Sorry if I am seeming ignorant or if this will be interpreted as apologist...but something doesn't ring tru here. Why did she feel the need to "pretend" she had an affair to leave the religion? If she was going to be shunned anyway, why not just stop going? Just seems a bit like she felt the need to justify her behaviour. Two wrongs don't make a right and whatever the reasons she acted this way it isn't the religion's fault she decided to exit in that manner. Sorry but I do understand where Mat28 quoted in Christ Alone's post is coming from. If we are too quick to believe every anti-JW allegation without foundation, we risk being just as gullible and foolish as the JWs we accuse of being the same.
krejames
JoinedPosts by krejames
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22
This was just on channel 4 in the UK
by Mickey mouse inhttp://www.4thought.tv/themes/what-happens-when-you-leave-your-religion/rachel-underhill?autoplay=true.
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Shunning - The Article that started so much pain and heartbreak (WT 1944, May 15)
by bats in the belfry inmy sister and i were just talking about this very topic this morning.
when jesus supposedly chose the watchtower society as the faithful and discreet slave in 1918, no one got disfellowshiped for anything!
how is it that now, in 2012, our disfellowshipping policy is used as proof that they are god's earthly visable organisation, in that they "keep the congregation clean?".
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krejames
interesting - thanks
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Post 607: Reject 607 BC if You TRULY Trust the Bible!!!
by Londo111 intherefore, if the 70 years period is for the destruction of jerusalem and exile at babylon:.
if zedekiah had not rebelled against babylon, had he surrendered during the final siege that lasted two and a half years, then the destruction of jerusalem and the deportation need not have happened.
then in the jubilee year, they were set free and their hereditary land was returned to them.
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krejames
Thanks for posting the articles - I'm going to read these in detail.
Slight side issue that I'll mention - I was staying at a family friend's house a couple of weeks ago (JWs) and in the bedroom I slept in was a thick green book of Charles Taze Russel's sermons (published by the WT in 1917). Very interesting! Obviously I read as much as I could before I went to sleep and then the following morning but at best all I could do was skim read it. But I did find one sermon that discussed the calculation of 1914 (I think the book said this particular sermon was given in 1910). Charles Taze Russel outlined his calculation of 1914 using 607BCE but I was interested to notice he said that many people believe the fall of Jerusalem was in 587BCE and not 607BCE. He acknowledged they may be right but said, even so, it just means the gentile times will end 20 years later...(I may have misquoted the exact words but the essence is right)
I know it's a bit of a non issue really but I just found it interesting that he was not as dogmatic about 1914 as I had expected him to be. The WT on the other hand is dogmatic about everything!
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What Made You Question "The Truth"?
by minimus inin the the early 1970's, i used to enjoy going to assemblies, conventions and hear special talks given by bethel heavies.. in those days, we were believers and we applied ourselves as "ministers" with pride.. once the "end" was obviously not within our "generation", many of us started losing interest.. we started to think more critically.
it took a long time but once you start recognizing the bullsh*t, it's hard to stay in and truly believe at the same time.. .
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krejames
Like Finally Awake, I had that assembly moment (several actually). Always felt extremely lonely in large gatherings of JWs
The slow dawning on me that the magazine articles discussing homosexuality were crap and betrayed not one iota of understanding of the issue - this led me to wonder what else might be crap.
The realisation that there were hundreds if not thousands of gay Jehovah's Witnesses who had been born-in, something the org has never really acknowledged and never offered any support for - a totally invisible group of people that they would like to pretend don't exist
Studying with a baptist for a couple of years, I realised that many of the "stock" scriptures to prove certain things (particularly around judicial matters - such as James 5:14 and 15) were misapplied when the context was taken into account. I realised from these study sessions that I was learning just as much if not more than the man I was supposed to be helping find "the truth"
Feeling so much happier when I stopped going to meetings, then when I returned, feeling miserable and out of place again
Reading Crisis of Conscience and finding none of it surprising
Finding this site and JW Facts...that's where I am now and the journey of questioning continues
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There Are Many New Ones Here. Has JWN Helped You?
by minimus ini think simon green's site has helped more people than he ever would have imagined!
do you agree??
?.
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krejames
Yes definitely this site has helped and is helping me tremendously - particularly the posts with references and scans of literature etc - makes it easier to see the axes from the tree-stumps hehe. Thanks for setting this up - the membership and posting stats must surely speak for themselves!
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buddy system??
by grumblecakes ini searched to see if there was already a thread on this but didnt see one.... .
i was thinking about this weird-a@# struggle we have all found ourselves in and one of the worst things about it is not having a soul in the world to talk to.
we find ourselves isolated from those who know us best, those we've loved dearly and the new people we surround ourselves with could never begin to understand (non-jws).
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krejames
I think this is a good idea in principle but agree there are risks. Oldlightnewshite's idea of improving the profile info is probably the most practical and least risky suggestion (I still haven't worked out how to add any extra info to mine)
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JWs are attending the OSCE meeting in Warsaw as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) & giving presentations
by AndersonsInfo inwatchtower representatives (jehovahs christian witnesses) are once again attending the osce, organization for security and co-operation in europe,meeting in warsaw on september 24 - oct. 5, 2012. http://www.osce.org/hdim_2012to see jehovahs witnesses listed as a non-governmental organization, click on http://www.osce.org/hdim_2012?view=conference_documents&display=page_2&arg=92455.
please scroll down under non-governmental organization and click on administrative centre of jehovahs witnesses in russia as well as european association of jehovah's christian witnesses.
once you click on them, you will be brought to a page with a list of all of their presentations at the osce.
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krejames
Hey Wha Happened - I don't disagree with you. Membership to promote the aims of the UN does seem double-standards considering all they have written in the past (though strangely they don't seem so vitriolic about the UN these days hehe). But they could have handled it differently - if they had said "yes we are members not to promote the politics of the UN but to promote religious freedom", I'm sure it wouldn't have been seen as such a scandal. That they tried so desperately to cover up their membership was more shocking to me.
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JWs are attending the OSCE meeting in Warsaw as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) & giving presentations
by AndersonsInfo inwatchtower representatives (jehovahs christian witnesses) are once again attending the osce, organization for security and co-operation in europe,meeting in warsaw on september 24 - oct. 5, 2012. http://www.osce.org/hdim_2012to see jehovahs witnesses listed as a non-governmental organization, click on http://www.osce.org/hdim_2012?view=conference_documents&display=page_2&arg=92455.
please scroll down under non-governmental organization and click on administrative centre of jehovahs witnesses in russia as well as european association of jehovah's christian witnesses.
once you click on them, you will be brought to a page with a list of all of their presentations at the osce.
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krejames
Notwithstanding the whole NGO membership "scandal", I'm not sure this is really the strongest argument against JWs. The presentations are to the OSCE to promote religious freedom, an activity in itself the JWs have never hidden. They openly go to court and meet with politicians if it will promote freedom of worship. I am sure most R&F witnesses will not even raise an eyebrow at this. For me, it wasn't the fact that JWs have NGO membership, but the fact that they apprently tried to hide the membership (if the correspondence presented on the JWfacts site between the Guardian and JWs is genuine, that is indeed eyebrow-raising!). If the GB had said, "yes we're NGO member, so what?" it might have been less of a scandal for them.
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I was HAPPY as a JW, how did I get here?
by MC RubberMallet insome have figured out, but i am a poster that previously used another name.
but even then i did not give many details about myself.
i barely cracked 100 posts.. but i have never done a thread to explain why i am here.
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krejames
Sorry but I think putting JWs on par with Nazis runnig a deathcamp is a bit extreme. Yes people are capable and will do evil things when they have their blinkers on and when they follow the crowd. But there are degrees of evil. JWs have their failings but what organisation on earth doesn't? Where would you stop? Political parties? A play group where a todler dies falling off a slide? Your local Council? The average JW might be guilty of negligence - yes - but evil on a par with the Nazi's? Sorry I'm not buying that even if that does make me a JW apologist in the minds of some. Even the GB, though arguably much more culpable than the R&F witnesses, are probably more guilty of negiligence than pure, deliberate unadulterated evil.
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I was HAPPY as a JW, how did I get here?
by MC RubberMallet insome have figured out, but i am a poster that previously used another name.
but even then i did not give many details about myself.
i barely cracked 100 posts.. but i have never done a thread to explain why i am here.
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krejames
NewChapter - Yes I agree. Although, on the whole I was deeply unhappy and miserable myself, I had some genuinely good times. I also still have a lot of affection for most of the JWs I have known, including the elders. I never had a specifically bad experience with the people (it was really just the general feeling that I didn't fit in and couldn't really relate to the "spiritual" mentality). Any gripe I have is more about teachings beyond the things written in the Bible and the apparent dishonesty with the organisation's past in hte Proclaimer's book et al.
If someone is happy in the organisation, I say good for them. Someone who is dying for example, might take great comfort in the resurrection hope, whether or not we ourselves think it's a false hope that they shouldn't believe. This is why I don't think it's kind to try and destroy anyone else's beliefs - if they are already unhappy, then it might be kind to point them in the direction of where they can do some unbiased research.(unfortunately, this site isn't the place for unbiased research - bitter people are all too ready to believe the slightest negative allegation and conspiracy theory even when unsubstantiated by evidence - to me that's just as bad as a JW's eagerness to believe some of the unsubstatiated stuff the GB prints). For me it was the earthquake stats that really started to bring home how dodgy the information was in the literature.
I think this is why this thread/story appeals to me so much - if someone was happy as a JW, and isn't bitter from a personal gripe or experience, what would affect them enough to make them realise the TATT?