my wife is in the hospital.
complications of a ruptured appendix.
she had it removed around 1am friday morning.
So sorry Azor. You have certainly been through it and are still facing it.
Your wife is in the best place right now as the hospital can monitor and care for her.
Good for your mom for helping you. I agree with ToesUp, dont give your heart to the silliness of family members right now.
You hang tough and please know that many here are caring about you and admiring the strength of character and love for your family that you have demonstrated over and over.
Hugs from here to you,
Millie
what do you think the jw religion will be like in oct 2021?
if we go back five years from oct 2016 you get 2011. there was no jw.org, really pretty much no tablets, most people were using paper copies for everything.
now that's all changed.
I believe the rumor we have heard that they hired a consulting service.
With that in mind I think they will start their own version of a Brigham Young University. They will convert some already existing property in to a campus OR that will be the next big building project.
Witnesses will pay tuition to get their kids a college education.
This will solve two problems for them. It will keep born in kids away from universities and will divert that income into Org coffers.
I think they will also begin offering trips to the Holy Land type travel arrangements. I dont think they will literally BE to the Holy Land - just modeled after the way religions today do those kind of travel trips.
Perhaps they will arrange conventions in odd places and arrange travel trips there. Any place they want to throw dollars at and create excitement while charging money to do it under their umbrella.
I can see them allowing for a "provision" of travel missionary" or "travel pioneer" where you pay big bucks for a trip and get to be pioneer for a day/week/month while on the cruise or flight or train trip.
It is another spin on what was mentioned in an above post $$ for service time.
since leaving the jws i have looked into many beliefs and have come to this conclusion.. paganism has a high regard for women, as they worship goddesses and respect the female for the ability to give birth to new life.
christianity puts females in second place to males and blames women for male temptations which goes back to eve eating the fruit and tempting adam with it.
they also created a devil with the appearance of the pagan god pan and built churches on pagan worship sites so that people would still go there to worship, but within a christian building.. i have come to the conclusion that paganism versus christianity is about a battle of the sexes.. the fear of demonic forces is taught by religions to deter you from straying.
DL2,
You are correct about religions' roles in subjugating women. One of the primary ways theyve accomplished this is to infantalize men and blame shift their own lack of control onto women. It is still alive and well in Islam and various Xtian groups. Hinduism and other religions also seek to control women, especially their sexuality/sensuality because their poor little men just can't help their poor little selves.
And it has caused great harm to women for centuries.
Very soon after my exit from the DarkTower I had a brief and unusual relationship with a young woman who was part Buddhist, part Pagan and part Wiccan princess. She helped to educate me about a lot of things I knew only on the surface and help the DarkLords de-programming process wherein anything labeled "Pagan" meant the devil.
I followed her to the Buddhist temple and other places I can't write about on this site. She was Way, way fun. Bat-shit crazy, but over the top fun. And one of the least judgmental, most accepting individuals I've known. I'm glad I met her: I'm also glad her husband didn't kill me.
I came to greatly respect the Pagan world that pre-dated all the world's major religions. I still have several books she gave me on the subject.
What an incredible experience for you!
She blew away the walls didnt she?
I love it when I meet people like that.
since leaving the jws i have looked into many beliefs and have come to this conclusion.. paganism has a high regard for women, as they worship goddesses and respect the female for the ability to give birth to new life.
christianity puts females in second place to males and blames women for male temptations which goes back to eve eating the fruit and tempting adam with it.
they also created a devil with the appearance of the pagan god pan and built churches on pagan worship sites so that people would still go there to worship, but within a christian building.. i have come to the conclusion that paganism versus christianity is about a battle of the sexes.. the fear of demonic forces is taught by religions to deter you from straying.
Great OP DL2.
I love reading about the thoughts and conclusions people arrive at after escaping the thought control of the Org.
The pagan beliefs have definitely stood the test of time and that alone makes them worth looking at. One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite people is-
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Bertrand Russell
jws say they can go anywhere in the world and they " know" that they would be shown hospitality from their fellow brothers.
of all my years as a jw i found this wasn't the case.
i honestly believe that if i turned up at any of my fellow apostates on here house and said hi i'm chook can we have a coffee, the response would be how many sugars..
JWs have this impression that it would be that way.
Truth is, they cant even get along with one another in the local congregation.
Not that it makes them bad people, its hard for groups of people to get along for various reasons.
Its the bragging about love and the misplaced belief that they have this world wide unity that is harmful.
Harmful because it isnt true.
ok so i have a question.
i was a very, very true believer until i saw the child molesters in my hall and how that whole thing was handled.. my husband is older than i am and had been an elder for 12 when we married.
so fast forward to 06, we are in a hall where i thought all the elders were ok at the worst and great at the best.
I have 3 things to say.
1) You are not crazy
2) YOU are not crazy
3) YOU are NOT crazy!
There is a complete difference between being crazy and being in a crazy situation.
I dont know what country you are in but in the U.S. there exists a fundamentalist group called F.L.D.S. (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). This group has a very patriarchal arrangement that surprisingly has some strong parallels to certain "pockets" of elder bodies.
The women who have escaped these groups are getting very vocal and making their presence known. Some have been interviewed on talk shows and others have written books. You can find this on line if you are curious.
The thing is, this whole "make the little woman think shes crazy" thing is NOT uncommon among certain religious groups.
You can find this approach among the Amish too.
Lots of splinter religions whose leaders have exploited the congregation members sexually and emotionally (while being repressed sexually themselves) by their own interpretation of scripture.
It is a dynamic unto itself.
That gimpy elder that followed you seems strangely infantile and immature. Just because he wears a suit of clothing that says "elder" means nothing. If you could see him from afar you might find that he looks very impotent from a distance.
Im so glad you are writing here. Even though we are all posting and not standing in front of you we ARE here, which means you are not alone.
We exist and we are real people and we are your friends. Most definitely.
september 21, 2016 to all congregations re: global assistance arrangement for the 2017 service year.
ps to bodies of elders:.
this postscript should not be read to the congregation, and this letter should not be placed on the noticeboard.
So I have a question regarding the Traveling Overseers fund.
Was that built in to the yearly amount after a resolution or did it come up fresh again each year?
They say they wont need a contribution to that fund this year but if it is already built in to what the congregation agreed to pay then how does that work exactly?
the 107-year relationship between the jehovah’s witnesses and brooklyn is coming to an endby terence cullen sept. 21, 2016, 9:45 a.m.for jehovah’s witnesses, brooklyn heights was until recently the equivalent of vatican city for catholics.
brooklyn—“the borough of churches”—arguably has no congregation with a more noticeable presence than the witnesses.
the watch tower bible and tract society of pennsylvania, the governing body of the jehovah’s witnesses, built its headquarters at 25-30 columbia heights, and it is there to greet any visitor driving over the brooklyn bridge.
Pete Zahut
The comment about "having our heads held high" smacks of martyrdom and makes it sound as if they thought they were the local Pariahs there in Brooklyn. In actuality, they were the ones who excluded themselves and rejected the community with the scathing articles published in their literature
That part of his statement jumped out at me. It sounded extra defensive.
my mother's parents, my grandparents were not jw.
my jw mother had medical power of attorney and her husband (never jw) was secondary on that.
when grandma needed blood, mom let her husband sign off.
I like your approach and thought process on this OTWO.
Being a person who can make the tough calls in the moment is a valuable trait to have. Your whole family seems to turn to you in medical matters of trust.
Your mom sounds like a lot of witnesses that will defer to others when they can (myself included a few years back included).
well, hell!.
i had dizzy spells and near-fainting and nausea for a few days, so why wouldn't i start thinking about death, ya know?.
am i just very lax in my responsibilities in having no plans at all?isn't that irresponsible?
bikerchic
Imagine if you can a service at the kingdom hall with an Apostate (me) greeting the "friends" as they came in! And then imagine if you can, several of these elder's and their wives enjoying a meal with me (and my df'ed son) at a local restaurant! Awe.......maybe I shouldn't have? I can't help but think Mom would have been pleased, she loved the restaurant, Mexican food was her favorite!
Did they really go out to eat with you and your son?
I am stunned.
I also think that speaks well of how you handled yourself over the 4 years before your mom died.
They must think well of you in spite of being told not to by headquarters.
