Thanks for the kind words everybody. I like and second the recommendation above to memorialize people as you need for closure. Honestly I see no way to do so myself, nor do I care to with my father anymore, but the ways that people typically do so are through community. There is no community of people other than JWs that likely knew your dead JW loved one. I wasn't really looking for ways to fix anything, more just shining a light on how messed up they are and how they steal so much from people.
dubstepped
JoinedPosts by dubstepped
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12
Closure and the death of JW family/friends
by dubstepped ina few threads recently made me think of how cruel jehovah's witnesses are in shunning around death.
i don't have much experience with death.
i lost my non-jw grandpa when i was 12 (?
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What does Two witness mean for child abuse?
by Canadian Sunshine ini am not a jw.
my mother in law is.
my husband is not a jw, but he did attend with her through his child years and teen years but stopped once he was 15. his mother never made him or his siblings attend if they did not want to.i am trying to understand this organization to understand my mother in law better.
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dubstepped
Put simply, only if there are two witnesses to an accusation is it taken seriously. Out of the mouth of two witnesses is a matter established, so says the Bible (paraphrasing). So when a kid says they've been abused, unless someone can corroborate their account, Jehovah's Witnesses just shrug it off, or in some cases blame the accuser for lying.
Look, the problem isn't the two witness rule itself. It's tough when any matter is the word of one person against another. The problem is that the JWs are indoctrinated to see the elders as the arbiter of everything in life. They go to them with personal problems, marital problems, etc. These men hold court over the congregation and judge matters of morality and see child sexual abuse through the lens if morality, not criminality.
Child sexual abuse is a criminal matter yet they insist on handling it. They are not trained to do so. They cannot professionally investigate matters. They do not understand how predators work. Therefore predators go free in the cult. They don't often report to the proper authorities because they've been trained to always turn to elders. Elders have the job of maintaining appearances and therefore discourage people from going to the police.
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Closure and the death of JW family/friends
by dubstepped ina few threads recently made me think of how cruel jehovah's witnesses are in shunning around death.
i don't have much experience with death.
i lost my non-jw grandpa when i was 12 (?
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dubstepped
A few threads recently made me think of how cruel Jehovah's Witnesses are in shunning around death. I don't have much experience with death. I lost my non-JW grandpa when I was 12 (?) and I remember being devastated. I was close to him. I wanted to stay home but my mom insisted I go to the viewing for closure. Damn, I had no idea how much I needed that. It was tough, but I remember the outpouring of emotion and how much lighter I felt afterward. Then we went back to his house and sat around with family, including grandma, and just told stories. It was so therapeutic.
Fast forward to a couple years ago. I've been shunned for 6 months officially, over a year unofficially by family. My dad dies and I'm not invited to the memorial service. No time with family to reminisce. No final viewing or anything. My dad and I had a VERY complicated relationship but it would have been nice to reminisce, to see his spot on the couch at his home empty, those things that signify loss, that someone is missing.
I did see him in hospice once. It was weird to be un-shunned for 40 minutes or so to visit. I was in the middle of a workday and was caught off guard by it all. Told my dad that I'd come spend more time the next day if I could. Mom made it sound like he was to die that day so I rushed over. That wasn't the case so I figured maybe tomorrow I'd have more time to process, more time to spend.
I decided against going back because it ended as well as it was going to. I told my mom that we probably couldn't make it back that next day to which she let me know "oh honey, you weren't to come back, that was it", one last little hit at the end. So confusing emotionally in such a weird time.
Jehovah's Witnesses are such a cruel breed of human when shunning even around death. Inhuman even in the most human of moments. They will rob you even of ultimate closure. They just disappear, vanish like ghosts. Closure is hard to ever get from such situations.
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My JW Elder Brother Passed Away
by minimus inhe was basically a good man, just a believer in the religion.
when we were both elders we were best of friends and then things deteriorated when i was not an elder for a while.
then after becoming an elder again, i slowly drifted away from the religion and he drifted further away from me.
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dubstepped
So sorry Minimus. That wretched cult just destroys the moments of life (and death) that humans connect through, especially families.
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226
Wealth, Poverty, and Morality
by SecondRateMind ini am interested in the approach this forum takes to money.
apart from sex, (which i am quite relaxed about) it seems to me that wealth is the surest divider between those who are moral, and those who are not.. it seems jesus thought so, also.
luke 16:19-31 kjv describes well enough his dusty attitude to the rich who do not succour the poor.. and this world has many poor: so many, it might seem that we can do nothing about it, and twist his words; 'the poor ye shall have always with you, but me, ye shall not have always.
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dubstepped
The market won't bear fairy tale prices. With that said I was offering almost three times the minimum wage for a relatively easy gig at $20/hour on one building. If it worked out there would be more opportunities. Still, people can not even write one coherent sentence in response or just say 'I'll do it' when asked to give me information on their qualifications.
@hoser - Be better. Don't be marginal. If you want marginal go be the moron that can never stop putting cheese on my food when it's my one ask and I'm ordering for one. You'll make minimum wage and then you can bitch about the man holding you down while you do nothing to change your situation.
Cleaning is about details. If you cannot follow simple instructions you cannot work independently. I won't be there to babysit these people. Again, you have advice without knowing anything about what I was offering.
My friends have a handyman service. They have struggled for a decade to find help. People don't even show up for the interviews they beg for. One guy was stealing supplies they gave him for a job, doing his own work on the side, kept needing more if this or that, and they caught him.
Want more out of life? Be better. You have to grow as a person. Nobody can give you that and I sure as heck didn't work my ass off for 18 years building an impeccable reputation to hand off a job to people that can't follow simple directions and don't care enough to try to sell themselves as a good candidate.
I had three great candidates the first day out of a ton of responses. I emailed all three back with a few further questions and more about us. Only one of those replied. She seemed great. I emailed back to arrange an interview and have heard not one word back.
We have a full schedule of work, probably 20 families on a waiting list and people wait years for an opening. I turn down work all the time. Where are these other great workers out there? Where are all the people saying there are no jobs? This is cleaning work. The barrier to entry is low though to command good prices you have to deliver the goods by under promising and over delivering. I can't even get people to send an email with any care shown. What's it going to be like when I hire them and send them into offices of lawyers and engineers to take care of a three story office building on their own?
I'm good with not hiring. This is an experiment. It's not proving to be a fruitful one so far. I grew up poor. I know what it's like not to know where dinner is coming from. I know what it's like to rise above and have people around you pull you back trying to keep you poor with them to excuse their lot in life and lack of application. I'm not rich, but my wife and I do well for ourselves because we learned and grew and didn't blame everyone else for our lot in life.
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226
Wealth, Poverty, and Morality
by SecondRateMind ini am interested in the approach this forum takes to money.
apart from sex, (which i am quite relaxed about) it seems to me that wealth is the surest divider between those who are moral, and those who are not.. it seems jesus thought so, also.
luke 16:19-31 kjv describes well enough his dusty attitude to the rich who do not succour the poor.. and this world has many poor: so many, it might seem that we can do nothing about it, and twist his words; 'the poor ye shall have always with you, but me, ye shall not have always.
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dubstepped
Lol, what are you talking about hoser? What do you even know of my business?
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226
Wealth, Poverty, and Morality
by SecondRateMind ini am interested in the approach this forum takes to money.
apart from sex, (which i am quite relaxed about) it seems to me that wealth is the surest divider between those who are moral, and those who are not.. it seems jesus thought so, also.
luke 16:19-31 kjv describes well enough his dusty attitude to the rich who do not succour the poor.. and this world has many poor: so many, it might seem that we can do nothing about it, and twist his words; 'the poor ye shall have always with you, but me, ye shall not have always.
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dubstepped
I just watched a relative piss on anyone that would send a thank you follow up note after an interview, and watched others follow. How dare they, the poor, bow to the man like that? It's beneath them. They have such a chip on their shoulder that to even be nice to someone that might give you a job is seen as groveling. Comments like "they just want to see how desperate you are to get that paper" and "they just want to make money off you" are depressing and reflective of the poor I grew up with. Full of entitlement, ego, and utter ignorance. Let them be poor. They don't deserve better. Be humble and hungry and you can change your life. We shouldn't cast pearls before swine. They won't appreciate it.
I'm trying to expand my cleaning business right now. Placed an ad, got lots of initial responses, but few will return my emails. They just want me to give them something and I'm just supposed to hand over a check and the keys to a building that I was entrusted with. It's so frustrating. If you don't want to play the game then you get nothing. I'm not some greedy corporate scum, and for that matter neither are most, even at high levels. I'm supposed to take the risk, give your lazy ass a job, do the accounting, handle human resources bullshit for some ungrateful person that looks for ways to sue me, set your schedule, market the business, sell the jobs, but I don't deserve profit? Screw a bunch of the poor out there. Again, I'd you're truly destitute and without opportunity and need a meal, that's one thing. It's another to give entitled losers something so that they can still talk bad about you.
This thread is a train wreck. Just utopian ideology based in fairy tales and envy of those with more, moralizing and devaluing the fruits of the labor of those with more. I clean for people with lots of money, far more than me, and they get it by working a ton doing higher level stuff than I do with much larger risk. Good for them.
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THEY act like the ones who are hurt??!!
by stuckinarut2 init really amazes me when jws act like we are hurting them!.
many of us have found that if we stop associating with them for valid reasons, they act all upset and hurt that we would be "so cruel as to limit our association or cut them off".
i know of friends here on the forum who have been told by parents that they "will shun them if they leave jehovah" , and yet when the shoe is on the other foot and our awake friends shun them first, the parents cry and bemoan the situation and say how "cruel it is to deprive them of their company".
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dubstepped
@Steve - You make a great point. I can remember when I started learning about empathy, a quality that I did not possess for much of my life. One of the things that really struck me was thinking about my brother that had been disfellowshipped for so many years. I had never in my life thought about what it must be like for him. Years later in my awakening process I had an awful conversation with my mom after she had done and said things that were completely tone deaf to what my brother and his wife might have experienced. It was eye opening to me. They just cannot see others whatsoever. As you likely know there's a term in psychology called "perspective taking" and they have no ability to do so. They cannot mirror people, cannot see them and what they are going through. They've been conditioned to see only one side, the side that they've been brainwashed with. Good points about their propaganda.
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THEY act like the ones who are hurt??!!
by stuckinarut2 init really amazes me when jws act like we are hurting them!.
many of us have found that if we stop associating with them for valid reasons, they act all upset and hurt that we would be "so cruel as to limit our association or cut them off".
i know of friends here on the forum who have been told by parents that they "will shun them if they leave jehovah" , and yet when the shoe is on the other foot and our awake friends shun them first, the parents cry and bemoan the situation and say how "cruel it is to deprive them of their company".
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dubstepped
Narcissists make everything about them. It really is as simple as that. The organization is narcissistic, it breeds narcissists, and attracts them as well. These are often broken people with such pain that they can't see past themselves. Humanity and empathy are bred out of them. They are victims of their own victimhood.
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There is No Way Out For Me
by Addison0998 ini have come to the conclusion that there is no way for me to ever leave.
although i have some friends at work, my whole social structure are witnesses.
even if i move congregations, my parents have contacts everywhere who will tell them if i’m not active.
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dubstepped
There is always a way out. Life comes down to choices. You can choose to stay in and be miserable for family. You can choose to blow it all up and disassociate and be done with it all in a week, but you'll lose those people. You can do a long fade but you'll have to keep playing painful JW games to maintain it. You have choices, but all involve pain. That's life. There is always a price to be paid for something good. Want to be healthy? You can't eat everything you want. Want to be in great shape? Work out, no pain no gain. There is a yin and yang to life.
You have to choose the good you want with the bad you're willing to endure. We were all put in unfair positions by the people that got us into the cult mess. For us the decision was to rip off the bandaid, disassociate, and move on with freedom. We had our own set of circumstances and our own needs and wants. Yours may differ. You'll find all types on here. You do have choices. Life is all about choices and none of us get to escape that, nor the pain that comes with it, but we can choose what we ultimately want, the good and the bad.