Posts by StarTrekAngel

13

Someone Turned Off the InterTubes

by Simon in

just a heads-up in case we disappear too, there's a massive ddos attack happening that has knocked a lot of major sites offline:.

http://gizmodo.com/this-is-probably-why-half-the-internet-shut-down-today-1788062835.

things like this can have knock-on effects as other systems become overloaded, so far we seem ok so fingers crossed we stay that way..

StarTrekAngel

The attack is also affecting the voting system for ARIN. Elections for the ARIN Board of Trustees opened yesterday. We got word today that the voting system is down due to a DDoS attack. Makes me wonder if they were the primary targets. ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers) is the institution that manages many aspects of the world wide internet network, including the allocation of the IP address space, which is pretty much depleted. Someone must have their IP assingment reclaimed. LOL

47

CO visit... Circuit is not growing at all, he said during midweek meeting

by StarTrekAngel in

so that was a "shocker".

i was not able to attend the meeting.

i had a more important one with my other apostate friends in the area.

StarTrekAngel

This is a younger guy. Late 30, may be early 40s. He has taken the change on every visit so far to remind us all that we do not go to college. He even layed out the map. High school and after that is either a 1 or 2 year vocational school or go directly to full time service. That is the life of a true god servant. Said it in his last two visits as well as in the last assembly.

15

Letter about changes in book 100 year kingdom

by Rather Be the Hammer in

yesterday a letter was read in our congregation.

it said that there have been doctrinal changes in many chapters of the book 'god's kingdom rules' so everyone but especially the conductor must be sure to use the latest update of the book.. this book is only ...how old?

two years?

StarTrekAngel

I was somehow sure this book sported the same corporate chart found in some older WT where it shows Jehovah on top of Jesus on top of the F%DS (read GB) and then everyone else bellow them. The electronic version does not have that. Need to go back and check the book they gave us at the assembly.

47

CO visit... Circuit is not growing at all, he said during midweek meeting

by StarTrekAngel in

so that was a "shocker".

i was not able to attend the meeting.

i had a more important one with my other apostate friends in the area.

StarTrekAngel

So that was a "shocker". I was not able to attend the meeting. I had a more important one with my other apostate friends in the area. When planning for that week, I told my wife that we were undecided as to get together on Tuesday (meeting day) or Wednesday. I told her I would prefer Tuesday because the flea market is open on Wednesday nights and they sell some bomb ass tacos there and my kids love to go. So she said "Then what is the big deal, go on Tuesday and I'll go to the meeting". I said "I am just really curious to know what this anus has to say. He is the biggest company man CO I've seen in years". So she laughed and said she would take notes for me.

To my surprise, when she showed me the notes there it was. He closed the talk by saying there was no growth in the circuit. He yelled up to one of the elders asking what was the attendance for the night. One hundred and thirty four said the elder. The CO said "wow... that is quite a bit above the average 118 that you normally have... that means there is quite a bit of people here today that would normally not come to the meeting... Shame, shame, shame (wife said he was poking forth with this finger at the audience while he said that.)"

8

Am I right in thinking that the most zealous JW make the most zealous apostates.

by Chook in

just a thought.

StarTrekAngel

I wasn't the most zealous witness. In fact, I could not ever preach more than 6 hours a month and never for more than 4 straight months without a gap in there. Never had a bible study, never prayed before meals, never prepared for meetings. Yet, I felt like crap anytime someone tried to show how "weak" I was. I kept beating myself over. When I woke up to the lie, I was outraged. This made me a more zealous apostate than I was a witness.

39

Campaign to invite people to meetings

by StarTrekAngel in

just found out last night that our congo is starting a campaign to invite interested people to meetings.

the instructions for the campaign clear out that "interested" people are not just those whom we visit often or have bible studies with.

it includes and random stranger we may talk to and who may show a hint of interest on the religion.

StarTrekAngel

Just found out last night that our congo is starting a campaign to invite interested people to meetings. The instructions for the campaign clear out that "interested" people are not just those whom we visit often or have bible studies with. It includes and random stranger we may talk to and who may show a hint of interest on the religion. Bellow is the invitation that was distributed at the meeting. It was pre printed with the address and times of the meetings for our local congo

7

Update on my struggle

by StarTrekAngel in

so it has been a while since my last posting and i am happy to report on some positive progress.. in my personal section, i had posted already so i am not going to overextend, but i've found a group of apostate friends.

it turns out some brothers from my kh, whom i have lost touch with when they moved, are awaken to ttatt.

we got separated when our congo got divided several years ago.

StarTrekAngel

Yes, I'm in Texas but I do not know anyone in the Houston area. I am way further south.

7

Update on my struggle

by StarTrekAngel in

so it has been a while since my last posting and i am happy to report on some positive progress.. in my personal section, i had posted already so i am not going to overextend, but i've found a group of apostate friends.

it turns out some brothers from my kh, whom i have lost touch with when they moved, are awaken to ttatt.

we got separated when our congo got divided several years ago.

StarTrekAngel

So it has been a while since my last posting and I am happy to report on some positive progress.

In my personal section, I had posted already so I am not going to overextend, but I've found a group of apostate friends. It turns out some brothers from my KH, whom I have lost touch with when they moved, are awaken to TTATT. We got separated when our congo got divided several years ago. One of them ended up moving to a nearby town. We got together again. One of them is fully awake, the other is on his way there. We already got together twice and on our last time, one of them brought another apostate friend along. We have a great time together and I have been also finding out the details of their stories, which expose the exuberant amount of hypocrisy and lack of love going around the JW circles. Some very gut wrenching stories going around. Part of them involves stories of them being led by elders to go to a strip club. Apparently the fact that we are close to the border, makes some elders give themselves permission to go to such places, but only across the border in Mexico. Stories of marital affairs? Even the bartenders get entertained when we show up. This has proven to be great therapy and I am ever so glad to have gotten back in touch with them.

In the case of my wife... well our life keeps getting better by the day. It is slow, surely so. But anything that is positive progress is welcome and celebrated, regardless of how small. While she still sort of craves the meetings, I am glad to see that she has stopped chastising the kids just because they are not listening to the meeting. My kids are spending most of the meeting time drawing or reading whatever else. Meeting attendance is another area where progress is shown. She is not as eager to attend every meeting. Sometimes we miss two or even three meetings in a row. In one particular week, we had missed three meetings and so she had made a plan for the evening so that we would not miss the mid week meeting this time. However, half way thru her day, someone at work asked her if she'd be willing to do some translation work that needed to be done for the next day. The pay (a couple of hundred dollars) was not worth missing "jehovah's blessings" (from a JW perspective at least) but she jumped on it and she asked me to help and I said yes right away. We spent that afternoon sipping wine and translating some letters from English to Spanish.

She has also been very eager to know what gossip I bring back from my apostadinners with my friends. While I do not want to extend myself (there is a LOT going on, more than what I could have even imagined since I was never too involved in the congo) but in summary..

- A brother who is a pianist and is part of a small band. He is pretty good and he has rejected offer from regional groups so he could stay "spiritually strong". He makes a business of playing in JW weddings. There is almost no party he has played on where an elder has not come to him, sometimes even during the part itself, to tell him he was playing inappropriate music. In one of the cases the elder took it upon himself to start asking the brothers to leave the party because he would not listen to the counsel. He is now DFd for other reasons. A brother had already signed him up for a wedding before that. When he was DFd, the groom was told that he had to fire the band or else the groom would not be allowed to have his ceremony in the KH. This was the night before the ceremony was to take place. Talk about short notice.

- Several cases of elders cheating on their wives and go unpunished.

- A group of brothers go out to San Antonio for a business, on their way back they decide to stop at a strip bar. Out of a group of 9, one of them feels guilty afterwords and decides to come clean with the elders. He was the only one who got DFd for the matter. All the others got a scolding and nothing more since they were all sons of elders.

This and many other stories has had a great deal of impact on my wife, who's always felt she did not measure to the standards of most of the people taking the lead. She also felt that all this talk would have a bad influence on me. She said..."if these guys had no problem cheating and going to these places when they still had the fear of God in them, what can you expect of them now (that they are DFd)". This was a great lead to a conversation. I made her realized that she still equated DFing with loosing God's approval. That she still felt that belonging to the group meant anything regarding faith. Fortunately the explanation was good enough that made her realize that it was exactly these thinking that causes this type of problem. It made it obvious that these guys had no issues doing these things because sub consciously they were following men and since these men were not around to see them (and in cases the elders were the ones taking them there), them obviously they were not seeing Jehovah as a real. So long the men were unaware, they were free of guilt.

Later on, I found out that she has talked to her sisters to sort of refer all these stories to them and has began to express her disappointment over all these hypocrisy. We had our assembly day this past Sunday. By 2:00 PM she was consulting the program to see at what time the thing would end. She was eager to leave.

I believe there is still a long way to go... but certainly things are turning for the better

Sorry for the long post

20

Are we victims of abuse? Should we even think of ourselves that way?

by nicolaou in

jw
friends

abuse is such a serious word and i'd hate to use it lightly so if anyone reading this has suffered physical or sexual abuse please know that i absolutely do not equate religious abuse with your suffering.

that being said, many of us were lied to and manipulated for decades.

this cultic 'abuse' has borne fruit in shattered relationships, broken families and estranged children.

StarTrekAngel

I respectfully disagree. There are many shapes and forms of victims. A victim of sex abuse has its own set of issues to deal with. A crime victim may have to deal with the everlasting wounds of his or her assault and so and so forth. In every case, you have a support network that meets your basic expectations. You expect your parents and closest relatives to be there for you and help you cope with the situations and therefore it is easier to transfer from the victim to the survivor state.

This is, to me, the biggest issue with cults and undue influence. Not only your are affected directly, but your support network is destroyed as well. If you exited the cult and your family did not and they continue to contribute to the problem rather than supporting you, then you have not finished being victimized. You can not blame people for that. You may have pulled away the knife but the wound still bleeds. It will continue to do so until you get someone to heal you. Until that happens, you are still a victim.

Telling someone that the have some share of responsibility on their feelings of being victims of this cult is exactly the approach of the bully. It isn't his fault that you are feeling hurt. We said you were free to go, but we are keeping your friends and family. If you still feel hurt, then you are the one who just doesn't want to go away.

Some I know, have not had another choice but to deal with the recovery on their own, facing years of issues, which eventually leads to emotional scars. The outcome is that when they find someone going thru the same issues, they tend to dismiss the other persons feelings. Suck it up buttercup! I've been there and look at me, I am still alive... not sure what is it that you are complaining about.