| Friday, 03 February 2012 16:44 |  That is how I feel a lot of the time. It is hard not to feel that way. Like all those people who have lost their parents in death, I feel alone. The terrible thing about that is that my mother isn’t dead. She’s a Jehovah’s Witness who shuns me. If she wanted to, she could pick up the phone and call me. Mind you I could call her too and be told to get back to the meetings.The really peculiar thing about her telling me to get back to the meetings is so that she can stop shunning me. She has never once said I need to make it right with God. I know people in other religions place the emphasis on a person having a good relationship with God but it seems the Witnesses have a slightly different perspective. Shunning is supposed to be a punishment to those of us who have been disfellowshipped or disassociated. But it almost seems like Witnesses feel punished, too. They are being deprived of a relationship with us. And of course it is our fault. All we have to do is demonstrate we are repentant and things can go back they way they were. |
| Written by Barbara Anderson | | Friday, 25 September 2009 09:59 |  Joe and I just returned from Chicago where I was a guest speaker at the BRCI conference on September 19, 2009. The attached material, "Opening Pandora's Box" is the talk I gave. It is about our European month-long tour from last June-July. “Pandora’s Box” is a simple Greek myth which explained how bad things came to be. In one version, when Pandora opened what appeared to her to be a valuable box, she let out all the evils including hope. Is hope evil? Well, the Greeks considered hope evil, even dangerous, and its bedfellow was thought to be delusion.In our jargon today, opening Pandora’s Box means to unwittingly unleash chaos on yourself and those around you. It was with these thoughts that I commenced one of the lectures that I gave three times in Europe this past summer. |
| Written by Adam Timberley | | Thursday, 16 July 2009 15:23 | | Adam T. has created a "reverse disfellowshipping certificate" for those who would like to express their feelings on shunning when the meet regular Jehovah's Witnesses. If full image does not display, just right-click on the image, copy it into your favorite software application, and print! 
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| Written by Lee Marsh | | Tuesday, 31 January 2012 19:32 | | Jehovah’s Witnesses' rationale for disfellowshipping wrong-doers is based on scriptural texts such as I Corinthians 5:6-8 which states: "do you not know that a little leaven ferments the whole lump? Clear away the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, according as you are free from ferment... Consequently let us keep the festival, not with the old leaven, neither with leaven of badness and wickedness, but with unfermented cakes of sincerity and truth." Witnesses believe that the only way to keep the congregation clean is to remove sinners from among them. (Watchtower, 1988a; 1988b; 1991a; 1992). The Apr. 15, 1991a Watchtower states, "Expelling him would prevent his wickedness from dishonoring both God and His people. The severe discipline of being disfellowshipped might also shock him to his senses and instill in him and the congregation due fear of God". By removing him from the congregation there would be little possibility for others to follow his lead. |
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After 30 years of printing The Free Minds Journal, Zen thought it might be good to add a little color to celebrate. For those who prefer to read something printed... articles often appear in the Journal before they hit the Net! (except in this particular issue, due to TWO proofreaders working at once, I messed up and left out one whole page by Zen.) So for a special treat, you can read it HERE. It will be included in the next issue. The new 2012 issue Includes:
The Heart of a Free Mind Will a JW get disassociated for taking Blood? Does the Society disassociate over Blood? Dad Died Today — Bill Bowen Dad’s Funeral Responding to People in Pain -- R. Watters Will You Drink the Hateraid? — Terry Walstrom
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| Written by Robert F. Smith aka Seeker4 | | Saturday, 14 February 2009 06:02 | | One of my favorite websites is Edge where some of the most brilliant minds of our time write and debate on science, politics culture, whatever. For an intellectual junky, it’s a heady mix of mind candy. It’s an overt attempt to create what is termed the Third Culture. As defined on the site, "The third culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are." Over the last century, two separate intellectual cultures have developed, one made up of the scientists and the other of the literary intellectuals. But it was the literary culture that pre-empted the idea that they were the intellectuals, and to a great extent, they were often ignorant of what was happening in the scientific community. |
| Written by AlltimeJeff | | Thursday, 06 August 2009 09:25 |  This quote, taken from the drama of the 2009 District Convention, is startling to me in what it reveals about Jehovah's Witnesses. In reality this quote isn't some kind of unearthed spiritual revelation, it is a demand. It is a standard, and it reveals all anyone wants to know about how judgmental the Governing Body indoctrinates its members to be.
First off, lets get a couple of misconceptions out of the way.... Jehovah's Witnesses are small time. Having been deep into this religion myself, I realized it then, and I especially realize it now. Few people care about them. They are only known worldwide because they are one of the loudest, most visible fringe groups out there. They insist that all of their members preach to people, whether they want to hear it or not. Tell them they can't preach in a town, they will take you to the Supreme Court. (which is fine, if JW's didn't challenge free speech laws, another group would have.) |
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