My short bio: I come from Poland. I was basically raised as a Jehovah's Witness. My wife and her whole family was one as well. I was a congregation elder, which means I held a position of authority in the congregation. I delivered public talks, conducted public Bible studies, spent some time as a secretary (JWs produce a TON of paperwork!), basically ran the whole circus locally. We had aspiration for me to become a circuit overseer, which is the guy who goes from city to city and makes sure all wishes of the Governing Body are implemented in the congregations. On top of that, both me and my wife served as "regular pioneers" for few years, which meant we had to spend ~70 hours preaching every month. This is voluntary, normally JWs don't have any required quota for how many hours they have to report. But they have to do it every month to keep being "active".
Two years ago together with my wife we began to wake up from the indoctrination, and then proceeded to help friends and family as well. Unfortunately our families didn't respond well to that. Jehovah's Witnesses call people who leave their faith and put it in negative light "apostates". They are prohibited from talking, and even from saying "hello" to them, or from reading their blogs, etc. So... our family now refuses to acknowledge us. We have lost them, possibly forever...
We've decided to use our knowledge to help others - to try making people who are still in to see that they are being lied to. I've set up a website where I publish confidential files that normally are available only to certain people - letters from the HQ to elders, convention videos, old books that are out of print because the doctrine has changed and more. I'm also an admin of polish Ex-JW forums with 500+ members registered (and growing quickly, 48 registered in this month alone). Most recently I've shot a video for the general public which aims to show their practices in a easy to swallow manner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Hlb1b9SBA
And that's just about it. If that seems interesting to you, feel free to ask ANYTHING. I may only refuse to answer some personal details that could identify me, because I don't want to formally leave them just yet, as being inside helps me to help others. I will answer questions today for the next 5-6 hours, and if they are any left, then even tomorrow.
Short summary about JWs: Jehovah's Witnesses are an apocalyptic cult started 140 years ago by a guy named Charles Taze Russell. For all this time they have proclaimed that the end is coming soon™. They even set some exact years for this to happen: 1914, 1925, 1975 among others. Currently there are 8 million of them world-wide, over 1.2 million in the USA. While they may seem innocent, their practices hurt people in many different ways. They are hiding child abuse on a grand scale (in Australia alone a Royal Commission unearthed over 1800 cases of child abuse among JWs, none of which was reported to the authorities by them). They destroy families due to their shunning policy - when a member of your family is being disfellowshipped (for example because they slept with someone before getting married, were smoking, took blood in hospital or spoke against the organization). They prohibit blood transfusions which literally takes people's lives. Finally they mess up with your head, telling you that everyone in the outside world is wicked and deserves to die, while you can live forever given that you do exactly as they tell you to.
My Proof: Here's a picture of me holding a book that only elders are allowed to have - "Pay Attention to Yourselves and to All the Flock", and also an outline of a talk that was delivered on this year's conventions. If that's not enough, I can take photos of newest elders handbook, convention lapel badges or many other publications.
UPDATE: Wow, this just exploded. Please bear with me as I try to keep up with all the questions!
submitted by /u/ohmyjw to /r/IAmA
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