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@exposejw
ExposeJW is dedicated to sharing news articles and posts that reveal the truth about Jehovah’s Witnesses. If you would like to share your own story, feel free to submit a post or send a message. You can also tag #exposejw
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Was listening to this podcast and one of the hosts mentioned this quote that's popular w exmo : "everything that's unique about the religion isn't good and everything thats good about the religion isn't unique"
I don't really have anything to say about it but it a v nice summarization of a feeling I've been having for a long time
Not much has changed since the cruel treatment of abuse victims in the Jehovah's Witnesses was exposed. Now, former members are fighting bac
JW Archives: 1979 Awake Encouraging Spanking
This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Wit
Spanking is a common form of child abuse, often mislabeled as discipline, that has been linked to the development of anxiety, depression, behavior problems, and other mental health issues. In this 1979 Awake, parents are told to "spank wisely" and that spanking can be done in "expression of and in a manner consistent with love." A false line is drawn between spanking and child abuse. What is especially concerning, is the emphasis on spanking small children instead of talking to them.
Hitting children is not loving. Spanking is abuse. The children whose parents were fed these teachings suffered unnecessary harm. Parents must learn to control their anger and discipline children without physically abusing them.
Book recommendation: The Spanking Room: A Child's Eye View of the Jehovah Witnesses by William Coburn
Screenshots of passages from the Awake below the cut.
how to leave a cult & stay out (long post)
i know this isn't my usual brand, but i felt the need to make this post given the fact that my poetry journey started as an exploration of emotions after i left the cult i was in. i know a lot of my followers initially followed me for that content, and i wanted to write this in case anyone needs it.
some background: the cult i left was a small evangelical patriarchal cult with a commune-type living situation. i am afab, with little to no family support and no college experience. i live in the US. i have no experience with anything outside this situation, and thus, my advice will not be universal. however, i've left and stayed out of my cult for nearly a year, and i wanted to share what i learned. i remember wishing i'd had a post or a book or anything to help me know what to expect, so here's what i've gathered so far!
tws: religious abuse discussion and addiction/nicotine mentions
Oppressive religious dogma is like the instinct of some animals to eat their young in an attempt to protect them. You will destroy the parts of your children that you fear they would be divinely punished for. But in the end they are still destroyed.
Uh oh! A Jehovah’s Witness is at my door!
A guide on what the fuck is happening and what to do about it as a never JW, from an exJW.
JW congregations have just been told to start doing door-to-door preaching (aka ‘service’/‘service work’/‘witnessing’) again this September. They stopped for the past few years due to…well. The whole state of things. But it’s starting again! Fuck!
So, to get you folks in on the Secret Inner-workings of a Cult:
JWs do service work mostly on Saturdays and Sundays, but any day of the week is fair game, just less of them will be out on other days. Generally it’ll be in the mornings (anywhere between 9AM to 1PM being common, my family did 10AM to noon Saturdays), but any time of day is also fair game. Evening witnessing is encouraged, to catch parts of the service area who didn’t answer during morning service, like people who were at work or asleep.
JWs are given ‘territories’: entire neighborhoods if they’re a majority language and can generally bet on most of the people in a given area speaking that language; SPECIFIC ADDRESSES if they belong to a smaller language demographic. These are on ‘territory cards’, which include areas to fill out once they’ve called on houses. They often pull addresses from the phone book or other such directory, pulling based on name, or get referred new addresses from neighborhood sweeps in other congregations and were told x language was being spoken, so if you get called on by someone speaking your language and wonder how they got your address, it’s because they’ve collected data already! On You!
On that note: JWs collect data on you! A lot of it!! Those territory cards they fill out? They can include any information they gleaned from conversation (age? gender? personal details like if you’re married, if you live with your parents, etc? what religion do you belong to? any problems in your life they can ‘help’ with? any ‘problematic’ details, like if you’re queer? all of it.); if someone was home or not (yes we can see you peeking out from behind your curtains! we looked in windows!); if the person answering the door was uninterested; if they were aggressive; if they have dogs; if we were able to leave any publications with them; the details of any conversations we had, like which topics we discussed and which seemed to interest you the most; when to call on you again. The areas to fill this in on these cards are rather small so they usually only write down the most important information, but it is the most important information for trying to indoctrinate you into a cult. DO NOT give them any personal information. It will be used against you.
So that’s the gist of it. Now, you don’t want them at your door, probably.
Please do not harass them.
I know they’re annoying. We always knew we were being annoying. They do it anyways because they think they’re helping you. They often have children with them - not only because it’s often families going preaching together, but also because it’s a well known tactic to get a softer response from people they call on, to have a child with you. Even if there are no children, please do not harass JWs - they are cult victims, and doing so will only enforce their ‘us vs them’ mentality, and discourages members from leaving. The outside world hates you so much, so how can you leave?
“But what if—“ Nope! Beyond the whole ‘don’t be fucking cruel to abuse victims’ thing, it doesn’t even work! I’ve been threatened with dogs; my mother has been threatened with machetes; others have been flashed, or physically assaulted - we still went back eventually. Usually someone else would get the assignment, and usually we’d wait a bit, but we still went back.
“Okay, but what the fuck do I do, then?”
You open the door (yes, open the door; if you ignore them they’ll return again, assuming they just missed you or you were busy), let them tell you what they’re there for, and before the conversation goes further, you simply say:
“I’m not interested. Please put me on your do not call list.”
And then you tell them goodbye. Nothing more. Don’t say you have your own religion. Don’t say you’re queer. Don’t try to use the ‘magic word’ apostate - actual former members can get harassed.
Unfortunately, despite this being the most successful and least harmful strategy, it isn’t 100% foolproof. They’re supposed to write ‘do not call’ on the territory card next to your address, but they’re human and forget sometimes (or might not mark it intentionally, though I haven’t seen that personally); the next person who gets that card might not see the mark, as well. On top of everything else, even if not forgotten, they will eventually come back. It’s policy to come by after some time to check on you, ‘just in case’: just in case you changed your mind, just in case you moved and there’s someone else there now, just in case, oh, you recently had a loved one pass away and suddenly find yourself in an emotionally vulnerable position in need of support and sympathy.
If you have the knowledge and mental/emotional energy and stability to, you can go about trying to debate them, maybe help some of them doubt, but it is no easy task and there is no guarantee of any success. It takes a lot of patience. They are undergoing some extreme brainwashing and ‘waking up’ is incredibly traumatizing, and you will face a lot of resistance in trying to deconvert any of them. Again, only attempt this if you have the energy, stability, and knowledge required - the delicacy required, too. Otherwise, remember, it’s
“I’m not interested. Please put me on your do not call list.”
Nothing more.
Still thinking about how fucking lucky I was to have not been baptised, even when I was so deep into being a JW I was begging my parents to let me get baptised when I was 10. I would be seeing ppl getting it years younger than me & be upset, but now I’m totally free & I don’t need to ever worry about being called back into the cult from JWs having my records.
Dr.K responding to an ex-JW trying to leave. Lot of parallels to the story with leaving islam.
Here's a reminder to remember how far you've come ✨️
✨️ Being mentally out is a huge fucking accomplishment, you had a fight with your own brain and won! Look at you!
✨️ Doing mundane shit you enjoy that's "against the rules" incredible 👏 you're enjoying your life!!!
✨️ Being physically out?!?! You're a rock star, that's a fucking leap and you did it!
✨️ Working towards your aspirations that you never thought you'd be able to due to pressure not to go to school, or be a part of this or that, holy shit that's amazing!!!
i think it’d be very cool of people on tumblr to make this my first viral post. and also manage to bring it to the attention of the norwegian government, as this could legit get the jw org shut down everywhere. which they’ve 100% put on themselves., and they have no one to blame but themselves at this point.
tbh one of the biggest things that lead to me becoming an ex jw was me seeing how unapologetic and rampant the antisemitism in the jw org was. so much of their proselytizing was based on demonizing judaism. and spreading general disinfo about how judaism customs work. don’t believe people who say there’s no antisemitism in the jw org’s rhetoric. they’re likely extremely ignorant about what counts as antisemitism and are just saying it cuz the governing body refuse to accept that saying judaism comes from satan is peak antisemitism.
I remember attending a convention when I was younger and this was probably just before I started questioning things more. A couple that my family knew came up to us. The man was in his 40s and the woman was 20. She was closer in age to me, a child, then her husband. I was, naturally, shocked about this and I remember asking about it, but no one else thought it was a problem.
OSAKA -- A former Jehovah's Witness, who spoke about her regrets over abusing her son in the name of religion, is among many people coming o
Key paragraphs from the article:
The meeting venue had a dark kitchenette the size of one tatami mat. There was a rubber whip in the sink drawer. Parents would use that room to whip their child when they would not sit still during Bible studies.
Back then, it was a common saying among followers that "there's not enough whips." Followers even got involved in other family's whippings, as if they were keeping an eye on each other.
At first, Ryoko was very hesitant about the practice, and questioned why she had to hit her child. When she asked, "Is this really for the children's sake?" the elder leading all the followers admonished her, saying, "Not whipping them would mean that you hate your child."
Ryoko still has dreams of her stopping herself from hitting her young child, and thinking, "I'm so glad I didn't hit him," before waking up with a sense of relief. She then looks at her palm and comes back to reality. She told the Mainichi Shimbun, "My son forgave me, but the fact that I abused him can't be erased. I will carry this guilt with me for the rest of my life."
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A religion that condones and encourages child abuse is not one that anyone should follow.
Let’s create a schedule for the perfect full time employee and full time pioneer.
720 hours a month 30 days. Deduct 210 for 8 hours of sleep a night. That leaves you with 510 hours left. Now give or take an hour to get ready every morning, 480 hours In a perfect 30 day month, we have 5 Sunday meetings and 4 weekday. Bare minimum would be 2 hours per meeting, but let’s say 3 for socialization purposes. Let’s not forsake our gathering together right? 17 hours of meetings a month (18 with the hall cleaning) leaves us with 462. And then family study 4 times a week, 2 hours per study leaves us with 454. The mandatory meal per day with family to do the text plus cleanup is give or take an hour. So minus 30 we have 424. The best job is part time in this society so 20 hours a week, 4 weeks is 80 hours so we have 344. Most of us tough have full time jobs, 40 hours a week, so an extra 80 hours, we have 264 left. Now we need an hour a day for personal study, so 30 hours leaves us at 234. Let’s take 2 hours a day in transit, 60 driving to meeting, the store, work etc. 174. And lets auxiliary pioneer! 50 hours a month, 120 hours left. But auxiliary isn’t good enough. Let’s shoot for full time pioneering so that’s 80 hours a month. So an extra 30 hours taken away leaves 90 hours left for us. But let’s take out 2 hours to study per week for meeting. 82 hours. Let’s say we use the bathroom for half an hour a day, 15 hours total using the loo. That leaves 67 hours left in our month. Let’s spend an hour a week at the store getting what we need, 63. And we must remain clean so let’s take 3 hours a week to wash our clothes and vacuum, dust, clean in general. 51 hours left. Now we watch tv right? What we were just told at the assembly “Don’t Give Up in Doing What Is Fine!” Since there is so little wholesome entertainment we should listen to the society’s music and rewatch their videos instead of watching TV for an hour a day so, let’s label it entertainment - 30 hours leaves us with 21 hours in our month. That’s less than an hour a day to do anything you want. Let’s say toy get a doctors appointment, haircut, dentist, an hour a month whatever, we have 20 hours left. Let’s give you 30 mins a day to scroll tumblr like you are now, 5 hours to spare. And god forbid you needs 2 hours a week of therapy.
Maybe this is why people can’t see they are in a cult, they aren’t given any time to think about anything else.
(These amounts of time may not be accurate for everyone, this was based on my schedule last year which led to my breakdown)
jennette mccurdy telling us her therapist said that “forgiveness shouldn’t be her ultimate goal when healing from trauma” is an absolutely breathtaking statement
we should really all be paying her therapist for that wonderful advice honestly
I love this. For those of us who were raised Christian with such a heavy emphasis on forgiveness as a Christ-like quality to be admired and emulated, there is often a pressure to forgive the people who have wronged us. Hell, it's in the Our Father - "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us".
There is real power in finally being able to say "what they did was not ok and I can work through it for myself without forgiving them", especially when we were often robbed of feeling, expressing, and working through our real emotions in order to placate our parents, family members, pastors, partners, communities, etc. with "forgiveness".
We do not have to have forgiveness as a goal anymore - sometimes we get there anyway, but it's on our own terms rather than theirs.
I think more people need to listen to apostates when they say, hey I was horribly mistreated by the church and here is why. Especially since if you read our stories, most of us have the same experience.
Not all of us were assaulted physically, but most apostates talk about emotional manipulation, scare tactics, guilt tripping, being bombarded with horrific stories to teach lessons, shamed into hating our bodies, etc.
Especially non religious people who blindly support religions because everyone should be allowed to believe what they want!!! are doing so much harm when they try to shut down those who talk about the religious abuse theyve experienced.
I’ve seen abuse survivors called racists, nazis, anti-semite, and more just because they talk about their experiences which dont portray the church in a positive light.
You claim you care about rape victims or you support bodily autonomy but when we call out religions suddenly we are the hateful ones for demanding basic human decency.
