Please allow me to introduce myself...

by Dan B 8 Replies latest jw friends

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  Dan B

  Hello all,

  My name is Dan. I've been dropping buy here occasionally since the summer, so I figured it was time to introduce myself. My background:

  -born into JWs, active for 30 years, MS for a while, then had enough.

  I've been out of it for about 7 or 8 years, although out of curiosity I sometimes drop by sites like this to see what's going on.

  Here is something to think about: Read Leviticus 19:28. For years this was the justification for banning tattoos among JWs. Then read the verse before, where shaving off your beard was forbidden. Why then, are the JWs so adamant about not having a beard? This double standard is typical of the "picking and choosing" which scriptures to enforce, and which to ignore. Whatever! But, what really gets my goat is the hypocracy of knocking on people's doors and condemning them for doing the same thing.

  Any thoughts on this?

  Dan
• 

  Introspection

  Hi Dan, welcome. Good point, we went over this a while back with someone who was studying, I don't think that got very far in the end.. Of course, the whole business with beards and tattoos is worrying about what other people think. Anyways, nice post.
• 

  dungbeetle

  Hi Dan B...welcome to the board.

  <"what really gets my goat is the hypocracy of knocking on people's doors and condemning them for doing the same thing.">

  How about this...how about knocking on people's doors advocating to householders about Jehovah's Witnesses keeping their congregations clean...while your partner is a convicted child molester who hasn't even finished his criminal case yet!!!!!

  The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society...not just for breakfast anymore.

  Chomp! Chomp! Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!
• 

  unclebruce

  welcome Dan,

  I hope you have a lot of fun and make some good friends here. (there were so many things that got on my goat about being a jw that in a blinding flash of pique I put the poor billy out of its misery .. good luck in laying your JW goats .. um .. 'ghosts' to rest ;)

  cheers, unclebruce

  PS: I see you talk about people not householders .. the healing is comming along nicely ;)
• 

  ozziepost

  Me too! Me too!

  G'day Dan and may I add my words of welcome to this (mostly) happy place! I hope you stay awhile, we'd love to 'hear' from you.

  The beards thing is just one of many inconsistencies that the dubs have to explain away to themselves.

  A whole new 'generation' is growing up who will not have known the 'old' light on the 'generation" teaching. Just like 1975 it will fade from memory of the loyal R&F. To think that there are some who come lurking here who still believe that the WTS is God's Organisation! Leviticus 19:28 will have little impact on a closed mind like that.

  But we'll keep on trying.

  Cheers,
  Ozzie

  "It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."
  Anonymous
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  teejay

  27: Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. 28 Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD. -- NIV

  Sorry... had to look it up.

  Hello, DanB. Welcome to the board!

  The two prohibitions make sense if you consider that the leadership is hoping that its male members mimic corporate America. The suits and ties, the briefcases, the modest hair cuts, etc. The only thing is, the old fogie governing body is still living in the fifties, not realizing that today many professionals sport neat facial hair, including beards. Probably tattoos, too, as long as they aren't visible!

  I was a little intrigued to read your bio. I was an active member for about thirty years, myself. Never made MS, though.

  Again, welcome. Look forward to reading more of your thoughts.

  peace,
  tj
• 

  AlanF

  Teejay said:

  : The only thing is, the old fogie governing body is still living in the fifties, not realizing that today many professionals sport neat facial hair, including beards.

  Actually it appears that a lot of them are still living in the teens, when it was de rigeur for young men to laugh at the beards the old fogies wore. My grandfather, born in 1898, told me that when he was in his teens it was common for clean-shaven young men to make fun of young men who even wore a mustache. He said that occasionally a group of them would grab a mustachioed young man and smear dog shit on the mustache so he'd have to shave it off.

  I think that, in the common manner of old people, the old men on the GB are simply trying to enforce on everyone else the attitudes about all sorts of things that they formed when they were young. No problem holding to outdated standards for yourself, but it's a big problem when such standards are justified by religious doctrine and forced on others.

  AlanF
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  Dan B

  I first grew a beard about 10 years ago while I was still attending the occasional meetings. I had a #2 talk coming up (no more public talks for me at that point!) and I was given the ultimatum to shave the beard or I would not be allowed the grand privilege of delivering the talk. I kept the beard, and was permanantly removed from the TMS. So, I guess it worked out great after all!

  Dan
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  teejay

  No problem holding to outdated standards for yourself, but it's a big problem when such standards are justified by religious doctrine and forced on others.

  Good point, Alan. I thought of that, too.

  Nothing wrong with the old ways, but in the real world young folk of every single generation exercise the right of freedom to stretch out on their own, to test the old ways to see if they hold. They generally do, and the young realize that the old weren't so dumb after all. But they ARE allowed to choose.

  That's a major failing of the gb, the Taliban... all fundies. They are trapped in time, closing their minds to the reality... always true... that life goes on... advances to something better than what was. They make the mistake worse by punishing those that see life for what it is... a striving to hold on to the good of the old, but embracing the good of the new.

  peace,
  tj