Righteous indignation made me feel that way yesterday - I sure wanted to do exactly that. Not physically, that's just not my nature, but mentally. I kept my cool though, and my dignity. It only feeds their assumptions about you as the "enemy" to do otherwise.
doubtfull1799
JoinedPosts by doubtfull1799
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33
Has Anyone Ever Just Gotten Mad and "Popped" an Elder?
by Cold Steel init has to have happened.
people get stressed out, an elder or overseer takes just two steps over the line and gets a fat lip for his trouble.. does that ever happen?
or maybe someone "counsels" a brother at the wrong time and tempers flare at the old kingdom hall?.
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Thank you for helping me through the bad days
by doubtfull1799 ini'm sure that whatever stage we are at with our journey in leaving the corporation disguised as a religion, aka the watchtower bible & tract society, we have good days and bad days.
maybe young ones who have managed to escape mentally do not suffer quite as much, or suffer in different ways, but after 40 years of indoctrination, what i now like to call the "machinery of reinforcement" it is unavoidable that you don't have days where your head is messed with.
yesterday was just such a day for me.
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doubtfull1799
I'm sure that whatever stage we are at with our journey in leaving the Corporation disguised as a religion, AKA the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, we have good days and bad days. Maybe young ones who have managed to escape mentally do not suffer quite as much, or suffer in different ways, but after 40 years of indoctrination, what I now like to call the "machinery of reinforcement" it is unavoidable that you don't have days where your head is messed with.
Yesterday was just such a day for me. I lost a dear work colleague yesterday morning (who was only 27) so was already in a bad emotional state. Then in the afternoon I had, not one, but two visits from brothers in the congregation. One from a brother I haven't spent a lot of time with, who was fairly new to our congregation before I left, and one from my co-ordinator, a person I considered a true friend and colleague as we have served together for many years.
Frank conversations were had with both. The publisher treated me as a friend, with dignity and kindness. He listened and acknowledged my viewpoints even though he no doubt disagreed with them, and shared a "scriptural" thought with me in a very kind way, which I thanked him for simply because I appreciated the kind intent behind it. It is nice to have dealing with brothers that still have humanity in them, not just for their own, but for outsiders as well.
The elder on the other hand acted like a tyrant and bully. He called all my viewpoints "rubbish", yes those were his words. When I offered to show him supporting evidence of my viewpoints he said it would be a waste of his time. Funny how they claim they would die for their brothers, but once they consider you the enemy that will not "waste" so much as half an hour of their time for you. He also had the arrogance to claim he is not accountable to me or anyone else, only to God. Funny, when I was an elder I always considered my self accountable to my fellow humans, especially the brothers I served in the congregation. As far as I know there is only one group of people who consider themselves unaccountable to their fellow humans and this is dictators and tyrants.
Anyway, getting back to the point of this post. I want to thank all the contributors here for your support in general. But I particularly want to thank @stuckinarut & @unstuck, two friends I have had the recent pleasure of getting to know in the real world as well as here online. People who demonstrate the real meaning of friendship, as the scripture says, "brothers borne for times of distress." People who have never (yet) met me in person, but have been there for me unconditionally over the last few weeks whenever I needed a shoulder to cry on. I know they know how much I appreciate it, but I wanted to acknowledge them publicly, and all the others too that I'm sure are out there that help others on their rocky journey to cult recovery.
I also wanted to say that there is nothing like having that human connection. It is lovely to share stories and comment on forums like this in the virtual world anonymously, but being able to talk to someone in the real world is important too. I know many of us are probably scared/paranoid/shy/burned/lacking esteem - pick one - when in comes to making new connections, but I think its still worth trying and reaching out to people. Other ex-jw's may or may not end up being the right friends or compatible friends. Being an ex-jw in itself is not enough in common if you lack other common interests of course, or you have different world views. But it is a good place to start. Because at least they understand you on one very big level. And most will at least share the same values.
To all those who open themselves to friendship and give of themselves to provide emotional support to their fellow ex-jw's THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. You are the best of humanity.
P.S. In regard to the death of my colleague, I am very proud of the community of colleagues in my profession here in the city I live in. We started an online fundraising campaign and within hours hundreds of people in our profession chipped in and we had raised the $3,000 we needed to be able to fly our colleague's widow's mother out from the other side of the world to be with her daughter and be here for the funeral. And this from so-called uncaring, selfish, "wordy" people. People who don't really know what true love is. Amazing!
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"There is evidence of a Creator if you just look for it"
by unsure in(for the record, i’m agnostic who is earnestly seeking an objective, honest and concrete hope for something greater).
“there is evidence of a creator if you just look for it”.
many of us have heard similar sentences from believers regarding proof of creator, proof that their religion is the correct one, proof that their particular sect is the right one, proof that their individual sects interpretation of a certain religious text is the right one, proof that their own personal interpretation of a certain religious text is the right one; the list goes on.. in one of my previous posts, i shared the following thought of mine:.
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doubtfull1799
Yes, excellent posts and reasoning I agree with. This is one of the reasons I came to see the Bible as an uninspired book. As a simple "instruction manual for life" it fails miserably. It only works is you cherry pick the good and practical bits and ignore the rest (the ratio of those two things is quite disturbing when you think about it: The big things we really want to know and that we argue about, such as God's will, how the universe was made and our place in it, the nature of good/evil, if God has an organisation, God's purpose etc are all things that we struggle to interpret from singular and cryptic random verses (sometimes only one), yet other less important details, like genealogy, how to recognise leprosy, the ins and outs of sacrifices, random tribal squabbles, the morality of bodily fluids etc are given reams of detailed (and boring) chapters.
I forget where I read it, but someone once asked why couldn't God just spell out his purpose and requirements in simple skywriting for everyone to see that it was clearly and miraculously from Him, and in clear unambiguous language that everyone cold understand. Then we would have no need for the endless practise of "apologetics," otherwise known as the practice of coming up with creative excuses for why the Bible doesn't make sense.
God doesn't seem to abide by his own principle - here is what he says about communication: 1 Corinthians 14:8,9. The Bible is certainly sounding an indistinct call and is speaking into the air!
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Special Pleading + Blind Obedience = Compromised morality and even extremism.
by doubtfull1799 ini had an interesting discussion over the weekend with a coupe of witness on the carts.
i asked them if they put much thought into the rights/wrongs/consequences of writing letters to russia before doing so or did they just do it without thought because the gb asked them to.
one said yes, they would always do what the gb said to do because they completely trusted that the gb would never ask then to do something that is wrong.
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doubtfull1799
I had an interesting discussion over the weekend with a coupe of witness on the carts. I asked them if they put much thought into the rights/wrongs/consequences of writing letters to Russia before doing so or did they just do it without thought because the GB asked them to. One said yes, they would always do what the GB said to do because they completely trusted that the GB would never ask then to do something that is wrong. The other one, perhaps not wanting to appear as a non thinker declared that he has thought about it.
However when I started to ask questions about how the letter writing would sit with their stated policy of neutrality it was clear he had not thought about the issue in those terms at all, and admitted as much. What was really interesting was that I actually got them to admit two things: 1. Their offical statement of neutrality excludes lobbying, and 2. Their writing letters constituted an act of lobbying, a violation of their stated policy. (of course they did try to weasel out of that one by at first claiming that their letters were merely to "inform" the Russian Govt of how they felt, but this was easily debunked by referring them back to the instructions the GB provided with the request to write letters. They eventually agreed that if one followed those instructions then yes the letter would constitute an act of lobbying. We further discussed how sending millions of them multiple times to multiple Govt officials really amounted to a denial of service attack on the Russian postal system, and was really no different to an organised peaceful protest march at the Kremlin with picket signs.
So having basically admitted to compromising their stand on neutrality they resorted to special pleading. They claimed that it was OK to Lobby, in this particular instance, because blah blah blah.... the reason is not really important, one can always find a reason to compromise ones principles if they look hard enough.
I pointed out that this is the same philosophy that leads to another immoral act - lying. One can special plead that in certain situations lying is justified because the person asking the questions is an enemy. (classic example: testimony at the ARC) Or because you are defending God's interests. Or because God approved of you doing so (classic example: Jacob lying about his identity when he could have just told his father that Esau had sold the birthright to him instead of playing charades)
So I asked them, even though they are currently carrying out their worship in a peaceful way what would prevent them from acting violently if God asked them to do so? We both agreed that God had done so in the past, that he had his human representatives carry out his violent judgements, but they claimed they would not violate the command "though shall not murder" NOW because Jesus changed that way of doing things. I pointed out that when they pray for God's Kingdom to come they are praying for and supporting the judgement of millions of people, the sentence of that judgement being the murder or violent deaths of those ones. They are merely outsourcing the carrying out of that penalty to their God. As a thought experiment, what would they do if God changed his mind again (which the Bible shows he is quite capable of doing)? At this the cognitive dissonance was too strong and they tried to run off....
I pointed out that even though Abraham should have known that murder is wrong, that child sacrifice is wrong, he was happy to do both when he believed that God was authorising it. I challenged them: Wouldn't you, like Abraham, commit murder if you believed God (or his representatives) was asking you to do it? Would you not stone me as an atheist right now if God sent a message saying you did not have to wait for Him to exercise vengeance, he was going to be too busy, you could do it for Him right now? At this point they did walk away claiming I was evil and was only trying to tear down a good and sincere religion.
So to sum up what I learned from this discussion and thinking it through is that special pleading will always compromise even the most righteous or ethical of positions, and while it may be harmless in some cases it can easily lead to more extremist actions in others - suicide bombing for one: "Though shall not kill.... except where God authorises me to do so." Morality and principles in these cases are discarded in favour of blind obedience.
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Russian Earthquake Forces Putin to Reconsider – Won’t Ban Jehovah’s Witnesses
by ILoveTTATT2 inap – april 1st, 2017. russian earthquake forces putin to reconsider – won’t ban jehovah’s witnesses.
in a stunning reversal of events, vladimir putin had an emergency meeting with all un members and made a proposition unbanning jehovah’s witnesses worldwide.. after the devastating 6.9 earthquake in eastern russia, and after receiving nearly one metric ton of letters from jehovah’s witnesses worldwide, putin changed his mind and decided not only to not ban jehovah’s witnesses in russia, but proposed to the un to remove all restrictions from jehovah’s witnesses worldwide.. surprisingly, jehovah’s witnesses were not pleased.. david a. ssholian, the spokesman for jehovah’s witnesses, said that “this reversal is a disaster for jehovah’s witnesses worldwide.
we just can’t be unbanned everywhere, that would be a severe blow for our faith.”
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doubtfull1799
Great April fools article. Love it!
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'Asking Questions' & JC's
by Tallon inon another forum, a user posted that their partner is being hauled before a jc for asking questions and, that the jc will go ahead regardless if in attendance or not.. the post does not say what questions were being asked.
another user responded with - possibly viewed as 'brazen conduct'.
here is the link to jw.org - brazen conduct: https://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/bible-glossary/brazen-conduct/.
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doubtfull1799
Asking questions - It really does depend on the body of elders and your relationship with them to a large degree, unless you go around asking those questions of the publishers and providing them answers the GB would not approve of!
I have asked my body of Elders dozens of questions and I continue to have long discussions with one in particular. I have given them plenty of grounds or excuses to disfellowship me for apostasy if they wanted to. But they don't. They have of course placed a gag order on me and I am only allowed to discuss these questions with them, but as long as I don't go against that they are not disfellowshipping me merely for asking the questions. And they are quite candid in admitting they have no good answers... as you can guess, they always fall back on the good old "waiting on Jehovah."
Shame they can't "wait on Jehovah" to solve the Russian crisis for them - no, in that case they have too write letter and protest!
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NEW PUBLICATION!..... 'References for Life and Ministry Meeting Workbook'
by darkspilver inhaha!
yes folks!
it's an eight page printout from the cd-rom of the scriptures and wt reference for use during the midweek clam meeting.. 'references for life and ministry meeting workbook'.
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doubtfull1799
Speaks to the continuing mental laziness getting even worse among the witnesses (and perhaps the general population?) - reducing the mags from 32 pages to 16 was probably primarily about printing costs, but I also think it has to do with keeping the articles even shorter, not wanting to go too much into depth with any subject. Forget about good quality long form journalism. I've noticed lately that even 4 pages is now too much to full with text so they're resorting to more and more charts, boxes, illustrations, cartoons etc etc
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Who Is the Archangel Michael? "evidently" Jesus
by NikL infront of jw.org has this article.... https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/archangel-michael/.
i am at work right now so can't examine it very close but was just curious what some of you more knowledgeable ones think of it?.
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doubtfull1799
@Londo111 - love the Princess Bride quote! Perfect. As i've mentioned before it is an interesting exercise to do a search for the word evidently in the Watchtower library, first of all to see how many times they have used the word, (even just since the year 2000 if you are using the online version) and then to see ho each time they use it, they us either because they don't actually have any evidence to offer. I liken it to the Kim's calling their little dictatorship the "peoples democratic republic of Korea"
@snowbird. I'm just starting to look into this and I could be wrong, but doesn't the Book of Enoch list Michael along with a bunch of other angels it lists by name as the "fallen angels"?
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Special Video tie-in this week in Australia? Saturday April1st. A GB Speaker?
by stuckinarut2 ini have been told that there is to be a special talk linked via video hook up all around australia this saturday april 1st?
a 3 hour program apparently?.
someone said it was a governing body speaker?.
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doubtfull1799
I'm having a coffee with one of my old elders tomorrow - I'll ask him!
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Heb 10:34 & the Russian Situation
by doubtfull1799 inas would be expected we've seen a lot of the "persecution" scriptures bandied about recently in connection with the likely imminent ban on the org in russia.
they like to claim that being targets of persecution they are seeing the fulfilment of those verses.
but they conveniently ignore what the bible teaches about how christians should respond to said prophesied persecution.... for example, no one is referencing the above verse which talks of the apostles "joyfully accepting the plundering of their belongings.
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doubtfull1799
As would be expected we've seen a lot of the "persecution" scriptures bandied about recently in connection with the likely imminent ban on the org in Russia. They like to claim that being targets of persecution they are seeing the fulfilment of those verses. But they conveniently ignore what the Bible teaches about how Christians should respond to said prophesied persecution...
For example, no one is referencing the above verse which talks of the apostles "joyfully accepting the plundering of their belongings." If the brothers were to follow that apostolic example they wouldn't be writing protest letters, right? They wouldn't care about the liquidation of their branch office or kingdom hall assets, knowing they have a more valuable "spiritual" asset in their relationship with Jehovah, something the Govt can't liquidate! They would accept those physical losses happily, like the apostles did. No doubt when the apostles had their assets plundered that was done illegally or unjustly too, but they did not protest it.
They like to quote Paul because he "appealed to Caesar," yet Paul is not supposed to be the model for Christians, Christ is. Did Christ "appeal to caesar" when under trial, when he was being persecuted? No. It was in that circumstance he made his famous statement of neutrality that "his kingdom was no part of the world," and he would not recognise or appeal to the authority of human governments to appease his suffering. He told Peter to put away his sword when Peter tried to defend Jesus from the injustice of his arrest, would he have endorsed Peter writing letters instead? No, of course not, because this was all happening under God's plan, it had to happen for God's will to be done, so it was not to be opposed by the pen or the sword.