Hang in there. Don't make more stress and trouble for yourself than necessary.
Take the time to plan your exit and future path.
If you want to keep your friends in your life do not disassociate. Just slowly fade out.
hey guys, this is my first time posting on here but lets get started.. so i'm a 17 year old boy who currently attends meetings at a congregation in indianapolis.
i live with my grandparents, on my father's side, because my mother died in 2010. i been attending meetings since i was 10. my mother got into the religion but then got disfellowshiped.
my dad is on and off, he currently just got reinstated.
Hang in there. Don't make more stress and trouble for yourself than necessary.
Take the time to plan your exit and future path.
If you want to keep your friends in your life do not disassociate. Just slowly fade out.
a jehovah`s witness couple who have been married for many years and some with children of various ages and have been serving in their congregation meeting attendance, fs and bible studies with their children for many years .. and then one of them begins to have doubts about what they are being taught and what they actually are supposed to believe now that some changes have been made with nu-lite.. the doubts grow and then the the use of the internet to investigate further some of the claims of the gb/wt religion .. with the wealth of information available on the www it now becomes impossible to continue to be an active member of the jehovah`s witness religion without being an utter hypocrite .
you no longer believe them anymore that they alone are gods chosen people in this day.. however your spouse does not see things the way you do not at all and after many months of arguments bickering threats the ultimatum is something like if you don`t believe what i believe that you have left jehovah we can`t live together anymore ,i want a divorce unless you come to your senses.. who is the one here breaking up the marriage ?.
isn`t it in the majority of cases the jw who ends the marriage ?
What about love? I can't get my head around the fact that having different views on God can Trump the love of a couple who promised to love and honour one another through good times and bad, in sickness and health.
As the bible says, we each render our own account to God so how can religion of choice end a perfectly happy marriage? Unless it was not so happy and an out was being sought?
I don't know. It is not right in any case.
what help me wake up, (still pimo) in addition to lingering doubts throughout most of my life, and i'm in my late 50s, was the questioning from my children when they became teenagers.
i could not honestly defend the origins of the jws, prohibition of birthdays and other celebrations; especially when you realise that the whole belief system is/was based on crazy teachings of a businessman.. the real kicker is when you have a religion that has to produce its own bible to support its beliefs, that's when i knew the whole religion is an expensive and cleverly marketed belief system.
like most religions.. glad to say none of my children want anything to do with jws and two of them don't believe in god.
Yes my children have had a part in my realisation that the truth is not true.
It also makes me embarrassed that I wasn't as switched on as they are at the same age. It would have saved me from wasting many years and saved me from anxiety and low self esteem.
Thank goodness they are and are free to make their own choices.
yesterday, i had my sister come over to tell my mother and i that she will no longer have anything to do with us, because we need to come back to the meetings, it’s what jehovah wants, and hands her a letter to read and asks for a final hug.
my mother has been dealing with a terrible lost of dad since july, and has been very ill with stress because of it.
i no longer belong to the organization either, and i have been helping my mother out thru this ordeal, it is just as rough on me.
So happy to cut off family members at the say so of the GB and then not even know who the GB are?
WTF?
good morning everyone , .
i am wondering how people have personally delt with the anger at the gb when waking up and realizing it’s a scam, lie , and it’s awfully depressing .
i have had difficulty concentrating at work , have had an emotional roller coaster between okay days and awful days.
I view it as a grieving process. There are 7 stages of grieving. Anger and depression included.
These feelings are normal. These feelings will pass.
the other day i ran into a jw who just happened to be my very friend during my jw days (which were most of my life).
so for about 60 years we were each other’s very best friend.
we grew up together from about 8 years old and are the same age, now in our early 70’s.
Excellent reply. I will use that one myself!
i just thought i'd share this story from my past.. back in the 80s i remember the big problem seemed to be about music.
(today, it's tight pants, i guess) the organization, society, whatever they were calling themselves, were always going on about the music we listened to.
disco, heavy metal, the whole "backwards masking" thing...couldn't escape hearing or reading about how satan was corrupting us unless we were listening to kingdom melodies or elevator music.. i was assigned to wtf in the late 80s and remember one of the articles stating that "young people know that the rhythm of rock music is the rhythm of sexual intercourse.
Gold! Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I remember spending afternoons with parents deciding which cassettes and CDs needed to be ditched. Nuts!!
if you are a former jw elder, can you share any examples of corruption which you personally witnessed that were kept secret from the congregation?
following is an account from a longtime elder named tommy who recently disassociated.. the minor daughter of a presiding elder in a west texas congregation committed fornication with a 19-year old baptized witness in her father’s home.
the daughter had to confess to a judicial committee which included the aforementioned tommy.
It is such stories which confirm that holy spirit has nothing to do with the appointment of elders.
It also confirms that God is not real to those taking the lead and they cannot believe that God sees all that they do.
hi guys.
just wanted to share this with you as it's kind of got me worried.
my brother who was also raised in "the truth™" met me in town today for a coffee.
What a brave man your brother is. If he is anything like my son, changes are hard to handle but he made a decision to change his life and remove himself from the religion and people who caused so much anxiety.
New carers will initially be a cause of anxiety but also the best thing for him. A complete break from JW world. The elders actually wouldn't need to tell the carers to quit. Unless his carers are waking up they would quit without being told.
He will be able to be his true self and have carers with no agenda other than to sincerely assist him to survive in a neurotypical world.
He will need you more than ever now. The one family member who will accept him as he is.
i was just pondering whether jws are capable of having a calm, in depth discussion about religious or faith topics?.
i have just finished listening to a great podcast by "dogma debate" (dan) episode 333. this fantastic, in-depth conversation between a theist and an atheist was a masterful example of how a dignified conversation can take place without it resorting to abruptness or even nastiness.. jws on the other hand seem incapable of having such discussion without ending up in the following ways:.
1)they get dogmatic and defensive if a differing view is presented.. 2)if the conversation doesn't go their way, they cut it short saying something like "well, we had better agree to disagree" or the like.. so why the arrogance?
They get offensive and aggressive because their beliefs don't stack up or hold up under proper scrutiny.