by Celtic 21 Replies latest jw friends
Off limits. Each JW culture had its variations, can you remember everything that was looked upon as being or representing, non wholesome activity?
Dangerous sports, competitive sports, welly boots, this, that and the other...
Any continuation/s?
Celtic
I remember being little and just when I really started liking The Smurfs cartoon show, someone told my mom that they were DEMONIZED!!! Therefore no more Smurfs. I also remember in the late 1970's someone claiming that the Proctor-Gamble "symbol" or icon on the back of Crest toothpaste( and other products I don't remember) was SATANIC!!
Oh yeah and then I was not allowed to watch ET; because once again it was DEMONIC!!! Funny, JW's know everything about DEMONIC or SATANIC issues..............coincidence.......I THINK NOT!!!
Welcome to the madcap madness of this board, your first post, I am honoured!! Anyway, good to see you here.
The Smurfs were ok here, but I hear you, for many others were banned, the most recent controversy surrounding here in the UK the dayglo muppets with funny aerials on their heads with the sun being made from a babies face, blowed though if I can remember what they are called.
As a kid, growing up in this atmosphere, you end up suspicious of everything around you, everything being demonised out of all proportion that you ended up thinking, 'Who really are the ones, that are more demonized?' Them or that which I am being taught.
The gossip surrounding the baby on the Fairy Liquid bottles here was another one that got circulated. Its actually a wonder any of them go to supermarkets at all with the 666 barcode imprinted on every consumer product, but I guess thats OK, cos they're too lazy to truly care for the environment by living more naturally in tune.
Take good care WG and come back again soon, we'd love to share, swap experiences.
All the best!!
Celtic
Land of pagans and where things go bump in the night
PS That used to cross my mind too, where'd they get all this knowledge that everything is demonised unless they were part of that same in disguise, a sheep in wolves clothing so to speak.
In Canada there was a period of time where Dairy Queen ice cream was frowned upon in the extreme. One of the ingredients is lethicin, which is found in many plant and animal sources. It is also a component of blood. Therefore, the reasoning became that since it was not specified what the source of the lethicin in the ice cream was, that one should assume that it was from blood.
I also remember checking every meat product for "by-products" (i.e. blood) Some JWs go so far as to refuse to buy pet food which contains "by-products", so as to keep their pets in an approved standing with the congregation I suppose.
Love, Scully
It is not persecution for an informed person to expose a certain religion as being false. - WT 11/15/63
Welly boots?? You have to tell me about that one!
White shirts on men for a while then it changed to color - well pastels then went back to white.
Any hairstyle that was in fashion or clothes. Major discussion about hair length on men and facial hair or no and when/if yes then how long. We had one brother that for some dermatogigical problem could not shave - he had to get special permission to have a beard.
We had a rumor that Harvey's served horse meat and therefore we could not be sure how the animals were killed therefore the food was unsafe - which in turn meant we could not even have a coffee there in case someone thought we might be eating a horsemeat burger.
My husband (st the time) destroyed all his Beatle albums for having subliminal messages.
No garage sales just in case the owner of the house had a Ouija board or some other demonized object in their house.
No buying things at second hand stores - especially the Salvation Army - you never could tell if the demons decided to live in the things you bought and come home with you.
Well the book thing - no romances, fiction or worse still science fiction. Most definitely no religious books - except the voluminous Wt literature. No soap operas - daytime or night time - like Dallas. Most TV shows except maybe documentaries and the news.
Oh lordy sex - well definite limits on what could and could not be done. Birth control - no IUD or anything else that interupted conception
Collecting anything - well except WT books and magazines I guess
No pets - not banned but certainly discouraged - like who would take care of them when you were away at an assembly
Hmmm no vacations unless of course they were to visit a Bethel
No gambling - no bingo or lotto tickets - no raffle tickets either or anything that relied on "luck"
No extra-curricular activites from school - no sports - no music or band - no debate clubs or chess clubs (a war game so a definite no-no) and so on
No computers - hey we might learn something and well no higher education
Will come up with more later
Celtic ~ Teletubbies, they are called Teletubbies. WE were told that they were evil because their bellies contained tv's and that purple was the color of homosexuality. And to prove it, the purple tv belly carried a purse (tinky winky just calls it his bag) and the antenna on his head was supposedly a homosexual symbol of some kind. My children went through, and still occasionaly do go through, the teletubbie phase, which is as annoying a big purple dinosaur that sounds like a retard when he speaks.
Actually in my cong., only the elders were permitted to have cable tv or an antenna. HEHE, then dh and I got a satelitte dish. That didn't go over too well.
Smoking, drinking, dating, the obvious.
Getting married to my dh was a no- no.
Owning a 2 door vehicle or having less than 8 people crammed into the backseat of a volvo during service. (oh yeah, that was lots of fun, spending 3 whole hours sitting on a door handle.)
Shelly
Former victim and recovering wonderfully from a broken spirit
Smile, because we all have been freed from slavery!!
Sweetone,
I don't know why you included drinking. Many Witnesses drink and some quite heavily.
As far as tvs go, never heard of such a ban. Maybe it was a local thing. Of course, they did "admonish" alot regarding what you should and should not watch.
My go:
When I dated my first wife her mother wouldn't let her go to see the movie "War Games" with me. The movie was about violent video games. (Had a young Matthew Broderick and the game was global nuclear tic-tac-toe)
We had a special talk on dangerous sports not long after I started sky-diving. I switched to downhill skiing which was more dangerous but OK with the elders.
Men and boys only -- Hair over your ears. Enforced until hair over your collar was banned. Enforced until hair down you back was a no-no.
We went without color TV for ages. Must have been last the family in the UK to switch from Black and white (circa 1980). Reason -- TV bad for you so why watch something bad in color?
Several others already covered.
Thirdson
Here in Texas brothers would often give talks wearing cowboy boots and it was fine. However, in Mexico I learned that it was considered to be wrong. I didn't know that God has one set of standards for one country and another for another country.
