While the world stood still with tears and sorrow....

by Terry 26 Replies latest jw friends

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  Terry

  The way Jehovah's Witnesses respond to catastrophe is a case study in abberation.

  There is a stone wall between feelings and humanity.

  It borders on pathology.

  Repression is unhealthy and manifests itself eventually.

  Keeping a tight lid on because the "others" at the Kingdom Hall are watching (always watching) eats away the natural responses. Pretty soon those emotions aren't connecting at all. The atrophy of human fellow feeling leads to a weird zombie life where you are walking around dead to your own self.

  That is what I was trying to communicate in the opening paragraph. Not the tragedy of the death of a President. Or, even tragedy of any sort.

  That Cleburne assembly was unreal because it was actually UN real. 'The people weren't real. The smiles and the gaiety and bonhomme were pretense.

  I officially resigned membership in the human race when I came up out of the water without a miracle of "connection" to Jehovah. It is a disconnection with the rest of humanity.
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  designs

  'If you realize things are getting worse and you're thrilled you could be a Jehovah's Witness' Jeff Foxworthy
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  sabastious

  It borders on pathology.

  Borders? I have been starting to believe that the JW forumla is to seek out people who are capable of becoming pathological. Pathological people make for great cult members.

  -Sab
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  Mickey mouse

  I was a believing JW on 9/11 but I was deeply troubled by the reaction of my 'brothers and sisters'. We went to the book study on the evening of 9/11 and people were talking about how nice the weather was for September/the price of beans...you get the picture. Anything except the shocking things we had seen on the TV. The ONLY mention made was when the study conductor mentioned 'our brothers in New York' in his prayer. I was quietly disgusted that these people were so wrapped up in day to day stuff that something like 9/11 had barely registered with them.
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  designs

  Sab- Its like a moth to the flame.

  MM- 9/11, wasn't the self-interest attitude a strip naked moment, disgusting is right.
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  thetrueone

  The expressed mentality by JWS by virtue of their indoctrination is to be apathetical to whats happening in the wicked old system of things.

  To openly show concerning empathy to world events is perceived by JWS as not being spiritually strong in accordance to their indoctrination.
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  DaCheech

  sorry Terry
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  wobble

  Very moving Terry, what you have written , to an old guy like me, who was there in 1963.

  That night, as it was in the U.K, by the time we got the news, I was out on "Back Calls" as we called them then, (return visits they are called today, they rarely happen now) with a friend or two.

  As I walked along a poorly lit street with my fellow keen JW, (he was about 15, I was 13, he left shortly after this) a woman called out to us from the other side of the street :

  "President Kennedy has been shot dead!"

  The news was so shocking that a stiff upper lip English lady would shout it across the street to complete strangers !

  My companion straight away came out with the totally irreverant "Would anybody who saw the incident please telephone Whitehall 1212"

  Which was the phrase we heard every night on the BBC radio as they asked for witnesses to a bag snatching or suchlike,and asked the public to 'phone Scotland Yard, the H.Q of the London Police, his comment was damned funny, if inappropriate, and in bad taste.

  I have noticed over the years, and my dear wife remarked upon it even when we were active JW's, that it was strange that most of the JW's were either not affected, or hid it, by tragedies that affected non-JW's.

  It is another evidence of how the cult mentality, induced by mind control, makes JW's subsume their normal emotions, and they do not, ever, acknowledge to themselves that they are doing it !
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  Violia

  I recall mentioning 9-11 to an elders wife and she said something to the affect - oh well they were going to die at Armageddon anyway. Ice water in their veins, that is all I could think.
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  Band on the Run

  They aren't strictly Protestant. Protestant usually refers to the religions that former after Luther posted his objection to the Catholic Church. When he did it, he merely wanted to stop a few egregious Catholic practices. Nation states were forming and the printing press made possible the mass use of Bibles, rather than access to a hand copied one worth many thousands if not more. Lutherans, Calvinists, Reformed Churches. The Witnesses are not Protestant in this view.

  Protestant is frequently used to describe all Western religions that are not Roman Catholic. I am Episcopal, Anglican, Church of England which is NOT a Protestant church in the strict sense. Henry VIII despised reformers and was a true Catholic at heart. Yet the American branch calls itself the Protestant Episcopal Church. From being Episcopal. I know the Catholic theologians and the English ones during the Tudor reign. My exposure to German theologicans is almost nonexistent which is a shame. So the Witness would be Protestants in this usage but I believe the Society rejects the name.