djeggnog

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Posts by djeggnog

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  52

  now wat??

  by xtreemlyconfused17 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  aloha everyone...................please do help if u can.

  hope u dont get bored reading this quite long text

  i'l soon be 17, i'm an unbaptized publisher, but innactive (havent gone door to door)for more than a year, but still very strict with our organisation's standards (lyk no teenage dating).

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  djeggnog

  @xtreemlyconfused17:

  aloha everyone

  You mentioned "Tanzania"? I assume you didn't mean to write "Tarzana," as in Tarzana, California. Where exactly is Tanzania? Are you in Eastern Africa?

  please do help if u can.

  I'll try.

  [I'll] soon be 17, i'm an unbaptized publisher, but [inactive] (havent gone door to door)for more than a year, but still very strict with Our organisation's standards (lyk no teenage dating).

  You're 16 years old and because you've not been baptized, which means that you are not yet become one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

  recently i've been discoverin lotta shit. One minute u feel lyk in heaven, soo peaceful, from the bad guys, having wonderful hopes..........then the other u find out that ur under d devils seat himself!!!!! N the 'wonderful hopes'?? Perished in thin air. Its freakin scarey if u were a '[zealous]' JW so these two weeks i've been going through 'big [daddy's' forbidden] materials....a.k.a 'apostates' sites.

  I don't see the issue. In my opinion, at 16 years of age, you aren't old enough to be able to comprehend many of the things that you might read on the internet, so I wouldn't be surprised over someone your age becoming confused after they had read some of the things that have been uploaded to certain websites about the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses, some of these uploaded items having been uploaded by apostates, some of these items uploaded by folks that have become just as confused as you have become, and who have becoming stumbled over their not having been given satisfactory answers to their questions.

  It was very shocking for me i cant explain. This unusual fear just grew in me and i [really] have trouble sleeping at nite. I once woke up in d [middle] of the night crying and my mom had to work things out. I told her about [what] i've been reading, about the ex-bethelites experiences, ex-elders, d [disfellowshipped]

  While many of the folks that were formerly Jehovah's Witnesses had formerly served at Bethel, were formerly elders, former circuit overseers and former pioneers, none of those disfellowshipped from Jehovah's organization were unbaptized publishers like yourself, but perhaps you now have come to realize that you aren't ready to ready to digest the disparate viewpoints of disfellowshipped Jehovah's Witnesses, since evidently you are more accustomed to listening to the viewpoints of active Jehovah's Witnesses. Whatever it is you should decide to do, if you aren't ready to learn what others confused ones and those who have been disfellowshipped are saying about Jehovah's organization and the things that Jehovah's Witnesses teach, then you would be ill-advised to be reading the messages on JWN, no matter what your age,

  n i knew what to expect from her as i'm a JW too........mum was like 'u know we are not [supposed] to read anything involved with the apostates, y did u?

  No, as an unbaptized publisher, you are not yet one of Jehovah's Witnesses, but, in my opinion, your mother was correct to tell you that you should avoid reading things that have been uploaded to websites by former Jehovah's Witnesses, who are now apostates. You may not agree with what your mother said, but I agree with her.

  I should take ur phone from u. Just look at urself now' i was very emotional at the time so that was it with mum. so i had found out this Barbara Anderson.....this Fred Franz........these sites where ex bethelites talked of their 'very sad and unfair' experiences

  I'm familiar with Barbara Anderson's work, but you mentioned Fred Franz: Did you mean "Fred Franz," or did you have in mind Ray Franz?

  the 'forever changing doctrines'........the 1914 fiction.........the apostle Pauls 'personal opinions guiding christians' (WHICH IS D BIGGEST BLOW TO ME cuz thats like the foundation of everything)................ ITS MINDBLOWING!!!!!

  I'm pretty sure that the apostle Paul didn't write his own personal opinions, but wrote what things we read today in the Bible because he was moved by God's holy spirit to write those 14 books that he is credited with writing in the Bible. However, Jehovah's organization is a progressive organization, and whether you had heard this said before or not, I will just say that the doctrines that Jehovah's Witnesses teach are not static, but are subject to change as we make adjustments in our viewpoint.

  Like, for example, @xtreemlyconfused17, how many people do you know today that still refer to Pluto as if it were a planet? Before February 18, 1930, Pluto was reckoned as "Planet X," but this astronomical knowledge wasn't static data, for on August 23, 2006, the International Astronomical Union voted in the Prague to strip Pluto of its status as a planet, people have a progressive understanding of Pluto, and so, as our knowledge of the universe increased, we have came to refer to Pluto as a "dwarf planet."

  So whereas the world reckoned Mars, Venus, Earth, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto ("My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas") to be planets, there has been a change in astronomical dogma so that after August 23, 2006, these nine planets became eight planets ("My Very Elderly Mother Just Sits Up Nights"). Things that Jehovah's Witnesses might think to be static may have to change as our knowledge of the Bible increases or, to put this in another way, 'as the light gets lighter.' Christendom's doctrines like its teaching of the trinity is static, but the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses are dynamic as we gain a progressive understanding of the Bible, for example as to the generation of the sign to which Jesus referred at Matthew 24:34, which Jehovah's Witnesses used to refer to as "the generation of 1914."

  No one is required to accept the adjustments made to the doctrines preached by Jehovah's Witnesses; in fact, many of the people to whom Jehovah's Witnesses have never heard or learned what Jehovah's Witnesses believe. It is only those Jehovah's Witnesses that have had to make adjustments to how we understood certain Bible doctrines that seem to be the ones resistant to making these necessary changes and some of them have left our ranks due to their unwillingness to accept our new understanding of the these Bible doctrines, which is their right to do.

  I had rested my [everything] on this 'Gods Organisation'!!! I aaaalways dreamnt of having kids......raising them to be one of Jahs people......NOW WAT??? I Cannot think of any other religion i could raise my kids in!!! N I SOOO DNT WANT TO BE A PAGAN.........SO NOW WAT???? [At least] now my [conscience] will let me [marry] a non-JW (n definately not turn down teen dates offers [anymore] lol)...........but then where will i be going for worship? [At least] just on Sundays???

  You should really have been rested your hope on Jehovah God, not on God's organization. Be that as it may, there is no command in the Bible that says, "Thou shalt not marry a non-Jehovah's Witnesses." But there is a kindly admonition in the Bible, penned by the apostle Paul, that if a Christian should decide to marry, he or she they should do so "only in the Lord," but I'm sure you would have learned this already. There is no reason that you should ignore the counsel that you heard regarding teen dating, because if such dating should lead to your becoming a teen father, it will be too late at the time to have paid heed to the counsel that you will have ignored, so you would be wise to don't do it.

  It's more likely than not that should you have any children of your own, they will follow your example and not be taught by Jehovah, and their future prospects for life would be dim because of the decision that you yourself made to leave off from actively association with Jehovah's organization. If now, after reading something on some website written by a stranger that is in conflict with what you learned in association with Jehovah's Witnesses, your conscience permits you to marry someone that is not one of Jehovah's Witnesses, then the risks inherent in your not marrying "only in the Lord" would be your own.

  I do wonder though why it is you would trust a stranger to have your best interests at heart, but if you are allowed, at 16 years old, to make your own decisions, then I suppose it is your right, no matter what I might think about your posting messages to JWM, to decide against your own best interests, @xtreemlyconfused17.

  I still [believe] in lots of WT teachings............BUT I HAAVE TO BUILD A FOUNDATION FOR MY FUTURE.......but i just dont 'fully' trust the WT anymore so i was seeking advice. What did u do?? If u left the organisation [where] did u go to?? Anybody my age mates in here?? What r u going to do??

  There are no children actively posting messages here on JWN, but some have in the past posted messages to this website; most of the people that post to JWN are adults, so if someone here should send you a personal message, which some might call a "PM," don't read it, but if you should decide to read the PM, it would not be wise to give anyone any personal information about you, including your mother's name, your home address or telephone number since the people here, including me, are strangers to you. If you are asked to PM someone, don't do it. Some of the people here do not know Jehovah and you cannot know who here might cause you harm if you should befriend them or interact with them using Facebook or on one of the internet chatrooms.

  If you feel you cannot trust the counsel given by Jehovah's Witnesses any longer, there are many other places of worship where you might decide you want to worship, but these "other places of worship" may not worship Jehovah as God as you have learned to do, but may worship Jesus as God. If your Bible-trained conscience allows you to change your doctrines to accord with the ones being taught in Christendom, then you will probably be ok attending one of Christendom's churches, although I would advise against your doing this if your goal is to build on a firm foundation, if your goal is to build your future on Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone of God's spiritual temple.

  I wrote down a number of questions (eg, do the anointed around the world communicate?

  The anointed are human beings just like you and I, who distinguish themselves from us because they have a heavenly hope, whereas we have an earthly hope, but they communicate with other people that same as everyone else does using the telephone, email, letters and by their regularly gathering together in worship with other Jehovah's Witnesses in the world.

  [Which] is the most correct year for the fall of Jerusalem?

  By subtracting 70 years from 537 BC, the year when the Jews had repatriated the land of Judah, we can deduce based on the Bible, Josephus and the Nabonidus Chronicle that the land of Judah had been made to lie desolate by Babylon on or about Tishri 1, 3155 AM, September 27, 607 BC, Julian, September 20, 607 BC, Gregorian, so 607 BC would be the specific year in which Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians.

  Where Paul's letters inspired by the holy spirit?

  Yes, they were; Paul was privileged to write 14 of the books that have become a part of the 66-book Bible canon.

  @djeggnog
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  Is my marriage worth saving?

  by sacdfan in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  long story - will make it short - i was a jw for 4 years.

  hy husband took to it straigt away and has been a jw for 20 years - we were both converted by one of his workmates.

  our 4 kids were all baptised jws and thankfully 3 escaped (2 disfellowshipped, one fading) - so my eldest son is still in with his dad.

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  djeggnog

  @its_me!:

  I do have a bias against you....

  Yes, and I knew this, which is the reason I said what I did in my previous post, but that's ok. I don't come to JWN to make friends, and I would not want you to behave in any other manner toward my ilk, since pretending to be tolerant or at least friendly to a stranger would be hypocritical and thus exposes a character flaw. No, your bias toward me is consistent with the kind of individual you are and desire to be, and I would not expect you to be anything more than who you are as a person.

  You think that you are helping lurkers on this site to perhaps turn back to the JW religion with the kinds of posts you make?

  My answer may surprise you, but no. My hope is that those lurking the threads to which I have posted here on JWN will come to realize on their own that much of their discontent is not so much with the "Borg" itself, but with the very human failings that all of us have, including the failings that many of our elders in the local congregation have.

  It is often the case that the perceived contempt with which some elders are culpable is due to their never having learned the finesse they need in order to treat the people they call "Brother" or "Sister" as they would a member of their own family. (It's sad that some elders are seen to treat the flock better than they do members of their own family, whether these family members be in the truth or not, and as the OP has revealed about her husband, who is not an elder, he tends to treat people in the congregation better than he does his own wife.)

  While neither you nor I may be marriage counselors and none of the elders should not be pretending to be such, those of us having a wife or a husband and/or one or more children have gained valuable life experience and spiritual perspective, which can prove to be beneficial to those believing themselves to be in "bad" marriages should we elect to provide spiritual counsel to those asking for help. But to be effective in this regard, such counselors must remain emotionally detached, for where physical abuse or child abuse by a parent are concerned, such are criminal matters that should, in my opinion, be reported immediately to the authorities, lest the anger or mental illness manifest in one of the parties escalate and lead to serious injury or death.

  No one knows what's really going on in someone else's marriage; the OP whose marriage woes is the subject of this thread has told us that even she has no idea what's really going on with her husband or what it was that persuaded him to treat her as if his wife were invisible. I have made a few suggestions to @sacdfan that could open up to her an opportunity to have a dialogue with her husband in an attempt to learn what's going on with him, but I don't believe it appropriate for me, or for anyone, to interfere in someone else's marriage.

  A suggestion is one thing, but to insinuate oneself into someone's marriage offends Jehovah, who has only vested husbands with authority over their own wives. Marriages are real living things that differ from another based on the two unique individuals that were joined in wedlock, and because no one can live up to a decision made by someone else, only the two parties that were joined in matrimony bear responsibility for the decisions made in them.

  Spiritual shepherds would not want to learn the intimate personal details of a couple's marriage through the party emotionally affected and willing to tell all, for this could prove to be spiritually damaging to the other party if such were shared without the mutual consent of both parties. Since what is learned may be embarrassing to the other party and cannot be unlearned, a professional marriage counselor may be better equipped to handle sensitive details. This is why I never go there.

  Quite frankly, I've found many of the comments made in this thread to be offensive, since they presume a power with which human beings have not been endowed by Jehovah, since we aren't equipped to direct our own steps, let alone the steps in someone else's marriage! Of course, Moses led the entire nation of Israel, but he had divine help to do so, and must patiently wait for Kingdom rule.

  And telling me there is nothing to win?

  My tongue was in my cheek when I wrote that, but I was saying that as far as arguments go, there is no argument to win here. I joined this thread in an attempt to help the OP by making a few suggestions that might lead to resolution of her problem. I had not sought to argue with anyone; I just wanted to make a helpful comment to the OP.

  Sorry to all again for not staying on topic.

  If you owe anyone an apology, it would be to the OP, but I believe @sacdfan will realize it was because of something I wrote that caused you to go off-topic. Right now she's looking for suggestions on how she ought to proceed, and if it is true that @sacdfan's husband is using his wife to help him get through school, she needs to confront him about his agenda. I can think of no valid reason though why the OP should be pressed to discuss what her "life situation" is with her husband, or asked to speculate how she might feel living as a single woman again. How would you feel were someone to pry details about your "life situation" with your husband?

  Jehovah hates divorce and, anyway, couples ought to view marriage as being more valuable than a house. (While over time, a house does require fixing or tweaking, and being a homeowner, I don't know anyone that would want to just walk away from their own home.) Perhaps you will be able to help the OP by providing a suggestion of your own, @its_me!

  So whether you should forever hate me or be forever disgruntled with Jehovah's organization, my hope is that you will not remain angry indefinitely. May our future outcomes will be met with only that which is best for each of us.

  @djeggnog
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  Is my marriage worth saving?

  by sacdfan in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  long story - will make it short - i was a jw for 4 years.

  hy husband took to it straigt away and has been a jw for 20 years - we were both converted by one of his workmates.

  our 4 kids were all baptised jws and thankfully 3 escaped (2 disfellowshipped, one fading) - so my eldest son is still in with his dad.

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  djeggnog

  @elderelite:

  As a truly serving elder i can tell you, one who is not serving, that elders do not have the "right" or "[privilege]" to talk to DF people. It is to be limited as it for all others. Being on this board is [WAY] outta line according the branches directions.

  You have indicated that you are an elder. Assuming this to be the case, then you can construct my response to your statement by conducting a search in the 2010 or 2011 cdrom using the string "elders bear the prime responsibility for exhorting disfellowshiped ones," and reading the sentence that contains these highlighted words. In addition, it might be good for you to familiarize yourself with what the third to last sentence of 1:2 states, as well as what the principle in the last sentence of 5:52 states. An elder would have no difficulty finding the above-referenced material.

  If you were an elder you would know that

  Here's what I think I know: You're someone that I'd call "a nominal elder," and all such are eventually deleted. BTW, you were off-topic the moment you decided to post a response to me, rather than to the OP.

  @mrsjones5:

  Damn, Eggnog took over another thread with his totally worthless demagoguery.

  What "demagoguery"? Do you not have anything at all positive to suggest to the OP or was it more important to you to troll me and, as a bonus, use a word whose meaning you don't quite understand? I'm sure you must have friends here that are gullible enough to think you to be clever. What exactly is preventing you from trolling one of them? BTW, you're also off-topic.

  @djeggnog
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  66

  Is my marriage worth saving?

  by sacdfan in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  long story - will make it short - i was a jw for 4 years.

  hy husband took to it straigt away and has been a jw for 20 years - we were both converted by one of his workmates.

  our 4 kids were all baptised jws and thankfully 3 escaped (2 disfellowshipped, one fading) - so my eldest son is still in with his dad.

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  djeggnog

  @Ucantnome:

  No I don't think I was off topic.

  Ok.

  @its_me! wrote:

  And please ignore Jdeggnog's insensitive and asinine comments.

  @djeggnog wrote:

  I don't believe any of the comments I made here to the OP were either insensitive or asinine.

  @its_me! wrote:

  If he likes the Borg so much, he really shouldn't be on this site anyway.

  @djeggnog wrote:

  You have the right ... to share your opinion, but I don't give you the right to dictate what things I decide to do, whether here on JWN or elsewhere. Why do I have to like what things you like? You are apathetic about your life and certain people, and I simply cannot afford to be you. @Simon decides who may be a member on here and who may not be, not you. Actually, I've discovered quite a few nominal Christians that exchange posts here on JWN, who have never been Jehovah's Witnesses, so I see no reason why it is you feel Jehovah's Witnesses should not be permitted to post messages here unless (1) you are an apostate, and (2) you believe JWN to be an apostate-only website. Until @Simon should make JWN strictly an apostate-only website, you're going to have to accept the fact that I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses that posts messages here.

  @its_me! wrote:

  Apathetic about my life?

  Possibly, yes. It does seem to me that you have a lack of interest in your life, in your future, so apathy aptly describes what you said here.

  What makes you think that you are in a position to make that obviously WRONG assumption[?]

  I have lived a long time, met a lot of people, seen a lot of trees, and I made no assertion about you; just an observation about your outlook on life is all. As to whether I have standing or position in life to remark as I did, I am in a position to make those statements I made just as you have every right to make what remarks you made to me. I, like you, am an adult. I don't need permission from you to say what things I choose to say about your comments here on JWN and you are certainly free to disagree with my comments, @its_me!.

  Its clear that you like to voice your VERY long-winded opinions, but I don't want to hear them. I was speaking to sacd, and your comments were very insensitive.

  You were speaking to @sacdfan about me, which is why I addressed you directly in responding to what you wrote.

  Please don't address anymore posts to me. If you wish to slam my character, you may pm me. I didn't slam you as a person, only your comments.

  No, I see no need to PM you. You believed I slammed your character, that's fine, but you don't get to tell me not to address any more posts to you. You lose the right to ask me not to do so when you spoke slightingly about me to @sacdfan and for you to even think I would honor such a request from you does make you an interesting "character." I didn't slam your character, I spoke to your inability to comprehend what you read when you remarked that what I said to the OP was both "insensitive and asinine." Was your remark about me a "slam" against my character? No, it was just an opinion, and my response was just an opinion. You want to make this about something more than that, ok.

  And while you are defending the JW religion, you are breaking one of their most stringent laws for their followers by being on here. If it were to be found out that you had viewed this site, let alone frequented it, you would be cut off. I don't care that you are on this site, but don't expect everyone here to tiptoe around your ridiculous comments and say nothing about them when you offend.

  You certainly do care that I am on this site, for I noticed that the @sacdfan indicated in her post that is currently one of Jehovah's Witnesses herself, and has been such for four years, but you didn't say a thing to her about her being on JWN. You are totally fine with her being on here, so your bias against me is obviously what drove your remarks to the OP and what drives your remarks to me now. You're not fooling me or anyone else here. What I should have written above is this:

  "You have the right to share your opinion, but I don't give you the right to dictate to me what things I should or should not say or do, whether here on JWN or elsewhere. Why do I have to like what things you like? You may be apathetic about your life and certain people, but I simply cannot afford to be you. @Simon decides who may be a member on here and who may not be, not you."

  You are free to believe JWN to be an "apostates-only" website, but doesn't my presence here prove that you're wrong? that JWN is not just for apostates? What about the OP, who started this thread: Do you think @sacdfan to be an apostate simply because she started a thread on here with the hope of eliciting suggestions from folks as to what she might to do in the situation she described where her husband is treating her as if she doesn't matter?

  Look, @its_me!: Prove your contention that JWN is an "apostates-only" website and I'll leave, but if you should fail to prove your contention within the next 72 hours, then I need you to agree to leave off from posting anything else here on JWN for a minimum of 30 days, ok? Surely you'd have no problem whatsoever in agreeing to these terms as I have just laid them out, right? I am aware that some of the folks that use this forum are apostates, but one thing I know about you is that you have a bias, not against all Jehovah's Witnesses, but against me personally, but perhaps you will recall from the time you spent in association with Jehovah's Witnesses in the past that elders do speak to disfellowshipped persons all of the time, so why don't you let this go? There's nothing for you to win here.

  @djeggnog
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  66

  Is my marriage worth saving?

  by sacdfan in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  long story - will make it short - i was a jw for 4 years.

  hy husband took to it straigt away and has been a jw for 20 years - we were both converted by one of his workmates.

  our 4 kids were all baptised jws and thankfully 3 escaped (2 disfellowshipped, one fading) - so my eldest son is still in with his dad.

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  djeggnog

  @Ucantnome:

  Just a thought on the Good news. The Apostle Paul said this.

  Why? You're off-topic. @Fernando had suggested to the OP that she should inquire of her husband as to whether he was able to explain the good news to "someone in the field ... in one word," and explained also how he had learned that "the phrase 'good news'" appeared in the Bible "±152 times," so I responded to his missive, in part, by humoring him and providing my definition of the "good news," but his response, like yours, was really off-topic, as neither you nor he seemed to think it important to respond to the OP's question: What should I do?

  At any rate, @Ucantnome, I just wanted to say "Boo" to you since what you posted was really illogical. You had made reference to the Proclaimers book, and then, asking quoting Galatians 1:6-9, you went on to quote the following from this book --

  "A real milestone was reached, therefore, in 1925, when The Watch Tower of March 1 ... presented ... evidence that the Messianic Kingdom had been born -- established -- in 1914, that Christ had then begun [to] rule on his heavenly throne, and that thereafter Satan had been hurled from heaven down to the vicinity of the earth. This was the good news that was to be proclaimed.... [¶] "The good news of God's Kingdom continues to be central to the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses...."

  -- which was followed by this comment from you:

  I think that this is different to the Good News that the apostle was preaching but maybe I'm wrong.

  Yes, it is different. The Proclaimers book is not discussing the good news from the standpoint of what was being preached during the first century AD, but discussing the good news from the standpoint of what was being preached during the 20th century when it first became apparent, in 1925, that the Messianic Kingdom had been born, that Christ had begun to rule and that Satan had but only a short period of time remaining. The point being made is that this was good news to Jehovah's Witnesses back in 1925, and that this good news in particular also needed to be proclaimed as well. Get it now? In case you didn't know, the Proclaimers book is a diary that relates the modern-day history of Jehovah's Witnesses leading up to when the good news began to be proclaimed as to the establishment of God's kingdom in 1914.

  Maybe you were once one of Jehovah's Witnesses in the past, but I would consider you to someone that may know how to read and pronounce the words on the page, but I'm not so sure that you accepted with alacrity the things you learned with respect to reading comprehension. Boo.

  @sacdfan:

  I can understand what you are saying, djeggnog, but he doesn't want to study with me. Even when I was attending meetings I had to practically force him to study.

  Ok; I cannot understand how your husband's not wanting to study with you may have made you feel, but would it be correct to say that you became one of Jehovah's Witnesses because he was one of Jehovah's Witnesses and because you loved him so much that you wanted to be his wife? I don't ask you what it was he might have told you at the time, but I'm just wondering if you really wanted to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses at all? Let me elaborate here just a bit, @sacdfan:

  Under the Law of Moses, there were some 613 commandments, which included the Ten Commandments, such as "Thou shalt not murder." "Thou shalt not lie...." Thou shalt not covet." However, when the law of Christ superseded the Law of Moses, the stern legalistic nature of God's commands came to an end and were replaced with kindly admonitions to right conduct like "let us not be judging one another any longer," 'let not a rotten saying proceed out of your mouth,' "abstain from fornication," 'a widow is free to be married to whom she wants, only in the Lord'; I hope I didn't lose you in making these comparisons.

  Over time, some Witnesses develop an "attitude" -- for lack of a better word -- where they start thinking God's commandments to be burdensome. They want to serve God, but they feel he's too strict. "Do you see what things I have to give up?" they say. "Do you see what things I cannot do? That is why I think these kindly admonitions from the Lord to be a burden, and that is why I'm not serving God fully."

  But when this attitude comes up, the first thing I would ask the Witness is, What things do you want to do? When it comes to things that are right, there is no restriction. If you want to be a loving person, God will let you be as loving as you want. If you want to be a merciful person? You can exhibit as much mercy as you want.

  But Jehovah God does place a limit on the freedom we have. If someone wants to do something hateful or evil, then naturally God is going to make a law and prohibit such conduct. If someone wants to have immoral relations with someone else's wife or husband, shouldn't God put a limit on that? If someone wants to break into your house to steal your tv, your iPod, your money, jewelry, or other valuables, shouldn't there be laws to protect you from what is indecent, laws to protect your property from being stolen, laws to protect your children from drug pushers that want to make your children drug dependent and drugs addicts? God's commandments really aren't a burden at all.

  If the reason your husband has been treating you so disrespectfully and disregarding his marriage with you should be because he is having an affair with someone else, you would then have to make a decision that is only yours to make: To forgive his unfaithful conduct toward you or to put him away and go your separate ways.

  I don't envy your decision and I hope you do not have to make such a decision in your marriage, but if I were having an affair and I got busted, I'm not going to lie: I would cry, I would beg, I would probably say whatever it is I thought would convince my wife to forgive my betrayal of her, because I really love her and I would have to have lost my mind to betray my Lord by cheating on her, and Jehovah would not be too pleased with me either since he knows that I "get" what he purposes to do. I don't see how I could ever cheat on my wife, but other brothers -- even elders -- that we have had to disfellowship from the congregation didn't think they could ever cheat on their wives either.

  It's sad to say his, but if your husband should be forced to confess to you that he has cheated -- and this is only talk, speculation, we don't know that he has done anything in this regard --- and he really loves you, then he's either going to be doing a lot of crying and begging himself, or you are going to have an uncontested divorce, which means you're going to have to endure maybe six months or a year or 18 months (I don't know!) of rebuilding your life as you try to figure out what it was you did wrong or what it is you could have done differently in order to have achieved a better result, when all you did was to accept the fact that he chose someone else to love.

  Of course, if it should turn out that he did cheat on you, you could hurt him by not divorcing him, which would prevent him from remarrying the woman he chose instead of you, but the downside of your spitefully not divorcing him and not forgiving him is that it's possible that you will have sexual needs that will have to go unfulfilled, and during this period of time you will not be free to remarry, which can make you vulnerable in two (2) foreseeable ways: (1) You can become vulnerable to a "one night stand" with your husband and forever foreclose your right to divorce him later since the resumption of sexual relations with a spouse would be viewed by the congregation as a sign that one has forgiven their spouse their adultery. (2) You can become vulnerable to a "one night stand" or an affair with someone that is not your husband, which would then give your husband scriptural grounds to divorce you for you failure to live up to your marriage vow.

  Again, I don't envy your decision, but people do change. You became one of Jehovah's Witnesses, which is a big change for someone to make a dedication to serve Jehovah as a disciple of Jesus, and get baptized in symbol of one's dedication, but if you should decide to disassociate yourself from Jehovah's Witnesses to study the Bible and worship God in another church, that would be a big change, too, for most Christian churches today worship Jesus as god and not Jehovah, and you could decide Christianity is not for you and you could end up in a Buddhist temple, a big change for someone that had formerly been one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

  Being a JW has not helped my marriage - it has had the opposite effect.

  Well, whether this is so remains to be seen, @sacdfan. Maybe through this experience, you have learned to be more tolerant of others, patient and understanding of the human condition; you may have come to learn things about yourself that you didn't know until now.

  He does all the right things in the hall, pioneers when he can, is a complete dogdbody, gets made up to MS pretty soon because from the outside he looks so good. I am being mean, I know, he is a good man deep down, but he seems as hard as nails.

  You can be mean, but don't lose your perspective. You may have to be the adult in the room should the need arise on your part to confront your husband in the future. In my opinion, even though I do not know your husband, if all that you have said is just as you have related it here, then even though he may be a "good man deep down," he hasn't been a good husband to you, he hasn't demonstrated to you that he loves you as much as he loves himself, which is just another one of those kindly admonitions to Christians found in the Bible that even if he hasn't cheated on you, he is at least guilty of ignoring this admonition.

  He told me this morning he is going witnessing in the wilds of Scotland (or was it Ireland?) in July or August for 2 weeks. He didn't even ask if I'd like to go. You see, djeggnog, he doesn't seem to care if I am getting weaker - shouldn't he be trying to save me - to encourage me or something? Why didn't he ask me if I want to go? When I said it was a bit unfair going off for 2 weeks without me (a bit like holidaying alone) he said I have the wrong mind set and I need to correct my thinking.

  Please don't be angry over what I am about to say, but, like you, I have a spouse, and if I wanted to go off somewhere for two weeks and I didn't ask my wife if she wanted to accompany me on such an outing, she would have the right to ask me if she could go with me. I could tell her, no, and she, in turn, could tell me that she is against my going away for two weeks by myself. She could object to my spending money for this trip-for-one, with the threat that upon my return from this trip to have given away or discarded everything in the house about which I care.

  Of course, you don't have to carry out your threat at all, but this would force him to discuss with you his apparent inability to make sound decisions that would mutually benefit the two of you, and the apparent abandonment of his marriage, the subject of this thread. You could stop caring about the things that he cares about and concentrate on those things about which only you care. If you do most of the cooking in the house, you could continue doing "the hard part," but only serve yourself while letting him do "the easy part," and serve himself. Remember the object of these suggestions is to force him to talk to you about the things he has been doing and has not been doing with you, which have taken their toll on you emotionally, and have made you feel unloved by him and married to a stranger.

  The last thing that you could do to force him to talk to you is to change the locks on all of the doors when he leaves on a day when you are planning to be home all day. Of course, this means that his keys to the house will not work so that he would have to talk to you on whatever topics you wish to discuss with him, albeit on the telephone. If he should decide to make a scene in an attempt to make you open the door to let him into the house, this would be unfortunate, but you can threaten to call one of the elders about the scene he is causing, and whether or not he causes a scene, you can ask that elder to call him on his cell phone to ask him to explain to you, his wife, why it is he is planning to go off for two weeks on a trip without including you in his plans, and this would then raise a question as to his fitness to serve as a auxiliary pioneer if he should not longer be viewed by the congregation as exemplary.

  Nothing that I have suggested here is criminal, and changing the locks on all of your own doors is not a criminal offense -- I have lost the keys to our home at least twice and have had to change the locks to all of the doors, once without her knowledge because I had been forced to leave a message on her cell phone about the locks being changed and she didn't turn on her cell phone to hear my message until after she had gotten home and was forced to ring the bell to enter her own home (since her keys didn't work) -- but if you want to force your husband to talk to you, you can make this happen. If you don't talk to your husband, you will never be able to figure out if your marriage is worth saving. Maybe once he is made to understand by you that he will no longer be permitted to take you for granted, you will force him to tell him his intentions toward you and toward his marriage.

  @its_me!:

  And please ignore Jdeggnog's insensitive and asinine comments.

  I don't believe any of the comments I made here to the OP were either insensitive or asinine.

  If he likes the Borg so much, he really shouldn't be on this site anyway.

  You have the right get to share your opinion, but I don't give you the right to dictate what things I decide to do, whether here on JWN or elsewhere. Why do I have to like what things you like? You are apathetic about your life and certain people, and I simply cannot afford to be you. @Simon decides who may be a member on here and who may not be, not you. Actually, I've discovered quite a few nominal Christians that exchange posts here on JWN, who have never been Jehovah's Witnesses, so I see no reason why it is you feel Jehovah's Witnesses should not be permitted to post messages here unless (1) you are an apostate, and (2) you believe JWN to be an apostate-only website. Until @Simon should make JWN strictly an apostate-only website, you're going to have to accept the fact that I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses that posts messages here.

  @djeggnog
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  66

  Is my marriage worth saving?

  by sacdfan in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  long story - will make it short - i was a jw for 4 years.

  hy husband took to it straigt away and has been a jw for 20 years - we were both converted by one of his workmates.

  our 4 kids were all baptised jws and thankfully 3 escaped (2 disfellowshipped, one fading) - so my eldest son is still in with his dad.

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  djeggnog

  @Fernando:

  Great news that your faith is getting stronger!

  How do you figure that the OP's faith is getting stronger? Oh, wait: It was when you read the words in @sacdfan's post: I am a Christian ... and my faith is getting stronger, right? I read her post, too, and I concluded that her faith is being tested by what she perceives to have been her husband's untoward actions that have affected her marriage.

  What about getting him to see the light by means of the Watchtower library itself! Remember they claim to be "publishers of the good news"! (This phrase appears 257 times in the 2010 wt library – single and plural publisher/s)

  So to the question asked by the OP -- What should I do? -- you would suggest that she spar with her husband over his knowledge of the 2010 WT Library? Really?? Why that one? I have the 2010 version on my iPad and on my iPhone in iSilo format, but why would you not be suggesting the 2011 WT Library since it's the one that is now in circulation? Hmmm.

  If someone in the field asked you to explain what the "good news" is in one word how would you respond my dear? (it's a "message" but let him struggle with this so that he can repent of his ignorance and of following spiritually blind humans instead of Jesus)

  What makes you think someone that has been one of Jehovah's Witnesses for 20 years wouldn't be able to describe the good news "in one word"? Very recently, in another thread, I posted the following description of the "good news" based on Romans 3:24, but using instead the word "gospel":

  "The gospel is the message from Jehovah God that began to be preached by the Lord Jesus Christ as to how the whole world of mankind that had been born into a world in which they have had to learn the dire consequences that flow from sin would eventually be brought into the way of righteousness and given the privilege of securing for themselves the opportunity afforded us by the ransom paid by Jesus Christ, which not only pardoned us, but satisfied justice as well, and now enables all mankind to enjoy eternal life."

  If we searched in the Watchtower library on computer how many times do you think we would find the phrase "good news" in the Bible my dear? (±152 times, must use quotation marks when searching, then select "Bible" to display only search results in the Bible)

  I actually didn't need to find out how many hits I would get were I to search for the words, "good news," in the 2010 WT Library or in the 2011 WT Library); I've been proclaiming the good news for more than half of my life as an ambassador (or envoy), publishing it to folks young and old, both inside and outside the congregation without the need to do a word count. I don't believe the OP's question -- What should I do? -- can be satisfied by a word count. This is my opinion. I don't know what it was about this thread that made you want to dazzle the OP by letting her know how adroitly you are with the 2010 WT Library, and I'm amazed with the prowess you evidently have with doing such proximity searches with this cdrom. However -- how would Jesus say this? -- this thread isn't about you, Peter @Fernando. So what do you opine as to the OP's question?

  Do you happen to have any suggestions as to what the OP might do to salvage what's left of her marriage that might maybe help her to get it back on the tracks and prevent shipwreck? (I love mixed metaphors.) @sacdfan has been one of Jehovah's Witnesses for four years and yet she's thinking that reserving a seat at "the table of demons" could possibly save her marriage. Other than word counts, do you have any ideas to share with the OP as to what she should do?

  @djeggnog
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  66

  Is my marriage worth saving?

  by sacdfan in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  long story - will make it short - i was a jw for 4 years.

  hy husband took to it straigt away and has been a jw for 20 years - we were both converted by one of his workmates.

  our 4 kids were all baptised jws and thankfully 3 escaped (2 disfellowshipped, one fading) - so my eldest son is still in with his dad.

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  djeggnog

  @Anony Mous:

  @djeggnog you're still full of shit

  Actually, what I'm "full of" is love for people. Maybe you at any one time had love for people, too, but I don't think you have enough evidence to conclude that I am "still full of shit." What exactly does your use of the word "still" mean anyway?

  You're trying to protect the bastard?

  So, this man that @sacdfan married -- her husband of 25 years -- is now "a bastard"? And you know this how? I read the OP's post, but she didn't characterize him as being "a bastard," so what right do you have to characterize the man -- @sacdfan's husband -- in this way? In what way am I trying to protect the man? I don't know the OP's husband, so why would I want to protect him? Because I'm a man and her husband is a man?

  Let me just inject in here something on which you should ruminate: I'm not just an adult, but I've acquired a lot of life experience since my birth and I have more than a few gray hairs. If someone is repentant, what is said to me in confidence is not heard by any other elder or my wife. If anyone is disfellowshipped for a failure on their part to exhibit repentance, the details will never come from me since I don't gossip nor do I call people names.

  Now this is the kind of thing that goes on in "gossip circles" with one person saying things similar to what you said here in order increase the temperature gauge of those in the room that are gossiping about someone else, and the fact that you and others here are doing this now in this thread here on JWN disrespects the OP, who loves the man, has feelings for the man, has even married this man, so that she has come on here asking the question, "What should I do?" I'm not sure you caught that, but I love telling sisters what I am hearing when they go on a tear about someone based on their own speculation and gossip.

  These gossipers really don't know what others are hearing or thinking, and not many elders would sit through such a session, but I'm only too happy to tell them what I'm hearing and what things I've come to learn from having listened to my wife, who happens to have much more experience being a woman and with dealing with women's issues than I do. I've actually been told by some that I'm a good listener. Let me ask you something, @Anony Mous: Did you read this?

  The marriage has had its ups and downs - some terrible, some not so bad.

  Or this:

  Don't get me wrong, it isn't all bad.

  Or this:

  I love him like I love my sister - i'd do anything to [help] him - but this isn't a marriage, is it? ... I know that if we could study the Bible together it would start to bring us closer.... I would do anything to change things.... What should I do?

  Your comments here are very insensitive, and it doesn't matter if you disagree with me; I'm 100% sure that right in this regard. @sacdfan is a woman that is in love with her husband, whose marriage, she feels, isn't working for her, and who is wondering if it is too late to effect a rescue of her marriage, to maybe keep it from shipwreck. You don't know @sacdfan's husband to say what you do here about the man. All you know if one side -- @sacdfan's side -- and, you don't have to believe me, but I'm telling you that there's always two sides. I make it a point not to take sides with anyone, because I cannot know what either party feels nor the details as they know them.

  Some elders might try to right the course of someone else's marriage, but I won't do it. I don't have the wisdom of Solomon, let alone the wisdom that Jesus possessed, and he alone was given authority to do judging because of his name, and I happen to be someone that thinks it to be disrespectful of Jesus' name for anyone to pretend to have authority to do something for which they are not equipped. I don't know how I can help the OP, but I read her message and wanted to make a comment.

  You're as bad as them, you're still in the cult and you're still brainwashed trying to make others do what the GB wants you to do. If you want to live according to their rules, do so, but then take all of it or else take none of it.

  I might still be in the cult, but pejoratively I think maybe you are like that Samaritan woman in the Bible, because you are just like that woman, fleshly in your viewpoint, worshipping what you do not know. If I say "Jehovah," you know to whom I'm referring, you know I'm talking about the Jehovah the Spirit, the Creator, but you don't know him at all. You think your way of life, which is your religion -- don't get it twisted, my religion is my way of life -- and your outlook on life is what you have chosen for yourself, and I cannot judge you at all, @Anony Mous. But why be insensitive to the OP or to me? Jesus could have told the Samaritan woman:

  "The man with whom you are now living isn't your husband and yet despite knowing what Jehovah commanded in the Samaritan Pentateuch, that as long as your first husband is living, you aren't free to remarry, you've given yourself to six men and yet you want to boast in your flesh over your lineage to Jacob, asserting yourself to be on the same footing with Jews like me since we also trace our lineage back to Jacob? Believe me, woman, you don't worship Jehovah."

  But Jesus didn't have it in him to be insensitive to the woman. He could have judged her and said not a word to her, but he struck up the conversation with her, felt her out, to see if this Samaritan woman would be reasonable enough to have a conversation with a Jew. But Jesus was the Son of God, and in every way, he was like his heavenly father. Neither will I be insensitive to you.

  Marriages are not always worth saving simply because "you're a Christian". That's such a cheap shot it disgusts me.

  I don't think saving someone else's marriage to be a proper subject for discussion by me. I think a person's marriage is personal and if one of the parties to the marriage should begin to take their spouse for granted, the marriage may experience a few storms over several years before the storm clouds leave and the skies are blue again or shipwreck, whichever occurs first. But I didn't say that because the OP is a Christian that her marriage is worth saving. The OP indicated that she has only been one of Jehovah's Witnesses "for 4 years," but she may have gotten baptized for the wrong reasons, because she loved the man she married and wanted to be his wife. This happens a lot, maybe more than you realize, @Anony Mous.

  There does seem to me to have been many successful marriages between folks that are not Christian, so someone being a Christian isn't at all relevant to someone making a determination as to whether their marriage is worth saving. A marriage commences, not with the proposal, but with the marriage vow itself, which is permanent. For Christians and non-Christians alike, Jehovah is involved in that threefold cord, even if the parties themselves do not acknowledge God in their marriage. If anyone already married should being to associate with the Christian congregation, Christians will both honor and acknowledge the solemnity of the marriage. I don't make 'cheap shots.' If you are disgusted with someone, think about if that "someone" is me, and then tell me what it was I said to the OP that so disgusted you.

  All churches are the same whether they are JW or not, they're all there to take your money, your dignity and your freedom. Her husband and her could join whatever church they'll like, the prayers are going to be heard equally well by your imaginary friend: NOT AT ALL!

  I don't believe @sacdfan said a thing about she and her husband joining another church; the idea of "[going] to a non-denominational service," was the OP's, not her husband's idea. The OP describes her husband as being an auxiliary pioneer that "hasn't missed [a meeting] in 20 years," so I'm speculating that he's not about to join another church. If anyone wishes to donate some of their money to Jehovah's organization or to UNICEF or to the American Heart Association, that would be their choice to make, but neither one's dignity or freedom is involved; just the money you give to the charitable cause. I've donated money to the AHA because the work they do has helped, I believe, to save the lives of some, especially mothers with young children. But I cannot argue with you that all churches are the same; they will "take your money." Any money donated to Jehovah's organization would certainly be put to very good use.

  However, were you to give me some of your money, I would take it as long as I knew that your gift was made when you were of sound mind and not as a result of mental defect (i.e., like Alzheimer's). Depending on how much you gave me, I'd probably buy another gadget. I have three iTouch devices, and I prayed for none of them, one of which I "inherited" from my wife, with the release of the fourth generation iTouch that gave us Facetime, and so I bought us both new iTouch devices, after which I bought an iPhone 4. Jehovah knows I have a problem with gadgets, but I won't pray about it since he knows I'm in denial about my problem in wanting to learn how they work and wanting to learn what they can be made to do that won't make me as dependent on one of my PCs to do.

  My wife doesn't want to give up her phone because she's afraid she will lose some of her contacts (and some of these contacts have pictures associated with them), but I had previously bought an iPad that I use daily, and, so with your money, I would probably buy the iPad 3 when it is launched in March(?) or whenever, one for my wife and one for me, even if she is delighted with her notebook. Jehovah isn't my "imagination friend"; he's a Spirit and having made a study of my wife over the years that we've been together, I'm sure that he's as real as she is real. It's too bad you are like that Samaritan woman was in not knowing him.

  Your second to last paragraph utterly disgusts me, you're trying to blame her for having the idea that he might be getting attention from others? He's getting some on the side and that's it....

  And you know that the OP's husband is "getting some on the side" how? Maybe he did "[get] some on the side" only to realize his stupidity and stop, but the question the OP asked was, "What should I do?" What do you think she should do under the circumstances? I think she should confront her husband over the things that she has been feeling. I also think she might want to consider separating from her husband for a time so that she can regain some measure of her composure and peace of mind. If she wants to have sex with her husband, let them do so by appointment, so that he realizes what position his lack of balance in the congregation has done to his wife. Maybe they will eventually resume their marriage, but she's hurting emotionally and I was only trying to give her a few ideas to consider. I don't think the marriage is over, because as long as they are married, there is a chance that things will get better, but I'm talking about the two of them putting in some work. I believe it is up to the OP to decide how she's going to handle her own marriage.

  I've seen the same signs and I've been hurt - I know exactly how it works among JW's and how to do it and hide it. JW's are good at hiding it but you're either stupid, naive or an extremely nasty control freak.

  For whatever reason, you have begun to discuss something that has occurred in your own life as a wife, but how can you be here projecting your own bad experiences on someone else? You don't know what the OP's husband is doing, if anything at all. You don't really know if the OP's husband is hiding anything from his wife, do you? Are my choices "stupid, naive ... control freak," or "extremely nasty control freak"? I wish you offered "amazingly intuitive control freak," but you didn't, so I'm going to go with "stupid, naive ... control freak," if that's ok. Now what?

  @djeggnog
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  66

  Is my marriage worth saving?

  by sacdfan in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  long story - will make it short - i was a jw for 4 years.

  hy husband took to it straigt away and has been a jw for 20 years - we were both converted by one of his workmates.

  our 4 kids were all baptised jws and thankfully 3 escaped (2 disfellowshipped, one fading) - so my eldest son is still in with his dad.

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• 

  djeggnog

  @sacdfan:

  Is my marriage worth saving?

  Long story - will make it short - I was a JW for 4 years.... Neither of us has 'cheated' in the fullest sense although he emotionally cheated with a student he went to college with 3 years ago. He used to [Skype] her for hours into the early hours of the morning and was always emailing her....

  I am a Christian (it's what has kept me sane over past 2 years) and my faith is getting stronger. He is more brainwashed by WT than ever. Sometimes we get on well but most of the time we go our own way. I have my friends, he has his. He never comes with me when I meet up with my friends...,

  We can't even go out on Saturday or Sunday for the day because he goes out on the service - so we don't do anything together.... Don't get me wrong, it isn't all bad. But we are drifting further apart.

  I feel angry that we can't study the Bible together - why can't we go to a non-denominational service - if you can't worship together with your partner it is very serious to me. We can't even pray together. The phone is always going for him to do jobs on the kingdom hall, jobs for the congregation, jobs for the CO - the territory, sound system, literature etc... on and on.

  I know that if we could study the Bible together it would start to bring us closer (I know the atheists on here would disagree, but this is what I believe) . What should I do?

  It might seem as if you have a husband that doesn't love you as much as he loves himself, as much as he loves doing things with and for other people, and the only way he will come to realize what he is doing is for you to confront him about his behavior toward you, his wife. But in reading all that you wrote here -- and I'm sure there's more that you did not bother to explain in what you wrote -- it seems that you are presently being forced to make adjustments due to a loss of companionship with your husband, an adjustment that you never expected you would have to make unless he were, say, unconscious, in a coma, for months or years.

  It bothers you that you see him daily and that you're right there with him, but he doesn't seem to know who you are, and that's tough, since one would expect a husband to behave as though he has a wife before he makes any decision, like maybe he should call her when stopping at the grocery store on his way home to learn whether she has already been to the store today, and bought the needed bread and milk that we realized we were in need of yesterday.

  It cannot feel good to tell your husband on Monday that you want him to plan to take you to see a certain movie that had recently caught you attention at a matinee on the weekend, on Saturday, only to have him tell you that he had made other plans without consulting you about them, and that you will have to make arrangements to go see the movie without him instead of him apologizing for making these plans about which you obviously knew not a thing, and then offering to maybe take you to see the movie on Saturday evening or after you and he had attended the meetings you regularly attend on every Sunday. I'm nothing like the man you describe in your post, @sacdfan, although I'm definitely guilty of making plans without consulting my wife about them, only to have to make a call later to disappoint someone and tell them I have to reschedule before my wife had made other plans for me, plans that she didn't consult me in advance about either, <g> but if I had to choose, I choose my wife. I love her.

  In my household, if I inform my wife about something I want to do and am planning to do -- either something long-term, like conducting a standing Bible study with someone for at least the next 12 to 24 weeks at a time certain, or something short-term, like playing agreeing to play basketball on a specific day and time at the health club to which my wife and I are both members, with one or two other brothers and some trinitarian Christians that seem to like the idea of God torturing sinners for an eternity -- these are "commitments" that I will only cancel in the event of an emergency or should she or I should get sick, which isn't very often.

  In your household, you and he, over the past 25 years, seem to have let things slip into the "abyss" in which your marriage appears to be at this moment, with your husband having his own friends and you having your own friends, although, in my household, I like showing my wife off to folks, because she's almost as smart as I am, and definitely more intuitive about things in life, which is a quality that I don't ever expect to develop in this life.

  I also like people asking my wife how it was that she decided to marry me, which is just another way of saying that they don't think I was the best choice she could have made (which is just an opinion since I was the best choice!), but I've met all of their wives, and while some of them can cook quite well, and some of them are just funny, some of them can sing well, some can play piano (btw my wife plays the viola, while I play alto sax and have played the trombone and keyboards), and some of them are quite good at breaking people down so that they are able to learn things about which someone may not really want to tell anyone. My question to you, @sacdfan, is how did you let your own marriage get into such an abysmal state? Both a husband and wife make a marriage what it is, and it seems to me that you, and maybe your husband as well, thought there was no need on your part(s) to do anything to make your marriage work, but is your marriage over? Is your marriage worth saving? This was your question.

  Now I read some of the comments in this thread that you received as advice, one of them being that you should "stop beating a dead horse," advising that "a change" be made, and another one opined that your marriage "was over the minute he decided to stop valuing/loving you as his life partner." That phrase, "life partner," sounds like something that someone might say about a same-sex couple, but your marriage is not over. The man you married is still your husband, and, as such, you have a responsibility of your own to your marriage, even as he hasn't or doesn't want to own up to that responsibility.

  Now you indicated being of the belief that were you and your husband to "study the Bible together it would start to bring us closer." What were you doing all of these years at the meetings you attended with him at the Kingdom Hall? That was sacred service, and yet your studying the Bible together at congregation meetings doesn't seem to bring "you guys" closer together, did it? Such "works" are not going to solve your problem.

  You said that you are a Christian, which means that you should not be in any doubt as to whether your marriage is worth saving, since a Christian knows that "a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is alive, which is just another way of saying that marriage is for life, so the real question is this: Do you think your marriage would be better if you were to separate from your husband? This is one way you might confront your husband, for when his friends come to realize that the reason he is able to spend so much time with them is because his wife has had to let him live as if he were a single man, either he is going to want to make an appointment with you to discuss the state of your marriage or he will be in denial and become indecent with someone not his wife and give you grounds for divorcing him.

  You see, when you became a Christian, @sacdfan, God had called you to peace. I cannot recommend you separating from your husband, but if you should decide to do this, living separately, doing things and making plans without having to consult him first, discarding food that is normally enough for the two of you when now there is only one of you, and planning social activities that don't include your husband in them is going to be hard on you. Making dates with your husband to have sex means he has to leave or you have to leave, since you're separated and no longer live together, which means your having to drive to see him or he having to drive to see you, which married couples should not have to do, but through this separation, you are confronting your husband over the state of your marriage. If you separate from your husband, the marriage would not be over by any stretch.

  You want to pray with your husband, but to whom? You want to attend "a non-denominational service" with your husband and ask why it is you can't worship together? These folks at these churches aren't worshipping Jehovah, but you are free to worship who you wish, but you should not expect your husband, as unrighteous as he might already be, to blatantly engage in the worship of another god, other than Jehovah, which would be false worship, even idolatry. You do know that you can pray to Jehovah without your husband. The Hearer of Prayer is willing and eager to hear the prayers of his servant that worship him, but your prayers will likely be hindered were you to make petition to him while sitting at the table of demons, while the two of you are seated in the house of another god because you have to know that Jehovah is a jealous God. Jehovah will not put up with such duplicity from any of his servants.

  The two of you have drifted apart, but you have as much responsibility to your marriage and your husband does, and so you can continue to do nothing, which is what he is already doing, and continue to be totally unhappy with the situation, or you can take reasonable steps to get your marriage working. One of you must do something to address these problems you have had to face in your marriage, so why not you?

  I did read what you wrote about the cyber affair your husband had with someone using Skype and email, and such affairs can and do take an emotional toll on the spouses that are affected when they come into a knowledge of such cyber affairs, but should one of these cyber relationships lead to your learning that you have a real STD, not a cyber STD, or they lead to your learning that he has will become a father to a child by someone else, then it is that such a cyber affair has become a serious matter that you may or may not choose to forgive so that you will have to decide whether or not to divorce the man.

  You describe your husband as someone that is always ready to work on projects associated with the Kingdom Hall, projects associated with the congregation, projects associated with the CO, DO or projects involving that pretty single sister with the little boy that is always complimenting him on this or that and whose kid likes you, or some other pretty single sister, but this does not meant that he has 'a passion for any of these women in his heart.' It may be that your husband isn't so much "brainwashed," as much as he has become fanatical in some of his viewpoints, in his desire for adoration, in his desire to be glorified and worshipped by others, and so this has made him unbalanced when it comes to respecting you and his marriage to you. Worship belongs only to Jehovah, but you can certainly compliment him, glorify him, but is your marriage over? Is your marriage worth saving?

  Now I don't know your husband, but you do, and I believe you know enough about the man to be able to answer the question of whether or not your marriage is worth saving.

  @djeggnog
• 
  36

  Do You Consider Yourself Religious? Do You Believe In God? Are You Spiritual?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i do not consider myself religious in any way.

  i do believe in "god" and i think i am a spiritual person to some degree.. what about you?.

  1. 
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• 

  djeggnog

  @Diest:

  A two page post that ends with...in a nutshell. I like it.

  I did, too. In fact, I actually used the word "nutshell" thinking it could possibly draw the scorn that evidently had you in its grip. I trust that the experience of reading a two-page post wasn't too unpleasant for you. It is a known fact even that, for many folks, sleeping is so much more pleasant to them than reading.

  @djeggnog wrote:

  So what we mean when we use a particular word, phrase or expression must be established if what we believe is to be understood by others.

  @OnTheWayOut wrote:

  I think most people do a good job of establishing what they mean so that others can understand.

  With this statement of yours, were you making a kind of cruel joke or what, or is this what you really think my reprobative friend? I think most people on JWN express themselves using whatever words they wish sufficient to make their point without bothering to "[establish] what they mean so that others can understand" what they are saying. I dare say to you that "most people" don't typically bullet point or footnote what they say on here; they just say it, and if there should turn out to be something that they don't understand, they might post a message seeking clarification of that which was unclear to them in some way regarding a vague or ambiguous "word, phrase or expression" that was used. Or they might not, depending upon how important it is to them to gain an understanding of what was said.

  Just like the word "spiritual," the word "gospel" means one thing to some, another thing to some and something else to some, and if we don't take the time to explain or "establish" what it is we mean by the word, "gospel," then when we should use this word, aren't we really leaving it up to people that hear what we say or read what we write and don't know what we mean by "gospel" to determine for themselves that what we mean by "gospel" isn't what they mean by "gospel"? Now you were once as are so many here on JWN one of Jehovah's Witnesses, @OTWO, so I would expect you to know what I mean by "the gospel," and while I don't know you personally, I don't think you to be either stupid or clueless, but judging from your comment (quoted above), I feel I should repeat my question to you:

  If we don't take the time to explain or "establish" what it is we mean by the word, "gospel," then when we should use this word, aren't we really leaving it up to people that hear what we say or read what we write and don't know what we mean by "gospel" to determine for themselves that what we mean by "gospel" isn't what they mean by "gospel"? Let's say you were asked by someone, "What is the gospel?" what would you say? One of the ways I might explain the gospel is as follows:

  The gospel is the message from Jehovah God that began to be preached by the Lord Jesus Christ as to how the whole world of mankind that had been born into a world in which they have had to learn the dire consequences that flow from sin would eventually be brought into the way of righteousness and given the privilege of securing for themselves the opportunity afforded us by the ransom paid by Jesus Christ, which not only pardoned us, but satisfied justice as well, and now enables all mankind to enjoy eternal life.

  Now what if I were to have used the word "gospel" without "establishing" what it was I meant by the word? There's a gospel currently being preached in the world that is espoused by Baptists, Calvinists, Lutherans, Presbyterians and Seventh-Day Adventists, where the Lord God Jesus devised a diabolical plan where the billions of people today as well as those that had lived on this earth all the way back to Adam were predestined to spend eternity experiencing torture in the flames of a hellfire for their sins as "the damned," while the folks born since Jesus began to preach the gospel, not because of their works, but due to their luck in being alive to have heard the gospel, will all receive God's favor because of their faith in Jesus' work on the cross and spend their eternity in heaven as God's "elect" as they observe the fate of the "unlucky" damned, who undergo perpetual torment night and day while the "lucky" elect enjoy perpetual heavenly bliss.

  Another gospel that is currently being preached in the world is being espoused by adherents of the Roman Catholic Church, which pronounces the entire world of mankind from the billions alive today back to Adam, including all of the Protestant religions, as doomed to spend eternity being tormented in the flame of hell for not being Catholics, who will all have escaped the fate of the heretics through the redemptive work of the Lord God Jesus as supplemented by their ritual acceptance of the Mass and receiving the sacraments, and their many penances and prayers to the saints, which purged them of their sins.

  I cannot speak to what "most people do," and you could be right, @OTWO, but I make it a point to establish what I mean "so that others can understand" what it is I'm saying. Likewise, I explained what I meant by "spiritual" so that there would be no doubt as to what it was I meant.

  I don't think they are defining "spiritual" as they please. They are defining it according to some application of the accepted definitions.

  To be honest, I don't much care what you think other people mean whenever they should use the word, "spiritual." I do want to know what you mean by the things you say, I do want to know what other people mean by the things they say, but you may be someone that is only interested in positing your point of view and you may be someone that cares little or nothing about trying to understanding what it is I am saying, and that's fine. As you can see from how I define the word "gospel," whatever "accepted definitions" may exist for the word "spiritual," I make it a point to distinguish between my definition of the word and someone else's definition of the word.

  For instance, I understand that djeggnogg redefines it to only allow Christians who accept the Bible to be able to be "spiritual." He seems to feel that the Bible is the only valid "dictionary" of such words.

  I'm glad that you wrote "it seems," because it does seem to me that you mistaken about what I "feel," let alone what I believe to be the significance of the Bible. You wrote how you "understand" that I had redefined the word "spiritual," to only allow Christians who accept the Bible to be 'spiritual.'" Why? I didn't mention acceptance of the Bible as being a factor in determining whether or not someone is spiritual or spiritual-minded did I? I have the mind of Christ, so I don't believe I would have done what you suggest here, but just to check, please go back and re-read what it was I actually wrote, @OTWO.

  In my previous message, I wrote about the physical or natural man, who is motivated by his fleshly desires, who is motivated to do the things he does by his five senses. I cited 1 Corinthians 2:14, 15, where, in pertinent part, Paul explains that "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." I wasn't redefining the word "spiritual." I was merely making the point that Paul was making, to wit, that the natural man isn't a spiritual person, because the spiritual person is someone that is led by God's spirit, someone -- again according to Paul -- that doesn't reject, but readily receives or accepts "the Spirit of God." In identifying who is or isn't spiritual, Paul wasn't referring to Christians at all and neither was I. He stated that the natural man isn't a spiritual person and why he isn't a spiritual-minded individual: "He who is spiritual judgeth all things," whereas it isn't possible for the natural man, who is devoid of God's spirit, to judge the spiritual man. There are many Christians that accept the Bible who are not "spiritual" persons. Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans are all of them "Christians who accept the Bible," but they are not spiritual persons. Let me repeat that in the event you didn't "hear" me, OTWO: There are Catholics, Baptists, Methodists and Lutherans, who all profess to be "Christians [that] accept the Bible," but they are not spiritual persons.

  As to all of these Bible-believing Christians, Paul goes on to say, at 1 Corinthians 3:1, that are "carnal" Christians, that is to say, they are fleshly Christians, "babes in Christ," Paul says in this verse. They, like the natural man, are driven by their five senses to do according to what they feel. I don't at all "feel" the Bible to be "a dictionary" by any stretch of your imagination. The Bible is the product of God's holy spirit that motivates the spiritual person to share the gospel with others; it's not a dictionary.

  Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans are each one of them "Christians who accept the Bible" -- I intentionally exclude secular Christians, who are "Christians" in name only, but only refer to Bible-believing Christians -- but they are "babes in Christ," fleshly-minded Christians, carnal-minded Christians, and not spiritual-minded persons. Many Jehovah's Witnesses think themselves to be spiritual persons, but they are fleshly Christians, too. You may no longer be one of Jehovah's Witnesses yourself, @OTWO, but you have to be a Bible-believing Christian, otherwise you and I would be having a very different discussion here, but there's really no distinction to be drawn between you and these other carnal-minded Christians.

  Ask one of these Christians the question, "What is the gospel?" and you will get some rather interesting answers to the question, but they are not spiritual persons. I'm a Bible-believing Christian, but I believe in a different gospel than these other Bible-believing Christians do. I don't worship God in trinity; some of them do. I don't worship Jesus as God; some of them do. (2 Corinthians 11:4) I don't believe one's acceptance of the Bible to be something that makes one spiritual; some of them do. I don't believe it possible to have adulterous political relations and patriotically wave my nation's flag while at the same time being loyal to the Jesus as God's appointed king; some of them do. I believe the true test of patriotism is paying my taxes and obeying the law of the land just as I would as a citizen under the heavenly rule of the kingdom of God.

  I understand that even though he keeps saying that it is just an opinion.

  You understand what now?

  I love how it is just an opinion but "...in a nutshell, a spiritual person must have God's point of view."

  We are all of us on JWN contributing our own opinions to these threads. In a nutshell, a spiritual person must have God's point of view," is an opinion. It's my opinion. You don't have to agree with it. If you want, you can be of the opposite point of view and opine that a spiritual person does not need God's point of view, and that would be your opinion. I don't get the point in your saying this. If you were you attempting to be clever, you totally missed.

  The word "spiritual" can be a loaded word, so as long as each person defines it, who gives a crap what djeggnog thinks?

  Wait -- hold on there. I just quoted you writing the following:

  I don't think they are defining "spiritual" as they please. They are defining it according to some application of the accepted definitions.

  If it is true that the word "spiritual" can be described as being "a loaded word," and folks are defining this word "according to some application of the accepted definitions," then shouldn't I define my use of the word if I know that the way I define "spiritual" doesn't fit or may not fit any of the "accepted definitions" out there? Being someone that was formerly one of Jehovah's Witnesses means that JW-speak isn't foreign to you, so should I use the words "soul" and "hell," you're spiritually bilingual and understand my use of these two words perfectly. I need not explain to you what I mean by them even though my definitions do not accord with "some applicable of the accepted definitions," so how "loaded" would either of these be to you, @OTWO? Why should anyone care what you think as to how the word "spiritual" should be refined?

  For that matter, it's a label and if you think Bible-believers should have a lock on the word, then I will just take another label like "caring rational human" to apply to those that reject the Bible. But that's just an opinion.

  Well, for some, "spiritual" is an adjective that might be used as a "label" or as an attribute to describe someone, but I don't think Bible-believers have a lock on the word "spiritual" or that they should control or have the final say on how this word ought to be used. If this is what you thought I believe, then you have another "think" coming, and you should use it wisely. As to this "opinion" of yours as to the phrase, "caring rational human," were you clothing yourself with this phrase diametrically as a label so that you would assert this phrase to be the polar opposite of "spiritual" or what? Part of what you said here makes no sense to me, so maybe your rephrasing what you said here would help to get across to me the point that you intended to make(but didn't).

  @Mr. Falcon:

  some of the most "spiritual" people in history didn't even believe in Jesus. So what's that tell you?

  What this tells me is that you would use the word "spiritual" differently than I would use it, since Bible-believing Christians would be more apt to use this word in a way that accords with the way Paul's uses it at 1 Corinthians 2:15 than in the way in which non-believers would use the word. It's important to keep in mind that not all Bible-believing Christians are spiritual-minded; some are, some aren't.

  @djeggnog
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  36

  Do You Consider Yourself Religious? Do You Believe In God? Are You Spiritual?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i do not consider myself religious in any way.

  i do believe in "god" and i think i am a spiritual person to some degree.. what about you?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  djeggnog

  @minimus

  Do You Consider Yourself Religious? Do You Believe In God? Are You Spiritual?

  I do not consider myself religious in any way. I do believe in "God" and I think I am a spiritual person to some degree.

  You may, in fact, be a spiritual person, in a sense. Of course, this is just my opinion, and someone else may have a different opinion, but people can define words as they please, and I don't just mean Jehovah's Witnesses, mind you, for everyone, religious or non-religious, is free to define words as they wish.

  As an example, were you and I were discussing the pleadings that one files in a courtroom, which are called "motions," and the two of us as well as the judge understood what was meant when using this word, there wouldn't likely be anyone thinking that by "motions" that any of us would have in mind (1) "a formal proposal" (e.g., when voting) or by "motions" you could be thinking about (2) "movement" (i.e., involving a change of location), but when I say "motions," I'm not referring to either of these two things, but to the pleadings I filed to set aside and vacate a judgment entered against my client. So what we mean when we use a particular word, phrase or expression must be established if what we believe is to be understood by others.

  It is evident that some here are of the belief that an atheist can be a spiritual person, and some here might be of the belief that an agnostic can be a spiritual person, which would then lead some to conclude that anyone that is a spiritual person must also be a religious person, and that a failure to believe in God doesn't disqualify anyone from being said to be a spiritual person, which is true; it doesn't. One could describe someone that is 72" in height as "tall" if they are 62" in height wearing heels, but to someone who is also 72" in height, someone 81" in height would be considered "tall," so whether someone is or isn't spiritual can be just a matter of one's perspective.

  I could tell you that it isn't the case that just because someone that professes to be a Christian that this automatically makes that person a spiritual person. I could also say that just because someone attends church every Sunday, tithes a tenth of their income to their church and has even been baptized as a Christian doesn't necessarily make that individual a spiritual person. But this would just be my opinion, would it not?

  Regarding the natural man, the physical man -- the Bible says that he doesn't receive anything of the spirit of God because to him all of such things are foolishness, so he can't get to know those things, he doesn't understand them, he perceives spiritual things to be foolish, so, according to the Bible, such a person would not be spiritual. Such persons don't have God's favor because they don't have God's point of view. But regarding the spiritual man, the apostle Paul states at 1 Corinthians 2:14, 15, KJV, that he "judgeth all things." One way the spiritual person might be described is to say that he is a God-oriented person, but this would just be according to Paul's perspective, a perspective that would only be based on Paul's opinion, would it not?

  According to the Bible, a spiritual person would be someone that receives the spirit of God, and while many things can be said to be "spiritual," those that read and study the Bible are the ones that are receiving God's spirit. That's just one viewpoint, one perspective, one opinion: Paul's. So the spiritual man would then be someone that understands spiritual things, examines them, comprehends them, and who judges all things, because, unlike the natural man, he receives the things of the spirit of God, he examines all things, he perceives them and consequently is able to look at things from God's point of view. For this reason, his opposite -- the natural or physical man -- doesn't see things from God's point of view, he cannot see things from God's viewpoint at all, and thus, being unable to comprehend spiritual things, he is in no position to judge the spiritual man.

  However, at1 Corinthians 3:1-3, KJV, Paul wrote:

  "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, [even] as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able [to bear it], neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas [there is] among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?"

  Did you notice what Paul was calling these Christians? Three times he uses a certain word to describe them. He said that they were "carnal" or fleshly Christians. What exactly does it mean to be "carnal," or carnally minded? At Romans 8:6-8, this same apostle wrote the following:

  "For to be carnally minded [is] death; but to be spiritually minded [is] life and peace. Because the carnal mind [is] enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God."

  If you were to read Colossians 3:5, KJV, which states --

  "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry."

  -- then you would know that we should not be trying to satisfy certain fleshly cravings that we might have, that all such should be 'mortified,' treated as if they were dead since the fleshly cravings Paul mentions in this verse appeal to the sensory organs, they are appealling to our senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch, but are as useless as a corpse, and should be 'mortified.' BTW, under the Christian arrangement, we do not hear things like "Thou shalt not do this..." or "Thou shalt not do that...." but what we read in the Bible are requests like "Mortify ... your members...," that is to say, "deaden your senses with respect to this and that...," and "Don't be carnal minded Christians."

  God gave us these five senses we have, but how do these five senses control, rule and dominate the physical, the natural man? I'll mention just two of them. Take sight.

  Right away we think of the eye, for it is with the eye that one is able to see. But whatever the natural man sees, if he wants it, he's going to try to get it, if he can get it. It doesn't make any difference to him that what he sees belongs to someone else -- if he's envious of it, if he covets that, if he has to do wrong to get it -- none of that makes any difference to him. Does it appeal to him so that he asks his eye, "Do you want that"? "Yes, I do, want it" the eye answers. But does he ever ask the eye, "Does it belong to someone else?" No, he never asks that question.

  Instead, the eye says, "Go after what you see anyway; go get it," and the natural man moves in that direction to get it. It could be the craving for clothing -- a new suit or a pair of Nikes he sees in the store -- or the craving for food -- a couple of Big Macs as an in-between-meal snack represented by the Golden Arches he sees off to his right as he drives in traffic, navigating his vehicle toward it -- or his craving for extramarital pleasure -- he sees how very attractive the woman at his job is and he knows it doesn't matter to her that he is a married man, because he knows that all she wants is to spend an hour or two with him at her home in secret and the desire is mutual. He could have deadened such carnal desires, but he had no desire to do so. In fact, his wife won't be there when he pursues his carnal desires with her, and she's not going to tell anyone.

  You see, this woman has scruples, not necessarily religious ones, but she is "spiritual" in a sense and doesn't want to break up a family. Being "spiritual" in a sense, she has standards of her own, and so she has no interest in marrying a man that would cheat on his wife. No, her only interest is in knowing those things about him that only his wife knows about him, the intimate things, and in maybe doing things to him that his wife doesn't do as well as she or that she has no interest in doing to him, and he knows this about her, he knows that she's a freak, she even told him so, and she wants him as much as he wants her. He doesn't fancy leaving his wife to live in a "committed" relationship with her for a time, and doesn't fantasize about this at all. If the natural man sees something he wants, and it appeals to him, then if he can get it, he just moves in that direction to get it almost instinctively. Let's take a second one, hearing.

  We think of the ear, for it is with the ear that one is able to hear. But whatever the natural man hears, if he wants it, if it's pleasurable to him, he moves in that direction. He wants to hear whatever is pleasurable to him, and he wants to hear it all the time, not recognizing that there's a time for everything. And if what he hears should be disturbing to others, don't tell him that; he doesn't want to hear it. It appeals to him.

  Does he ever ask the ear, "Is what I hear something that is good for me, something to which I should listen?" No, he never asks that question. His ear says, "That sounds like a good beat, that sound works for me, that sounds like something by which I could benefit," and off he moves in that direction. The words in the song are profane or are in bad taste, but that doesn't matter to him; the lyrics are attached to a rhythm that pulsates through his entire body, and they appeal to his ear, and other like-minded individuals love this song as much as he does, so that when the ear asks him, "Do you like what you hear?" the natural man says, "Yes, I do."

  But what about the children in the neighborhood who are playing nearby that can hear these songs with the explicit lyrics? Should he lower the volume so they cannot hear the "nasty" song as he drives by in his car? Yes, he should, but "No," he says. "Let the children hear what I like to hear. Their parents like this song and their kids have probably heard the song it before anyway. In fact, let me turn it up a little more," he says.

  What about the neighbors? It is 1:30 am. Perhaps he should reduce the volume somewhat so as not to disturb others. Yes, he should, but no, he doesn't reason this way. "No, let them hear my favorite songs. I'll probably turn it off after this one or the next one," he says. The natural man wants to hear something, if it makes him feel good, you cannot tell him to turn it down, because he paid $350 for the stereo and the speakers, and the CD he just bought set him back $24.99. Plus, it's a free country. If the natural man likes the way it sounds, if it appeals to him, and he wants it, regardless of how others are affected by it, he moves in that direction to get it.

  The point is, Jehovah is a holy God and when we gather together for worship in God's spiritual temple, we have entered God's house and are standing is a holy place, a place where uncleanness is impermissible, where the unclean person is just not permitted to stand, let alone enter. Those who are religious in a sense, spiritual in a sense, don't worship in God's spiritual temple. They don't stand in a holy place; they don't worship in a temple at all. The spiritual person understands this and he or she walks by means of God's spirit, while the physical or natural person does not understand this at all, and because the fleshly Christian is fleshly, he or she does not have the mind of Christ, and fleshly persons are not ready for solid food, which belongs to those that are mature Christians. (Galatians 5:16; 1 Corinthians 2:14-16; 3:1-3; Hebrews 5:14)

  So in a nutshell, a spiritual person must have God's point of view, and so he cannot be an agnostic, since an agnostic doesn't know God. I'm giving here my opinion, of course, just as many here in this thread has given their opinion as to what they believe constitutes one a spiritual person, and a religious person, but the word "spiritual" is not a loaded one, for either one defines what a spiritual person is according to how the Bible defines the phrase, or one opts to reject the Bible's definition for some other definition, and how one defines this word or this phrase depends upon whose point of view one embraces, either by Paul's opinion as he was led to write by God's spirit or by someone else's opinion.

  @djeggnog