Posts by OnTheWayOut

22

Is The Watchtower Society Just Copying The Mormon's Model?

by pale.emperor in

when i was a faithful jw i was pretty much obsessed with the mormon religion.

to me it was like lord of the rings.

i knew the characters, the history, the events, the joseph smith stories, the religion's history etc etc etc and i long suspected even then that the watchtower society has been copying certain things from the lds church.. for example, the first thing i noticed was when the book study was dropped and family worship was started.

OnTheWayOut

Watchtower wishes it could achieve what LDS has achieved- whacky cult accepted into the mainstream, tithing, and members who are rich and in politics.

A cult is a cult is a cult. Many similarities. I could compare them to Scientology and many things would be similar, mostly having to do with ex-members and having to reach higher levels to learn other secrets of the cult.

But each has their particular strain of whackof- with Watchtower it's Armageddon around the next corner, blood transfusions, keeping out of the military and politics.

56

Will You Stop Listening To Michael Jackson’s Music?

by minimus in

jw
friends

since the hbo documentary, more people are condemning mj.

will these child abuse allegations affect you if you ever liked his music?.

OnTheWayOut

I didn't see the documentary, but I saw a clip of one alleged victim who said that he didn't understand that what Michael did was child molestation at the time.
MJ was alive to defend charges, paid some people off and they left happy. So it's a mixed bag.

Personally, I find it hard to imagine that counselors or some kind of professionals could not discover what actually happened back then. It tends to make me believe that money made everyone happy. But the money is gone now and MJ cannot defend himself. Along comes the documentary people.

If you were happy with the money at the time, then you are not really a victim- regardless of what MJ did. Or you are a victim of your parents accepting that the money was enough. Go get therapy and let the dead rest.

89

Babies Who Are Not Dead From An Abortion

by minimus in

jw
friends

a woman gets an abortion.

the baby is supposed to die because of the abortion but doesn’t.

should that living baby be put to death or should the baby be given medical help to survive?.

OnTheWayOut

Only 1 percent of all abortions occur after 21 weeks of pregnancy, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. Abortions during the final weeks are rarer still.

Doctors' and abortion-rights groups say it is extremely unusual for live infants to be born during attempted late-term abortions, which they say usually occur when the baby is extremely deformed or deemed unable to survive after birth. In such cases, families sometimes decide they want to induce labor so they can spend time with the infant before it dies.

17

Newly Free, Need Advice

by HappyBlessedFree in

i stopped attending meetings about three months ago.

after researching everything i could find on jehovahs witnesses (which is a lot) i can happily say i am awake and free.

i was a baptized witness for over 25 year.

OnTheWayOut

I almost said "then how come you aren't going to meetings then". But I didn't ! I am reading Steve Hassans book and I understand about cognitive dissonance.

I left the JW's by fading away, but my wife remains active. I often want to point out hypocrisy where the wife is a weak witness, but it would only make her try harder to show me that the weakness was a mistake, and then she would overcome it. I don't want to make her a better witness by pointing out that she is not a good witness.

Otherwise, I fully agree with john.prestor on page 1. Enjoy your child's birthday. Don't wait it out entirely for the sake of your husband, let the children start enjoying things properly, but do it in a way that will help your husband see what joy you had.

89

Babies Who Are Not Dead From An Abortion

by minimus in

jw
friends

a woman gets an abortion.

the baby is supposed to die because of the abortion but doesn’t.

should that living baby be put to death or should the baby be given medical help to survive?.

OnTheWayOut

It’s interesting that some of our liberal friends are keeping quiet on this subject. Hmmmm

I first want to say that "Liberals" don't all nicely fit into a category of accepting and desiring abortion.

I oppose abortion and think that better birth control needs to be widely accepted and taught. But the liberal in me recognizes that I don't get to choose for everyone and there are exceptions to all rules.

Full-term abortion (well, nearly full term) is a tiny portion of abortions, and they are supposed to be done only when the fetus is not viable and/or the mother's life is in extreme danger. But as I type this, someone will go find a story about some case where they told the mother she was going to die and she did not, and has this wonderful son or daughter.

So, like anything else, there will be those exceptions to the rule that these should not be done unless they are absolutely necessary.

I am not going to produce a bunch of links because I don't like abortion and there will be links about exceptions to the rules that go the other way.

7

New Boy only 3 weeks out, My Dedication

by new boy in

jw
friends

this book is dedicated to james olson and robert stillman and the millions of other people, who have been victims of religious abuse.

this book is dedicated to the thousands of people who have lost their parents, children and families members by way of the cruel practice of shunning.

this book is for the thousands of suicide victims, people who could not live with the guilt and shame that the jehovah’s witnesses thought system has created for them.

OnTheWayOut

Help us find your book.

22

Introduction

by Cerise in

hello i am relatively new, reading a lot of experiences here for a while.

i’m born in and baptized but i moved away from small town to a new congregation in big city so i have a good opportunity to fade now.

all my good friends are worldly and my boyfriend.

OnTheWayOut

If nobody really knows you and where you live, consider the full immediate disappearing instead of a drawn out fade.

Feel free to live a normal worldly life then. The vast majority of people don't violate JW rules in public except smoking and doing holiday stuff.

Don't smoke (it's bad for you anyway) in public and minimize your public participation in holidays. Also, be careful about your social media. Maybe use your fake persona to join any groups like you did here.

I like the stumbled victim play, but I fully recommend you save it for a persistant elder. Prior to that point, I recommend just staying out of conversations with them. "I am fine, I will call you if I need you."

20

Anyone else do this?

by Biahi in

i used a public washroom in a grocery store.

in the stall, someone left a tract on the baby changer.

my first thought was to trash it, instead i wrote cult on it and jwfacts.com on it.

OnTheWayOut

Tracts in such places are rare- many more are seen in laundromats. In bathrooms, it is often tracts of other beliefs that are present.

I always just trashed them, JW or otherwise.

7

Three Questions...Agree or Disagree?

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

agree...or...disagree.

three questions (answer them in your own head).

1. is it okay to punish people who have done nothing wrong?2.

OnTheWayOut

The problem is in various definitions or philosophies on what constitutes punishment and reward.

I am sure that many will say that "rewarding" someone with the same thing everyone else is rewarded with could be a "punishment" to them if they could have more (or different) without such social justice.

One of my antagonists on Facebook insists that, in the United States, "Medicare for all" is a ridiculous notion that we would all have to pay extreme amounts for, while receiving poor care. So he quickly sees it as a punishment that I see as a reward. (Well, truly- as a basic human right.) The answer would be to allow people to go beyond the "reward" given to them- allow them to buy better care than is provided for everyone. And of course, it would also be to improve the basic care given to everyone.

With justice, students get the grade they earned. It is injustice to give an "A" or an "F" to a "C" student. With social justice, we should not go so far as to reward all students with the same grade because that would punish many of them and reward some of them.

Birth defects and diseases are not rewards or punishments. They are typically misfortune. And nobody would suggest seriously that healthy people should be made to have similar defects if it cannot be removed from others. Instead, we strive to treat the handicapped with compassion and dignity. We can never level the playing field in ways that are totally "fair" to them, but we can be human. Broadly, this must apply to social justice and justice in other issues.

Whatever issue you are going to follow up with here, it would similarly have to be taken as its own issue instead of finding some broad philosophical view such as punishment and reward being a result of justice and social justice.

23

Why did Jehovah allow Eve to become pregnant?

by moomanchu in

jehovah reminds me of married couples who are having problems who decide to .

have children to improve their lot.. obviuosly jehovah can prevent pregnancy.. 1 samuel 1:5,6 .

but to hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, .

OnTheWayOut

Made up after the fact to attempt to explain the way things are, so a better result already was out.