I'll guess: lecithin?
Bethel keeps buildings in New York with Gargoyles {demons} on every corner...but brothers can't hang a "Windchime" without an Elders meeting! Why?
by Witness 007 30 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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cognizant dissident
Ahh yes, Blondie, the great lecithin scare of the 60' and 70's.
We weren't allowed to eat fortune cookies and some chocolates because they contained the dreaded lecithin. I remember my grandma sending this beautiful basket of chocolates from England, and I wanted one sooooo badly. I was about 4 or 5. My dad said no because there might be blood in them and he threw them away. I was soooo disappointed. I do remember thinking and asking, "Why would they put blood in chocolates, daddy?" Never did get a good answer for that one. You see, even the logic of a 4 year old, if not too messed up already, can see JW logic makes no sense!
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Scully
Hi cognizant dissident
Blondie's right. There was an allegation by certain JWs that the additive lecithin, since it is a component of blood, meant that Dairy Queen ice cream had blood in it. What these ignoramuses failed to recognize is that lecithin, particularly lecithin that is used in food products, is derived from vegetation.
see also: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/medical/130619/1/Lecithin
The "ban" on lecithin led to a lot of things being frowned upon by JWs, including chocolate, ice cream, and other fun "treat" type foods. We must have shunned Dairy Queen for about 5 years, but as soon as the matter was clarified, we celebrated with a Peanut Buster Parfait.
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stillajwexelder
Scully - I am sat here shaking my head in disbelief. SAD, SAD, SAD.
Lecithin that I know is usually made from Soy Beans - I use Soy Bean Lecithin at work.
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ziddina
"Bethel keeps buildings in New York with Gargoyles {demons} on every corner...but brothers can't hang a "Windchime" without an Elders meeting! Why? ..."
Rabid, rampant, rampaging hypocrisy???
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cognizant dissident
Hey Scully
My parents did fall prey to the big lecithin scare and they would read the ingredients on everything, and throw stuff away, but they never went out of their way to question restaurants. So I guess that's the reason our beloved dairy queen pit stop in the summer was never questioned.
The dairy queen in Vancouver where I lived, was right next door to a KFC. On the side of their building they had a sign painted that said, "if the colonel had our recipe, he'd be a general! It wasn't up there too long, so I'm guessing they were threatened with a lawsuit. I thought it was clever though.
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llbh
This is a leitmotif common in high control groups, they invent " demons" - enemies ( or is it enemas?) to frighten and thus gain control of the group; they then follow this up with a group of controllers, busybodies, people with power that is illusory, to do the bidding of the controlling group. In Ancient Sparta they did the same with The Krypteia, the secret police ( from whence we obtain the word cryptic ( krypton..), the nomenclature changes, the methods do not, Mao and Stalin did the same.
I remember the lecithin nonsense too, though here there is a an element of truth. I used to work as a technician in research food lab, and there was research into using animal lecithins in such products, the two major issues were the variability in the products obtained, and the costs of them, so plant lecithins are used instead, and widely. This was back in the late 70's, and there was utter rubbish spoken by ill informed dolts.
David
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Jim_TX
Ahhh... I too remember growing up and the 'lecithin scare'. I think that my mom finally read some literature that clarified what lecithin really was.
I also remember though she was leery about products like 'Sprite' - that used to use a small sprite on their logo. I think that she must have 'prayed' about this one though, cause the soda wasn't banned in our house for very long.
There was also some anguish about going to Church's Fried Chicken - after all, it had the name 'church' in the name.
Regards,
Jim TX
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designs
What do they call a Kingdom Hall in Trinity California
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compound complex
Some further detail on original post:
Much is made of the "pagan origin" of various practices and items connected with some of the holidays. [49] Yet, realistically, any "pagan" significance these may once have had has long since disappeared. I remember in the 1970s giving a talk that discussed the need not to go overboard in these matters, pointing out, among other things, that the very days of the week (in English) involve the names of pagan objects of worship, the sun, the moon, and of the gods and goddesses Twi, Woden, Thor, Frei and Saturn. The same is true of many of the names of months. [50] Yet today we employ those names without the slightest thought of their "pagan origin." Actually, most persons are totally unaware of their "pagan" source. This is similarly true of the various decorations and customs connected with many holidays.
footnotes:
49 See SCHOOL AND JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES (1983),
pages 18-20.
50 These include use of the two-faced god Janus, Februa
(a pagan feast of purification), Mars (god of war), and Maia
(a Roman goddess).
I recall that when the Watch Tower Society purchased a former motion picture theatre in Queens, New York, for use as an assembly hall, the theatre had an ancient Egyptian motif throughout. Over the marquee, the front of the building had large tiles depicting various Egyptian gods and goddesses, one even carrying the CRUX ANSATA. The inside contained other items, including lotus flowers, having religious connotations in Egyptian beliefs. When the Watch Tower renovated the building all these items were left unchanged. After a few years, a friend of ours from the Dominican Republic attended a Gilead School graduation there as our guest. She was struck by the pagan symbolisms and expressed her upset to me, saying that she would not have known what the meaning of these things was had she not read of them in the Watch Tower's own publications. [52] She could not harmonize the strong, negative statements made in the publications with this apparent tolerance. I felt obliged to write President Knorr, pointing out that my concern was primarily for her (and others who might feel as she did). Knorr came down to my office and argued the matter, saying that the items were simply decorations and that, for example, he didn't think that people looking at the lotuses would attribute a sexual connotation to them. He asked if I thought we could not even make use of a Catholic translation because it might have a cross on its front. I told him that I was not hypersensitive about such things, but I thought that we had an obligation to be concerned if there is an adverse effect on others, that if we set forth a particular standard for others then people have a right to expect us to live by it ourselves. Not long afterward the tile depictions of gods and goddesses were painted over. The inside of the building remained essentially the same. More recently the Watch Tower purchased the large Bossert Hotel in Brooklyn. It has gargoyles ornamenting the outside. These, too, are viewed by the organization as inconsequential decorations, void of any serious significance. As I found true in so many cases, stringent requirements placed on Witnesses of the "rank and file" suddenly seemed capable of great relaxation when the organization's own interests were involved.
footnote:
52 See, for example the book WHAT HAS RELIGION DONE FOR MANKIND
