i won't be lengthy on this.
i have been in the org for about 20yrs.
now & woke up about 2yrs ago.
Welcome NoMoreHustle
I was babtized 1973, an elder for more than 20 years. Started to fade 1995, and I am now out. My wife is still in, but my entire family, 6 children has joined me beeing out. It has been a hard time with my wife. But I still hope that the rest of us, me and my family will get her out without breaking her menthal health.
But I must tell you there has been good times during the last 20 years also...
Bugbear
Think –believe – proof and understand = fact? Truth?
There is no such reason chain. Facts alter all the time. And if you are not gods, you never know what the next truth will be. But it is very dangerous to hang up your believe in other people’s ideas. They could be very seductive and easy to accept, like readymade pancakes. You never know what the ingredients are. Often readymade products are made to make you addicted. Like drugs, alcohol cigarettes they are only made to make you by more, offering more of your life.
But read the Bible from your own moral standpoint. Do you really want to serve a god that kills all his children. Do you want to serve a god that in his law suggest “stoning” as an appropriate punishment?
Do you want to serve a god that could ask you to kill your own son in order to proof your loyalty to him?
Reading the Bible just raises more questions in our heads then it answers our looking for the truth, fact.
Bugbear
hi guys!
is anyone sensing an increasingly sanctimonious arrogance in j-dubs recently?
im asking this as i am finding that with the two major news stories in the last few weeks (ie.
It looks like many of you have fouled up yourselves in the believing that the Bible could predict anything about Gods behavior towards humanity. The Bible has long time ago been proven to be absolutely incorrect in both facts, moral ethics, and other issues, that humans could possibly be interested in. To interpret our future and end with the bible, its like reading coffee grounds. It is absolutely a dead end….. the only thing you will get out of it is confusion. (and not only that sometimes, it could cause mental problem)
Bugbear
the present moment is real.
however much you may remember the past or anticipate the future, you live in the present.
the next second of your life is the future.
The worst enemy that the WBTS have is ----TIME
Hoping that time exist
Bugbear
like they say in the movies, "follow the money.
" the thought occurred to me the other day - the wt scam rakes in billions of dollars, and yeah some of that goes to operations and equipment.
but bethelites at farm and factory get only a bare little dorm room and a monthly pittance.
I guess that if someone has the opportunity to investigate the WTBS “treasure dept” and their “directors” with Don Alden Adams in the front.
Bugbear
i have been an elder for 6 years.
it's been the last 2 years or so that i've really seen the hypocrisy, but the ability to know the shenanigans of the society through the body of elders letters has kind of kept me in there.
i'm to the point now that i can't stand the hatred and bitterness that the body of elders has towards myself and my whole family.
Fader 77
Your sit. Is very similar to mine only That I made my decision 20 years ago. The first 10 years was hell while resigning and fading. I went to every convention and meeting smiling to brothers and sisters discussing “HOW wonderful” this and that meeting should be or was. Actually sitting and listening to all the lies and frogs that jumped out our brother’s mouth was very strenuous. In fact I sometimes measured my blood pressure and it was 190/120. This caused only by the stress factor. All this and the anxiety to be shunned by my family and friends , together with a very “stressing” job, made me having 4 hart strokes. Nearly death I realized that I could not go on so I stropped go in service stopped go to meeting, I even stopped normal “social” relations with the Witnesses, this not to listen to what they thought was that prosperous future that we all should have after HG. Today after many visits from CO,s DO, and elders, they do not any longer consider me been a JW, I AM LIBERATED, I am free…
And the better thing is that none of my children are stucked with the witnesses. Only my wife who will not leave, probably by loyalty to all her friends.(she has been a witness for more than 40 years. In fact the only one that suffers from all this is the only witness left, my wife.
BUGBEAR
in all my years of being a jw, one of the more annoying aspects to me was each year sitting through the service meeting review part about what was expected (see: demanded) behavior and policies that the rest of us rank and file were ordered to comply with to attend a district convention.
the minutia in this part and the over-reaching set of rules were enough to drive me into a lather of rage at the audacity of these people thinking they could and should control every single aspect of my attendance to this "free" and voluntary convention.
from what clothing i can wear on my trip to and from the convention city, to what clothing i can wear before and after each day of the convention, to what i should be doing after each day instead of eating dinner and enjoying some good times with good friends, to insisting on wearing a ridiculous name badge, to what i should eat for lunch and where i should eat lunch and what is the appropriate container to keep my lunch in, to .................. the list is endless!!!!!!!!
Well, I remember from back in the 70-ties, when I was an elder and had my daily work on a traveling agency, I was asked by the soc. To organize two chartered convention tours to US. They wanted me free and voluntary to charter two aircrafts, hotels and bus transfer for about 200 persons. When calculating these “trips” I thought that it be normal to calc. 80% utilization for the air ticket and also for the bus and hotel rooms. The “soc.” On the destination should organize “special events” on the destination. When presenting my figures for the trip I came up with a sum per person that looked quite fair, and reasonably also for those who weren’t rich. But the CO,s and DO,s at that time “corrected me” and told me to recalculate using normal IATA ticket prize, tourist class. The prize went up to the double, and when presented in the Congs. Many of the “friends” said that I must have made a lot of money, on my work whit the socs. Traveling agency. They were disappointed on ME I was never allowed to explain, why and hove “my figures” was made.
BUGBEAR
hi to everyone, my name is jerry, i am 56 and i live in tralee, kerry ireland.
i will not bore you with the all too familiar details, suffice it to say i was a prime candidate for indoctrination/ brainwashing.
the surprising aspect is that my wife, a staunch catholic started a study soon after i did.
Welcome Jeremiah!
My situation was similar to you, but I have moved a bit further, all of my family is out now, except my wife to whom I have been married in 40 years. She doesn´t want to listen to my apostases junk still. But I can see in her eyes that she knows that I am right.
Bugbear
i continue to be stunned by posters reporting on the convention, lamenting the convention, complaining about going in serve-us and meetings, and yet continuing to participate in these activities.. a simple question.
how long have you done these things, fully knowing it is absolute bullshit?.
i couldn't handle it for more than six months before i basically outed myself.
BU2B
I must say your situation was very like mine, only that mine occured 10-15 years ago. I can tell you All of our family (except my wife) is more happy now when we all left the org.
Formely Elder
Bugbear
i recently posted a post telling this board my athesit coworker stumped me with questions about the validity of the ark story and i just cannot stop talking to her.
i love hearing her side and point of view which in the past i would have dismissed as "satanic" thinking.
she has some very good questions and i am having a hard time answering them.
Booker-t
The questions your coworker asks you, is very relevant. All these questions (unanswered) will probably help a lot of people to “come out” from a world of superstitions thoughts. They will cleanse the world from harmful, dangerous ideas that has caused the world so much pain. The thought that our god is more powerful than yours has driven endless of people into war. (although it’s obviously an Biblical thought).
I myself “came out” after 20 years of struggle with my own conscience. But in my back head, rumbled always questions like why do certain people only live a few days others only some week, then they starve to death.
Did god also create bacteria, viruses, earthquakes, greed, cancer.
How could god kill all humans in a flood except for 8 other people, when he/she was actually the father of them all?
Bugbear
