reading the thread on mind numbing meetings reminds me of the following event that occurred when i was about 19.. i'd got a full time job away after leaving school and was working about 20 miles away - thursday night meetings necessitated working later , catching a 6.10pm bus after work and walking 10 minutes or so straight to the kh , often arriving just as the meetings were starting or a few minutes late and getting the "evil eye" from some of the jws when i arrived.
my parents ( father was the presiding overseer ) would bring my clothes in the car and i would get changed into my suit in the kh toilets.. it was one of those moments when all the stars seemed to align.
i had had a particularly stressful day at work and was even more tired & hungry than usual on a thursday night.
"40 years later I finally did it. But the regret is real."
I did same, though it was 10 years... wasted, especially now that I am convinced it's all a delusion, I wasted my early youth gave up my art school aspirations and songwriter dreams, I gave up med school as a goal...
Instead adjusted to the next best thing a JW failure could do... married have kids and raise them proper.
yes, the bible says it and the jehovah's witnesses believe it.
yet how did i get stuck with so long the mean, angry and jealous one?
the guy that had no problem killing off all the men, women children and even their farm animals because he was so pissed off most the time.
I didn't know I was posting for your comfort or entertainment, disgaree? keep scrolling.
But this WTWizard does sound like I might wanna read what he thinks. Hey you can stay in the material realm and believe the "official" narrative... that's okay, your choice.
I won't judge ya
it seems, you can not research many of the older publications on society's web site anymore.
for the obvious reasons, that they don't want people to go back and read about all the false prophecies, changing guide lines (new light that became old light that became new light once again) and the just plain stupid stuff they have said over the years.
i not quit sure what publications they have blocked.
PS I still think this online database is super dangerous... no one can guarantee me that it will be unchanged as it's an easy repository to access and change content...
But I had no idea people were told to DISPOSE of them... massive red flag,... and by the way JW's are super sentimental about the books... I remember it is seen as spiritual food I hated tossing scrumpled up books and magazines. At my mom's house there's a couple of closets worth of old books no one dares throw away...
it seems, you can not research many of the older publications on society's web site anymore.
for the obvious reasons, that they don't want people to go back and read about all the false prophecies, changing guide lines (new light that became old light that became new light once again) and the just plain stupid stuff they have said over the years.
i not quit sure what publications they have blocked.
yes, the bible says it and the jehovah's witnesses believe it.
yet how did i get stuck with so long the mean, angry and jealous one?
the guy that had no problem killing off all the men, women children and even their farm animals because he was so pissed off most the time.
Hey you are free to believe what you may... I didn't get it before until I reviewed Genesis 6... basically the gods and small lords all came down in an incursion to genetically modify us.
Sound scifi? Just research on a world level all the myths... the titans & nephilim really walked the earth. The book of Enoch talks even more in depth.
Genetically altered humans and societies that willfully chose to go with them were indeed wiped out by the Happy God, why... well... order. Each according to it's kind... hybrid humans are a real threat to regular original man.
It makes sense.
To this day they continue their agenda, transhumanism, alien probing etc etc, thus the bible does say as in the days of noah so hall the last days be, he wasn't referring to the lifestyle of ignoring God... nope sir, it was about all flesh (physical human tissue) was corrupted (changed) and those titans were violent, flesh and blood eating oppressors.
From what I gather the world in Noah's day looked like a chapter of LOTR... that makes way more sense to me. So yeah God purged the face of the earth... but only the surface... water beings still remained and the nations in Canaan (look at their own stories and myths) were BIG on getting power from mystical water beings through.. you guessed it SEX...
Listen, you can of course choose to ignore all this, after all it took me years of reading and reviewing to see these things.
The way it looks to me was God created different beings with free will, but different purposes. And some of them saw the fun features humans had and decided to take those on. It could be that, it's also something else... Lucifer was given princely rulership BEFORE he went into rebellion, he was the master of the realm, like in pirrage or like a Vassal king under the rulership of God and Jesus, but he decided to try and take authority for himself. Don't you think this Vassal King had his own army and supporters? And they are higher beings than humans and they still maintain claim over areas, called strongholds, where humans are expected to give sacrifices in exchange for favors... like safe passage over the water.
Thing is... none of them are really in power, sure they can make it look like they are in charge, much like a militia can pester the civillians in an area and demand payment or food... pillage and kill... but they are acting OUTSIDE their authority... but since most humans don't know, care to know or recognize the true authority, they fall down and do the bidding of these rogue agents.
It's like paying toll to a dude from a rebel extremist group just because he is there waving a gun. Maybe you will choose to do it to survive, but they have no right and you could step in and cast them out in the name of Jesus, he gave us the same authority on earth as he has in heaven, because all those gods know their true place and the judgement coming.
it has been us humans who lost our identity and who we belong with... playing for the damn orcs in a conquest against our very future...
all the other gods not answering to Jesus are bottomline low ranking orcs and all the nations go around mixing with them using magic and kneeling to them.
It's time humans woke up to their true place... dangit... WE ARE ALL CHILDREN OF GOD not Satan & his underling minions... the damn dragon & serpent... yea dragon like in GOT.. sheesh.
reading the thread on mind numbing meetings reminds me of the following event that occurred when i was about 19.. i'd got a full time job away after leaving school and was working about 20 miles away - thursday night meetings necessitated working later , catching a 6.10pm bus after work and walking 10 minutes or so straight to the kh , often arriving just as the meetings were starting or a few minutes late and getting the "evil eye" from some of the jws when i arrived.
my parents ( father was the presiding overseer ) would bring my clothes in the car and i would get changed into my suit in the kh toilets.. it was one of those moments when all the stars seemed to align.
i had had a particularly stressful day at work and was even more tired & hungry than usual on a thursday night.
ps my fam and my ex bf now hubby's fam pulled the just come after work get dressed thing for us too I did it a lot, in my local KH not everyone was nice. There's a social policing that's nothing like the love Christ said we must have... kinda like when his disciples tried sending kids awat...
but hey, the JW as a whole have no Holy Spirit
reading the thread on mind numbing meetings reminds me of the following event that occurred when i was about 19.. i'd got a full time job away after leaving school and was working about 20 miles away - thursday night meetings necessitated working later , catching a 6.10pm bus after work and walking 10 minutes or so straight to the kh , often arriving just as the meetings were starting or a few minutes late and getting the "evil eye" from some of the jws when i arrived.
my parents ( father was the presiding overseer ) would bring my clothes in the car and i would get changed into my suit in the kh toilets.. it was one of those moments when all the stars seemed to align.
i had had a particularly stressful day at work and was even more tired & hungry than usual on a thursday night.
in the organization there's a saying that he who has more faith will have MORE expected of him. More active and longer standing families have harder hell brought down on them.
I was 21 when I first "ran away" I thought I was running from my mom, now I understand I was running from KH. Was disfellowshipped at 19 and spent long long long hours alone, ate alone under my mom's roof. She would yell wy do you always bring me trouble.
I was in trouble allright... I needed family... not the drones repeating WT lines and kingdom ministry blurbs.
It took another 8 years of me striving to come back a lot of self-punishment for one day a simple small thing to make me realize WHO am I doing this for, it certainly was not for me. I married an unbeliever in my run away from home thing, cause the biggest shame would have been me as a female moving out unmarried... yup!! That was the main reason I looked around, picked a guy from my college who I knew for just a quick minute (4 months), and set myself up for a loveless marriage for 8 freaking years.
All because I was DF and my BF was not, Long story, he did lie to teh elders a bit so they didn't chop his head off but the organization does have a thing for keeping men in... cause of the lack of active bro's taking responsibilities... women on the other hand are a dime a dozen and SHE get's blamed for all the sexual horniness of said poor victimized seduced man... you know the guy who finally admits his addiction to porn one day years upon years after.
I did leave, the meetings got more and more boring, one WT popped at me, the last day I attended, the last day I was gonna live a lie just to still remain in the fold. It was about how if you have not changed, it's that God sees you're not ready and other family has to be humble enough to allow God to do his thing.
See they apply this ONLY to unbaptized peeps... but guys it applies to us ALL... I was baptized because I wanted a good standing and at that time I felt like I didn't have it.
I was also sold that baptism would reset me some how... I'd suddenly stop being a little edgy and wild... nah!
The JW have one HUGE flaw... no one truly knows how to walk in Christ with Holy Spirit teaching them. This is not taught, the real work is shoved under a rug...
as the title states there is a ...problem.
allow me to explain.. i'll start with a letter from the president of the wtbs inc in 1974.
*** yb74 254-6 is your faith dead or alive?
It's super easy... SO many people do actually baptize and then leave... they don't substract them from it... kind of like a company reporting number of one-time customers... it's true, but it says nothing.
You're supposed to be SO good and sooo amazing for people's lives they keep coming back.
I remember back in 2003, I was in my late teens finishing highschool, our small congregation was repeatedly told it was stagnant. The CO would talk about deletion. I think that's when I first started to hear the talks like that voice from Peanuts. We were constantly barraged with this works = faith nonsense. We were out in service HOURS, I had a part time job AND I went to school still and also managed to go on 6-8 hour stints with a regular pioneer from my congregation, me and my sibblings did this a lot. All the time.
But in my heart my concern was being found approved by God (another popular phrase used in many many a WT study program).
All this strain... that congregation today STILL has more or less the same composition, it's just as empty. They moved around language groups, they have "growth" in the form of children born... like I had 3 new babies in that time, so did many other families, so it feels full... sure, until those teens leave.
Because my friend, they DO in droves. I didn't leave as a teen, I am a second generation JW, there's a TON of pride that comes with that, pioneers in all my fam, born to a young elder full time evangelizer... you just DON'T crash and burn in public, what a holy f@#$# shame to your family... and Jehovah...
So... double life it was for me... which was really a defense mechanism, I had no idea why I felt so empty inside striving so much... worried about my number of studies and placements. I still remember that was when I stopped caring about saturday morning service.
My mother would stand by my bedroom door and call me things I was disloyal, didn't love God anymore and rebelling.
I was in a mess all right, thanks to that magazine attendant in my hall who was kissing me hard behind doors when no one was looking and slipping hands here and there. I'd ask him to stop or talk about how this was gonna bring us a curse and a judgement, but 18 and horny myself... yeah what do you think happened.
And this was happening in the Hall... announcement after announcement of no growth, and talks about if you hide your sin God can't bless the congregation... I was suicidal now... great it's ALL my dang fault.
I just wanted it to end, that dud and me... but I was also totally enamored, thinking also he owed me marriage (what idiocy), this abusive manipulative jerk who used things done to me (satuatiory rape at 14, molestation at 6) to abuse me emotionally. So many times I hear: if you tell who do you think they will disfellowship? The person with a past? Or the one who is a virgin?
9 months I endured that thing, they say distance makes the heart wander... boy I tell you the only thing that saved me was being away from town for a month. I came back and looked at the situation again. To me it was clear, we were either gonna marry or break up asap. He dumped me when I said it. I had changed, no longer weak and controllable.
We parted ways, everyone asking why? what happened? such a beautiful couple, always in service? The elderly would try to get us talking again...
less than a month passed a non-JW reported seeing us at 3:00 AM getting into his house... and the committee from hell started.
Anyway, my point is, these numbers and decline are often blamed on the people in the congregation, they are guilt tripped and the "elders" are far from helpful in helping people in spiritual problems. They have NO idea what the work of ministering to those who need it. They act like it's a burned if and when you sin... because apparently baptism means being born again as a perfect sinless person.
The JW also does not understand the process of sanctification that a person coming to Christ needs to walk through and the RELATIONSHIP you should be focusing to develop with Christ. Oh they WILL tell you they talk about it ALL the time, but as a child raised in this thing... I felt God in my life in tiny spurts, the message from other members and the leaders and the books was often condemning to the max factor... so I saw God mostly as this angry dude... like Santa knowing you naughty or nice... you have flaws like masturbation... and carry SUCH shame, you self-punish, self-condemn and think not doing it -- often may be enough. Or that it continuously coming back to haunt you is a signal that YOU are basically a goat.
It took being disfellowshipped, emotionallt beat up, shunned, reinstated and feeling STILL as an outsider, becoing adulterous and divorcing, disfellowshipped again for me to hear what God was saying...
Your sins reflect your woundedness... I was molested by a complete random old man who walked up to our porch at 6. I slapped him tod him if he ever did that again I would report him... but THAT didn't help my feelings of shame, and curiosity that got stirred in my body. And I have only heard the idea that abused kids become perverts in a very judgy unkind and self-righteous tone... so I hid what happened and was engulfed with nightmares about being exposed and ideas that I was a seductress temptress and sexually immoral.
No... I was molested and needed help understanding my feelings and body sensations. And because of this a whole chain of events ensued leading to be being forced into sex when I really didn't want to, I just felt a huge pressure to stay and not say I changed my mind, I am going to go... Because up to then someone else's arousal and perversion had become in my mind my doing and my fault.
Honestly the JW elders have ZERO skills in this department, they don't even know what Christian counselors are, let alone can these 3 tired overworked old men know how to understand someone's process to repeat a sin.
A day doesn't go by that I don't thank Jesus for leading me, no, literally ripping me by the neck out of that place. At first I refused to stay out... round one I forced myself back to be a JW, now... NEVER. It's a nope.
My father doesn't know things, I have not told him. My mom knows so she doesn't even bring up coming to meetings when and if I see her which is rarely.