I couldnt bear to watch/listen more than 20 seconds. I need a another shower now...
Lyman Swingle at the Bethel Breakfast table - What fun!
by Dogpatch 32 Replies latest jw friends
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Dogpatch
LOL
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sooner7nc
Randy,
Was there ever an occasion were one of the bethel boys just couldn't take it anymore and walked out? Could you even have walked out or would you be herded back to your seat? I can't imagine sitting through that kind of bullshit for very long at all but then again maybe I could. Damn this fruity cult.
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cult classic
Sooner,
You can get up if you need to. It's just like a meeting at the KH. You can be late, leave early, make a bathroom run. Depending on your table head though, you might not want to do that too often. Or you'll get counseled for not appreciating the spiritual food provided.
Most just sit there and suck it up. It only lasts about 15-20 minutes or so, depending on announcements.
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John_Mann
{I remember we were looking at a display of JW history in the waiting lobby and one sister said " I know this sounds bad but I'm sorry....this is just creeping me out for some reason"}
What kind of pics were there? Could you give me more information about that display?
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Finkelstein
Lyman Swingle looks like he was suffering from dementia and the other Bethel boys were suffering from dementia from cult indoctrination.
Interesting is it not that some of the elderly men are actually on the GB panel making decisions for the entire organization.
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exwhyzee
What kind of pics were there? Could you give me more information about that display?
There was this Kiosk or display off the waiting room where you waited to go on tour. They had a display of photos and JW memoribilia from the early days of the organization. Like a mini museum, it showed old photos of long dead little kids and adults wearing sandwich signs announcing the nearness of the King and his Kingdom being established kind of stuff. Old book bags and old literature that isn't used anymore because the information is incorrect. It had a display of the old phonographs they used to use at the doors, photos of imprisioned Witnesses and old literature etc. I had the feeling that all these people in the photographs who believed they wouldn't die are gone now and all the hardships they suffered because of the "Truth" was for nothing. If they lived today, they wouldn't have had to be so hard core about everything and many of their beliefs would have had to be "adjusted". It made me wonder depressingly if someday when we're all gone if people in the future would be gazing at the items we use today as we rearrange our lives for this organization and await armageddons arrival. There was a palpable air of an altered state of reality there at Bethel that I had forgotten about until I returned. Yes, everything was very nice...very clean etc but it was like a funeral parlor. Artificial flower arrangements, occasional tables and comfy wing backed chairs, very stuffy old lady style that sent the message that one should sit up straight and be on ones best behavior. Everyting looked like those idealistic photos in the magazines very studied and very much trying to send some underlying message or give the impression that they are a perfect organization. There was something very off putting about it. There were other groups of JW waiting for thier tour dressed in assembly clothes who were all a twitter because they thought they were in God's waiting room.
Anyway, I thought it was just me that was getting weird vibes until this sister turns around and said she wanted to get out of there. She said " I know that they work really hard here and we're supposed to be appreciative but I just don't want to spend any more time in here." Later my Wife and boys said they felt the same way.
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JeffT
When I became a JW in 1973 a lot of the people in the congregation "encouraged" me to go to Bethel. After all, that's where the real action was, four years wasn't that long, and in any event the New System would probably get here first. I'm glad I didn't listen to them, I might have killed somebody after having to sit through that for more than about two weeks.
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John_Mann
Thanx for your great analysis, exwhyzee!
I know your point about the "museum feeling", I felt the same every time I went to some museum. And the old stuff related to JW's make us to feel more compassionate toward this "old pics" people.
I'm a nihilist and a tour through a museum is the ultimate gospel of nihilism. No matter what you believe or not believe, 150 years from now most of us will be not even remembered by our very descendants.
It's not a sad thing neither happy, just the reality.
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Andrew Sh
Mann
"I'm a nihilist and a tour through a museum is the ultimate gospel of nihilism. No matter what you believe or not believe, 150 years from now most of us will be not even remembered by our very descendants." - Mann
A graveyard, especially with dirty, old, plastic flowers, is a pretty good evidence of the same.
But I think the ultimate gospel of nihilism is probably the book of Ecclesiastes by Solomon. eg:-
"For there is no remembrance of the wise more than the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dies the wise man? Even as the fool. Therefore I hated life, because the work that is wrought under the sun is grevious unto me: for all is vanity (meaningless) and vexation of spirit." Ecclesiastes 2:16,17.
Excepting that Solomon's conclusion is:-
"Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil." Ecclesiastes 12:13,14.
But cheer up: "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity. " Ecclesiastes 11:9,10.
Its a bit of a surprise that they, the hierarchy, should think it beneficial to show to the modern day rank and file the JWs from several decades ago zealously preparing to go round telling everyone the end is just a few months away, maybe just two or three years away, certainly no more than that.