i have learned to stay away from all religion and jehovahs wittness doctrine (that includes the watchtower and awake magazines).
stay away from positions of ministerial servant, pioneer, aux pioneer, elder, and the like.
once you become a full fledged jehovah wittness you are doomed to be unhappy.
Welcome, I agree with your opening comment, except for the bit about staying in and doing the minimum. I am an all or nothing person and I want nothing to do with them, no attendance, no socialising, no field service, nothing.
You will hopefully find a ot of support here, there are many who are in different stages in their lives with some attachment or having had some attachment to the JWs, so unlike people who "don't get it" when we talk of the turmoil, most of us here do.
over many years i have looked at jwn.
in fact barely a day goes by without my fix.. .
it is a site of contradictions.. .
I was once told, believe nothing of what you are told and half of what you see. This place can be a great board so long as you keep your sense of humour. Yes there are serious discussions and serious matters, for which everyone is entitled to their opinion so long as the posting guidelines are adhered to. If someone wants to get personal, or throw their toys out the pram that is their choice. It's hard to form an opinion of someone unless you actually have met them face to face.
i think the longer you're away from the watchtower, the better you feel..
I am a whole lot better, am I in a good place though? Yes and No, I still need to save my kids from the cult.
in john cedar's (jwsurvey.org) latest excellent article on his blog about a us teacher that got reprimanded for trying to force a jw boy to salute the american flag, he relates a similar childhood experience where he was terribly humiliated at school in view of his classmates.. this reminded me of a similar humiliating experience i suffered at school, when i was 11 years old.
during our school's end of year 'prom night' (not actually called that in the country i live) which was in the style of a disco night, my unbalanced jw mother came to pick me up early and stormed right into the hall and grabbed my arm and pulled me out in front of all my friends right in the middle of the dancing.
on the way out she gave the teachers a lecture about the music being far too loud and how unwholesome the whole thing was for children of my age.
During my first year at school my mum became a JW. The head teacher was incensed at me being excluded from assembly so made me sit right outside the school hall during school assembly and put the straws into everybody's milk bottles.
THen she married a JW pedo!
"No Eric, I said why not grow a goatie, as in beard!"
its possible i might be asked by the co to work with him today.
hes gonna want to know why i'm holding myself back.
i'm itching to tell him about my doubts (only about the new light, how i cant get my head around how the hs would direct us to believe falsehoods for decades, not about everything, that'd be suicide!
Tell him your doubts and you'll be pulling the trigger. Play the ill health card is my advice.
i stopped going for a few months and have been real busy with work using this as a bit of an excuse to not go.
my family has gone on as if not much has changed and i feel marginalize as my family goes on and does scocial thing with the ones in the hall etc.
most of my kids are under the age of 11 and so i don't know if i tell them little things if it really sinks in anyway.
It's tough as many use the witnesses as a social club, however I think it might send out mixed messages to your children doing half and half. This will only confuse them. Shower them with all the love you have.
i had a music album by a gay guy before i was a jw and had no problem listening to it.
it's good music.
some of the lyrics are what you might call 'gay', that is there's some talk about boyfriends, gay bars, and queens and the intolerance the artist encountered as a gay man.
I would agree with Blondie, it is sometimes the circle of people we are with that can dictate our 'prejudices'. Don't look at gay people as being gay, look at them as being people.
well i finally got around to finishing crisis of conscience.
2 things stood out to me most.. 1. the fact that the gb can question beliefs and noone else can.. 2. strangly the most disturbing fact- its a small one- but actually made the biggest impression on me out of the whole book-.
the fact that they agreed to send him a copy of his meeting tapes and then refused and admitted in writing that they lied.. obviously there was much more that i got from it and i do find franz situation unique in that he had a whole support system outside of the "truth" and most today including myself have nothing- if i leave my wife hates me, my family wont talk to me, etc- it doesnt provide any solution for that scenario.. any thoughts on the above points- let me know.
Hi, welcome here. I read it a few years ago but I think it shows that even the GB can't question the belief system. Even the GB consulted past watchtower articles to find the answers, rather than consulting the 'head of the congregation'
i wonder about why so many of us stick to the "truth" within the frame of the jehovah's witness religion.. of course, the wts has authority over our minds thru the control of information, demonizing any "worldly" knowledge that might jeopardize our faith in this entity.. thru my own experience, i understand how we can stick to this organization; because of a life's investment in serving, and the close ties of family and peers we do not wish to abandon or upset.
so we are here on sites like these, to understand the mechanisms of the cult... to try to make sense of why we should stay, or why we should leave.. the consequences are too important to take this lightly, or too swiftly.. if i may share a bit of my journey, i did not have to worry too much about the cult at first, because my main battle was based deeper than that.
after all, the root of any christian religion is in the bible itself; faith in jehovah and christ; trust in the idea that the bible is inspired by god himself.. so yes, my quest went to the base, the root of the jw faith... the bible.. since childhood, the character of jehovah was a problem for me.
Thank you for your post. I left a couple of years ago after having doubts for years. There are many accounts that show the so-called loving father in a different light, with no valid explanation or justification, this is the one I have never had an answer to:
13 David then said to Nathan: “I have sinned against Jehovah.”+ Nathan replied to David: “Jehovah, in turn, forgives your sin.*+ You will not die.+ 14 Nevertheless, because you have treated Jehovah with utter disrespect in this matter, the son just born to you will certainly die.” 15 Then Nathan went to his own house. And Jehovah struck the child whom U·ri′ah’s wife had borne to David, and he became sick. 16 David pleaded with the true God in behalf of the boy. David went on a strict fast and would go in and spend the night lying on the ground.+ 17 So the elders of his house stood over him and tried to raise him up from the ground, but he refused and would not eat with them. 18 On the seventh day the child died, but David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead. They said: “While the child was alive we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us. So how can we tell him that the child has died? He may do something terrible.” 19 When David saw that his servants were whispering to one another, he discerned that the child had died. David said to his servants: “Has the child died?” They replied: “He has died.” 20 So David got up from the ground. He washed, rubbed himself with oil,+ changed his clothing, and went to the house+ of Jehovah and prostrated himself. Afterward, he went to his house* and asked for food to be brought to him, and he ate. 21 His servants asked him: “Why have you acted in this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and kept weeping; but as soon as the child died, you got up and ate food.” 22 He replied: “While the child was alive, I fasted+ and kept weeping because I said to myself, ‘Who knows whether Jehovah may show me favor and let the child live?’+ 23 Now that he has died, why should I fast? Can I bring him back?+ I will go to him,+ but he will not return to me.”+
This has been taken from the JW bible, and no JW was ever able to give me an explanation for it, totally disgusting behaviour of a so-called loving god.
