Jehovah Witness

BBbevan

I have just watched the film 'Apostasy' about the JW. Learnt things I didn't know. A very unforgiving religion. Just politely say No to your friend. If she persists you will have to consider your friendship again

It certainly is!?
To the OP I would say you need to be firm with your friend and tell her outright that you won’t be discussing religion and will never join the JW’s ....and if she doesn’t keep to it then you can’t continue a friendship.The ball is in her court then.

When my friend was trying to convert me, I found that she sneakily tried to find ways to put down the (Anglican Church) and also tried to twist what the bible says.

. I did some reading about the JW beliefs and was even less impressed. Said friend also was attending a Mormon Church so I realised she was quite muddled about the whole thing.

Socialising IS out, but not "evangelising"- they ALL have to do two hours of that a week. It used to be knocking on doors, but these days it can be standing on the street corner or having coffee with a non JW who they have set as their target convert.

I used to live close to a JW Kingdom Hall, so had fairly frequent visitors. I used to welcome them in, and offered them refreshments. When they invited me to discuss the Bible, I always agreed enthusiastically and asked if I could use my own version. I then pulled a Hebrew Old Testament and a Greek New Testament off the shelf, and corrected them on obscure points of translation and meaning when they discussed individual verses in the JW translation of the Bible. There are advantages to having studied Theology! If I wanted them to leave, I invited them to pray with me - JWs are not allowed to pray with non-believers, so they would make their excuses and leave.

They enjoyed the discussion, they were nice people, and I never felt any need to be unpleasant. One woman became a friend, and we just agreed not to discuss religion when we met.

We have a JW Kingdom Hall in the village. I understand that planning permission included a clause that they would not proslatyse inthe village more than once a year.

Whatever that day is, I am clearly not around. I have only seen them about twice in 24 years.

MOnica, exactly so. The aim is to isolate, marginalise, ostracise just as other fundamentalist, evangelical, orthodox religious groups do.

One of my relatives greets JW who knock the door with, no thanks, we’re satanists

What is it with rules?

144,000 believers to get into Heaven after Armageddon...

And Muslim freedom fighters getting 300 virgins (or however many) if they blow themselves up fighting the infidel.

Man-made rules (? figures plucked out of the air) to recruit and control. Bizarre.

If heaven is full of JWs, do I really want to go there?

One of my SILs was brought up a JW. He tells stories of not even being allowed to eat birthday cake that other children brought into school. They didn't celebrate Christmas or birthdays and he didn't understand why DD was so into both. 13 years and 3 children later he's a convert. In fact he's even more into Christmas and birthdays than DD. Not the religious aspect but the giving and receiving of gifts....especially to the children. He isn't against organised religion but refuses to have his children indoctrinated so there were no baptisms and they don't go to religious schools. He wants them to learn about all faiths and no faith then they can make up their own minds when they're older.

springychicken

I met a young JW who had gone blind in her middle childhood years - she said her happiest memory was of a Christmas tree that had been in their home before her parents converted.

I also taught a very musically talented child from a JW family and she was not allowed to join in the singing just in case the word god appeared in any of the songs, as it would not have been on a JW context. She missed so much, as did we all, as she was very talented - she would have had much to share with her peers.

Maked my blood boil to be honest.

makes

I remember at junior school there was a boy called Jason who had to sit in the classroom alone while the rest of the school attended assembly. Back in those days we had prayers and hymns, so its understandable but he used to look so sad and forlorn.
One of the saddest things to see is a kid who cant accept a party invite or make Christmas crafts. These kids must be so sad!

They managed to diddle DH out of a possibleinheritance and also refused to let us have even a keepsake of the deceased. They are crafty.
I have no time for them.

There was a large family of JW children at the primary school ours went to. They were once given permission to come and play as we had children in the same classes. The children arrived, much excitement all round. The usual garden games, picnic lunch went well but the attempts of these 5 - 9 year olds to convert my children, by talking and showing them the JW literature they'd brought along, not so exciting. Needless to say when we weren't interested in converting, the children weren't allowed to come again

Years ago I was a volunteer mum at an infant school. There was a little girl in the class from a JW family.
The teacher was very careful to follow the family's wishes and excluded her from anything to do with religion but we were in big trouble at Halloween when we forgot to exclude her from making a cardboard cutout witch.

She is no longer your friend sadly.

I would have loved to be excluded from assemblies etc, they were awful and I didnt believe any of it, schools nowadays are much more sensitive around children from different religions.

I had not given this a thought until reading this post. Our DD is married to a JW and in turn a very strong JW family. Her MIL is very manipulative and after my DD and I having a small falling out things ended. We have not seen or heard from her for almost 18 months and now I am wondering if this has been helped along by SIL's family. We have obviously been pushed to one side and there is no going back.

A JW knocked on my door a couple of weeks after my son had passed away. I was still in shock and incredibly angry with God. The JW told me that because I called God a b*stard I was condemned to Hell and no matter what I did in the future I couldn't be saved. I've been a committed JW baiter ever since. If they knock on my door I'm polite and warn them that I'm happy for them to try to convert me as long as they're happy for me to undermine and sow the seeds of doubt in their faith. What I don't tell them is that I'm pretty knowledgeable about the more obscure OT stuff they tend to quote from. They never take the hint so they're fair game. My claim to fame is when a man turned to his young daughter as they left and told her that they had just met the Devil

I was once accosted by one in town and he told me that whatever troubles I had god would solve - I speculated aloud as to whether he might care to pop round to our place and scrape up my OH's excrement and insert his suppositories. He had no answer to that. I was feeling particularly sad that day and he really caught me on the raw. I am usually more polite.

Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons are obliged to convert others.

Do not enter into a religious discussion with a Jehovah's Witness - you will never get rid of them if you do.

Tell your friend that you respect her right to believe as she wants, and will she please show you the same right?

You are happy in your faith, so if you are to continue as friends you need to be able to agree to differ.

Telling Jehovah's witnesses who ring the doorbell that you are Catholic or Orthodox Jews works too.

They obviously deem try to convert either a waste of time.

TBH Mrsmopp I don’t think your friend will be able to stay friends with you unless you convert too.
My cousin married a lapsed JW and after having 3 of their many children they both became regular members, Sadly their children no longer keep in touch with them, (mainly because they refuse to speak or write back unless it’s an emergency ) and my cousin no longer keeps in touch with the rest of her and my family.
Many years ago I thought I spotted my cousin in a neighbours house, which was odd as she lives in Yorkshire and I was in Hampshire at the time, some months later her sister told me that it was her, she was staying with another member of her JW church and wasn’t ‘allowed’ to pop next door to see me!
Bizarre .....

I had a similar problem mrsmopp with a long term friend. Her church got a new vicar who wanted everyone to bring in new church members. C of E mind. I am with a different church but she started every cuppa or lunch with giving me service times and went on and on. I spoke to my priest about it, it was worrying me because I didn’t want to be rude to my friend. I was firm with her. Their vicar lasted 10 months having reduced their congregation with his antics.
The close friendship I had with her has cooled off for now.

I had to cease contact with an interesting friend (who I met at college) due to her constantly going on about her 'religion' (I view it more as a cult).

I did feel so sorry for her. Due to her JW beliefs, she had:

left work (to spend nearly every day 'spreading the word and saving people'.)

divorced (her husband couldn't cope)

lost her two sons (who left to live with their dad)

distanced herself from other family (who criticised, didn't understand)

In fact, her previous life was destroyed and her only 'friends' were JW. It's easy to brainwash a person if they're isolated. I think a little bit of her recognised that - very sad.