shunners, they are afraid.
how to deal with them.
having been df'd about a year ago for apostasy (the sin of thinking for yourself without disengaging your mouth) i have taken advantage of several opportunities to speak to local jw's.
Hello RedneckGurl,
I thought, how wierd is that? Why didn't she just look at me and say it? It was as if she was afraid of being seen saying anything to me.
There is more than one motive that may have been involved but I suspect 'fear' of getting caught was here main concern. With that in mind, you may want to look for opportunities to say the same to her our others but only in a setting they would feel free of getting caught.
Jst2laws
shunners, they are afraid.
how to deal with them.
having been df'd about a year ago for apostasy (the sin of thinking for yourself without disengaging your mouth) i have taken advantage of several opportunities to speak to local jw's.
Jez,
Given the post here about brothers...I am going to write to mine. I miss him so much and have not spoken or seen pictures of his 2 children. It has been 3 years. I do want him to know how happy I am. I wanted to BLAST him in letters but forget it....I AM going to take the kindness route and reach out first. I don't care if he replies, I will do this for my own spirit.
Jez
Good for you. I hope you mean what you say about him not replying. We have to remember we are the free ones. They are still enslaved to group thinking and 'do or die' faith.
As Blondie and Princess said:
Kill them with kindness Blondie
It's good to be happy. Princess
This is what we need to convey to the JW's. Again, they are afraid. They have been convinced we are out here "gnashing our teeth" and eating our own "vomit".
If we display confidence, conviction and general happiness they have got to start wondering why we are not like the Watchtower portrays us.
Jst2laws
shunners, they are afraid.
how to deal with them.
having been df'd about a year ago for apostasy (the sin of thinking for yourself without disengaging your mouth) i have taken advantage of several opportunities to speak to local jw's.
Outnfree, You handled it excellently.
"Brenda, you need to move along now."
He had no right to tell you what you needed to be doing. I'm glad you stood your ground. Your motive was proper and you were fair to let them know of your intent and why. You were taking the initiative to impede potential harm to your fellow students. Dealing with a bull headed elder is much different from bumping by chance into a timid JW in public. Thanks for sharing that experience. Megadude, Corvin and FranklinD, Thanks for sharing Jst2laws
shunners, they are afraid.
how to deal with them.
having been df'd about a year ago for apostasy (the sin of thinking for yourself without disengaging your mouth) i have taken advantage of several opportunities to speak to local jw's.
Toreador,
I run in to some JWs and they cant get away fast enough and others will be really friendly
Yeah. Sometimes they slip up and realize it later. A couple of weeks ago I had an ex-elder smile and greet me as we passed in the hardware store. I have a full beard now so he must have thought he knew me but wasn't sure who I was. (hehe). But at least he knows I was glad to say hello to him knowing exactly who he was. Shotgun
Sometimes I think ones who have been df'd or da'd have it better in that no one tries to stuff the WT crap down their throat and if they do you can reply in kind with anti-truth serum.
Shotgun, overall it is best to be free to be yourself, DF'd or DA'd. But the price is steep. I can no longer live a lie so I suffer the loss of my family, all in the JW system. But giving up the lie to live true is, in my mind, the only way to go. My family has rejected me, not because of what I have chosen as they would like to think, but because they have chosen to blindly submit to men (the governing body in NY) who claim to represent God. Yet, I will still try to accomodate them as much as possible hoping they will examine the Watchtower Publishing Company/real estate empire/mind controlling cult for what it is (not that I have an opinion). Mulan
But, we aren't df'd either.................yet. In time, we will see what happens.
Unbelievable. As long as it does not stifle you, it matters little. We are glad it is over so we can be ourselves. (Poor Mulan and Bigred, the stifled ones, NOT ) jst2laws Outnfree, Just saw you comments. Please wait until tomorrow for a response.
with all the seriousness lately...come on... loosen up a little.
make somebody smile.... things to think about:.
i'll start it off...last night i played a blank tape at full blast.
ooh, oooh,
The other nun replied, "It's the cobblestones."
Someone is a dirty old man. ooh, ooh.
Jst2laws
shunners, they are afraid.
how to deal with them.
having been df'd about a year ago for apostasy (the sin of thinking for yourself without disengaging your mouth) i have taken advantage of several opportunities to speak to local jw's.
Dan
as time has gone on and she has realized that a simple greeting is all that I'm going to say to her
Good example of the fear they have. In your case she seems afraid of responding to you and where it might lead. Some day you might even be able, in the right circumstance, to say "how are you?". If she would only say "fine", what a revelation to reply "good, I'm fine too" from one who is supposed to be 'gnashing' his teeth and 'eating his own vomit". Little1
I hope you get more replies on this thread
I hope so too. With so much negativity about politics and bad experiences with JWs I hope we can get into some constructive ideas about what we survivors can do to help others to wake up. Jez
As my husband and I left, I turned to her and said, "You look really good, you look healthy and I am glad to see it." She smiled and said thank you.
"thank you" and a smile? You were great, Jez. You treated her like a human being. And she responded like a human being. The Watchtower can't control human nature. I will respond to shotgun, Toreador and Mulan soon.. Any other good experiences? Jst2laws
shunners, they are afraid.
how to deal with them.
having been df'd about a year ago for apostasy (the sin of thinking for yourself without disengaging your mouth) i have taken advantage of several opportunities to speak to local jw's.
Shunners, they are afraid. How to deal with them. Having been DF'd about a year ago for Apostasy (the sin of thinking for yourself without disengaging your mouth) I have taken advantage of several opportunities to speak to local JW's. I say "local" because on our trip this past summer about half of the several dozen folks we visited were JW's in good standing, but were not likely to get caught. It is distinctly difficult to speak openly with "local" JW's as they, especially in chance meet ups, are AFRAID. Not only afraid of you (the disfellowshipped) but afraid of other JW's reporting them. So the 'locals' go into automatic mode when caught up in the unexpected presence of "evil" (the DF'd one). I do not find this personally offensive. I remind myself that not only did I once do this but how I longed to talk to the DF'd, especially for apostasy, to challenge my faith. I did this frequently in the door to door work and as an elder (big surprise I'm out now?). Are you aware that many JW's are curious as to what you have learned but are afraid to ask, or afraid of getting caught asking? Of course, you could always allow yourself to be hurt by their spontaneous shunning in reaction to an unexpected meeting by yelling some obscenities at them. Yes, if feels good to let loose an expletive, especially those of the fricative nature. But this will only confirm in their minds the WT lie that we are immoral, unhappy people who get no happiness out of life except to 'persecute the chosen ones'. I am hopeful that by discussing this and sharing positive experiences more of us will be able to relax and deal more effectively with our 'shunners'. I'll start out with an experience. Confidence in yourself, they are afraid On a construction job about 2 months after my disfellowshipping I was explaining to a cable TV installation crew where I wanted the cable outlets. I noticed one was not only familiar but nervous. It was a young man who had moved away a few years ago but had returned about the time of me DFing. I asked him if we knew each other and he reluctantly responded with his name. He was obviously embarrassed and uneasy not only because he was talking to me but his boss, the subcontractor, was there too. My lack of uneasiness may have made him feel all the more nervous. In view of my belief that most JW's are only following rules more out of fear of getting caught than fear of talking to those DF'd I spoke softly and with a smile: "You can't wave high but you CAN wave low" Saying this, with my elbow tucked into my side and my wrist at my pocket level I waved a greeting at him (wave low). He smiled and turned. I later heard that he was amused by my interaction with him. No big thing. But I was not hurt, he was not made to feel uneasy, and next encounter who knows what may happen. How about a little discussion of this and some experiences you have had. jst2laws
with all the seriousness lately...come on... loosen up a little.
make somebody smile.... things to think about:.
i'll start it off...last night i played a blank tape at full blast.
If the tooth brush had been invented on the west coast by a democrat instead of in Alabama by a republican, would it have been called a Teeth Brush?
Jst2laws
gina just got off the phone with her mom.
we were tired of lying to these otherwise nice people, not to mention disinfecting the car of all "worldly" paraphenalia, and fearing the inevitable "pop-in" visit while holiday decorations are up.
she felt bad about it, and so did i. but now it's over.
AlmostAtheist
My wife and I tried to faded, we too failed. So we went out with a bang. Yes, we lost many relatives. About one year ago at my father's memorial my sister, trying to excuse her JW non-christian behavior told us it was our fault since we "chose to do this". I have made it clear to them that we acted in good conscience as everyone should do. It was the WT the "chose to do this" to us and ruin our family relationships.
Try to keep the issues in focus. It is not you or your wife. You are reacting normally to abnormal to an abnormal situation. It is the WT publishing company and your relatives who "publish" for this institution who "chose to do this".
Its is a hard reality that brings pain. You have our support and respect for acting on what you know.
Jst2laws
has anyone else besides megadude seen this flic?
it is mostly about quantum physics and is truly awesome.
it hasn't been advertised at all and is mostly playing the art houses.
Navigator, Impressive.
DrWatson,
I will work something up eventually and post it one day. For now I can give you some references that will explain the New Physics (quantum mechanics).
Taking the Quantum Leap by Fred Alan Wolf
The Matter Myth by Paul Davies and John Gribbin
In Search of Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin
The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra
All are recognized physicist and Capra makes an extensive and yet very scientific case for the parallels in quantum physics and the Perennial Philosophy (Eastern Mysticism)
Below is a good summary of Quantum Physics. Under "Copenhagen Interpretation" you will find Bohr quoted as basically saying "nothing is real unless it is observed". Personally I feel that is a little misleading to the average person. The energy processes are there interacting without an observer. But it has no solid, meaningful appearance until we look at it. After all nothing solid has been found in the atom.
http://library.thinkquest.org/3487/qp.html?tqskip1=1
Please be patient. My internet opportunities have been very erratic lately. I will try to write up something soon.
Jst2laws
