Evolution/Nostaliga

by Victor_E 4 Replies latest jw friends

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  Victor_E

  The time is circa 1995, I have just been dfed for challenging the Tower’s right to dictate to me what I can or cannot do professionally. The web is in its infancy (I’m talking archaic days as in windows 3.1), I go on AOL and put up a thread on X-JWs on their bulletin board. I am thrilled to have Alvinas a current JW respond with kindness and understanding as she mirrors the same issues I wrote about. My happiness is short lived due to AOL staff erasing my post. I repost with another topic, I again have some current JWs reply now attacking my opinion and wouldn’t you know it AOL staff delete my post again. In time I find a bulleting board that meets the criteria of what is allowed by AOL. I feel like I have hit pay dirt finding RalphRUOK debating self righteous JWS like Veeger and Praotes. Gawd as I sit here and write these words it seems so long ago and yet like yesterday.

  As time passes and I learn to use a computer and surf the web I come upon gems like The Watchtower Observer, Freeminds, Doc Bob’s site and others. This leads me to the newsgroup Philia and Jesus Witnesses, ah ……..those were the days. Here is a melting pot of current and former JWs, there is the good the bad and the ugly and I revel being all 3 along with others. The metaphor that comes to mind is a scene from the movie Fight Club, the brawls were more spiritual to me than all the 20 yrs of meetings I attended. Here we spoke our minds and emotions letting it rip, nothing held back. At times we were joined by people like Bengal in such deep pain that they wanted to end their lives. We all took a break from our flame wars to write words of encouragement to not give up.

  Whatever became of these fellow brothers in arms? Some came and went as some on this board are abandoning ship each reaching different plateaus in their healing and evolution some never to be heard from again. As I reflect on my own journey, I am deeply grateful for the time we shared and how we sharpened each other like iron. Christine Callaghan if you read this post thank you for your contribution to my growth and evolution, seeing you online the other day brought warmth to my heart and a feeling of Nostalgia.

  “Some people look at the ways things are and they ask why, others look at the ways things could be and they ask why not? R Kennedy

  Victor Escalante
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  Cygnus

  I remember those AOL days.

  RalphRUOK burned out. Praotes become a closet apostate and then burned out. DocBob shows up occasionally on Yahoo but he's totally burned out (and seems to have lost much of his sense of humor... well.. he just takes his faith seriously I guess).

  The fact of the matter is, the only real debates these days are about the NWT and one non-koine-Greek speaker bashing another non-koine-Greek speaker, with both quoting from a million different sources on how to render this phrase or that appropriately into English.

  Let's face it. On an intellectual level, a lot of us could go back and argue the JW position on a number of issues very easily. I do it all the time. It's not because JWs have the truth --- it's because they have as much right to be their version of "truth" as much as the next guy. And that is because we are all inherently and essentially full of BS.
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  Cygnus

  BTW, the web's archaic days were back in the early 1980s, when I got started with my Commodore 64. :-)
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  roybatty

  >>BTW, the web's archaic days were back in the early 1980s, when I got started with my Commodore 64. :-)<<

  Cy,
  I remember those days. I clearly recall getting my first modem for the C64 and finding sites that had downloads to "crack" C64 games so that you could copying them. LOL. I thought I was such a hacker! LOL.
• 

  CPiolo

  Cygnus:

  Let's face it. On an intellectual level, a lot of us could go back and argue the JW position on a number of issues very easily. I do it all the time. It's not because JWs have the truth --- it's because they have as much right to be their version of "truth" as much as the next guy. And that is because we are all inherently and essentially full of BS.

  You're right, no one, absolutely no one or no group exclusively have "The Truth." Everyone has bits and pieces, some more than others, filtered through their personal deterministic lenses -- culture, language, sex, social class, race, time, etc. The problems begin when someone or some group of people say their version of "The Truth" is the only real and valid one and that anyone or any group holding to a different version, or who's filter renders a different version, is inherently inferior. It's the old "my way or the highway," black and whilte thinking. Basically, this is my only problem with groups like the WTB&TS. Their point of view, while containing some truth, whether more or less than another group, inculcates in the minds of its followers an attitude of superiority based solely upon their version or perception of "The Truth," in other words creed intolerance. As time has proven, all groups err, all have had to adjust their "truths," and all will continue to do so.

  I find the road to the discovery of more insight into truth far more interesting than any absolutionist viewpoint as to just what that truth is. The different opinions and viewpoints expressed help one along that road, and these differences should be celebrated, not denegrated.

  Well, I'll get down off my soapbox now.

  Cheers,

  CPiolo