@TimeBandit,
That is awesome!
jwundubbed
JoinedPosts by jwundubbed
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26
Anti-religion T-Shirt idea
by Simon ini want a t-shirt.
something that says "religion is crap, i don't care which one".. i was thinking of adapting the "coexist" one to say "toxic" instead which is great because it removes 'science' but includes all the major world religions.. anyone else have any ideas?.
also a tag-line ... "whatever god you worship, he's a weirdigan".
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Differences Between Ex-JWs
by David_Jay inwe are not all the same--a real "duh, david!
so i figured if i didn't feel that sense of solidarity that seems missing among the debating, then i was part of the problem.
i'm responsible for making this place feel like a support and place of solidarity, just as much as anyone else.. but approaches i tried didn't work until i shut up for a while.
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jwundubbed
Born into the religion, if that is you, is very different. You were made to do this. You may have liked it or parts of it or you may have hated it all, or a mixture of this. Your being baptized as a JW was not a choice, not like it is for converts. You were not necessarily searching for what the JWs claimed they had. This was probably expected of you. Leaving means leaving life as the only way you've known it. You are more likely to be done with all things religious after this because your only experience with religion was so distasteful. For all I know, it took you more courage and effort to leave than it did for someone like me.
You got a lot right here. We never had a choice to start with. We never learned anything different until we went out searching for it ourselves. Living with the expectation of baptism in order to be saved and that is the only choice offered... yeah it isn't really a choice. Unless you are denied the great privilege of getting baptized. I was denied. I didn't even get to answer the questions. I was a quiet unassuming introverted kid. And actually that was the beginning of the end for me. I passionately believed that my baptism was between me and Jehovah, and no man had the right to deny me that relationship, and so I went and got baptized without permission. Just went and did it. I knew a lot of kids that were refused that right, and most often because their parents were vocal critics of the organization. Yeah, that was my parents... even my annointed mom openly criticized the organization!
Leaving was hard. It was made much easier by the fact that I was already being shunned. I figured if you will shun me based on a rumor then I might as well be myself and give you a real reason to shun me. I'm not religious but I attend Quaker meetings. They kind of rock. You go, sit quietly and meditate on your own beliefs for about an hour. You don't have to become a member and they are transparent about everything they do. But yeah, most the kids I know that left also left behind religion. Although... my brother is Buddhist and my sister is a Quaker. So... maybe it was just us that don't fit the mold?
I don't think you can or should compare the ease or difficulty people have in leaving the cult. I don't think that something so completely individual and subjective can be compared, nor should it be. There is value and validity in every person's exit experience. How a person is effected is entirely dependent on too many variables to make any kind of just comparison.
I have one family member now, barely hanging on, in the group, no blood relation but married in. Saying goodbye for me was simple. I was not leaving behind my family. In fact leaving the Watchtower was the opposite. It was essentially coming back to the family, to support, to my culture. It was like coming back to life after being dead for a few years. I cannot imagine it being the other way around. How do you that?
One day at a time, just like with any other great loss.
Having more than TTATT vs Only Leaving Because You Know It's a Sham
I never really learned the TTATT. I didn't care. I still don't know it well. And I still don't care. The facts of the JW doctrine was never really very important to me. Getting baptized was about my love for and relationship with God. I knew there were contradictions in the writings but I didn't think the organization and God were the same thing and if they were, then it didn't matter because God would eventually sort it all out. When I left it wasn't about what was wrong with the doctrine. It was about what was wrong with the way the organization was treating people. It was about who I was and who I wanted to be versus who I had to be if I wanted to stay. It was about if I could live with myself if I sacrificed my own personal values which didn't coincide with organizational values. I didn't realize how bizarro and wrong the doctrine was until years after I had left. I find that people who converted to the JWs are far more fastidious about the doctrinal fallacies than those who were born into it, even though many born-ins also fall out because of TTATT.
You relatively new ones are probably tired of hearing this or maybe don't even understand it, but the religion I once belonged to died a while back
This is so true! I remember being a little kid and having to think up my own little speech to get the people at the doors to pay $0.50 for both the Watchtower and Awake! magazines... and who would want a Watchtower? Boring! The Awake! magazines were at least interesting back then. They had the weirdest articles. Train surfing. Look it up! I cannot imagine going to the door and asking someone to watch a video with me! So much more embarrassing! I had a hard enough time going way back when and having to talk but at least that made sense. I was 'witnessing' to them. I pity the people who have to do that now.
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New to JWD, Hello!
by jwundubbed inmy story in a nutshell... .
scientist for a father; extremely mentally ill, 'annointed' mother.
was privy to and also suffered a lot of abuse.
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jwundubbed
@ZAPPA-ESQUE,
I went into Huge depression in 2010 which took 30 agonising months to recover from and even now I have the craziest dreams which always involve some issue of entrapment within the cult
Thanks for the reminder! PTSD brought out the sleepwalker in me. Crazy dreams too. And I had always had crazy dreams to start with, so they just got crazier. But I like crazy dreams. Go figure!
@neat blue dog
Back on topic, I prefer to call you undub, it's just clever and unique.
Thanks!
@naazira & @LisaRose,
Thanks for the welcome!
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Is this the best you have to offer. Trump / Clinton?
by Lostandfound inhere in uk we have appalling choice between cameron / corby and some also rans.
are trump/clinton best the worlds superpower can offer up?
all candidates for office seem to be flawed , are no genuine people putting themselves forward?
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jwundubbed
I'm planning to do a write in.... I don't like either candidate and I refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils. Those are the only choices I have ever had as a voting American. I'm not yet sure who I will write in, but at least I will be voting for what I feel is right.
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Why Are You Here?
by Believer ini'm wondering why believers remain members of this forum which is clearly hostile to believers.
as one member said, nonbelievers pounce on any semblance of belief like piranhas on prey.
as former jws we should have had our fill of judgmental know-it-alls, but here we are.
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jwundubbed
I'm wondering why believers remain members of this forum which is clearly hostile to believers. As one member said, nonbelievers pounce on any semblance of belief like piranhas on prey. As former JWs we should have had our fill of judgmental know-it-alls, but here we are. So why? What is the attraction?
The assumption that you make here is that everyone comes here to debate the validity of their beliefs. Personally, I haven't yet found this forum to be hostile at all. My beliefs aren't like others. I believe in the possibility of a supreme being as much as I believe in the possibility that there is no god. I am full of belief on both accounts equally. That isn't in any way a normal way of thinking. But I don't need to debate my beliefs for the simple reason that they are my beliefs. They aren't facts and they can't be proven and yet they hold the same validity for me that facts and proof does. Why would I need to prove my beliefs are valid to anyone else when they are perfectly valid to me? I don't. And I don't come to this or any other social forum in order to debate or validate my beliefs. I don't have that need.
The attraction for me is community. Something that I lost when I left the cult was a support system and a community. I am not love-bombed and automatically accepted on the condition that I agree with everyone else here and I prefer it that way. I have received a very nice welcome and an initial level of acceptance. From here I have to prove that I can be an acceptable member of this community, and this community has to prove to me that this is where I can belong and is a group that I can accept. I never got that as a JW and I find it very satisfactory.
One of the first things I learned when I left the cult is that JWs are not the only people who are self-righteous, judgmental know-it-alls. Those kinds of people are everywhere. I even find myself being that kind of person from time to time. It really takes a concerted effort not to be that kind of person. I now have a belief that this is a part of human nature. We all want to belong somewhere. Change is scary. People who don't fit our mold is scary. So we try to get them to conform to our way. And this is a mentality that you find everywhere, in all social groups even though not everyone behaves this way. To assume that some community of people won't have judgmental know-it-alls is kind of naive. Just because you left a cult or any group of people it doesn't mean that you suddenly turn into a new person. That takes time. And it takes effort. So, give people a break. Confront them on their behavior when it is bad or unnecessary or wrong or whatever. But don't place general blame on an entire community because they didn't meet your unreasonable expectations of them. That isn't any more right then what you feel they are doing to you... or others.
What do you get out of this forum that makes it worth putting up with the attacks from self proclaimed animals?
I haven't been attacked by anyone. But I also love a good debate, so I might not see people as attacking me. I might see people stating their opinions and arguing a point vehemently and passionately. Not only am I okay with that, but I think a good debate is healthy. I haven't seen any personal attacks yet, so I wouldn't be likely to feel attacked unless someone is attacking me on a personal level. But I am also very confident in my beliefs. I have no problem with someone questioning my beliefs thanks to the JW cult. Seriously. I always wondered how strong a persons's faith could be if bad association could spoil it. I a person could be stumbled in strong faith just by talking to someone. If your faith is that weak then it isn't really faith. My faith is strong. And if someone can prove me wrong... and really prove me wrong, not just state an opinion that they are as confident in as I am in my belief, then all the better. I mean, if you can give me proof then you have every right to convert me to your way of thinking. But belief doesn't usually have proof, that is why it is called belief and not fact.
Edited to remove unnecessary commentary.... can't get rid of the yellow box....
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What is harder? Making a new jw or bringing one out?
by EndofMysteries ini find it interesting how stories of people waking or bringing one out are like the opposite of jw experiences bringing one in.
maybe we should start an ex jw yearbook for experiences of those coming out haha.
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jwundubbed
The easiest way to make a JW is to indoctrinate someone from birth.... so I would say it can be easier to bring folk in. On the side of bringing someone in who wasn't born to it, I think that is getting harder and harder while waking folks up is getting easier to some extent. You can't bring someone out if they don't want out... and you can't force someone into it if they don't want to be in it. So that is similar.
I don't really know any stories of bringing someone into the cult so I don't know how much nor how little they relate to waking someone up.
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New to JWD, Hello!
by jwundubbed inmy story in a nutshell... .
scientist for a father; extremely mentally ill, 'annointed' mother.
was privy to and also suffered a lot of abuse.
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jwundubbed
@baker,
Wow... that is creepy! Thanks for sharing.
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Anti-religion T-Shirt idea
by Simon ini want a t-shirt.
something that says "religion is crap, i don't care which one".. i was thinking of adapting the "coexist" one to say "toxic" instead which is great because it removes 'science' but includes all the major world religions.. anyone else have any ideas?.
also a tag-line ... "whatever god you worship, he's a weirdigan".
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jwundubbed
- God is the root of all evil.
- Toxic; Leaves a bad taste everywhere.
- One man's God is another man's delusion.
- One man's delusion is another man's God.
Ideas I got plenty of... good ideas? I'm not so sure.
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New to JWD, Hello!
by jwundubbed inmy story in a nutshell... .
scientist for a father; extremely mentally ill, 'annointed' mother.
was privy to and also suffered a lot of abuse.
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jwundubbed
@millie,
I'm glad to know some people like my sense of humor... Thanks for the welcome!
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New to JWD, Hello!
by jwundubbed inmy story in a nutshell... .
scientist for a father; extremely mentally ill, 'annointed' mother.
was privy to and also suffered a lot of abuse.
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jwundubbed
Your father was a scientist? Literally? Tell us more about him!
@Village Idiot,
Yep. He really is an actual scientist. I can neither pronounce nor spell is title/type of scientist he is. But he works with electron-microscopes. He was actually the top guy in his field for a long time and companies would hire him to set up their microscopes and teach people how to use them. What would you like to know about him?
He spent my formative years working his way through to his doctorate. He started questioning the cult when I was still a kid. He went so far as to learn Greek so that he could read the original context of the Greek scriptures and he would study that during meetings! He started wearing a beard, because there is no actual scriptural basis against that, when I was in my teens. By the time I was in high school he was inactive.
And can any sense of humor be that bad if it is dry and sarcastic?
@David Jay,
Well, it certainly isn't good when I get a big kick out of telling my boss 'No' because he asked me something completely rhetorical. Boss: "Jwun, can I unlock and take that register?" Me: either 'No.' or 'I don't know, can you?' Bosses don't like that. I find it immensely funny. I am working on stifling myself at those times. Think it, don't say it.
But thank you!
@aubergine,
Good to see you too! And thanks!