by WingCommander 26 Replies latest jw friends
It was after 'the great apostasy' of the 1980's () that the bOrg decided that it was too dangerous to have too many JWs get together. Even studying the Watchtower with anyone other than your family was not good, and certainly frowned upon.
Imagine if you became friendly with a few witnesses and started to speak your mind. Then, that could lead to critical thinking, before long that could lead to waking up to the nonsense that the WTBTS really is.
No "congregation" picnics any more. It seemed like the congregation elders were sponsoring them and the did not want to be held responsible for any "judicial" incidents or injuries. An individual had to sponsor it. Some congregations said that only one or book study groups could get together.
I remember when they changed this, Blondie. For a while they still announced them at the TMS anyway, they just called it the "Friends of Brother and Sister so and so" picnic. Sounds really stupid to me now.
j
Great way to narrow the feild of eligable mates. If one can only see them at the hall and no gatherings one starts to look outside the bookstudy group maby at school or work?
I grew up with stories of the skating parties in the 70's that were cancelled and then the picnic's were cancelled.
Assemblies at the Vet were HOT!! When I was older, I would leave and go to the Art Museum during the middle of them...
The society did the same thing with witnesses that gathered together online...........broke that up as well. Insisted on closing down sites, a constant warning against chatrooms and discussion boards.
sf (sKally) was a frequent visitor of a JW chat room I went to many years ago. As well as others. They constantly posted sites of freeminds.org and others, but the only one I remember was freeminds.
II dont think any from our core group went to any of those sites.
But by busting us up, we lost our nucleus........or commaderie that we did not get at our Kingdom Halls.
What a shame.
purps
In thinking back to those gatherings, the one impression I have now is: People are friggin idiots. Not everyone of course, but the typical JW gathering just epitomizes how utterly .. I am not even sure of the word, but how boring and pathetic human beings can be, socially and otherwise. I don't blame the individuals of course, they are brainwashed and all that. But that essentially reflects my view of the mass population at large now - it's largely a waste of time. With JWs it's understandable that you would want to cling to that in some way since you are socially deprived, but recently I've just come to the realization I don't need any of that. If it was people with some degree of life going on, sure I'm all open given the situation and individual, but it is quite sad to be addicted to socialization when most of it amounts to a gigantic goose egg.
To be fair and more inclusive, that also describes the meetings pretty well - except there is just no social factor - but just as much idiocy.
