by zzaphod 32 Replies latest jw experiences
One that all ways made me uncomfortable was when you where with your worldly family eating dinner or at a worldly wedding or function like that and someone would give a toast to something and everybody raised there glass to agree to what ever was said......... except for you. You didn't because it was WRONG! and three or four glass come your way anticipating a touching of glass with you but NO! you just sit there looking stupid
DV
"Knock on wood".
You know....the GB gets to sit in their Ivory Watchtower in Brooklyn making this ridiculous crap up, but it's the working class people and kids who have to be out there with people putting up with the fallout from this non-sense.
Think About It
Toasting= Bad
God Bless= Bad
Good Luck= Bad
Horseshoes= Bad
Everything else I've never heard of as bad.
I actually used to say what Jerry Seinfeld would say instead of God Bless You when someone sneezed. I always said "You're so good lookin!". As in, *Achoo!* "You're so good looking!" "........Thanks. o_O"
Aeiouy
Regarding toasting and clinking glass, I seem to recall reading in an older WT that clinking glasses for a toast is ok as long as you don't lft your glass up when you do it, because that's what people did to toast to the Gods, or something weird like that.
So if you toasted and clinked your glass with someone else's but kept your glass going in a straight horizontal line in front of you it was ok, but if you raised your glass up even an inch it was bad!
Then again when I was first studying with the witnesses they told me it was the sound of the "clink" that was the bad part, because it the noise supposedly scared away evil spirits.
Whatever the reason, I think its ridiculous. Why do they make such a fuss over the most trivial everyday things?
It's usually the people who are most insistent on these pointless and frankly laughable little rules who have the least natural human empathy and benevolence, just like the Pharisees. I would say the sticklers for the WT's petty little regulations are often particularly un-Christian in their dealings with people. I bet those who shield the sexual predators in the congs are the first to 'tut' when a JW takes part in a toast or says thank you to a 'bless you' for sneezing.
Its sort of like a Jewish landlord who goes to preposterous lengths not to do anything deemed 'work' on the Sabbath, even going to the extremes of inventing bizarre contraptions which let him do the work-related things he wants to do, whilst still technically not doing them himself. Then on Monday morning, he drives down to the block of fire trap/slum apartments he owns, and demands the exorbitant rent from the impoverished tenants.
Making molehills out of mountains, and vice versa. Sigh.
Throwing confetti at weddings is evil for some reason.
Wind chimes are evil.
The clinking of glass in a toast is evil because it originated to scare off evil spirits, but it's okay to burn a mattress you bought at a yard sale in order to destroy evil spirits. Yes, makes sense.
Why do they make such a fuss over the most trivial everyday things?
3 reasons:
1. Control
2. Control
3. Control
Control every aspect of your life.
I remember when I was a kid in the 80's things like beards, Smurfs, school sports or school clubs were all evil. been out for awhile now an have no contact with any family so i dunno if any has changed.
On the topic of "bless you" I wrote my thoughts a couple of times on the forums, because it just pisses me off. In my language we say "be in good health", that is not based on any belief and it's a sensible thing to say. But nooo, that's forbidden too. Why? Dunno... the reasoning in the Watchtower was because the english equivalent asks for the gods' blessings. That is all. Now obey!
So many rules and so many situations in life they have not covered IE: Is it OK for me to pray while having a crap or is that a conscience matter?
