...and I still have a tendency to use "JWs versus worldly people" when comparing JWs to everyone else. I have to stop and correct myself with "JWs versus regular people" when making the comparison.
pronomono
JoinedPosts by pronomono
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29
Honestly, Do You Still Act or Think Like a JW?
by minimus inor do traces or attitudes still rear its ugly head of your past involvement with the witnesses?
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29
Honestly, Do You Still Act or Think Like a JW?
by minimus inor do traces or attitudes still rear its ugly head of your past involvement with the witnesses?
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pronomono
Yeah, sometimes little things get to me from my previous mindset.......
- whistling Kingdom Melodies, racking my brain to figure out "what's that tune", realizing what it was, and then I'm like WTF?
- wishing someone good luck, thinking I don't believe in luck, remembering I still don't believe in luck but it's not as bad as JWs say it is, and then looking around to make sure I didn't offend anyone
- stopping to say a prayer before I eat, then stopping and remembering I don't believe in God and it's the same prayer I've recited word-for-word for the past 20 years
- waking up at 9am for field service when I intended to sleep in and getting up to do housework (or be lazy) instead
Just lots of little things that have been engrained in my mind and schedule for over 20 years that's hard to overturn in the short time I've been mentally out. Consciously, I don't agree or want any of it, but subconsciously I'm still weeding some things out.
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212
Why Do You No Longer Believe in God?
by Tenacious ini know this question has popped up from time to time but i really would like to know how you guys, those that no longer believe, came to that conclusion?
was it the wts and all its crap?
was it something you read?
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pronomono
Define god.
Guardians of Doctrine, according to the GB.
So according to this definition, although I do not believe in G.O.D., G.O.D. does exist in a self-appointed way.
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35
Did you like hymns as a jw?
by jean-luc picard ini was just explaining to mrs picard........ never a jw, and not english, how we used to celebrate the harvest festival, when i was 7 and younger, before my parents converted to jw'ism.. i loved to sing "we plough the fields and scatter".
of course, singing such hymns is, to a jw, paramount to apostasy,with the death penalty like punishment the ensued.. how really stupid their harsh rules.. did you have any favourite hymns?.
i think we would all agree, that they beat the pants off the "kingdom melodies".
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pronomono
I never cared for the words, but I like the melodies of some of them. I like Amazing Grace as played on Scottish bagpipes. I still think it's a beautiful tune, even though I don't agree with any of the words.
Funny thing, I still find myself humming Kingdom Melodies. I have to stop and think about where a certain tune came from, and then I'm like "Dammit!" as I remember it's a Kingdom Melody.
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15
Fighting about college
by cognac inmy nephew is a sweet, smart, thoughtful person.
he wants to go to college.. normally, a mom would be proud to have a son like this.. nope, not a friggin jw mom.
apparently, he's being selfish to both her and jehovah.
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pronomono
I can't say enough how thankful I am that I went to college. I hope your nephew gets the same opportunity, one way or another. My mom wasn't too happy about me going, but my dad supported me fully. He agrees with the JWs on a lot, but not on their views of education. College doesn't guarantee a good future, but it gives you a great foundation to build on. Your nephew is lucky to have you looking out for him. -
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Any funny stories of when a"brother" giving a talk, said something "funny" or "questionable", and didn't even realize it?
by Dunedain inthere were always all types of speakers in the org.
myself, growing up a "witness", must have heard all types of talks, and given by all manner of speakers, especially on sundays, when almost every week we would get a "visiting" brother giving the public talk.. sometimes, you would have a "great" speaker, all fluent and animated.
other times we would get a comical speaker, one who would maybe purposelly get a few laughs outta the audience.
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pronomono
One brother mentioned during a public talk that we shouldn't give a half-assed effort in our service to Jehovah....... He thought the saying was half-fast. -
212
Why Do You No Longer Believe in God?
by Tenacious ini know this question has popped up from time to time but i really would like to know how you guys, those that no longer believe, came to that conclusion?
was it the wts and all its crap?
was it something you read?
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pronomono
For me it was a long, slow process to disbelief. I wanted to believe so badly because it was all I'd ever known. I couldn't accept the fact that my parents were wrong and that I had unintentionally been lied to. I took it that I was less intelligent and that as I grew and matured I would come to appreciate and understand the spiritual things everyone else I knew loved so much.
That never happened. I'm now 30. For the past 2.5 years I've been questioning everything, starting with our rich JW spiritual heritage and realized it wasn't as rich as I've been told. TTATT completely shattered my respect for the Watchtower organization, which led to an investigation of the Bible. That investigation led me to distrust the Bible as an authoritative source. This lead me to investigate the supernatural, which I found no basis for belief.
All my research led me to one conclusion: "The more we learn about science and the world around us, the more we explain religion away, and religion has to continue reinventing itself to stay relevant." Science has changed alchemy to chemistry and astrology to astronomy. I believe that early alchemists/witches/diviners/etc were people that had an early understanding of how to harness the power of some scientific phenomenon without understanding its true properties and cause, and therefore chalked it up to angels/demons. Phenomenon that was once used as a means for divination and mysticism have been explained away by science as having logical causes. When I think of religion and God, I see an early attempt of the human species to try and understand the world around them, and I think at the time it was a necessary stepping stone. Any hypothesis is worth exploring. However, once that hypothesis was shown to have no verifiable proof, it should have been discarded a long time ago. Instead, it lead to the real intellectuals and geniuses of our past being hindered and labeled heretics, hindering the scientific process, our technological growth, and our growth as a species. I truly believe that if religion hadn't got in the way, we'd be much better off today in all aspects of life.
As far as the Bible goes, I used to think (a looooong time ago) how could such a wonderful book be anything other than the word of God. Until I started reading the parts the Watchtower never highlighted on condoned rape, slavery, and other OT atrocities. And then I started reading the Book of Mormon and the Koran and realized it's easier to make this stuff up than you might think. They couldn't all be right, yet they had all done the same thing.
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17
My mom
by cognac ini was just talking to my mom a few weeks ago.
she said, out of all her kids, i was the only one she didn't have to worry about as far as spirituality.
i always took a stand for jehovah.. she told when all of her kids were little, she gave us the option of not eating birthday cakes in school.
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pronomono
I'm glad you've reached a point where you can be honest with your mom without her shunning you. I've thought about these same conversations with my mom and I'm not sure how they will go. She's one of those people that needs the truth to be true. Between recently loosing her mom and raising my sister who is disabled with severe scoliosis and a very low quality of life, she needs something better to look forward to. I don't think I could tell her that she's wrong.
I hope you can keep repairing the relationship you have with your mom. It sounds like you are on the right path, and she is responding positively.
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312
Mass disassociation pact...
by freemindfade inany takers?
we can pick a date and pull the plug?
lol .
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pronomono
This is a really bad idea. The best way to work against the machinations of the Watchtower is to always have agents of truth within.
The sad truth is no matter what tactic we use, the Watchtower will probably never change. Change will never come from within. Raymond Franz tried that. It didn't work. If you had 4 or 5 Raymond Franz's reach GB Pope level, then you'd have the possibility of change, but that's a crap shoot. Our main effort here should be raising public awareness so that the public sees the JW religion for what it truly is. If the organization changed a few destructive policies, I'd be fine with them believing what they want about God, 1914, this generation, etc. It's their right to believe what they want in this regard. However, it isn't their right to divide families because someone decides they no longer believe those very things. It isn't right to cut people off from their closest friends.If these harmful policies receive enough negative publicity, maybe they will change, but probably not. The best we can hope for is that the general public will become aware of these policies before it is to late and they find themselves in the same position that many of us were/are in.
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312
Mass disassociation pact...
by freemindfade inany takers?
we can pick a date and pull the plug?
lol .
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pronomono
If the campaign goes well this year, it should become an annual Human Rights campaign that continues on until the Watchtower reforms all policies that violate basic human rights. So we'll be doing this for a long time, close to forever, but hopefully it would continue to make some sort of impact. We just have to represent ourselves well, so as to not come across as mentally-diseased.