i was an elder until march 2012 until i resigned.
i then stopped going to meetings in october 2012 and have enjoyed 9 months of freedom that i have found to be jouful!
i loved learning ttatt and sites like this and jwfacts.com have been excellent.. i told the elders that i needed a break and that they should not contact me unless it was a social visit and true to their word they have done that.
Your facts and logics are undsiputable.
But...those elders will just ignore it. They are are trained to ignore such questions. Maybe they will talk about new and brighter light. They will just ask you if you believe that the GB are gods channel of communication. If you are doubtful about that you will get a foot in your ...you know what.
Hundreds of people have tried this...it will not work. It will only activate the "Apostate Alarm Bells" among the elders.
i don't know why but that song just gets me shaking my bom bom.
i love it.
i especially like the lines "okay now he was close, tried to domesticate you, but you're an animal, baby it's in your nature".
Shake it baby! :-D
well i went to a "special meeting" in the armadillo today where a 2 & 1/2 hour programme was relayed from london at 1pm.
apparently the letters of invitation only went out a month or so ago and not all congregations were invited.
there were 2,900 of us from around scotland.
"They are having good success preaching to deaf people and to Chinese students. Something like 1,800 Chinese people attended the memorial in Britain. There was a special "midnight memorial" for Chinese people who work in takeaways so they could attend after their work was finished. And deaf people say JWs are the best signers in the world, much better than professionals. ""
Indeed
background: my wife and i are inactive, we stopped attending in 2005. raised as jws, were pioneers, i was elder etc... .
our kids are in college, also inactive but are baptised.
my wife went back to college, getting her degree this month at age 48!
Yes...as ABS stated earlier:
"Hi AggieNostic, It sounds like the typical battle between a JW's authentic persona and their cult persona according to Steve Hassan's model. I noticed the same type of behavior in a former friend of mine who is a "Spiritually Strong" (non-thinking) JW before I read Steve Hassan's book "Combatting Cult Mind Control". It appears that you and your wife could salvage your relationship with your MIL by asking her simple questions like your wife did in her text message that would help her authentic persona to come out more. "
This is really important to understand. Don't feed her cult persona by questioning the watchtower or it's dogma.....feed her authentic persona by talking to her about every-day life. Try not to talk to her about that letter.....it is obvious that it vas written by a Cult persona, not a real typical grandmother.
afew years ago an elder at a witness gathering decided to dress sort of like elvis...i mean he had a white suit and big belt with sunglasses...called his wife pracilla etc.
big deal...he sang love me tender..etc.
all the witnesses clapped and cheered.
we as jw's have always been told by the gb that the preaching work is paramount, they imply that if your not preaching that your not going to make it to the kingdom.
so what scriptures do they use for this idea?
the only one i can think of is the one in matt.
"They also like the blood guilt verses from Eziekiel. I am sure I spelt that wrong."
They do...but I think it was in the same chapter that God commande Ezekiel to use shit as fuel when baking his bread. I wonder what a JW-baker wold use?
There is some reasons for preaching. First, Rutherford realised that bookstores would never distribute the WT-litterature, so the only way to sell it was by door to door sale.
The preaching keeps people busy. They invest time, effort and emotion in it, that mekes them tighter connected to the org.
so i have some interesting news about the special assembly day.
normally at the assembly, my parents pay close attention and take turns taking notes.
then after the program, they enjoy socializing for some time.
I think this is important. Often it is emotional stuff that breaks the cognitive dissonance.....this was probably a wake up call for them.
as i have said many times, i did not really study jw teachings in depth until i went to prison.. i had a period from 1959 to 1967 when i---sort of----could explain things to a shallow depth.
once i entered that profound place in my head (while in federal prison) when everything got serious.....i entered a secret room, so to speak, where.
all the mysteries were hidden!.
Of course you are right. Ignorance is a bliss.
I would guess that less than 1% of active JW's today know about 1874, 1878 and 1925. Maybe less than 0.1%
but our situation is very difficult and quite high profile.... i was raised as a jw and my mother was very strict and abusive.
i got baptized at age 14.. my mother actually called on my (present) husband's mom in service.
she was on the initial call resulting in his mom coming in the truth and him being raised in it from about age 8 or 9.. despite a very abusive step-father, he followed his mom's lead and came into the truth.
Well well....still "high profile case"! :-)
some people recently raised concerns about security of the site relating to whether forum members could be watchtower plants trying to obtain information about people.
apparently, this was because a previous forum that was setup was either owned by or later handed over to someone who used it to collect personal information about people which was then used to harrass them.
i don't know all the details, i'm just paraphrasing what i've heard and recognize that it's a concern to some people.. i want to first of all put people's minds at rest: i've been running this site for what will be 13 years next month.
"The Ex Jehovah's Witness Recovery 3 Facebook group is being watched. We found that out last week when two elders showed up at someone's door telling her they knew she was participating on the group, as was her sister. They were looking to find a time to confront the second person as well. I guess we'll see what comes of it.
This website is much safer and more secure because of its high level of anonymity. On Facebook it's a whole different world and with new people joining just about every day, the likelihood of there being JW spies is quite high. The general consensus is LET THEM! Who knows maybe they will even learn something, but it does make some people pretty nervous and some are using fake profiles out of fear."
I don't understand this. Are you letting new people in in a secret group every day? This does not work. You have to check out every potential member. Some people are really naive.
