Hang in there, mountain woman, things will get better with time. Your parents telling you "this is what happens when one rejects Jehovah's organization" is an example of one of the symptoms of a cult. Cult leaders often implant in the minds of their followers the idea that they will face adverse circumstances and trials if they leave.
Island Man
JoinedPosts by Island Man
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18
Being Disfellowshipped + On-Going Cycle of Depression
by Cimarrona ini've been disfellowshipped for six years, since i was 18. i struggle with depression and self-destructive habits (minor in comparison to the suicides, substance abuse, risky sexual behavior of others i've grown up with who have left or were too afraid to leave).
i'm fairly successful for my age - respected in my field, i have an extensive curriculum vitae of published writing, presentations, and other projects.
yet, i often feel worthless and unloveable.
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10
Random and unsafe conditions
by ironsnake656 inone of the things that helped me in my awakening and fading process from jwland was something that i call "random failures".
let me explain it.
it happened like 4 years ago.
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Island Man
You forgot something critical: human imperfection. JWs teach that perfection is only fully restored at the end of the thousand years. So people will be brought back from the dead in their imperfect state with their disabilities and weaknesses and they will be restored to perfection gradually as they continue to obey the new laws revealed in the new scrolls. But the physical building and restoring work will begin immediately after armageddon even while people are still imperfect so until the end of the thousand years there would still be the risk of accidents due to human imperfection that has not yet been eradicated completely. Thus safety equipment would still be needed.
I think the bigger problem is the teaching that human imperfection will be restored gradually after armageddon. This teaching paints Jehovah as an unfair god. The anointed, who proved faithful while enduring the same temptations and trials as those of the "other sheep", get their perfection restored immediately upon their resurrection to heaven, without having to endure a further probationary period to prove their faithfulness while in heaven. But the "other sheep" have to endure a long period of proving their faithfulness all over again in order to be restored gradually. This system is clearly not just. Why wouldn't the other sheep also be restored instantly upon resurrection? It makes no sense. Jehovah of the Jehovah's Witnesses is an unjust, irrational, pharisaic god.
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The Trinity Easily Explained in 29 Words
by maccauk ina man can be a father .
a man can be a son.
a man can be a husband.
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Island Man
No it doesn't actually explain the Trinity. The trinity says that the son the father and the holy spirit are all God; but the son is not the father, the son is not the holy spirit and the father is not the holy spirit. By contrast, the elements in your illustration are all mutually equivalent, meaning in addition to the father son and husband all being a man; the father is also a son and a husband. See the difference? Your illustration is a good analog for modalism - not the trinity.
A better illustration would consist of 3 different persons that are all members of the same family: a set of triplets name Farter, Sean and Holigose, all surnamed Goad.
Farter is Goad,
Sean is Goad,
Holigose is Goad.
Farter is not Sean
Farter is not Holigose
Holigose is not Sean.
The Bible does not explicitly teach a trinity, but neither is there anything in the Bible that explicitly disproves the orthodox trinity teaching. However, the Bible does indeed show Jesus being given worshipful honor - something JWs loathe. I think it's pointless arguing the Trinity with JWs. A better approach is to use the Bible to show JWs that early Christians honored Jesus in a worshipful way that JWs today aren't allowed to honor him. I think that alone is enough to show them that their version of Jesus does not line up accurately with scripture and that their organization, by discouraging - forbidding - the worshipful honor of Jesus, is revealing itself as bordering on antichrist if not outright antichrist.
JWs distort the trinity doctrine into a modalism strawman and argue against modalism while foolishly thinking they're disproving the trinity. The trinity doctrine is as unfalsifiable as the uncreated, eternal, invisible god doctrine. Anyone who criticizes the trinity doctrine as illogical must also criticize the uncreated, eternal, invisible god doctrine as illogical, or resign to the fact that he's making himself a hypocrite by cherry-picking which illogical belief he'll accept and which he'll refuse.
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THIS Is How JWs Feel About The Cut In Magazines And Content
by pale.emperor ini asked the question on quora "how do jehovah's witnesses feel about the announcement that the public edition of the watchtower and awake!
magazine is being reduced to just 3 issues a year and the number of books, tracts, and online content are being discontinued?".
https://www.quora.com/how-do-jehovahs-witnesses-feel-about-the-announcement-that-the-public-edition-of-the-watchtower-and-awake-magazine-is-being-reduced-to-just-3-issues-a-year-and-the-number-of-books-tracts-and-online-content-are-being-discontinued.
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Island Man
Someone needs to create a funny JW meme depicting three different scenarios that are clear and unambiguous indicators of Watchtower decline, each more dire than the previous, and in each scenario show the JW spinning the scenario as a positive.
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2017 Annual Meeting
by Jules Saturn inthis just in from the 2017 annual meeting:.
1. watchtowers and awakes won't be released regularly, at least three watchtower and awakes per year.
6 magazines a year.. 2. a new book is being released: remain in god's love, more of an update like how they did for the what does the bible really teach book.
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Island Man
"Oh how the mighty publishing house has fallen!"
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5
Disaster Relief - Used to Beg For Money/Charity
by thedepressedsoul infor a organization that "doesn't ask for money" they sure do ask a lot.. i've been noticing that over the last few months "disaster relief" has been brought up in almost everything jw.
wt, congregation study, broadcast, special updated video, etc.... & i've noticed two things every time it gets brought up, which is a lot lately.. they talk about giving physically and how much money will be needed for the disaster relief work.
that we should be generous.
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Island Man
It's just absolutely disgusting the way they tell JWs to donate money to the World Wide Work box, to help JW disaster victims. There's no way for any JW to know exactly how much, if any, of his money donated for disaster relief purposes, is actually used for that purpose. A very hypocritical tactic for the organization to be engaging in considering that they have in the past, cast doubt on the effectiveness of donating money to charities by saying that only a small portion of donated money actually gets to those that need it. How is the Watchtower method any better? It seems to me that the organization can now use "show Christ-like love to your JW brothers in disaster affected areas by donating to the World Wide Work" as a ruse to guilt JWs into giving them more and more money with not a shred of accountability as to how much of that money actually gets used to help victims.
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146
Just woke up turn TV on to hear yet another nut case with a gun.
by Still Totally ADD infirst they said 20 dead with 100 injured.
now i just heard 50 dead and 200 injured.
whatever it is it just another nut case who was able to get a high power gun to kill people.
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Island Man
I have a hypothesis given the confusing nature of this case. The killer had 47 guns at the time of death but was not known to be a collector of guns before then. His relatives are confused about him having any grievances and mental issues prior to the shootings. The killer mounted his automatic gun on a tripod. He seems to be going overboard to buy and use as much deadly military hardware that the law allows. I think this is the key to understanding his motive. His actions don't seem to make sense if you think of it as a typical mass shooting. But his actions do seem to make sense if you think of it as the killer making a very deadly statement about laxed gun ownership laws in America. He's saying:
"Look what I - anyone - can do because of the foolish, laxed laws about the right to bear arms! Look at how much assault weapons one citizen can buy while you idiots worship your constitutional right to bear arms! Look at how much people can be killed!! When will you people wake up?! Don't wake up, just keep sleeping and partying out in the open while your laws allow me to easily do this..."
That's what I believe this was. This was a guy who was against the very laxed gun ownership laws and went off the deep end to make a deadly, extreme statement about it by carrying out an elaborate mass shooting with an overkill of guns that was completely unnecessary.
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"Circumcision is a sign to set you apart from the people of the nations"
by stuckinarut2 inwe know that the hebrew scriptures, or old testament states that the practice of circumcision (of males) was supposed to be yet another sign that set the jews apart from the "people of the nations".
but apart from so many odd things, how dumb is this?.
i mean, how did someone know if a male was circumcised or not??
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Island Man
I have always thought the same thing. Additionally, circumcision misses half the population - women. I guess the Israelite god didn't think it was necessary for the women to have the special sign of having a covenant relationship with him so he picked a practice that only applied to men. Further evidence of how the bible discounts women. And Jesus was circumcised too. That means he could not have offered a ransom body that perfectly corresponded to Adam's. Adam was not circumcised since he pre-dates the practice.
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146
Just woke up turn TV on to hear yet another nut case with a gun.
by Still Totally ADD infirst they said 20 dead with 100 injured.
now i just heard 50 dead and 200 injured.
whatever it is it just another nut case who was able to get a high power gun to kill people.
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Island Man
Cue JW propageddon: "See? The world is really in bad shape. The end must be soooo close! The end is very, very, VERY near! Come back [insert name of X-JW / Fader], before it's too late! We're already on the brink of Nuclear war between U.S. and North Korea and now this . . . How can this world possibly survive another decade? It's time to come back to Jehovah before it's too late . . .
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JW Rumor: End of the Traveling Overseer
by Edison Trent ina friend of mine has contacts to a family with several circuit overseers and special pioneers.
they have good connections to bethel.. he told me that the latest rumor from bethel states that the cos should be abolished in their present form.
they have also recently begun to take cos back to bethel.. over the same channel i have already heard of the car fleet program and that the dos should be abolished.. has anyone else already heard of it?
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Island Man
Fisherman: In any organization, tight management is needed or things will get out of control. JW congregations are no exception.
But according to JWs, the JW congregations aren't just "any organization", they're supposed to be part of God's spirit directed organization with Jehovah invisibly running the show from heaven VIA holy spirit. So the fact that the JW organization is so obsessed with control and micro-management means one - or both - of two things:
1. The JW organization is not God's spirit-directed organization as JWs love to claim; but just another human-led organization subject to the same deficiencies and limitations and thus requiring the same human-originated controls and micromanagement to ensure things work the way the human leaders want them to work.
2. The leadership of the JW organization actually lack faith in the efficacy of holy spirit to direct matters so they put forth great efforts to set up human controls and human systems of micromanagement to control matters. Their obsession with micromanagement is actually a betrayal of their lack of faith in the leadership of Jesus and the operation of holy spirit.