Posts by Xanthippe

57

Please...I need your help

by Strawberryfieldsforever in

jw
friends

my heart is heavy as i write this letter.

i have been trying to live my life as best that i can since leaving jehovah's witnesses.

my dad was not a witness and was my rock when i left the religion.

Xanthippe

The term apostasy is used by sociologists to mean renunciation and criticism of, or opposition to, a person's former religion, in a technical sense and without pejorative connotation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy

Don't feel you have to tell your mother the whole truth. This religion has lied and lied to innocent people raised from childhood in it. Be wise and be a loving daughter, choosing your words carefully. You can't tell a brainwashed person the truth, not yet. Please tread carefully.

35

What was the "logical straw" that broke your camel's back?

by Pacopoolio in

jw
friends

i had a bunch of tiny little nags that always bothered me about the bible/god/etc.

that eventually led to me drifting away, but this was my personal, singular issue that no one could address.

i think i mentioned it before here, but, for summation again:.

Xanthippe

There were lots of things but for me the most obvious question was, if God is love and the main quality of Jesus' true disciples is love why are the JWs so unloving, cruel and full of hate?

8

It is legally an "assault" to point a gun. The Watch Tower assault: the SHUN GUN

by Terry in

the insidious bind the watchtower religion places on their members is unconscionable.. holding family and friends "hostage" as an extortion strategy may be their most potent weapon of enforced conformity.. .

in effect, like an armed criminal who points a gun at you and threatens "your money or your life", the watchtower leadership.

holds the power to separate dissenting members from those whom they most cherish.. the "gun" is the shun.. pointing the shun at you and threatening to cut you off from your loved ones is a psychological brutality.. absolute obedience is required.. .

Xanthippe

Well they can leave with their nuclear family if they are mentally out and lose their extended family, parents, siblings etc. For me it was the only way but it is lonely. Sometimes I want to cry that I have no family apart from my daughter, an elderly cousin and an elderly aunt. There's nothing I can do, my parents are now dead and my siblings will not change. If you can face that then by all means leave and be free.

39

What are the feelings/thoughts within 24-48 hours of exposure to an undeniably true (for you) TATT?

by NeverKnew in

many of us know where we were during 9/11 or when john kennedy and martin luther king were killed.. it seems that when faced with ttatt, real truth is dismissed as "ol' light" or "an imperfect group of men" but from what i gather, many of you, at some point, were hit with a component of ttatt that shattered all of those cliches that allowed you to brush off the obvious reality that something was very wrong.

some of you may remember the hours following your earliest exposures to an undeniably true tatt.

did you zone completely out?

Xanthippe

When we found Crisis of Conscience in the library we just read it straight through. We thought the way the governing body treated the brothers in Brooklyn bethel who started questioning the teachings was just the same way the local elders acted, totally callous. Then we knew it was the same all the way through, top to bottom. One brother in Brooklyn I remember tried to show the GB some scriptures he was concerned about and they called his ideas horseshit. It sticks in my mind because he was so upset they called a discussion of the Bible horseshit.

We couldn't sleep, my stomach hurt, I could barely eat. It was like being hit by a truck. We knew we had to leave but then what? We had to go out into the wide world. It was like those old medieval maps when people were afraid of sailing off the edge of the world, there be dragons.

45

My Mom is in the hospital

by JeffT in

jw
friends

my mother broke her hip last week.

she had an emergency partial replacement surgery friday night.

we don't know how she did it as we have caregivers with her at all times, she may have fallen while in the bathroom for a few minutes.

Xanthippe

It's a stressful time for you Jeff. Hang in there and hope all goes well for you and your Mum.

16

New Light - Good for goose... gander SOL

by Zoos in

when jws accept new light they must, by default, accept that what they were teaching was false.

they allow themselves the luxury of error so long as it is in the pursuit of better understanding.. .

you would think this scenario demands that allowance be made for other religions with false teachings, but alas, no.

Xanthippe

So this religion says that God inspired the writing of the Bible so that it can be taken as literal truth. The creation, Adam and Eve, Noah's ark, the plagues of Egypt, the virgin birth, the miracles of Jesus, all true, every word because God's servants heard him correctly and wrote it all down. However God's modern day servants can't seem to get one thing right in the last hundred years?

55

One of the big reasons I left the JW Cult

by Still Totally ADD in

jw
friends

he would love to see you.

i would tell them please come out anyway he would just love to see you.

i saw the lack of love and could not believe it.

Xanthippe

Still Totally ADD, thank you for telling your story. I am sorry for the pain you suffered. You and your wife are really good people. You deserved much better than the treatment you got from this cruel cult. I am glad that your experience helped you escape but I wish it could have been in a less painful way.

15

Victory in Defeat !

by cookiemaster in

maybe you guys remember that in january, i shared here our situation with the ongoing conflict with the ms that was conducting the wt study in our home.

well, my parents decided to talk to the elders about it.

the last time he held the study in our home he really said some insulting things during it.

Xanthippe

I think you are doing great cookiemaster. Let's hope you will all be free soon.

17

Women in the WT world - International Womens Day

by JWdaughter in

so, reading the articles about outstanding women in religion who are notable during this international day of women i noticed that among the episcolpalians, the catholics, muslims, buddhists, wiccans, mormons and bahais (and other random religous leaders that happen to be female) there is not one jw woman mentioned as holding a significant position.

do you think any of them will look at the list(s) and wonder?

while barbara anderson is significant in a ministry regarding the wt, she is not listed, nor is she a jw.

Xanthippe

I did a display a few years ago, JWdaughter, at the library where I work, for International Women's Day. It included :-

Rosalind Franklin, the unsung hero who also discovered the double helix of DNA.

Emily Hobhouse who worked tirelessly to draw attention to and improve conditions in the British built concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War.

Eglantyne Jebb who founded Save the Children in 1919 because of the children starving in Europe after WW1.

Marie Curie who won two Nobel prizes, one in 1903 with her husband for Physics and one in 1911 for Chemistry for her discovery of radium. She was the first person to win two Nobels and remains still one of only two people to have done this in two different fields

We noticed that many men would stand looking at the display for a long time. We couldn't tell if it was admiration or disbelief.

84

What Bomb Will Be Dropped at This Years District Convention?

by kneehighmiah in

jw
friends

our insightful posters on this site were able to predict the new "spirit directed" generation teachings and fds teaching even years in advance.

what bomb do you thing will be dropped this year?

i know it will be big.

Xanthippe

I think they may change the rule about only having association with da'd and duf'd family for essential family business. They may well change it to, if you really love Jehovah you will have nothing to do with these apostates.