Posts by Globetrotter

113

Witnesses coming Saturday... I need HELP!!!!

by Globetrotter in

i got into a rather heated discussion this morning with my unbaptised but raised jehovah's witness wife.

we discussed so many things: feb 1 watchtower article on 607 and 1914, the un, beth sarim, blood, god's mouthpiece here on earth, etc.

this was yet another attempt on my part to try to plant a seed of doubt.

Globetrotter

Whatever behavior you want to stop, you ?starve.? Don?t ?feed? it with a good or bad reaction. No reaction, if possible.

No advice on the Saturday confrontation with the JWs - but if someone is trying to get someone 'out' - the best way to do it may not be to confront them with 'issues', but to take a vacation .

That's right - a vacation. Be sure to go where there are NO KH's - or 5 meetings a week??.Make it a three or four weeker - the longer the better?? get the other person away from the 5 meetings a week brainwashing that they are now exposed to. The less brainwashing an individual has - the clearer they are able to see things for what they are.

I copied this because this is great advice, IMO! Don?t talk against the Org (that would be 'feeding' it) ? just take her out for some fun! As often and as far away from witnesses as possible. This is ?feeding? the behaviors you want to encourage (being away from the JWs). ( Might be good for the marriage, too.)

Engage in as many activities outside of the Witness social circle as possible. Be sure you are more fun than the KH (not hard).

Again, I agree that this is key. ?Feed? being away from JWs. Make sure these activities are fun and make sure it is easy for her to do these things?

Because she was not baptized, the elders would not supply her with the letter of support. She was more pissed off than upset and said she would have nothing to do with the JWs after that. She filled out her application with no reservations/objections and proceeded to pass her interview.

Wow. After reading that, I think you actually could have some hope here! She sounds like me.

Lisa, the comments are contradictory to the fact. Doing NOTHING resulted in where we are now. Feeding being away does nothing. She'll only go back, when we return from 'vacation'. After all, she went back after 4 or 5 years. Besides, she wouldn't let me schedule anything like that, and we can't just take a 3 month European vacation.

Your last statement above misses the point. I feel deceived that she said this, yet went back.

29

666 or 616??

by metatron in

last night, on the discovery channel, they interviewed a researcher who analyzed a scrap of papyrus that recorded revelation.. he contended that the critical passage of the "number of the beast" actually read 616 in greek, not 666. he tried to apply.

this to caligula thru numerology.. i had never heard of this variant reading before.. .

metatron

Globetrotter

It is intersting that my 1970 New American Bible (Catholic) has the following comments regarding Revelation.

" The Book of Revelation cannot be adequately comprehended except against the historical background which occasioned its writing. Like the Book of Daniel and other religious apocalypses, it was composed as resistance literature to meet a crisis. The book itself suggests that the crisis was ruthless persecution of the early Church by the Roman authorities; the harlot Babylon symbolizes pagan Rome, the city on seven hills. The book is, then, an exhortation and admonition to the Christian to stand firm in the faith and to avoid compromise with paganism, despite the threat of adversity and martyrdom?.
The Book of Revelation had its origin in a time of crisis, but it remains valid for Christians of all time. In the face of evils from within and without, the Christian can confidently trust in God?s promise to be with the church forever."

113

Witnesses coming Saturday... I need HELP!!!!

by Globetrotter in

i got into a rather heated discussion this morning with my unbaptised but raised jehovah's witness wife.

we discussed so many things: feb 1 watchtower article on 607 and 1914, the un, beth sarim, blood, god's mouthpiece here on earth, etc.

this was yet another attempt on my part to try to plant a seed of doubt.

Globetrotter

MarriedToTheMob,

Again, when your lifemate holds an entirely different world view than you, it is extremely difficult to find ANY common ground with which to find something positive and hopeful, regardless of ANY other previous problems within the marriage

However, I can choose whether or not to allow it to continue to affect me and my child. There comes a point of flight or fight-especially when your own children are telling you that they themselves want it all to just STOP.

Right on both points! Common ground slips away until the only thing left is the children. I will still be my children's father even if I am not married to their mother.

I forced her hand on the blood issue one day. I am O positve blood type - universal donor. I can give blood to anyone. She very reluctantly acquiesced to allowing me to give them blood if they ever needed it because it's family (I hope we never have to test that acquiescence). However, I can accept only O positive blood, and no one in my family is O positive. Do you know where this is going??? Yup, she says she would not allow me a transfusion if I needed one! How can I live with that?!! Those aren't my wishes.

Anyway, thank you for your understanding and support. I too, wish you all the best. You are a couple of steps ahead of me, and what you are going through is painful. Just keep focusing on the other side. I believe it will make all the difference in the world to you. You will finally be free to explore and experience life without nonsensical bullshit weighing on you and stifling your personal developement.

113

Witnesses coming Saturday... I need HELP!!!!

by Globetrotter in

i got into a rather heated discussion this morning with my unbaptised but raised jehovah's witness wife.

we discussed so many things: feb 1 watchtower article on 607 and 1914, the un, beth sarim, blood, god's mouthpiece here on earth, etc.

this was yet another attempt on my part to try to plant a seed of doubt.

Globetrotter

AnnOMaly

Thank you for your reply. It is obvious you have concern. I wasn't going to reply to your post, as I have just finished a very longwinded couple of posts, but I needed to deal with these:

Leave her alone. Respect her views

By continuing to turn only to the society for answers she cannot come up with herself, and for continuing to say flip-flopping on doctrine is OK, and for continuing to buy into "new light", her view are deserving of respect??!! C'mon. It's intellectual dishonesty.

Does she really have to see things YOUR way, or the marriage is over? C'mooon! I may have read you all wrong, but it sounds like you want to snap up for yourself the power the WTS appear to have over your wife.

NO! She does not. Some people feel they need god in their lives. If you read the posts I just finished writing, you will see that I was raised a Catholic. I started doubting them shortly after my first communion, when my little buddy and I were busted one Friday after mass because he went to communion with me. I was told that he could not participate because he was not catholic. OOOPS! The notion that god loves everybody just got discriminatory. I BEGGED my wife to come investigate other churches with me, to find a place where we could both worship. She absolutely refused. My investingation in the witnesses led me down several paths of biblical history and religion. It ultimately led to my lack of belief in god. I see no evidence whatsoever of a supreme being. My belief is that all relgion man-made. BUT, atheism can be and is discussed on other threads. The point of this paragraph it to point out that I wanted us to find a common demominaiton that we could both live with. Now, that isn't possible. SO, I do not try to 'convert' her to atheism (this is not something that is done anyway), nor do I want to 'snap up for myself the WTS power' WTF? I only encourage her (and my children) to read freely and arrive at their own conclusions. When we do talk about the bible, I do NOT say "Oh, this is all horseshit." I do say "I understand this passage to mean... or this appears to be an historical account of blah blah" (such as Revelation is merely John coming down on the early Christains of the first century and admonishing them for worshiping Rome... it has nothing to with the end of the world).

Of course, if you want your marriage to fail and have religion as the scapegoat, go right ahead.

Thank you for your permission, but that is not my intent. The safety of my children and my sanity and ability to lead a normal loving life is more my motivation for trying to get her to see the society for what it is. I realize you say in a later post that you may have been too harsh. Thank you for that admission. Sincerely. Others here who have been in similar shoes seem to have an appreciation for my situation. I hope you see now where I am coming from.

113

Witnesses coming Saturday... I need HELP!!!!

by Globetrotter in

i got into a rather heated discussion this morning with my unbaptised but raised jehovah's witness wife.

we discussed so many things: feb 1 watchtower article on 607 and 1914, the un, beth sarim, blood, god's mouthpiece here on earth, etc.

this was yet another attempt on my part to try to plant a seed of doubt.

Globetrotter

OK, last one..

Over the past 7 years (really the 1st 3 of the past 7) I have invested a lot of time, money and effort finding out about the witnesses. I constantly uncover stuff that is just twisted. I know enough that I don't want my children involved anymore. We still celebrate some holidays, but when my parents are gone, Christmas will stop. (My parents have a reasonably good relationship with my wife but really dislike the JW influences my kids have been exposed to. I have smart talented fantastic kids BTW.)

The problem is that once I realized that my wife was choosing the JW over me (even though she wasn't baptized), and that she refused(s) to think for herself, I lost respect for her. That's terrible. I alienated myself from her (and the kids to some degree admittedly) and started looking for things to find wrong. While I recognize my role I did NOT cause the problems our marriage currently has..

It finally got to the point where I told her I was unhappy. I told her I was completely miserable. I spelled the entire thing out to her, and asked her for help. She blamed my "unhappiness" (would be her quotes, not mine) on everything she could think of, but refused to accept any responsibility of her role.

So, over the years I have trying to piece my marriage back together and sometimes it goes fine and sometimes not. That's the bad part, because when it's not "fine" it's horrible, and when it's "fine" that's all it is. My marraige will never be more than just "OK". I long for a truly loving happy perfect marriage like my parents have. While that may never happen, I don't believe it will ever be even close.

FINE - I made my bed and I have to lay in it, but what about the children? How do I approach my kids at their age and teach them to screen out all the bullshit of this religion and take away only the love and kindness of God (if they chose to believe)? This religion is DANGEROUS to children on so many levels.

OK - 'nuff said. My kids are the bottom line here. I still have a lot to say, anecdotals, questions, etc., but I've taken up a lot of space on the board over last hour. Sorry for the longwindedness and thanks for reading.

113

Witnesses coming Saturday... I need HELP!!!!

by Globetrotter in

i got into a rather heated discussion this morning with my unbaptised but raised jehovah's witness wife.

we discussed so many things: feb 1 watchtower article on 607 and 1914, the un, beth sarim, blood, god's mouthpiece here on earth, etc.

this was yet another attempt on my part to try to plant a seed of doubt.

Globetrotter

I'll just toss in here that I was raised a Catholic, but bailed years ago. 6 years of private schools. My dad taught science at a Catholic school after he retired a LTC from the Army. My mom had an aunt that was a Dominican Nun who died 6 years ago at the age of 95. She was an absolutely joyful person. Oh yeah, dad's b-day is Christmas day, mine's the 20th and my son's the 23rd. Aunt and now deceased grandmother on Christmas Eve. Dec. has always been a very special month.

So, my wife and I would go to Church with my parents when we visited after our son was born. She didn't seem too uncomfortable to me.

I finally stopped them to ask the question "If you had just 30 seconds to tell someone the most important thing in this book (holding up one of many bibles), what would it be?"

The woman and man said, almost at the same time, "The Kingdom".

So then I said (remember I was raised Catholic, not a BAC) "Hmmm. Wouldn't it be that Jesus died for our sins and that if we believe in him we shall never die? (or something to that effect regarding what it takes for salvation) If a person had never heard about the kingdom, it wouldn't matter, if they had accepted Jesus. They would die and guess what?! HEY, Check out this cool kingdom!" That is exactly what I said.

Well, I tell you, for just a moment I saw a flicker in the woman's eyes. She understood what I was saying, but then her eyes glazed back over. It was like she rebooted.

113

Witnesses coming Saturday... I need HELP!!!!

by Globetrotter in

i got into a rather heated discussion this morning with my unbaptised but raised jehovah's witness wife.

we discussed so many things: feb 1 watchtower article on 607 and 1914, the un, beth sarim, blood, god's mouthpiece here on earth, etc.

this was yet another attempt on my part to try to plant a seed of doubt.

Globetrotter

First off, let me thank you all again for your comments and support. This has been and continues to be helpful.

Secondly, let me say that my situation is my own. I can see that some of you have had very similar experiences. Some of you can see my side already, but for those who cannot? here it is.

My wife grew up in the truth, but was slightly bull-headed about people telling her what to do. (You can see why she never baptized.)

When we met, she was not a US citizen (from Latin America - which as you probably know is 99.999% Catholic - go figure) When we decided to get married, she applied for her citizenship, as I was going to graduate from college and had already accepted a job overseas.

She objected to the patriotic stuff on her Citizen app., but the INS said that she would need letters from the elders stating that she was a JW in good standing before the requisite flag/allegiance stuff would be waived. Because she was not baptized, the elders would not supply her with the letter of support. She was more pissed off than upset and said she would have nothing to do with the JWs after that. She filled out her application with no reservations/objections and proceeded to pass her interview. I was very proud of her and loved her more for her strength of conviction.

I love my wife, and I will go into details on what that means later if given the opportunity, but all things remaining the same, if I had it to do over again, I would not marry her. That's an incredibly difficult and probably horrible thing to say, but it is absolutely true. The witness influence is something that creeps up every day. And while it is true that many things I mention regarding my wife's behaviour go against the JW teachings, over the years the JW stuff has worn me down. There are too many things that she believes about life and living in general that are either too negative or too weird.

Things were going along fine more or less for the first few years, with hardly a mention of the JW. I even thought some of the ideas that she had were noble, such as celebrating not Christmas and b-days. Her thoughts were along the lines of "it's hypocritical to treat people like shit all year long and then be so sweet/loving/giving at Christmas/b-days. Why not give and be nice all the time...a special day isn't needed. And Christmas isn't really Christ's birthday" etc. I later learned that this is JW conditioning and their attempt to appeal to reason.

113

Witnesses coming Saturday... I need HELP!!!!

by Globetrotter in

i got into a rather heated discussion this morning with my unbaptised but raised jehovah's witness wife.

we discussed so many things: feb 1 watchtower article on 607 and 1914, the un, beth sarim, blood, god's mouthpiece here on earth, etc.

this was yet another attempt on my part to try to plant a seed of doubt.

Globetrotter

OK, wow!!! Thank you all for your thoughts. I just came in from work and can't comment right this moment, but I'll be back on in a little while and do my best to respond the many comments. In the meantime, keep posting.

Thank you.

113

Witnesses coming Saturday... I need HELP!!!!

by Globetrotter in

i got into a rather heated discussion this morning with my unbaptised but raised jehovah's witness wife.

we discussed so many things: feb 1 watchtower article on 607 and 1914, the un, beth sarim, blood, god's mouthpiece here on earth, etc.

this was yet another attempt on my part to try to plant a seed of doubt.

Globetrotter

I got into a rather heated discussion this morning with my unbaptised but raised Jehovah's Witness wife. We discussed so many things: Feb 1 Watchtower article on 607 and 1914, the UN, Beth Sarim, blood, God's mouthpiece here on earth, etc. This was yet another attempt on my part to try to plant a seed of doubt. I culminated with her setting an appointment here on Saturday morning with 2 witnesses.

I do not know the bible as well as JWs, so I won't be able to keep up with their prooftexting. I need help. Are there one or two issues that could be systematically discussed that could possibly get that seed planted? This is really the last time I can attempt this. I cannot emotionally invest any more of myself in this nonsense and the resultant dysfunctionality.

I am afraid that the discussion will ultimately be pointless and that I will be a victim of 'new light' on so many issues. I cannot get her to see the intellectual dishonesty of 'new light', so I may be doomed before I get started. If I cannot get her to open her mind and think critically about their teachings, our marraige will effectively be over. It's a shame after 14 years and two kids, but this has been building for a long long time. Am I asking for help in saving my marraige? No. In my mind, it's pretty much over, and in fact, I want it to be over if I am to live my life with more of the same. This is as much a validation point for me as anything else, but if there is any hope of getting her out, I'll do it and see what is left to build upon.

Thanks.

23

Oracle

by Elsewhere in

jw
friends

yeah... i'm on a pissed off role today.

for years i've worked with ms sql server, but at my new job they use oracle.

in a nutshell, oracle seems like it was written for sadomasochists with a persecution complex.. .

Globetrotter

Great book....

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2YJEX76ITD&isbn=0060008768&itm=4

The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison. God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison.

That says is all.

edited....hmmmmm the link can't find the book, but copy paste into browser does .... hmmmm - go figure