I was a Jehovah's Witness in a different religion (page 2)

trujw

People that show kindness, love and flexibility are pushed to the side. I really think it will get even more hardcore. How can men who live in a compound for 30, 40, 60 years surrounded by yes men really take responsibility they are deranged themselves. Even as they shrink it will be a sign from god the end is EVEN closing. Their true god is the group and the Need to believe that it's true. Their minds couldn't take the fact that they are indeed the evil slave talked about in the bible false prophets, Pharisees and murders of small children.

leaving_quietly

This was the essence of a conversation my wife an I had a few weeks back. I told her that this religion is NOT the one I was baptized into. Almost everything had changed.

watson

I really like the title of this thread.

lost

F2BME

Giordano

1950's and early 1960's. Building a KH in Westchester NY. A table loaded with subs, wine, and soda. People relaxed enjoying one anothers conversation.

Bethel brothers always looked haunted, working at slave wage's ($14 a month something like 30 cents an hour).

Young sisters & brothers always wanting to go to a gathering or party.

Dating was considered normal.

Blood was a life and death issue with the state of medicine in that era.

Vietnam, the draft. You pioneered to stay out of it. Or went to Bethel, if you couldn't fullfill your three or four year obligation you left........ but you weren't allowed to pioneer for 6 monts. Just long enough to allow the draft board to catch up to you. They had a great retention percentage....untill the draft ended.

End of the world announced for 1975. JW's started acting batty, "no need to put a second coat of the house.... Armageddon will be here soon."

Conclusion: the friends back then were indeed friends but the WTBTS sucked then as much as now. Rutherford still reached out from his grave then and now choking the humanity out of the organization and congregations.

scotoma

The watchtower never provided emergency food that had a long storage life. Everything had to be refrigerated after opening and would still expire shortly thereafter. The problem is all of their "food" (in due season?) has expired and is now unsafe for consumption.

Back in the 60's and 70's they still had the "generation" due date. That expired and they took it out of the old cans and put it in newer cans to make it look safe.

At this point I think all of religion is just Grown Up Santa Claus. But the false JW idea is worse than the false concept of dying and going to heaven. Most religions have the best of both worlds. You live your life and then you die and go to a better place. At least they had the dying part right. Knowing for a certainty that you are going to die in your 70's or 80's kept the idea in mind that if there is something you want to do you had better do it. But being told that there is a catastrophe awaiting that you must keep in mind so that you survive it, keeps you in a state where you fall victim to putting your life on hold. That would be fine if something REALLY happened but if you have been a JW for 63 years like I have (3rd generation), you burried a lot of sincere relatives that squandered their life and their children's economic security for nothing.

A lot of people that became JW's after they were adults don't appreciate the deep disappointment of those who were raised to believe that they and their parents and grandparents weren't going to die. At the deepest part of our brain is a paradigm of profound sadness that is worse than a hell where you could be tortured in the presence of other people who had the satisfaction of knowing they chose their path. Dante couldn't have thought up anything like it.

Athanasius

I agree that the JW organization of the 1950s and 60s was very different from the present structure. In those days many KHs were rented rooms above the local Pool Hall. Even smoking was tolerated. We also had a lot of extracuricular events that are now prohibited. Then came the 1970s, which started by ushing in some needed reforms. I like to refer to those days as Watchtower Vatican II. Had the liberals on the GB won the power struggle in the lat 70s, JWism would be a much different religion today. Unfortunately the GB hardliners purged Ray Franz, Ed Dunlap, and other liberals from Bethel and reform was replaced with repression.

Since I resigned as an elder in 1984 and faded, there have been a lot of changes to JW religious structure. Thank God I'm out and don't have to deal with this. But as the JW membership ages and the young leave, the vast majority in the KHs will be the elderly. I feel sorry for these older ones as senior dementia takes its toll on these long time faithful JWs. Will they be DFd because they can't retain the new FDS change and still teach the old interpretation?

villagegirl

free2beme - Interesting insight from the perspective of today's Kingdom Hallers.

Appreciate this insight since I came from the 60's 70's 80's pre-internet Amageddon

is next week, for SURE this time, run-for-your-life and carry no insurance crowd.

But how does this "live till you die" new philosophy mesh with the "get no advanced

university degree" that might take 4 to 8 years to become a professional in any medical

or science, marine biologist, law or teaching capacity ?? In this "new world" (pun)

of a relaxed approach and the new idea of joining the "Rapture" how can they maintain

the paranoia about other Christian churches ? And the refusal to connect in community ?

What remains is: the isolation of children and the failure to provide any

social activities or charity work or meaningful activities except passing

out Watchtowers. Even the icy cold isolation of not partaking of 'emblems'

is alienating. There is no real "Heart" or loyalty or love or Christian works.

Those who remain in have a hard core suicide bomber kind of mentality towards

anyone who does not accept the faithful and discreet slave and governing body as

their Mediator. Its much more creepy than it was in the jolly old 60's-70's.

villagegirl

scotoma - WOW Does that ever NAIL it .

You are my new hero. ADD

Giordano, Athanasius, Fresh Prince

all heroes. Everyone on this site should

read this thread.

ballistic

Supposedly god doesn't change. Why does religion change so much?

I think it is largely driven by the progress of science and the enlightenment of society.

I think the witnesses have published articles about churches giving way to homosexuals , women priests and argue that they are not sticking to the bible, and yet,

if you look at the JW teachings, they have changed since the "Divine Plan of the Ages" beyond all recognition, without a doubt.

I was a Jehovah's Witness in a different religion

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