Posts by donny

60

Who here has just let the JW stuff go?. I NEED HELP GUYS!!!!!!!.................

by oompa in

jw
friends

....i am so frikkin obsessed about the jw lies and my newfound truths about them, and it is prob driving me crazy or causing depression.....if i wake up in the middle of the night, i never get back to sleep as my mind starts racing about jw crap and how it affects my marriage, and then how can i make this marriage work with her such a hardcore dub....i told my wife i now realize i am an abusive husband.....i must stop talking to her about the real truth!!

!..........it is killing her inside and we have had soooo many bad discussions that turn into arguments......on top of that she says she is now closer to jah and the org than at any other time in her life, that now that she has no positive direction from me, she relies totally on jehovah and prays to him more than ever..... we talked about separation, and that i was going to lose her over our religious differences........i feel so sorry for what i have put her through, and i know that if i can not really shut up with my ohsohelpful comments of truths about this truth she will leave me due to "spiritual endangerment".......and she said she is damm close to that happening.....i told her i knew it to and would so hate to lose her due to our religious differences.

at my recent shepherding call, they said to try and stop focusing on the negatives i have found in jw, and focus on the good things...and that is not a bad idea even if i never go back to meetings....there are good things about dubs....the efforts at ending racism and at least for me, some really good lifelong friends.......even their hope for the future was pretty good to me, even though it is a bunch of crap and i no longer believe the bible is gods word or inspired.....it does have some good suggestions for a happy life and ideas as to how to treat others........but so do just about every holy book of other faiths........ i had plans to start going to some meetings with my wife, but today, after a sleepless night i told her i just dont think i can do it, and just as she strongly believes it is the truth, i do not, and that i think the guys on the gb are not led by holy spirit cause if she will read the proclaimers book, she will see we have never gotten a single bible inerpretation of prophecy correct.......so she says "so what is there?

donny

I agree this will not be easy. My ex-wife was also (still is) a hardcore JW and nothing I brought up had any visible effect on her. She even agreed with some of my issues but I was given the "wait on Jehovah" or "don't run ahead of Jehovah" and the like. Some folks are so attached to their religious affiliation that virtually nothing can pull them from it. It is so frustrating when you can see the organization for what it is and yet the one whom you are with can't see the forest for the trees.

16

Left the WT but why the contuinued faith in an invisible God?

by donny in

jw
friends

ok, now here's a question for the other side.

when you finally discovered enough information that resulted in your leaving the watchtower bible and tract society's organization, what convinced you that you just needed to replace it with a better more believanle version instead of questioning the whole concept of an invisible god?.

is it that you find the idea of no afterlife to hard to deal with?

donny

I agree that just because the WT is wrong, does not automatically mean everything else religious is wrong. But for me, why believe in something just for the sake of believing. What evidence and/or reasons do you use to justify directing your former faith to another system? Does a creator have to be worshiped and prayed to by its creations?

I did not just throw the baby out with the bathwater when I left. I actually tried going to some other churches afterwards but as time went on, I applied the same critical tests that I had to the Watchtower and they too did not meet my requirements necessary for me to place a blind faith in their supreme deity aka "the baby".

I'm not saying that I will never change my mind in this area, but it would take a lot of evidence for me to acknowledge there is a benovolent God who is interested in us. I guess I have too high a standard for what I expect from the Supreme.

Don

16

Left the WT but why the contuinued faith in an invisible God?

by donny in

jw
friends

ok, now here's a question for the other side.

when you finally discovered enough information that resulted in your leaving the watchtower bible and tract society's organization, what convinced you that you just needed to replace it with a better more believanle version instead of questioning the whole concept of an invisible god?.

is it that you find the idea of no afterlife to hard to deal with?

donny

Ok, now here's a question for the other side. When you finally discovered enough information that resulted in your leaving the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society's organization, what convinced you that you just needed to replace it with a better more believanle version instead of questioning the whole concept of an invisible God?

Is it that you find the idea of no afterlife to hard to deal with? Or if you live in the U.S., is it that you want to be accepted by the 85% of Americans who beleive in some kind of god?

I am not trying to be scarcastic or condesending, I really want to know some good valid reasons for my resuming a belief in an invisible diety who will reward me for believeing in him even though he/she/it goes to extremes to be unavailble and undetectable.

Don

17

Congregation politics are so bitter precisely because the stakes are so low

by Olin Moyles Ghost in

jw
friends

though i've never been an elder (thank god), i was raised by one and know several.

it has been my observation that there is a tremendous amount of politics on bodies of elders.

this is probably not a news flash to most of you.. there is a saying that "academic politics are so bitter because the stakes are so low.

donny

I hated the politics too. As a ministerial servant I got to see a lot of the bickering that went on from the publisher level on up. One of the elders in our congregation did not like the presiding overseers son (who was also an elder) and confinded in me once that he was trying to find something that would result in his deletion as an elder.

Although that never happened, I heard from my kids that about a year after I left, the predising overseers sons wife filed for divorce and moved back to whereever she had come from. I could just see the smile on my former confidants face when that happened. I could write a book on the politics that occured in my congregation. Bush and Obama would be humbled.

Don

7

The dumbest or funniest thing you heard in a talk???I

by tympan in

jw
friends

dumbest:.

once in a public talk i heard the speaker say that you get sunburnt more easily when you are in the mountains because you are closer to the sun.. .

funniest:.

donny

A brother mentioned in a Talk the Rock Band AC/DC, and warned us that stood for "Against Christ / Devils Children

I heard a similiar comment from a talk during the service meeting except he said it stood for "After Christ / Devil Comes."

13

The importance of Rutherford...

by drew sagan in

i was doing some thinking about watchtower eschatology and something interesting popped into my head.

throughout the watchtowers revelation book we read of elaborate stories and interpreatations all putting the watchtowers history into the pages of the bible.

some of these include:.

donny

You are correct that the Society is Rutherfords baby, not Russells. Russell was against the organization of religion, but Rutherford knew he needed such organization in order to seize control. Russells followers can be found amoung the various "Bible Student" groups that still exist today and they are no way the controlling type religions like the one formed by ol' Ruthy.

14

Ever got counseled for your haircut?

by Albert Einstein in

jw
friends

i allway wore very short "military" style haircut.

allways was viewed as a bad association by dubs, once one dub told me directly: well i think your hair is rather to short brother!

i told him i dont think so and left.

donny

"Hair" by George Carlin

I'm aware some stare at my hair.
In fact, to be fair,
Some really despair of my hair.
But I don't care,
Cause they're not aware,
Nor are they devonaire.
In fact, they're just square.

They see hair down to there,
Say, "Beware" and go off on a tear!
I say, "No fair!"
A head that's bare is really nowhere.
So be like a bear, be fair with your hair!
Show it you care.
Wear it to there.
Or to there.
Or to there, if you dare!

My wife bought some hair at a fair, to use as a spare.
Did I care?
Au contraire!
Spare hair is fair!
In fact, hair can be rare.
Fred Astair got no hair,
Nor does a chair,
Nor nor a chocolate eclair,
And where is the hair on a pear?
Nowhere, mon frere!

So now that I've shared this affair of the hair,
I'm going to repair to my lair and use Nair, do you care?

(Beard Poem)

Here's my beard.
Ain't it wierd?
Don't be sceered,
Just a beard.

65

Left the WT but why the loss of your faith in God?

by Luo bou to in

jw
friends

sure the wt deceived you with its claim to be god's channel but why for so many is there a subsequent loss of faith in god ?

it puzzles me and makes me wonder why they were jw's in the first place..

donny

Faith is a dangerous thing. It takes away intellectual honesty. Theists are still wont to insist as to the certainty of their god, invisible and heretofore not present as being the right one. Not one can prove that she is there. I don't like the fact that faith in god leads to so many turning off their brains and in some cases, becoming a liar.

Very well said, Jeff, I concur completely. My question to those who left and still cling to a deity, is why? I would like to believe that there is some fanciful afterlife waiting for me (as long as I obey the Invisible One's rules), but I just do not see enough evidence to do so. First you have a set of books, aka the Bible, that many believe to be this deitys words to mankind, yet the process to assemble them together is full of religious bickering and politics and the books themselves are open to so many interpretations.

I have to believe that is such a deity exists, he had nothing to do with that set of writings and would have better ways of talking to the ones he supposedly created. The bible has "created and composed by man" written all over it.

Don

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