Double Standards with Liberal Witness Friends (page 2)

Sunnygal41

it's part of the black and white thinking, FBF.........and welcome to the board!!!

Terri

It does seem true...well at least in my case...that the Witnesses are more pretencious then any one else I know in 'The World' It is not a real friendship. When I first started to study with the Witnesses my so called worldy friends did not leave me or refuse to socialise with me, they just accepted my choice and respected me for that...sadly, it was I that in the end refused to socialise with them. Thankfully, mind you, they did not dessert me and now I am pleased to say they are still my friends. The Witnesses, mind you....the ones that claimed to be my friends....well, where are they? I have never found a real friend among the Witnesses. They all seemed two faced. Now am fading and have expressed my doubts no one wants to know me. In fact no one has even bothered to came and see me to even proof that my doubts are wrong....not even one elder on a shepherding call. I have even asked an elder if I can see him so I can express my doubts...but all this talk of getting back to me to arrange a date and a time....NOTHING!!!! So I have no given up.

So I do not class any Witness as a friend...and during my time as a JW I never really felt I could, even then, class anyone has a real friend. It just feels very false to me.

nomoreTRUTHplz

hi welcome to the board

i have to say gary took the words out of my mouth also. in my experience i never felt i had any friends with the witnesses. in the beginning i would open up and express opinions with my study conductor (who i was closest to out of them all) and would always get hit with " well the society says...". so eventually i gave up. i think a true friend acknowledges your differences and still respects you and enjoys your company. within the borg there is no freedom of opinion or " independent thinking" therefore no one gets to know who you really are and therefore cannot be conscidered friends.

i understand in your situation you are no longer technically "in" and so are now free to express yourself, however you know deep down that if you do this "friend" will no longer see you due to "bad association". i think the best thing to do is continue to be there if this person does begin to doubt in the future so you can then support them.

until then i would have to agree with the others. i would conscider them an acquantance.

sass_my_frass

Hi and welcome. That's pretty much why I don't miss my witness friends very much; the relationships always remained shallow, because I couldn't give them what they wanted - affirmation of their faith. That's depth to them.

greendawn

I don't think there is much you can do about the closed mind and heart of the witnesses because they have been so much instructed and mind conditioned not to enter into discussions on religion (unless on their own terms), psychology and philosophy because in such fields they can be made to see how wrong their organisation is. The few that do venture in these fields soon leave the org or at least realise that it is a false religion.

Their closed attitude compared to the open rational attitude of the so called worldly people shows how much they have deviated from the normal.

drew sagan

It's too hard for somebody who thinks they have absolute truth to actually defend their absurd ideas, so instead they will just back off from any situation that would call for it.
Many on this board where the same way at one point in time, I say keep putting in as much reason as you possibly can. You might just be able to reach one of them someday.

LaCatolica

YEAH...I understand that the whole backstabbin' and "fake friends" standard is the reason my husband decided to no longer ATTEND MEETINGS or CONTINUE WITNESSING! He told me that he would hear his so-called "friends" talk about eachother behind their backs and would "tell" on each other whenever one of them did something "worldly"...He ended up just disassociating himself!

looking_glass

Welcome to the board.

Well I agree in part and disagree in part. I guess to me there are different kinds of friends. There are "fluffy" friends, those friends that you don't discuss anything of value with. I have the "deep" friends, it seems that something that requires deep thinking is discussed. I have casual friends and friends of friends. There are many types of friends. There are jw friends that fall into this category. I don't fault them for not wanting to discuss religion with me. Truthfully, I don't want to discuss it with them either. It is not a make or break deal for me though. I can be friends with them and not feel like I am selling my soul in the process.

dido

I think there is good and bad in everything, and i had some good friends who were witnesses, but they were usually the ones who were suffering the most, and we needed each other to help us get thro` all the `trials` we had. There were ones who i could never call friends, as i couldn`t get close to them for one reason or another, or just didn`t like them. Sometimes i see my friends, and we just ignore each other, (well they usually look away!) and i just carry on by. I feel sorry for them, (altho` they probably feel sorry for me) as they are still controlled by the cult. I do think there are some genuine people that are there tho`, they are just duped like we were!

LDH

It feels like I'm walking on eggshells with my Witness friends

more like, "walking on retards"....

Lisa

Apologies to the Mentally Deficient Class

Double Standards with Liberal Witness Friends