libra_spirit

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Posts by libra_spirit

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  11

  Picture Of My Living Room

  by Undecided in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this is my living room at x-mas.

  i bought this house and the one next door in 1975 for $12,000 for both.

  i was working second shift and spent several weeks during the day making improvements.

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  libra_spirit

  Hey Ken, That is awesome.
  Very pleasing to the eye, and it looks like a good space to sit around and chat, or to sit and read.
  Love it!
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  49

  Brief Explanation

  by joelbear in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my path needs to be revamped.. i do plan to have a serious discussion with elders and attend the kingdom hall.

  where that will lead, time will tell.. i am not leaving mitch.

  even if i did become a jehovah's witness and celibate again he would love me just the same and i him.. you cannot become ungay.

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  libra_spirit

  You speak of a core truth. That is an intresting thing you are sensing. I think I can relate.
  My path has led me to such a core truth, that is merely Love. Jesus greatest command. I can relate in wanting the JW Religion to be a part of that core truth. When I was little that core love came from my parents, it felt good and warm and protective. It shifted onto the Org when I got older. The only problem was when this core truth became ignored when I was not allowed to become an adult. While it is true that core love is within us all, there are places where it is allowed to florish, and places where it is supressed and controlled.

  Everyone needs to find those places and identify them in thier own lives.
  We all long to touch that core truth that connects us with the devine within us.
  Good luck with your search,
  Love and Light
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  25

  how to sue the WTBS?

  by orangefatcat in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  does anyone know or heard of anyone that has sued the wbts?

  i was just wondering i was in the organization 38 years and i feel cheated out of all those years i was in.

  or how about when your disfellowshiped and your family alientates you from their lives.

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  libra_spirit

  Maybe defamation of character, or liable against the DFed.
  Or wrongful death from denial of a blood transfusion.
  Defamation of character if you could prove that you are being personally called unclean, or evil, under the direction of the Org. Thats why they won't put anything in writing anymore.
  
  I feel that the Org is causing pain on the social level.
  Setting the stage for suicides of the DFed. Abandoning those in thier hour of need. Covering up violations of the law to free themselves from reproach.
  Using brainwashing tactics to make people feel helpless and worthless without them. Psycologically holding people in its control, munipulating them through fear.

  Is this anything a coven of witches might also do? Is it legal?

  Freedom of religion is one of the basic things this country was founded upon. If it could be shown that converts no longer have this freedom because of brainwashing techniques so effective they are willing to do anything for thier church without regard to life, limb, or property, possibly you may get noticed.
  5 hours a week of repeatitive programming, untill you just simply believe what you are hearing and saying.

  Could we get their books audited somehow? Do they pay any tax?

  Religion is truly a "racket and a snare!"

  At what point of craziness does a Religion loose it's standing as a Religion? When it puts it's members under pressure to die rather then take blood? Christian Science will have to go next, they are much worse on this one.
  When it shields pedophiles? The Catholic Church will have to go also.
  When it makes crazy prophecies? The Adventists will have to go too
  even Pat Robertson got in on this.
  When it kicks people out for smoking? The Mormons are out the door.

  Just what makes the JW's worse then all these others?

  Isn't it Religion peroid that needs to be re thought?
  Should Religion be free in this country?
  Why are all the people in this country so needy of religion?
  What is it giving them?

  I think we need to clasify Religions into two groups.
  closed:
  In a closed system of Religion, everyone who is outside them is condimned by them and therefore not loved. They take authority to Judge others, Shunn others, and defame the character of those who leave. They inflict punishments on thier members.
  open:
  In an open system of Religion, everyone who is outside them is welcomed by them, accepted as they are, loved and not judged. They allow freedom of choice and no punishments are administered to members.
  The Unitiarians are an example. All Spiritual paths are acknowledged only up to the point where they start to judge others.

  All the closed systems of Religion should be given a time peroid to change thier basic doctrines to include the notion that "all men are equal" and become open systems. If they do not conform to this within the peroid they should loose thier standing as Religions and be classified as dangerous cults, because of thier basic desire to devide all mankind rather then unite it.

  No religion should be making decisions of a personal nature for it's followers. Political, medical, social, educational, or any other secular decisions, and inforcing them through punishment. The function of religion is to connect people with the Holy Spirit, Holy Ghost, Eck, Light and Sound, Universal mind, whatever you wish to call it, but it is up to the individual to change himself from within or the Spirit to change him. It is between him and God from there on. The churches function is not to act as police, thought police, sensors, brainwashers, or punishers for God. When the Church takes on the roll of "enforcer of punishment" it has overstepped it's legal boundaries and seperation of church and state. Only the state should be punishing moral wrongdoing, this is not the proper function of Church. It puts the church leaders in a seductive position of power over others lives, and leads only to suicides and the like. JW's shunning is one of the worst examples of abuse of this power, where here we have men that are not annointed in the Holy Spirit actually judging others they are in power over. However thier are other churches doing this in a very corrupt way as well.

  When ever you put men in charge of others and make them accountable to no one, judging without having to provide a written record or any actual proof of the proceedings or the offense, administering the punishment verbally, you will have a corrupt system in place.

  They need to have thier power taken away, because it has been abused for much too long a peroid of time and taken a devestating toll on thier subjects.

  The churches need to be forced to give up all power of reproof and punishment. The Bible even states that this is Gods job in the aspect of faith. This is governments job in the physical world.

  I think these are pretty radical ideas, do you think they would make the world a better place? A place where Osama couldn't find anyone to follow him, and the JW's couldn't get anyone to knock on doors.
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  27

  Whats the strangest watchtower/awake article ever

  by sleepy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  whats the strangest watchtower/awake or other publication article you,ve ever seen?.

  i know theres some very strange old articles , but a few years ago there was one in the awake if i remmember right which had a picture of two brothers holding hands on the ministrty.. one was african the other white.. apparently it was common for men to hold hands in this country and was perectly normal for hetrosexual men to do.. a brother who was a missionary recounted how he was shocked when out with a local brother for the first time on the ministry and the brother took his hand in his.. a lot of people though the article was very odd and didn't like it.

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  libra_spirit

  No kidding!
  Well if you ever tried yoga, heaven forbid, you do get some intresting sensations from the heart center when the chakra is opened.
  They do have to do with physical love.
  Try it?

  Love it not just a state of mind, look at any newly in love couple.

  If you ask anyone who is really disdraught, to point to where the pain is, where does it hurt, you get some interesting realizations. Almost no one will point to thier head, unless it is a financial problem and they have a headache from the math.

  A study of the meridians from Chinese medicine, makes a connection between different emotions and the internal organs of the body. The stomach with worry, know anyone with ulcers from stress?
  Anger in the liver, and on and on.
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  59

  How do you make a JW vanish?

  by Lionel_P_Hartley in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ask them a hard question!.

  amazing how the chorus of jw defenders has vanished - as if one man - despite the promise from yoyomama to answer my question if i answered hers.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=18968&site=3.

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  libra_spirit

  What is the doctrines of the JW's are wrong? Your child would have missed out on a lifetime of love and expierence?
  How can you possible know if they are right, if you are not Annointed in the Holy Spirit? Is this not blind faith?
  What would your heart tell you to do?
  Would you be motivated by guilt?

  How can you believe a Loving God would demand you sacrifice your child? This is paramount to pegans sacrificing thier children, nothing less then child sacrifice.
  You bet blood is sacred, it can save lives, this is very sacred.
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  14

  My Disassociation Letter - Should I post it ?

  by alliwannadoislive in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  friends,.

  i posted a question in november on whether i should da - and i got a surprising level of response - i was also swayed towards not 'playing the wt game'.. however, i feel i want closure.. please see below the letter i have just finished writing - i plan to post it later this week, but would like to know your opinions:.

  1) should i send it - yes or no.

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  libra_spirit

  Wow, I could not have been so nice. I think you are really bending over backwards to sound like you care about these people and do not want to change them, however your remarks could do little else but cause them to question thier faith.
  I don't think anyone will read it, but sending it will cement your future. You will be shunned henceforth. If that is acceptable I say send it just as you have written it, from your heart. Maybe one elder will actually read it all.

  Have you considered sending it to anyone else?

  I recently sent such a letter asking to have clarification as to my standing. I have had no response whatsoever.
  I think that they are supposed to handle this stuff verbally now a days, so no one can be blammed after the fact for bad decisions.

  Good Luck
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  5

  The Death ethics of JW's

  by libra_spirit in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a piece i wrote for the paper which never got in.. the death ethics i had as a jehovahs witness, and an apology.. it was just recently i realized that i had never grieved a very close childhood friend.

  we spent many an hour playing together when i was young.

  i grew to love this boy as my friend, just a few years younger then myself.

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  libra_spirit

  A piece I wrote for the paper which never got in.

  The death ethics I had as a Jehovahs Witness, and an apology.

  It was just recently I realized that I had never grieved a very close childhood friend. We spent many an hour playing together when I was young. I grew to love this boy as my friend, just a few years younger then myself. In his late teens his father died and he went on a path of self destruction. He was Disfellowshipped by the local elders and I was now restricted from talking with him under the fear that I too could be Disfellowshipped if I did. A few years later he ended up dead. I was still a Jehovahs Witness then and no one even seemed to notice. I can not recall even a mention of it at the Kingdom Hall. It was as though he was not worthy of grieving for. I never questioned that or so much as gave it a second thought, untill this Christmas almost 26 years later. I was so overcome with grief I cried. For 26 years I had never grieved his death. I realized what he really needed in his time of loss and dispare was love. His life was out of control and he desperatly needed love, love of family and friends. From the Bible what comes to mind for me now is "the laying on of hands," connecting him with the Unconditional Love of Jesus. What I believe he recieved was being told that he was not acceptable, and untill he could attone for a year or more of shunning, he would remain unacceptable. During this time he was totally ignored as if he were invisible. And finally in his death, that also was ignored.

  It seems that as a Jehovahs Witness my thoughts of death were pretty much either a state of total denial, or a state of personal fear. Taught that the end will be here very soon and that either you will die shortly, or if you are good enough you will live forever. If you are found by Jehovah doing enough in the preaching work, you will never die but live forever on the earth. You expend most of your effort trying to survive, trying to get you and your family through Armageddon. Believing that most of mankind will soon parish when this happens, you have little empathy for anyones grieving over the loss of a loved one to death.

  Even with this belief it is hard for me to imagine what I myself have done in the past when I think about this. The JW's openly teach that only God does the Judging, not them or thier elders. They also teach that the only unforgivable sin is sinning against the Holy Spirit. This being a very obscure idea for them as I don't think they can even define just what the Holy Spirit actually is, they compared it to electricity as I recall, merely an active force. They practice a policy know as Disfellowshipping, which is describbed as a loving way to discipline those who have openly committed sins, sins that are forgivable but bring reproach upon the Organization, as I recall they explained it. On top of this they preached that if someone dies before Armageddon then they will be resurected afterwards and that such ones have not been judged.

  Now the problem comes where someone is Disfellowshipped, undergoing this discipline, and then they die. Or even some who are on "public reproof", a lessor discipline, when they die. As an outsider you would think that as they and thier family are associated with this Religion that they would conduct a funeral service and allow thier family and loved ones to grieve the death of their loved one, as no one can say for sure whether or not this person has been judged by God as worthy of eternal life. As well as Jesus greatest command being that of Love, even showing love to your enemies. Irregaurdless ones who die before Armageddon are not judged, or so they claim. However nothing could be further from the truth. They would not give a funeral to such a person, and they would not attend any such funeral given by any other church. No one in thier group was allowed to grieve the loss of this person. Even family members were to ignore this death as unimportant.
  To compound matters, it seemed to be the attitude of many if not most in the congregation that somehow this "bad" person had recieved what they deserved and now God had been saved the trouble of killing them at Armageddon, even though this is not what was openly taught. It seemed to be assumed that those who are Disfellowshipped somehow deserve to die and so there is no need to grieve them.

  I can not communicate how terrible this makes me feel now, his mother must have grieved him secretly, but I never knew. 26 years later I now realize that the message I was preaching was certainly not so urgent that I could not have spent a little time crying for him with his mother and going through the natural grieving process with her. It would have been the sane and loving thing, and when I think of how Jesus would probably have handled it I am truly ashamed that I was blind enough to believe that the policy of the Jehovahs Witnesses was the right one. This was the most cruel and unloving act you could do to anyone who has lost a loved one. To judge that one as truly bad and not worthy of grieving! Even not knowing for sure whether this was doctrinally true. I now would sincerely like to apologize for my actions to his mother, I know he was worthy of love and so was she in her grieving process.

  The JW faith also claims that if a non-JW dies before Armageddon then they will be resurected into the new order and given another chance to convert. Why then do they not allow thier elders to give funerals for such ones, or thier members to attend funerals given for them elsewhere? As I think back so many years to that mindset that I too once accepted while in the Organization, I am appaulled. It reminds me once again of how the JW's value life, how they value people, and just how much fear they live with on a daily bassis.

  I urge anyone considering a Bible study with the Jehovahs Witnesses, or anyone considering joining the Jehovahs Witness Religion to please research them on the internet first. Read not only what they want you to know about them, but read what those who have left them say also. Read thier history and read about the harm that has been done to families under the guise of love, and under the fear of failing to be found faultless when the end comes.
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  14

  Did you believe in 1975?

  by Masterji in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  did you believe that 1975 would see the beginning of the millennium?.

  if not, why not?.

  m

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  libra_spirit

  Believe is such a strong word. Lets just say I feared it! It got my attention enough to pioneer and not go to colledge, and to keep shunning the wicked. It controlled my actions for sure.

  When it didn't happen I was not that surprised just relieved, because even though I tried so hard to be good enough I never really thought I was doing enough to survive it.

  I think of the word belief now as something that feels right because I am doing it out of reason or love. This was never the case then but it didn't matter then because fear was the motivation.
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  7

  JWDAR

  by julien in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  do we all (x-dubs) have this?

  i sometimes get this 'spidey sense' like warning when jws are around.

  sorry if it has been discussed before.

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  libra_spirit

  Yea, they kind of radiate a sort of hollow plastic forced, controlled energy. Smiling at anyone who is a possible convert, ignoring anyone who isn't and not having a clue about themselves.
  You can feel the mold they have streched over themselves.
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  24

  Suicide and This and That .....

  by Celtic in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  how many of you have really gone through suicidal feelings, when you felt that no-one at all was out there to try to assist you?

  did it help you to be told by so called friends, 'just pull your socks up!

  ' did you feel that such admonition was really daft and stupidly uncaring?

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  libra_spirit

  Been there twice, almost did the deed. It was only my own mind that saved me. I didn't have support from anyone, it was before the internet was big.
  Once I realized what was hapening in my life that would lead me to this, it was easy to make the changes and leave the JW's. I knew if I stayed in I would end up dead.
  The hard part has been creating a new life and detaching the strings from the past. Every now and then I have my moments too, but for the most part I am able to ignor them as well as they ignor me. It is ever important to develope a support system outside the Org. in order to survive. I try to offer support to ones who know me well enough to hear me. This is the whole reason to be on here as far as I'm concerned, to offer that support when needed.