Posts by Bonsai

45

Being in a cult - what good did it do?

by Garrett in

jw
friends

so, here's a bit of a different point of view.

while most of us will agree that our time within the jw cult was rather terrible, however, i'd like to look at another aspect.

did anything good come out of being in a cult and then waking up from it?.

Bonsai

I'm still not convinced that this religion is a cult. If it is, then most all other religions on this planet are cults one way or another. People run around screaming in gibberish (tongues),. People go around threatening that one might roast in an eternal hellfire. People claim that they have been Born Again! that all sounds just as cultish and looney to me. I feel no more victimized than if I were born into a Protestant or Catholic religion.

I feel that i was raised in a high control group that exposed me to many negative things and some positive things. I realize there are those with worse experiences than I, but speaking for myself, this religion helped me to learn a good set of morals( which I realize are just common sense), they exposed me to some of the good things written in the bible. Being a witness helped me to overcome the beginnings of substance abuse. I met many good people who taught me a lot of good principles in life. This religion helped me to make many contacts so I could travel to many countries with ease. It taught me how to be a good, persuasive public speaker. etc. etc. I lived. I learned.

I like the positivity of the O.P. because it is not a weakness but a strength to be able to take something good from the bad, or build something from that which is broken.Thanks for that Garrett.

33

Is door to door activity over?

by badcompany in

jw
friends

just curious about others experience.

i've been living just a few miles from a kingdom hall for 9 years.

i've been called on 0 times.

Bonsai

The door-to-door work sure is alive and well where I am. They come around almost twice a month! It's getting pretty ridiculous at this point.At one point I ran into witnesses on four consecutive days last week. I've faded out for almost half a year now, but they still can't seem to take a hint.

15

Japanese torture of American prisoners in WW2 revealed

by fulltimestudent in

this is not a new story.

the japanese military in ww2 were barbaric in the way they treated captured servicemen.

i was about ten when my father's best friend came home from a japanese prison camp.

Bonsai

WW2 was a horrible time for all nations. I have seen first hand the lingering scars of war in Japan.

Yet, look how far Japan has come? Today they love the west and admire North Americans/Europeans/Australians etc.. In elementary schools there are many books students can access which show the gruesome realities of war (torched bodies and starving children)-they well know the sins of their great-grandparents and they openly bash the government of that time for deceiving its people and doing terrible things.

In Tokyo over one hundred thousand were killed from napalm bombs after Japan had all but been defeated.

http://stopwar.org.uk/news/what-we-can-learn-from-the-day-the-us-burned-to-death-100-000-women-and-children

They were nuked twice and still they forgive today and try to get along with their neighbors and the west. I wish the same could be said for China and the Koreas, although I feel like South Korea is on the right path.

Both sides have learned from WW2 and I feel there is hope for mankind. Hope for religion? Well,,, that is another thing.

45

Why do we get TTATT and others don't?

by quest81 in

jw
friends

i have thought about how ttatt came full circle for me.

how the connecting the dots was simple and just made sense,.

how silos of information are literally at our fingertips today.. why is it that the ones we love cannot get ttatt?.

Bonsai

For me there was a time TTATT wouldn't faze me a bit. I was conditioned to cast aside TTATT as twisted teachings of demons to clusterflup your spiritual mind.

You could have told me pedo's were prevalent and getting away with abuse and I would have said wait on the Big J. You could have expressed your frustration that the overlapping generations teaching was unscriptural and illogical and I would simply say you gotta wait on the Big J. You could tell me that the Org. joined the U.N. as an NGO for a decade and I would have (with relish) said it's theocratic warfare.(keep your friends close and your enemies closer). You could tell me that there is absolutely nada archeological evidence to support 607 B.C.E and i would have said just wait, something will no doubt be uncovered to support it by archeologists any day now.

Up until a few months ago, I could easily provide an excuse/ answer to anything that challenged the org., simply because we are trained from the beginning to trigger defense mechanisms in our mind that stop us from thinking deeply and honestly about troubling information we receive. Without thinking, we use patented responses like:

You are an apostate! That is apostate material!

Take it up with God in prayer.

Wait on the Big J.

We are a perfect organization run by imperfect men so the light keeps getting brighter and brighter.

What are your motives for looking at that information?

(Without considering the info) Where did you get that information? etc.

What I didn't have a defense for was seeing the mental anguish, the sad faces of those who came to meetings month after month, year after year who were trying to get reinstated while being coldly shunned by everyone in the congregation. There has always been a constant stream over the past 12 years of df'd ones (in every cong i have been in) trying to come back. They sat in the back in assigned seats being treated like trash. One would finally be reinstated, but another would come along Then the next one would go through it, and the next...

Having never been df'd or publicly reproved myself, I could never relate to or rationalize Jesus' teachings of love. mercy and forgiveness with the treatment of those who were trying to get reinstated. Watching the anguish of these people year after year was like a thousand paper cuts that finally I couldn't bear anymore.

Emotion, not logic, is the core of faith. Yet, often times it is emotion rather than logic that when let loose it becomes the trigger that destroys our indoctrination.

34

The "5 Pillars" of Witness life...

by stuckinarut2 in

oh, there is one brother that keeps prattling on about "the 5 pillars of faith and worship".

- prayer.

- personal study.

Bonsai

The five pillars of my prison cell:

-Fear

-Guilt

-Obligation

-Isolation

-Denial

27

Ex-Christians being angry

by Jonathan Drake in

jw
friends

i know i'm angry.

i was curious if others are too.

i feel completely justified in my anger as well.

Bonsai

For me the anger has come and gone over the months. Now I'm just profoundly sad. I yearn so much to see the human family released from the chains of pain,suffering and death. Losing my faith has not solved any of those problems.

If only a loving, just, father-like God really existed...

I'll give that meditation technique a try during my hike today.

28

Newbies , Are We Seeing An Accelerated Increase? This Past Year ? Newbies Feel free To Respond Please .

by smiddy in

jw
friends

is it just me or does anyone else see more newbies joining this site this past year and especially in the last few months .. we would love to welcome you with genuine friendship ,support ,encouragement ,a place to vent ,and not judge you.. you have the freedom to express whatever view you like and you won`t be kicked off the board.. and to learn more about the "truth" about the truth , you will not hear at a kingdom hall .. smiddy.

Bonsai

I'm a newbie here. I've been lurking/posting a bit here and there for a few months now. I think there are many like me who are getting older (late 20's to early 40's) and finding it more and more difficult to believe unquestionably all the JW doctrine and its recent flip flops/changes. In my case, it just got harder and harder to believe with the intensity of a works-based faith that JW Land requires. Believing in invisible things is hard enough. On top of that we have to shun df'd family and refuse medical help that could save our loved ones lives. Also, I just got tired of preaching to everyone that they are wrong, I'm right and if you don't except it the crows are gonna be pecking at your corpse any day now.

I always hated the term apostate. It's a term that is too easily abused and used to scare people. It's like the term "witch" in the early American colonial days. I believe most people on this site are searchers for truth who think outside of the box that society/religion created for us from long ago before we were born.

I would like to express my appreciation to Simon for making this site and to all of you others who provide interesting and thought-provoking comments to chew over.

I'm not here on a mission to bash JW Land and prove it wrong. Maybe this is the truth. I don't know. I only know that I'm tired, burnt out and yearn for freedom of thought and freedom of conscience. What changes will take place in the org. for the better or worse? What developments will take place as far as bible prophecy is concerned? I'm waiting and watching. I think I've learned enough at this point in my life to know that I really don't know anything.

17

Just another experience

by bradford in

i just wanted to add another piece to the puzzle that is the exile from the organization.

a little background about myself first.

i was not born into the religion, technically.

Bonsai

Welcome Bradford. Our stories are very similar. Too bad (because of distance) we couldn't shoot some hoops and talk about stuff over a beer. I don't recommend disassociating yourself if it's an angry emotional response to what you've learned recently. But if it's killing you mentally not to cut ties... each must do what he thinks is best. Hang in there man. Your wife will need you to be there for her emotionally and mentally now more than ever.

4

What keeps me away from the JWs religion!

by Wonderment in

there are a few things that have kept me away from the jws organizaction.

these are the most prominent.. 1. jesus has been pushed aside, and replaced by the governing body.

wrong!!!!!!.

Bonsai

What keeps me away is knowing that if I go to a meeting, I will more than likely be pressured and guilt tripped by its members, fear mongered by the meetings contents and obligated to come again as I am love bombed into submission.

I'm sick and tired of hearing that we are deep into the latter half of the final remaining few days of the imminent conclusion of the end of this system of things. That 7+ billion people have to die because they don't know their left hand from their right. That god has been invisible for thousands of years and will only appear again to smite 99% of the world population. That how wonderful it will be to build a paradise over the bones and carcasses of women, children and babies. Hey, they will make great fertilizer for your dream vegetable garden right?

I have always been racked by survivor's guilt. Meetings just stir my cognitive dissonance and cause me great discomfort.

The world isn't pretty most of the time. There are grave problems that need fixing. But I need something that gives me mental stability to deal with the reality I live in. Messages of doom and gloom mixed with "God Is Love" just aren't cutting it for my mental health.

104

The Secret is out....but nobody cares

by MrTheocratic in

i've been looking on this site for some time but never posted.

i'll give a little about myself, but not too much.

i'm a ex-bethelite ( brooklyn )and currently serving as an elder (10 years) (thinking about stepping down) on the service committee.

Bonsai

Welcome Mr. Theocratic.

I have found your observations to be exactamente correcto. I recently revealed to my two close friends why I have stopped attending meetings. They both acknowledged that my reasons were legitimate. One said that he wasn't in a hurry to leave because he had family in and he felt like even if "the truth" wasn't the truth, he viewed it as a kind of life insurance that may or may not give him a chance to survive after death. The other one also said that even if everything was a lie, at least being a part of the organization gave him a place in society. For him it's like the bar in the Cheers sitcom where "everybody knows your name". That was what was most important to him. People are in for various reasons, but not necessarily because they believe everything about what they are told.

Sooner or later I need to get around to formally introducing myself as well. I'm just not quite ready yet.

Thanks for adding your thoughts on the forum.