Posts by Tameria2001

34

If Angels in the Bible are of neuter gender ? Then why are they always depicted as males by description and name ? And never a female ?

by smiddy3 in

in all of the art i`ve seen in christendom, angels always have the form of a male, and in the bible those that are named always have a male name such as michael ,gabriel , etc, .

nowhere in the art world that i have seen do angels have the female form, and in the bible they don`t have female names.. so if the angels are neither male or female why then are they depicted as males with male names ?and not female also ?.

the watchtower illustrators also follow this line .when they illustrate an angel it is always in the form of a male and never a female form.. the anointed who make up the 144000 comprise of male and females right ?

Tameria2001

I asked this question a few years back, and the answer given to me was because all the stuff in the bible were done by men, written and complied.

28

Do Jehovah’s Witnesses Bother You At All?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i faded from the religion and simply didn’t go back.

once people understood that my family and i left, people in the congregation didn’t know what to do.

should they call me, visit me, leave me alone?

Tameria2001

Nah, they avoid me as if I have the plague. I've learned that my mother tells people that I am dead. I'm so looking forward to the day she has to eat her words.

20

How did the bible fables get started?

by Tameria2001 in

today while out running errands, i was flipping through the radio trying to find something to listen to.

i ended up on some christian type of station, and the guy was talking about the ark, and the flood during noah's time.

personally i no longer believe this fable, because the facts just don't line up.

Tameria2001

Today while out running errands, I was flipping through the radio trying to find something to listen to. I ended up on some Christian type of station, and the guy was talking about the ark, and the flood during Noah's time. Personally I no longer believe this fable, because the facts just don't line up. Back when I did believe this story, when I was a kid, my thoughts were what kind of animals were on the ark, you know things like lions, tigers, cows, and other animals we see to this day. But this guy popped up and was saying that even the dinosaurs like the T-Rex, Brachiosaurus and other such creatures were there as well. After he was saying that nonsense, I turned it off but I got to thinking. Let's say that guy was correct, just how huge would the ark have to be to hold that many creatures, plus enough food and water to feed all of them, not to count all the solid and liquid waste that those animals would produce. Not to even mention only 8 people took care of the feeding, watering, waste removal, and who knows what else is involved in animal care. How in the world did those bible fables even get started?

36

Do you celebrate Christmas?

by LovingLifeNow in

jw
friends

do you celebrate and how long have you been out?

.

3 years for me and yes i do..

Tameria2001

Yes and no. I go with my husband to his relatives for Christmas, usually on Christmas Eve. I never give gifts to my children in December, it seems like it is either late January or early February before I do this. I'm always running late.

20

Disassociation experiences please

by UnshackleTheChains in

hi everyone.. i would love to collate the experiences of those who decided to disassociate.

the reason i am asking this question is that i have been in turmoil for a very long time as to whether i remain a fader or whether to bring closure on my membership with the watchtower organisation.. it is for this reason i would like to read about some of the experiences of those on this forum who went down the route of disassociation.

if could answer the following.

Tameria2001

How long did it take you to decide to disassociate?

From the time I started my research and fully understood that the Watchtower was nothing but a lier, it took me two and a half months before I sent in my letter of dissociation, but it was not by my choice. It was my brother-in-law, who wanted to be an elder pushed the issue.

How has this impacted on you?

There has been pros and cons to this. First major con was I have family who is JWs that are second and third generation that I am not able to see. My mother was brought in by her cousin, who lied and told my mom that we would get to see my older sister again that died at a very young age. This was the 1975 lie.

The pro is that it got my toxic JW relatives out of my life, yes I know it sounds weird, but it's true. What I mean is that by being shunned it gave me time to take a step back and reflect on these people, and how manipulative some of them are, and my mother is a huge manipulator. She was the reason my husband nearly left me because she refused to back off in her control over me, regardless of how far I lived away from her. The control she had on me, she attempted many times on my husband.

Has your mental health in any way been affected since you disassociated? Eg if being shunned by family.

Staying in that religion, no I call it for what it is, staying in that publishing company, was actually harder on both mine and my husband's mental health. They nearly drove my husband to suicide. The only reason he is still alive is that of my own personal experience with this, and I knew exactly what to look for. When I was 16, I nearly took my own life, and it was not for lack of trying. I'm only survived that for one reason, and that is because my younger sister had found me before my heart and breath stopped, and they were able to get me the needed medical treatment to save me. The ironic part was when the doctors were doing test on my blood work, they discovered if I had not attempted this, and was not brought in, I would have died in a matter of hours, it was not related to what I had done to myself.

As a JW, it was a whole lot harder on my mental health, because there was always something in the back of my mind that was not right, but I couldn't figure out what it was, until much later.

As far as being shunned now, I've been out since 2001, at first it was hard, and there are days it is still hard. Days, when you find out a loved one, has passed away, and four years have gone by before you find out, and you only find out because you stumble across an article on the internet.

I don't know what my JW side of the family told my non-JW relatives, but I don't have contact with them either. I know they had something to do with it because it nearly happened on my husband's side. They were saying awful lies about me and my husband, but my husband's relatives knew better of him.

Do any of your current JW relatives associate with you? And if so to what degree?

From 2001 to 2008, yes there was some contact with my mom, and it was only through letters and phone calls. But it was only her way of trying to get me to come back. In December 2008, I finally had enough of her and cut her off. That was the only way I knew how to get her to stop her mind games on me. Those phone calls and letters were really messing with my heart and mind. There were times I thought I was going to have her back in my life, and then she would rip my heart out again and again.

Do you feel your life is better now that you are completely free of the watchtower?

Yes, very much so. Right after leaving the Watchtower, I was able to talk to a couple of different pastors, one of them being a former JW elder. They were able to prove to me things that I had been regretting my whole life as a JW was an unnecessary weight on my shoulders. It was the first time I was able to really forgive myself of past transgressions. What were those past transgressions you might ask, well they weren't anything serious. It was things like the tiny minor mistakes that we all make over the course of our lives. As a JW I could never let go of the past, I was my own worst judge, and jury towards myself.

Do you ever get panic attacks about Armageddon or that you left "the truth"?

This was something I wanted to make sure of first in those two and a half months while sorting through if that was even the "truth" or not. And to be honest with you, it did take me a very long time to finally shake free of the Watchtower's control over me. I can't even tell you the number of times I was going back and forth on what was right or not. There for a long time, I felt like the end of the system of things was still going to happen. Do I still believe that now? My answer to that is no. I don't get panic attacks about Armageddon. Even when I was a JW, I never thought I was good enough to survive that back then. The "truth", I refuse to call those liars that. Look at how many times they have flipped flopped back and forth on the same topics. How many of those times resulted in people dying, getting disfellowshipped, or getting their family totally in shambles because of those flip-flops.

This was the scripture that woke me up. According to Deuteronomy 18, using their own bible.

20. “‘If any prophet presumptuously speaks a word in my name that I did not command him to speak or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. 21. However, you may say in your heart: “How will we know that Jehovah has not spoken the word?” 22. When the prophet speaks in the name of Jehovah and the word is not fulfilled or does not come true, then Jehovah did not speak that word. The prophet spoke it presumptuously. You should not fear him.’

1975 was not the only time they lied and told their people the end was coming, but 1975 was the lie that turned my own world upside down.

13

“Do You Know the Time?” From WT Sept 2018

by skin in

there is a one page article in the current wt study mag, sept 2018 pg 22 with the title “do you know the time?”.

in that article it describes a number of different ways you can say the time is 1:30. it goes on to say “there are even places where that same time could be expressed as “half two,” meaning 30 minutes before two”.

what i would like to know is this, where in the world does “half 2” mean 1:30?

Tameria2001

It is 2:36 am....no it's 2:37 am... no it 2:38 ah forget about it.

9

Thanksgiving Dream List

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

thanksgiving dream list______.

1. i give thanks to mom, for the blond wig and dress when i was a child (pinch-hitting for the daughter i was meant to be).

it was a voyage of self-discovery for me to play cowboy, tarzan, and superman in drag in my neighborhood--completely unwitting to my astonishing spectacle presented to the neighbors!

Tameria2001

I like this, and here is mine.

I give thanks to my husband for several reasons. Being patient with me, until I figured out the Watchtower was full of bunk. For being a wonderful provider, and putting up with the abuse heaped on him by the JWs and his JW father, who all made him feel like crap because he was at work and not at their "precious" meetings. For putting up with me and all the crap that I had put him through. I was a victim of child abuse (sexual, physical, and mental), and it took me several years in learning how to deal with my past and to finally mellow out. I did warn him before we got very far into our relationship that I was a basket case. We just celebrated our 25 wedding anniversary.

I give thanks for my two wonderful sons, who both have totally opposite personalities. My eldest is married, and the younger one is in his third year of college. I also give thanks for having a lovely daughter in law, who's strangly simular to me in our attude about everything. And for giving me the cutest little grandson, who looks like a little clone of his daddy. One side is my son at one month, and the other is his son at the same age.

His mother wrote the comment just above the pictures.

I'm thankful that I get an opportunity to now enjoy the holdiays with the little guy. My boys were 4 and 6 when we left the Watchtower, and all it's teaching. I'm really looking forward to next year.

As much as I don't want to admit to it, I also give thanks to a certain elder who made it possible for me to work on the Kingdom Hall projects. That was where I met my hubby at. While there I learn quite a bit of things that has saved me a lot of money over the years in minor electrical repairs and up keep.

I'm thankful for my non-JW in-laws for stepping in and filling in the gap that my JW relatives left wide open to my children.

I'm thankful for getting to know many of the wonderful people here, and knowing I'm not the only one dealing with what we all deal with after leaving the organization.

58

Explain Your Avatar

by new boy in

jw
friends

i know this thread has been done before.

however maybe some of the new comers might like to know.. my avatar is the cover of my first novel "your crazy life.

".

Tameria2001

This was my avatar before I changed it to the one I have now. The one I have now was taken Dec 2017 at my son's Christmas wedding. Both my husband and I walked away from the Watchtower at the same time in 2001, thus the number after my username. We left before the Watchtower was able to damage my own children. Now to the rose, back when I first became a member on this forum, I went by the name Irish Rose. I picked that name because of part of my stubborn Irish heritage, and I mean that in a good way. Stubborn to my personal values. I only changed my account information because when I moved to a different location, I lost all my old login information.

7

Absolute Love For All The Courageous Souls That Are Here

by new boy in

jw
friends

there are amazing people that are here and this site.

people with their incredible stories of religious abuse.

these people like the courageous people who were on the a&e show this last week have showed me and thousands of others the power of how just one person or even a small group of people can effect many.. the power of just one person standing up and saying "this is not right" has changed history.

Tameria2001

I've been away doing other stuff today, just now getting on. I so totally agree with the OP. I haven't watched the A&E program because I don't get A&E on tv. As soon as Hulu gets it, I'm really hoping to at that time. After hearing all the conversations about this. I know it took them a lot of bravery to just get in front of the camera for all to see and to tell their stories. I've decided to not hide behind an avatar, and proudly show who I am. In the picture is me and my husband at our son's Christmas wedding. We both left the Watchtower together almost 18 years ago.

43

Animals

by unsure in

if humans have to suffer to have free will and to disprove satan's challenge to god as mentioned in the bible...then why the f*ck do animals have to suffer as well?

.

satan's challenge involved humans and not poor animals.. i'm looking for an honest explanation from believers.. at this point, the older i get, the less i believe in a god who is "love"..

Tameria2001

I could never understand all the things I was taught about an animal's place. Not to get into any philosophical discussion, but I always thought that if we humans have souls, why not the animals. Oh, I know what the JWs think about it because I would always get an ear full from my mom about this.

I have had a lot of pets over the years, and some were more special to me than other. They all had their own personalities, some were very nice and loving, while others were total butts, just like people. lol

I just lost my snuggle bunny this past summer. I called him that because he loved to snuggle up when we went to sleep. He was so full of personality, and yes if he didn't like someone, they better have watch out. Fortunately, there were not too many people on his crap list.

Even the wild creatures are full of emotion, this little guy was absolutely petrified.

I had rescued him from my other cat who's one serious hunter. My snuggle bunny

wouldn't even know what to do with this little guy.

My dog (who has since passed away) knew when he did something wrong. He would

always give us this expression, we never had the heart to get onto him after this.