Governing body member has nervous breakdown due to bethel workload

by Witness 007 20 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Witness 007

  Karl Klien life story from the Watchtower.

  "President Rutherford had repeated occasions to REPROVE me for breaking some rule. (Under President Knorr 1950) Brother Knorr invited me to join the writing department...when I told him it did not matter where I served he REPROVED ME..saying when an added privilege is offered we should be eager to accept it...my attitude was due to my health which has always been a problem. Knorr was older we were like brothers with the older brother Knorr prone to expressing inpatients to my short comings. In 1974 I was asked to join the Governing body. I NEEDED ENCOURAGEMENT to accept it." Fredrick Franz encouraged him and he says he had a mental breakdown "due to his imperfections" but you can see the pushy do more nature of the organisation which continues today.
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  slimboyfat

  Other fragmentary random details: he played (not sure what) in the orchestra, and he was responsible (according to not sure what source) for dropping the “vindication of Jehovah’s name” doctrine in the early 1990s, which has recently been revived, and had an unusual creaky voice.
  
  
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  Justaguy

  I wouldnt describe it as creaky it was very nasally. I always suspected he had a badly deviated septum
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  Marbles

  Here's the thing- the thesis of Erich Fromm's book "Escape From Freedom" is that when people either cannot, or will not, think for themselves, they seek to obey a dictator, or a dictator organization such as the JDubbs.
  
  And thinking for ourselves can in fact be very hard to do when we don't have adequate information to help us make the right choices, or at least easier choices. No, many times life is not easy, that is why people just want someone else to make decisions for them.
  
  But I also don't agree with political polarization, like Republicans are dictators and Democrats are free thinkers. Polarizations like this surely make balanced decision making harder.
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  slimboyfat

  I came across the work of Erich Fromm too when reading Andrew Holden’s discussion of Jehovah’s Witnesses as a reaction against the freedoms offered by the modern world. The book was published under the title The Fear of Freedom in the UK. Here is Holden’s essay using Fromm’s concepts to analyse JWs.

  https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/resources/sociology-online-papers/papers/holden-cavorting-with-the-devil.pdf
  
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  hoser

  Bethel sounds like a toxic company I used to work for.
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  Disillusioned JW

  I have left the WT/JW because 'I am not not of their sort'. I treasure thinking for myself and as a result I now disagree with many of the WT's teachings. I also treasure having freedom to do what I think is in my best interests and to do what I think is right. Though I have to rely on the knowledge and research of others, I nonetheless evaluate some of what I read of what the experts of various fields say.
  

  By the way, why are there so few women posting comments on this site?
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  Simon

  By the way, why are there so few women posting comments on this site?

  How can you tell someone's gender from a fake name and avatar?
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  LongHairGal

  DISILLUSIONED JW:

  Sometimes it’s hard to tell who is a woman because so many posters chose names that don’t indicate their gender. I made sure I chose a name that shows what I am because I feel it is important.

  After all, my negative experience in the Jehovah’s Witnesses was directly because I AM a woman who held down a full-time job. That was a no-no in their eyes!.. They expected me to pioneer and pursue poverty and become a doormat for the old ladies and other Users in the religion. Instead, I became an object of passive hatred and semi-shunning because I did NOT listen to them. I chose the wiser course of looking out for my own best interest.

  Like you, I also walked away from this religion.
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  Disillusioned JW

  I get an idea of the gender of those making posts by some of what they write and how they write it. But, granted that method isn't fool proof.

  For example, in my workplace the women often talk about very different things than the men, and the expressions they use are often very different. [Their body language at times is also very different.] My experiences in listening to such gives me an idea of the gender (at least of what I think is the gender) of many of those making posts on the site.
  

  Also sometimes people state their gender (and a few even state their sex practices) or say they used to be a JW elder and/or ministerial servant (or given talks in the kingdom hall of the kind which are rarely ever assigned to women), or they say they have (or had) a wife or a girl friend. The ones making posts also sometimes state their hobbies and the experiences they had in running their own business. Some also state their other experiences.