glad to be free of this cult and following my own spiritual path.
Quendi
that article about jehovah's witnesses having the lowest retention rate for born ins keeps popping up every now again ... i'm just curious if any of you have noticed that this is actually the case.
in the congregation that i grew up in, i'm going to say that 95% of the young people in their teens to mid twenties are either regular pioneering, regular auxiliary pioneering, serving in foreign language congregations or where the need is greater.
both of my younger sisters are regular pioneers - and the young people in their hall even organize 8 pm to midnight service on friday nights of their own accord.
It’s fairly obvious from these posts that Jehovah’s Witnesses have and practice a religion which does not meet the needs of most of their young people. True, what is posted here is anecdotal and not a true statistical analysis, but all these anecdotes speak to the truth of the situation.
I saw similar attrition in the congregations I was a part of. It didn’t matter whether the parents were strong in the religion or just hanging on. Many of their children wanted nothing to do with the organization and severed ties when they left the nest. Yes, I did know some who stayed in, got married, and subsequently raised their own children as Witnesses. But few of the young people I knew have stayed.
Is the WTS aware of the situation? Of course it is. But like their followers, they are in denial. Whenever they have meeting and assembly parts for young people, they tell them that “full time service” is the route they should take. They should do nothing with their talents, gifts and abilities because exercising them will lead them into “Satan’s world.” So for all the “need-greaters” who go to some foreign country to pioneer, there are three others who are musicians, artists, intellectuals, business-oriented, etc. who will follow their dreams.
Quendi
found this on youtube.
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si4q2qfnkl4.
bookmarked
psychologist steven hassan writes that ""destructive mind control can be understood in terms of four basic components, which form the acronym bite:.
i.behavior control.
ii.information control.
You know, 00DAD, you raise a very important question. My experience of more than thirty years as a Witness is that many have indeed co-opted their right to do so in favor of whatever the WTS thinks is right. The examples you cited in your post are typical.
I don’t know how many times when big decisions had to be made, I was told or heard others told that they should first of all pray to Jehovah and then look in the right direction for the answers to those prayers. Now here’s where the WTS comes in. All too often a Witness would be told that the answer could be found in these places: the Bible, “Christian” (read WTS) publications, from the speaker’s platform at weekly meetings or assemblies/conventions, or directly from elders and other overseers. Of course, when the Bible was consulted, the Witness is invariably steered to the New World Translation as other translations should be viewed with suspicion.
When I decided to go back to college and earn my degree, I was asked had I prayed over the matter. My answer was that I did not think this was a matter for prayer as the decision to go back to college was obviously a good one for my own personal circumstances. You can just imagine how that answer was received, but I didn’t care what the elders thought and I made that perfectly clear to them as well. When they saw they weren’t going to influence me, they ended the visit and left. The subject of my education was never brought up again.
Quendi
however- many jw's who have come into the jw organization from like 1985 forward virtually may have no knowledge of the wt society's 1975 debacle and false predictions of the end times or armageddon predictions.
just like in in the book 1984 by george orwell the wt society has a way of not only erasing it's history so no newer witnesses will be aware of their false predictions, but also they are re-writing their history as if those false predictions never happened.. so for those of you here who may have never read or heard of how whipped up into an emotional frenzy witnesses were in the years just before 1975 by the wt society claiming the end was any day now- this threads for you.
to see the pressure that was put on jw's by the wt society to get rid of everything before " armageddon " .
I’ve been mulling over this thread and reflecting over the last 38 years and the impact Jehovah’s Witnesses have had on them. I appreciated what our friend, Joepublisher1, has shared about his experience. His has paralleled so many others, mine included. Like him, flipper and others, it took years after the first seeds of doubt were planted before they bore the fruit of freedom from this cult.
So when I think about the friends and family I still have in the cult, I have to realize that their departure from the Witnesses, should that ever happen, won’t be quick and speedy. Joepublisher1 is right to say that indoctrination runs very deep and overthrowing it comes only with great effort and cost.
When I first began to doubt back in 1995, there was an immediate feeling of revulsion against myself for daring to question “Jehovah’s organization.” I remembered all the arguments that had been used against other opposers, how they had succumbed to arrogance, pride, hubris or the desire for some kind of sexual or other fleshly fulfillments. If I weren’t careful, I would do the same. So I initially suppressed my doubts and carried on, hoping that Jehovah would make everything clear in time if I exercised patience and maintained my faith.
It took trusting an elder who was a real Bible student and the trauma of being disfellowshipped to incite me to act on my doubts. The elder helped me to see that the WTS theology was for the most part hopelessly false, particularly with respect to its interpretation of Bible prophecy. Being disfellowshipped for being a gay man was another major turning point. Why would God damn me to eternal death simply for being who I truly was? Otherwise, he would have answered my prayers to change my nature into the one the WTS said I should embrace.
By 2007, I had come to realize the organization was a counterfeit, but I still sought reinstatement because I wanted to enjoy fellowship with friends and family again. I planned to get reinstated and then slowly and gently fade away. However, the continual rejections of my requests for reinstatement made me realize that going back was not only worthless but wrong as well. I was then able to turn my back on the WTS and its entire works for good. I have been much happier since then.
But all of this took years and my growth as a person has been ongoing ever since. I still have faith in the Bible and I still hold on to the hope that eventually our Creator will turn his full attention to humanity and answer the Lord’s Prayer in full. In the meantime, I live my life as best I can, free and secure in the knowledge that there is no reason to rejoin this execrable cult.
The 1975 fiasco seriously damaged many people. The WTS sought to shift the blame for its wrongheaded prophesying on the rank-and-file, saying we had “run ahead of Jehovah” and taken liberties with interpreting what had been published in WTS magazines and books. That is a lie, one of the worst in the long list of lies this organization has propagated. And even though I knew many who kept their heads during those hysterical and frenzied years leading up to 1975, we suffered nonetheless. Instead of developing the God-given talents and abilities we had, we let them languish and wither because even though 1975 had passed, we were told the End was still “soon” and we should not act upon any plans for personal growth and advancement.
I am glad to read the experiences posted here because even though many of us were damaged and wounded by the false hopes we had, most have escaped this cult’s clutches and are moving on with our lives in the years we have remaining. My friends, I wish all of you the very best and remember George Eliot’s wonderful exhortation: “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
Quendi
.
the governing body took us along to an unusually high mountain, and showed us all the friends and family members that had been ripped away and they said to us.... .
all these people we will give back to you if you fall down and do an act of worship to us.
You’ve hit the nail right on the head, irondork! Yes, there are some of my friends I miss very much, but I cherish my freedom more than the slavery I suffered while I was a Witness. Thanks for this very cogent reminder of what is really at stake.
Quendi
