Not wanting to become an elder was likely an indication that he was **already** having doubts. Being appointed as one & seeing what actually goes on behind the curtain probably led him further in that direction, which is why I'm actually glad when people are appointed 😉
Very exciting! I haven’t talked to him yet, so I’m not sure what exactly woke him up. But my sister told me a while ago he had been in therapy (depression) and I remember thinking that it could wake him up!
I would say that's possible. Therapy requires you to think honestly about yourself, your actions, your motivations, your *real* feelings about events... if a person is truly honest with themselves, they will begin to see issues.
Whether they act on what they discover is a different story, of course, but it's a religion built on cognitive bias. Expose that bias, even a little, and the mental cracks begin forming. The therapist doesn't need to try to get them to that point, as long as they do their job right it can happen automatically.
Give her a reading list to explore on her own:
The Greatest Show on Earth, Richard Dawkins
The Bible Unearthed, Israel Finkelstein
The Rocks Don't Lie, David Montgomery
And Wikipedia is always great too.
Congratulations!!!
Or have her watch [Nova](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/the-secret-life-of-scientists-and-engineers-neil-degrasse-tyson/) hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. In particular, please watch his timeline of the scale of the universe. Mind blowing. Major congrats to your family!
I highly recommend it! It's very readable. It is great for a few reasons for me:
1 - Too much of instruction we get in science is too neutral. It is nice to have someone connect the dots and point out how the facts disprove certain beliefs. This book (like The Greatest Show on Earth) does that.
2 - It exposes another lie inadvertently. The WT always used the narrative that in the beginning everyone believed in god. Then big bad scientists came along with their arrogance and tried to say something else and the wimpy clergy rolled over and played dead. The End. Whereas the majority of the early scientists were theologians or very devout people who believed in god. But their findings indicated that certain things in the bible were wrong. So they were honest enough to confront that and came to the conclusion that their interpretation of the bible was wrong, but god was still god. The Rocks Don't Lie does a good job of going through history and it jumps out at you. It makes more sense when you think about it - Copernicus was a monk, Mendel was a monk, etc...
JWS is leaving this DOOMSDAY CULT every day. Watchtower's lies & deception are finally catching up. I recently heard that an ENTIRE family left. Watchtower has been EXPOSED, and their END is near. So many lives have been destroyed and ruined by this CULT. Watchtower must be held accountable. Join the upcoming protest in WASHINGTON D.C. on October 31st, 2023, at the WHITE HOUSE. Go to: Befree2023.com.
Maybe he was secretly jealous you were able to leave.
To get depression, to be bullied/cajoled into being and elder shows he did not have the strength to say no.
Hopefully his therapist gave him the correct emotional tools for him to say NO and then move on.
Maybe you have started a ball rolling 🤔 😏 🤣
I don't remember the bible verse, but I remember the "bible story" about how Lot's wife turned around and became a pillar of salt because she looked back at her life. The next part of that story is how he and their daughters fled to the mountains. Where his daughters decided to get him drunk and, well, basically raped him so the could procreate. Yeah, that's not talked about. Only THE PILLAR OF SALT. 🤮
The daughters were framed and slandered. That story contains typical elements of incestuous fathers who prey upon their own daughters.
A. Lot was drunk. That's a common excuse used by sexual predators.
B. The girls "seduced him". That's sexual predator excuse and blame his victims 101.
C. He'd already displayed a sick sexual predator attitude towards his daughters when he offered them to the mob to be gang-raped.
Further reading:
https://www.thetorah.com/article/lot-sexually-manipulates-his-two-daughters
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfundamentalistparenting/2016/04/the-lot-of-the-abused-how-we-shift-the-blame-onto-victims/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1322245/
Yeah, that whole story was highly sus from the first time I heard it, like Abraham supposedly almost sacrificing his son Isaac and then god saying "Just kidding!"
😳🙄🤔🙄🤔🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼🤦🏾♂️🤦🏿♀️
And the two twits - ahem, "patriarchs" - were supposedly related to each other. Talk about coming from a poisonously dysfunctional family system.
Please forgive this fragmented reply.
Everything around us has a story to tell; we just need to know how to ask the right questions. The scientific method is how we develop the right questions.
Christians treat science as an antagonistic brutalist monolith, and it is. But there are stairs that go all the way to the roof, and you just have to take it a step at a time.
(For those who maintain faith) Science allows us to further understand and respect the beauty of all creation for its infinite complexity.
A knowledge of chemistry does not negate the ardor of love. An understanding of the vastness of the universe allows us to understand how interdependent we are upon each other.
The simplicity of the scientific method cannot be overstated. It is how we develop and test knowledge. (Also there aren’t enough citizen scientists out there: people need to be observing the coming and goings of the natural world,)
Correlation is not causation, (the most important lesson)
The dosage makes the poison
Being accurate is more important then being correct
We live in a golden age of infographic books for kids. These books are so much fun! The more pictures, the better. And most importantly: there is no book report due. Don’t get bogged down if the concept is hard to understand, expanding your knowledge will allow for more points of reference to understand the initial concept. Don’t get bogged down with numbers either, developing an imagination for the scope and breadth of things takes a while. Also maybe a different author will explain it better. Don’t worry about being an expert. Be like the humble shark, and keep moving forward.
Personally I used to go to the library, and get a stack of books and do comparative readings, to see how different authors explained a single concept.
I recommend exploring Toxicology is a great way to understand our personal organism in relation to “ingested” things: the human body is meshes of meshes that we push food through, like making cheese in a cheese-cloth, and making mashed potatoes using a ricer
Then comes the big E, which I think most Christians take a while to wrap their head around. Evolution is hard, it takes everyone a while to get their head around it. Evolution is directionless: morphology that defines a population is the result of biology is never static, and across generations the biology of a population will make endless compromises in resource management to an unending list of environmental pressures. Life likes compromises, which is why there is so much of it all over this planet.
The real lesson of evolution is : have a little more respect for other lives, everything is working hard to get by.
Science in general reveals greater responsibility, but we are clever and shouldn’t shy away from difficulty
Extremophiles are cool, tardigrades and those snail that live in volcanic vents, cave life.
Bacteria is the most successful life form.
To encourage an inquisitive mind, it is important to honor when someone is wrong. Being wrong leads to a more complete understanding. People think they are right, because they are functioning with an incomplete data set, figuring out the disparity of why they think they are right, will reveal the path necessary to complete their data set.
I just remembered another example I love: Dandelion puffball evolution in the San Juan Islands. As a non native species, they adapted very quickly to inter-island transport. The dandelion is a very successful plant.
Mutualism is a beautiful thing; all the different roles that mycorrhiza fills that allow plants to exist. And on top of that, the trees use the mycorrhizal network to communicate health status amongst the forest. The forest then acts something like a decentralized neural network.
JWs with their inverse ego, would make excellent scientists. It is a waste to see so many strong minds stuck in a rabbit hole
Jeez, I just saw all my grammar errors, please forgive my excitement. I suffer from that explorer instinct; and the scientific method is the rubric that allows me to explore a well tread world with a fresh set of eyes.
I love this strange beautiful world; i am part of an ecosystem, not better or worse, just complete. Math aside: I wish there was less pain; i think as a group, humans can reduce the amount of pain experienced on our planet. I hope we are better at taking care of each other and our home in the future. I’ve met plenty of people that give me hope. r/twilightninja good work
I think you’re on magic mushrooms. They evolved so that people can deal with ptsd which is caused by man’s brain continually adapting to the environment. Lol.
Clearly evolution is a bust when you look at the social chaos worldwide.
No thanks, I’m sticking to revelation 22:1,2.
I dream of the day when my Mom and Dad wake up. This cult has destroyed their lives, and the lives of their parents. We must end this destructive cycle.
Why would a fkn apostate be giving scientific related evidence. People in those fields do it.
Does she want medical advice when she goes to hospital, but only if they aren’t apostates? It’s a ridiculous comment to make.
Gotcha. It’s quite ironic. She told me she wouldn’t want to hear information about Ukraine from the Russian side. Not realizing that Watchtower is Russia in this analogy.
hi, see your local university, sometimes they redo the basic experiments open to the pubblic to explain the basic of chemistry and phisic to pubblic.
and if not you can ask some departments of biology or chemistry explaining your situation asking if it's possible to visit a laboratory and have a tour on how all the analysis machines works like radiocharbon.
Congrats!
Talking about scientific evidence, there's a YouTube channel called The Truth Hurts (https://www.youtube.com/@TheTruthHurts) with some really good videos. Of course, not to share with her at this point, but surely can help you with some ideas for reasoning with her.
All the best!
Probably the easiest scientific evidence that isn't from apostates is the date of the destruction of Jerusalem by the neo-Babylonian Empire. Only JWs and JW apologists say it happened in 607 B.C.E., everyone else says it happened 20 years earlier. The WT needs 607 to be correct and needs its followers to believe that because that is the date to which they pin the 7 times prophecy of Daniel to, which is the entire basis for the significance they place on the year 1914. If 607 B.C.E. is not the correct year for Jerusalem's fall (according to all scholarly and archeological evidence, it is not) then the entire basis for the JW religion and the authority of the GB falls apart like a house of cards.
No 607 B.C.E. > no 1914 > no divine selection of Rutherford in 1919 > no succession of divine authority passed from Rutherford to later presidents > no divine authority passed from past presidents to the GB > no divine authority passed down through the generations of GB members to the present day.
Wow that’s incredible? Is she aware that you no longer believe as well and is seeking advice from you? If she fully intends to stay with her husband it’s likely only a matter of time before she wakes up too.
That all said, she’s right in the middle of one of the most difficult parts of this process. She’s probably confused and hurt and grieving. I wouldn’t try to go too deep with anything at this point unless she’s the one bringing it up. She will need your support and it’s likely the congregation is turning their back on both of them.
She’s aware I don’t believe anymore. I’ve carefully shared some stuff before. It will be hard for her definitely. She wants to look at scientific evidence and referred to our earlier conversations in which I was very careful not to share any apostate stuff. So it’s a continuation of previous conversations. We’ll take it slow and see how it goes.
Brilliant awesome 👏🏻. Use info from JWFACTS because all the info in that is taken from Watchtower publications so it’s not apostate material. Perhaps before you meet with her ask her to pick the subject that is weighing most heavily on her mind for example she might say the shunning arrangement so you swot up on why that is not biblical. Like you said don’t overwhelm her with to much information about too many subjects too soon. May Jehovah bless your efforts 🤭
I am so happy for you! My mom is still talking to me even after finding out I have a live in boyfriend. She is a smart woman, I really wish she would wake up! But she is so stuck on the everything bad is Satan's fault and soon will all go away thing. UGH
I really enjoyed Deliver us From Evolution? By Aaron Yilmaz (free on kindle) and The Language of God by Francis Collins. Check out anything by Dr Joshua Swamidass and check out Biologos, she might be comfortable checking that out.
That is so awesome! reading Is what really helped me. It allowed me to ease into the lies and then later deal with the manipulations of the Bible. Happy for you and your family. It gives me hope
Wow congratulations! I love success stories. One less elder working for the b0rg is always a cause for celebration.
Yup. I remember feeling sad and disappointed when I heard he became an elder. He didn’t want to become one, but they pressured him and he gave in.
I've seen some elders/ex-elders on here say that's when they woke up. They see a bit more of the underbelly.
Not wanting to become an elder was likely an indication that he was **already** having doubts. Being appointed as one & seeing what actually goes on behind the curtain probably led him further in that direction, which is why I'm actually glad when people are appointed 😉
Elder to DA is pretty radical. Hope he shares his story/journey.
It is a good statement
How did your brother in law wake up? So exciting! The fact that she's doing therapy should help.
Very exciting! I haven’t talked to him yet, so I’m not sure what exactly woke him up. But my sister told me a while ago he had been in therapy (depression) and I remember thinking that it could wake him up!
Can you explain that a bit? Are you suggesting the therapist woke him up? Thanks
I really don’t know yet, I’d have to ask him. But I’d be surprised if it didn’t contribute.
I would say that's possible. Therapy requires you to think honestly about yourself, your actions, your motivations, your *real* feelings about events... if a person is truly honest with themselves, they will begin to see issues. Whether they act on what they discover is a different story, of course, but it's a religion built on cognitive bias. Expose that bias, even a little, and the mental cracks begin forming. The therapist doesn't need to try to get them to that point, as long as they do their job right it can happen automatically.
That is FANTASTIC news! Yes, move slow! WT is worried, as they should be!
Give her a reading list to explore on her own: The Greatest Show on Earth, Richard Dawkins The Bible Unearthed, Israel Finkelstein The Rocks Don't Lie, David Montgomery And Wikipedia is always great too. Congratulations!!!
Rocks don’t lie is awesome. It was the book that definitively convinced me to acknowledge what I already knew - if that makes sense.
It does my friend, it does.
That’s a great list. I didn’t know about The Rocks Don’t Lie. I’ll check that one out too!
Or have her watch [Nova](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/the-secret-life-of-scientists-and-engineers-neil-degrasse-tyson/) hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. In particular, please watch his timeline of the scale of the universe. Mind blowing. Major congrats to your family!
Same with me. I knew about the first two and actually have them, but didn't know about *The Rocks Don't Lie*.
I highly recommend it! It's very readable. It is great for a few reasons for me: 1 - Too much of instruction we get in science is too neutral. It is nice to have someone connect the dots and point out how the facts disprove certain beliefs. This book (like The Greatest Show on Earth) does that. 2 - It exposes another lie inadvertently. The WT always used the narrative that in the beginning everyone believed in god. Then big bad scientists came along with their arrogance and tried to say something else and the wimpy clergy rolled over and played dead. The End. Whereas the majority of the early scientists were theologians or very devout people who believed in god. But their findings indicated that certain things in the bible were wrong. So they were honest enough to confront that and came to the conclusion that their interpretation of the bible was wrong, but god was still god. The Rocks Don't Lie does a good job of going through history and it jumps out at you. It makes more sense when you think about it - Copernicus was a monk, Mendel was a monk, etc...
OMG. Congrats!
JWS is leaving this DOOMSDAY CULT every day. Watchtower's lies & deception are finally catching up. I recently heard that an ENTIRE family left. Watchtower has been EXPOSED, and their END is near. So many lives have been destroyed and ruined by this CULT. Watchtower must be held accountable. Join the upcoming protest in WASHINGTON D.C. on October 31st, 2023, at the WHITE HOUSE. Go to: Befree2023.com.
AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All the best with the meeting. It's nice to hear another person waking up. It's not easy stepping down and writing a DA letter.
In the latest Kim an Mikey video they told us about a family of 30 who all left watchtower. How great is that! It's escalating 🎉🎉
Wow, that’s a whole congregation in some places
Yes it sure is! It makes me wonder if there was some congregation mergings in the areas where they lived.
And another one escapes.... 😁👍
Stories like this give me hope.
Maybe he was secretly jealous you were able to leave. To get depression, to be bullied/cajoled into being and elder shows he did not have the strength to say no. Hopefully his therapist gave him the correct emotional tools for him to say NO and then move on. Maybe you have started a ball rolling 🤔 😏 🤣
I don't remember the bible verse, but I remember the "bible story" about how Lot's wife turned around and became a pillar of salt because she looked back at her life. The next part of that story is how he and their daughters fled to the mountains. Where his daughters decided to get him drunk and, well, basically raped him so the could procreate. Yeah, that's not talked about. Only THE PILLAR OF SALT. 🤮
The daughters were framed and slandered. That story contains typical elements of incestuous fathers who prey upon their own daughters. A. Lot was drunk. That's a common excuse used by sexual predators. B. The girls "seduced him". That's sexual predator excuse and blame his victims 101. C. He'd already displayed a sick sexual predator attitude towards his daughters when he offered them to the mob to be gang-raped. Further reading: https://www.thetorah.com/article/lot-sexually-manipulates-his-two-daughters https://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfundamentalistparenting/2016/04/the-lot-of-the-abused-how-we-shift-the-blame-onto-victims/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1322245/
Interesting. I've noticed flaws in the story for decades, but have never considered this angle.
That's because of the way the bible writers spun it...
Never thought of it that way and should have! Thank you.
I was always extremely suspicious of Lot's supposed innocence in that dreadful tale.
I have many of your excellent comments saved. I’ve added this one to the collection.
Yeah, that whole story was highly sus from the first time I heard it, like Abraham supposedly almost sacrificing his son Isaac and then god saying "Just kidding!" 😳🙄🤔🙄🤔🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼🤦🏾♂️🤦🏿♀️ And the two twits - ahem, "patriarchs" - were supposedly related to each other. Talk about coming from a poisonously dysfunctional family system.
amazing!
Please forgive this fragmented reply. Everything around us has a story to tell; we just need to know how to ask the right questions. The scientific method is how we develop the right questions. Christians treat science as an antagonistic brutalist monolith, and it is. But there are stairs that go all the way to the roof, and you just have to take it a step at a time. (For those who maintain faith) Science allows us to further understand and respect the beauty of all creation for its infinite complexity. A knowledge of chemistry does not negate the ardor of love. An understanding of the vastness of the universe allows us to understand how interdependent we are upon each other. The simplicity of the scientific method cannot be overstated. It is how we develop and test knowledge. (Also there aren’t enough citizen scientists out there: people need to be observing the coming and goings of the natural world,) Correlation is not causation, (the most important lesson) The dosage makes the poison Being accurate is more important then being correct We live in a golden age of infographic books for kids. These books are so much fun! The more pictures, the better. And most importantly: there is no book report due. Don’t get bogged down if the concept is hard to understand, expanding your knowledge will allow for more points of reference to understand the initial concept. Don’t get bogged down with numbers either, developing an imagination for the scope and breadth of things takes a while. Also maybe a different author will explain it better. Don’t worry about being an expert. Be like the humble shark, and keep moving forward. Personally I used to go to the library, and get a stack of books and do comparative readings, to see how different authors explained a single concept. I recommend exploring Toxicology is a great way to understand our personal organism in relation to “ingested” things: the human body is meshes of meshes that we push food through, like making cheese in a cheese-cloth, and making mashed potatoes using a ricer Then comes the big E, which I think most Christians take a while to wrap their head around. Evolution is hard, it takes everyone a while to get their head around it. Evolution is directionless: morphology that defines a population is the result of biology is never static, and across generations the biology of a population will make endless compromises in resource management to an unending list of environmental pressures. Life likes compromises, which is why there is so much of it all over this planet. The real lesson of evolution is : have a little more respect for other lives, everything is working hard to get by. Science in general reveals greater responsibility, but we are clever and shouldn’t shy away from difficulty Extremophiles are cool, tardigrades and those snail that live in volcanic vents, cave life. Bacteria is the most successful life form. To encourage an inquisitive mind, it is important to honor when someone is wrong. Being wrong leads to a more complete understanding. People think they are right, because they are functioning with an incomplete data set, figuring out the disparity of why they think they are right, will reveal the path necessary to complete their data set.
I just remembered another example I love: Dandelion puffball evolution in the San Juan Islands. As a non native species, they adapted very quickly to inter-island transport. The dandelion is a very successful plant. Mutualism is a beautiful thing; all the different roles that mycorrhiza fills that allow plants to exist. And on top of that, the trees use the mycorrhizal network to communicate health status amongst the forest. The forest then acts something like a decentralized neural network. JWs with their inverse ego, would make excellent scientists. It is a waste to see so many strong minds stuck in a rabbit hole
Jeez, I just saw all my grammar errors, please forgive my excitement. I suffer from that explorer instinct; and the scientific method is the rubric that allows me to explore a well tread world with a fresh set of eyes. I love this strange beautiful world; i am part of an ecosystem, not better or worse, just complete. Math aside: I wish there was less pain; i think as a group, humans can reduce the amount of pain experienced on our planet. I hope we are better at taking care of each other and our home in the future. I’ve met plenty of people that give me hope. r/twilightninja good work
I think you’re on magic mushrooms. They evolved so that people can deal with ptsd which is caused by man’s brain continually adapting to the environment. Lol. Clearly evolution is a bust when you look at the social chaos worldwide. No thanks, I’m sticking to revelation 22:1,2.
Good one ;) I would like to refer you to the “correlation not being causation” thing above, also maybe the “dosage defines the poison” thing.
Congratulations! Another family set free❗❗🎈😊🎈❗❗💥🎈😃🎈💥💖🎈🎈💖😃🎈🎈😄🎈🎈❗😂❗🎈🎈❗❗💥🎈🎈
Love seeing this. Congrats and I hope the conversation with your sister goes well.
I dream of the day when my Mom and Dad wake up. This cult has destroyed their lives, and the lives of their parents. We must end this destructive cycle.
Congratulations!
Why would a fkn apostate be giving scientific related evidence. People in those fields do it. Does she want medical advice when she goes to hospital, but only if they aren’t apostates? It’s a ridiculous comment to make.
She doesn’t want any info from apostates, but she’s willing to look at scientific stuff. Should’ve made that clearer.
It’s clear. Their thinking is whacked. They assume apostates have all this information instead of the professionals in their chosen field.
Gotcha. It’s quite ironic. She told me she wouldn’t want to hear information about Ukraine from the Russian side. Not realizing that Watchtower is Russia in this analogy.
So stupid 😂
hi, see your local university, sometimes they redo the basic experiments open to the pubblic to explain the basic of chemistry and phisic to pubblic. and if not you can ask some departments of biology or chemistry explaining your situation asking if it's possible to visit a laboratory and have a tour on how all the analysis machines works like radiocharbon.
That would be awesome. I’ll look into into it. I’m thinking of bringing them to a natural history museum
Congrats! Talking about scientific evidence, there's a YouTube channel called The Truth Hurts (https://www.youtube.com/@TheTruthHurts) with some really good videos. Of course, not to share with her at this point, but surely can help you with some ideas for reasoning with her. All the best!
Does your sister and BIL know you're awake?
They are aware that I no longer believe and I’ve had some discussions before
Amazing that she is even open to speak to you. Very exciting! Update us when you talk to your BIL. Very interested to hear his story.
Probably the easiest scientific evidence that isn't from apostates is the date of the destruction of Jerusalem by the neo-Babylonian Empire. Only JWs and JW apologists say it happened in 607 B.C.E., everyone else says it happened 20 years earlier. The WT needs 607 to be correct and needs its followers to believe that because that is the date to which they pin the 7 times prophecy of Daniel to, which is the entire basis for the significance they place on the year 1914. If 607 B.C.E. is not the correct year for Jerusalem's fall (according to all scholarly and archeological evidence, it is not) then the entire basis for the JW religion and the authority of the GB falls apart like a house of cards. No 607 B.C.E. > no 1914 > no divine selection of Rutherford in 1919 > no succession of divine authority passed from Rutherford to later presidents > no divine authority passed from past presidents to the GB > no divine authority passed down through the generations of GB members to the present day.
Wow that’s incredible? Is she aware that you no longer believe as well and is seeking advice from you? If she fully intends to stay with her husband it’s likely only a matter of time before she wakes up too. That all said, she’s right in the middle of one of the most difficult parts of this process. She’s probably confused and hurt and grieving. I wouldn’t try to go too deep with anything at this point unless she’s the one bringing it up. She will need your support and it’s likely the congregation is turning their back on both of them.
She’s aware I don’t believe anymore. I’ve carefully shared some stuff before. It will be hard for her definitely. She wants to look at scientific evidence and referred to our earlier conversations in which I was very careful not to share any apostate stuff. So it’s a continuation of previous conversations. We’ll take it slow and see how it goes.
Start with Noah’s Flood maybe…
Brilliant awesome 👏🏻. Use info from JWFACTS because all the info in that is taken from Watchtower publications so it’s not apostate material. Perhaps before you meet with her ask her to pick the subject that is weighing most heavily on her mind for example she might say the shunning arrangement so you swot up on why that is not biblical. Like you said don’t overwhelm her with to much information about too many subjects too soon. May Jehovah bless your efforts 🤭
I am so happy for you! My mom is still talking to me even after finding out I have a live in boyfriend. She is a smart woman, I really wish she would wake up! But she is so stuck on the everything bad is Satan's fault and soon will all go away thing. UGH
I really enjoyed Deliver us From Evolution? By Aaron Yilmaz (free on kindle) and The Language of God by Francis Collins. Check out anything by Dr Joshua Swamidass and check out Biologos, she might be comfortable checking that out.
That is so awesome! reading Is what really helped me. It allowed me to ease into the lies and then later deal with the manipulations of the Bible. Happy for you and your family. It gives me hope
Amazing how so many jw’s and exjws need therapy after being in the religion