JWs behavior on 9-11 (page 2)

els

I cannot imagine what it was like for those of you who were there that day, and those who lost friends or loved ones. Such senseless deaths. my heart goes out to you all. All those deaths in the name of God and religion. If there is a god and he cares about us and has a plan for us, what is he waiting for? Isn't there enough evil and suffering is this world for him to do what ever it is he's going to do?
I was home alone that day and I turned on the TV just as the first plane hit. I didn't move, just watched, stunned until the second tower fell. Then I wondered if my boss, who is from NY and has family there, knew what was going on. I called him at work and he hadn't seen anything since the planes hit. He thought that it would be OK, that they would get the fires out. He was trying to make me feel better and I had to tell him, NO Bill, They're gone, they collapsed. He didn't believe me or he couldn't. I was just sobbing over the phone. All I could tell him was, turn on the TV.
DIZZY CAT; YOU SAID; Even JWs are human. Try not to clutch at straws looking for justification for walking away from the Borg'anization, feeling happy and righteous as you go.

My remaining friends in the org' would not turn their backs on suffering when witnessed.

We all bleed the same. Believe it or not.

For someone who is no longer a witness you semm to be very judgemental. I did not say anything about why I asked what I did. I'm not entirely sure why I did. Partly I was shocked to think that witnesses could be that unfeeling. I used to have dear,dear friends in the "truth", my entire family is in. I was a witness from when I was a baby till 26 and had babies of my own. I left a huge piece of myself behind when I left. I know as well as anyone that there is good and bad in the witnesses, as there is in every one. The congregation I left is exemplary in many ways, they cannot do enough for my parents (they are 80 and my mother walks with a walker and my father is in a wheelchair). I have my own justification for walking away, but I do not feel HAPPY or RIGHTEOUS about it. I broke my mothers heart when I left.
So don't assume from a few words that you know anything about me. I was just curious, that's all. els

Mary

My understanding was that Bethel DID open it's doors to the public on September 11th. I have no proof of this, but I would find it hard to believe that even the Borg would lock it's doors when they were right across the river and saw exactly what happened that day.

jws

I do know that talking to my dad (long time, very active JW), he was deeply sadenned by the massive loss of lives.

Yet on another note between him and another JW I know, they both had facts (verifiable or not) about how many JWs were in the towers, how many were hurt (I think I first heard no casualties), etc. Part of me made me think "with all the deaths, you're concerned about JWs". But I don't think their reaction was unusual. People naturally tend to be concerned first with people they have a connection to, be it family or workmates, or in this case, members of their religion. At work, while we mourned all the losses, I heard people asking whether we had employees of our company in the towers.

Dogpatch

Here is a good thread to bring back the memories:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=12006&site=3

also about the Trade Towers and satanic things:

http://www.randytv.com/secret/wtc.htm

Randy Watters

Net Soup!

http://www.freeminds.org

cruzanheart

The announcement made at my old congregation the week after September 11 was that, right after the attacks began, the Bethel brothers were ordered to shut the blinds and keep working as though nothing was going on. Later, when people began streaming across the Brooklyn Bridge, we were told that Bethel provided the refugees with drinks and a plate of spaghetti. God only knows what really happened. See previous threads.

Dizzy Cat, if we seem judgmental, please consider that a lot of the bad things that have happened to those of us who post on this forum came from Jehovah's Witnesses. And while most of us know some nice JWs (and nice Baptists, Catholics, Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims), we also are pretty sure that our dear, nice friends and/or relatives would (or have) shun us in a heartbeat if we are disfellowshipped or disassociate ourselves, no matter what the reason. So if we're a mite testy, that's why!

Nina

ballistic

The control centre where I work has big screens showing CNN but I don't normally get time to look at these and there is no volume. A strange eirie silence fell across the phones. They sometimes go quiet but this was for too long. Then I look up over my desk and I see someone looking at a news channel on a bbc web site. No one shouted or even said anything. I just looked up at the screen in the distance and see the first tower a few minutes after the crash and straight away I knew it was bad.

Then as time went on and the towers came down we started getting one or two calls. The trouble was we speak to New York a lot and the phone lines were simply dead. What suprised me most were the callers who would not take no for an answer that we could not get hold of New York. I couldn't understand why they were angry with me that I couldn't get New York while I was still in a state of shock over what had just happened.

Even when the lines were restored, connection through the AT&T exchange was flakey for at least a few days. I tell you something: this is still having an impact on the other side of the world in many areas. Just one that I am aware of is contingency planning and disaster recovery. People are realising you cant necessarily have contingency arrangements in 'the building next door', even possibly the same city.

els

Ugh! Those pictures bring back such memories. I remember going out in service, which I always hated, and trying my hardest to not get out of the car. I did not want to try to place things like that with anyone. els

Shakita

Tom Talley:

Yes. Those wonderful pictures of the impending doom of all "worldly people and material possessions." When I think back on all the books and magazines that dealt with the horrible images of armageddon, I have to wonder why I didn't see the smiling people in those pictures. Did I think myself special to be among those smiling faces? Did I think that those poor people who were dead or dying in those pictures were deserving of their fate? How does a religion, or any group for that matter, get a hold of your conscience and make you not see something for what it really is?

And, since I haven't been to a meeting in a while, does anybody have any proof that bethel was letting "regular" people in and feeding them? I haven't heard of this in my neck of the woods. And, as for giving out bottles of water, I am sure that there were JW's who were doing this or similar acts of kindness. Just because the old men at the top are withering away and can't see the forest through the trees, it doesn't mean there aren't "kind-hearted(but misled)" people at "God's House" up there in NYC.

Mrs. Shakita

Edited to add a "winky eye" at "God's House"

Edited by - shakita on 19 November 2002 20:20:58

JWs behavior on 9-11

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