Posts by Frazzled UBM

54

my first post and some questions

by wallievase in

this is my first post after deciding to finally open an account here after months of 'lurking'.. a couple of issues i want to address-.

i have issues with people who go from being a witness to losing all faith in god or the bible which seems to be the case with some members of this site.

i just don't think you can let any religion change how you view god or the bible.. second-i don't feel the gb are bad people, i think most witnesses including them are misguided by something that has been drilled into their heads since they were little and are actually sincere people.

Frazzled UBM

Hi Narcisistic Supply - first of all thanks for your interesting albeit a bit lengthy post about life cycles and how JWs are impacted in response to my question about mortality;

second - your theory of narcisistic use and supply provides some insight into the JW phenomenom but I don't think it is a complete answer - for example I believe fear is the biggest motivator for my wife's mental incarceration and is the most pevasive tool used by the WBTS.

Third - your post here - are you suggeting that am I taking it personally by saying the GB is accountable? Certainly I have a strong sense of injustice about what has happened to her and her family and to so many others like all of you who post here. Am I feel it is better to blame the GB than blame my wife, her family, her JW friends, the elders etc. Accountability should go to the top.

I am in the business of holding people accountable for doing bad things (I am a sort of prosecutor) and so applying the principles I would usually apply I don't think I woud have too many problems prosecuting them for the crime of causing psychological damage or imparing people's critical thinking and abilty to reach their potential or wrecking relationships and causing anguish, if such crimes existed. They would certainly have the requisite mens rea (mental element) on the basis tht their acts were either deliberate or reckless.

Or maybe I am still too new to this and my anger is too palpable and in time I will reach a more karmic state and simply not care about the GB - it will be nice if I can achieve it but a long way from where I am now.

frazzled

54

my first post and some questions

by wallievase in

this is my first post after deciding to finally open an account here after months of 'lurking'.. a couple of issues i want to address-.

i have issues with people who go from being a witness to losing all faith in god or the bible which seems to be the case with some members of this site.

i just don't think you can let any religion change how you view god or the bible.. second-i don't feel the gb are bad people, i think most witnesses including them are misguided by something that has been drilled into their heads since they were little and are actually sincere people.

Frazzled UBM

Hi Wallievase

As an atheist whose postion has hardened due to my exposure to the WBTS I don't have a problem with JWs who on an informed basis switch to a less coercive form of Christianity - I am a strong believer in freedom of belief. I am a bit concerned though with your implied suggestion that XJWs shold not exercise their freedom of beilief to choose not to believe in God or the Bible. Given the way the WBTS is so effective at utilizing the Bible and the God portrayed in the Bible to manipulate the sheep by implanting fears into them and then saying 'we are the only ones who can protact you from your fears' I can understand why XJWs woud be skeptical of the Bible and the God portrayed in the Bible.

As for the GB, I do not share your view that they are blameless. I agree they are themselves victims of a self-perpetuating system and are also subject to the same delusions as your common and garden JW but they hold positions of power, in this case considerable power, in an oppressive authoritarian regime which damages peoples lives and they benefit in terms of status and self- esteem (what could feel more special than being God's mouthpiece) so they have an obligation to exercise that power wisely and cokpassionately and so they could change or soften the policies and practices of the organisation but instead they seem to becoming even more oppressive - labelling apostates as mentally ill and ramping up the pressure on the membership to shun. They are under pressure as they find it increasingly difficult to get recrutis int eh West and see their finances dwindling and their response is to tighten the screws and pump out disingenuous mumbo jumbo to keep the faithful in a continuing state of ignorance and obedience. If they were genuinely good honourable brave people with integrity they would realize how disingenous the propaganda is how oppressive the judic ial practices and have a 'Crisis of Conscience' and either try to change those things or leave.

Still I respect your views and encourage you to keep posting.

Frazzled

20

The happiest people on earth... Yeah right

by Bells in

jw
friends

i am looking for some advice - or maybe just some moral support.. i can't find the link to my previous thread... but in a nutshell... husband and i got married a couple months ago after 10 or so years together.

he was never baptised, but grew up 'in'.

i never had any exposure to the craziness til i met him and his family.

Frazzled UBM

Bells

I always felt like he would defend them before he would defend me - and he would - until very recently - and this has caused more problems between us than anything else.

I have loads of anger towards 'the society' and everything to do with them.

I really related to this comment. I feel a real sense of betrayal about my wife's loyalty to those old men of the GB and their propaganda ahead of me. It makes me so mad it does my head in but I am trying to express that anger here rather than to my wife.

But I think you are in a better place than me - your husband was never baptized and is on the margin of his family - that is a start and something you can build on if you can see it in a positive light. These are people kept in a state of perpectual ignorance and petty-mindedness - do you really need their acceptance?

I don't give a toss what my wife's JW family think of me particularly her foolish ignorant old man, who is responsbile for indoctrinating the lot of them (he even sent one of his cronies around on our weedding day to urge me to go to the KH but I sent him packing)- I like her unbaptized brother and sister though. They are stuck with me now because I got their daughter pregnant so the choice was eternal disfellowshipping or becoming unevenly yoked. The fact that I earn more money than all of them put together by a multiple of between 10 and 100 and am good for a non-repayable loan is an added compenstion for them.

5

Religious beards of Ministry

by Terry in

.

spurgeon remains highly influential among christians of different denominations, among whom he is known as the "prince of preachers"..

Frazzled UBM

Shortly after my wife got reintegrated she started complaining about the itchiness of my beard and then I foudn out about the ban on beards for JWs and promptly grew it back and told I was keeping it because the WBTS doesn't like beards and I won't have those b@stards using her to influence my facial hair. She was a bit taken aback but at least has stopped complaining about the beard being itchy!

17

Sense of Mortality, Existential Angst and Leaving the Borg

by Frazzled UBM in

firstly apologies if i am stating the bleeding obvious or covering something that has already been covered or just showing my ignorance as someone who wasnever a jw - i am new here and relatively new in my exposure to the wbts organisation and its dogma.

the thing that has occurred to me is that born-in jws and middle-age jws must avoid the teenage existential angst of really getting a sense of their own mortaility and the middle age crisis of realizing that their best years are behind and they on the long downhill slide, because they expect to live forever.

i always wondered why teenage jws are goody two-shoes while they are believers and often go off the rails, even as 20 or 30 something adults, when they wake up and i figure that, apart from the fact that they are no longer being told what is right and wrong and all of a sudden have to work it out for themselves, this may related to the expectation that you will not physically die.

Frazzled UBM

Adamah - I understand the point about going from very tight strict boundaries to having work them out from scratch and not being able to cope.

*lost* - I liked Learned Helplessness - it is a good description fro my wife - I doubt she could survive daily life without me to provide for her and problem solve for her and hse is totally incapable of disciplining my son in any meaningful way - he was controlling her form age 2 and hasn't stopped. She is good at looking after the house and cooking meals though - so there is some compensations.

Thanks Truth seeker - wonderful that you had a love of Science in the face of WBTS attempts to crush your critical thinking and you were prepared to face up to your own mortality in the interests of searching for your own truth rather that one imposed on you. I get the impression that facing mortality is one of the many many things my wife is afraid of.

17

Sense of Mortality, Existential Angst and Leaving the Borg

by Frazzled UBM in

firstly apologies if i am stating the bleeding obvious or covering something that has already been covered or just showing my ignorance as someone who wasnever a jw - i am new here and relatively new in my exposure to the wbts organisation and its dogma.

the thing that has occurred to me is that born-in jws and middle-age jws must avoid the teenage existential angst of really getting a sense of their own mortaility and the middle age crisis of realizing that their best years are behind and they on the long downhill slide, because they expect to live forever.

i always wondered why teenage jws are goody two-shoes while they are believers and often go off the rails, even as 20 or 30 something adults, when they wake up and i figure that, apart from the fact that they are no longer being told what is right and wrong and all of a sudden have to work it out for themselves, this may related to the expectation that you will not physically die.

Frazzled UBM

So no delayed mortality/existential angst smack in the face on leaving the borg?

17

Sense of Mortality, Existential Angst and Leaving the Borg

by Frazzled UBM in

firstly apologies if i am stating the bleeding obvious or covering something that has already been covered or just showing my ignorance as someone who wasnever a jw - i am new here and relatively new in my exposure to the wbts organisation and its dogma.

the thing that has occurred to me is that born-in jws and middle-age jws must avoid the teenage existential angst of really getting a sense of their own mortaility and the middle age crisis of realizing that their best years are behind and they on the long downhill slide, because they expect to live forever.

i always wondered why teenage jws are goody two-shoes while they are believers and often go off the rails, even as 20 or 30 something adults, when they wake up and i figure that, apart from the fact that they are no longer being told what is right and wrong and all of a sudden have to work it out for themselves, this may related to the expectation that you will not physically die.

Frazzled UBM

Firstly apologies if I am stating the bleeding obvious or covering something that has already been covered or just showing my ignorance as someone who wasnever a JW - I am new here and relatively new in my exposure to the WBTS organisation and its dogma.

The thing that has occurred to me is that born-in JWs and middle-age JWs must avoid the teenage existential angst of really getting a sense of their own mortaility and the middle age crisis of realizing that their best years are behind and they on the long downhill slide, because they expect to live forever.

I always wondered why teenage JWs are goody two-shoes while they are believers and often go off the rails, even as 20 or 30 something adults, when they wake up and I figure that, apart from the fact that they are no longer being told what is right and wrong and all of a sudden have to work it out for themselves, this may related to the expectation that you will not physically die. Is it the delayed sense of mortality/existential crisis that causes this? For born-ins who don't wake up until their 40s or later is it a double whammy mortality smack in the face?

Probably worse for those who become atheists or agnostics but wondering whetehr even those who embrace another form of Christianity are affected.

I always get the impression my wife has never really grown up and I wonder whether not having to go through the teenage existential angst which is a part of the right of passge from childhood to adulthood is responsible for that.

I am interested in hearing about your personal expereinces in this regard - does this accord to what you went through?

165

Board of bitterness

by 1009 in

i always was a critical jw, now df and agnost.

but still this religion fascinates me.

in my eyes most jw are very sincere, but dumb sheep.. this board is filled with ex-jw.

Frazzled UBM

punkofnice - I really feel for you - what happened to you and your family sucks big time. The WBTS is so damaging and it is upsetting when people deny that. Take care

9

Any Filipino XJWs here?

by Frazzled UBM in

my wife is filipina and i ge the impression they are a bit different from other jws in regard to shunning family - my sister-in-law is df'd but the family does not exclude her but she does sort of oerpate ont eh margtin of the family.

i wonder wheterh there are any differences with filipino jws.

i get the feeling that less of them fade or leave voluntarily once baptized but weopudl like some confirmation of whether that is correct..

Frazzled UBM

Laika - I hope you are right that the relaxed attitude to shunning means it is easier to get them to out but my experience with my wife doesn't fill me with much hope. Maybe I will be proved wrong>

jwfacts - seems we have something in common being Aussies married to Filipinas. Any tips from your wife about how to deal with my wife?

Cheers

8

A small victory over WT child indoctrination.

by trailerfitter in

over the last few years it has been a stuggle to ensure my son who is now eight years old is not indoctrinated into the rediculous world of the watchtower.

whilst i am separated from my wife she takes every opportunity to try to get him to slave for jeeehoovah (joseph stalin as i call him).

today, after a discussion i found out she has yet again tried to explain that god made the world etc, and the noahs arc story.

Frazzled UBM

Trailerfitter - I feel you. Great result - well done but keep it up because eternal vigilance is very important.

I also have a young son (7 years old) who my JW wife tries intermittently to indoctrinate. Originally I let her take him to the KH because I thought the re3ligion was benign but I read up and then I foudn out she ahd been doing the Bible toris book with him without my knowledge and when I read it analysed and realized how it uses fear to manipulate young uncritrical minds I was horrified. I told him in front of my wife and over her protests that the stories were true that the stories were not true and were no more than stories.

I also found out that my wife had shown my son that nborrible kids DVD. It freaked him out so he was very happy when I told him it was rubbish and he should ignore it. The scariness of the Bible Stories and KH propaganda have had an effedct though - he has nightmares and has a phobia of churches and crosses.

But he has worked out for himself that it is a load of crock - he told me one time when I was trying to brainwash-proof him that he knew Jehovah didn't exist (like you my experience with my wife has turned me from an agnostic to a full on atheist). Mind you I have helped him get there some of the things I have done to achieve this are:

- to counteract the love-bombing I explained that they will make him feel really special for as long as he agrees with what they think but if he doesn't or he asks questions they don't like they can become very mean. Luckily hed had seen how my wife was treated when she was df'd so he didn't take much convincing on that one;

- I also explained about empirical truth - that is things are true if you can observe them and then I explained that JWs think things are true if they are told they come from the Bible and I used the example of the Giants and so I aksed him if they were told the Bible said that pigs fly would they think it was true that pigs fly and he answered 'nooo...oh YES'

- I also encourage curiosity and the asking of questions and not accepting answers unless they can be verified (notjustyet - I loved the critical thinking clip - it summarises my objection to the way the WBTS controls thinking so well - I believe denial of the ability to think crticially is a denail of human rights);

- when he comes back (he is away with his Mum at the moment) I will explain to him about how they use fear as a methos of control and try to get him to face his church phobia;

I think it so important to understand how the WBTS indoctrinates children in orfder to work out strategies to c ouneract it.

I feel so sad when I see stores of non-JW Dads who cave to pressure from the JW wife to allow here to take the kids to the KH and read the Bible Stories and other propaganda and then when they hit 14 they get baptized without the UBM's consent or knowledge. That would be soul-destroying and it ain't happening on my watch and I don't care about the consequent aggro from the missus.