jwundubbed

Joined

• started 13 topics
• posted 393 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by jwundubbed

• 
  11

  What is Watchtowers position on the identity of the king of the North?

  by jwdoctrine in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  what is watchtowers position on the identity of the king of the north?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  jwundubbed

  You mean, John Snow?

  ... Sorry... I just had to say that because... I love the fact that all I thought about with your headline was a TV show and not anything else remotely connected to the cult! Yeah me!
• 
  23

  Funeral/Memorial at the Kingdom Hall ... Would you go?

  by Wild_Thing in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  let's say an aunt or uncle dies.

  .

  let's say you barely knew them.. let's say their memorial service was held at the kingdom hall.. let's say if you attend, you have to deal with shunning from family and jws, and you are forced listen to them present their paradise promotional materials, and the dead person's "earthly hope™", and let's face it ... the heeby-jeebies of having to be in a kingdom hall again.. would you put yourself through it?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  jwundubbed

  Memorials and funerals aren't really about the dead. They are meant for the living, for the people who the deceased left behind. I would never go to a memorial or a funeral if it didn't do something for me. Even if I went to support a friend, that would be as much for me as for them.

  But for me personally, I have only one reason to go to any funeral or memorial. I only go if I need to go in order to process my grief. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I just can't feel anything until I've been to the memorial/funeral. Sometimes I don't need that.

  My friend died recently. I hadn't seen him in years but we had been the best of friends when I had been around him. He had two lives. He had the life with his biological family and he had life with his chosen family. He loved both. His family held a small, family only, funeral for him. His chosen family held a memorial. My friend was a part of the pagan community, the comic-con community, and the fetish community. The chosen family was made up of people from all of those areas. His memorial was going to be very different. It wasn't going to be sad people milling around missing him. it was going to be a party. I was glad for him and for his chosen family as this was how they knew him. He would have loved having one last big blow out. But, I didn't know many of those people and the ones that I did know wouldn't contribute to my healing. I wouldn't be focused on my friend but on all the drama around me.

  The parallels between my friend's memorial and a Kingdom Hall memorial are there. They are complete opposites but how I feel about them is pretty similar. I decided not to go to my friend's memorial. It wasn't about the people that would be there or how they would treat me. It was about remembering my friend in a way that helped me heal and grieve. I did what was right for me.

  My advice to you, is not to focus on all the people and places and situations surrounding the memorial/funeral. Instead look at yourself. What do you need to do for yourself, so that you can heal and grieve? That is all it should be about. Do you need to do something for the person who died? Then do it. Because even that is about you and your healing process.

  Take the cult out of the equation and make what is really important count more.
• 
  25

  My Mom's Challenge to Me

  by lriddle80 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so my jw mom messages me on facebook last night and says she wants me, for a month, to read the bible, but first pray using the name jehovah and in jesus name and then read it with an open mind.

  she is so ridiculous!

  first of all, i do pray but i usually just say father and i always pray in jesus name and i find it ironic that she is saying i should have an open mind when hers is closed.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  jwundubbed

  I think you should be very careful in following these specific wishes. What you are doing is normalizing the behavior and making it into a habit. That is exactly how habits are formed. You do the same thing every day, over and over, until it becomes natural and normal. This is one subtle way that the cult works on people. People don't think they are giving up anything by going to the meetings and not listening. But they are making that behavior normal. And it isn't possible to never listen at all. Things seep in. You get to know people and things start to matter. And then when you don't go one day, you feel... off. Because you disturbed your new normal.

  This is muscle memory. Your brain is a muscle and you are creating a new pattern in it. You should be very careful about creating new patterns that you don't want to create.

  Also, respecting your mother does not mean doing what she tells you to do. You can respect your mother and still create appropriate boundaries. You can respect her wishes by listening to them and accepting them as her wishes. But in order to respect her wishes, you don't have to fulfill them. That is not how respect, healthy respect, works.
• 
  9

  What are YOU depending on for Salvation? New Video

  by JW Answers in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  many groups (jehovah's witnesses, mormons, sda'..) false teachers and deceivers today rely and depend on good works, their own righteousness, keeping the law, having a certain lifestyle or behaviour, being faithful in service and/or being baptised to save them from their sins.

  however, all of the above according to god's word, will never save a soul.

  in this video, i cover most items which people today try and depend on to save them from their sins.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  jwundubbed

  My soul was saved when I left the cult. I'm good now. I don't need to seek out salvation that I've already found.
• 
  60

  I Wouldn’t Be Surprised If The USA Had Another Civil War!

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have never seen this country so divided.

  something is going to give.

  they is such a lack of recognition for the law.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  jwundubbed

  All the people you see in the news making waves are a tiny percentage of the American population. Most of us are just trying to work, eat, sleep, pay the bills, see to our children, and otherwise make it from one day to the next. I don't watch all that news and I don't see what you are talking about in my daily life. I see a lot of struggle. I do read some news. I'm somewhat up on world events. But those events don't have much to do with my daily life and neither does a lot of the most sensational American news.

  I doubt there will be an American civil war any time soon.
• 
  39

  Hatred From My Children for Not Leaving the Organization Earlier

  by new boy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm not proud of the fact that it took me over 50 years to realized what the organization really was and to finally leave it.

  not proud at all, i feel pretty stupid.

  however i didn't lose my children.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  jwundubbed

  Kids blame their parents. You don't have to have raised them in a cult for them to blame you for how their lives turned out. This is actually a stage of development that people go through. A lot of children (meaning offspring... not meaning young in chronological age) go through this stage in their early 20's. Some people don't go through this stage until they are older or also going through a mid-life crisis. Children in crisis often blame their parents.

  You can empathize with your children. You can have regrets. But at a certain point in time you need to let them know that blaming you isn't healthy and they need to get on with their lives and more forward or they need professional help. They might need both.

  You did the best that you could. You got out. That you didn't get out in time... well you can't change that. And who knows if that would even have been better for them? Playing the 'what-if' game is never a good idea.

  The real danger is letting your kids think that it is okay to play into an idea that their lives would be drastically different if things had been different. Very little in life changes our course and destination. We have all these movies telling us that if we made just one single change in our past our lives would turn out drastically different but I don't believe that is true. The only changes that massively effect our lives are the pivotal choices. You already did that for them by deciding to leave. That was a pivotal choice. When that choice happened wouldn't have made as big an impact as the fact that you did leave.

  Don't be too hard on yourself and don't let your children be too hard on you either... unless you did something really wrong to them. Waiting to make sure you are making the right choice isn't the wrong choice to make.
• 
  32

  Apostate - what does the word mean to you?

  by Tallon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  over a period of time i got to thinking - what does the word 'apostate' mean to me.

  having given it some thought, this is my view;.

  the org has given the word its own definition and basically use it to demonise people and consider them pariahs.. however, the jw meaning of 'apostate' is a mere word and only has power if recognised as such.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  jwundubbed

  'Apostate' is just a JW buzzword. It doesn't have much meaning to me at all.
• 
  15

  My brain will explode

  by Alex Bogdanov in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am so tired to talk to jws that i know.

  i think one day i will become rude and ingore them and avoid them.

  every conversation ends like this-.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  jwundubbed

  Why are you trying to convince them that you are right and they are wrong. That isn't a typical conversation. It always ends the same way because they are operating under cognitive dissonance and you can't argue logic to someone who doesn't have logical thoughts.

  To be honest I think it would be more polite if you did ignore and avoid them. I think that the conversations you are trying to have with them now... is actually you being quite rude.
• 
  28

  I don't get why some point to the no tolerance for gays and subjugation of women as a JW thing.

  by blownaway in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  some churches have taken the step to allow gays, women instructing men ect.

  but its not a jw thing.

  its a bible thing.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  jwundubbed

  If you are going to believe in the bible as the word of god you have to believe that women are not to be in a position over a man, that gays are gross sinners and the bible condemns them to death.

  @blownaway,

  Could you cite the actual places in the bible where these things are states as truths, please? Can you tell me where it says that I have to believe that? And can you do it from a bible that isn't the JW bible, please? And can you also tell me the historical context in which these things were written? And can you use the non-JW bible to prove that these ideas were meant to last for eternity, please?
  
  
• 
  29

  Are YOU Shunned By JW Family or Friends?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  some who are not disfellowshipped are still shunned i also know there’ are disfellowshipped ones that family still associate with..

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  jwundubbed

  I am neither DF'd nor DA'd. My younger sister started a rumor about me when I was about 18-20 and half my family shunned me just because of that. Still to this day I have no idea what the rumor actually was and yet my family is still shunning me.

  At best I would be considered inactive.

  Around 2014 the JWs were making a big push to shun inactive loved ones to show them the error of their ways. My mom decided to shun my elder sister and I (but not our younger brother who went so far as to join the Navy to get out of the JWs) but she waited 3-4 months so that she could tell me she was shunning me on the day of my graduation from college. Great gal, my mom.

  I told her not to bother ever changing her mind because I would never forgive her for that and she was dead to me from then on. Still... I've never been officially kicked out or officially left the cult and yet I'm shunned anyway. I know that my mother and younger sister use the cult practice to A.) try to manipulate people and B.) excuse their awful behaviors. But the rest of the family is just operating without any proof or reason.

  It isn't loving and shunning me will only ever make me see that I made the right choice to leave. That was the least error-like move I ever made.