my wife just asked me this.
my answer, in no uncertain terms, is no.
we both grew up in the dub religion.
Schnell,
It may comfort you to know there are quite a few nominal JWs such as you and your wife: raised by relatively liberal parents with strong family ties, but who on a personal level have come to terms with the restrictive lifestyle of the organization. They view themselves as fundamentally loyal but rather "balanced" in their worldview.
i remember a roman catholic priest acknowledging on the bbc that the outrageously anti-clerical tv comedy father ted was a humorous mocking of his church but an acceptable thing.. try mocking the jw religion to a believer and the result is so very different.. just why is it that jehovah's witnesses can never take even the faintest hint of criticism of their religion?.
Simple. It's because of their insecurity... on a certain level, they're quite aware of the indefensibility of their beliefs, most of which can't hold up against even the most cursory scrutiny.
"Just why is it that Jehovah's Witnesses can never take even the faintest hint of criticism of their religion?"
so as i have been waking up more and more over the past 3 years...i keep telling myself i'm fully awake and then i wake up more, but that's a different thread.
but anyway, i've noticed a lot lately that the wt does not mention jesus or christ very much in their literature and neither to jw's in their conversations.
they mainly talk about jehovah.
The JW religion is essentially neo-Judaism in character.
with their luxurious lakeside condos.
takes all the congregations funds promising new kingdom halls.
but instead starts selling off kingdom halls ..then makes faithful old brothers and sisters drive 20-30 miles to another one, and .kicks out half the bethelites for only only tech savy college educated ones.can barely afford to send out printed publications anymore.
Vomit-inducing, both for the magnitude of the properties themselves, also for the uncritical support/defense of them by the adoring masses and the volunteer labor lavished so senselessly on these vulgar, garish wanna-be Vaticans.
Psalms. 127:1
due to the holidays fast approaching, i was curious about your thoughts and plans for the holidays.
i have been celebrating them now for the past couple of years and ill be honest it still feels weird to celebrate, mainly christmas and halloween.
thanksgiving seems normal because growing up as a jw we always celebrated it anyway (well the day after, but that's another thread) anyway, has it become the norm for you to celebrate now or are you used to not celebrating?.
Silly but fun (Halloween); welcome opportunity to reaffirm family ties (Thanksgiving); over-commercialized but still innocuous respite from the usual work routine (Christmas).
tyler mccumber, no, you probably don't know of him.
he may be one of jehovah's witnesses.
his dad, mark, was a member the last i knew.. .
I know the McCumber boys quite well, they're all good guys, Mark, Gary, and Jim (and their dad); I'm sure they all know the score and know how to hedge their bets very adroitly.
we all know that education is severely demonized in this religion.
and that the elders are appointed based on how many meetings they attend, hours they put in on the ministry and general attitude to other elders (as apposed to, you know, actual theological training and counseling) - so my question is, what were your elders occupations outside the kingdom hall?.
in my old congregation our elders consisted of:.
So, a fair number of professionals and the self-employed; not quite the stereotype of janitors and window washers so often depicted.
manufactured outrage.
false equivalence.
every issues has "two sides".
Or PBS/NPR
i began my exit from the jehovah’s witness organization about 5 years.
i was a 4th generation born-in, with all the baggage that comes with having the “spiritual heritage” attached to the group.
i was an elder/bethelite/pioneer/whatever other useless privilege there was, i had no family or friends outside of the organization… my entire life was that org.
Thanks Paul for sharing this incredibly moving experience. Since you're from a multi-generational JW family, that must mean your dad, in addition to enduring the pain of loss of you and your family, also has to grapple with the guilt of feeling he has betrayed all of the family values inculcated in him.
Please take solace in the fact that he is at least awakened and mentally free (late perhaps, but never too late); encourage him not to recriminate himself but just move toward the periphery, a bit closer to the door.
i think this may be a bigger issue for the society than we realise.. when you consider that witnesses have now had well over a year of regularly seeing their 'channel to god' with their own eyes, what do you think they're thinking?.
i'm going to put this as respectfully as i can; these men are clearly a bunch of utter clowns who are laughably inadequate to present a tv show, but also, they are now ridiculously discredited due to the absolute shite that they've spoken in these laughable productions.. consider things from a jw's perspective; tony morris, stephen lett & geoffrey jackson are 'the channel' that makes their religion 'special'.
these men are the channel god is using to lead his people in the modern day.
That is most certainly true in the case of Tony Morris, and to a lesser extent, Lett and Herd. I believe it's beginning to dawn on them that exposing them for a closer look has been a miscalculation. I would expect their video appearances to be less frequent, less extemporaneous (i.e. more scripted or tele-prompted and on-message), with more of the "helpers" assuming the bulk of the on-screen time.
