all who are shunned know the adverse effects of such.
we feel it.
we know how it has changed us.
In primitive societies shunning meant death because people couldn't physically survive on their own. I wonder if there is residual hardwiring in our brains that literally makes us frightened we may die if our 'tribe' shuns us.
Although it's completely illogical in our modern world being raised in the closed world of a cult doesn't help. I think leaving and knowing we'll probably be shunned triggers fear for our own survival.
this is something that hit me just relatively recently.. the phrase "make the truth your own" is a very famous catch phrase in jw culture.
it was a pet philosophy of daniel sydlik and has been used and is used in talks, literature and song.
every witness knows this trope.
What the heck does it mean anyway? The truth doesn't belong to anyone, something is either true or false. From memory make the truth your own meant, work yourself to death attending all meetings, be out in FS every day or pioneer, be a ms, an elder, go to bethel and give us your money.
Make the truth your own in my memory meant give your whole life to this religion. It's a cult phrase to trap you into slavery.
i see there has already been discussion over lloyd’s new book how to leave the jehovah's witnesses.
this includes discussion around his personality, motives and financial gains.
i have written a foreword for this book, because it is an important topic that has not been covered in such a complete format before.
He's not everyone's cup of tea but some people love him so I see what Paul is trying to say. We're all doing our bit to help people escape this cult. Different personalities appeal to different people. I just find him too slow on YouTube, I want him to speak faster, but that's just me.
i ask because i'm working in a 28 day residential addiction treatment center and one of my co-workers is studying with the jw's.
he does not know i'm an xjw.
i suspect that at some point they're going to tell him he can't go to aa meetings anymore.
Its part of the twelve point recovery plan to look to a higher power. Are the JWs okay with that being their God, I don't know.
there are exposes right and left.
australia, canada , uk, usa.
news reports, court cases.
They dont care. Their human consciences have been mutated and perverted.
With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”
― Steven Weinberg
published today.
jehovah's witnesses accused of silencing victims of child abuse.
Brilliant article, it brings out the danger to the public eye that the person knocking on their door or handing them literature on the street could be a pedophile. Also there may be a separate investigation into JWs by the committee looking into institutionalised child sexual abuse in the UK!
i have always wondered why there are more females than males in all of the congregations that i have visited?
some of these females are in their 70's so maybe their husbands have died and women just live longer.
or could the reason be that years ago men were the breadwinners and women stayed home to raise the children thus they were home during the week when the jdubs came a knocking?
Do some women who are unhappily married with small children feel helpless and hopeless when they lack the financial independence to get a divorce and like the idea of God waving a wand and making all their problems go away at Armaggedon? Even if that means their husbands get destroyed? I'm not being spiteful I'm just thinking about my own parents.
today is my birthday :) in happy to be able to say that guilt free!
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Self indulgent attention whore
Surely not 😏 Happy Birthday 🍰🍺🎈🎉
for a long time, i was convinced jehovah witnesses were just people preaching the word of god in a different way than other christians.
i was shown the real truth over the past few months.
i've been friends with this guy for over 5 years.
Why would anyone commit their soul to an organization?
As you said your friend was feeling very vulnerable when he joined and in need of friends. Now he's been taught that if he leaves he could face eternal destruction.
What really hit me is that people say the JW organization is a cult and that their members are brainwashed. Then I started to remember little things that happened in our relationship that pointed to his odd behavior.....Is he always going to be so conflicted and give up things that make him happy?
Yes I'm afraid he is going to be forced to give up things that make him happy. I know you want to help him and this situation is awful for you but there's no way he didn't know dating outside the religion is discouraged and sex before marriage is strictly forbidden. I'm not going to tell you what to do. I hope your young life won't be blighted by this cult. Good luck xx
i recently made the decision to stop studying with my study conductor, due to a situation i found myself in that led to a high possibility of my unbaptized publisher "rights" being taken away from me.
i have since told my study conductor i have joined a new church (to which she dropped me like a hot rock, of course).... last time i posted on here, i was progressing nicely towards baptism, and was well into it.anyhoo, i like my new church, very hillsong-esqe.
so just wondering if anyone else has stayed the course of christianity after leaving the jws, and if so - where did you go?
I was a Christian for about two years after leaving the witnesses but didn't attend any church. Studying medieval history for a degree finished off any belief in religion. The obscenely cruel tortures enacted against their fellow humans by Christians just appalled me. Where was God when people were being "slowly roasted, for beliefs they neither knew nor understood"? (Michel de Montaigne)
