We are told we can quit (dissassociate) or get kicked out ( dissfellowshipped), but are these the only options we have? While you cannot stop people from acting a certain way around you there may be a way to take to power away from the Society and give it back to the people who love you and know it their hearts that shunning in unloving. Check out the Baptism Nullification letter in the friends forum posted by Blackguard. I sent this letter to Brooklyn a month ago and my friends in the Hall said all is quiet. The letter is carefully worded to avoid libeling The Governing Body but renders them powerless to respond lest they be guilty of violating the rights of a non-member! Also if a Witness is "caught" associating with an unbaptized person the Elders cannot officially punish that Witness. They have to be very careful what they say and to whom they say it lest they be guilty of slandering a non-member. I also sent out copies of this letter to all the Witnesses I knew everywhere the next day. The only people I did not sent a copy to were the P.O. and C.O. as I do not recognize their corporate hierarchy. This way the local "Brothers" could not "Contain" this quietly and use the gossip mill against me. At least all the people who knew me would have an accurate statement to go from and not some twisted version put out by the Elders wives network. Of course I am now the worst Apostate in the history of the county but I already have people secretly communicating with me in agreement with the things I stated. I also talked to a neighbor about baptizing me in his pool that same weekend and documented it as I am stating that my baptism was illegitimate! My legal people tell me the Society will most likely lay-low and let this blow over but I do not plan to go quietly into the night. My goal is to force them to get out their scripture bender and strecher and twist up something interesting in a WatchTower study article. Yours at the Front, Maverick
Are there only two ways out of the WT World?
by Maverick 26 Replies latest jw friends
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ozziepost
G'day Maverick and welcome aboard! It's good to 'hear' from someone on the 'front'!
There are IMO two, maybe 3, ways to exit the Borg: DA, DF or fadeaway.
My opinion is that the fadeaway status is at best temporary. Sooner or later it will be reclassified DA.
Just wait and see!
Cheers, Ozzie
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Abaddon
It's an interesting idea. I faded 'cause of family, and wanting to retain contact (I'm the adult in the relationship, they're the cultists).
However, either the Borg will disappear up their own yazoo with regulations and become increasingly marginalised and fade away themselves, or it will become more mainstream. Your idea take it down the first. I think a new light on DA and DF which makes them symbolic, if they continue to exist at all, and a change in doctrine over shunning ('cause Jehober is a gwod of lurve) is as likely as that, in a ten year span.
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blackguard
Hi Maverick,
You should have re-posted your Baptism Nullification document. I've got a bunch of questions for you. Yes, fade-away is an option, but with obvious drawbacks as some posters on the jwd forum have experienced. With a vengeance, the spiritual terrorists have been known to hunt down fade-aways with the intent to hurt them with threats of congregational discipline and/or disfellowshipment or place them in a position to have to disassociate.
The thing I like about your Baptism Nullification method is that it takes the stick out of the hand of these spiritual thugs and probably puts the lawsuit stick in the hand of the BN candidate should he/she be negatively labelled or impacted by the practitioners of hurtfullness, otherwise known as jaydubs. Has there been any libel or slander toward your person yet, and are you considering any libel/slander lawsuit action at this point now that you have restored your 'worldly' status?( I use "worldly" rather loosely here in the context of pagan watchtowerdom as you seem to be stating that you had a neighbor baptize you into a relationship with God and his Son subsequent to your reinstated watchtower worldliness). I presume in your particulat instance that your spiritual preference is Christianity, or is the subsequent baptism a necessary legal manouver in the application of the Baptism Nullification process?
So, instead of the limiting choice of disfellowshipment, disassociation or fade-away one now has a fourth choice, baptism nullification. This method seems to be all about restoring freedom back to the individual. I love it. Hey-when you stated that your baptism was "illegitimate" did you mean the corporate watchtower baptism or, as I understood you to mean, the baptism performed by your neighbor in his pool? Could you clarify?
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Maverick
Thank you-all for you imput, (I'm southern)! The illegitimate baptism was the first one,matey. As for legal action--- well, I have been instructed to pass on that question. I will say this, any legal action will be directed at the person or persons that make public pronouncements (which violate my rights as a private citizen), that my spies will record with those small digital recorders I bought them. I am working on wording such potential suits in such a way that if these slanders admit to being under the mind control of the "Corporation" I would drop any such alleged suits. I am sure that will give them a little heartburn! As for the fade away issue. I am sorry but I have a hard time reconciling that as an option in the same class as the other three. I see fade away as disassiociation de facto but not de jure. And the "Corporation" still looms over you like an outstanding warrant. But that is just my opinion. Please tell all your friends about this and let's all give them a little heartburn. It will be tough, as they have such small hearts. Yours, Maverick
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jgnat
Welcome to the board, Maverick!
By the way, the letter can be found here:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=46515&site=3
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dedalus
Well, I finally bothered to find the thread and see what the fuss was about. Interesting idea, although to Witnesses it will be a distinction without a difference -- even though one may claim not to be disassociating oneself, by nullifying one's baptism one removes oneself from the congregation ... and therefore one would be shunned just as if disassociation had occurred. You talk about being protected legally from gossip and slander and so forth, but I doubt that would matter -- the real issue, more than gossip, is shunning, and you cannot legally force people to interact with you if they don't want to.
Just my opinion, I guess. It seems to me the biggest benefit to this idea is the personal satisfaction of feeling you have transgressed their rules, which is a subjective assessment -- I personally found it more satisfying to DA myself without the legal mumbo-jumbo, and just be done with it.
Dedalus
Edited by - dedalus on 13 February 2003 7:48:26
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Maverick
Well, I see the path of least resistance seems to be the order of the day here. The fade-aways and those who want the emotional satisfaction of venting in a letter of disassociation are offered encouragement. There are three kinds of people in this world, Doers, Talkers and Critics. A lot of time is spend on non-issues, pity parties and trivia. I guess the Star Wars and Star Trek crowd like to sit and talk shop. But are there any adult people out there in J-dud limbo-land? If so let's hear from you. Still standing, Maverick
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Preston
If you want to leave without giving the WT their say, then don't let them. JW's aren't tough, they're weak. They can't even make their own decisions half the time. Want to know how I left? I got up and left. it was a cakewalk. If you don't want to answer any of their questions, don't. If you don't want to confess anything, don't. The dubs won't understand, so don't even bother. Keep 'em guessing. Screw with them a little. Just get up and go. What are they going to do about it? Write your name in their "official" file? mention your name (Oh my God...your name) in front of a whole group of JW's? Ohhhhhhhh....I'm shaking in my boots now! And let's say your family and friends disown you? Well, it's their loss. As terrible as it sounds. You...are outside the prison, they aren't. They'll only see how happy you are and grow more bitter about their own miserable pathetic lives while you're getting laid by firefighters, licking chocolate syrup off your lovers thighs, having fun on weekends (jay-sus!, having honest to god fawking fun on weekends), and making more money than any of those patheitc miserbale dubs will see in their own prospective lifetimes. Come...on, treat it like the comedy it is and you won't get hurt.
Some of you are way to FAB-ulous to lose hairs over this issue.
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dedalus
Notice how Maverick doesn't address a single thing I actually wrote -- just a bunch of insinuations about the weak characters of those who disassociate.
Well, I see the path of least resistance seems to be the order of the day here.
Pretty rude and judgmental. People disassociate for a lot of reasons. My mother-in-law chose to disassociate instead of being disfellowshipped. I suppose she could have done your baptism nullification thing, only then she would have to prepare to consult a lawyer and engage in some correspondence with the elders of her congregation. Yep, she'd have to enter into a closer relationship with a group of men who sanctioned a public needs talk that explicitly told the congregation not to attend a fund-raiser for her severely disabled son. She'd have to take time away from her son to devote her energy to making sure her baptism nullification was being recognized and honored, and live in a perpetual state of readiness -- ready for them to challenge her, ready to sue them for infractions against a directive she issued. Right -- let's tell her that she's weak, a lowly talker, because she chose, instead of taking up your semantic battle, to cut these people, who were harassing her, out of her life, and instead devote her attention to the place that matters most to her -- her son, and the family and friends who matter to her in her life.
Your generalities and lack of respect for opposing viewpoints reveal you to be a compassionless person, Maverick.
The fade-aways and those who want the emotional satisfaction of venting in a letter of disassociation are offered encouragement.
What's the difference between the emotional satisfaction of writing a letter of disassociation (who said it had to be 'venting' -- mine wasn't) and writing a letter of baptism nullification (and I read yours, and it is a bit on the venting side, and certainly much longer than my DA letter)? There's no real difference, especially since, as I've stated, any letter of baptism nullification will essentially be viewed as a letter of disassociation.
Who's going to pay the legal fees to back up all of the bluster of your baptism nullification scheme, with its foundation rested upon litigation more than anything else? You? No? Could it be that you're just a talker, one of the Star Trek crowd?
But why waste my time talking to you? You won't address anything I've actually written -- no, like most zealots on a crusade, you'll only insinuate, more strongly each time, that those who oppose you, whatever their reasoning, are weak and inferior. Real nice.
Dedalus
Edited by - dedalus on 14 February 2003 7:16:46