Posts by Mum

23

Reason

by dissonance_resolved in

so as someone newly awakened, my thoughts have turned to "why didn't i see this sooner?

how could i be so blind?

" part of it is that i never realized anyone may have left due to differences with the doctrine.

Years ago, I read Barbara Grizzuti Harrison's book, Visions of Glory: A History and a Memory of the Jehovah's Witnesses. She makes the point in the book that most witnesses do not consciously decide to exit. Most of them feel pushed out. Many of the people on this board, I am sure, are in this category, myself for one.

Put yourself first. Concern yourself less with how your actions affect others, as you're not harming anyone, and concentrate on building a good, happy fulfilling life for yourself.

Best wishes!

17

shunning wrecks families

by bigmac in

jw
friends

thread started to avoid going off topic elsewhere.. this matter of shunning---my story.. i made the decision to resign from the jw religion in my early twenties--i'm 65 now.

i knew i would never deny any of mine a blood transfusion--just to appease this religion --and its deity.. my jw wife had just had our first child--a girl---and we went on over the next 7 years to have 2 more planned for kids---both boys.

i like to think i was a good dad--they meant everything to me.. i hold up my hand and admit i caused the break up of that marriage---my wife stayed in the religion--and--apparently it was announced in the kh i couldnt be d/f'd---as i hadnt been a jw for years---so they said i was an apostate.. fast forward a few years--into the mid 80's---i had remarried--and led a relatively normal life.

Mum

The real victims in this story are your grandchildren who do not even get to choose whether they see their grandfather or not. That is child abuse, plain and simple.

My grandparents meant the world to me, so I feel such sorrow for your grandchildren - and for you.

44

Is this true? Do the elders really do it like this?

by Julia Orwell in

jw
friends

i put this week's wt paragraph about disfellowshipping on my fb page and said how poor robert's family didn't even check to see whether he was dead or alive in 16 years and a friend of mine of the 'conscious class' commented about how unchristian she felt disfellowshipping to this degree is, and i agreed.. another friend, and uber-jw who has a host of illnesses and yet pioneers, who everytime she and her husband go to another congregation, if he's not appointed within three years they move to another and try for an appointment there - he used to be an elder and no one is willing to promote him again- replied to my thread.

now keep in mind she has a dfd son and she doesn't even know whether he is dead or alive, because she follows the wt to the tee.

she replied, among other things,with this:.

Mum

Surely we all know that disfellowshipping is a very subjective process. Each case is handled in accordance with the whims of the elders involved. A former poster on this board called Cygnus (if I recall correctly) was inactive. He had lunch with a DF'd person, and the elders basically hunted him down to disfellowship him for having lunch with somebody he knew as a friend.

Just for the sake of argument, let's say that people who are disfellowshipped actually are DF'd for conduct or behavior that is reprehensible. They may have chosen the behavior, but they did not choose to be shunned and treated worse than the criminals on Death Row. They did not choose to lose their parents, siblings and extended family.

It's a crap shoot, plain and simple. The DF'd ones pay a terrible price for getting on the wrong side of the men in power.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

30

Could this be accurate?

by NeverKnew in

jw
friends

is the information on this webpage* regarding the socioeconomic conditions of jws a fair connection to the all too familiar wts quote of 1969?

does the report's statistics appear to be plausible given your personal observations?

*even though many others have copied and pasted the article (including the individual who created the page hyperlinked above), i'm apprehensive about doing so for copyright reasons.

Mum

1969 was an exciting year for JW's. World events were playing into our fantasies. I was 21 years old and stupid as the rest of them. I got married that year. Fortunately, my JW elder high school-dropout husband had a skilled trade and was much better off than most of the others in our congregation.

When 1975 came and went, I had a nervous breakdown or something like that. I'm not a mental health professional. All I know is that I almost wrecked the car several times, succeeded at it once, cried constantly, was an insomniac, and finally turned catatonic. I decided that I had to prepare for life "just in case" I might grow old in this system of things. My husband took everything personally. I got money from family members to go back to school (college) part-time. Of course, I was looked upon with suspicion and derided by elders.

So I left my relatively comfortable life and moved to the other end of the country. My JW husband divorced me and pressured me to "confess to adultery" so that he could remarry. There was no concern evident for my "spiritual well-being." I almost caved to get him off my back, but I didn't, as there was no reason to.

Eventually, I remarried, and my second husband helped me finish college.

I am so thankful that I was young enough to start over. So many weren't.

15

Argh! Fading on hold?

by Gypsy Sam in

jw
friends

i think i picked a bad time to fade so fast.

suggestions?

all this happened in 48 hours.. a. had a message today looking for our time, since november.

Mum

I agree that there is no need to split hairs about reporting time. You had Bible discussions with people, and that counts if you're a JW.

You're stressing yourself. Whatever pressure outsiders put on you does not have to be accepted by you. Take charge.

Be cautious about what you say to others. This is not the time to raise any red flags. Each person has to find TTATT in their own way. You are not responsible for them.

Jam today! (My version of "carpe diem")

17

Does The Governing Body Fear Worldwide Exposure Of Their Delusional Bible Interpetations?

by frankiespeakin in

i think in the deeper recesses of their minds they know that soon they will be loosing this battle and that some video on youtube will go viral bringing them shame and exposure.. the way i see it, this battle is just starting and is going to get much worse in the future, they are multiplying the number of people willing to expose them by their cruel practice of disfellowshipping used as a form of information control.. people who are waking up to the governing body's deceptions are growing in numbers all the time, and what starts out as a trickle of people leaving can become a flood in time which seems very likely.

as the numbers become greater and greater the more worried they should be, and this is seen in their more merciless treatment of those who no longer beleive their crap, they are willing to do what ever it takes to keep the rank and file in darkness and under their control.

it all spells desparation to me.. .

Mum

There's no shortage of information available if people wish to avail themselves of it. If the GB were smart, they might consider going mainline, as did the Worldwide Church of God.

At an assembly in the late '70's, I remember a talk in which the speaker was saying something like, "What if the JW's became 'just another religion'?" The idea was that many might just go join another religion. Is that what they fear about just dropping the BS and being regular Christians?

The fact that there has been an episode of Dateline about the child sexual molestation scandal should open some eyes. To most people, however, JW's are barely a blip on the radar screen.

29

Post cataract surgery Great News!

by Lady Lee in

jw
friends

my vision before the surgery was 20/60 in the eye that has had the surgery.

i saw my eye dr today and it has moved up to 20/30.

this is way beyond what i expected.

Mum

Modern medicine is many miracles. I'm glad you get to be one of them.

14

Lincoln

by slimboyfat in

i saw a movie about this guy, it won awards.

he was a bit like jesus huh?

lincoln, so i gather from this film.

Mum

When I was a child, I lived in Kentucky, Lincoln's birth state. We got a school holiday on his birthday. I noticed that during the Civil Rights movement in the '60's, Lincoln's status dropped somewhat. He was seen as more of "just a politician" than the hero I grew up hearing about. I do think he was a good man and certainly one of the most intellectual of all of the presidents.

When he was a child, he would amuse the other children after church by standing on a stump and parodying the sermon. He was determined to be educated and to make a contribution. He's the kind of person we all need to learn from. He could be amusing, serious, charming, or whatever the occasion called for.

For a time during the Civil War, his wife's sister (I believe that's the right relative) lived in the White House with the Lincolns. One of the nieces was sitting in Lincoln's lap and told him that Jefferson Davis was the "real" President of the United States. His response, "Well, then, to you, I'll just be your Uncle Lincoln." He was no stranger to humility either.

21

TTATT Billboards?

by Emery in

has anyone ever thought about paying for a billboard close to either an assembly hall or a kingdom hall during memorial season?

for instance i would probably pay for a billboard for a week or 2 displaying jwfacts.com on the highway or a nearby road that witnesses travel on heavily.

has anyone ever tried something like this?.

Mum

It has been at least 10 years since someone (on another forum, I believe) posted a photo of a billboard from the UK. It showed a man holding a beer, and it said something like, "Sorry, Mormons, I'm with the Witnesses now."

Do any of our posters in the UK remember this billboard? Could any of you post a picture of it?

I had a friend in Reno who had an attorney who was not doing right by her, IMHO. When I told her that, she said "He's got a billboard! He must be doing something right!" Until then, I did not realize that there are people who don't understand that anyone can have a billboard if they pay for it.

37

Circuit Oversears treated like gods...did this happen in your Hall!!!

by Witness 007 in

brothers would full on laugh at the c.o's lame jokes.

fight over who gets him for dinner where no expense would be speared..."oh they dont eat flour, sugars or milk products...".

Mum

One of my non-JW relatives noticed the way everybody perked up when the CO was around. She said something to the effect that "They say nobody gets special treatment, and they don't have a special clergy class, but I notice everybody snaps into high gear and gets very servile when that Circuit Servant comes around."