by run dont walk 28 Replies latest jw friends
As Ironically as it may sound: C.T.Russell and J.F.Rutherford.
When I became curious I decided that the best way to find out stuff was simply read up on the old books. Boy, was I in for a surprise! Investigating the roots of the society turned up a lot of manure!
Greven
chester : "If you are happy with your life the way it is, stay off the internet".
Hum very interesting (this guy knew what he was talking about ! (thanks for the "if")
Thanks for the thread!
As a young Witness I lacked real heroes. My actual world was not real. I was an actor. I was given this role in a play and I was expected to play my part. My models were pacifists and book sellers and that did not satisfy my desire for a model. For a while I looked to movie stars like John Wayne and Steve McQueen. In high school I did not study the quiet book readers, I watched the bad boys. I was in search of an identity and I did not see myself as a bookseller in a cheap suit. My private dreams were not of getting a janitorial job and a used 4 door sedan and a Goodwill business suit and being a better Jehovah's Witness.
There were Witnesses who tried to influence me but they all just succeeded in pissing me off. Their goal was to get me to conform, to submit. The authentic me just wasn't into conformity and submission. The real me wasn't acceptable to them and the fake me wasn't acceptable to me. Storm clouds were on the horizon.
I wanted to find a niche for the authentic me to live in the Witness community but without giving up me in the process. I wanted the Witness people to do as I was taught they would do if I ever had questions. That was to answer those questions. But not one answered one question of mine. They all told me to quit asking questions. Then I asked why they were asking me to quit questioning that which they had taught me was okay to question.
I had never met a former Witness in 1974. It was the Witness people themselves who influenced me to quit associating. I went from being an advocate, a friend, a promoter, a true believer, to being a social Witness. Then I was belly pushed away from a vending machine at a district assembly and hassled about not wearing a necktie to the summer meeting and I had nowhere to go except out the door.
The saying that most affected me was, "Stay alive till '75!".
The Witnesses as a group influenced me to leave. The Witness who most influenced me to never return was my father.
The group most effective at getting Witnesses to leave the Watch Tower are the Witnesses. GaryB
All great stories!
Once in a while I would see the lies, propaganda, yellow journalism, or the WTS just plain speaking out of both sides of their mouths in the WT & ASLEEP! mags, but I always brushed it aside as, "I have to trust in jehover."
Then I read George Orwell's "Animal Farm" That hit too close to home. I then read his masterpiece, "1984". Once I found out about 587 vs. 607; what I read from George Orwell empowered me to question the WTS' authority.
To this day, whenever I hear people answer at the meetings [as I still go ], all I can think of is the sheep bleating in "Animal Farm",
"Four legs good, two legs bad. Four legs good two legs bad."
I'm sure I have a really stupid grin on my face that would make others wonder what the hell I'm thinking about
Winston.
Ray Franz. He wrote 2 books that are irrefutable......That's why I hate when people bash him.
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world.
dance as if no one were watching
sing as if no one were listening
live each day as if it were your last
if you don't try
you will never know
and always wonder what if
…was there a saying, an occurrence or a person that just got you thinking about how ridiculous the Watchtower is ???
During my early twenties, out of the blue I was asked by my kind and considerate JW girlfriend from another congregation to drive her to a judicial meeting and wait for her in the Kingdom Hall parking lot until the meeting was finished.
It was my understanding that she was attending the judicial hearing (meeting) as a witness, for what reasons I didn’t ask, on behalf of another JW sister of similar age, whom she was close to, and I familiar with.
. In retrospect, the reasons for the meeting must have been serious, as far as the judicial committee was concerned because my JW girl friend entered the Kingdom Hall rather calm and collected.
I didn’t think she knew how long it would take; I certainly had no idea because at that time I had hardly ever heard of a judicial meeting or committee
After naively twiddling my thumbs and listening to the radio for what seemed like a couple of hours, my girlfriend finally came back to the car, jumped in and slammed the door.
She was visibly shaken and voiced an anger and frustration I had never experienced from her. It took several hours for her to calm down, during which there were several episodes of blue smoke directed towards the members of the judicial committee. When I think back to that day, I was completely out of my element and felt absolutely irrelevant trying to console her or understand the situation.
Although we soon parted, I understand she remained a JW longer than even I did. I suspect because of stronger family commitments.
I’m sure it had to happen sooner or later but that awkward afternoon was the defining moment which kindled the thought that there was something very unfamiliar and sinister about the guys running the social structure or arrangement we understood as, the loving, spiritual paradise of our youth.
"Stop putting quarters in your asskickin machine"
Gumby
