First priority when you realize you're in an abusive relationship is to LEAVE that relationship. What you do next is none of the abuser's business, nor the business of anyone who thinks you can't do better.
Jofi_Wofo
JoinedPosts by Jofi_Wofo
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99
If not the WT/JW relgion where else are 'we' to go? Why not atheistic/scientific philosophical naturalism?
by Disillusioned JW insometimes jws wonder if the wt/jw is not the truth, 'then where else are we to go?
' i say 'why not atheistic/scientific philosophical naturalism and why not a secular philosophy which teaches a way of life?
' what do you folks say?.
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Did I miss any big news?
by Iamallcool ini used to read this site everyday for years!
i am still learning to be ex ex jw.
did i miss any big news, etc?
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Jofi_Wofo
Not sure if you heard this yet, but it's come to light that Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult.
Also, a new rule. It is required that all pillows at Bethel be fully covered with modest pillow cases, so as to not bring single brothers into temptation.
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Research question
by JeffT ini'm doing a little background research for a novel.
what is the craziest thing you heard a witness say was demonized, and what did they do about it?.
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Jofi_Wofo
My uncle thought it was impossible for David Blane to perform any of his tricks without the help of demons.
I knew a JW who, upon seeing a Luna Month for the first time in his life, was convinced he saw a demon.
My cousin, from the non-JW side of the family, had her Link to the Past SNES cartridge thrown out by her non-relative JW babysitter because the babysitter found out the game had magic and wanted to protect the family from demons.
Seems like everyone had at least one encounter with a demon in their lives.
Garage door opened on its own? Demons.
Alarm clock didn't go off? Demons.
Drunk driver? Demons.
Broken car windows? Demons.
Theory of Evolution? Demons
Ancient aliens? Ancient demons!
Wind chimes? Demons.
Insane Clown Posse? Demons.
That last one I agree with, though.
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Zoom Social Event With a GB Member (Losche)
by Jofi_Wofo inin a recent turn of events, i found myself at a jw social gathering on zoom (supporting my pimi wife, while among mostly jws whom i don't know and a handful of old friends who don't know i'm inactive) that just so happened to also be joined by garrett losche and his wife.
sorry to disappoint but i had absolutely no interaction with him and have nothing interesting to report about it.
i'm just sharing this because i can't believe i even got that close to maybe chatting with him, despite being a closeted apostate.. there were about 300 people in the zoom meeting, all having been directly invited.
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Jofi_Wofo
@fffghost
It wasn't a meeting or anything official. It was a gathering to celebrate a certain thing a certain person did. Losche wasn't a part of the festivities, he was just a guest like me.
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Zoom Social Event With a GB Member (Losche)
by Jofi_Wofo inin a recent turn of events, i found myself at a jw social gathering on zoom (supporting my pimi wife, while among mostly jws whom i don't know and a handful of old friends who don't know i'm inactive) that just so happened to also be joined by garrett losche and his wife.
sorry to disappoint but i had absolutely no interaction with him and have nothing interesting to report about it.
i'm just sharing this because i can't believe i even got that close to maybe chatting with him, despite being a closeted apostate.. there were about 300 people in the zoom meeting, all having been directly invited.
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Jofi_Wofo
In a recent turn of events, I found myself at a JW social gathering on Zoom (supporting my PIMI wife, while among mostly JWs whom I don't know and a handful of old friends who don't know I'm inactive) that just so happened to also be joined by Garrett Losche and his wife. Sorry to disappoint but I had absolutely no interaction with him and have nothing interesting to report about it. I'm just sharing this because I can't believe I even got THAT close to MAYBE chatting with him, despite being a closeted apostate.
There were about 300 people in the Zoom meeting, all having been directly invited. Breakout rooms were formed randomly to give guests a chance to interact on a more personal level. I looked at the camera thumbnails and related to mt wife "Wow, that guy looks like Garrett Losche." My wife took a look and said "OH WOW! IT IS BROTHER LOSCHE!!!!"
Sad, but true - I snuck away from the laptop for a minute to turn my phone's voice recorder on just in case I may have wound up talking to him at some point. I also loaded up a pdf of the infamous affidavit where he claimed "I do not answer to Watchtower." In my little mind, I thought it would be an absolutely epic moment in exJW history if I could have read it out loud to him while I was recording his reaction.
Ahhhh, but it wasn't to be. As I mentioned, we never interacted but honestly, I have such bad social anxiety, and I was sitting right next to my wife, so I can't talk a tough game here and say that I would have ACTUALLY done this or that.
But, a man can dream, can't he? And eventually, someone in the know is going to get close enough to pull something like this off. Personally, I'd love to see a KH crash when one of the GB are giving the talk and someone reads off something like Losche's affidavit, or plays audio from Jackson lying through his treeth to the ARC.
One day...
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This one bible passage proves abortions are wrong and honoring Mary is right
by TTWSYF innwt luke chapt 1.
41 well, as elizabeth heard the greeting of mary, the infant in her womb leaped, and elizabeth was filled with holy spirit 42 and loudly cried out: “blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruitage of your womb!
43 so how is it that this privilege is mine, to have the mother of my lord come to me?
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Jofi_Wofo
Oh, and I forgot to mention - there is a difference between honoring a person and religiosity venerating a person. The Bible says to honor your mother - not pray to your mother nor put up a statue in the likeness of your mother and prostrate yourself before it.
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This one bible passage proves abortions are wrong and honoring Mary is right
by TTWSYF innwt luke chapt 1.
41 well, as elizabeth heard the greeting of mary, the infant in her womb leaped, and elizabeth was filled with holy spirit 42 and loudly cried out: “blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruitage of your womb!
43 so how is it that this privilege is mine, to have the mother of my lord come to me?
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Jofi_Wofo
The new testament is a Catholic book. The example of Jesus calling his mother 'woman' is not derogatory as the WTS would have you believe. Jesus was never disrespectful of or to his mother. The passage of calling Mary 'woman' is a reference of the OT title of the Woman who will crush the head of the serpent. Enmity between the two. Gen 3:15
Unike many of its other teachings, WT has been very consistent on this one point:
"Woman: Jesus’ use of this term when addressing his mother was consistent with his way of addressing other women (Joh 4:21) and was apparently considered polite in many contexts (Mt 15:28). It was not understood to be rude, unkind, or disrespectful in any way. Angels and the resurrected Jesus used this form of address when speaking to Mary Magdalene when she was weeping in sorrow at Jesus’ tomb; their words would surely not have been harsh or disrespectful in such a situation. (Joh 20:13, 15) On the torture stake, Jesus used the same term to address his mother when his great concern for her moved him to place her in the care of his beloved apostle John. (Joh 19:26) He made this arrangement because of the Scriptural obligation to honor one’s father and mother. (Ex 20:12; De 5:16; Mt 15:4) Several reference works confirm that using the term “woman” as a form of address could reflect respect and affection."
- From the NWT Study Bible, Gospel of John study notes.
It's also been addressed in questions from readers. Not only are you misrepresenting Watchtower's teaching on this manner, Watchtower actually proves its point with references.
Further, if calling Mary "woman" indicates that she was the woman prophesied about in Genesis, then are all the other women Jesus called "woman" also the woman in Genesis? Is there a Watchtoweresque woman "class" giving birth to Jesuses and adopting Jonadabs?
Also, what so we make of the man that Jesus called "Man"? Lest we forget, Jesus called himself the Son of Man. Draw your own conclusions!
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How long did it take before you realized that you missed the obvious?
by pistolpete inremember when the public speaker in the kingdom hall or convention related the ten plagues and the parting of the red sea?.
the finale when jehovah closes the red sea and swallows pharaoh's entire army of egyptian men.. when i was a little kid about 5 years old and listened to this story, i would think---wow jehovah is strong.
when i started school and started learning compassion as early as the first grade i started wondering?????.
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Jofi_Wofo
Great points.
Despite being a naturally skeptical person, I allowed myself to be convinced that I didn't need to know anything more than, nor question anything about, the information that God had (supposedly) already given us. All I can now see in Watchtower and biblical literalist doctrine is contradiction, discrepancy, omission, dishonesty and absurdity.
How did we miss it? Human cognition wasn't programmed optimally to find truth. It was programmed optimally to allow us to survive the context in which it evolved. Obedience to tribal authority and adherence to group loyalty were always more important than whether or not any of the myths used to foster those ties had any truth to them.
The second that we stop thinking of it as "our" doctrine and start thinking of it as "their" doctrine is the second that we no longer understand how anybody could ever believe it.
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Sam Heard in April JW cult broadcasting says are you doing all you can?
by mickbobcat inso sam rolex had this months talk on jw cult broadcasting.
my question to sam rolex is why not sell your rolex and give it to the cult?
how about muppet lett, why not sell your rental property in ga and give it to the cult?
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Jofi_Wofo
Watchtower: Jehovah never expects you to give more than you can!
Also Watchtower: No matter what you are doing for Jehovah, you can always do more!
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If you want a depressing anecdote to illustrate the depressing point, here's a depressing anecdote about depression.
Like anyone else in life, I've had my ups and downs, and like many others I've experienced temporary, but prolonged, periods of depression. I shit you not when I tell you that I was rebuked by at least three different elders (might have been more, I'd have to unlock my mental file cabinet to get a fuller number) not for sinning, disobeying a Watchtower rule, nor even for showing up late or accidentally being rude. I got counseled FOR BEING DEPRESSED.
1) One elder told me that Jehovah's people are a happy people snd that if I'm not happy, I must be doing something wrong with my spiritual routine.
2) Another elder took me aside and told me that I looked miserable and that I needed to cut it out because it makes the religion look bad to unbelievers. We need to give them the impression that being a JW is pure joy, even if we are hurting badly in the inside.
3) One elder interrogated me on why I didn't preach during a CO visit. I told him that I was so depressed that it was making me physically ill and that I spent almost the entire week sleeping day and night and was still tired. This elder said 'I'm sorry to hear that, thanks for sharing, but here's some advice for you. You really need to figure out how to push through whatever it is that you're going through so that you can continue to reach out for more responsibility.'
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Derek Chauvin - The Right to a Fair Trial
by Simon inanyone following the derek chauvin trial?.
if you are actually following it, not just listening to the media, you will likely realize that there is a huge gap between what is going on in court and what is being reported in the media.. if the trial was fair, i think he should be acquitted.
there is plenty of reasonable doubt about the cause of death (his dealer doesn't want to testify because he could be guilty of 3rd degree murder for selling him a fatal amount of fentanyl) and even doubt over whether the officer even had his knee on the guys neck or did anything counter to what they were meant to do as per policy.. but is it fair?
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Jofi_Wofo
The raw video of George Flloyd is one of the most heart wrenching things I've ever seen and I truly believe that Derek Chauvin is a warped individual who deserves to be punished.
He might be liable for the manslaughter and maybe even the third degree murder charge, though even that might be tough. To make the murder conviction stick, you have to prove that there even was a murder to begin with, and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. The facts surrounding the case paint a more murky picture than most of us originally thought.
George Floyd had was found to have no physical signs of asphyxiation. Even the close-up video, awful as it is to watch, confirms that he WAS breathing, and other videos show that he was already shouting "I can't breathe" BEFORE he was even taken to the ground. He was also found to have a high enough dose of fentanyl in his system to kill not just one, but a handful of people. It's almost certain that he was going to die even if he had not gotten into a confrontation with police, and it was 100% his fault that he got into the confrontation to begin with.
A better argument can be made that Chauvin's abusive and unauthorized restraint tactic exacerbated Floyd's demise and that it should have been obvious that he was in a state of medical emergency and needed to be handled with care. That's my take on this situation. Derek Chauvin should be in prison for a very long time but the justice system needs to handle this situation professionally. Not politically nor emotionally. "SCREW THE FACTS, WE WANT BLOOD!!! " is not the kind if system that we want.