Shunning is the big story

by joelbear 76 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  amccullough

  Like I said, the JW system is PERFECT for babies.

  MATURE and LOVING human beings desist from 'sinning' when it causes harm to other human beings

  MATURE and THINKING human beings have their actions controlled by their concern for the well-being of their fellowman, not because they're gonna get punished.

  I love the superiority complex that some people have. I have no problem with different beliefs and disagreements, but I cringe everytime someone insinuates that they are flat out smarter, more mature, whatever, than witnesses. LDH, I happen to know a number of Witnesses that seem to be smarter, more mature and higher thinkers than you, if your posts are a reflection of your characteristics (they very well may not be, but the idea serves my point.)

  Regarding the last post above, unless you have selective memory, you should very well know that JWs do not use DFing as a form of punishment/reward system. All of their teachings and biblical laws that they observe are backed by what they call Biblical principles or broad ideas as to why something is a law (whether they are right or wrong is beside the point of this post.) These principles are what are repeated over and over to JWs along with the desire to please God, not that if you break laws you will be DF'ed. In fact the topic of DF'ing is rarely heard from the platform. DFing is then used as a form of punishment if the laws are repeatedly broken. Or to follow your example and to break it down into a simple analogy. After you have told a child not to hit his brother because it hurts him and we do not want to hurt people, what do you do when he does not listen and continues to hit his brother? There is usually some sort of punishment, unless you are one of those neo-new age parents who has wild, rambuctious children and simply try to reason with them on everything, not giving them any consequences for their actions (short tirade at the end there.)
• 

  dungbeetle

  "I don't believe all the stories of Rutherford's drinking" IS ANOTHER WAY OF CALLING US ALL LIARS AS IT IS A MATTER OF PUBLIC AND LEGAL RECORD.

  WOULD YOU LIKE TO EXPLAIN HOW THE SUNIING IS GOING TO HELP RAPE AND MOLESTATION SURVIVORS 'TURN AROUND IN THEIR SINFUL COURSE?

  the Freeman and the Slack and the Longo and the Bryant children won't be contaminating their congregations anymore either.

  Just face it...with your attitude, the Jehovah's Witnesses are the only religion that would HAVE you...
• 

  LDH

  But we can not just excuse ourselves and ignore his laws.

  You are partially right, the human family MUST follow a set of ethics or we are doomed.

  However, examine *your* reasons for not committing serious sin, and then examine this code of ethics taken from the Secular Humanism site.

  * http://www.secularhumanism.org

  *We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.

  *We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation.

  *We believe that scientific discovery and technology can contribute to the betterment of human life.

  *We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities.

  *We are committed to the principle of the separation of church and state.

  *We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual understanding.

  *We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance.

  *We believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the handicapped so that they will be able to help themselves.

  *We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity.

  *We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species.

  *We believe in enjoying life here and now and in developing our creative talents to their fullest.

  *We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence.

  *We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have access to comprehensive and informed health-care, and to die with dignity.

  *We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences.

  *We are deeply concerned with the moral education of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion.

  *We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences.

  *We are citizens of the universe and are excited by discoveries still to be made in the cosmos.

  *We are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, and we are open to novel ideas and seek new departures in our thinking.

  *We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a source of rich personal significance and genuine satisfaction in the service to others.

  *We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.

  *We believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as human beings.

  Now, Man, you tell me, HOW IS YOUR REASON FOR NOT SINNING better than the above "manifesto"???

  It's not, because it's based on a releationship with a thrid party who theoretically functions as God's agent on earth, because you can never be good enough to deal directly with God. You will ALWAYS have to use his jackleg organization, and the elders will either declare you righteous or unrighteous based on your outward deeds, because they can never know your heart.

  Lisa
• 

  Room 215

  Mavman,
  
  If JWs are so secure in their conviction of the rightness of their faith,and equally convinced that anyone who quietly walks away from them because of an inability to accept 100 percent of a dogma that history demonstrates to be subject to regular and frequent adjustment is making a grave mistake, why mete out to that person the same treatmet as a murderer or rapist?

  Why not simply say ``we regret your decision and would hope you reconsider at a future time?'' Why must they be held hostage by the threat of expulsion, isolating them from life-long friends and family simply becuae they, while willing to accept say 85 percent of JW dogma, frankly admist to problems with the remaining 15 percent?
• 

  Farkel

  Mav,

  : You are right. I certainly am not happy about being shunned,

  Doh!

  :...but I also see how it has helped me come to my senses.

  Well, cattle prods poked at your genitals, or being strapped down with bamboo shoots growing into your back would accomplish the same thing.

  Tell me something: as a dub you are well aware of the WTS line that DFd people are to be treated as if they were dead, right? And the WTS is "Bible-based," (hahahahahahah!) right? Please show us dummies where the Bible tells us to treat DFd and DAd people as if they were dead?

  : After being disfellowshipped, I have abandoned my sinning path.

  Jesus said to leave the 99 sheep in the fold and go out and find the one that was lost. Tell us how that statement supports shunning. Also, name just ONE person that Jesus shunned or that Jesus said to shun.

  : Now I see the value of being inside the organization and I miss the loving friends that I've lost.

  If you see value in hanging around with people whose love is utterly conditional upon what bunch of garbage spewing out of the printing mills in Brooklyn says, then go for it.

  : Shunning is the strongest form of discipline.

  I thought it was meeting attendance.

  : In my case, it is what I needed to wake up and brake free from Satan's hold.

  If they'e not any real enemies, then invisible enemies are the next-best thing.

  Robert Bryant was expelled because he noticed and commented about the hypocrisy he saw in dubland. Exposing WT hypocrisy is a shunning offense. Jesus was a Jew and yet he did the very same thing to his own religion. Read Matthew 23. Givien the fact that the WTS is practicing exactly the OPPOSITE of Jesus' example, if you try to justify the shunning of Robert Bryant for his exposing hypocrisy in his own religion, then you are spitting in Jesus' face and mocking the example he set.

  The Watchtower religion is a mockery of everything that is ethical and decent and they've managed to convince dumb dubs that by shooting their own wounded they are helping them.

  Farkel
• 

  zanex

  hmmm I have been reading this thread for a while and as a df myself I look back to the the day that I was df'd and the shape of my life at that point and what df'ing did to my mental state following. I think all it did was cut my parents and sister off from me in a cruel and torturous way. The cleaning of my life was something that had little to NOTHING to do with any thought of pleasing some god. Df'ing did nothing but send me down a black hole that I had to pull myself out of myself without the help of the ones i needed the most-my parents. Still to this day they maintain that thinking. Until I "repent my evil ways and come back to the one 'true' flock they have only limited and restricted contact with me" I think that is a direct quote actually from my dear elder dad. "shunning" ppfffttt....
  As a husband and a father with a well respected role in the community I now live in I flip my finger towards those that think my life cud be ANY better in ANY jw cult. F@#$ em...
• 

  LDH

  I said:

  MATURE and THINKING human beings have their actions controlled by their concern for the well-being of their fellowman, not because they're gonna get punished.

  To which AMC replied:

  I love the superiority complex that some people have. I have no problem with different beliefs and disagreements, but I cringe everytime someone insinuates that they are flat out smarter, more mature, whatever, than witnesses. LDH, I happen to know a number of Witnesses that seem to be smarter, more mature and higher thinkers than you, if your posts are a reflection of your characteristics (they very well may not be, but the idea serves my point.

  Boy, are you a dumb ass. NOWHERE in any of my statements did I say or even imply that *I* don't sin because I am smart, mature, loving, blah blah blah.

  I stated a CONCEPT (You do not seem to understand the difference).

  And I can tell you right now, if they people you know are JWs, they are NOT smarter than me. They may SEEM to be independent thinkers, but the fact that they're still looking to a man made organization for God's approval makes them DUMBASSES.

  Regarding the last post above, unless you have selective memory, you should very well know that JWs do not use DFing as a form of punishment/reward system

  Listen, bitch, I was df'd myself! NOT for sinning, but because, as I was told, I had "grown up in the truth my whole life and I should have known better" and they "couldn't just let me get away with it."

  YOU are the one who doesn't their spirtual ass from a hole in the ground.

  Lisa
  Riled Class
• 

  discuss

  WOULD YOU LIKE TO EXPLAIN HOW THE SUNIING IS GOING TO HELP RAPE AND MOLESTATION SURVIVORS 'TURN AROUND IN THEIR SINFUL COURSE?

  Df'ing will help to maintain the congergation clean in this respect.
  As you know those that are df'd are unrepentant. However rape
  and molestation go beyond human behavior. It is, I dare to say, unnatural. Would you rather we not expel these ones from the congergation? Does Jehovah forgive a repentant heart?

  side note:

  I have only been lurking here a week or two.
  Is it normal for ldh to behave like she just did?
• 

  dubla

  I have only been lurking here a week or two.
  Is it normal for ldh to behave like she just did?

  sidenote: something still smells familiar around here....cant put my finger on it.

  aa
• 

  Will Power

  Right on LDH.

  Lurking a week or 2? Welcome
  Discuss: "We serve him..." can you please define?

  and
  I think that a molestation SURVIVOR pertains to the VICTIM or did you mean what you said about keeping clean by ridding the cono of these sorts.