Xanthippe

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Posts by Xanthippe

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  21

  What I am most ashamed of.........

  by Xanthippe in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  is not giving to charity while a jw.

  this whole 'lets sit back and wait for jehovah to sort the world out while we do nothing' really gets to me.

  there is so much to be done in this world, so many people doing good things but the jws just say bang on doors and sell watchtowers.. i did plenty of voluntary work in the jws pioneering my youth away but it was all so useless, now i do voluntary work to help people who want to be helped, as well as my job.

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  Xanthippe

  Coffee - I have sent you a personal message

  Xanthippe
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  21

  What I am most ashamed of.........

  by Xanthippe in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  is not giving to charity while a jw.

  this whole 'lets sit back and wait for jehovah to sort the world out while we do nothing' really gets to me.

  there is so much to be done in this world, so many people doing good things but the jws just say bang on doors and sell watchtowers.. i did plenty of voluntary work in the jws pioneering my youth away but it was all so useless, now i do voluntary work to help people who want to be helped, as well as my job.

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  Xanthippe

  Yes Found Sheep you're right they really did a number on me. I am a very sensitive person. But is has really helped to talk about it on this site. Especially as I think other people might feel the same who are still victims.
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  21

  What I am most ashamed of.........

  by Xanthippe in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  is not giving to charity while a jw.

  this whole 'lets sit back and wait for jehovah to sort the world out while we do nothing' really gets to me.

  there is so much to be done in this world, so many people doing good things but the jws just say bang on doors and sell watchtowers.. i did plenty of voluntary work in the jws pioneering my youth away but it was all so useless, now i do voluntary work to help people who want to be helped, as well as my job.

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  Xanthippe

  Irondork - thanks.

  Old light - thanks for your input. I have actually been out over twenty years but I take your point, we should be enjoying life now and feeling good about ourselves. I meant that instead of pioneering for ten years because I truly believed people around me were going to die, I wish I'd been allowed to put my hand in my pocket when I saw babies dying of hunger on my TV screen. Without feeling that I was making Jehovah unhappy because I should have been giving it to his faithfull and discreet slave for the preaching work.

  I don't thnk I'm motivated by guilt and self-loathing to do my one morning of voluntary work a week -but I could be wrong. I've been wrong before
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  21

  What I am most ashamed of.........

  by Xanthippe in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  is not giving to charity while a jw.

  this whole 'lets sit back and wait for jehovah to sort the world out while we do nothing' really gets to me.

  there is so much to be done in this world, so many people doing good things but the jws just say bang on doors and sell watchtowers.. i did plenty of voluntary work in the jws pioneering my youth away but it was all so useless, now i do voluntary work to help people who want to be helped, as well as my job.

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  Xanthippe

  Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

  Wuz, Yadda, tec, talesin and NeverKnew I hope I can do better now that I know better. We can't help the way we are raised can we? It reminds me of the Jesuit saying 'Give me a child for seven years and I will give you the man'. One variation of it is 'Give me a child for his first seven years and I care not who has him thereafter'. As children we are born into a family and a way of life that is not of our own choosing. Generally in most reasonably healthy families there is a certain amount of choice as a child grows but not in the Jehovah's Witness family. As I look back it seems that my choices became less and less as I got older instead of more and more as it did for my peers at school. But I can choose now and that is wonderful!

  Irondork, I've been trying to remember that scripture for ages, thanks! I knew it was something about the poor are always with you. That was the reasoning behind not giving to charity as I remember it. It was pointless trying to help because we could never do anything about poverty and the poor would be always with us because Jesus said so. The only solution was God's Kingdom and the way we could support that was ... you guessed it, sell Watchtowers. As you put it, irondork, spend your costly perfumed oil on us. Where is that scripture? I wouldn't mind looking that up in my interlinear Bible (not JW I got it from a Christian book shop). Just as a matter of interest.

  Coffee what a great story. There are some truly amazing people doing great work anonymously aren't there? Occasionally there is a documentary on TV that tells us about them which is an antedote to news programmes which focus on bad news. How is your dad now?
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  59

  It's the 46th anniversary of Star Trek TV series

  by moshe in

  1. social
  2. current

  google reminds us how long ago this was, 1966 (or was it 67?

  ) - i was a teenager in high school and guess what?

  i never saw one eposode on local tv.

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  Xanthippe

  I liked the original series and all the sequels. Favourite characters, Checkov from original (later played a nasty in Babylon Five - love that series), Deanna Troy and Jean-Luc Picard from 2nd Generation, Kes and the Doctor from Voyager, Julian and Dax from Deep Space Nine - thought Terry Farrell was really convincing as a very old, wise Dax in a new body, something about the expression in her eyes. And the Brit from Enterprise, what was his name?
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  21

  What I am most ashamed of.........

  by Xanthippe in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  is not giving to charity while a jw.

  this whole 'lets sit back and wait for jehovah to sort the world out while we do nothing' really gets to me.

  there is so much to be done in this world, so many people doing good things but the jws just say bang on doors and sell watchtowers.. i did plenty of voluntary work in the jws pioneering my youth away but it was all so useless, now i do voluntary work to help people who want to be helped, as well as my job.

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  Xanthippe

  is not giving to charity while a JW. This whole 'lets sit back and wait for Jehovah to sort the world out while we do nothing' really gets to me. There is so much to be done in this world, so many people doing good things but the JWs just say bang on doors and sell Watchtowers.

  I did plenty of voluntary work in the JWs pioneering my youth away but it was all so useless, now I do voluntary work to help people who want to be helped, as well as my job. Not proud of myself at all as it seems I've wasted so many years not doing something useful.

  Now I really believe in people power. I think the most good in this world is done by ordinary people and we should never think that we are powerless for the simple reason that there are billions of us, far more than there are politicians!
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  31

  My own story.

  by JoelCW in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm a long time lurker, first time poster.

  i think i have a similar story to others who were brought up in the so called "truth" but after reading so many stories i thought i'd finally get around to writing mine:.

  like i said, i was raised into it and almost my entire immediate family where (and for the most part still are) serious members.

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  Xanthippe

  Welcome JoelCW! What a great story! Your mind was clear as a bell at such an early age! I do remember some things that I thought of quite early on like when my school friend at primary school gave me a Christmas card and knowing they were wrong I bought her a new years card only to be told actually they are wrong too. I thought how can I ever have friends, this is ridiculous! I wish I'd held that thought. When I was 16 I kept asking everyone I worked with in field service what they thought of the ransom sacrifice teaching, if they understood it. They all looked at me as if I was mad. Of course they understood that God allowed his son to be tortured to death so that humans can live forever. It took me much longer than you to realise if something sounds wrong that's because it is wrong!
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  18

  Exposing a JW to the definition of cults - good idea?

  by NeverKnew in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  first, i am not a jw and never was.

  i ran into an old friend who had been "baptized" who "encouraged" me to consider looking into the faith he had become a part of (born-in).

  i figured, "hey... maybe i'll learn something i've never known.

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  Xanthippe

  NeverKnew, a very good question. I remember being on the ministry (door to door work) and about eighteen years old when I called at the house of a psychologist who said many of her pateints were JWs or ex-JWs and it was well-known that the religion caused mental health problems. I remember that my response was to feel angry at which point she started to talk in this really soothing syrupy voice which really freaked me out so I left.

  So presenting your friend with the reality of his situation will probably provoke anger as it is programmed to do.

  I think the 'thought-stopping' properties of 'loaded language' in the condensed version on the cultwatch website you mentioned are very pertinent. I believe that this is very cleverly done in the JWs.

  If you mention cult or mind control to a JW the feeling will be of being attacked and treated as mentally weak and gullible. This may sound obvious, anyone would dislike being made to feel this way, but then the cult mind control kicks in with stuff that has been pounded into your head over many years at meetings - 'ah this is Satan's way of deceiving you - he wants you to doubt all the good things Jehovah has taught us. Why? Because he hates you as a servant of Jehovah and he wants you to lose your life by turning you away from the Truth'. Fear- based reasoning again.

  The thought process has stopped, the reasoning ability is frozen - I am not clever enough to think this through because I am just a little human and Satan the great deceiver is millions of years old and he is trying to catch me - I must stop thinking about this NOW or I will DIE. This is all unconscious of course, the JW is not aware of it.

  So the JW cult takes language that 'worldly' people use like cult or mind control and they connect it to fear-based teachings in their literature and meetings. This is then translated in th JW mind as 'this person who is using terms like mind control or cult to me is also trying to kill me. They are my enemy and I must get away from them.'

  They have tied up all the loose ends so tight it is a wonder anyone gets free. However they do. If I knew the formula I would get my family out! For many it is being shown real concern by outsiders when they have become totally sick of the misery in their so-called loving organisation. They talk endlessly about love but are taught to treat one another hatefully through the reporting structure.

  Incidentally I was at a Kingdom Hall when an elder said 'people say we are brainwashed but how can we be, for example brothers what is your favourite scripture?'. Of course everyone put their hands up and said a different one, no one chose the same verse as someone else. All well-trained. We knew exactly what was required of us. Of course he didn't say what is you favourite film? Blank faces all round. So the mind control always works within the belief system.
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  20

  untitled

  by iknowall558 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  im an ex jw, out 3yrs after spending 24yrs of my life in the organisation.

  i spend most of my time on fb exposing the org and having conversations with active jws.

  i have recently agree to a 'bible study' with a woman, a grandmother, who is a regular pioneer and has only been a jw for 5yrs.

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  Xanthippe

  They believe it is theocratic strategy to lie if the situation merits it. There is some useful stuff on Steve Hassan's website about helping people in cults. Perhaps she hasn't come accross a DF person yet and had to decide what she should do. Not associating with them is all theory to her isn't it? What if it were a family member? My JW sisters didn't set eyes on my child until she was nine years old and then only because it was our mother's funeral. That is definitely shunning! Hope your efforts to help her are successful.
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  8

  Intense emotional dream

  by fade_away in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i had a dream last night i don't think i'll ever forget.. .

  you see, my brother passed away a few months ago from an asthma attack at the age of 36. i've been learning to accept it and trying to move on, but last night a dream re-opened the wound a bit in a good way.

  i dreamt that he was still alive but he knew and we all knew he was about to die...as if it was a terminal illness he had instead.

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  Xanthippe