Religious and cult ideologies often use the practice of shunning to silence their critics and to control their members through fear. This podcast sheds light on this practice through real life stories as told by the people that have lived through it. Learn what their lives were like and where they h...
The Jehovah’s Witnesses are an end of days Christian organisation who are known for knocking on doors and rejecting blood transfusions. However, they have al...
![The Dark Secret at the Heart of the Jehovah’s Witnesses | Informer](https://lemdro.id/pictrs/image/b4fe82c6-53ab-4584-9768-f1667d8f7cf4.jpeg?format=webp&thumbnail=256)
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(RNS) — ‘It’s certainly the most important trial about a religious freedom issue in Norway in decades,’ said Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers.
![Jehovah's Witnesses go to trial against Norway after state registration is revoked](https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/ce6a3b02-ee31-451a-a293-9b56b14eb05d.jpeg?format=webp&thumbnail=256)
Report sheds lights on abuses such as forcing the children to refuse blood transfusions regardless of their situation, and corporal punishment.
![Many children of Jehovah’s Witnesses experience abuse, Japan report says](https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/58c9762b-e268-41c2-b12a-a84e4a68dc66.webp?format=webp&thumbnail=256)
Democracy is too far left for your average Republican
Going back to 1960 would help us prevent Republicans from adopting the southern strategy and basically creating all modern problems
There's an amazing book. Combatting Cult Mind Control, but even intelligent people fall for this bullshit because it's all emotional manipulation.
As a homeschool survivor I wholeheartedly agree. I'm middle aged now and I still struggle with basic social skills.
The goal of a metalens would be to, eventually, wholly eliminate the smartphone camera bump.
They'll do anything to avoid giving us a slightly thicker battery...
Thank fuck for PBS or I wouldn't have learned anything
Can confirm. Was Christian homeschooled. Learned nothing useful outside of the Bible and a weirdly curated list of other topics. Physics, but not biology. And exclusively America/Christian centric history.
As I see it, there are effectively three major parts to what went on over the weekend, and they all play off of one another. First, the "new light" that peop...
![Take It Easy - The 2023 Annual Meeting Of Jehovah's Witnesses](https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/3d58f0d9-46a7-463c-bfe2-7a62e2b82afc.webp?format=webp&thumbnail=256)
Mother-of-four Dr Heather Ransom, 57, lived for 48 years within the community before she 'woke up', taking three of her four children with her.
![My family and friends rejected me when I fled the Jehovah's Witnesses](https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/510e3a5b-52a6-4ecc-8ec6-faf23c405041.webp?format=webp&thumbnail=256)
I am seeking the assistance of our community in locating anyone who was from the **Shawano Wisconsin** area, or in any nearby areas or...
![Help Needed: Shawano Wisconsin and Nearby Congregations, and information concerning Bruce Mapley](https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/23214a8a-6e73-4389-b1d2-b45b2c8deef1.webp?format=webp&thumbnail=256)
What was the first lie in the Bible?
Genesis 2:17 - But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will certainly die.
Well they ate it, what happened?
Genesis 3:23 - With that Jehovah God expelled him from the garden of Eʹden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken.
Jehovah lied. They did not die in that very day. Jehovah knew they would live so he kicked them out of the garden where they lived for centuries.
Now look at what Satan said to Eve:
Genesis 3:5 - For God knows that in the very day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and bad.
Satan told the truth. Once you learn to ignore arbitrary authority you can learn what's good and bad for yourself.
A Pennsylvania grand jury investigating child sexual abuse in the Jehovah’s Witnesses community has charged another five people with raping or m […]
![Authorities charge 5 more in probe of child sexual abuse among Jehovah’s Witnesses in Pennsylvania | WITF](https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/791a2803-8ef6-4a4f-9823-f5a54ffb35aa.webp?format=webp&thumbnail=256)
I have ADHD, Adderall has changed my life. Treating your mental health with medication and therapy is critical.
Absolutely. I've been working really hard to improve my health both mentally and physically. I'm down 75 lbs. I'm trying to be the best version of myself.
I was just trying to make a joke. I promise I'm not actually an incel.
Someone please start a community for instance drama
You underestimate Conservative's level of hypocrisy
I hate cooking. And what is more, I hate cleaning up after cooking. Pizza was my go to. I would buy pre made dough and whatever toppings suited my fancy, it was cheap and delicious and only needed one pan. But it made me gain weight.
So I'm looking for a healthier alternative. Something I can cheaply and easily make, that tastes good, and only uses one dish.
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Not enough content yet but I'm contributing what I can and if everyone keeps getting their friends on Lemmy it will be amazing.
Religious and cult ideologies often use the practice of shunning to silence their critics and to control their members through fear. This podcast sheds light on this practice through real life stories as told by the people that have lived through it. Learn what their lives were like and where they h...
Figured I would kick this community off by sharing my story.
I was "raised in the truth", both my parents having converted before I was born. My parents also homeschooled me, meaning I watched TV all day every day and was socially isolated. This was in the 90s before homeschooling was as common as it is now.
I remember constantly going in service as a child. My parents would often hand me off to pioneers with a packed lunch and I would spend all day in service without them. Knowing how many JWs are pedophiles I'm thankful nobody took advantage of my parent's trust.
We would go to other congregations for my dad to give public talks almost every Sunday. My dad was an MS and spent a ton of time working for the congregation for free.
Everything changed when I became a teenager. An Elder physically assaulted my dad, then bad mouthed him to everyone so my dad lost all his privileges. What happened was we moved to another congregation, and this Elder didn't send the letter recommending my dad that the Elder body agreed on and sent his own letter instead. Because of this I also wasn't allowed to get baptized.
My dad always took out his anger on me and my mom but now it became much worse. I was subjected to constant screaming until the day I finally moved out of my parent's house. His favorite topic was the house being "messy". He would fixate on one thing until I finally cleaned it, then he would just move on to something else to scream at me about. Eventually I gave up trying to do anything.
We moved again to a congregation where I had no friends, and we lived in the middle of nowhere. My mom didn't drive and I didn't go to school so I spent all day every day doing nothing during my teenage years.
My mom forced me to get baptized at 15. By this point I didn't believe in it but I wasn't given a choice. After getting baptized the love bombing kicked in. Going to the meetings and in service was better than being at home so I went all the time once I got my driver's license. I also brought my sisters and they eventually got baptized too because of me.
JWs made me feel special so I gave them my all. Pioneering, working at hall projects, and at 20 I was appointed an MS. I also moved into my own apartment when I was 18. I was constantly doing stuff and I got totally burned out. My typical day would be going in service or a hall project, then going to work, then writing any talks I had to do, going to bed around 2am and waking up at 7am to do it all again. It got to the point where I couldn't handle it and had to stop Pioneering and eventually couldn't be an MS either.
At 23 I married a woman who ended up being quite toxic, but so was I back then. She developed health problems. But instead of getting empathy and support we were always judged.We worked hard to do more within JWs. Eventually my wife started Auxiliary Pioneering and was approved for regular pioneering. Then something pretty strange happened.
The Service Overseer (I'll call him Dick) lived with his wife and mother. His mother hit my wife with her car in service. It really hurt my wife and she had to go to the doctor. I suggested to Dick that she shouldn't be driving since she was very old and he didn't care at all. She also went around telling everyone that my wife was a liar. I asked her to apologize to my wife and she refused.
Then we had a miscarriage, and had to put our cat to sleep. It was a rough time so we asked for a shepherding visit. Instead of helping us the Elders sat us down and told us that my wife wasn't allowed to pioneer any more and wouldn't give us a reason for the sudden change. I can only assume that Dick was offended by my wife's pain. All of this lead to my wife attempting suicide.
In spite of all of that, we moved to a different congregation and tried to keep being good JWs for years. I tried again to talk to the Elders about what Dick did and nobody cared.
What finally broke my faith was a fucking podcast about history. They were listing off various dates and one was Jerusalem getting sacked by Babylon in 587 BCE. I laughed because I knew they got it wrong, one of the absolute core doctrines of JWs is that it happened in 607 BCE. So I looked on Wikipedia and that was wrong too. I checked history books and they were all wrong. That's when it hit me, JWs were wrong about this. What else were they wrong about?
My curiosity led me to a copy of Crisis of Conscience, after reading it I realized I couldn't be a JW any more. Eventually I realized the Bible also had a lot of problems in it and the entire concept of a god is flawed and became an atheist. Then the pandemic hit. 2020 was not a good year for me.
I tried to fade out of JWs for a year but I'm not good at not speaking my mind and regularly shared what I was learning with my family. I knew I was going to get shunned so I wrote a letter to all of them and hand delivered it. If you want to know what I wrote I read it in this video: https://youtu.be/LryZo16TYio
I also disassociated from JWs but they rejected my letter. Technically I'm still listed as an inactive JW, which is hilarious to me. They're that desperate to keep membership numbers up.
Life after JWs has been hard work. I've been trying to learn the social norms that regular people learn in their teenage years. But I wouldn't trade my freedom for anything. I have a good career now and I'm getting divorced. Leaving JWs is by far the most difficult thing I have ever done but it has been very worth it.
I could probably do a screen share at some point if that would help.
I log in, go to "Create Community"
Name and display name are both "exJW"
No icon or banner
Description is a one sentence thing that I change every time I try to create it
Moderator checkbox is unchecked
Languages are English and Undetermined
I'm using FireFox for Android
It was weird using Reddit Is Fun like I always do then it just suddenly stopped.
I can't create a community. I click the button and nothing happens. Any idea why? I'm trying to recreate a community from Reddit that really helped me when I was in a dark place.