this is an honest question on my part.
someone on this board asked me 'how do you know' a while ago and i really struggled with it.
in fact, it was a turning point for me.
I am a believer in the existence of God, at least for now.
However it continues to boggle my mind, why God wouldn't make it apparent that he exists, and also why he, seeing the religious confusion today in the world regarding different beliefs, wouldn't clearly state in present time exactly what he wants and how he wants it. It would clarify things once and for all, instead of leaving us to our own confused minds.
every year i attend, missing only 5 in 50 years.. i do not attend meetings nor active in anyway, my family shun me,(all devote believers) but i do feel drawn to attend each year.
i am out for sure, but i no longer have faith, or a belief in any religous body as being approved by god.. i am so screwed up now i not sure if i believe in a creator!, let alone who or what that may be.. i was born into the truth, married into the truth and my ex is devote.. i could never return to the cult now seeing it for what it is.. i served, donated, slaved for years happy to do so as has all my family.. i went out of my way to get df, sort of a wanting to die act, of rejecting the society.. i used to sit in a movie in my youth and think, wow i am so lucky, all these people are going to die and i will live forever.. even just typing this gives release to my emotions,, lol,,, yea i have many emotions,,, many regrets, basically the organisation i followed and the instructions destroyed my life in every possible way.. the power plays that i witnessed within are what first woke me up,,,at first i let it go, forgiving those involved as brothers do.
but again and again power and position is and was the thing to have, you got the power you got everything.
I find myself going as well every year, but not out of my own volition. Every year i tell myself that it's silly to attend it, and that absolutely i can do my own private celebration if i want to. Then usually a few days prior to the date i start getting calls from friends who are still dubbs inviting me to go, followed by a nice dinner afterwards.
I end up going, mostly because i want to see them and have dinner with them. I spend most of the actual memorial meeting rolling my eyes at most of the stuff that is said, then happily leave with the friends for dinner.
Nobody has invited me yet, so perhaps i won't go this year.
an asleep dubb sent this youtube to me today, an abc report on how protestantism is down and the jws are up more than any other christian group, 4.4%:.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnvgjeq2ttc.
made me sick to my stomach.... .
Someone already said it here, but the reason for this, is due to JWs having such a small number of members. This means that even though they have fewer converts than anybody else, because the overall number is low the percentage of the increase is still higher.
Also keep in mind that this is publishers, which include many kids and others who are not baptized and potentially might never become members.
as referred to in this thread, ray franz's book crisis of conscience, arguably the most important book for ex jws to read - has been out of print for months but is available from amazon at $100+.. internet explorer, probably the most commonly used internet browser - is not compatible with this website.. most young jws probably access the internet via a smartphone but good luck trying to post to this website on one.. .
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I also have noticed how scarce these books have become, making them extremely expensive, which does not help the cause of many us who wish to open the eyes of practicing dubbs. The "Gentile times reconsidered" is up to $65 on Amazon - truly ridiculous price.
I personally have PDF's of all of these books, but i'll agree that it's not right to share these for free and rob the reward from the people who took so much time writing these pieces.
Regarding Ray, it is true that he never really separated himself totally from the org, especially on an emotional level, and even regarding some of the positions that has Watchtower has on other denominations. He was a good man, who loved the brotherhood, and really wanted to make it work as opposed to separating himself from it.
so i've been reading the bible, (for the fist time ever and i was a born in) i stopped going iilike 3 years ago and i wanted to have a good understanding of the bible and not just the wt.
but holy crap that's some 18rated stuff!
i mean i'm still in genesis and it's all vengeance this, condemn that and genocide everything else!
I have to say that i'm not at this point yet. I still believe in the bible, or most of it.
But this is where i am at this point, maybe after some more research i'll drop that as well. Most of the things i don't believe are in the old testament like Adam and Eve, the great flood and others.
However i find the new testament more believable and in line with the idea i have of God and how he would expect humans to live. I'm still not confortable with assuming that since some of the stories in the Hebrew scriptures are bogus, the entire book must be as well.
I will continue my research and i would really like to find some reading material that reveals evidence that the entire bible is bogus including the greek scripts, just so that i can consider both sides of the argument.
so some of my jw friends can't answer a lot of the questions i put to them.
invariably they end up with the comback line of "this good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.
" and state that jws are the only ones doing the preaching.. i suspect most jws who've left have come across this.
The China , India and Pakistan is a good argument. They hold around half of the worlds population so if we go by the rationale that the JW truth has to be preached to everybody, then we are years and years away.
Also point out to them that the reason why they are able to convert anybody with their preaching ( and they are few), is because someone came before them and preached the gospel - converting the entire western hemisphere to christianity. They are just going behind those christian pioneers and giving a different angle on the gospel.
Their preaching work is ineffective, and even the majority of JWs were converted due to informal witness. This type of dragnet type of preaching also has no biblical precence.
Most importantly, the preaching work is really the basis for WT revenue and this is why a huge emphasis is placed on it, despite being unproductive. The fact is that whether JWs are able to make converts or not, the revenue is still there, because publishers pay for the Washtowel Ragazines. This is why the GB has been always so much against using the new techologies to spread the message.
I remember that at some point the Canadian branch was involved in producing movies to spread the message of the JWs beliefs and they were told to stop doing that by the GB, because they wanted to make sure that those type of activites didn't take away from preaching - it didnt' seem to matter which was more effective.
forget about witness kids.
ignore the concerns of 'old-timers' (well, the society pretty much has, anyway).
my question is: how can the governing body endure it all?.
I think this decline some of us sometimes predict and even secretly (or not) wish, is not going to happen. At least not in an abrupt way.
I'm convinced that most of us will pass while the watchtower will still be here - maybe we a few less people (maybe more) and a few more embarassing skeletons in the closet, but they will be here.
The fact is that the type of people who make the brotherhood will always exist. There will always be a section of the population which perhaps because they are not bright, or because they are gullible, or uneducated, or maybe because they are desperate and see the paradise bliss as the way out, will continue to believe in this facacta religion. And this is the issue, the people. The same way there will always be men and women who despite being cheated on continuously always forgive and forget, because they are too weak , too dumb, or unwilling to perhaps assert themselves.
The best we can do is to keep exposing and alerting people to the "real" truth, so that they are empowered to make decisions.
i know some who truly believed they were "gifts in men".
they needed their approval and wanted to be well spoken of by them.. i know some who can't stand elders and regard them as pests, always looking for some dirt on somebody.. i know some who liked maybe one or two but regarded the majority as unqualified.. how did you view the elders??
?.
Most of the ones i met were good people in the various congos i was in. They were good men who were restricted in their goodness by organizational policies.
There was one in the last congregation i was in, who was a real @ssh0le. I remember as i began to drift away, and going to meetings less and less he would make a big public condescending display of displease, calling me a "tourist" with a smile on his face. What a jerk!!!
happiest people in the world?
consider my own family.
i have jw relatives who gave up everything, moved to where the need was greater and they have never been happy.. they've been constantly in poor health, suffered with depression and had feuds within their own jw family.
Yeah i know plenty of Dubs who don't care much about trying to enjoy life, but instead sit and wait for the big A to come and solve all of their problems. They pray and pray for Jehovah to bring the big A to all the evil people who have christmans dinners and share a turkey during thanksgiving and send their kids to college in order to have a better life.
What a shock it must be when you get to the twilight of your life and you realize you just spent an entire lifetime preparing and sacrificing for something that never came afterall....
i recall a jw telling me that.... "they" meaning scientists, had done study's on lions in zoo's and discovered that if they gave lions straw and grass to eat that the lions became very passive and no longer showed predator behavior??
now they never explained who "they" were, or were these "study's" had been done or why based on these study's lions are not now fed grass etc
has anyone else heard this for real?
It's also very interesting how God built Lions and Tigers with body, claws, fangs and temperament, to be agile killers.
I'm sure once he finished creating such marvels of meat eating, he told them " Go now, and munch on those fine dandelions" ;)
