Just wanted to say welcome to you also. Do some research as was suggested. Ray Franz's books are great.
NEW EXJW ON THE BLOCK
by buffy 27 Replies latest jw friends
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Silverleaf
Hi Buffy,
Welcome! I was never a JW but considered it many years ago because of my former fiance. Since I was not brought up religiously for a long time I thought there was something wrong with me because I could not accept the JW teachings when they were presented to me. I found out after years of soul searching that I wasn't the one who was missing something. Something you wrote struck me:
Regarding your son:
"What if because I rejected Jehovah and die, he does too."First of all please ask yourself if someone who would kill your child because of something YOU did is really worthy of your love and devotion. Do you want to live your life as a hostage of God, as a prisoner conforming to rules you don't agree with to protect your son from the wrath of a vengeful creator?
There are lots of other paths out there. Now that you are free you can explore them without fear and you may find there are many more beautiful ways to see the universe. I wish you all the best. You have not condemned your son - you've given him a tremendous freedom that he will thank you for when he's older.
Bright blessings,
Silverleaf
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NewLight2
Welcome to JWD. Hope to see more of your posts in the future.
What if because I rejected Jehovah
Ask yourself: Did I really reject Jehovah, or did I just reject the WT Printing Corporation with its many MAN-MADE rules?The WBTS DOES NOT equal Jehovah - as most Witnesses conclude. You can still love Jehovah and reject the JW Religion. Contrary to what the WT teaches, it is NOT the "one, true religion".
Check out this link for lots of serious information about the Watchtower Society
http://www.geocities.com/osarsif/index2.htmThis page contains links to more informative sites.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/5385/Links1.html -
Nathan Natas
Hi Buffy,
Welcome to the real world! You'll find many varieties of spirituality here, ranging from (in no particular order) people who were NEVER JWs but are JW-curious, people who are now affiliated with the Bible Students, people who want the Watchtower to reform, people who are born-again Christians of various sorts, people who are wiccan, peole who are agnostic, people who are atheist (like me) and one fellow who tells us that he is a cat. What we have in common is that we are all human beings and most of us have some experience with living as followers of Watchtower dogma.
Notice that I didn't call it "The TRUTH"? That's because it ISN'T, and you have a golden opportunity to begin examining carefully the teachings of The Watchtower so that you can decide for yourself whether it is "The TRUTH" or merely "the trooth," as many of us here refer to it.
Let me assure you, you have no reason to fear that you OR your child will die at Armageddon. Armageddon is just one of a stack of failed Watchtower prophecies, as you will learn.
Welcome, and enjoy your time with us!
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Imbue
Buffy your not alone and you will find some understanding and support here.
As Nathan said welcome to reality!
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"The only good elite are dead elite!!"-Naeblis
(Ok! He borrowed it) -
Grunt
Hi Buffy,
I am so sorry for the pain you have had to endure. Losing family members over lies, lies that you can't even question or discuss, is a terrible thing. A lot of us have endured and are enduring that pain. I don't know the details of your situation, but I do know this, you have been involved with a cult. The Jehovah's Witnesses are a lie. The picture they present is one of love and cleanliness when in fact they are all about hate and corruption. They teach conditional love with so many conditions it would be almost comical were it not so heartbreaking. You say you have lost your family, that is the type of condition no person should have to meet. Do as we say or we take away your MOM. Almost unbelievable isn't it. If you compromised and tried to go back you couldn't act like they do. You have to be willing to sell your family for eternal life. You have to be willing to turn your back on your parents or kids to force them to pretend to believe the company line. How sadly ironic that they sell you for a lie. If you are an honest person, you would come back out, and they would think that since shunning you was effective last time it will work again. Let it rock. Things will probably get a little better and remember tens of thousands walk away every year, just like you did. Maybe they will wake up and have the moral courage to see a lie and call it just that, then walk away as you did. Until then, pretending wrong is right won't help you or them. You would just be an enabler, helping them to keep up their nasty cult habit and behaviors.
As a father I OWE it to my little girl not to be a liar and to set a good example for how to live, how to face adversity when you confront it. I'm doing that. I won't bow, if she chooses too then she can, but she will be able to look up and see me standing. Whether she is capable of seeing and understanding or not, I am doing what is right. Bowing to evil would be wrong. The cult known as Jehovah's Witnesses twist truth to hurt the innocent. They don't care about dying children, sick parents, divided families, loved ones in agony, or you. I will not serve them and will seek them out and oppose them at every opportunity. You did the right thing when you left.I wish you all the best.
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DakotaRed
Welcome, Buffy. One thing stands out in your message. YOU DID NOT REJECT JEHOVAH!!! God is the God of all, not just those following a publishing company. Believing that teh Watchtower is God is what has you feeling so crummy. They are not God. They are just another human religion filled with good and bad people. Unfortunately, the leadership uses that to mold and brainwash followers.
Coming to understand that they are not God is your first hurdle in recovery.
Think, would God lie about and cover up pedophiles crimes while punishing the victims? Would God proclaim the UN as so satanic and call it the Beast, yet secretly join and belong to it? Too many mistakes for them to be God, as far as I am concerned.
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Dawn
Hi Buffy:
I also have fought many of the same fears that you have - worrying that you have made the wrong decision for your children.
A friend of mine recently relieved me of those fears by reminding me that NO ONE is big enough to screw up God's plan. So when you are worried that you have made the wrong choice - just pray to him and BELIEVE that he will see you and your children through - you can't mess him up!!!
I'm glad to have you on board and I'll look for your posts - sounds like we have a lot in common. Please feel free to e-mail me if you need to anytime.
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desertflower
Welcome Buffy.
If your worried about you children now don't go back to the JW Because you may lose them big time later.
I use to prayer that my children ( I have 4) would have a chance to make their own minds up to what they wanted to believe
now I wish with all my heart that I had never heard of the Witness. They have my 4 kids and 12 grandkids and the rest
of the in-laws captive. I hate the Org. for that, so stay away from them before they can get your kids.
Desertflower -
nancee park
IS WHAT JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES BELIEVE REALLY "THE TRUTH" ABOUT SHUNNING, BLOOD, BEING GOD'S ONLY EXCLUSIVE CHANNEL, HOLIDAYS,
TRINITY, CROSS, SPIRITUAL CLEANNESS, THE U.N., TRUE UNITY?This question is especially pertinent since the airing of the Dateline NBC documentary about JWs on May 28, 2002. To begin, JWs are taught to believe and do exactly as instructed by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WBTS) over JWs which includes that they practice "disfellowshipping." This is where a member who is judged guilty of unrepentantly smoking, drinking too much, believing, reading or teaching things that disagree with the views of the leadership is shunned by all other family members and friends who are also JWs, and any JWs not shunning the person may also be disfellowshipped. This is called a "loving provision from Jehovah." Although Christ said families would be divided by some members doing good and others doing wrongs, he never ever advocated destruction of families. 1 Corinthians 6:1 only says judge "trivial" things as in business, James 2:4-13 calls judging harmful, and Paul says the "majority" (2 Corinthians 2:6) followed his advice to shun a wrongdoer, meaning a minority chose not to and yet he nowhere condemns them. So, as said, some ask why the formal Judicial Committees destroying families via numerous formal renderings of disfellowshipment, that is severe shunning.
As interpreted by the WBTS, JWs teach you must not use blood even for emergency blood transfusion because Acts 15:20 says abstain from blood not noting that 1 Samuel 14:32-5 says Saul's army ate unBLED meat to not starve to death, and no verses show God not forgiving them. Moreover Christ at Matthew 12:7 says God wants "mercy not sacrifice" and also in Matthew 12 it says God forgave David and his men who ate temple holy bread to stay alive. The May 22, 1994 Awake tells of 26 JW kids who died without transfusions, and by common sense in massive bleeding as in car wrecks blood expanders won't save lives. Many thousands of JWs are estimated to have now died because of the policy which continues even though Jehovah causes most normal healthy identical twins to share a common placenta through which they transfuse blood back and forth to each other, and scientists have found some of the blood of the children in the blood of mothers decades after birth.
The Governing Body members of the WBTS over JWs teach that they themselves are the only modern-day channel being used by Jehovah in communicating to members. Others believe that Paul, when he said there is only one true religion was referring to Christianity in general since the WBTS only came into existence in the late 1800s. JW members are told to report on each other although the Bible itself condemns busy-bodying. Page 302 in the WBTS's Daniel book and pages 88 and 651 in the Proclaimers book show photos of the Knights Templar swords and the cross-with-crown-and-wreath used by Masons who sometimes use "Theocratic Warfare" tactics to change members' personalities on early WTS’s literature. Some old WT books also have the winged sun god Ra on front covers - never a Christian symbol. Nor are regular JWs allowed to read Judicial Committee "sin files" on themselves, and many do not even know such files are kept locally as well as in the WBTS branch office or world headquarters, often with misinformation. Also kept away from regular members is the elders' manual Pay Attention To Yourselves And All The Flock book although there is a picture of its front cover on p 232 of the WBTS's Insight book.
JWs are taught that most holdiays including Christmas are not for Christians although others note that the WBTS itself has taught that Christ was likely born about October 2, so why ignore he was conceived 9 months before meaning late December? Also why insist Christmas is from the pagan Saturnalia when John 10:22-3 says Christ also celebrated the Festival of Dedication or Lights, i.e. Hannukah, which first began Dec 25 but has varied since because lunar-based? JWs are also told not to celebrate birthdays which are called pagan although Job 1:3, 3:1 and 3:3 (you must read all 3 verses) show Job's kids celebrated birthdays, and Luke 2 explains that angels celebrated Christ's birth. WBTS writings have various hinted or declared that Santa derived from a wizard or pagan god, although history records him as derived from the real-life Christian gift-giver Nicholas who lived during the Middle Ages. Saint (<Santa) Nicholas e wore red and at night slipped pouches with gold through window latches so that they fell upon fireside hearths where poor girls found them next morning and used them for dowry money to wed instead of being sold into slavery which also often included prostitution. Some have also asked why call holidays compromises when they in fact attacked and replaced paganisms and Colossians 2:16 says "let none judge you about a holiday."
WBTS publications say the Trinity is believing Father, Son, and Spirit are 1 "identical" person, although most churches accept it as 3 totally different entities or persons forming 1 "Godship" or "Godhead" depending on translation and as seen at Romans 1:20, including in Bibles used by JWs. Son and Spirit sharing inherited age, power, knowledge from God is called impossible even though this is understood by many as applying just as when an acorn may be only 1 day old but also have its genes inheriting its ancestral oak tree's age, capacity and information. Almost only the United Pentecostal Church and some affiliating groups teach that Jesus is Jehovah, which neither JWs nor most other religious groups teach, although WBTS publications lead JWs to believe most all nonJW churches teaches Jesus is Jehovah. Romans 14:1-5 says allow people to differ some in views, logical since some wrong on any given Bible topic can change. But instead the WBTS applies the scripture about not being "friends of the world" even to those who may be wholesome though of other views instead of to those unrepentantly criminal and evil in conduct.
JWs teach that the cross (styros in Greek) was definitely not a cross but a torture stake although human remains and inscriptions show archaeologists the stauros indeed was a cross, Dr F. Zugibe's research shows suffocation would be in minutes if Christ had been upon a plain stake but in hours if on an outstretched cross, which is the time duration given at both Luke 23:44 and Matthew 27:45-6. JWs are taught the cross is a repugnant murder weapon although Paul said boast in the stauros as a symbol of resurrection over death. (Ga 6:14, 1Cor 1:17-18)
JWs often say being a member is like being in a truly moral real "Spiritual Paradise" although on May 28, 2002 Dateline NBC aired a documentary showing that JW Elders often hide local scandals such as child molestation. Further much documentation has been put on the internet that Leo Greenlees was a child molester on the Governing Body over JWs and his fellow Governing Body members reassigned but did not disfellowship him in the 1980s (jehovahs-witness.com in the archives, etc) Some JWs have complained of physical harassment (poking, shoving etc), hints that "Jehovah’s eyes are everywhere" and Elders' knowing details of their most private conversations and bedroom doings with their own marriage mates. WTS articles told Elders not to “police” bedrooms in 1978 but later in a talk (but not in writing) in 1983 told regular members "The Practice" of some marital intimacies can lead to Expulsion. (discussed on Jehovahs-Witness.com) Some regular JWs absent that evening have been "expelled" (harassed/trained) without clearly aware why. Contrast this to the pedophilia coverups. "Insight" book articles are on all Bible books except Song of Solomon (aka Canticles) which has much positive marital imagery out of line with the Gov Body’s views of what is “holy.” Instructed to keep such things "in-house" when asked most elders deny the 1983-onwards policy to protect the Gov Body.
JW leaders have always taught in writing that God does not like the United Nations but until exposed, during 1991-2001 the organization was secretly a formal UN associate, not just a UN library card associate as claimed. Read the November 22, 1998 Awake magazine very closely to see for yourself how the WTS fulfilled the UN requirement that they speak well of the UN - even though denouncing the UN to regular members. Also see http://www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/archive_db.cgi?tablet-00577
In conclusion, like myself there are many fine JWs who are sincere in beliefs, and certainly do not agree with the WBTS policy of covering up child molestation and the like. However, when open about it those who would bring about change are routinely "disciplined," called evil "apostates," "refined by fire or sifted out" which makes change impossible. However, increasingly though those who now know of matters from Dateline NBC, the internet (Simon Green of the UK's jehovahs-witness.com), etc are quietly pushing for reform by not attending all the meetings (typically Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday), not going door-to-door as much, and definitely decreasing money donated to the WBTS. Regardless of current beliefs all friendly former JWs and Friends are invited to a "Free Christians" get-together the first weekend of every June and October.
By Free not looseness but freedom to believe differently and do acts of loving-kindess are meant. Jehovah God did not make all flowers the same color did He?! But to the WTBS unity is uniformity, that is sameness of beliefs, while to Free Christians unity is as Colossians 1:14 says achieved by "LOVE" which is the greatest bond, and the simple basics at Hebrews 6:1-2. Variety is natural and good.