If you call the police for a fender bender car accident, it is right with God to call the police in the situation of child sexual abuse. Society has a right to protect themselves and they must be registered with the state and nationally. If I’m able to love the person dispite his dangerous imperfection, good and well, but I wouldn’t rescue him from this important proceedure.

I’ve run into no problems with my attitude. Regards, M

I have no problem with loose organization, but the history of the Watchtower organization shows that they gave up the first-century forms in favor of an totalitarian centralized corporate authority. If JWs were not discouraged from reading actual biblical scholarship, or even histories of their own religion, they would have a better sense of spirituality.

The letter of the law without the spirit is dead.

Here are a few factors to consider about religion. Every religion has some form of structure or organization. Everything in life does. However, I’m sure that you agree that everyone is imperfect. Even if you found the true religion, you have to realize that the organization is ran by imperfect people. Does that mean you give up on your spirituality because of disagreements based on the influence of imperfect man?

Regarding, Jehovah’s Witnesses, they are clean people. They uphold the bible and try to live like the first century Christians did. This is before true Christianity was conjoined with pagan teachings by the Romans during Constantine’s (sp) time of rulership, in attempt to stop conflict and civil war and have the Roman empire gain power.

~ FYI – you may check my IP – im not from here ~

Regards…

Sometimes, people hide their identities – like when they don’t use a real email address, or provide a url. There have been cases before – on this blog, and elsewhere – where one person “poses” as more than one person. This is done to pretend they are getting support from someone else, or that there is a majority opinion where such does not exist.

This kind of behavior is exhibited by people called “trolls” – who will come to a blog or site just to create a problem – say to post insulting or offensive material, or just to bait the author.

When you have the same IP and town of origin on two commenters, especially when the first commenter has been strident and then suddenly “disappears,” there is reasonable suspicion that the new person is actually the old person “in disguise.” Your words and style suggested that you might have actually been “Snowhoney” under another name, or perhaps a friend of hers, etc. Also there was a bit of “protesting too much” that you were not a JW, had no stake, etc – and it rang a bit funny.

So while I did want to signal the possibilities to other readers, I also wanted to respond genuinely in case that wasn’t what was going on, which I did.

Apologies for any misunderstandings.

What is wrong with me using life.eternal as my user Id? I gave myself that Id because of my Dad. He died and he always said when he died his life would be eternally in heaven. So I choose it in remembrance of him.

I never called God Jehevah. what I said was and I am quoting it:
“Would they do as their family members say they should do? Or should they follow who they worship as God, Jehovah?

I said “or should they follow who they worship as God” Jehovah”

Now you both are attacking me! As if I did or said something that you don’t like.

Well you don’t have to worry about me ever asking questions, making comments, or even asking for any of help.

My Goodness, I never seen anything like this.

I wanted to ask or discuss a problem, but i see that this is not where I want to be.

Have a nice day

As for Heidi’s assertions, I am tempted to agree. Your writing style is similar, you claim to be non religious and yet refer to God as “God, Jehovah”? Please. Most of us have been around the internet a very long time and can spot this sort of technique when we see one. This sort of behavior doesn’t win people to your cause; it merely demonstrates that this is a struggle not worth fighting.

On second thought, I don’t actually care if you come back to show where I attacked you. If you felt attacked by what I said, you must have looked very hard and twisted very much to get there. Go with your God; I have no use for this sort of debate. I’ve grown up.

I guess it’s a matter of perspective. We each do affirm those as important values, but I didn’t see anybody trumpeting their own kindness, humility and so on. Is it even possible to trumpet humility? What would that even look like?

Nor do I see hate. Actually, I think that all the former JW women (Heidi, Traci, Christy) who commented all recognize something of ourselves in her words. That’s one of the things that makes it so heartbreaking and difficult.

Perhaps, if you are not actually Snowhoney under another name, you might start at the other post to see how it started – with her comment that tried to tell me who I am – a person not unrelated to Satan. Sure, if I were more advanced, I would not have bothered conversing at all. But really, I’m tired of this kind of thing.

There is disagreement about a number of issues. In engaging with her, I was hoping that it might have a chance of morphing into a reasonable discussion, such as one that you might have at the door. Some of the previous comments by current JWs were so over the top that I found it difficult to believe that they were representative.

At some points, I wasn’t as nice as I wanted to be, but neither was I as forceful or nasty as I was often tempted to be.

Here is someone who believes that no-one else on the planet worships God except for Jehovah’s Witnesses, no one else acts from the spirit of love, that there is no service to others outside of witnessing, and that every other religious perspective is Satanic and without merit. She refuses spiritual responsibility for herself, despite many personal sacrifices, for the sake of an organization – an organization with a history of which she is almost completely unaware. What JWs believe about their own leadership keeps them slaves to it. From that position, she calls me haughty, presumptuous, and tries several times to tell me my own life story – including several things which are entirely untrue. She doesn’t respond to the points that she cannot address.

The truth of the matter is this: I feel sorry for her, truly sorry – like I would feel toward a child whose parents pimped her out on the street. I understand more than she thinks I do.

And, she illustrates some of the problems so beautifully that I could never have made it up if I tried. No, I’m not trying to help her – but honestly, I think it’s beyond my ability even if I were called to try – which I’m not. I’m not a deprogrammer, only a supporter, adviser, and sometimes a teacher. Decisions have to come from within.

I don’t hate her, but I despise what the Watchtower has done to create people who think like she does at this point. You can think what you like, but I see no Christian virtues there. That’s not to say I believe I’m such a paragon, but I’m criticizing practices of hatred, control, and alienation that create something so opposite to the whole christian message. She doesn’t see it, she won’t see it. That’s her choice, ultimately.

People who read these posts can judge for themselves, as you have. I’m sorry you feel the way you do. My feelings are not pure and loving, perhaps, but they are not hateful.

On dividing families, I agree with Richard Francis:

“Thus, in cases I have witnessed personally, parents have totally rejected and turned their backs on wayward children, brothers have become the fiercest of enemies, and lovers are separated with a ferocity and mutual hatred. Every form of sentimentality is despised as a weakness when it comes to the question of loyalty to Jehovah’s organization. Every human being is disposable. …This is an underlying flaw in much of fundamentalism, including JWs: ideas and concepts are more sacred even than human life. It is due to this distortion that JWs refuse blood transfusions even to save the lives of their children–a teaching for which they have become monsterously notorious.” (Jehovah Lives in Brooklyn, Richard Francis, p.73 – This is a direct link to a download of the book. Jehovah Goodbye: The New Theism of Love is pretty good as well. See other books of his here.).

Other homework:

Why Jehovah’s Witnesses Have Mental Problems, Jerry Bergman
Totalism in Today’s Cults, Jan Groenvald
Watchtower Society settles sexual abuse cases to prevent victims from speaking out, Watchtower Information Service

As a mode of perception that often becomes a style of life, paranoia weaves around the vulnerable self or group and air-tight metaphysic and world view. Paranoia is an anti-religious mysticism based on the feeling or perception that the world in general, and others in particular, are against me or us. Reality is perceived as hostile. By contrast, the religious mystic experiences the ground of being as basically friendly to the deepest needs of the self…As the religious mystic turns to and trusts in God or the ground of being, the paranoid mystic organizes life around combat against the enemy” (Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination, Sam Keen, p. 100).

We had as our goal to capture, brain wash and establish thousands of Kingdom Publishers, making them all think alike, like robots. When in 1938 the Theocracy was decreed, all these fell down in abject submission before this newly erected ‘Image of the Beast’ of the Watchtower religion of ‘buying and selling’ (Rev. 13). All the companies of Jehovah’s Witnesses at that time voted in a resolution declaring that henceforth and always that would accept all instructions and appointments handed down by the Watchtower Society. All shreds of congregational independence was thus given up, together with every semblence of a personal Christian religion. A new world organization based on the concept of robot-like obedience and performance had now been realized and would now expand to become a New World Society. It is described by Jehovah’s Witnesses as God’s Organization or Kingdom. It is in actuality nothing more than a dictatorship of the Faithful and Wise Servant Class in Brooklyn (Thirty Years A Watchtower Slave, William J. Schnell, p.130).

“The preacher who led me to Christ was not using me as a ladder for himself, trying to claw his way over heaven’s wall, but witnessed to me because he wanted me to have the gift of God. But when a Witness knocks on your door, he is trying to build up ‘points’ in heaven, hoping that if he puts in enough time, files enough reports, has enough book studies, and back calls, suffers persecution, and endures faithfully to the end, he might get to live on earth eternally. He does not have the gospel of peace, nor can he offer it” (I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness, Joe Hewitt, p. 188).

It delivers people who have no tolerance for ambiguity from having to make moral choices. It allows self-loathers to project their hatred onto the world. It translates the allure of the world into Satanic temptation, so that those who fear its enticements are armed against seduction. It provides ego balm for the lowly, an identification with the The Chosen. Because Jehovah’s Witnesses believe as little in psychology as they do in philosophy, it tames or numbs the wilderness of the heart by closing valves of inquiry (Visions of Glory, Barbara G. Harrison).