Comments You Won't Hear at the 3-28-04 WT Study

by blondie 41 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Jankyn

  Everybody's covered most of the ground with this one--great, as usual, Blondie--but I've got to respond to this comment:

  Don't get me wrong I'm for sex ed, but the Watchtower has no business discussing it with your children. Besides, the Bible does not comment on oral or ########, so why have a Bible discussion of it?

  I actually received a pretty good sex education from the WT. In fact, I was able to get into a whole lot of trouble at school explaining exactly what "oral copulation" and "bestiality" were to the other children. I didn't know the slang terms, but by golly, I could describe the acts! When the teacher called my mother, she was outraged and wanted to know where I'd learned about such things--and was very dismayed (to the point of willful disbelief) when I pointed to the WT.

  On the other hand, a WT study article (it must have been from 1971 or 1972) that described all the "porneia" one could be disfellowshipped for answered a lot of my questions--and kept me from getting baptized, since I knew I'd only be disfellowshipped.

  Until then, I'd had no idea that my feelings for other girls were anything but slightly weird--then the WT devoted a whole paragraph to homosexuality (a sin worthy of death, as my mother is fond of pointing out), and in the last line, said something to the effect of "Female homosexuals are called lesbians." Aha! If there are words for it, there must be others! With the help of the public library, this adolescent baby dyke was on her way out of the WT.

  Grateful not to have wasted more than a childhood.

  Jankyn
• 

  FlyingHighNow

  Similarly, unless you safeguard your heart, you will be at the mercy of your every inner desire and impulse, and your life course will veer into disaster.

  I think this is the real reason most fundy religionists freak out over sexuality. They are having a damn hard time not being at the mercy of their own inner desires and impulses. "Don't wear those short skirts sisters because some of us brothers will not be able to think about anything else but the fact that we want to bed you and we will NEVER get anything else done. And we might just act on those inner desires." They are afraid of their own tendancy to lust.

  One Christian couple (don?t they mean JW couple?) engaged in immoral behavior during their courtship. After they married, the wife admitted that her conscience tormented her, evening ruining the joy of her wedding day. She confessed: "I have asked Jehovah?s forgiveness many times, but even though seven years passed since then, my conscience continues to accuse me." It is vital that those who commit such sins seek help from Christian elders. (James 5:14,15)

  Let's look at the other side of waiting until marriage coin: you wait until you are married to a JW man to engage in any sexual activities. He then tells you can't wear that sexy short nighty you received at your JW lingerie shower."That is cheap and trashy". He wants you to wear those "long, respectable gowns" instead.This is a stage setter. He was raised as a JW and he isn't about to allow you to have a normal sex life. This is what happens when you try very hard to stay chaste. You have no clue that you will be sexually imcompatible until it is too late.

  Flyin'
• 

  Badger

  I personally believe that sex is for those who are more mature emotionally and ready financially to accept the responsibilities that sexual activity brings

  I do! I always pay for dinner!
• 

  Oxnard Hamster

  17 Flirting may be defined this way: to signal romantic interest when there is no real intention to marry.

  Um, didn't most married couples start out by flirting with each other in some form? How are you supposed to hook up with someone else without flirting?

  Once again, WTS logic eludes me.
• 

  blondie

  JeffT

  Witnesses are OBSESSED with sex. I've been going to a maistream church for fifteen years since we got out and I haven't heard anything like this even once.

  Thanks for the contrasting observation. The WTS would respond that is because your church is riddled with sexually immoral people who are allowed to be members. The minister is afraid to say anything because members would leave.

  Whereas the WTS talks about it often, sees potential fornicators and adulterers in every corner of the KH but hides the pedophiles in their midst.

  Galaxy 7

  (love that chick, makes me smile every time)

  So is it alright to do these things after your married?

  That is a topic for another article, perhaps a side article in the WT or a Question From Readers. I think after marriage, it is a Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell issue.

  Jgnat,

  All good comments. This struck a chord with me.

  As for the poor woman who has condemned herself for seven years, depriving herself and her husband from fully enjoying their love and commitment to each other, I cry for her. In Christendom's churches, I was always taught that Satan condemns, God convicts. With God, there is always a way free to new life.

  The WTS wants a hold over you. They want you to think you have to come to them for a clean conscience. Why else do they insist that sinners confess to the elders and that confession to God is not enough.

  Pistoff,

  Wow, I see a WT reviewer waiting to burst out in you.

  Now, for their descriptions of sexual conduct. Ummmm......what happens in houses of prostitution?? SEX. Yep. I am willing to wager that the most common type of sex in a brothel is.................INTERCOURSE.

  I wish I had said that.

  I hope you missed this Sunday?s fare.

  Eyeslice,

  There is another problem here. The text is quite clear in that it is talking about oral, anal and other sexual practices engaged in by unmarried couples. However, the average R&F member will pick this up as a subliminal message that it also includes married couples

  Subliminal message---the WTS implies many things or lets you fill the blanks. I try to highlight those moments. Thanks for catching this one.

  Thanks still,

  Brillinat Blondie

  Just as long as I remain informative. I don?t want to dazzle them with my ?.

  Seeit,

  Yes, it can be hard. I do it in segments and then go vomit?.but more and more?but it is good to know what new weapons or old weapons disguised are being used. That way any JWs I meet can?t say, "we don?t teach that any more," I?ll know if they do.

  Flowerpetal,

  In addition, I get so tired of them treating the R&F as if they are anointed Christians and putting this heavy responsibility of doing what a "Christian" is supposed to be doing, on them. They have inferred that the Greek Scriptures are for the anointed and by "extension" to the "other sheep

  Very true, flowerpetal. These words were written to the "anointed" yet it is the "other sheep" who are being flogged.

  Blueblades,

  Just wait for the article on THE BIRDS and THE BEES, for the little ones.Come to think about it, its in the new teacher book released at the district convention last year.Soon they will put it into the Watchtower study.

  I hope it is handled just like the "Mankind?s Search for God" book which was released and quickly fell into disuse.

  Orange,

  I appreciate your kind work and Scully too. Your explantions were so well said, I couldn't have done as good a job.

  Orange, when Scully speaks, Blondie listens too. I learn so much from all of you. Orange, we just do things differently. We all bring something to the table.

  Pistoff,

  I still feel so strongly about the lethal guilt that the WT instills into people about very natural and healthy behavior. I see so many marriages in the congregations that are between young, inexperienced people. The sexual inexperience is important; young people have an even harder time than adults in separating intimacy and sexual attraction. The policy forbidding sexual intimacy of any type makes this problem almost insurmountable for those who have issues with this. The result is that many get married in order to have a sexual life; they usually marry someone they should not be married to for any number of reasons, including sexual incompatibility. Now starts the difficulty of divorcing in the congregation, not to mention the way divorcing because of this reason, sexual difficulties, is viewed by "mature ones." I no longer wonder why there is so much depression, despair and frustration in the borg.

  Very, very good points. I have seen the fruitage of this. I have seen people get married you barely knew each other because of no time together to have intimate TALK and I don?t mean about sex.

  Jankyn, I?m old, homosexuality wasn?t discussed when I was growing up. I didn?t know what a lesbian was until I was 19. Most adults in general find it hard to talk to their children about sex. The WTS goes overboard and discusses sexual topics at inappropriate ages. But they don?t discuss these practices in the context of what an adult should not do to a child.

  Flying,

  Don't wear those short skirts sisters because some of us brothers will not be able to think about anything else but the fact that we want to bed you and we will NEVER get anything else done. And we might just act on those inner desires."

  They are afraid of their own tendancy to lust.

  What can you say of an organization where the first president, married but took a vow not to have sex with his wife, the second president, lived apart from his wife for many years and there is some documentation that he may not have been faithful, the third president was single for many years, married but reportedly did not consummate his marriage, and the 4 th president was a lifelong bachelor. Obsessed with sex?and not having sex.

  Right, Badger,

  I think paying for an 18 to 20 year old oops project might be more expensive (smile).

  Oxnard,

  I think by flirting without marriage, means that you are single, you don?t want to get married ever, or for many years. Yet, you flirt with people who are interested in eventually getting married. You flirt but you don?t tell them you don?t want to get married. People can get hurt that way.

  It is good to be friendly though. It is all in what your motives are and only you know that.

  Blondie
• 

  FlyingHighNow

  They are afraid of their own tendancy to lust.
  

  What can you say of an organization where the first president, married but took a vow not to have sex with his wife, the second president, lived apart from his wife for many years and there is some documentation that he may not have been faithful, the third president was single for many years, married but reportedly did not consummate his marriage, and the 4 th president was a lifelong bachelor. Obsessed with sex?and not having sex.

  Well, lawsie mercy, this explains a whole lot then doesn't it? And these dried up old men are making policy for millions of people earthwide. How sick.

  Think of the complete burka that women in some Arab countries wear. The ones that cover even their eyes, with a mesh screen so that they can breath a little. I wonder if the Gov Bod would make sisters wear those if they could. If God is this paranoid about human sexuality then why didn't he make us all directly as he did the angels? Why did he invent sex? And why the speck did he make it feel so good and why did he make it so much fun??

  Flyin'
• 

  Odrade

  HELP! I need the text of this article without the comments! I've been doing a little "reasoning" and I need to be able to show her "clean" quotes from this study article in context.
• 

  Pistoff

  Blondie:

  I hope you missed this Sunday?s fare.

  I assume you are referring to the shortened WT that we discussed on Monday nite this week; ugh what a dreadful guilt inducing pile of bad rhetoric. My head is still reeling from having to sit through it with the family without bursting out, first from laughter and then from seething anger at the shame that was being laid on.

  Lowlights from the lesson for March29-April4:

  VOMIT statement: PP 2: "Deception comes in many forms and has crept in nearly all aspects of modern-day life (apparently, lying is a new phenomenon; it is creeping in!!!) Media reports, blah blah blah................"Then there is religious deception" (!!). Snort! you mean like lying about sexual abuse policy?

  The usual demonization of ordinary things is used to death here; Satan is misleading, unrelenting, bent on devouring: how??? APOSTATES OF COURSE. Not able to discuss any ISSUES directly, the ad hominem attack begins: what do apostates want? (to tell us how much we have been lied to?) NO; they want to make followers of the poor tricked witnesses. They even compare apostates to kidnappers!!

  Apostates "'often'" (weasel word) resort to distortions, half-truths and outright falsehoods"; (apparently the WT is cheesed that their methods might have been copied!) Counselors call this projection......

  Dunderheaded comment of the day: one brother said that when he was studying, he had been warned about "opposers"; he received some literature from a relative about the WT, saw that it was NOT WT material, and threw it away. Another sister said that one pamphlet she read twisted scriptures, took them out of context and actually (gasp) got the cited WT pages incorrect. (she WAS reading WT material, apparently).

  Finally, PP 10 lays it on for us: "Second, we love the organization that has taught us (lied to us repeatedly, let the Malawi brothers be killed, children be raped, sisters df'd for not screaming, df'd questioners) the precious truths that so plainly separate us from Babylon the Great. At the same time, we recognize that our knowledge (read: our goofy, ever changing doctrine) of God's purpose (you know, the God who uses us as his channel?) is not perfect; (really?) our understanding has undergone adjustments over the years. (cough) Loyal Christians are content to wait on Jehovah for all such refinements. (Pro 4:18) Meanwhile, we will not abandon the organization that God is pleased to (let bumble, stumble, lie, cheat, mismanage, lord over, lie, lie lie) use, for we see the clear evidence of his blessing upon it. Acts 6:7, 1 Cor 3:6.

  PP 11 completely abandons the "Satan is doing this to us" approach, flips back to laying guilt and confusion on us: it is our "treacherous heart" that is to blame; just can't trust it!! Yes, brothers and sisters: train your heart, train your conscience (our way) but NEVER trust your heart or your conscience. (Do you still wonder why there is so much psychosis in the org?) "If our heart gets enticed, it may, in effect, (?) wave sin enticingly before us, making it appear attractive and harmless." DON'T EVER TRUST YOUR SELF! And that heart! Waggling the naughty bits right in our face! Ooooh wicked wicked heart!!

  The final nail in the coffin of this toxic article: PP 19. It discusses recognizing and rejecting the lie that Satan tells, that God does not love us. OK, not terrible as is. But it quotes this sister: "I never realized that Satan tries to use my feelings to discourage me. Knowing this gives me the motivation to fight these feelings." YIKES!! Satan himself will use MY feelings against me? Is Satan in my head?? Are my feelings not to be trusted? Hehe; rhetorical question; the WT emphatically tells us to never ever trust our feelings; they will tell us what is OK to feel or not feel.

  How can any sane person read this and be unaffected? This is such crap, psychologically speaking. I AM responsible for my feelings; Satan has nothing to do with my feelings; he cannot manipulate my feelings! If I am having problem with feelings, healthy behavior is to listen to them, evaluate them and understand where they came from; my own insecurity, fear, anger, etc...How would an emotionally troubled person respond to this article? It makes me sick, and sad, to think about that.

  All in all, I wish I had missed this one too. It made the book study material seem almost nutritious by comparison.

  I can't wait for this article to be sliced up by our resident surgeon, the incomparable DR BLONDIE.

  P
• 

  blondie

  Flying,

  Think of the complete burka that women in some Arab countries wear. The ones that cover even their eyes, with a mesh screen so that they can breath a little. I wonder if the Gov Bod would make sisters wear those if they could.

  Actually, I have heard it commented that cleavage of any kind (tested by the bend over principle), bare arms, and skirts above the ankles, and clothing that was too sheer (see through) tempted the men. If you look at the clothing of the women in the magazines, you will see what I mean.

  If God is this paranoid about human sexuality then why didn't he make us all directly as he did the angels? Why did he invent sex?

  I asked questions like this when I was growing up. I was told it was God?s special gift to humans, to be able to procreate and have enjoyment. I was told that is why the angels left heaven because they envied humans this ability. I figure it all falls under the Golden Rule to consider others. Human sexuality is used in ways that abuse others and the abusers have many twisted ways to excuse or justify it. Sometimes people approach a problem like this by thinking all sexuality should be eliminated. In the end, it is our internal controls and reasonings that will bring about an end to the hurt. Those who cannot control themselves (or will not) should be confined.

  Odrade, I have no scanner. I typed that myself. All that can be done is copy it back to Word and cut out of the non-red items. I am getting a scanner I hope soon.

  Pistoff, Monday night already! I have some of my comments ready to go; I realize how vague the WTS is, on purpose. Then anything, anything that doesn?t fit their preconceived ideas will be discomforting and to be avoided. I think they should change the sign over the KH to read Land of Denial.

  Blondie
• 

  FlyingHighNow

  If God is this paranoid about human sexuality then why didn't he make us all directly as he did the angels? Why did he invent sex?

  I asked questions like this when I was growing up. I was told it was God?s special gift to humans, to be able to procreate and have enjoyment. I was told that is why the angels left heaven because they envied humans this ability. I figure it all falls under the Golden Rule to consider others. Human sexuality is used in ways that abuse others and the abusers have many twisted ways to excuse or justify it. Sometimes people approach a problem like this by thinking all sexuality should be eliminated. In the end, it is our internal controls and reasonings that will bring about an end to the hurt. Those who cannot control themselves (or will not) should be confined.

  I believe our creator wants us to live our lives with some peace of mind and joy in them. If we live by the Golden Rule and temper it with love then this should be good enough for God/Godess. One thing that severely bugged me when I was still fooled by the WTBTS was that there seemed to be an ever growing list of rules for every little thing we did and thought. That action didn't seem a lot different from the Pharisees heaping burdons on the Jews of their day making life very miserable for them.

  There isn't a place in the Bible that says oral, anal sex or masterbation is taboo. Why is the WTBTS going beyond the scriptures here? Later I'll come back and tell you about the talk given at my sister's hall by the CO about a sister wearing a short skirt at the DC last summer.

  Flyin'