Posts by Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

30

Why is the approval of family so important?

by jwfacts in

one of the reasons people remain pimo is fear of losing family.

those that are disfellowshipped and shunned regularly comment about how devastated that they have lost the approval of their parents.. when i respond to emails from people saying how difficult it is being estranged or looked down on by their parents, i would like to say that over time they will come to terms with it, except i not sure that people ever do.

i cannot shake that feeling either.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

Thank you, jp1692. Once again, well put.

May I ask, do a lot of the ex-Witnesses you encounter seem to be genuine, sincere people with big hearts? Charismatic? Thoughtful? Hungry for knowledge? Sensitive? Humorous?

I have this sneaking suspicion that the ones who never make the cut as Witnesses are a mixture of all of the above - traits that could never flourish in the Witness community. Characteristics that betrayed the individual's sense of conformity to the stringent mold WT has everyone conform to. Forward-thinkers with compassion and a desire to genuinely learn more, such as Raymond Franz, were quickly rooted out and ostracized for being just so.

It almost appears to me that to be a Witness, one must be academically dishonest, disloyal to their natural instincts when it comes to love and mercy, unmotivated to do any research for themselves, easily offended by outside stimuli, judgmental toward others and callous to the plight of those in emotional turmoil around them.

I'm making a sweeping generalization here, but I would love to hear you weigh in on this based on your experience.

30

Why is the approval of family so important?

by jwfacts in

one of the reasons people remain pimo is fear of losing family.

those that are disfellowshipped and shunned regularly comment about how devastated that they have lost the approval of their parents.. when i respond to emails from people saying how difficult it is being estranged or looked down on by their parents, i would like to say that over time they will come to terms with it, except i not sure that people ever do.

i cannot shake that feeling either.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

@pbrow That is some quantum sh*t right there. Damn! I actually cried two days ago to my father and asked how he could have brought me up as a Witness. Having been born in the 1930s and a Witness since the 50s - and an elder since the 60s - he was alive well into the "Great Apostasy" with Raymond Franz. Surely he had avenues to explore for himself what the truth about the truth was? And yet he turned a blind eye. I swore to him up and down that because of the knowledge I now have about the WTBTS, I simply do not have the RIGHT to indoctrinate my toddler into this group. That would be disingenuous and utterly cruel to tamper with my child's mental faculties in this way.

30

Why is the approval of family so important?

by jwfacts in

one of the reasons people remain pimo is fear of losing family.

those that are disfellowshipped and shunned regularly comment about how devastated that they have lost the approval of their parents.. when i respond to emails from people saying how difficult it is being estranged or looked down on by their parents, i would like to say that over time they will come to terms with it, except i not sure that people ever do.

i cannot shake that feeling either.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

What does PIMO stand for? I keep seeing it pop up on discussion threads... Prisoner In My Opinion? I can't work it out.

30

Why is the approval of family so important?

by jwfacts in

one of the reasons people remain pimo is fear of losing family.

those that are disfellowshipped and shunned regularly comment about how devastated that they have lost the approval of their parents.. when i respond to emails from people saying how difficult it is being estranged or looked down on by their parents, i would like to say that over time they will come to terms with it, except i not sure that people ever do.

i cannot shake that feeling either.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

@jwfacts: "...have not lost our humanity." Nor our minds. WT currently has my parents' brains in a large mason jar under the bathroom sink at Warwick.

30

Why is the approval of family so important?

by jwfacts in

one of the reasons people remain pimo is fear of losing family.

those that are disfellowshipped and shunned regularly comment about how devastated that they have lost the approval of their parents.. when i respond to emails from people saying how difficult it is being estranged or looked down on by their parents, i would like to say that over time they will come to terms with it, except i not sure that people ever do.

i cannot shake that feeling either.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

I'm 26 years old with a child of my own, yet I deeply crave acceptance from my parents. It's my downfall. I guess we could look at our own offspring. Could they seamlessly shrug our love off when they're older and still be considered healthy, well-rounded individuals? Contrast it with the folks who shrug off OUR love for no longer wanting to be a Witness. Do THEY appear to be well-rounded people?

Craving the love and approval of our parents seems natural to me when I think of it like this: when a stranger walks past me on the street and screams some random profanity at me, I shrug it off and keep walking. Why? Because they don't know me. They don't know who I am and what I stand for. Their opinion is therefore obsolete. But when the people who gave you life, who know exactly who you are and have had a lifetime to make an informed decision of you then REJECT you, deeming you unworthy of love, let alone contact... well. That really smarts.

Perhaps from a Darwinian perspective, we could examine things in this way: being rejected by the very ones who propagated their genes to give birth to you could result in death. This may resonate more strongly with younger Witnesses whose parents shun them. But for older Witnesses who still yearn for their parents to accept and love them, we could think about how natural selection works. Standing out and not going along with the crowd is usually what kills you in more primitive species. It's going along with the crowd of your kind that heightens your chance for survival in the animal kingdom. As ex-Witnesses, we're standing out from the crowd we knew and accepted as our only "sort" growing up. Perhaps we're hard-wired by biology to experience this apprehension to being rejected (and subsequently standing out) because it signals a very real threat to our survival.

I'm purely extrapolating here, but there might be some science to it!

46

Complete this sentence with only one word: THE TIME REMAINING IS...

by steve2 in

the time remaining is... elastic.. .

stash: /intesoft-inc.appspot.com/post/f0315d7a1cdf4d6498064881689ea032.html

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

@freddo: "Overlapping" FKN LOOOOLLLLLLLLL. This made my day.

46

Complete this sentence with only one word: THE TIME REMAINING IS...

by steve2 in

the time remaining is... elastic.. .

stash: /intesoft-inc.appspot.com/post/f0315d7a1cdf4d6498064881689ea032.html

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

The time remaining is until the sun runs out of hydrogen and helium, successfully destroying our planet and all life forms on it (which won't remotely resemble humans as we know them today).

Oh, I'm sorry. The sun will stand 'til "time indefinite" according to ancient Hebrew cosmology. It also "hurries back to the place where it rises again" (Ecclesiastes 1:5).

29

The bizarreness of Genesis 6:2

by doubtfull1799 in

"the sons of the true god began to notice that the daughters of men were beautiful.

so they began taking as wives all whom they chose.".

it may be feasible to some to accept the bible's assertion that the first humans were tempted to pursue independence from god, especially since they were created in his image and he is independent from any authority.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

Good point, @EverApostate! Punishment is swift and quick for mere mortals. But the divine, supernatural ones responsible for our fall get away with so much.

Reminds me of the WT hierarchy: punish and stamp out rogue members, protect the "divine" GB when they commit far more heinous atrocities.

29

The bizarreness of Genesis 6:2

by doubtfull1799 in

"the sons of the true god began to notice that the daughters of men were beautiful.

so they began taking as wives all whom they chose.".

it may be feasible to some to accept the bible's assertion that the first humans were tempted to pursue independence from god, especially since they were created in his image and he is independent from any authority.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

My JW mother always tries to delegate her intellectual responsibility for understanding the Bible and the society over to my wise old JW father by saying, "do you think your father is stupid? Do you think your father was born yesterday? Look how smart your father is and HE is a Witness!"

I feel like rephrasing her statement to "DESPITE how smart your father is, he is a Witness." But she'd probably need my Dad to explain that sentence to her.

29

The bizarreness of Genesis 6:2

by doubtfull1799 in

"the sons of the true god began to notice that the daughters of men were beautiful.

so they began taking as wives all whom they chose.".

it may be feasible to some to accept the bible's assertion that the first humans were tempted to pursue independence from god, especially since they were created in his image and he is independent from any authority.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

@Sanchy and @stuckinarut2: the whole thing comes crumbling down when you start thinking outside of the blinders WT puts on us. I had so many face palm moments when I woke up and realized how conditioned I had been to not even think logically over basic biblical texts. Yet, the whole time I was indoctrinated, I was CONVINCED we had logical and sound reasoning. Upon closer examination, I realize what a certified lunatic I was for buying into such faulty defenses for the Pentateuch.