This is one JW tradition I'm okay with - but only for the practicality of it, not for whatever silly reasons the WTS gives. Superstitious nonsense to have everyone around you, including strangers, call out 'God bless you', or 'Gesundheit' every time someone sneezes.
undercover
JoinedPosts by undercover
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Sneezing in the presence of non-JWs
by compound complex ingreetings, cold and allergy sufferers:.
i'm in good health currently, but i do sneeze quite a bit, bringing down the rafters, as one sister exclaimed at the kh.
apart from that, no jw ever acknowledged my clearing out .
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Brother & Sisters, Aunts and Uncles.....husband and wife
by menrov inwas just thinking about the practice in wt (and i believe some other religions as well) to call your fellow female (baptized) jw a sister, a brother if it is a man.
children call older people aunt or uncle.
so, at home, i can call my wife by her first name etc.
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undercover
In the rural Southern US, children were not to call adults by their first name, JW religion or not. Anyone not well known as always Mister so-and-so, or Miss/Mrs so-and-so. Adults close to the family would be called Uncle or Aunt, even if not really related. Like your father's best friend would be Uncle Bob.
In the JW religion, all adults were called Brother or Sister (followed by last name) by children at all times. There were some people I never knew their first names growing up.
As for adults, the use of Brother/Sister was usually confined to JW settings - Kingdom Halls, field service, assemblies, and usually with 'friends' that were not in your close circle of friends. But it was used enough even in some situations that sometimes it made adult JWs stick out in public when they referred to another adult as Brother or Sister.
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LDS leader James J. Hamula excommunicated
by oppostate inlds leader james j. hamula excommunicated.
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/faith/lds-leader-james-j-hamula-excommunicated/article_bc1f3f66-b315-5f2d-bf6e-473eef082209.html.
in a rare action taken by the senior leadership of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints, a disciplinary council was held for general authority seventy james j. hamula, and he has been excommunicated from the lds church..
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undercover
They report it wasn't for apostasy
Yea, right. Maybe he was excommunicated for eating a meal with another excommunicated member...
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There are only 4 ways to leave the Jehovah's Witnesses
by new boy inthere are only four ways of leaving the jehovah’s witnesses.
so there are four ways that could lead to shunning.
i say “could” because options three and four has some loopholes.
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undercover
Mostly successful fader here... I say 'mostly', because as long as your name is still in the books, as long as some family members or old friends still hold out hope you're just 'going through a phase', as long as you have not made a definite statement renouncing your association with the religion, then the past will always be there to haunt you to some degree.
I'm sure there are a few cases of someone just walking away, moving away, and losing all contact with all JWs every again, but that would be a rare instance. Most of us have family ties, and therefore that's why we fade. We want out, but we don't let the WTS call the shots on how we leave. We leave on our terms, but our terms aren't clear. It's coy, it's subterfuge, it's cloak and dagger... all so we can see our kids, our parents, our grandparents.
And quite frankly, even some DFd/DAd ones can't totally escape it. Anyone with JW family with which you have managed to keep some relationship with, despite the fading/DFing/DAing, has to deal with having been part of that system at one point.
In short, for most of us, death is the only real way completely and totally out of the JW influence on our lives.
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Are You Objective About Who You Were As a JW?
by Wasanelder Once intoday there was a jesus preaching head case with a bullhorn blaring "save yourself from the fires of hell!
accept jesus.
god loves you!
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undercover
Are you removed enough that you can see who you were with true objectivity?
I think I can say that I am. It's embarrassing to think about certain aspects of it. On one hand, you own up to it, admit that you were fooled, and part of a cult. The other hand, you admit it, but you cringe at the very thought of some things you said and did.
Being part of a family with active members still in makes it difficult. While some people may only be reminded of their past actions by occasional crazy street preachers, others of us have daily reminders as we watch our JW family continue to blow Jah's bullhorn.
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Watchtower says: if your unbelieving relatives think you are in a cult, try to see things from their point of view
by cognisonance in12 have empathy for unbelieving relatives.
while we may be overjoyed about the bible truths we have learned, our relatives may mistakenly believe that we have been tricked or have become part of a cult.
we should show empathy by trying to see things from their viewpoint and by listening carefully to discern their real concerns.
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undercover
When I was in, it always bothered me how much effort they seemed to put in to explaining why it wasn't a cult.
I had a similar reaction to one of the magazine covers, while I was still 'in'. In a way, it actually started me on the way to give voice to the doubts in my head. The cover showed a young couple in what was obviously door to door work, and the title was (to the best of my recollection), 'Are Jehovah's Witnesses a Cult', or something similar. That cover and article probably did more to convince me that it was more of a cult than anything I had really paid attention up to that point.
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Cart Witnesses Today - I am not impressed
by pale.emperor injust approached a cart then with two jw girls holding out mags.
they continued chatting to each other about car insurance when i took the watchtower from one of their hands.. ok, so it looks like i'll have to get the ball rolling.
i asked if they were jehovahs witness.
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undercover
Just approached a cart then with two JW girls holding out mags. They continued chatting to each other about car insurance when I took the Watchtower from one of their hands.
You sure you hadn't stepped into the set of a Geico car insurance commercial? "We can't save you from Armageddon, but we can save you 15% or more on your car insurance."
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What does it take to qualify for cart/trolley work?
by Londo111 inif memory serves me, when it was first introduced elders had to fill out a form to grade a jw, and only those who made the grade could do the carts.. i didn’t realize until sir82 said something on another discussion that the process had changed.. what is the process nowadays?
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undercover
Can you breathe? Own half way decent clothes? Good. You're in.
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undercover
Notice they equate 'unrepentant wrongdoers' with all 'disfellowshipped' people. If a family member leaves the faith, not due to wrongdoing, but just because they no longer accept the WTS as God's Earthly Organization, then they are to be treated the same as someone who 'sinned' and was removed from the congregation. There is no leeway. Either you're one of us, or you're against us.
Nothing new in it, just pointing it out in case of lurkers...
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Can JWs vote?
by NikL ini finally found the questions from readers i was looking for.. from nov 1, 1999 wt .
it says.... questions from readershow do jehovah’s witnesses view voting?there are clear principles set out in the bible that enable servants of god to take a proper view of this matter.
however, there appears to be no principle against the practice of voting itself.
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undercover
There are clear principles set out in the Bible that enable servants of God to take a proper view of this matter. However, there appears to be no principle against the practice of voting itself.
And that should have been the entire article right there. Nothing else need be said.