how do you view your upbringing as a witness?.
most of us who were raised as witnesses would appreciate that some aspects of our upbringing were ok. a foundation and measure of stability came with it.. but, it struck me too, that we also lost so very much!
and we lost a lot of potential.. by this i mean, we need to look at not just what we lost, or what was deprived of us, but what that ended up costing us as adults into the future.. if i take $10 from you, you have lost just $10.. but, if you were going to use that $10 to buy something that would end up earning you $1000, then i actually took $1000 from you!.
When I go to a big party and I'm introduced to the host's family, their old school friends, friends from college and old work colleagues from way back, then I know what I've lost.
Plus the fact I'm a tense person who finds it very difficult to relax because as a small child I was told everyone in the 'world' is bad, not to be trusted and invisible beings are trying to hurt me. Why would that make a child tense! Go figure!
i am a non-jw girl dating a jw man for almost 5 years now since end of high school.
most of the relationship has been long distance.
when we started dating, we wanted a serious long term relationship that would end in marriage one day.
You have to make the arrangement to meet once a month or he wont bother. Does this sound like a man in love to you? Why isn't he desperate to see you? Your children will be raised as JWs whether you like it or not. So no birthdays or holidays for them either. They don't do Valentine's either by the way, but does he buy you flowers at other times?
Your sentence below worries me. I don't know your boyfriend but JWs are not open minded about religion, believe me. I have been separated from my JW family for nearly thirty years since I said I don't believe it any more. Kids that I didn't see grow up. A baby I have never seen. You need to know this, I am pretty sure you will be asked to convert and it will impact your relationship. Good luck with your decision. I know it won't be easy.
I'm a open minded person and it didn't bother me that he was a JW as long as I was not forced to convert or anything
i'm a baptized jw...been baptized for 8 years...and throughout the years i've been baptized i see "hypocrisy" so to speak in the religion...when you're new and not baptized that's when the jws want to invite you to every gathering they have, they want to appear like they're your best friend...they want to help you out when needed and so forth...however, once you're baptized you go to the elders for help they don't help you....all they do is gather you around the office...have bibles in hand and so forth...they give you articles as well, instead of physically helping you out....but yet when you weren't baptized they would physically help you out and not throw scriptures and articles in your face.
also when you ask for help and so forth with the bros/sisters they want to throw the "each one must carry his/her own load" scripture at you.....but yet what happened to the scripture of taking care of widows and people who are orphans?.
it's not just one congregation...throughout the 8 years i've been baptized i've been through many kingdom halls...many towns...many states...when i was inactive for awhile i even pretended to not be baptized and just play dumb when the witnesses came to my door...they're much nicer to you when you're not baptized then when you are baptized...why is that?.
Welcome Christina. Google love bombing and you will see that this is what cults do. They are all over you to draw you in and then they leave you to it once you are committed to the religion.
I'm afraid it's all about judging you now and deciding if you are fit to stay among them or if they should throw you out. Sorry this is a shock to you but we've all been through it here. Stick around and we'll try and help.
there's a beautiful sky this morning.
it's my birthday, today i'm 64 and look every inch of it, but i appreciate my life and feel fortunate to be cult-free.
also very fortunate to have a purposeful and entertaining existence here in gorgeous north georgia (in the usa).
Happy Birthday
🎂🎈🎉🍾👍
just read some of this latest awake on the org's webshite.. it begins by talking about the 'supernatural' - wizards, witches, vampires, etc.
- their popularity and why they might appeal to people.
then it goes on to state the wt belief that someone is 'behind it'.. now, i like a few horror/scary films - when i was a kid, i always actually liked being a bit scared by them, tbh.. the silence of the lambs, a nightmare on elm street (1984), the ring, the witch, the thing (1982) and a few others are all great, imo.. they are just genres and subgenres of film, that's all.
Kids forbidden to watch Harry Potter. My daughter read all the books and loved them. What a horrible thing to do to kids, separate them from all their friends who are reading the books and going off to see the films. These kind of rules prove it's a cult.
article on angela sdrinis who represents jw abuse survivors in victoria, australia.. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-15/lawyers-reveal-trauma-of-representing-child-sex-abuse-survivors/8270008?wt.
Thanks for this. I like that she says children have been silenced and made to feel ashamed that they've been sexually abused and have carried that shame I nto adulthood, when it's the religions that have hidden the abusers that should feel ashamed. Hopefully the ARC will bring that shame down on JWs and other churches.
in december, i lunched with someone who was at one time quite close and is still a jw.
the topic of the arc ( australian royal commission ) and pedophilia came up.
the two things that was immediately voiced by this person was the two witness rule and that it was homosexuals molesting witness boys parroting the plastic faced stephen lett.this person is not online and has not seen the arc videos or know anything about the silent lambs movement.
They never had a moral compass Larry, they just followed a three thousand year old book. No attempt to work out what is right and wrong, what will bring the most happiness and prevent the most harm. Just strictly abide by ancient rules made by people who viewed women and children as property.
have we ever noticed how witnesses are constantly being told that life is something that needs to be "endured", rather that "enjoyed"?.
life is always so tough, so hard, so difficult in "these last days".
"persecution and trials abound".
The cult demands they live a weird life that deliberately separates them from family, neighbours and colleagues. No birthdays, holidays, college, constant KH attendance and FS. Being forced to be no part of the world their lives are hard, being different from all non-cult humans is hard. So the cult turns that into persecution and endurance. Result - fear, paranoia and more separation. Trapped for life.
my mother wanted me to know that the co gave a talk that kinda-sorta reprimanded an elder in her hall.
he is not the reason i left at all, and this does not address anything to do with me or our family.. my mother-in-law sent me texts which i ignored and now she has sent a picture to my wife on facebook just for me, and it's a prodigal son meme that says, "you see the signs, come back it's not too late".. yeah, it's not too late to accept a global flood in 2370 bce, or that man was created in 4026 bce from a golem spell, or that an us-and-them cult mentality is at all healthy or loving, or that religion is going to be banned by the un, or that i should expect anyone else at the door to accept these stupid ideas in the information age.. what am i supposed to say?
i usually just ignore them, but before i do that, i see that shit and i storm into this weird internalized rage where i start writing a response and deleting it.
I hear you. In my experience one of the hardest things I've had to do is have mentally challenged cult members in my family treat me as if I'm insane because I don't believe this bloody stupid crap about the end of the world and living forever in panda paradise.
steve2: is there some way this can be presented so that it is crystal clear what was actually in the demonstrations and what was added?
i guess some will think it should be obvious - but this is where misunderstandings arise because we end up wrongly attributing something to jw organization that was never said.. circuit assembly theme: maintain love for jehovah!.
note to speaker: warmly encourage young ones to prove their friendship with jehovah by observing his commandments and defending his standards.
The outright dishonesty of saying we respect people's right to be gay, lesbian or smoke cigarettes but God doesn't respect them enough to let them live. What they're saying is they have the right to choose the way of life they want right up to the moment God kills them. How does that discourage prejudice? Total brainwashing.
