Another thing JWs aren't supposed to do is read certain books like romance, love stories, murder mysteries, horror, and "apostate" literature.
What Is The Stupidest Rule You've Encountered As a Witness?
by minimus 90 Replies latest jw friends
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fearnotruth22
JW's having positions required to put on a facade of activity for the cong to see.
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SadElder
Sisters working in public areas of Bethel must wear dresses, not pants, regardless of their work assignments. So those dear janitor sisters have to get down their hands and knees wearing a dress, and of course they better not show too much leg while doing it. More Jaracz crapola.
How about the guilt trip they place on all those kids for wanking? Tell 'em to mind their own business.
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minimus
Do sisters wear dresses when they're on ladders?
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JH
If there is a book study right next to where you live, you probably will be sent elsewhere. They love to make people travel long distances and take up your precious time.
This isn't a rule but an observation I made.
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JH
You have to make a prayer each time you stick something in your mouth to look pious.
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fearnotruth22
Nobeards. No drinking while in service or before meetings.
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minimus
"no drinking while in service"......Yeah, that is rotten. More than a few times, I wished that I had a drink or two while out in the "field".
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seattleniceguy
Euph: In Japan, karaoke is different - and much cooler - than here. Here, it's typically in a common area of a restaurant or bar, but in Japan, your party goes into its own little room with a TV and a couple couches. It's really fun, too, because you can order food and drinks to your room. They have specials during slow times of the day where you can get unlimited drinks and snacks, too. The reasoning behind banning it was that some groups of young Witnesses had gone to karaoke and things had heated up and people had gotten in trouble. I thought it was stupid because as long as you don't go as a group of horny teenagers of equal male:female ratio and get all liquored up, nothing like that is going to happen. But they saw fit to just eliminate the entire thing.
Galimo: I just wanted to comment about the human factor. Like you say, sometimes individual elders come up with silly rules that aren't specifically in any WT literature. When I was a Witness, I hated hearing about so-and-so elder doing this or that, because I felt that it was impossible for the WT Society to be responsible for the actions of every elder in every congregation.
What I realize now is that the WT Society is responsible, because it creates a culture of legalism. It is precisely because the WT Society creates such a large quantity of minute rules and asks publishers to know them and elders to enforce them, that elders and older sisters feel that they should take it on themselves to do the extra police work regarding skirt lengths and PG-13 movies. For example, imagine if, in the thousands of pages of literature it publishes each year, the WT Society emphasized using one's conscience and respecting the consciences of others. If that were made an important part of the culture, I think we would have a much lower rate of Gestapo activity and ad-hoc rules among the individuals in the congregations.
Because the Society is so directly responsible for the culture seen among Witnesses, I do hold them largely responsible for both positive and negative aspects of the human dynamics that develop within it.
SNG
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minimus
SNG-----You are right. It is the Society that fosters the climate we see in the individual congregations. If the overriding message was to be loving and kind and NOT judgmental, Jehovah's Witnesses would act "Christian".