Tell me if I understand what you are looking for- you hope to read our letters to our loved ones that we wrote because we left the religion, to demonstrate the pain and loss.
I don't have such a letter.
my dad was an elder my entire life and my sister a regular pioneer for most of my life, along with my mother.
ill never forget being 4 years old and staring up at the stars outside and my dad leaning over to and saying "look what jehovah made for you".
my response, "but how do you know god is real"?
Tell me if I understand what you are looking for- you hope to read our letters to our loved ones that we wrote because we left the religion, to demonstrate the pain and loss.
I don't have such a letter.
i used to be a staunch believer in god.
maybe its technology and science advancing so much thats got me doubting idk.
do you believe in god?
I am a very confirmed atheist. There are probably other intelligent creatures "out there" but not anything like a God or gods that created it all.
When I left JW's, I thought Christendom had it right. But I wasn't interested in attending.
But as I studied why Watchtower was wrong, I further studied why the Bible was wrong and how science was striving to find correct answers. I dabbled in learning a bit about Buddhism also.
The biggest thing for me was that I turned myself over to God and I wound up in a mind-control cult, so I wondered if he wasn't there, then there was the terrible 2004 tsunami in Indonesia. I thought about God letting innocent children be torn away from family by the tens of thousands.
So, the science tells me why so much of Genesis is wrong, and the heart and head tell me why I should listen to science. And the greatest thing about eastern thought is that you can take the wisdom and the nice stuff and not have to believe in any of the gods.
my dad was an elder my entire life and my sister a regular pioneer for most of my life, along with my mother.
ill never forget being 4 years old and staring up at the stars outside and my dad leaning over to and saying "look what jehovah made for you".
my response, "but how do you know god is real"?
Great of you to share your story. It sounded like rough going, but also that you will find a way to keep going.
I wrote a book for therapy of my story and it helped self healing immensely. I "slightly" fictionalized it by changing the city and the names, published it on Amazon and many have read it. It's called FADE FROM THE TRUTH.
Hey, no matter what, get your GED or high school diploma. Doesn't matter when, but get it. It will help your self esteem and you may need it for jobs in the future. I became a JW as an adult, but was a drop out and knew I might need a GED one day. My current career required it, so I am glad I got that in-between knocking on doors for Jehovah.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9qkdv6yg3s.
The video is just mumbo jumbo for believers to say "Yeah, that's right."
It implies the Bible got it right when it said "Let there be light" first, before all other things. But the Bible actually said "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" before mentioning light. It just gets worse after that.
i've recently been at an assembly here in romania and there was an announced they were running a 10,000 euro deficit and urging all attendees to donate more money besides the already 5k has was donated during that day.
i really don't understand these things.
it's their own assembly hall.
i've recently been at an assembly here in romania and there was an announced they were running a 10,000 euro deficit and urging all attendees to donate more money besides the already 5k has was donated during that day.
i really don't understand these things.
it's their own assembly hall.
It all seems like a huge donations scam to me. Sure, they have some costs for the utilities, toilet paper, decorations, etc, but it's definitely not 15,000 Euro per day.
You understand just fine. They choose a number for what they hope to get from that assembly and always always always announce a deficit at a point partway through the event, so that people will dig deeper in their pockets and give more.
Even if they get twice the chosen target amount, it is sent away to Watchtower and at the next assembly, they only had a tiny bit of operating costs on hand, so they start at a deficit again.
Apparently, the deficit scam has been going on for decades, all around the world.
seeing a trinity thread.. can a jw apologist explain what (not who) is jesus?.
prior to the creation of everything 13.7 billion years ago (draw close book), jehovah created jesus as his firstborn, his only-begotten.. there was nothing else - no stars, no dust, no matter - just jehovah - and then, just jehovah and jesus.
so, what was jesus?.
You just have to watch enough science fiction to figure it out.
Jehovah was pure energy and Jesus was a portion of that pure energy. Jehovah was lonely after spending eternity alone so he took a part of himself and made it independent.
Jesus saw that Jehovah was kind of a dick and created more stuff so he wasn't stuck alone with such a dick.
the second coming of christ was in the 1st century at the destruction of jerusalem the temple the law and the old covenants.
so the new eternal covenant came into force in which people of every tribe tongue and naation would enter into.
the new jerusalem not built by human hands nor with bricks and mortar its spiritual cannot be seen but people will stream to it the sin issue is done there is no more judgment for those in christ .
So,if you subscribe to the thought that the "second coming" was not so clearly an easily-viewed arrival with an army of angels or trumpet blasts or whatever, but rather that the temple destruction meant that Christ was there now in a spiritual temple, do you also subscribe to the thoughts similar to Jehovah's Witnesses that people needed a "sign of Jesus presence" or arrival?
Because, let me tell you. It seems that the Bible was clearly written to indicate that people expected Christ to literally and physically return within a generation (40 years or so) of the time of his death. And I would say that they were greatly disappointed that he did not literally and physically return. The cult of Christianity should have died off.
not to be overly harsh...but if you just left, what the hell were you thinking?
between 1995 and now, you never did an internet search of "jehovahs-witness" or "watchtower"?
good god.
You're the 'real' Edward Gentry? Who's the pretend one?
Jon Voight played 'Edward Gentry' in DELIVERANCE. So he is the wanna be.
up until the very end, my mother refused blood.
it didn't matter if it was a blurred line or not, the bible says "no blood"!
i wonder if she was in the minority, in her thinking.
I believe that most parents that face serious problems on the blood issue with their child are very hopeful that a judge will take the decision away from them, even though they cannot admit it.