after posting on another thread it became apparent to me that it can be difficult for some ex jws to totally shake off all wt teaching , even after leaving the org.
do you still feel guilty going into a church for a wedding or a funeral .
can you bring yourself to celebrate birthdays or christmas .
Not long after I realised that I'd been raised in a failed doomsday cult, I considered the idea that everything I had been taught about the Bible was suspect. I started reading the Bible without the filters provided by my family's chosen church and discovered so much that was nonsense that I had to re-evaluate everything I had been taught about God.
I now believe that man created God and I have no WT or Bible induced phobias left to interfere with me enjoying my life.
i kind of like the 50’s and early 60’s because of the innocence and “happy days” outlook by that generation.
it seems most people were pretty innocent and real.. would you rather be living in a different era or is this century working for you?
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If I rubbed the right bottle and a Genie offered me to spend a decade as a teenager, I'd choose the 60s.
I'm quite happy with being born in the early 50s. The 60s & 70s were a fabulous period for me and I'd be happy to repeat it. My parents were constantly telling me what a terrible time we were living in, but I was having a ball, the World was really a pretty good place and the big scary Worldlies were mostly decent people, just as they are now.
How about if I think it's yet another re-invented Adventist scam targeting the gullible? Should I leave an honest review?
i grew up as a witness, and left about 10 years ago, i'm currently researching witness numbers for a project i'm working on, and i can't seem to get an accurate number of baptised witnesses - hardly a surprise!
from their website it looks like they list the number of publishers instead of the number of baptised witnesses, so it totally works to obscure how many actual witnesses there are, apart from the fact it's morally dubious to class a publisher as a minister of god as they refer to publishers on their uk section of the site.
i also am trying to work out how many leave every year, even approximate figures would be great, from their own website it just looks like they try to massage figures to make them look as favourable as possible.
Check out the Pew forum
i grew up as a witness, and left about 10 years ago, i'm currently researching witness numbers for a project i'm working on, and i can't seem to get an accurate number of baptised witnesses - hardly a surprise!
from their website it looks like they list the number of publishers instead of the number of baptised witnesses, so it totally works to obscure how many actual witnesses there are, apart from the fact it's morally dubious to class a publisher as a minister of god as they refer to publishers on their uk section of the site.
i also am trying to work out how many leave every year, even approximate figures would be great, from their own website it just looks like they try to massage figures to make them look as favourable as possible.
Try census results for various countries. There were some interesting numbers discussed here a few years ago, Canada might have been one that was discussed.
this happened in queensland, australia, today.
i am proud to be a member of the australian labor party and have worked in politics for the last two terms of their government in queensland.
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They are going to have to be careful how they word it because an accusation isn't a confession. If it isn't worded correctly a BOE might be able to choose to avoid reporting an accusation that doesn't have two witnesses to weasel their way out of having to besmirch the public image of the church.
i have been working through the grey book with a married couple for several months.
actually after a while what happened was a different brother or sister got invited each week to my study.
i met lots and lots.
Thanks for sharing that. I wish more of the contacts my parents made had had your nounce.
i happened to be standing nearby when an outside contractor, out of the goodness of his heart, approached a fellow worker and invited him to his church.
the fellow worker is a known problem-drinker and actually, probably could use some discipline in his life.. anyhow, after a gushing account about how vibrant his church is and what a great guy the preacher is, he said that the lord moved him to speak with the problem-drinker.
well, i'm feeling left out, neglected, dejected and finally chimed in.
Some of the more dangerous cult members and leaders I know of are ex-bad boys that have been steered to the 'light' by well-meaning victims of the cult that recruited them.
were you so indoctrinated that you just couldn’t leave?
was it due to family pressure?
was it your friendships that you didn’t want to lose?
It might have been because I didn't want to think that my parents could be that stupid, even though stuff was said that indicated that they were. Enough doubt was placed in me by some of the nonsense from my parents and various new and old articles from the WT, that I didn't have the balls to get baptised, because I knew that if they were wrong and I wanted to get out, that there was no recant option that didn't mean being ostracised by the entire extended family.
please bear with me as this might be a long one,.
the question above has been circulating my mind for a while and i’ve been wondering if there’s anyone that thought the same or done it.. we normally associate shunning and disassociation with jehovah’s witnesses that are normally baptised, but my situation is a reversed one.. i was a bible student that left a long time ago on my own free will, never shunned never ostracised by my jw’s siblings and their families.
the years have passed and situations have arisen that has made me uncomfortable of the knowledge of particular outcomes within my siblings and families.. i’ve been thinking to stay away from my family( living in a different country ), as i don’t want to be preached on or feel out of touch and segregated by their opinions of me and my family.
Once you have identified yourself as Satan's Minion, your chances of having sensible conversations with them are finished, It's much better to go with the flow and keep your opinions to yourself and ask the occasional awkward question that makes them think without being too pushy about it and demanding they answer.
I still have a relationship with most of my JW family members. It is dysfunctional because I never got baptized, but that is better than being an 'out there' big scary Apostate that must be avoided at all costs.
