i will no longer feel guilty about following my own conscience......
if i want to donate to a needy child's christmas fund, i will not feel guilty....
i will give presents to my family when i feel motivated - guilt free......
Its great not to feel guilty about relaxing at the weekend after a long week at work. However the JW guilty conscience is not so easy to get rid of.... the mind control goes deep. Yesterday I bumped into a former friend who is still a JW, she smiled at me and said Hello! I shunned her! my conscience telling me that she shouldn't have spoken to me! Why should I care! Truth is I don't but my instincts don't listen!
Has anything like this happened to anyone else?
didn't know where to put this so i figured here was as good as anywhere.
if you don't like this location, go ahead and move it.. i was raised as a jw.
around 14 i stopped believing, for the most part.
Good to have you on here BB! Look forward to hearing more of you when you feel like it! In the meantime just enjoy new friends!!!
new that would catch your attention.. yes its true folks , my wife caught me in bed reading notes that i had written down about raymond franzes book crises of conscience.
she is a staunch follower of the borg and i have now been inactive for about 2 years.. i wrote about 30 pages of notes from this book as the only place i could get my hands on one was from the library.
i couldnt order one as i was so afraid of her finding out i was reading "apostate " material.. she asked me what i was reading and said it was er just some notes i had written .
Didn't we all get caught up with JW's because we believed it was the truth? Well now you have found some real truth! and your wife can either accept it or not, you may have tapped into some of her own doubts? The ball is rolling and will look forward to hearing of further developments, be strong for the truth!
instead of highjacking an earlier thread on young ones getting baptized, i thought i'd just start a new one and ask our favourite dub lurker why his faith practices infant baptism.
and defd, if you feel that a 7 or 8 or even 12 year old isn't an infant with regards to making major decisions, i would like to hear your explanation.
bethel
Here we go, have a go at defd again!! as if he has all the answers! like many good JW's he will only reply what any other good JW would say, and that is they feel that early baptism is a protection! I taught my kids that and they will carry on teaching that! The truth NOW as I see it Jesus didn't get baptized until he was 30, why is that??
i recall it was always a buzz word when i was in to "inculcate" your children (deut 6:7) the belief system.
i don't remember exactly what they taught inculcate to mean but i decided to look it up: inculcate .
to impress (something) upon the mind of another by frequent instruction or repetition.
Just want you to remember some of us were Jehovah's Witnesses and we brought our kids up the best way we knew how. We didn't view it as brain washing!! But there was a difference with some, I saw kids that were brain washed, I don't think I brain washed mine! maybe thats why 3 of them left!!! I always made sure mine knew that no matter what course in life they chose to take I would still love them, whereas many grow up thinking if they don't do what Mum and Dad are telling them they will be shunned and will lose their families and be all alone, like our friend Cordelia! who by the way is really struggling right now because of the brain washing! I cannot sanction the guilt trip JW's put on people and especially their children, which again is why I left! Thing is this world is such a miserable place with so much suffering can you blame people for wanting the best for their kids, even if they have been brain washed themselves. I think on this site there is a lot of bitching goes on about genuine people who have been fooled by the organisation in to thinking they are doing there very best for their families, and you can't deny that many who are still JW's are genuine, caring people who just want the best for everyone. It is sad that they cannot see where they have gone wrong, but instead of knocking them for what they have tried to do we should concentrate on the organisation that have convinced them! When this sort of thread comes on it seems that it is designed to have a go at people who are only wanting the best for their families. I got involved because I wanted to bring my children up in the best possible way, with the best possible morals, the best hope for the future. Ok me and many others were so wrong!! but can you blame us when you look at the state the world is in?
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man, i wish some of y'all lived closer.. i feel closer to y'all than i do to most of my friends or family for that matter.. you make me laugh like no one else can these days..
Yeah its a right bummer we all live so far away from each other!!! wouldn't it be great to have a real meet up with everyone!!!!
given that so many practises associated with christmas are blatantly christian in origin, is christmas truly for atheists?
i know that often there are few christian connotations attributed to it nowadays, in such a secularised society, but history is on record in showing that the whole baby jesus thing and angels singing with their "peace and goodwill" stuff is definitely a christian element.
would any true atheist today want to drink such a mixed cup?
Well I am not an atheist and but I don't believe Xmas is a truly Christian celebration anyhow, though obviously many Christians would like to think it is. Why have I started to celebrate it again? Celebrate is the wrong word I think, I just think it breaks the monotony of winter and its nice to have something to look forward to!! As simple as that..
amazing grace!
how sweet the sound.
that saved a wretch like me!.
'Amazing Grace'??? Your swan song Mouthy! you should like it
it is strange chatting on the net, not knowing what everyone is really like.
do you pretend to be someone you are not?
i find it hard to know how to take people here sometimes, as words do not convey as much without seeing the facial expressions and hearing the tonal inflections.
5'6", overweight by about 3 stone!!! lost a lot of weight when left JW's but got contented and put it back on again. Medium ash blonde hair (so it says on the packet) short, lack self confidence, but get on well with people of all ages!! Not good in crowds, very maternal!!! big softy in fact! Started smoking when left as well but giving up again now. Tend to pour my heart out to anyone who will listen, but I am a good listener too!
the age of 40?.
seems like a lot have left after 1/2 or 2/3 of a lifetime.
what accounts for that in your mind, if you left in later middle years or older?.
For me it was when most of my children left.. I didn't want to shun them and I couldn't see the point of it any more, or in my marriage come to that. I was 47 and felt I had wasted so much time!! Had been a JW 22 years, and married for 30 years. Though will never regret having my children, they have given me so much joy!!
