Posts by FlyingHighNow

10

How Did You View JEHOVAH As a JW? (Part TWO)

by Prisca in

this is part two following from how did you view jehovah as a jw?

(part one).

how did you view your (earthly) father?.

FlyingHighNow

Prisca,

I figured it by the context that flame queen must have a meaning similar to spitfire. In the USA flaming queen can mean a very flamboyant, crossdressing, often homosexual male. You can see why I had to ask.

Heather S.

20

Relationships......... Girls, have you ever lied to a guy........

by sandy in

.

and tell them you are a virgin when you are really not?

or why do you think a girl would lie about it?.

FlyingHighNow

I suppose there could be several reasons for a woman to lie about her status. But I think the main reason is because she fears all the bs some men get hung up on. She doesn't want to be looked at and penalized for being "used goods".

Funny though, the term virgin. Among JWs. I knew virgins and those that claimed they waited until they were married. Oh they were virtuous virgins who had engaged in oral sex, hand play, homosexual experimentation and I include here the lesbian kind, too. They bragged about their virtuous purity and looked down on those who had lost their "virginity" before their first marriage. The braggerts didn't think they had had sex before they had vaginal intercourse.Experts say they did have a sexual initiation. Heather S.

10

How Did You View JEHOVAH As a JW? (Part TWO)

by Prisca in

this is part two following from how did you view jehovah as a jw?

(part one).

how did you view your (earthly) father?.

FlyingHighNow

Prisca: My dad was very loving to me when I was little. Unfortunately he did something to betray my trust in him when I was 5 or so that changed the whole dynamic of our relationship. He never spanked me or yelled at me, though. He only hurt my feelings once and boy did he. To think about it makes me sad to this day. My relationship with him now is superficial, distant and confusing because of the betrayal. I love him yet I am not happy with him for betraying his own daughter. Now that I am mature enough to understand it all and discuss it with him he is 73 and not as coherent as he once was.

My non Watchtower, childhood God was kind, thoughtful and loving. I could go to him about anything. I want that God back. Does anyone know where he is? That God didn't make a hell or petty rules for being saved by the way. I'm not looking for that one.

Refiner: does flame queen mean the same thing in Australia that it does here in the USA?

Heather S.

22

How Did You View JEHOVAH As a JW? (Part 1)

by Prisca in

when you were a jw, how did you view jehovah?was he some almighty god who was to be feared yet respected ?did you fear him, terrified that if you didn't obey every commandment and society rule, you would be doomed at armageddon?did he seem a benevolent god, one who looked after and cherished you?did you feel as though he was close, listening to every prayer, watching over you with concern and love ?or was he watching you so as to judge every wrong thought and action, condemning you when you were anything less than spiritually strong or pure?.

and how do you view him now ?

has leaving the jws affected that?

FlyingHighNow

Prisca,

Thank you so much for the welcome. I am very much enjoying the board.

I never had a desire to go to heaven. I still have no desire to go there unless it would be for a vacation and a visit with God, etc. I like the old earth here. I still want to see the world of Imagine come someday. Maybe the JWs aren't off the mark too far when they say that all this junk going on is a result of man running things without wisdom or power from the designer. I look at magical, loving little babies and children and then the great love we humans are capable of having for each other. I can't believe it will end with our deaths. I can't believe talented and profound people like John Lennon are either burning in hell or permanently turned to dust. What a sad and tragic waste that would be.

A former JW elder/bethelite reasoned with me that if billions of people are destroyed at Armegeddon, that makes Jesus' sacrifice worth a whole lot less.It certainly diminishes the value of it. But if he truly came to save humankind and he truly does offer grace and mercy to everyone, then look how valuable his shed blood becomes. He asked that his own murders be forgiven. Think about the profundity of that request. They didn't ask to be saved or forgiven: Jesus asked for them to be forgiven because they had no clue what they were doing.

I am not a Christian but I do believe in Jesus still. The Jesus I believe in is very aware that we all have extinuating circumstances to take into consideration. He knows we were all put here at a disadvantage. This Jesus would never give up on anyone salvagable. This Jesus would never burn people in hell. He would never want people using fear to try to get people to love him.

This Jesus came to save Pepperland (Earth) from the Blue Meanies (Satan? Demons, hopelessly bonafide evil humans) and fill the air again with uninterrupted music and laughter. This Jesus perhaps inspired the song Imagine. Who knows? But as I said before, if God is like the JWs and most churches teach of him then maybe we weren't created by a good God and maybe Evil will triumph over Good.

Look again, though at a baby or small child and ask yourself: who created this magical being so filled with love and wonder? An evil God (the author of hell and condemnation) or a loving, understanding and kind one like the one in the definition of love in one of the letters to the Corinthians. You know the scripture. It was something like: Love is long suffering and kind.It does not brag. It does not keep account of the injurey. Love hopes all things, endures all things, believes all things. It doesn't look for its own interests. It bears all things. Love never fails. <....going on very bad memory.

Love, Heather S.

99

What resurrects, the person or a perfect copy?

by JH in

i remember my boss asking me once this question, since he knew i was a witness.

he asked, "what resurrects, the body, the soul, what?.

he knew that witnesses believe in the resurrection of the dead on earth, in a different physical body during the millennium.. i told him that it won't be the same physical body, and maybe won't be identical, but it's the same person.

FlyingHighNow

Cool, Aztec,

Speaking of Dr. Who: he kept changing bodies but was the same Dr. or was he really the same when he was the same mind in a different body. But then the resurrected Jesus was in the same mind in different bodies, too. It's all confusing but then again not. But Tom Baker was my favorite Dr. Who. He'd risk his life to save that scarf. Heather S.

99

What resurrects, the person or a perfect copy?

by JH in

i remember my boss asking me once this question, since he knew i was a witness.

he asked, "what resurrects, the body, the soul, what?.

he knew that witnesses believe in the resurrection of the dead on earth, in a different physical body during the millennium.. i told him that it won't be the same physical body, and maybe won't be identical, but it's the same person.

FlyingHighNow

AlanF,

Decady. I like it.

Decady sort of reminds me of the dodecahedron on the old Doctor Who TV show only minus the do which would be decahedron. But a decahedron is one object and a decady is ten separate objects that are all supposed to be the same object but like you said they are all just copies but they look the same. The decady could be as confusing as the trinity but somehow it's not.

Heather S.

21

JW marriages: happy/unhappy

by starfish422 in

i've been wondering how many jws have gotten married too quickly, without knowing their prospective "mate" well enough, and have ended up really unhappy.

it always seemed to me that a couple would be dating for, like, 6 or 9 months and get engaged, have a 9 month engagement and be married; often because they bought the "no sex before marriage" garbage.

i'm sure that there *are* happy jw marriages out there; and certainly being unhappily married isn't the sole property of jws.

FlyingHighNow

I saw a some good marriages in the org. I saw more bad ones. I had a bad one.

Once I asked my bible teacher: Why do some JWs get divorces?? She told me that her and her ministerial servant husband were of the opinion that most JWs marry in a hurry and don't truly love the mate. I'll add to that that the dating pool offers slim pickens among JWs. You don't have the opportunity to meet lots of people and choose from lots of people to find the right one for you. Most of the time you settle for someone not right for you because: "When am I ever going to meet someone else since there are so few single JWs?"

I offer this that I have thought much about: The headship pecking order causes untold grief. This is not just for the poor sisters victimized by it. It causes great discontent for the brothers as well. Their wives cannot live up to this perfect ideal of the JW wife. The husbands feel they are being cheated because their wives don't behave like those perfect sisters at the KH.Their wives don't measure up to the wives mentioned in the talk on Sunday. Their wives are not at all like the ones in the Family book. Their wives fail miserably to live up to the ones in the WT lesson. Actually, those wives at the KH are really just excellent actresses masquerading as perfect JW wives.

I have come to see the headship pecking order as a manmade idea with control as its goal. Far easier to scare women into submission than to beat them or force them into submission, right? The robot technology of biblical times had not advanced far enough to replace unruly wives with robot copies like in the movie the Stepford Wives.What to do then? "Let's tell the women that God wants them to submit to us or else he will kill them forever or burn them in "hell". Yeah, that's the ticket.It will work!!"

I saw a lot of discontent either way among wives and husbands because the GB held up perfect ideals of marriage mates to us and no one could possibly live up those ideals. So you had a lot of disappointed men and women as a result. I speak from experience having been married for 20 years to a brother. The last two were spent in separation.

Heather S.

41

A question for the Brits...

by Country Girl in

jw
friends

i've so enjoyed my conversations with the folks from the uk and australia on here.

i'm enchanted by their darling expressions, and different banter than we have in the us.

but i've always noticed one thing.

FlyingHighNow

Aztec,

I live in West Michigan, specifically the Grand Rapids area. My fiance' was born and raised in GR. He and his family do the quick run, etc. I also work in retail and have the opportunity to hear a lot of Michiganders speak. Lots of them quick do things. What part of Michigan do you live in. Possibly this is a Grand Rapids thing.

Heather

22

How Did You View JEHOVAH As a JW? (Part 1)

by Prisca in

when you were a jw, how did you view jehovah?was he some almighty god who was to be feared yet respected ?did you fear him, terrified that if you didn't obey every commandment and society rule, you would be doomed at armageddon?did he seem a benevolent god, one who looked after and cherished you?did you feel as though he was close, listening to every prayer, watching over you with concern and love ?or was he watching you so as to judge every wrong thought and action, condemning you when you were anything less than spiritually strong or pure?.

and how do you view him now ?

has leaving the jws affected that?

FlyingHighNow

I viewed God in a healthy way until I was 14. God was a loving and kind grandfatherly god who would never stop loving me for a mistake I made much less deliberately punish me. I felt he would just allow me to live with the consequences of my decisions. I was Episcopalian.

My mom and grandmother let me go sick for a year from age 13-14 and then only believed something was wrong when I almost died. Then is when I began to teeter between agnosticism and atheism. I lost faith because I felt God would have never allowed them to hurt me like they did.

Okay, I'm 17 and then JWs enter into my life with the promise of a world much like the song Imagine by John Lennon. In the song JL says, "Someday you may join us and the world will live as one." I already had that idea when I first heard the song. I was one of the "us" John mentioned. So the JWs are offering all these explanations for scriptures I have always wondered about. I want that utopia they teach about. According to the way JWs taught even JL would share their utopia someday.

One big problem with all of this. They restore my faith that there is a God but they also depersonalize him and replace him with this reservoir of dynamic energy. I think they taught us much more about Jesus and his personality than they did Jehovah. Basically Jehovah became this big force who kept track every single mistake I made. He could write me in or out of the book of life from second to second. He was an angry, jealous God who took great delight in destroying whole populations if they didn't please him. He sounded more like "rule or ruin" than Satan did. I was scared of him and I never felt good enough for him even when I was doing my best.

Now that I have left I am trying to get back to that loving grandfatherly God I knew as a child. I have people right and left trying to convince me there is a hell and I am going there if I don't get my butt saved. I never believed in hell. To believe in a God capable of burning people in hell would be exchanging one big evil bully God for another. I am convinced that the idea of hell originates with someone evil. If the God who created us really intends to burn people in hell then perhaps Satan is God and evil will indeed triumph over good in the end. I keep the faith that good will triumph over evil and that hell & blood thirsty Armegeddon gods are a teaching originating with evil or Satan if he exists.

Heather S.

99

What resurrects, the person or a perfect copy?

by JH in

i remember my boss asking me once this question, since he knew i was a witness.

he asked, "what resurrects, the body, the soul, what?.

he knew that witnesses believe in the resurrection of the dead on earth, in a different physical body during the millennium.. i told him that it won't be the same physical body, and maybe won't be identical, but it's the same person.

FlyingHighNow

jcanon,

If God places people in the imperfect bodies with annointed ones then does that make them a Twinity? Sorry, couldn't resist the corn.

Arancia,

Thank you for sharing what you didn't learn as a Catholic. I recall the Episcopal Church answering my questions similarly. Trust in the mysteries of God, my child. That is what the Episcopal minister told me when I asked him why he sang "The meek shall inherit the Earth." during every service.

Heather S.