for all of you who made a conscious decision to leave the organization.. what was the price you had to pay or what was you willing to give up in order to be true to yourself.
( wife, children, extended family, friends, jobs...etc).
and how have you coped?
I lost free communication with some of my family. I lost all communication with some others. Those are the biggest losses. My parents and three sisters are all JW, and although my parents still speak with me on a limited basis, I don't speak with my sisters at all.
I also lost all of those so-called friends at the Kingdom Halls. Although they weren't the best of friends, I did value the association. However, it's much less of a loss. I am now free to make real friends.
i am making my first trip to manhattan in october.
i'll be in manhattan on my birthday.
i am so excited.
I love the city also. Last time I was in New York, I was on a tour bus and we were visiting Bethel. My wife and I will be visiting this November. I'm looking forward to this trip. It will be her first trip there and virtually my first trip there since the last time I was confined to a tour bus and we visited none of the NYC sites. The bus stopped in front of the United Nations building for a few minutes, and we took a swing up through Harlem and road past the Apollo theater. We stopped at some harbor market for a little longer and bought t-shirts from street vendors, but the trip really didn't do NYC justice. So I'm looking forward to this trip and being able to do what I wish. Visit a jazz club, go to a museum, ride the subway wherever I want, etc. I may move there one day.
i know now what was behind many of the simplification procedures that were adopted at the assemblies over the years.
the books and food were given away to avoid tax problems.
but what did you think about it when you were a jw?.
I kinda missed the stuff that went with simplification like the meals at assemblies. I wasn't too concerned about the books losing the hardcovers, but it did seem that I could keep a hardcover book in better shape. Live music was mostly before my time. I only remember that we had a piano player in our hall in the early 80's. I don't remember any other hall that had that. They moved to playing records before they released the latest songbook. I kinda wished that they still used the orchestras and live singers that I heard they used to have at assemblies. But simplification seemed to be a good thing. Save money. Less people having to be out of their seats during the program. And supposedly it went hand in hand with the message from the platform to simplify your life by having less phyiscal possessions and worldly pursuits. Supposedly that would save your money and time that could be better devoted to the "truth".
Actually, my life is much simpler now than it was as a JW. When I was a JW, I had to be at the Kingdom Hall at least three times a week plus time to go in field service. I had responsibilities at the hall and of course you had to study before the meetings. I had to keep a car in good working order so that I could get to meetings and share in the field service. That translates into a lot of time and money. Now my weeknights and weekends are free. After I left, I sold my car, so that's a big chunk of money that I don't have to spend there. I'm not putting money into the contribution box now either. More money saved there, although I do donate a small token amount to a charity every year and I sometimes think about donating more. Money had to be saved for the hotels and traveling to the District Conventions and Circuit Assemblies. Being a JW is costly. Leaving the JW simplified my life greatly.
the saying goes "once the good news of the kingdom has been preached in all the inhabited earth, then the end will come.
now, only 6,000,000 witnesses, one planet of 6,000,000,000 people, (the jw's amount to 0.1% of the earth's population, man sure annoying for only 0.1%) i don't see, how it would be possible to reach every person or land.
so many new being born in the world, new subdivisions going up in every city across the planet, conceivably the cycle will never end, therefore the "good news" will never reach everyone.. and, a few threads of late regading going out in service, most people hate it, do as little as possible, count excess hours (donuts, driving time, etc.).
I concur.
While the worldwide ratio may be 1:1000 right now, as has been demonstrated by other posters in some countries the ratio is much more skewed. There's people in the US and I'm sure in the UK who have never heard of JW. If I'm not mistaken, world population is rising exponentially. JW are not growing at an exponential rate, so I think pretty much impossible that they will ever complete the preaching work. If by some supernatural circumstance, we froze world population and eliminated all the cultural and governmental obstacles, and gave them unlimited time, then maybe it could be done.
mine
imagine by john lennon he went to paris by jimmy buffett raindrops keep falling on my head by b j thomas the voice by the moody blues express yourself by madonna
My favorite song is
Children's World by Maceo Parker
It would be kind of hard to pick 4 favorite after that one. I like a lot of other stuff, but that one really moved me. It's also kind of ironic for me, because I sometimes make fun of pop music because the harmonic progression will only have 3, 4 or 5 different chords. Children's World has 2 chords and they play the same two chords for over 10 minutes, but the intensity and improvisation is... well something I can't put into words.
i've always wondered why it was ok for jesus to wait until he was 29 to get baptized in symbol of his dedication while jw's are pressured at such an early age.
do you suppose joseph was always on his case...jesus get up its time to go to the temple.....why didn't you comment today?.......when are you going stop hanging out in gallilee with all your friends and get baptized?.
is this just another control aspect of the wtbts, handcuff you to the org while your young and make it almost impossible to leave later when you mature?
I'd say the person would have to be at least 18. But there are some adults who aren't capable of critical thinking. I think the person should be exposed to several different conflicting arguments and allowed to analyze all of them before making a decision about baptism. Of course, that all goes against the JW indoctrination (This is the truth, Don't look at anything else).
was there anything in particular that made your stomach turn upside down in knots while you were a jw ?????.
armageddon ???.
giving talks ???.
I tried to be calm mostly but I have to admit at times things did make me anxious.
Sometimes it was being different at school, but I would have been a nerd anyway.
Then later when I first started my job. I used to be worried that my loyalty to the country would be called into question at some point since I work for the government.
Then sometimes in field service I would be anxious, especially when with other people who were much more pushy than I. If a person said "I'm not interested", I generally did NOT try to overcome the objection with those little lines in the Reasoning, but some people would and they would force a person to say no 5 or 6 times. And the 1 or 2 times that I tried telephone witnessing really made me anxious because I knew that I always hung up on telemarketers within the first 5 seconds.
I remember being anxious at a WNBA game I went to. They played the national anthem, and we were there sitting down while everyone around us was standing. Some people will get to a game late or make sure that they are out of their seats at concessions, in the hallway, or anything so that they won't be at their seats looking weird while everyone else is standing for the National Anthem. I guess we forgot to plan for it that time.
blondies post on an earlier thread re the gate crashers at the assemblies running to "save" the best seats got me to thinking..
just what constitutes a "good seat" at an assembly?
i've never quite understood that.
I suppose the "good seats" varies for different people. I personally preferred to sit up as high as possible. But there were certain seats that always filled up first. The coliseums where DC I went to were held usually had the floor seats, bleachers and lower level risers, and then the upper level. Sone coliseums had one other higher level. Usually when I went in at 7 or 8 AM when the doors opened the lowest row of the upper level seats would always fill immediately. Some of these rows would be immediately above entrances from the concourse, and they always had a little more leg room. Then any seats on the lower level that were not reserved for elderly or handicapped would fill up. The aisle seats tended to fill up more quickly than seats in the middle of the row.
as my name suggests, i'm from nyc.
i've lived in every borough of new york and spent time at most of the local congregations until i finally decided that it was all for nothing (my recent posts on this forum explain why).
during this time, i noticed an interesting pattern - the jws only preach in poor to middle class neighborhoods.
In the area where I grew up, a rural county with mostly driving territory, we had a range from poor to upper middle class. But not very many in the upper middle class and very little or none who were super rich. I have to say that I did notice a tendency to work poorer neighborhoods more. However, we actually had two or three talks directed against this. People could request a specific territory if they wanted. Our service overseer had no particular instructions about rotations. Also a person could keep a territory for about as long as they wanted. Some people kep them for over a year. The stated reason for this was so people could have territories close to where they lived, since we lived in a spread out rural territory that would take an hour's drive to cross. So if a publisher lived on one end they could always have a territory close by. The stated goal was to work every territory every 6 months. This did not happen. Some of the territory that didn't get worked was territory on the fringes of our congregation territory and was not a particularly affluent area. There were a few areas that were more than 30 minutes drive from the hall and no one lived close to those areas. In fact, I think the closest families were probably 20 minutes from some of that territory. But then there were other territories that were not worked because of lack of interest in working the affluent areas. But as I mentioned we did have a few talks about this. They kind of suggested that people should try picking different territories some times. Also, I remember one talk about not prejudging people. For example, don't go up to a big house with the preconception that they will have no interest in the message just because of their affluence. Something along those lines. I don't think it worked very well. People continued to prefer their favorite territories which tended to be in less affluent areas.
In the area I live in now, there are quite a few mid/high rise apartments with controlled access. Very few are truly luxury apartments and I haven't seen any with doormen like those in NYC, although I suppose there may be a few somewhere in DC. They and are supposed to be worked by telephone. I don't think those get worked very regularly either. While in theory everyone is supposed to get the message, I think in practice, yes, the less affluent get to hear it more at least in the area where I grew up. The reason as someone else suggested is that the poor are more likely to listen. One thing I noticed is that it seemed that renters rarely told us to leave, although a renter can use the trespassing laws just like a homeowner. Sure a few would call management but that was rare also. This was in the garden style apartments that we could still go to. Homeowners are much more likely to tell you to step. The sense of ownership and control is keen and they are likely to be more affluent and have access to more information.
for some time now, my profile shows that my average posts per day are 6.66. now to some people this could be a bad omen.
do you find that you try to avoid certain things because of "superstition"?.
well, are you superstitious?.
No I'm not superstitious. I didn't believe I was superstitious when I was a JW. But, in my opinion, the belief that praying to god for something causes it to happen is similar to the belief that performing some ritual such as carrying a rabbit's foot will bring one good luck. Even when I was a Witness, I used to get a sort of strange feeling when people said that Jehovah provided me with this or that. For example, a person is in need of food. They way some experiences would go, a person would only have to pray for it and it fell into their lap. No mention of the practical work and money someone expended to get food.
Now that I am no longer a Witness, I have no objection to participating in other people's harmless good luck rituals if they feel strongly about them. For example, before, I would never have thrown salt, or said good luck, or participated in the prayers of other religions. Now, although I don't believe in any of those things myself, I have no objection to throwing the salt, or holding hands in the prayer circle if it will make my associates feel better. And I have no reservations about saying good luck.
