How many mistresses can a JW elder have?

by Gill 64 Replies latest jw friends

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  R6Laser

  The point is that we didn't see it for a long time. Why call those of us who believed 'those with weak minds'? Yours is the 'strong mind' then that saw thru the subtefuge while a teenager? I doubt it. You just left like most rebellious teens do - now you have a superior mind? Give me a break kid. Jeff

  I never said I had a superior mind. For your information while I was a teenager I was still in as a MS. So it had nothing to do with me being rebelious. I just decided like all of you did at one time or another that if I kept giving the local elders the power to run my life I would've not gone anywhere in life. So I just left, literally walked away. My point was that while I agree the emotional pain it puts on us, its just a matter of saying I'm not going to do this anymore.

  Now kids are a different thing altogether, they are usually the ones that suffer more, they are stuck inside because of the parent who still believes in all the WT lies. So in that aspect I'm sorry about what your going thru with your kids candidlynuts.
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  candidlynuts

  I'm sorry about what your going thru with your kids candidlynuts.

  thank you.. its very difficult and compassion goes a long way in helping me and people like me deal with the pain.
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  upside/down

  By their works you will know them.

  Pretty much sums it up...

  u/d
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  OldSoul

  R6Laser,

  The problem with your reasoning is that you are making an assumptionabout everyone here:

  R6Laser: I just decided like all of you did at one time or another that if I kept giving the local elders the power to run my life I would've not gone anywhere in life.

  You are assuming that your reasons for leaving are the same as every other poster's reason for leaving. While we may have eventually come to a similar conclusion, it may not have been the one that we started out with.

  For instance: I wanted so badly for this organization to have the truth. It would make life so much easier. When I was 17 I started understanding that it was not and never would be, but I still thought many of its teachings were based on the Bible. I decided to try to inspire people to study more. These people were my closest friends. As I studied more, I came across things that I could not explain. Teachings without basis in the Bible, I was shocked. I had never formed any kind of safety net of friends outside the Organization, I didn't even have a high-school education (didn't need it, with the end so close), I understood the social norms inside the Organization but outside I had no clue. Just walk away? To what? So I stayed with what I knew, what was comfortable, until I found out about the UN/DPI scandal.

  Now I am faced with losing many lifelong friends, feeling distance between myself and my wife, and being cut off from a very large, very close knit family of Witnesses that I have been close to my entire life. Just walk away? To what? So I chose to stay out of fear. Is fear the same as weakness in your world? Admission of fear is a strength in my opinion. Going on despite it, finding a way to survive through it is my definition of courage. But, you are welcome to define it differently.

  When you stick everyone else in your box and then chide them for not being you, you come off as fairly short on intelligence and completely devoid of empathy. I hope you will learn to accept the actual pain that this Organization has caused others so that you will eventually stop feeling the need to drive stakes through my heart.

  Respectfully,
  OldSoul
• 

  diamondblue1974

  If after knowing all those things that you posted you were still part of the WTS then I say shame one you. The ones that wasted their lives did so based in their own free will at the time.

  You have absolutely no idea do you?

  People are capable of being manipulated...even the more intelligent and savvy of us and people are capable of being victims; you have little understanding of human nature if you would expect people to just 'up and leave' upon learning these horrendous facts. What about those of us whose whole family are witnesses and who would be shunned and isolated upon leaving?...what about those of us who wouldve relied upon the WTS for our social status? what about those who are so heavily indoctrinated that we cant simply let go of the whole belief system?

  No these people are not to be shamed...they are to be helped...'shame on you' for such an insensitive comment!

  DB74
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  Gill

  ((((((((Candidlynuts))))))) and (((((((((OldSoul)))))))))

  R6Laser - If you were refering to myself, not leaving the bOrg if I already knew all the evil things about it, then it didn't happen like that. I had already left because I hated it, for several years. Then, one day, my mother warned me to never look on the Internet on what it had to say about Jehovah's Witnesses because it was 'all lies from Satan', and so, of course, I looked.

  The rest is history! Only then did I find out what a terrible trap I had been born into.

  And your story is? Have you had to lose many members of your family to this evil Org?
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  R6Laser

  When you stick everyone else in your box and then chide them for not being you, you come off as fairly short on intelligence and completely devoid of empathy. I hope you will learn to accept the actual pain that this Organization has caused others so that you will eventually stop feeling the need to drive stakes through my heart.

  I already mentioned that I know the emotional distress this Organization may cause. I'm not sticking anybody in my box, you're the one making that assumption. I've stated the point I was trying to get through many times in this thread but it seems nobody agrees with me and that's fine. I'm not going to resort to cheap shots to get my point accross.
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  ocsrf

  Out of the situation I related to you, a woman killed herself because ultimately she was disfellowshiped and lost EVERYONE. What organization can do that to you? Even the prison system allows contact, communication, letters, visits etc....but NOT Jehovah's organization! Makes you wonder! Great point...don't forget that this is done out of love (sarcasm)
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  OldSoul

  R6Laser: All I can say is that the organization did not do that to her. She did it to herself.

  R6Laser: I'm not going to resort to cheap shots to get my point accross.

  Yeah, I see what you mean.

  R6Laser: Ultimately its the person who chooses they're own destiny. Each of us is responsible for our own actions and life choices. That's the part that I'm talking about, personal choices. If a person chooses suicide over trying to get their life together then the root of the problem lies within that indiviual and not being able to handle the stress.

  So, if their environment contributes to their emotional lack that is their fault, too? I suppose I should have run away from home as a toddler, then I would be emotionally sound? You have been trying consistently to divert culpability for discomfort and pain away from the Organization and drop it on the victim.

  If the Organization generates emotionally unstable people (and it does) then where is the basis for your point? Your own personal experience? Good for you! Your experience with the Organization is happily free from severe emotional torment! But, that isn't normal and the severe torment that many others feel has a real, identifiable source.

  You are correct, "[You've] stated the point [you were] trying to get through many times in this thread but it seems nobody agrees with [you] and that's fine." What you haven't done is demonstrate that you considered it from anyone's perspective other than your own (i.e. shown empathy).

  OldSoul
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  atypical

  It's not like they were holding a gun to my head forcing me to work a dead end job, not having children, not going to college. Of course they would tell you do these things but the actual choice comes down to what the person wanted to do.

  I think most of us here understand that social pressures, mind control, and manipulation can be much more powerful than a gun to the head. A gun to the head can look much less frightening than losing your entire family, all the friends you have ever known, possibly your business if you have many JW customers, and more. Being afraid of those consequences does not indicate cowardice, it shows a heart filled with love and a desire to preserve the things that deep down we know are the most important. The more aware we become that our entire life is held hostage, the more fear can keep us from walking away.

  Laser, I'm afraid you are showing the same cold indifference to suffering that most witnesses show toward the suffering of non-witnesses.