Posts by neverendingjourney

50

No updated Watctower's articles on Evolution

by opusdei1972 in

as far as i know, the "creation" book is out of print ?, am i right?.

well, i was searching for new watchtower articles trying to debunk, for instance, human evolution.

so, i did my homework, for the first time, so as to read past and updated papers and books on human evolution.

neverendingjourney

Reading the Creation book in the mid 90s is what turned me from a completely disinterested, born-in teenager with "spiritually weak," inactive parents to a zealous 17 year old regular pioneer.

I was young, the internet wasn't widely available, but even still I had a hard time buying into the JW religion if belief in a literal Genesis was part of the deal. The Creation book changed that for me. It's an incredibly persuasive read for those who don't have the mental tools necessary to see through the deception. At 15 years of age and without the benefit of the internet, I was thoroughly duped.

I didn't fully realize the scope of the dishonesty until I was fully out of the religion. My exit occurred roughly ten years after first reading the book. What hurt me the most wasn't so much the blatant deception but the fact that the content was repackaged Creation Science nonsense. There really weren't many original thoughts in the book, if any.

All those years I had looked up to the men whom I thought were intelligent enough to create definitive arguments in defense of the Biblical creation narrative when in reality it was simply a work plagiarized from the body of pseudo-science that eventually gave rise to Intelligent Design.

18

help me think like an elder

by Homer notsimpson in

jw
friends

ok guys, i have been tasked to ask for your opinions regarding this case.. and be honest.

my brother sexted a girl a little over a year ago, they never dated, and she got mad at him.... she got engaged and the engagement ended in august.. she attempted suicide, then talked to the elders an told him she was gonna tell on him too, now that was in august, the sister told my brother that since she didn't know his hall they couldn't do anything.. we found that doesn't seem right, so hes been freaking out, but ita now two days away from 2017 and the elders haven't speaked to him yet.. why could that be?

could they give him all this time to confess?

neverendingjourney

Please tell me they were both adults when the sexting occurred.

If not, deny, deny, deny and hope she doesn't have the pictures anymore.

30

New member

by NinaCee in

jw
friends

i did not see a newbs thread to introduce myself, so my apologies if i'm in the wrong place.

i was a 3rd generation born in witness for 30 years until i was disfellowshipped back in 2007 for making a mistake.

my entire life up until that point was based on and circled around the society, and even though at first i really enjoyed my freedom (i still do), the fact is that i'm still struggling with cognitive dissonance, resentment, and loneliness.. i miss my family all the time.

neverendingjourney

The guy who believes the Garden of Eden was in Missouri thinks I'm delusional. That's rich.

30

New member

by NinaCee in

jw
friends

i did not see a newbs thread to introduce myself, so my apologies if i'm in the wrong place.

i was a 3rd generation born in witness for 30 years until i was disfellowshipped back in 2007 for making a mistake.

my entire life up until that point was based on and circled around the society, and even though at first i really enjoyed my freedom (i still do), the fact is that i'm still struggling with cognitive dissonance, resentment, and loneliness.. i miss my family all the time.

neverendingjourney

As an aside, I think the "everyone who voted Trump is a racist" mantra is one of the reasons the Dems lost (besides offering up the turd-sandwich candidate). It needs to be killed or they will continue to lose.

I'm late to the party and hope I'm not high-jacking the thread, but I wanted to address this point.

Not everyone who voted for Trump is a racist, but everyone who voted for Trump decided racism wasn't a dealbreaker, and that's horrifying.

It may not be politically expedient to make that point, but it's reality. You can't look at Trump's actual statements and credibly argue his words and tone were not racist.

@NinaCee welcome to the forum. I discovered this place 10 years ago and it helped me finally slam the door shut on JWism. I visit this place a lot less frequently than I used to, but it's still therapeutic for me to browse topics from time to time.

I know exactly where you're coming from with your statements. One of the primary voids religion fills is a sociological one. It becomes one's tribe and it's very difficult to uproot ourselves from our tribe and make it on our own. That's why so many who leave the religion find themselves going back with their tails between their legs willing to undergo the humiliating process of being let back in.

It takes time, but you can slowly rebuild a community worth being a part of. It's been over a decade for me and I still miss the instant familial bond I could form with Witnesses anywhere. But I could no longer ignore the blatant logical deficiencies in the belief system and the knowledge that those bonds were conditional on my conforming to the dictates of a group of creepy old guys in NY I've never met.

I wish you success moving forward.

58

watchtower lapel pins

by wannaexit in

jw
friends

i've been noticing lots of these pins on lapels.

i could almost understand the jwdotorg pin because the new mantra is to go to the website.

but why on earth are they sporting a building?

neverendingjourney

The blue button thing is weird. I saw a young woman boarding an airplane once who was wearing the blue jw.org button. Maybe she was traveling for a convention? Who knows. She was dressed in regular clothing just an odd blue button pinned to her blouse.

Another thing I've noticed is that all JWs I've encountered seem to put "jw.org" on their Instagram accounts. I don't know if that's a local thing or a fad generally among witnesses. It's as if they're trying to protect themselves from criticism for using social media. "I'm not using it for worldly purposes. I've clearly identified myself as a JW. My account is to share pictures with other JWs only."

9

Still Contaminated After All These Years

by new boy in

jw
friends

the contaminantion of years of being a jehovah witness.. it's interesting to see in myself and in many others here how no matter how much we want it or wish it, we will never be able to erase all of the mental contamination.

in one way or another it will always be a part of us.. i've had many friends that have been out for many years say "well i can't do that it just wouldn't be right.

" yes they are still judging themselves and others.

neverendingjourney

I've made this comment on here before, but after being out for seven or eight years I found myself in Spain with some coworkers having a business dinner. My boss wanted to order blood sausage and I felt my heart sink. It was as if I was a JW all over again trying to elegantly weasel my way out of an awkward situation while attempting to minimize the social impact of being, frankly, weird.

Blood is one of the taboos I've yet to break. I just have no desire to eat food made with blood. It doesn't sound appetizing to me and I tend to faint when I have my blood taken, so I've not donated blood either.

But it was a very eerie programmed reaction, even after all those years. I've read scientific articles describing how neural connections are formed in the brain that cause you to react instinctively to certain scenarios, a learned response. There was no reason for me to have the reaction I did other than the fact that I created those connections in my brain all those years ago and simply hadn't exerted the effort to re-train myself how to respond in those situations. On a conscious level, I no longer believe there's anything improper about eating blood.

Even today, I occasionally feel pangs of guilt after a night of heavy drinking. I'm not sure we're ever able to completely shake it off.

42

Elders getting burnt up.

by biblexaminer in

the elders in this area are getting burned out.

i have overheard comments that demonstrate this, but in my dealings with them, i clearly see it.

they can't keep it straight.

neverendingjourney

About 20 years ago I started noticing men who'd otherwise been long-time, professional ministerial servants getting appointed elders. It was surprising to me because prior to that being an elder was a special thing. You really had to live up to a relatively high standard and be seen as a role model.

I think it began as a gap-filling mechanism. The congregations were growing, mainly due to immigration (Witnesses moving to Texas from Latin America). In order to create new congregations they needed more elders. Then it slowly started becoming more commonplace. Men who'd been ministerial servants 10, 15 years, people who nobody really looked up to started getting elevated to elder as other long time elders died or dropped out.

I stopped going to meetings about 11 or 12 years ago. At some point my brother, who couldn't give a 5 minute talk without having me write out the script for him, got promoted to elder. At that point I knew the position had become a farce.

In speaking with the few JWs I remained in contact with, it became clear that the standard had morphed to roughly the following:

Are you a baptized Witness over the age of 19? If so, have you averaged 10 or so hours a month for the past two years? Have you been free from any judicial actions? If yes, congratulations. You're now a ministerial servant! It doesn't even matter if you're an illiterate buffoon.

Have you been a ministerial servant for at least 3 years? Have you been free of judicial actions during that span and averaged roughly 10 hours in field service? Congrats! You're now an elder.

It became as simple as that. There was no subjectivity to it anymore. If you checked the boxes you got promoted. It didn't matter whether you were someone whom the congregation could trust and lean on. They needed bodies and the COs started to enforce the standards vigorously.

A lot of JWs thought this was a good development because it prevented vindictive elders from maintaining blacklists. I think it made the life of the average Witness worse. It can't be encouraging to, for example, be dealing with the death of a loved one only to have elder-buffoon attempt to console you in your time of need.

42

I feel really, really sorry for those born into the Jehovah's Witness religion

by jambon1 in

jw
friends

some facts that make the difference between you and me:.

1 - as a person raised by non jw family, my parents have never loved me based on conditions set out by a group of old men who they don't even know.

how does it feel to know that you are in the unique situation where your parents brought you into the world and said 'i'll show love to you.

neverendingjourney

Damn, Sparky, those are some eerie similarities. I, too, became wrapped up in my career. I'm currently in my late 30s and have a goal of retiring early at exactly the age of 47!

Looking back at it with the benefit of hindsight, I think I ran away from the things I wasn't good at (having relationships in the non-Witness world) and focused on the things I was good at (doing well in school). I left in my mid 20s and now have multiple college degrees, a high-paying job, but no wife or girlfriend.

It turns out the kinds of things that make you a stud JW prospect are the kinds of things normal women find boring and uninteresting. We're all dealing with the aftermath in our own ways.

42

I feel really, really sorry for those born into the Jehovah's Witness religion

by jambon1 in

jw
friends

some facts that make the difference between you and me:.

1 - as a person raised by non jw family, my parents have never loved me based on conditions set out by a group of old men who they don't even know.

how does it feel to know that you are in the unique situation where your parents brought you into the world and said 'i'll show love to you.

neverendingjourney

5 - my parents never put the responsibilities of an adult onto myself as a young child.

My oldest brother bore the heaviest weight in this regard and was the least equipped of the siblings to deal with it. He's a high-functioning alcoholic and has been so for over a decade. I believe that's the mechanism he found most useful to cope with the stress my mother put on his shoulders. In his case it wasn't just WT stuff, but my mom added to that by burdening him with all of her marital problems with my father who was rarely home because of his work.

In my case, I remember being in second grade, having a crush on a girl and thinking "I can't go out with her. She's not a Witness. And besides, it's not like we'll be able to get married any time soon." Those aren't the normal thoughts of an 8 year old. Those are the thoughts of a child who has been trained to live and think like an adult from an early age.

I don't remember ever really being an adolescent. By the time I was 13 I thought of myself as an adult, had adult responsibilities, and behaved like one. It's not a normal, healthy way to grow up.

73

The con is completed - comments from the US branch's LDC chief

by sir82 in

jw
friends

recently attended a special assembly day.. guest speaker was thomas chicky, a member of the us branch committee and the head of the us ldc (which has replaced the rbcs).. the last talk of the day is scheduled for an hour.

it was the usual boring mumbo-jumbo.

he appeared to have blasted through his hour-long outline in just about 45 minutes, so he "treated" us to informal comments on recent developments.. he commented on the new wt complex in fishkill ny.. then he dropped the bomb (well, to anyone with ears and at least 2 functioning synapses).. the following is not a word for quote, but presents the gist of his comments:.

neverendingjourney

One of the most powerful pieces of information I learned during my gradual exit from this religion was the Assembly Hall Deficit Scam where the elders would agree to send the WT money that would create a deficit and would in turn prompt the attendees to cover the shortage.

It's not that the sums of money were that consequential considering the fact that there were usually over 1,000 people in attendance. It's the fact that they treated the flock with such disrespect. They couldn't let them know what was going on. They had to set up a ruse and keep it among the privileged elder class.

That's essentially what I see this as, just on a larger scale. The flock can't be trusted to peek behind the curtain and make the decision to contribute on an informed basis. No, instead you have to set up an elaborate con and keep the true motivations limited to a privileged inner circle.

If the CO or Bethel speaker had been frank and given some insight into the financial condition of the Watchtower I would have been inclined to give even more. I think that would be the case for most people. They're shooting themselves in the foot by carrying on this way, but I don't think they can help it. To the extent that I've had access to people at the higher levels of that organization, it's become clear to me that they viewed the rank and file with contempt. They set up these scams not because it will result in the most money, but because the flock can't be trusted and don't deserve the truth.