The truth just ain't the same any more. (page 3)

Oubliette

They say the love is not there like it used to be, and it's become less personal.

Duh!

And yet they stay ...

return of parakeet

Oubliette: " And yet they stay ... "

"Where else would they go?"

Vidqun

I think canning the Book Study also had something to do with it. Big mistake!

Julia Orwell

I don't see much joy. People do it out of duty or habit, as well as what you said. I did it out of duty because I thought it right. Some also do it to earn a blessing too.

HarryMac

I haven't been to a meeting since 2001 with any sincerity.

I remember reading on here a few months ago the picnics and the like 'discouraged'. Would somebody care to elaborate? How is this done? KM? It wasn't going this way at all when I left... hospitality, etc.. was a virtue.

steve2

Julia - you make some very relevant observations about the "mood" of Witnesses in recent years. It has definitely changed for the worst. It must be so very hard to have been raised in the organization, to have put your life into raising your children in the organization and to now be well into your retirement years, possibly with lots of physical health complaints AND realize it could be wrong. What's left for these ones? I feel for the despair they must feel.

Julia Orwell

Yes, so many of them moan that they can't 'serve Jehovah' the way they used to. Different to a lot of non Jw oldies who while acknowledging they can't be as active as they used to, are happy to look back and tell you about their younger lives and be content with a life lived.

DATA-DOG

They are all feeling it. The end aint comin like they think. Hope springs eternal, as they say. Does the GB really believe that they are right? Really!? The end ain't coming! Sorry! I am bad, fine.. I just realized today, really realized, that when the bible speaks of the ridiculers saying, " where is this promised presence of his..", uhhh that has been fulfilled already!! No one believed that Christ had appeared, well, the majority did not.

The Dubs thrive on classes, and secondary fulfillments. Without that, they have nothing! All they have is 1) No ( inherent ) immortality of the soul. 2) No Trinity ( as they explain it). 3) No hellfire. 4) 1914 invisible presence. 5) Paradise Earth. When you REALLY boil it down to the essentials, that's it! When they have to say why they are better than any other religion, that is what they say.

Anyway, they are clinging to hope. The GB have led them down the primrose path. I think the climate of fear is dominating the org. When hope starts to fade, fear can fill that void. The GB fear being exposed and losing power. The Elders fear losing face and control. They are all people in the end, and they all fear death. They fear being wrong more than anything else. They do not want to admit that they have been deceived. Just one more year in the elderly and infirm section of the DC. Just one more year of a less than mediocre life, because the end is so close. Just one more year of sleeping with a man I do not love. Just one more year of back-brakeing labor at night, with no 401K or health insurance. Just one more year of the same routine, day in day out, week after week, year after year. Just one more....

So " apostates " are a rallying point, a common enemy. The GB can attack those who disagree. Not because we are wrong. We make them question. They are so afraid that they cannnot look down the rabbit hole. They are cowards. When you stare into the abyss, it stares back. You have to make it blink first. So far they are losing.

exwhyzee

Anyone who remembers the conventions where they served meals and where there was an actual orchestra and bold talks about the nearness of the end, realizes that something died when they started homogenizing and streamlining everything. Recorded music, cookie cutter Kingdom Halls, formulaic literature, canned talks and ambigious talk about the "Last Days" and when it may or may not come, has made it all very nice but not very good. It seems like most JW's glom onto all the man made rules but don't really know the doctrine behind their own beliefs.

Julia Orwell

" Just one more year in the elderly and infirm section of the DC. Just one more year of a less than mediocre life, because the end is so close. Just one more year of sleeping with a man I do not love. Just one more year of back-brakeing labor at night, with no 401K or health insurance. Just one more year of the same routine, day in day out, week after week, year after year. Just one more...."

That's not living, it's existing. I've done it as a JW, as have all of us...you become an automaton, with anything you like deferred for some future time when you can sit down and pet lions and tigers. And for the oldies, they just fade into obscurity, praying for A to come before they die. Of course it never does.

The truth just ain't the same any more.

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