hi everyone i don't even know where to begin.
i recently saw leah remini's series on scientology thanks to my husband (semi-active jw) and i felt like my eyes were being opened for the 1st time in my adult life.
i felt shaken almost sick to my stomach with each episode i watched.
Start by doing nothing to alert anyone that you have doubts. The vast majority of 'raised in' JW kids who see the man behind the curtain blow their chance of any continuing half decent relationship with their parents and family by forgetting all of the warnings about apostates that they heard from the platforms and ragazines, thinking that their family is sane and decent and reasonable.
Slow down and make a plan.
my dearest dad is 90 years old today.
we are far away, separated by geography, but never will i allow an organisation that indoctrinated false love separate me from my dear dad.
i love my dad and we had our differences but never will i allow that organisation take away my love for my dad.. happy bithday dad.
Mine is in his nineties. The only reason he hasn't shunned me for decades is because I had the sense not to get baptised. He's my father, not my friend and he has had decades of opportunity to fix that. I do my best, but it will never be good enough until I join his and Rutherford's silly little cult.
i have had a conversation this evening with a jw friend i have known since childhood.
he is of the opinion that armageddon will have come and gone within the next 5 years.
are the jws now pinpointing 2020 as the supposed year?
Make him commit to something. Ask him if he will leave if Jehovah doesn't show up to stop him looking like a just another doomsday nutter? Make a date with him to meet you somewhere expensive in six years ... and he pays.
it's no secret that both remaining a jw or leaving the wts can take a toll on mental health.
some will suffer from depression and ultimately some will have thoughts of suicide and a few will succumb to those.. but i don't recall ever seeing any hard stats or studies on it though.
i'm sure we all know of some people who have committed suicide but i don't know if, because you may have loose association with a much larger pool of people through the religion, that this only seems higher or maybe not be actually higher than the general population.. what i mean is, you go to a kh here there maybe 100-150 people, you attend circuit and district conventions with many tens of thousands - if any one person commits suicide then you likely hear about it and it becomes part of the anecdotal 'evidence' that is then put forward as a fact that there is a higher rate ... but is there?.
I know of several that have committed suicide without ever being baptised Dubs, but were subjected to the doctrines in their youth. They would slip past most statistical analyses models of Dub suicides.
aren't there christian denominations who do not make false end of the world predictions but who nevertheless believe that the world will eventually end and paradise (whether in heaven or on earth) will come?.
it seems the watchtower was just jumping the gun when they made false end of the world predictions but they are nevertheless the right: the world will eventually end and paradise will come..
My Dad is in an old folks home full of Christians celebrating Christmas and birthdays when Jehovah had promised him that he would be in Paradise well before now. Every promise Jehovah made him has slowly, but surely, slipped into obscurity and all he is left with is the hope of resurrection, a poor substitute for the promises that have already failed,
i was born in four gen, been d.f.d.
for about eight years now.
my father had always been a true company man, although more times than i can count, he's always been floppy.
Never cut yourself off. Leave that decision to them, so that they have to instigate it,
Deal with it, and live with it. You remain here in, "This Wicked System of things", in their face, without mentioning it, but as a reminder, (the kind of obvious reminder they don't want to think about), alive and well and successful and evidence that what they insisted you believed in your youth was wrong.
several months ago i approached a nice young couple who were standing by a jw literature stand in my local community.
they were pleasant and polite but incredibly stilted when it came to answering my "innocent" questions about their beliefs.
this was the occasion of jws featuring the article headlined "is religion dying?".
"and this magazine brings you uptodate information on several important topics".
Diversion tactics. He has let slip that knows he is promoting a magazine that is making a false claim. Hammer the point home with questions and refuse to be diverted. Target guilt. Ask how he feels spending his time on a public stand promoting something he knows is false.
most witnesses i knew were exteeemly reluctant to go out in the ministry.
but when they did, they were simply scraping by, eager to avoid conflict and just do their hour or so speaking to lonely old ladies or widowed old men.
placing magazines in a car group, doing route calls, plodding along in the utter boredom of their responsibility to get some time on a report by the last day of the month.. this was never a warning work.
It was an urgent warning work when I was a kid. Now, the same people that taught me that, deny they said that and bash my character for bringing it up.
the issue of whether beards are acceptable or not is addressed in the september 2016 watchtower - well sort of.
it is as clear as mud as to whether they are allowed in places like australia, usa and britain.. 17. what are some factors that may affect whether a brother wears a beard?17 what about the propriety of brothers wearing a beard?
the mosaic law required men to wear a beard.
LOL at Cold Steel.
I got a compliment on the state of my facial hair from my father recently. It's more Russell than Rutherford :D
i'm wondering if there are any here that are from new zealand or currently live there.
i'm going to be staying there for a month in july 2017 ... location to be determined.
i would love to have someone i can ask questions while i am in the planning stages.
You won't have to worry about sunburn in July unless you're a Snow Bunny, Wild Thing.
I'm in the North Island but get around a bit, mostly staying clear of the touristy spots. I'll try to keep an eye on my PMs.
