Thank you for the links to those threads
take me higher
JoinedPosts by take me higher
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93
What's The Biggest Difference In Today's JWs And The Witnesses From Decades Ago?
by minimus ini believe today's witnesses lack zeal, resolve, "love" of the "truth"......just to name a few things.. years ago, witnesses were excited to knock on doors and tell people they were gonna die if they didn't accept paradise.. now, when you see jws in service, they all look zombied out.. it's a slowly dying religion that will last probably forever like an ancient rotted out tree..
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93
What's The Biggest Difference In Today's JWs And The Witnesses From Decades Ago?
by minimus ini believe today's witnesses lack zeal, resolve, "love" of the "truth"......just to name a few things.. years ago, witnesses were excited to knock on doors and tell people they were gonna die if they didn't accept paradise.. now, when you see jws in service, they all look zombied out.. it's a slowly dying religion that will last probably forever like an ancient rotted out tree..
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take me higher
I don't know if it's been posted on here or not, but does anyone know why they stopped having bookstudies in the homes? I thought my brother said something about them trying to make it easier on people not having so many meetings per week but I can't really remember. I always thought the reason for having those small group meetings in the home was to prepare for the tribulation incase they had to meet in secret or whatever. I remember we had a bookstudy in our house when I was a teenager and I actually enjoyed it. We would have snacks and dessert after and I just liked the informal feeling about it. If I was sick or whatever I would just stay in my room during it. So just wondering the real reason why they did away with that a few yrs ago.
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93
What's The Biggest Difference In Today's JWs And The Witnesses From Decades Ago?
by minimus ini believe today's witnesses lack zeal, resolve, "love" of the "truth"......just to name a few things.. years ago, witnesses were excited to knock on doors and tell people they were gonna die if they didn't accept paradise.. now, when you see jws in service, they all look zombied out.. it's a slowly dying religion that will last probably forever like an ancient rotted out tree..
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take me higher
One of the best things I've heard was someone who said 'I wish the witnesses would put down their watchtowers and antidepressants and get happy'
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How did our parents do it?
by pbrow inhow did you bury your head in the sand when something didnt seem right but you forced this religion on your kids anyway?
i was a born in, my mother was a convert.
ill admit, before i had kids i suppressed doubts and thought "this is as close as it gets to the truth" as soon as i had kids and realized that i now had to teach this garbage to my kids w/out really believing it was enough to get me to realize the cognitive dissonance stops here.
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take me higher
Mickey mouse, I guess I'm not the only one who has thought of this. I like the terms you laid out in your letter, where they can go to the KH but not be forced if they don't want to later. And I agree about the baptism thing, too many minors get baptised too young I think because of pressure. That's a great idea though about adding a letter to the will, might have to do that.
Ding, yes it weighs heavily on my mind on who would get my 2 young sons in the event of them losing both of us, and a lot of thought should go into like you said. So even though it's on paper the courts or whatever wouldn't legally have to uphold it? My parents are closest to my boys but they are getting up in age, so we don't really think they would be able to handle it full on like that. My husband wants his best friend and wife to get them but they live out of the states (where my husband is from). So I wonder what would happen legally in a situation like that.
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How did our parents do it?
by pbrow inhow did you bury your head in the sand when something didnt seem right but you forced this religion on your kids anyway?
i was a born in, my mother was a convert.
ill admit, before i had kids i suppressed doubts and thought "this is as close as it gets to the truth" as soon as i had kids and realized that i now had to teach this garbage to my kids w/out really believing it was enough to get me to realize the cognitive dissonance stops here.
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take me higher
I am so determined to not have my sons raised as witnesses that it's crossed my mind to have something in writing incase something happened to me and my husband at the same time about them not being raised as witnesses, because I'm sure my parents would get them and sure enough they would start dragging them to meetings and not have holidays and stuff. So that's what I'm thinking about doing, actually having it put in writing, whether or not it would hold up I don't know. I love my parents and they treated me and my brother very well, but I have chosen differently for my sons.
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Doctrine or HIgh Mind Control as the Last Straw
by Band on the Run ini am curious as to whether the final gut deciding factor to leave was inappropriate doctrine or the overly intrusive control of the wt.
reading the bible normally opened my eyes.
i was born-in and never suspected that they were skewing the bible in such a ridiculous manner or misquoting secular sources.
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take me higher
Even though I faded away a long time ago, it wasn't until over the summer when I started getting on the internet to read up on things about the witnesses that made me realize how crazy it all is. And even when I started getting on those websites I was scared to death because of what I had been told about them for so long, didn't take me long to get over it though the more stuff I read. I think what really got to me was reading about Judge Rutherford and things like Beth Sarim, the man was crazy. Even though it was a long time ago doesn't really matter to me, he changed everything that Russell started with the bible students. And it seems like the witnesses today still follow the majority of his teachings. So to me it doesn't seem like they are following the word of God but word of an alcoholic depressive hateful man. Granted, I believe that most witnesses are good people with good intentions, just that they have been misguided. It's just been upsetting to find out the real history of it, and not the sugar coated version that the society puts out on dvd and the like.
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Hi stuckinlimbo, you know I should have picked that screen name cause your situation is so similar to mine. I faded away a long time ago but now that I have 2 small children, 5 yrs and 9 months old, some issues are very hard when you still have family in the organization. My parents have been in for about 35 yrs and I know they will never leave, like you said you don't know if you would even want them to at this point, I say let them hold on to their hope, now that I see my dad in his 70's it's really one of the few things he has left. And my mom is real hard core in it so I know she would never leave. Having said that, I have decided that I don't want to raise my children that way, I am married to someone who was raised Catholic but isn't a practicing Catholic, so you know how big holidays were for him growing up, therefore he wants the same for our sons. When our first son was born it was easy for a while to just let my husband get him a few things for christmas and put them under the tree, I felt the less I did I wasn't really celebrating it full on. And I'd like to add that we live on the same street as my parents just a few doors down across the street, so they (my dad especially) are over pretty regularly.
But now that he is getting older and we have another one now, I have found myself wanting to be involved more in christmas. I'm the one who told my husband to put up the tree earlier this year (we've had it up for at least a couple weeks now), I just love the lights and with shorter days now it just brings cheer to the room. Here is the thing, my parents to this day think that it is just my husband alone who celebrates the holidays. My dad made a comment the other day about my husband putting up the tree early this year, I just said 'yep'. I don't have the heart to tell him I wanted it too! I would love to just tell them that we are all celebrating christmas as a family but I just can't do it. It's funny how even though I am an adult now with my own family I'm too afraid to tell them how I really feel. Like you, my parents still give me the magazines from time to time and make comments about me going back to meetings sometimes, although it's becoming less and less cause I think they know at this point I have no interest in going.
My advice is to do whatever feels right to you regarding how to handle it with your family. Sometimes it's not all black and white, lots of shades of gray. My husband asked my dad one time if he would still talk to me if I was DF'd and my dad replied 'what do you think?' He meant that yes he would still talk to me, and I have this feeling that based on how you described your parents as being reasonable and loving, I think they would do the same. In my opinion I think most (well hope anyway) reasonable thinking witnesses would know that the shunning thing with family members is just ridiculous at this point in time. I could be wrong, but that would be my hope anyway. So just do the best you can, there's nothing wrong with wanting to get a small tradition going with your child, just something special that you guys do at this time of year, however small, it could be just baking holiday cookies or something. It's the little things that count anyway right? Best wishes to you
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Newbie: Roll Call ---- Oldies Returning: Roll Call
by cameo-d ini have noticed a lot of newbies lately.
(i also noticed that after being absent for a year happy1975 is making a return visit.).
so, if you are a brand spanking newbie, post here and tell us a little about your interests, your state, your new direction in life, your favorite things, whatever you want to say---this is your thread.. .
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take me higher
Thank you Found Sheep and flipper for the welcome. It is indeed a challenge having family that are still witnesses, I think I have been one of the fortunate ones though where they never crammed it down my throat or anything, but I still get the occassional 'you should know better than that' from my mother sometimes on issues. I have not told them how I really feel, I'm not ready to rock that boat and don't know if I ever will be. I think they know by now that I'm not interested anymore. My husband was never a witness, he supported me the few times I went to the meetings but didn't really understand why I was doing it, he said I was doing it to please my parents and now I realize he was probably right. I still have fear about the tribulation and armageddon though, guess from it being ingrained in me all those years. I'm still trying to work through that.
Thank you again for the welcome!
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Newbie: Roll Call ---- Oldies Returning: Roll Call
by cameo-d ini have noticed a lot of newbies lately.
(i also noticed that after being absent for a year happy1975 is making a return visit.).
so, if you are a brand spanking newbie, post here and tell us a little about your interests, your state, your new direction in life, your favorite things, whatever you want to say---this is your thread.. .
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take me higher
Hi everyone, another newbie here. I was raised a witness, my parents got baptized when I was 3. I got baptized when I was 17 cause I felt it was the thing to do, like something is wrong with you if you don't get baptized by the time you're 18. I faded away over the years, never DF'd (although I should have been at times hehe). I'm 38 now married to a wonderful husband and have 2 beautiful young boys. My parents have always tried to get me to go back to the meetings but never in a pushy way thankfully, but one day over this past summer when I was giving my dad a ride to the district convention he said 'I wish you would become a witness again'. So I guess something inside of me just went off. After I dropped him off at the assembly I went home and started to get on the internet and start researching the witnesses history and reading a lot of other experiences from ex-witnesses. It's been a real eye opener to say the least. It has really helped me to get over a lot of the guilt I had about not going anymore. And now I definately know I don't want to be raising my sons that way. So it's been great reading the posts here, it took me a while to finally decide to get on here.
I do seem to be having trouble trying to get into my acct settings to change my picture and stuff, I don't see anywhere to go to do that. Am I missing it?
Thank you!