I think he writes what we all dream. Reality is, this a cult, and way too many times he has gotten 'information' from all these, very 'in JWs,' that are so willing to voice their displeasure.
The new service meeting
by John Aquila 133 Replies latest jw experiences
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adjusted knowledge
I actually read the whole thing with my short attention span. The narrative hits all the topics ppl on here ramble on about wishing would come true. Not plausible imo. -
slimboyfat
JRK, know-it-all in chief here at your service.
All stories contain truth and fabrication, whether they be fact or fiction. I just think the OP contains a lot more fabrication than we normally tolerate in something purporting to be a report of a real event, like around 95% or more.
Possible true elements of the story include: that John has an elderly mum and he wonders how she feels about the WT now as she gets older. Other people in the congregation have been unkind to him and/or his mum. He wonders if he is still appealing to the opposite sex as he gets older himself, and if he would have a better chance finding a younger woman who is a JW. He wonders how many JWs in the congregation, especially older ones, share his own concerns about issues he's read on this site and elsewhere.
That's about as far as it goes. Most of the rest has a strong fictive quality to the extent that we don't even need to "be there" to know it's not "true" in the strictest sense. It's simply not true that we can read the minds of others for example. Yet John unwittingly claims this ability when he asserts that he knows what all the others have read, what they all feel, and what they will all collectively do next week. An author can know these things about his characters, but an ordinary person in real life does not know these things.
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exwhyzee
Bow Wow....I guess I'm part of the Dog Pack as well but am open to straying from said pack when I realize or I'm shown that I've been wrong.
I enjoy John's posts nevertheless and apologize for being skeptical about them if they are in fact 100% true. I think it's just that a lot of us here were trusting in a big way for so long and were duped big time and are consequently hyper vigilant about not letting it happen again. At one time it became a "fact" in my own head, that JW's had the truth and nothing could convince me otherwise. Now the opposite has happened and I have to be careful that I don't automatically believe every negative bit of information or anecdote I come across no matter how much they confirm my pre existing biases against JW's.
I'm with Magnum when he says in so many words, that he depends on the information here being accurate and dependable rather than entertaining. Many here are making or continuing on with big life decisions based on the information they get on sites like this and then combine with their own life experience and current situation. They can't afford to waste anymore of their lives, on recovering from JW's.
Having said that, good for you John if everything went down as you said it did.....no real harm done I suppose, if it didn't.
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Athanasius
While I’d love to believe JA’s post, I must confess that I too am skeptical of his account. Eleven elderly sisters, the youngest in their late 70s, and the oldest being 93 or 96, stop by at the same time. How did they get there? Nothing was said about the sisters arriving in a chauffeured mini-bus, nor their use of public transportation. Did the eleven elderly women drive themselves using two or more automobiles, with the drivers being in their late 70s or 80s? This sounds very unlikely.
Also there was no mention of JA’s mom during the sisters’ visit. Since he provided the refreshments, it sounds like mom wasn’t there. Again would eleven elderly JWs hang around in the presence of an inactive JW of questionable loyalty? Though I was never DFd, whenever I visited my JW mom and her JW friends stopped by, as soon as they saw me they excused themselves, saying: “I see you have company. We’ll drop by at another time.”
However, as others have commented, many older JWs are questioning what is going on in JW land these days, and some have revised their wills to exclude the Watchtower Corporation from inheriting their assets. But this information was revealed in private conversations, not in large groups of ten or more. Moreover, the larger the group, the more danger that one of the sisters could be an informer, who would report back to the elders. It’s very unlikely that with this large a group, the sisters would feel free enough to voice negative comments about the JW organization.
Some of what JA posted is believable, but not in the setting that he described.
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JRK
sbf,
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Just saying . . .
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bohm
Slimboyfat --- just trolling you a bit but cant resist: are you implying the op might not be the most accurate depiction of events -- like it might be partly untrue in an almost objective sense? like the truth depends on what did or did not happend and not so much about the telling? (Sorry cant resist, i have you pegged as a closeted evidentialist)
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slimboyfat
Yes truth is stranger than fiction. That's why it's sometimes unsafe to judge stories on their inherent plausibility: because the most implausible things can happen in real life all the time. Could old people go to a house all at once? Why not? Are lots of Witnesses talking against the society? I'm sure they are.
It's not the events related so much as the manner of narration which marks it out as more fiction than fact.
Want to tell someone a lie and have them believe it? Find out what they want to hear, tell them what they want to hear, and they'll believe you every time. Apart from me. Doesn't work on me, because I'm know-it-all in chief.
You judge what's true and what's fabricated. ;-)
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Beth Sarim
Yes, it is all very, very strange
Difficult to stomach.
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slimboyfat
bohm, I do find it somewhat ironic that some on the forum who claim to have a proper handle on "reality" are buying these stories hook, line, and sinker. While it takes someone who doesn't believe in objective truth (me) to point out obvious fiction from fact.
As I said above, I would hesitate to call the OP completely untrue as such. I would tend to describe its style as fictive in quality. Fiction can contain more truth than a factual account of course.