ps: Disillusioned Lost Lamb - can I ask - why are you here, but still 'in'. Family?? Just curious, that's all... Do you go to meetings regularly and everything..??
Posts by Bells
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6So... what's being studied at the moment...???
by Bells ini'm not the most proficient user of computers, so excuse my ignorance - though does anyone know of any websites (the non-complicated ones - you know, no downloading special software etc.
- yes, i'm that hopeless) that explain what is the 'hot topic' week to week and month to month.. i'm interested in knowing what agenda is being pushed at a particular time, especially in regards to conventions and that sort of thing.
i find the witnesses that i have to associate tend to be more or less opinionated on certain things depending on what the wt is telling them to think at any one time.. if i am able to understand what they are being told, i think it will help me to avoid getting involved in certain conversations and therefore 'keep the peace'.. does such a site exist?
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6
So... what's being studied at the moment...???
by Bells ini'm not the most proficient user of computers, so excuse my ignorance - though does anyone know of any websites (the non-complicated ones - you know, no downloading special software etc.
- yes, i'm that hopeless) that explain what is the 'hot topic' week to week and month to month.. i'm interested in knowing what agenda is being pushed at a particular time, especially in regards to conventions and that sort of thing.
i find the witnesses that i have to associate tend to be more or less opinionated on certain things depending on what the wt is telling them to think at any one time.. if i am able to understand what they are being told, i think it will help me to avoid getting involved in certain conversations and therefore 'keep the peace'.. does such a site exist?
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Bells
mmmmm thanks for the heads up. I can be on the lookout for any friendly loving visits! :)
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Has anybody given any thought for Calebs freind ?
by smiddy inafter all, this unidentified freind of caleb gives him a toy, which calebs mom finds objectionable , shouldn`t she just have said to caleb ,give it back to your freind ?
and not dump it in the trash can ?
what sort of a message does that send to caleb (or any other children who watch this video ) calebs mom should have acknowledged that his freind gave him a present, and it should be appreciated , not to disrespectfully throw it away in the trash can with no thought to the giver of the present.. smiddy.
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Bells
This is so true.
This happened to me once and I was pi**ed!!!! I gave a guy (who wasn't a Witness at the time) a Tool cd - he loved it. Until he got back into the cult that is and then in a show of fait to Jehovah - he smashed said Tool cd. Worst thing is - he told me about it like I would be stoked for him! I was so mad - I wish I'd said something to him, but was too worried about not respecting his beliefs!! WTF!?
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Why do I even care!?
by Bells infor those of you who dont know my story here it is in a nutshell: im not a witness and never have been.
in fact i barely knew anything about witnesses (other than they come and knock on your door when youre trying to have a sleep in!
) until i met - and fell in love with - a boy at school who happened to be a witness.
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Bells
haha I know, I hate to admit it, but I am a bit obsessed at times. Nothing to do with them being an exclusive club that I'm not involved in though - trust me on that one!!! I think it's mainly just that I am treated a certain way because I'm not part of their club - and nor do I wish to join - ever!!!
Maybe the only way is for me to start my own special exclusive club 'people who are angry or upset because they have been treated so horribly by so many Witnesses but are forced to have to associate with them because they are family' - or something ;)
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So... what's being studied at the moment...???
by Bells ini'm not the most proficient user of computers, so excuse my ignorance - though does anyone know of any websites (the non-complicated ones - you know, no downloading special software etc.
- yes, i'm that hopeless) that explain what is the 'hot topic' week to week and month to month.. i'm interested in knowing what agenda is being pushed at a particular time, especially in regards to conventions and that sort of thing.
i find the witnesses that i have to associate tend to be more or less opinionated on certain things depending on what the wt is telling them to think at any one time.. if i am able to understand what they are being told, i think it will help me to avoid getting involved in certain conversations and therefore 'keep the peace'.. does such a site exist?
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Bells
Hi all,
I'm not the most proficient user of computers, so excuse my ignorance - though does anyone know of any websites (the non-complicated ones - you know, no downloading special software etc. - yes, I'm that hopeless) that explain what is the 'hot topic' week to week and month to month.
I'm interested in knowing what agenda is being pushed at a particular time, especially in regards to conventions and that sort of thing. I find the Witnesses that I have to associate tend to be more or less opinionated on certain things depending on what the WT is telling them to think at any one time.
If I am able to understand what they are being told, I think it will help me to avoid getting involved in certain conversations and therefore 'keep the peace'.
Does such a site exist? If not - anyone still 'in' know what the big message is at the moment :)
Thank you friends! :)
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13
Why do I even care!?
by Bells infor those of you who dont know my story here it is in a nutshell: im not a witness and never have been.
in fact i barely knew anything about witnesses (other than they come and knock on your door when youre trying to have a sleep in!
) until i met - and fell in love with - a boy at school who happened to be a witness.
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Bells
Thanks everyone. So nice to hear some thoughts and opinions from people other than my mates (who think the whole thing is so bat-shit crazy that I should just ignore it altogether and why am I still even talking about it!?) and my fiance' (who I can actually understand being sick to death of hearing about it from me!).
Firstly - I am confident that he won't return to the 'truth'. Although I've always thought it was a bit mad - when he was trying to decide whether he wanted to stay a witness or not, although I wanted to shout to him to 'run! it's all crap!' I was really careful to keep quiet and influence him as little as possible - I knew that otherwise I would always be wondering if he'd turn back to it. He left because #1 He didn't believe, and #2 he hated being told what to do by 'authorities' that he niether liked nor respected.
He probably falls under the group of people who leave and 'don't make much fuss or have that much emotion about it' - or if he does, he doesn't talk about it. That does fit in with his charachter, and admittedly he didn't go crazy or rebel like a lot of young guys do and he still has a really good relationship with his 'in' family (I suppose the fact that he wasn't baptised is a blessing to all of them)
Ding: the bit about the temperaments - totally true, we are pretty much chalk and cheese when it comes to temperaments, I suppose you could say I'm the more, um 'passionate' one (that's definitely talking about myself in the most positive light possible hehe)
He's pretty much a Peace Keeper - if I hear someone say something that I think is offensive towards me, he will tell me 'that's not what they meant'. He's getting much better at taking my side and is starting to stick up for me, but for a while it just felt like I was boiling away by myself in the corner :)
A lot you guys here must have some good advice on how to just ignore the religious parts of 'still in' family though? I know I have to just ignore them - I understand that at an intellectual level - unfortunately, I struggle with it on an emotional level... I guess if I had ever been in I might have left with a big fuss and a lot of emotion ;)
Thing is, I think it’s easier with your own family rather than in-law’s – you can be a lot more honest with real family and they will usually forgive you – if not understand you…
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13
Why do I even care!?
by Bells infor those of you who dont know my story here it is in a nutshell: im not a witness and never have been.
in fact i barely knew anything about witnesses (other than they come and knock on your door when youre trying to have a sleep in!
) until i met - and fell in love with - a boy at school who happened to be a witness.
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Bells
For those of you who don’t know my story – here it is in a nutshell: I’m not a Witness and never have been. In fact I barely knew anything about Witnesses (other than they come and knock on your door when you’re trying to have a sleep in!) until I met - and fell in love with - a boy at school who happened to be a witness. He wasn’t baptised, though was a ‘born in’ witness.
Fast forward 10 years or so, that boy is now my fiancé and so obviously is no longer a Witness in any way (his choice by the way, I tried to stay out of the decision making process as much as possible with that one). Luckily, he was never baptised, so there was never any of that shunning element or anything, though to say it’s still been difficult would be an understatement. Over the past 10 years, I’ve been ostracised, belittled, criticised and pretty much blamed for anything and everything that my in-laws don’t appreciate about my fiancé.
In the beginning, I was really open to their religion and although I knew it wasn’t for me, I was very much ‘each to their own’ and never really thought too much about it. However as time went on and I was treated pretty badly by several Witnesses on several different occasions, I began to resent the whole religion and started looking into it for myself. I stumbled across (no pun intended) this website among others and was able to look at so much information and literature from old Watchtower and Awake magazines. This is where I found out about so many appalling things that had been published – black people should be happy slaves, if you don’t scream when raped – it means you might have enjoyed it and are therefore guilty of fornication, vaccinations and organ transplants are ‘disfellowship-able’ offences etc. etc.
A lot of this stuff made me really angry, I think because I thought ‘you look down on me and treat me lie crap, yet you are willing to follow an organisation who have quite clearly lied and flip flopped on their own teachings!?’
I’d often share my findings with my fiancé and although he has a very similar opinion about the Watchtower and the Witnesses as me, he is a lot less passionate than me about it.
I don’t really understand why it upset’s me a bit that he (fiancé) doesn’t feel more anger towards the organisation and it’s people – after all he was more affected by it than me – it was his whole childhood and he knows it was all a lie!
I get it that his family are still all ‘in’ and so he doesn’t want to start slagging the org off or anything, as they won’t want to hear it, but how can he just seem to not care at all that his family are involved in what is quite clearly a destructive cult?
The thing is though – and I ask myself this often and cannot answer it – why do I care so much? Why can’t I just let it go? Why do I visit these websites and feel justified in some way each time I read further proof that they are not really God’s people? Sometimes I think I even get a bit obsessive about it, then I’ll move on, but then at the next family gathering another comment will be made at me and I’ll be back straight to researching (i.e. obsessing) about it again.
Has anyone been in this situation and felt like this? My fiancé asks me too why I give a toss (when I let him know about the latest scandal I’ve found out about) and I can’t actually answer him. I know I’m angry about how I’ve been treated, but is that it?
Anyway – really interested to hear your thoughts and opinions !
Thanks :)
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Bells
Thank you Talesin - I thought I was going mad!!!! Have now downloaded Chrome :)
I will try again:
So, there are many things that the witnesses believe in that absolutely baffles me, however, the whole human-ish fossil thing is probably number 1.
On the front page of last weeks Sydney morning Herald Newspaper was this: http://www.smh.com.au/world/science/lost-for-11500-years--another-part-of-the-family-20120314-1v3r7.html
If you can't be bothered to read the article - it is basically about a skeleton found that they date back to around 11 500 years ago, which is not quite the same shame as humans today, but closer to human than any other species.
Ok, I get that the Witnesses don't trust carbon dating 100% - though even so - how many different human-ish remains can be found that are said to be older than 7000 years before you have to stop and think that maybe the whole Genesis thing isn’t totally right? And where do these not-quite-animal-not-quite-human fossils fit in anyway? Adam and Ever were created as whole, proper ‘modern day humans’ – weren’t they?
Anyway, the point of this thread is not to make the point that they are idiots for believing what they believe - each to their own and all of that - though I just want to know what their response to the whole cave man thing is? In particularly in regards to the many actual remains. I am really curious - I would ask my in-laws, but don't want to 'start something'. If I was to ask them though, what would be their response? I'm guessing there is one across the board? How do they continue to say that creation is absolute fact and humans have only been on the each for 7000 or so years...???
If you are or were a Witness - did anyone ever ask you this? What was your response..??
Thanks
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