Agreed, Mulan. Those are all factors for me. Thirty-plus years in, very active, my mom, daughter and ex-wife still in - allof that adds up.
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Seeker4
JoinedPosts by Seeker4
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Most Ex-JWs R Not Active in the Anti-JW Community. Maybe 1%? Any thoughts?
by Seeker4 inyesterday i called a family on the west coast that were in my congregation 18 years ago.
between parents, kids and marriage partners, there were six of them who had been witnesses.
they have all faded, and have had nothing to do with the witnesses for at least 15 year or more.. yet, none of them is in any way active even in looking at the ex-jw sites online.
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Going to anoher church?
by KatyH81 ini just wondered if anyone has been to a church since fading, or getting out?
and how did you feel when you went?
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Seeker4
The study of science and logic that led me to reject the Witnesses proved rather soundly to me that the Bible is an interesting collection of myths, history, poetry, philosophy and nonsense - certainly not a sound basis for creating a religion on!
Lori and I did attend an Xmas Eve service at a beautiful church a couple of years ago, and I freely go to whatever funerals and weddings I want. But, I did that as a Witness anyway!
As has been said, and I apologize for my friends among the believers, trading one form of Christian nonsense for another form is not my idea of good thinking.
When I want some written "spiritual food," I'll read Ecclesiastes or parts of the Gospels, the entire Tao Te Ching (shorter than almost any book of the Bible and a thousand times more helpful), or Robert Pirsig, Alan Watts, Thich Nhat Hanh or Henry Miller.
No, no more churches for me. I've left off belief in all the old gods, angels, devils, demons, heavens and hells.
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Most Ex-JWs R Not Active in the Anti-JW Community. Maybe 1%? Any thoughts?
by Seeker4 inyesterday i called a family on the west coast that were in my congregation 18 years ago.
between parents, kids and marriage partners, there were six of them who had been witnesses.
they have all faded, and have had nothing to do with the witnesses for at least 15 year or more.. yet, none of them is in any way active even in looking at the ex-jw sites online.
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Seeker4
Skally, yeah, I do some work locally as well.
Being local is perhaps a big factor for my continued involvement here. I think it would have been quite different if I'd moved away. As it is, at least 10 times a week I drive by the Kingdom Hall for the congregation I was in for over 30 years. On the majority of my visits to the supermarket or downtown, I will see Witnesses I know, some of them formerly very, very close friends. There are three larger towns/cities within about 30 miles of my home, and nearly every time I visit them I'll see JWs I know.
I go to two post offices on a regular basis, and both have JWs working at them, one of whom I studied with and brought into the Org.
My girlfriend and I bought ice cream cones last weekend. As we were sitting eating them, a former JW friend of many years parked beside us. A little later we were downtown sitting at an outside cafe table finishing the cones when a carload of Witnesses out in service drove by us.
With those consant reminders, it is very hard for me not to think of the Witnesses every day. At some point I would like to move far away and not have this be such a constant part of my life.
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Most Ex-JWs R Not Active in the Anti-JW Community. Maybe 1%? Any thoughts?
by Seeker4 inyesterday i called a family on the west coast that were in my congregation 18 years ago.
between parents, kids and marriage partners, there were six of them who had been witnesses.
they have all faded, and have had nothing to do with the witnesses for at least 15 year or more.. yet, none of them is in any way active even in looking at the ex-jw sites online.
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Seeker4
Interesting replies. Slimboyfat, your's is one of those experiences that I wonder about. Someone like that is like myself - the WTS was so central to my life, I can't really just drop it and go on without thinking about it again.
How many of these folks that leave do you feel still think that maybe the WTS has some form of "the truth," or is still an OK organization?
Even the ex-brother that I talked with yesterday, when I explained a few things to him, asked: "So, you don't think I have to be afraid of Armageddon then?" He was only partly joking. I assured him that the thing the Witnesses had been most consistent with was being wrong about pretty much everything, especially dates.
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Most Ex-JWs R Not Active in the Anti-JW Community. Maybe 1%? Any thoughts?
by Seeker4 inyesterday i called a family on the west coast that were in my congregation 18 years ago.
between parents, kids and marriage partners, there were six of them who had been witnesses.
they have all faded, and have had nothing to do with the witnesses for at least 15 year or more.. yet, none of them is in any way active even in looking at the ex-jw sites online.
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Seeker4
Yesterday I called a family on the West Coast that were in my congregation 18 years ago. Between parents, kids and marriage partners, there were six of them who had been Witnesses. They have all faded, and have had nothing to do with the Witnesses for at least 15 year or more.
Yet, none of them is in any way active even in looking at the ex-JW sites online. They are unaware of any of the teaching changes like the 1914-generation. They simply got tired of all the pressure and used a move to simply stop attending meetings and fade away.
When I think about all the ex-JWs I know fairly well, I come up with dozens, even hundreds of names. The majority are young people who just left once they got old enough, but I can think of probably 50 who were very active, some had been elders or MS. Out of all these folks, I know of only two or three who are active on any ex-JW boards. Out of my own personal experience I would say that of those who leave, maybe 1% get involved the way many of us have.
Now for me, it may just be my personality. The ex-brother I talked with yesterday said that I had been "an elder's elder" as a JW. It seems to be in my nature to be an activist, to try to make a difference, to fight for what I see as right. I was a gungho elder, and now I tend to be a gungho skeptic and rationalist.
But can you imagine the impact if even 20 or 30 percent of ex-JWs became more vocal?
Any thoughts on this? Do you think as the ex-JW community becomes more vocal, we'll draw more in? What about you newbies? How come you're here? I know some of you have been out a long time. Are you thinking of being more active in the ex-JW arena?
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THE WTS: CRASH OR SLOWLY FADE AWAY?
by Seeker4 ini was just reading the thread about barbara anderson and perhaps some big news she will publish about the wts.
i agree with those who say that anything barbara has scandalous about the early history of the witnesses, ie: russel or rutherford times, will have zero impact.
that whole era is pretty much dismissed by all witnesses i know.
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Seeker4
GGG - Thanks! I was just about to post that link for Hubert. That's the one I was referring to.
Hubert - Lori and I are doing fine. VERY busy weekend with extra work for me.
Glad to hear from all the newbies, Say What?, J Seiss and Jam. Glad to see that Say What is using what he learned here to make some wise decisions before committing to the JWs. "The J-Dubs are odd ball uneducated misfits." That's a pretty accurate statement, and I don't see them changing for the better any time soon.
Met - You're right. It's impossible to accurately judge the irrational. The WTS has enough in the bank and in Brooklyn properties to keep them afloat financially for some time to come. They will continue to have a mindless core of true believers, but that core will diminish with time, thus my idea of the fading out scenario being more likely.
Could a huge scandal come to light? I have my doubts. The hidden database of accused pedophiles is known about, though hard evidence is lacking. The scientific ignorance and journalistic dishonesty of the organization with regard to the geological timetable and evolution are well known, but not as interesting or widespread as the efforts to squelch science one gets from the ignorant Christian and Moslem fundamentalists. Who cares about the dishonesty in the Creation Book when you've got the monumental buffonery of the Creationist Museum, with Adam hanging with the dinosaurs. JWs may look like idiots, but not on that scale!
No, JWs are really a small fish to fry, too small to get much attention from anyone except us ex-JWs.
As far as another massive scandal, I don't see it happening. I know enough about the Org to know that no one at Bethel is living high off the hog and squandering millions. There are probably a few hidden pedophiles in the upper ranks still - but they would be the rarity and certainly not part of any great scheme. Probably a few adulterers or fornicators in the upper ranks, but again, not enough to create any impact at all if they get discovered.
The biggest scandal of the last half century was the Ray Franz incident following on the heels of the 1975 fiasco. Ray has helped more JWs out of the organization than anyone or anything. But who among the current crop of company men heading the organization will step up and rock the staus quo? NO ONE.
That having been said, I think the JWs reached their peak a decade or more ago, and the combination of weak leadership, the complete lack of scholarship, the dwindling financial support from the rank and file, the huge amount of negative information about the Witnesses readily available to anyone with access to a computer and the Internet, and the extremely active ex-JW community will combine to slowly erode the organization. Will it end in my lifetime? I doubt it. But it'll be far weaker and smaller in a couple more decades.
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Shunned
by Anti-Christ injust wanted to share something with you all.
about a month ago i call my very active jw father and ask him a few questions about an awake article (the famous one oct 8 1968) and about the "obedience and submission" article and to call me back and give me some information.. well he did not call back and friday my sister in law calls me and tells me that some jw are saying i am an apostate.
i ask were did they get that from ( because i have not talk to any jw about my findings, except my dad) and to my surprise she said my dad.
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Seeker4
The Witnesses, as is true with all high control groups, live in a world of labels and definitions that fit their closed view of the world.
Apostate is one of their most powerful loaded words - it immediately gives them a label for a person and they can then apply their definition of that person. It gives them a lable and gives them an escape from having to use their reasoning ability or critical thinking skills. All their thinking has been done for them by the WTS and its "apostate" label. That's what your dad sees when he hears the word apostate: people filled with hatred toward the JWs, people who have failed to live up to the Bible's standards, and who take out and blame their failures on the WTS.
The Witnesses have a hard time reasoning that a person can leave the Witnesses for a good reason: its lack of logic, the lies much of its theology is built on, the fact that most of what is taught is simply not true. As soon as you can accept any of these kinds of thoughts, you're already in a position to leave the Witnesses yourself. In order to remain a Witness, you have to blind yourself to these ideas, reject them without thinking about them.
That's where your father is at, and it is likely he will never change his thinking. Once you do, you're on dangerous ground. I've used the illustration a thousand times: Watchtower teachings are a beautiful house of cards. It looks great and substantial, but as soon as you find a flaw in and remove just one card, the whole WT house collapses. That's what happened to me. As soon as I saw that the first 20 chapters of Genesis absolutely could not be believed at face value, the entire structure of WT theology simply collapsed flat.
I'm sure you understand this, and you're seeing that sort of thinking in action with your dad. He's willing to believe the myths of the Bible as true, and that means he'll also accept the myths about "apostates" turning in and killing their family members. What bullshit!
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YO, HOMER FANS, SPENT THE DAY AT THE SIMPSONS MOVIE OPENING!!!
by Seeker4 inas some of you may know, the simpsons movie had a national contest as to what springfield would host the opening of the simpsons movie, and springfield, vt won.
that happens to be the center of my newspaper's circulation, so i spent seveal hours today on the "yellow" (yup) carpet interviewing and photographing celebs who created the series and the movie.
international media there like you wouldn't believe.
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Seeker4
Ya know, we had a chance for tickets, but turned them down. There are like a million REAL Simpsons fans who wanted to see the film way more than we did. BUT, I've got to tell you, it sounds wonderful, from what I know at this point.
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THE WTS: CRASH OR SLOWLY FADE AWAY?
by Seeker4 ini was just reading the thread about barbara anderson and perhaps some big news she will publish about the wts.
i agree with those who say that anything barbara has scandalous about the early history of the witnesses, ie: russel or rutherford times, will have zero impact.
that whole era is pretty much dismissed by all witnesses i know.
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Seeker4
Quandry,
Nice post. I must say that the generation change of the mid-1990s was a huge turning point for me. Yes, it's chinks and chunks coming off.
And those trumpet blast assemblies of the 1920s - man, I couldn't accept that even when I was a gung-ho JW! That was ludicrous even then.
NO ONE, and I mean NOOOO ONE, had any memory of that as a significant event of the century. That was perhaps the most idiotic application of Bible prophecy the WTS ever made.
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YO, HOMER FANS, SPENT THE DAY AT THE SIMPSONS MOVIE OPENING!!!
by Seeker4 inas some of you may know, the simpsons movie had a national contest as to what springfield would host the opening of the simpsons movie, and springfield, vt won.
that happens to be the center of my newspaper's circulation, so i spent seveal hours today on the "yellow" (yup) carpet interviewing and photographing celebs who created the series and the movie.
international media there like you wouldn't believe.
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Seeker4
As some of you may know, the Simpsons Movie had a national contest as to what Springfield would host the opening of the Simpsons Movie, and Springfield, VT won. That happens to be the center of my newspaper's circulation, so I spent seveal hours today on the "yellow" (yup) carpet interviewing and photographing celebs who created the series and the movie. International media there like you wouldn't believe. Cool for a relatively small weekly to see your paper squeezed in with Entertainment Tonight, TV Guide, BBC and Fox News on the red carpet.
I've got about 90 pics, but no card reader here at home. When I do, this coming Monday/Tuesday, I'll try to post some pics online. But, in the meantime, some highlights. It was fun, but you got to figure pretty mindless if your entire journalistic career was limited to red carpet interviews.
Page McConnell, the keyboardist with Phish, performed with his band. Creator Matt Groening was there, and I got to interview him, as well as Jim Brooks, Richard Sakai and director David Silverman. They were really terrific.
I was hanging with a reporter from the London Times, and he was asking me all sorts of questions about the town, etc., and I may be quoted in his article. Anyone on the board who gets the Times? If you do, pm me and I'll tell you what to watch for. Would be so cool to pass on to my grandkids not only my press kit, my pictures, and advance DVD of the movie, but also a copy of that article.
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