When I was a full-fledged believer, I actually did to some extent. The work was kind of intimidating, but the thought of teaching someone watching them change their life did kind of intrigue me. I never did have a Bible study till about a year before I left and I always kind of felt a little bad about never having had a Bible study. I think I even prayed for one. The one I finally got was a young high school student. He wasn't particularly sophisticated, so no difficult Bible debates there. However, I don't think he was ever too much interested in it although he went along with it for a while. He was living with his grandfather who seemed happy to have him doing the study. But he had an older sister whom I never saw, but I got the feeling was not particularly in support of it. I gave him a NWT Bible. A few weeks later I come by and he has a brand new KJV Bible given him by his sister who has told him that is a good Bible. Eventually, he breaks off the study, which in retrospect, I am glad he did.
maxwell
JoinedPosts by maxwell
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13
Did you really want to start a bible study?
by JH ingoing door to door is an obligation in the jw's.
giving a bible study isn't.
you can ask people if they want to study the bible with you, but few are those who will accept.. there is lots of work and research to be made in order to answer all kinds of questions when a person is interested in a bible study.
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28
Is it OK for men to cry?
by JH inis it wrong for a man to cry when he feels pain, either physical or emotional pain.
we all know that women cry when they become emotional, but for a man, is it appropriate or not appropriate to cry.
is it seen as weakness for a man to cry?
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maxwell
I think its ok to cry sometimes, but then again I think some men and even more women cry too much. Just my opinion.
I've never cried at a funeral, but the closest person who's ever died was my aunt by marriage. I was younger than 10 at the time.
I saw my mother in the hospital in a lot of pain. I left the hospital to go home. When I got to my car, I just sat there in the parking lot and cried a few minutes. It turned out to be gall stones, but at that point I had not idea what was wrong. It was the first time I was truly afraid for one of my parents. I dread the day I have to say good bye for good.
I had a few private cries through my teenage years and into college and I admit to getting some teary eyes while watching some movies like, for example, Schindler's List. I have the soundtrack. Even that is pretty sad. Those kinds of cries have always been when I was alone, and I probably wouldn't tell anyone about them face to face. The anonymity of the Internet is nice.
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Underlining the answers in the Watchtower magazines
by JH in.
i found it funny how some people would literally underline just about everything in the watchtower magazine.
the more the magazine was underlined and notes were written, the more a person looked spiritual.. did it ever happen that you didn't read your watchtower magazine, and you underlined just about anything just to look as if you read it?.
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maxwell
I used to feel that I had not studied properly unless I had underlined all the answers and read all the scriptures. On the other hand we were discouraged from underlining the entire paragraph. Only one or two lines to answer the question and I did put A and B in the margin. If you underlined the entire paragraph, it appeared that you didn't know the answer to the simple question, so you just underlined everything to obscure the fact that you had no idea what was going on. I used to copy scriptures into the margin, and then we were told only to copy a couple of words in the margin to help you remember the main point of the scripture. I used to dread those lessons that had lots of scriptures or maybe even several chapters to be read. I never did get into the highlighting. Well it's been over a year since I've wasted two perfectly good hours doing that nonesense.
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If God doesn't exist, what's your future?
by JH inmany here don't believe in god anymore so can't believe in any resurrection.
so what do you expect once you die?.
and if you believe that there is nothing after this life, are you working overtime in this life to get the most out of it because there is nothing after...
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maxwell
I want to weigh in on this one. I don't know that God exists.
I somewhat agree with logansrun. It doesn't matter much whether you believe in an afterlife or not. We would all like to enjoy this life and get the most out of it possible. You may describe JW as a cult but even they aren't running to jump off a cliff to speed the way to the afterlife. Only in certain circumstances do they irrationally end their lives such as perhaps in the case of a blood transfusion. I'm sure we've all heard of cults that actually did have all of their members commit suicide at some point.
But in general we would all like to live as long as possible. There's certain things most reasonable people agree on for creating the best chance of living as long as possible. Safe, healthy and active living habits. As for getting the most out of life, opinions on that probably vary a bit more. After I left the JW, I still wanted to live as long and as heathful as possible. Of course, now I have more time to spend exercising. And while I admit to being more interested in fulfilling pleasures that I desire, those desires are still tempered by reason and the desire to live as long and as healthful as possible. For example, it might be fun to have a drink every now and then and party, but I still haven't been drunk and I never plan to be drunk. The consequences of getting drunk and/or becoming an alcoholic decrease my chances of living a long and healthful life.
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7
Are you a vengeful person?
by Jayson init has been said that "vengence is the bastard child of justice.".
are you a vengful person?
when someone hurts you, sometimes, do you hurt them back?
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maxwell
I don't believe I'm a vengeful person and I don't believe vengance is particularly helpful just to make myself feel better. It's hard to gauge exactly how to right the wrong and sometimes things can simply spiral into a tit for tat till things are out of control.
On the other hand, I will not be taken advantage of twice. I usually try to give a person the benefit of the doubt when I first meet them. If they burn me, then I will only deal with them in a guarded way or not at all in the future. And I'm not one to take a beating or continual harm lying down. If someone is continually trying to harm me or my family or friends, then I will begin exploring and implementing ways to eliminate the harm legally, physically or otherwise.
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7
who told on you?
by doodle-v inwhen i was a good little dub, i remember being in highschool and i had to work on a class project with several other people.
to work on our project we had to go off campus.
all the people in my group were boys and one of them volunteered to drive to our project site.
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maxwell
My incident wasn't a big thing and I still never found out who told on me although I had some idea. But as a teenager growing up I fully believed the JW beliefs. I was even considered an exemplary young person. This obviously made other young people jealous.
I was in the marching band at my school. While the 'School brochure' did caution about association outside of school, my Kingdom Hall had never been very strict about this and my father who was incidently an elder at the time allowed it since we never practiced more than two days a week for about 2 hours after school. I did well in music and sometimes my band director would have me transpose parts of scores for band arrangements that he had wrote. So at some point he decided to write a new school song although I wouldn't call it the official school song. He based on this old gospel type song. Of course, a gospel song would bring up all kinds of red flags for a JW, but many black gospel songs, which this was one, really lean into jazz and secular music. So I thought nothing of it since the gospel words wouldn't be used. So he has me transposing and writing up some part. Someone must have seen me.
We come home from the meeting one night and my dad asks me if I had been writing a school song. I honestly said no. (I had not thought of it as an official school song or anthem). Just another spirit song.) My dad says and goes on. But hearing that and other things let me knowthat other people were trying to find something wrong with me. I made another post several months ago about the elders meeting with me and saying I would lose my microphone holding and other hall work "privileges" if I continued acting as drum major for the marching band. The reason--not that it was bad association or that I was doing anything inappropriate, but that some other young persons were pointing at me and saying that because I as an "exemplary" young person could do that, they should be able to join sports teams. Pitiful, I thought it was then and even more so now. The fact that somehow my actions were prevented elders and even more so parents from dealing with their children properly. My parents may be still in that religion, but they never bowed to the insane logic of "but that kid is doing it."
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How did you stuck in the JW borg ???????
by run dont walk in.
i was born into it, and had a rough ride getting out, not much fun growing up having little respect (didn't want to use the hate word) for your parents/family.. i can honestly say my parents had no idea how life works, as is the case for most jw's.. how did you get stuck in it, and how long did it take you to finally walk away (or still trying to) ???
(took me years)
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maxwell
I was born into JW. But I still feel my childhood was happy for the most part.
While I will admit to the possibility of being somewhat naive, I'd say that for the most part even my experience as one a JW was mostly okay. But I was not totally blind; I was well aware of some of the cliques, and human relations problems, but I bought the JW line for the most part about that; i.e. "JW are imperfect but not as bad as the 'world'"
I did tire of the restrictions and that coupled with other things in my life triggered my brain to start thinking outside of the box.
My parents are great people. They are simply like many others in the world. They need an answer. I have become comfortable with the fact that I don't need an answer for everything.
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17
Have you ever tried to pay a compliment and got blasted
by larrynbabies ini know us men aren't the most clever people on earth but sometimes we say things that are meant to be a compliment and we get slammed.. my ex-wife was saying once, that she thought her hair was getting thicker and i, in my logical way was trying to figure out if this could really be true.
i then thought about the fact that she had recently lost wieght and without thinking any further i blurted out.... "your hair is not getting thicker your head is not as fat.".
this is a true story.
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maxwell
I've had things taken the wrong way as well. But I never say anything to my wife or friends with the intention of hurting them. So if they decide to be hurt by it, I think the problem is more in their mind. If someone says something to me that could have more than one interpretation, and I know that person isn't trying to hurt me, then I pick the most positive interpretation or ask for clarification. I don't think there's any excuse for deciding to be hurt because of something said by someone who loves you in an innocent, non-heated moment. Simply pick the positive interpretation. If you have some fetish with being hurt, then go be hurt by yourself. It's mean to try to spread your artificially hurt feelings to someone who's having a good day and who may have just given you a compliment, and that beside the fact that you aren't acknowledging the compliment.
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49
Are people happier married or single?
by JH in.
it think it was paul who said in the bible that people are happier single than married.
do you share paul's point of view?
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maxwell
I don't think it matters. I think happiness comes from inside. A person can choose to be happy whether married or single. I'm married, and my marriage enhances my happiness and gives me other things to be happy about, but doesn't necessarily increase my happiness any more than when I was single, because my happiness is a function of myself. I don't place control of how I feel in the hands of other people.
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Ex-JW Meet-Up: How Did Yours Go ?
by RAYZORBLADE injust curious.
for those of you who made it out to the yesterdays ex-jw meet-up: how was it?.
tell us, only if you want to, what city you are from, and your impressions of the meet-up.. the toronto meet-up went off fine.
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maxwell
Our meetup was good. I met two new people and saw two people I met at the last meetup. Unfortunately, I and another person were only able to stay for an hour this time. We've hung out till much later in the past. Also those of us who had met at past meetups have had our own informal nights out. I think its a great thing to be there to talk about common past experiences with people who understand or just talk about whatever with people who will talk to you and not shun you as JW's do.