Posts by neverendingjourney

38

"Hello from Phats"

by phats in

jw
friends

hay out there.. wife got back from her thursday meeting & now she's setteled down with the dog, a v large g&t (maid be me) & watching terminator 2 on the telly with her ipad on her lap looking up places to go for our holiday (& googling symptoms of to many antibiotics as my 16 year old is getting signs of ibs).

so now is a good time to say hello.. well hello.

my name is phats & i'm an ex jehovah's witness.. there, i've said it.. this must be like it is going to your first aa meeting.. i've already used up some of my posts for a newbe but i'm not in to the whole long story thing.. basically i've been out now for 8 years (mentally out for all but four or five of those years of my life when i made the commitment, got baptized & married.).

neverendingjourney

Hi neverendingjourney

Yes I'm an ex Witness & here I've fund somewhere that I can understand others like me. We all have our story. I used to be terrified of hearing the JW subject come up in secular situations. It would freeze me to the very core of my being, even to the point of obtaining a stammer when I was in primary school. I got over it & I'm cool with it. It got me to see that even things that seem impossible to over come can be fought & beaten because I beat it fair & square. That helped me later on in life. (I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy though)

I went through something similar after leaving. My JW past was a closely-guarded secret for years. When I first had to tell my roommate, I was nervous and stammering like an idiot. After a few more years, I came to understand that it wasn't healthy for me to carry it around like a secret, so I began to be more open with people about it.

Most people fail to realize the significance of it. While I know that my religious past is one of the most influential factors in who I've become, as far as the outside world is concerned, it's a minor footnote in my biography. Realizing that was a huge relief and a step forward in my recovery.

38

"Hello from Phats"

by phats in

jw
friends

hay out there.. wife got back from her thursday meeting & now she's setteled down with the dog, a v large g&t (maid be me) & watching terminator 2 on the telly with her ipad on her lap looking up places to go for our holiday (& googling symptoms of to many antibiotics as my 16 year old is getting signs of ibs).

so now is a good time to say hello.. well hello.

my name is phats & i'm an ex jehovah's witness.. there, i've said it.. this must be like it is going to your first aa meeting.. i've already used up some of my posts for a newbe but i'm not in to the whole long story thing.. basically i've been out now for 8 years (mentally out for all but four or five of those years of my life when i made the commitment, got baptized & married.).

neverendingjourney

Hello, Phats. Welcome.

I was listening to an ex-Mormon podcast yesterday where the word "post-Mormon" was used. I liked that. I think from now I'll consider myself a "post-Witness."

44

New video release at district convention. Do Jws live like this?

by solomon in

i just got back from the district convention and watched the new video.

can't remember what it is called but the main family live in a million dollar home and there teenage daughter drives a red convertable sports car.

probably worth about 50000$.

neverendingjourney

There was a YPA video that was released some 15 years ago. It, too, had an upper-middle class family (by U.S. standards) at its center. They would have had to have been pulling in at least $200k a year to afford that lifestyle.

42

Lawrence Krauss

by KateWild in

krauss is an atheist activist and self-described antitheist.

hence his science is biased.

being an antitheist means he's anti god.. anyone disagree?.

neverendingjourney

Albert Einstein was an anti-unicornist, therefore his science was biased.

23

80 Year old COBE Layoff Conspiracy

by XBEHERE in

jw
friends

who else thinks something is afoot with this?

is the gb deciding to go back to pre-1971 times with perhaps the cobe as the man in charge and the rest just ministerial servants.

so for this reason they want younger men in those postitions?

neverendingjourney

If the mandatory put-to-pasture rules applies to the GB (and that's a big "if"), one could reason it's an effort by the current GB to avoid situations where GB members were barely lucid and wore diapers yet still held sway over the body.

If it doesn't apply to the GB, your guess is as good as mine.

23

The End of The World Delusion

by cassuk11 in

being pushed by religion since the 17th century.

my question is why ?.

neverendingjourney

Below is in many respects the same reasoning used to arrive at the 1914 date, except this particular chart failed in 1844 and resulted in the Great Disappointment. The end didn't come as promised.

Charles T Russell picked it up, changed a few start dates and landed on 1914 as the year the end would come. That, too, failed, but his followers were able to convince millions that they actually predicted something different altogether, the beginning of the "end times." Here we are 100 years later (and 170 years after the Great Disappointed) and millions of Witnesses around the world cling to this belief.

100 years from now they (or a group just like them) will cling to a modified version of the same damn thing.

a

33

The resolution was actually passed!

by stillin in

who would have thought that enough people would raise their hands when the resolution was put before the congregation tonight?

based on the pledges that the publishers put on those little pieces of paper, the congregation is promising the wts that they will send $1,000/month to support the society's building funds.. there is a traditional monthly shortfall of about $100 with the basic monthly bills usually around $1,000.

i didn't raise my hand.

neverendingjourney

During the late 90s my congregation would pass a yearly resolution to send our prorated share of the CO's car lease/health inurance expense. It was usually in the neighborhood of $800. Invariably, the congregation would not raise enough money to cover it.

I was assistant account servant at the time and it was pretty typical to collect somewhere between 20-40 dollars each meeting. Every now and then a borderline inactive publisher would write a check for $100 (as a way to atone for their "weakness?"), which helped make ends meet. The hall was paid for and was shared by 4 congregations, so monthly expenses were in the 300-400 dollar range if I remember correctly.

Since the congregation never could come up with the money to pay the $800 or so for the CO expense, panicked meetings were held because the elders would have to cover the expenses out of their own funds if the congregation couldn't come up with the money. There were 3 or 4 of them and all of them lived paycheck to paycheck. They didn't have a few hundred dollars lying around to cover it. I believe the elders and ministerial servants ended up agreeing to share the expense among themselves (which would amount to about $100 a piece).

In short, it was a huge burden, but no one ever suggested not passing the resolution in the first place. It just wasn't something that crossed your mind. Eventually headquarters started paying that out of worldwide funds and stopped making the local congregations cover it. It was a huge relief for all involved.

I suspect a scenario like the above will play out on a much larger scale worldwide as a result of this new arrangement.

4

Twilight Zone

by Ding in

i just watched a rerun of the twilight zone episode where billy mumy played an omnipotent boy named anthony.. everyone had to pretend that anything he did was wonderful even if it terrified them.. they had to do anything to please him so as not to incur his wrath.. one guy got sick of it and told him off.. he begged the others to end the nightmare by killing the kid and thereby getting their lives back.. when they did nothing, the boy turned him into a jack-in-the-box and sent him into a cornfield.. the other adults were horrified, but smiled and told anthony it was a fine, fine thing that he just did.. when i saw it this time, it reminded me of how the wts functions.. the gb claims divine authority to run every aspect of jws' lives.. those who stand up to it are demonized and cast away.. the rest have to suppress any negative feelings and be "happified," lest they suffer the same fate..

neverendingjourney

I'm a big fan of The Twilight Zone.

Here's a link to a thread I started a few years ago about a different episode:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/162845/1/Twilight-Zone-On-Thursday-We-Leave-For-Home-Parallels#.U4YPdHJdVj8

The episode may be viewed by clicking the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVD4N-Pap_o

45

After leaving did the feeling go away?

by committeechairman in

the feeling that you're never good enough.

the feeling that you're wicked and evil.. .

because i'd give anything not to feel this way.

neverendingjourney

After leaving did the feeling go away?

It took years and it was gradual. It was awkward at first even to allow myself the pleasure of watching television for an hour or two. The conditioning would automatically kick in. There was guilt associated with that activity since in my former life such things were detractions from "spiritual pursuits." I'd even feel guilty going to lunch with female co-workers since nearly all interactions with the opposite in the JW world were associated with sex (or the opportunity for sex). Sadly, in all these years not once have any of these lunches led to sex...sigh.

It's been about 10 years or so since I started having doubts, 7 or 8 years since I stopped being a believer, but even still every now and then the programming surfaces. About a year ago work travel took me to a foreign country. I was at a restaurant with a large group of people when my boss indicated she wanted to order blood sausage for the table. I froze up. In all these years, the blood ban may be the one taboo I've never broken. The fear and panic kicked in and for a few seconds it was as if I was a JW all over again. My boss decided against ordering it, but I have no doubt that if I had eaten it, I would have awoken at night several times feeling guilty, just as I had years ago when I first had my first cigarette, had sex out of wedlock, smoked marijuana, and so on.

Hang in there. There's light at the end of the tunnel.

18

Tonights meetin: rare attendance

by Jon Preston in

jw
friends

well in light of the 17 billion calls i got this week my wife and i decided to attend the meeting.

it was nuts!

we got love bombed right when we got there.

neverendingjourney

The transformation one goes through is truly amazing.

There was a time when going to an assembly was truly refreshing for me. I'd take down notes and come away inspired.

Once I started to wake up, I couldn't bear sitting there, listening to the nonsense, and watching everyone just nod their heads in agreement.

I remember sitting at the hall during a CO visit in which he said that there was some African country whose name he mangled where 40-something percent of the population was infected with AIDS, and nobody seemed to understand that his stat was complete bullshit. People just assumed it had to be right because he's a CO after all. There was another occasion where an elder went on about how horrible it was that gay marriage was now legal (at the time it wasn't legal in any state). Again, nobody cared. It just got to be too much for me to put up with.