if you count all the people who have left under the pretense of being 'inactive' then their number is probably conservative and they technically have many more members than that.
jwundubbed
JoinedPosts by jwundubbed
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28
How many here believe the WTS really has has 8.5 million followers / 8.5. million members
by Hotpepper ini think it's closer to 5 million with all the selling of kingdom hells and branch bethel's all over the world.
it's even hard to get a hard copy of the lastest craptower or afake mag now in new york city..
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why do jws hate pagans?
by nowawake14 inpaganism from my view is just a mental fantasy.
it's not real.
so why do jws get mad at it anyway?
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jwundubbed
Paganism from my view is just a mental fantasy. It's not real. So why do jws get mad at it anyway?
Bigotry doesn't become you. Paganism is not defined the same in the real world as it is in JW terms. There are actual religions that are called Pagan, Wiccan, Heathen, etc. They have their own beliefs and rarely believe in one male-normative God. They also rarely have beliefs that align with the ignorant stereotypes attributed to them.
Use your computer skills and look them up. They are real but they aren't what the JWs think they are. They are all religions and spiritual beliefs. You don't have to agree with them to acknowledge their existence, but denying them dismisses a lot of people with their own belief systems. If you want to be a bigot, then feel free to keep thinking that way. If you want to be open to letting people believe what they want to believe then don't dismiss entire groups out of ignorance.
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Bring to ruin those ruining the earth, but what if we change.
by pleaseresearch inthis has come up recently with two family members who are jws.
if they are talking about this you can bet that others are too.
they seem to be all excited that a lot of attention in the news right now is about climate change, greta, extinction rebellion etc... as you can image they are very smug saying see.
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jwundubbed
I would like citable, photographic proof that the JWs aren't contributing to climate change. I remember a lot of gas guzzling cars going out in service all week long. JWs spend way more time in their cars then regular people. I bet their carbon footprint is pretty heavy.
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The apostat.es are coming!
by Simon inthe new site at www.apostat.es will provide a few free tools to help us reach out to the jehovah's witnesses we still care about.
podcasts can be hosted for free, as can blogs and articles.
you can create your own store to sell your apostate tee shirts, posters calendars etc.. it will show jw's that apostates are normal, healthy folks who simply changed their minds about their former beliefs.
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jwundubbed
Podcasts can be hosted for free, as can blogs and articles. You can create your own store to sell your apostate tee shirts, posters calendars etc.
It will show JW's that apostates are normal, healthy folks who simply changed their minds about their former beliefs.
Thank you for the laugh. Normal people don't make tee-shirts to show people how normal they are. Healthy people set boundaries, stick to them, and deal with whatever consequences come from that. They don't go to such great lengths to convince other people that they are healthy and normal. But again, thank you very much for the laughter.
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"Do you believe that the 'faithful slave' is God's channel of communication?"
by The Fall Guy inif a jw had the nerve to ask me this question, i'd say to them, "you go first.
using only scriptural proof, show me why you believe that the wtbts/ccojw is god's choice and i'll tell you if i agree with your scriptural reasoning.".
wait for the silence and the rabbit in the headlights moment.. i searched on the wt cd rom for references of "channel of communication.".
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jwundubbed
Don't the current baptismal questions essentially involve a loyalty-oath-in-all-but-name-only along those lines?
I edited and spoke my own vows during that section. Since there isn't any written contract (which I would have altered had there been one), no one can refute my own testimony of my own vows.
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"Do you believe that the 'faithful slave' is God's channel of communication?"
by The Fall Guy inif a jw had the nerve to ask me this question, i'd say to them, "you go first.
using only scriptural proof, show me why you believe that the wtbts/ccojw is god's choice and i'll tell you if i agree with your scriptural reasoning.".
wait for the silence and the rabbit in the headlights moment.. i searched on the wt cd rom for references of "channel of communication.".
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jwundubbed
No. I can speak directly to God through prayer. Why go through a middle man. Why would God even need a middle man?
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WT Teaching That You Can't Leave Behind
by jhine inafter posting on another thread it became apparent to me that it can be difficult for some ex jws to totally shake off all wt teaching , even after leaving the org.
do you still feel guilty going into a church for a wedding or a funeral .
can you bring yourself to celebrate birthdays or christmas .
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jwundubbed
Do you still feel guilty going into a church for a wedding or a funeral .
I work in a church now. I provide childcare during services. It isn't 'my' church. Why would I feel guilty going into a church? When I was a JW, I didn't feel guilty if I tried. I felt scared. I don't feel scared anymore either. It's just another building, like any other.
Can you bring yourself to celebrate birthdays or Christmas .
I don't celebrate Christmas because I'm not a Christian. I celebrate whatever I want to in the ways that I want to. There is no 'bringing myself to it'. But I do things with intention now, and not just to fit social norms. I'm forming my own traditions. I haven't decided what that is for birthdays. I celebrate Winter solstice when I can by drumming in the sun. I celebrate Halloween in my own way. I add something when I want to add it and it is all about me and what I want to do with my life. My ex-life as a JW isn't a part of it.
Would you hesitate to accept a blood transfusion if you needed one ?
Yes. Because that is a big decision. I don't take any big decisions lightly. I don't take any medical procedures lightly. It's my life on the line. I give blood when I can and I don't feel that there is a moral implication in the mix.
Does the indoctrination that you received still work to put a barrier between you and the rest of society in the way it was intended to when you were "in " ?
The indoctrination wasn't the only thing that put a barrier between myself and the rest of society. There were a number of other things operating at the same time that are still in play. The indoctrination told me to hold myself apart for my own safety and so that I would be saved. I don't believe either of those things to be true anymore, so no. It isn't the teachings from my childhood that set me apart from any society.
I've been out about 25 years. It took me at least half of that to overcome the indoctrination. If I wanted to conform to society the way that I conformed to the religion then I could be well into a new 'emotional in' than I am now. I don't want to conform to a society. I want to be me and find my way.
Black pudding... ew. To each their own. But I don't like rare steak either. It's a geographical thing. People from east coast USA recognize that a steak can be juicy and tasty and have no pink to it. I don't do rare steak, I don't do sushi (more of a texture thing), and I have no desire to ever try black pudding... or haggis.. or oysters... or a lot of other foods that are gross to me. It has nothing to do with an aversion to blood stemming from my childhood indoctrination.
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Do You Have A Negative Outlook Because You Were Once A JW?
by minimus init could be argued that exjws have issues in life simply because they were jehovah’s witnesses at a point in their lives.
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do you think you or we are fairly normal considering we were jehovah’s witnesses or do you think we have a lot of baggage because we are a bit messed up ( even if we don’t even know it)?.
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jwundubbed
Do you have a negative outlook because you were a JW?
No. How you look at the world isn't determined by your experiences. It has a lot more to do with your personality. I'm a generally positive person and I'm an optimist. I'm also a realist. When I have a negative outlook it is usually because of current situations compiled on top of past experiences. The opposite is just as true. When my outlook is positive it is because my current situation is good and I remember how crappy life can be from my past.
It could be argued that exjws have issues in life simply because they were Jehovah’s Witnesses at a point in their lives. Do you think you or we are fairly normal considering we were Jehovah’s Witnesses or do you think we have a lot of baggage because we are a bit messed up ( even if we don’t even know it)?
You have several different points of conversation here. They aren't all one-in-the-same argument.
Yes. We all have issues simply because we were JWs. Just like other people all have issues simply because of whatever religion they were raised in, or whatever abuse they experienced, or whatever other situation they experienced. Living means having issues of some kind. Whether or not those issues are a harmful presence in people's lives has a lot of variables and isn't just an automatic symptom of having whatever experiences one has. It depends on what kind of person you are and how you deal with those issues. It depends on how much time you spent being a JW and what your experiences were with the JWs. Some people had it easier and some people had it a lot harder. People who are born-in wil have different issues from people who joined up.
Are we fairly normal? I think we are more normal than we think we are but not as normal as we'd like to believe. We were led to believe that we were the chosen ones and that everyone on the outside is watching us. Neither of those things is true. People outside the JWs are oblivious to them. If people think of JWs, they think they are weird enough to joke about but not dangerous or special enough to pay any real attention to. If we don't stand out, then there must be some normalcy to us. But I also think that we camouflage ourselves well. We learn early how to blend in and conform. That means that the things that aren't normal about us are things we can hide. It is how we think and perceive the world around us that isn't normal. It is how we relate to other people and what definitions we have for emotions that aren't normal. At one point in time every one of us thought that shunning people was a normal thing to do. Many people thought it was loving. That definitely is not normal, but it is easy to hide. Those are the kinds of things that we think we are normal about when we aren't.
I think we are a lot more messed up than we think. Someone who was only in for a short period of time might be exempt from this idea. I fully left physically and emotionally sometime between the ages of 18-22. I was a born-in. I was raised in the religion and I had severe PTSD when I left. I was actually diagnosed with 'extreme PTSD'. I spent the next 20 years recovering. I figured out a lot of crap. I thought that overcoming the teachings and recovering from the PTSD was all I needed. But there was a conversation here on this site in the last 2 years that made me realize that I was wrong and I have a lot more work to do.
Someone in that conversation made me realize that I'm an abusive person. I don't want to be. I have never had the intention to be abusive. Heck, I'm a victim here! But a lot of victims of emotional abuse also become abusers. It is how we learn to navigate and survive the abuse. We were taught that love-bombing and shunning are equally loving when neither are actually good. Healthy love is good. Bombarding someone with love to manipulate and control them is not good. Putting conditions on love is not good. We were taught that our misery was happiness. And we believed this stuff. I did. I might not have had a good foundation and wasn't a true believer of the doctrine but I believed everything else. I never shunned anyone who disagreed with my religious beliefs. I didn't think that was right. But I cut myself off from people that I felt were harmful to me. They didn't get a choice. And I can't honestly say that they ever saw that coming. That is abusive behavior. I can see it now, years later and looking at it objectively. I still have those impulses. I've learned to communicate better. But I'm still very reactionary and my reactions tend to be hard liners and abusive. I still have a lot to work on.
It wasn't easy leaving the cult. It was so damn hard. It was crazy hard coming to terms with all the things that were wrong. I don't like being wrong. It was hard to recognize and acknowledge that my way of thinking was wrong. The hardest part for me wasn't what the cult did to me but accepting that I had to change as a person. And all of that was before I realized that I am what I was taught to be, an abusive person. Facing myself as an abuser and an abusive person is the hardest part for me. I don't like to think of myself in that kind of negativity. It means that working on it will go faster because I'm super motivated not to be an abusive person. But acknowledging that I'm not the kind of person that would be a chosen special person deserving of attention is hard. I don't know many people who have left the cult and have been willing to confront that part of themselves. My hope is that people do it quietly. I don't mean that they shouldn't share their experience. I mean that, as hard as it is to acknowledge it to myself, it is that much harder to acknowledge it to other people. So, my hope is that people who can't share that experience at least explore it in themselves.
So, yes, I think we are messed up even if we don't know it.
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Maybe Witnesses are the "world"
by nowawake14 ini just realized that maybe witnesses are the world, because of all the hypocrisy ive seen with my own eyes.
alot of the jw kids (not all) ive been around acted "worldier" than the average person.
it sucked.
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jwundubbed
Maybe the JWs have always been part of the world. After all the only difference between them and the rest of the world is how they see themselves. Everyone else considers them part of the whole world.
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What's the best way to...
by jwundubbed ini am working on writing my autobiography.
i want to be able to use academic research as well as personal experience in my book.
and i would like to look at resources that members here would recommend.
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jwundubbed
@Tenacious, Thank you so much! That is exactly the kind of information I was looking for.
@Sigfrid Mallozzi, I do not have formal training in psychology and I don't want to sound like I do. But I did learn a lot about the mechanisms of cults and the mechanisms of survival and recovery through my journey in leaving. At some point I left all of that behind. At the time I needed the distance. But that was a big part of my journey, so I'm looking to find that information again to use in describing my journey, through my own eyes, but also using language that is from a few different perspectives than my own. The various perspectives and the associated language played a bit part in my recovery. Thanks so much for your advice. I will have to see if I can still log into my college search engines as well. That is a great idea!
@apostatethunder, Yes. I do want to do some of that as well.