Jehovah’s Witnesses

[Mixington]

Just found out that the tenants in one of our properties are JWs. They are super nice, lovely family and have always been a pleasure to deal with. We have met some two sets of friends of theirs too, in passing, who also seemed really lovely too. All JW too it turns out, active members going to meetings serveral times a week etc. All run cleaning or window cleaning businesses which I was intrigued to find out is very common for JW.

A girl at school was also JW, she was really funny, cool, nice, bright, but somewhat removed from everyone else - ie didn’t socialize with us outside of school, was a bit of a floater with friend groups, didn’t join in with the usual Christmas and birthday stuff. I recall various brief teenage style basic conversations about it and we all just kind of shrugged and accepted it... Then I had read up on JW as an adult ago so looking back it all made sense.

This new info of our tenants being JW has made me curious again about it.

Now, overall I take the approach of live and let live. I have zero religion in my life but have often thought the community side of it must be great and that in times of need I can see any religion could offer comfort.

That being said, from what I’ve read about JW, it feels to be more of a sect or cult, with pretty strong rules and beliefs, with the potential for significant emotional and psychological repercussions. It just seems so severe and I’m struggling with reconciling these lovely people with such an extreme organization.

Clearly it’s not mutually exclusive to be a nice person and a JW. That is not my point. But I can’t get my head around these people believing in Armageddon and The Truth and “shunning bad associations” etc etc. They seem so normal yet I can only assume they are totally indoctrinated given they are still clearly active JWs.

I know that in most day to day interactions people don’t preach their beliefs, it just doesn’t come up in conversation.. but with something like JW that is seemingly quite strict, I am fascinated to think that these people who are really cool/normal/nice have this massive thing going on in their life and probably hold quite strong views which Judy colour the way they look at the world.

I found the past AMA in here and other articles on JW so interesting, and distressing in places (lack of blood transfusions, child abuse, domestic violence) though obviously horrid stuff can take place anywhere religion or not.

So I don’t know why I’m posting really. I guess I’m totally intrigued by this way of life and trying to understand how it fits in with or views the rest of society? Do they think I’m awful because I don’t live in The Truth? Are there different shades of joe much you can join in or follow as a JW? Or is it all or nothing? Do these people I know want to convert me? Do they talk about Armageddon with their kids like it’s a normal piece of life? So fascinating......

My parents are jw and I was raised in the religion but not baptised.
Of course it's a cult, all religions are and I completely agree with the poster that said some congregations are stricter than others. I've never been shunned despite leaving at around 18 as I decided it wasn't for me and I was off to university- I've never heard before that higher education isn't encouraged as that wasn't my experience at all. If I bump into people at the shops for example they will say hello or stop and chat. This is the same experience for a friend who was baptised but then dis fellowshiped.
The community aspect is great for my parents, they are very supported and help others wherever they can.
It's definitely not a religion I'm interested in being a part of but like all aspects of life some people are more zealous in their actions than others.

If I bump into people at the shops for example they will say hello or stop and chat. This is the same experience for a friend who was baptised but then disfellowshiped.

My mum was disfellowshipped, not for divorcing another JW, but for marrying a non believer, an atheist. She continued to attend meetings for 5 years. In that time no one would speak to her until after she was reinstated.

@anothernamereally - it is one of those things that the Watchtower have flipflopped about. See more information here: www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/higher-education-university.php

another name, in the current shepherd book for elders, one of the reasons for an elder's appointment to be reviewed with a view to possibly deleting his eldership is if he or any of his family decide to pursue higher education.

Higher education shows a lack of faith and takes time away from the education that is really important. Obviously, it has nothing to do with the fact that education would broaden minds and horizons or expose students to views other than the Governing Body's.

Do many people have had their lives and their futures stolen by the Governing body. All the folk from the "Stay alive till 75" generation, for instance, will be retiring or retired now. They were even discouraged from having children because the "end of this system of things" was so close and there was no point to bringing children Into this evil system when you could wait for the new system.
So people were denied education, denied families, denied home ownership (many sold their houses to plough money into the society.) Now, they are old, poor and have little pension security.

Cult. A guy I worked with was JW. He tortured his four children 'in the name of Jehovah' and went to prison.

@Purpledaisychain the hospital has to apply for an order at court. We had a horrific case, a truly lovely boy who needed blood transfusions to survive due to a hereditary conditions. Regularly, about 4x a year. His parents wanted to let him die, the hospital went to court and won and the child got blood transfusions. The parents left the child, the child ended up in foster care, but they kept writing to him - I'm talking 10+ letters a week about the transfusions. On his 16th birthday he was legally able to decline any further transfusions so he did. He went back to his parents, and died that year. It was horrible to see how much he hated himself for receiving the transfusions but still having to give them.

@Purpledaisychain

"Actually, the bible doesn't advocate slavery, child sacrifice and genocide"

Well according to the bible it is the inerrant word of god, and Jesus agreed with it all: "The Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). Scripture is ‘the commandment of God’ (Matthew 15:3) and the ‘Word of God’ (Mark 7:13). As for accepting all of it, ‘Until Heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the law, until all is accomplished’ (Matthew 5:18). I think that is pretty clear. Why would you accept the 10 commandments and not the rest? The fall of man and the garden of Eden etc are fundamental to Christianity.

On slavery the new testament is clear

Ephesians 6:5: “Bondservants, obey your earthly masters.”

Colossians 3:22: “Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters.”

1 Peter 2:18: “Servants, be subject to your masters.”

In the old testament Exodus 21: 1 to 7 tells you who how to treat your Hebrew slaves including your right to beat them to death, and long as they do not die within 3 days of the beating and how to trick them into being permanent slaves and not eligible for release after 7 years. None Hebrew slaves had no rights and were permanent property to be passed on. Leviticus 25: 44 to 46.

Seeing god is so good at making pronouncements, don't you think he could have said that owning people as slaves is wrong?

The bible most certainly advocates child sacrifice, genocide and rape. Have you actually read the bible?

Child sacrifice? Jephthah's daughter?

Judges 11:35. God, who is omnipotent, new that Jephthah would see his daughter and yet permitted her sacrifice. Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. If some psychopath told me to sacrifice my child they would be told what to do in no uncertain terms.

As for genocide:

The LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain.Deuteronomy 2:33-34
So the LORD our God delivered into our hands Og ... and we smote him until none was left to him remaining ... from threescore cities ... And we utterly destroyed them, ... utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city.Deuteronomy 3:3-6
And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.Joshua 6:21

Or what about

Thus saith the LORD of hosts ... go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.1 Samuel 15:2-3

As for biblical rape, let's try:

Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. --Numbers 31:15-18

So, murder everyone but keep the young virgins for yourself.

They were sent to concentration camps during the 3rd Reich.

They were @Prokupatuscrakedatus and they were I think the only group sent for their belief rather than who they were. What happened was horrendous and should not have.

In Britain their brothers and sisters refused to act against the fascist threat and went to jail for that.

Because god would sort it. Meanwhile millions died.

As an aside, the bible also says spare the rod and spoil the child and that was certainly advocated in the 80s. They’ll be cleverer now about how that’s represented in their literature but the idea is definitely control over children, control over women.

[quote YouDidWHATNow]@Purpledaisychain the hospital has to apply for an order at court. We had a horrific case, a truly lovely boy who needed blood transfusions to survive due to a hereditary conditions. Regularly, about 4x a year. His parents wanted to let him die, the hospital went to court and won and the child got blood transfusions. The parents left the child, the child ended up in foster care, but they kept writing to him - I'm talking 10+ letters a week about the transfusions. On his 16th birthday he was legally able to decline any further transfusions so he did. He went back to his parents, and died that year. It was horrible to see how much he hated himself for receiving the transfusions but still having to give them.[/quote]
@JW101 How can you defend this?

Seeing god is so good at making pronouncements, don't you think he could have said that owning people as slaves is wrong?

Yep, he missed rape as well. 2 commandments to worship him so I suppose no room for 'don't rape'

They were sent to concentration camps during the 3rd Reich. True but only after supporting the Nazis for a number of years.

www.watchtowerlies.com/jehovah_s_witnesses_leaders_supported_hitler_and_the_nazi_regime.html

My parents neighbour is JW. They are Catholic. He always pushes them a Watchtower through the door. If he sends them a note he puts a Bible quote on the bottom. He has been poorly. The JW community have been wonderful to him. They do his shopping and gardening and anything else he needs doing.

They are very good at supporting each other but not anyone else. If there was some kind of disaster that affected your parent's town, their disaster relief team would only help the witnesses no one else. They have a "charity begins at home" mentality. That's actually one of the myriad reasons that I left. I don't believe that God would want us to be selective in who we help like that.

I've always wondered how bible believing Christians can wrangle moral ethics to make abhorrent biblical teaching ok in modern society, purple daisy has answered with this fantasy quote - actually made me lol !

Saying that 'they didn't spare anyone who breathed' or 'until there was none of them left' could have been the biblical equivalent of a 21st century football team saying that 'they slaughtered the other team'

They literally killed entire other tribes and used 'god' to justify it. But you continue on in your lovely little la la world

Middle paragraph was supposed to be in italics!

I am 100% atheist and have absolutely no problem with people that have faith, whatever it is, as long as it does not affect others negatively. Unfortunately from what I can see it does affect other people negatively in a lot of cases.

You only have to look at what is going on in the USA, supposedly a secular society to see that religion is massively oppressive for people trying to live their lives especially when it comes to reproductive rights for women.

www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/gallery/woman-born-jehovahs-witnesses-says-4632869?cmpredirect=

It is completely a cult.

There was a JW guy where my dad and I worked. He was always going on about the end of the world and would give a date, which kept changing. The others were a bit funny when he didn't join in with our Christmas celebrations (basically bringing food and non alchy drinks into the office). Well at least he wasn't being a hypocrite!! He stayed in his office. I just simply gave him some food and a juice drink. No fuss no bother.

I wouldn't want to work with someone who bangs on about the apocalypse.

friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/11/30/the-jehovahs-witnesses-are-about-to-lose-their-tax-exempt-status-in-australia/

THose poor people might have to start paying taxes in Australia now, and all they did was cover up child abuse.

Vile organisation.