Posts by lisaBObeesa

24

Is JW.org overriding entry into JW.net?

by Hairtrigger in

tried to get into jw.net twice but a popup informed me that the official website of jw's is jw.org.

this was about 2 hours back.

anybody with a similar experience?.

lisaBObeesa

Hairtrigger...do it again if you can and take a screen shot or picture of it and post it here...

18

How long have you been an online "apostate?"

by Faithful Witness in

jw
friends

i really do not like that word (apostate), as used to represent someone who decided to remove themselves, or was removed from the influence of the watchtower... but i am curious.. how long have websites like these been in existence?

when did this movement begin?.

personally, how long did it take for you to dare exploring information outside the watchtower publications, about jehovah's witnesses (especially online)?.

lisaBObeesa

When we got our first computer with internet in 1995 or so, the first thing I typed in was "jehovah's witnesses" and the exjw community was already going strong on the internet. I joined a listserve... I forget the name...jesus-witnesses? There was H2O, and lots and lots of individual webpages built by people with TTATT... many more than now, it seems like..

I met people online in the 90's who before the internet had been mailing info, spreading the ttatt, putting ads in newspapers and pennysavers.

There were the phone numbers with recorded messages telling the TTATT...the number published in newspapers...

And Ray Franz's book came out long before the internet...

11

Does threatening to sue the individual elders really work?

by alfredjones100 in

does threatening to sue the individual elders for deformation of character really work in preventing being disfellowshiped?.

any actual experiences?.

lisaBObeesa

I've gotten into some heated theads on this topic, and some here don't agree with my thinking on this. But here's what I think:

I read this:

http://church-discipline.blogspot.com/2007/02/mormon-alliance-home-page.html

1) The courts have found that continuing a disciplinary process on a non member to be a violation of their civil rights

2) Letters drawn up by lawyers stating that a person has withdrawn membership (NOT DA!) and therefore is a non member and therefore cannot be disciplined (the announcement=discipline) without a suit being filed... have resulted in no announcement being made.

People who used lawyers to write letters about NOT having their names announced as 'no longer a JW'

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/members/private/219169/1/Important-to-put-in-your-letter-of-DA#.UyXQy4U26M0

This one especially address the exact thing I am talking about...there are actually two legal letters in this thread about DA and the announcement...

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/18983/1/Re-Mad-Apostates-form-letter#.UyXRSIU26M0

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/91719/1/Seeker4s-500th-Post-My-letter-to-the-Elders-2nd-Posting#.UyXazIU26M1

I believe all of this means that if you withdraw your membership (NOT DA!), they have no right to discipline you in any way and certainly not with a coded announcement that is intended to label you an unrepentant sinner of some sort.

Again, this is NOT DAing. Only a JW can DA. This is just becoming a non-JW like any other person walking down the street.

People who are not JWs can't DA from the JWs. So don't DA. Just stop being a JW. And when they come for you, get a lawyer to send a letter to individual elders.

(Some disagree, saying that being announced "no longer a JW" is not punishment so Guinn doesn't apply. I say that is exactly what the Org would say, but in reality, being announced "no longer a JW" IS the punishment, and that is why these letters do in fact work. more here and here.)

25

If only there were another GB member like Ray Franz

by tornapart in

i'm just rereading crisis of conscience and was thinking if only there were others on the gb like him.

maybe things could change for the better.

for instance when he felt troubled that a woman couldn't get a divorce when her husband cheated on her with another man.. his response was this:-"the emotional upset i felt moved me to make a study of the original language terms (in greek) used in matthew, chapter nineteen, verse 9.".

lisaBObeesa

I bet when GB members are appointed now they are required to sign some legal agreement that says they will never write a book or in any way reveal what goes on.

I think even if there ever were another Ray Franz we would never know it..

61

Embarrassed by Aggressive Apostates

by ShempLives in

jw
friends

xjw protests & videos.

.. i am disturbed by some of the more aggressive apostates posting videos on youtube,like "a jw memorial to remember" where a drunk man goes to a memorial and downs the whole glass of wine as a sort of protest.

this video and others like it received positive comments from aawa members.

lisaBObeesa

Snare&racket, your post nails it, I think. It pretty much says exactlywhat I was going to say. I only have a little more to add...

shep said:

I was starting to get the sense of an angry mob emerging from the online XJW community.

It would be pretty weird if there was NOT a pretty substantial amount of anger among some of the thousands of different people who are exjw.

The Jehovah's Witnesses take people's parents, children, grandparents....forever! It's like your whole family died!

The reality is that thousands of different people in pain will react in thousands of different ways. That’s normal.

Anger is a stage of grief. One can’t expect that that stage be skipped or that nobody expresses that anger and frustration in ways that put off JWs. Some people are bound to confront JWs on the street, make angry videos expressing themselves, or even disrupt meetings in protest. And some people will not do these things and will work through their anger and frustration other ways. All of this is normal.

But you can’t expect all ex-jws to live their lives around what makes JWs comfortable, and there is no reason to judge those who don’t live their lives that way, or those who are passing through an ‘anger’ stage of their recovery.

It is only the Jehovah's Witnesses who think a ‘happy person’ = ‘good person.’ It is Jehovah’s Witnesses who are required to walk around with fake smiles plastered on their face all the time in order to ‘make a good witness.’

That’s NOT normal.

And if anyone thinks that getting all exjws to be sweet and kind all the time is going to bring the WT down…its never going to happen because thousands of exjws are not robots. So you might as well move on to plan B.

75

FORGIVENESS ... You owe it to your health

by ABibleStudent in

i'm cleaning up my home of unnecessary magazines/newsletters that i have accumulated over the years.

while i was working as an employee i did not feel like i had the time to read them.

now that i'm not working as an employee but work as a volunteer to network and maintain workplace skills, i seem to have more time to read.. after reading many threads by former jws, i thought that the following article might help some to heal.

lisaBObeesa

lisaBObeesa -

Did you read all that you just pasted? So you quote Martin Luther King, Jr. as if that's supposed to shut me up? Is that your appeal to authority (logical fallacy)? Problem is, I don't consider MLK to be an authority.

I wasn't even posting to you. I was just adding something to the thread about forgiveness. I PERSONALLY felt the MLK sermon on forgivness was really powerful and I identified with the things he said. That is why I posted it here in this thread.

So...peace, bother. I don't want you to shut up. I don't even think you are wrong. You are speaking your truth and your truth is your truth, period. I hope you never 'shut up.'

"First, we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive."

Why, MLK, because you say so? Who the hell are you to tell me I must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive? Are you smarter than I am? I doubt it. Do you have more insight than I do? I doubt it.

Again, the post was not directed at you. I was just adding what I thought were some very wise words about forgiveness to this thread.

If you don't want to forgive, don't forgive.

I understand where you are coming from. There are pleanty of people on this board and in this thread that feel the same as you. Life is complicated and different for everybody...We are all just doing what we think is right, the best we can. What is right for one perosn is not always right for another person.

lisaBObeesa - do you really think the "barrier to the relationship" between JWs and those who doubt/question/challenge them will ever break down? Do you really think that our forgiving the org/JWs will be a "catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning". What a load of kumbaya BS! The only way you will ever get a fresh start and new beginning with JWs would be to kiss their asses, bow to their super Jedi Knight GB, and hang your head in shame and admit how stupid you've been not to have seen all their wonderful light. You would start off "fresh" all right - right at the bottom. If you're a brother, you might get to carry a microphone after a year or so.

Well, if you really want to know what I think, I'll tell you.

I think that "forgiving the org" is not something that is possible. I can see forgiving a person or people, but an organization is not a person. To me, forgiving an organization is like forgiving a rock or a tree. It makes no sense to me.

I've had a really hard time forgiving my JW sister who, in my eyes, destroyed our family with her terrible JW shunning of our mother. For the last 17 years or so (i've said 20 years before, but really it's more like 17...) ...for 17 years I've been in the "how can I forgive/ I don't think I should forgive/ I can't forgive because she keeps hurting us all" camp. I was in that camp because that is where I was at the time and there was really nothing I could do to move out of that camp. But I was always turning it over in my mind, trying to not forgive, but to make peace with it, trying to move on from it, trying to stop being angry about it and just accept it. After all, it's been 17 years! That's almost two decades of being really, really angry. But the anger would never leave. It just stayed.

But three weeks ago, after 17 years of this, I found that I could 'accept the apology that she will never give me.' And finally, I can let it all go. Finally I can accept the situation and move on.

I find it to be a great relief. I also feel real love towards her again, something that had been burried under layers of pain and anger.

And now, maybe one day, my sister and I can speak again. Because at least on my side now I'm open to it. Before, I was not.

This is what I have expereinced. This might not be possible or even the right thing to do for someone else. This is just something that I have gone through very recently so it is kind of a big deal for me right now, and I guess that is why I was so moved to post on this thread...

"Third, we must not seek to defeat or humiliate the enemy but to win his friendship and understanding."-MLK

OK, again, I don't answer to MLK; he's not my authority. He doesn't tell me what to do just as JWs don't. But just to analyze what he said... "we must not seek to defeat the enemy" - what??? Why not?

The person I needed to forgive was my JW sister. I did not and do not want to defeat or humiliate her. I DID want to change her behavior. I DID want to change her mind. I DID want to convince her she was wrong and I was right. But I didn't want to 'defeat' her.

I would like to 'defeat' the Organization, but to me, that has nothing to do with the topic of forgiveness, since as I said before, I don't think you can ''forgive' things, only people. I don't want to defeat the people in the org, either. I want to win them over and help them out of the trap that is the Org.

The Org is a thing, a trap. It's not alive. I can't kill it or kick its butt or hurt it or defeat it, as much as I would like to. I can only try to help people out of it. That's how I see it, anyway.

LisaB - Do you really think you're going to win the friendship and understanding of the org by forgiving it? You only win its friendship if you serve it and slave for it and sacrifice for it and worship it.

No, I don't. I don't think it is possible to have the 'friendship and understanding' of a thing. Even if I could, I don't want and NEVER wanted the friendship and understanding of the org.

Plus, the motivation to forgive my sister was not to 'win her friendship and understanding,' either. The motivation to forgive her was to heal and move on and to be able to open my heart to her again should the opportunity ever again arise. And if one day that opportunity does arise, then my having forgiven her will indeed be the "catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning".

I've shared these things as personal experience and I am not telling you or anyone else what to do.

Each person's situation is individual and unique...

-Lisa

75

FORGIVENESS ... You owe it to your health

by ABibleStudent in

i'm cleaning up my home of unnecessary magazines/newsletters that i have accumulated over the years.

while i was working as an employee i did not feel like i had the time to read them.

now that i'm not working as an employee but work as a volunteer to network and maintain workplace skills, i seem to have more time to read.. after reading many threads by former jws, i thought that the following article might help some to heal.

lisaBObeesa

http://www.salsa.net/peace/conv/8weekconv4-2.html

Loving Your Enemies.

by Martin Luther King, Jr.

The following sermon was delivered at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, at Christmas, 1957. Martin Luther King wrote it whi1e in jail far committing nonviolent civil disobedience during the Montgomery bus boycott. Let us be practical and ask the question. How do we love our enemies?

First, we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one's enemies without the prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us. It is also necessary to realize that the forgiving act must always be initiated by the person who has been wronged, the victim of some great hurt, the recipient of some tortuous injustice, the absorber of some terrible act of oppression. The wrongdoer may request forgiveness. He may come to himself, and, like the prodigal son, move up some dusty road, his heart palpitating with the desire for forgiveness. But only the injured neighbor, the loving father back home, can really pour out the warm waters of forgiveness.

Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning. It is the lifting of a burden or the canceling of a debt. The words "I will forgive you, but I'll never forget what you've done" never explain the real nature of forgiveness. Certainly one can never forget, if that means erasing it totally from his mind. But when we forgive, we forget in the sense that the evil deed is no longer a mental block impeding a new relationship. Likewise, we can never say, "I will forgive you, but I won't have anything further to do with you." Forgiveness means reconciliation, a coming together again.

Without this, no man can love his enemies. The degree to which we are able to forgive determines the degree to which we are able to love our enemies.

Second, we must recognize that the evil deed of the enemy-neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy. Each of us has something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves. A persistent civil war rages within all of our lives. Something within us causes us to lament with Ovid, the Latin poet, "I see and approve the better things, but follow worse," or to agree with Plato that human personality is like a charioteer having two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in a different direction, or to repeat with the Apostle Paul, "The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."

This simply means that there is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. When we look beneath the surface, beneath. the impulsive evil deed, we see within our enemy-neighbor a measure of goodness and know that the viciousness and evilness of his acts are not quite representative of all that he is. We see him in a new light. We recognize that his hate grows out of fear, pride, ignorance, prejudice, and misunderstanding, but in spite of this, we know God's image is ineffably etched in being. Then we love our enemies by realizing that they are not totally bad and that they are not beyond the reach of God's redemptive love.

Third, we must not seek to defeat or humiliate the enemy but to win his friendship and understanding. At times we are able to humiliate our worst enemy. Inevitably, his weak moments come and we are able to thrust in his side the spear of defeat. But this we must not do. Every word and deed must contribute to an understanding with the enemy and release those vast reservoirs of goodwill which have been blocked by impenetrable walls of hate.

Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical why: Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multi# plies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

So when Jesus says "Love your enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies-or else? The chain reaction of evil-hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars-must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Another reason why we must love our enemies is that hate scars the soul and distorts the personality. Mindful that hate is an evil and dangerous force, we too often think of what it does to the person hated. This is understandable, for hate brings irreparable damage to its victims. We have seen its ugly consequences in the ignominious deaths brought to six million Jews by hate-obsessed madman named Hitler, in the unspeakable violence inflicted upon Negroes by bloodthirsty mobs, in the dark horrors of war, and in the terrible indignities and injustices perpetrated against millions of God's children by unconscionable oppressors.

But there is another side which we must never overlook. Hate is just as injurious to the person who hates. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.

The relevance of what I have said to the crisis in race relations should be readily apparent. There will be no permanent solution to the, race problem until oppressed men develop the capacity to love their enemies. The darkness of racial injustice will be dispelled only by the light of forgiving love. For more than three centuries American Negroes have been battered by the iron rod of oppression, frustrated by day and bewildered by night by unbearable injustice and burdened with the ugly weight of discrimination. Forced to live with these shameful conditions, we are tempted to become bitter and to retaliate with a corresponding hate. But if this happens, the new order we seek will be little more than a duplicate of the old order. We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.

My friends, we have followed the so-called practical way for too long a time now, and it has led inexorably to deeper confusion and chaos. Time is cluttered with the wreckage of communities which surrendered to hatred and violence. For the salvation of our nation and the salvation of mankind, we must follow another way.

While abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is the only way to create the beloved community.

To our most bitter opponents we say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory."

75

FORGIVENESS ... You owe it to your health

by ABibleStudent in

i'm cleaning up my home of unnecessary magazines/newsletters that i have accumulated over the years.

while i was working as an employee i did not feel like i had the time to read them.

now that i'm not working as an employee but work as a volunteer to network and maintain workplace skills, i seem to have more time to read.. after reading many threads by former jws, i thought that the following article might help some to heal.

lisaBObeesa

"Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got."

Somehow when I read this quote something finally clicked with me.

I can do that. I can accept the apology I never got.

I'm so glad I finally did.

It took about 20 years to get here, to this space, where I could read that quote, and finally let it go. I feel bad for them. I'm not angry anymore. finally. Best of all, I love them again. Even though we are far apart, and even though they keep on doing what they do (and it keeps on hurting me).

20 years is too long to be so upset, so angry, so rightous, so...better than.

I'm no better than them.

It's over. It is what it is. everybody is only doing what they think is right.

I accept the apology they will never give me.

16

Celebrating WTBTS Memorials in Public Venues

by ABibleStudent in

the kingdom hall of jehovah's witnesses is having a memorial celebration on april 14, 2014 at 7:05 pm pst at the westlake hyatt in westlake village, ca, usa.. i am thinking about greeting celebratants as they leave with poster(s) and business cards with qr codes for www.jwfacts.com and www.freedomofmind.com.

my intent is not to debate or convert "spiritual strong" (non-thinking) jws, but to provide life-saving information to "spiritually weak" (still thinking) jws suffering from the wtbts's "undue influence" and bite control.

i might even be eating crackers (and cheese) and drinking red wine at the exit.. my plan is to place up to three posters across from the exit of the celebration and then place business-size cards with "critically think for yourself" and qr codes on the back.

lisaBObeesa

Hi lisaBObeesa, I know that the Unification Church is a dangerous cult and that Steve Hassan is a former member. I would like to get a screen shot from the Unification Church saying that they are not a cult to replace the screen shot from www . jw . org describing what is a cult to the WTBTS so that I can get past a JWs shields.

Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,

Robert

Oh, I see! Sorry I'm slow! :)

16

Celebrating WTBTS Memorials in Public Venues

by ABibleStudent in

the kingdom hall of jehovah's witnesses is having a memorial celebration on april 14, 2014 at 7:05 pm pst at the westlake hyatt in westlake village, ca, usa.. i am thinking about greeting celebratants as they leave with poster(s) and business cards with qr codes for www.jwfacts.com and www.freedomofmind.com.

my intent is not to debate or convert "spiritual strong" (non-thinking) jws, but to provide life-saving information to "spiritually weak" (still thinking) jws suffering from the wtbts's "undue influence" and bite control.

i might even be eating crackers (and cheese) and drinking red wine at the exit.. my plan is to place up to three posters across from the exit of the celebration and then place business-size cards with "critically think for yourself" and qr codes on the back.

lisaBObeesa

I will visit the Unification Church website and see what they write about cults.

Not sure how that would help you...since they are a cult...Maybe you misunderstood my post, or maybe I misunderstand why you would go to their website...

I got the info that they are a cult from the website of Steven Hassan, the ex-Moonie ( meaning ex-unification church member).