Terry

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Posts by Terry

• 
  16

  I met an Exorcist

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i like to ride my bicycle to starbucks.

  when weather permits i sit on the patio and write in the sunshine.a pesky crow i call edgar usually arrives to beg (or steal).that's all you need to know before we begin._____________________.

  location exterior : the patio of starbuckstime: 11 amcast:lou : media / news analyst, religious fundamentalistterry: crow magnet and know-it-alledgar: spawn of satan________________.

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  Terry

  When I first started going to a Kingdom Hall it was probably 1959 and the
  Jehovah's Witnesses brotherhood of "Friends" back then (under Nathan Homer Knorr) was a different breed of cat than it is today.
  
  We had picnics and parties and (although it was frowned upon) people smoked
  and worked for employers connected to the military. You could say and do things
  more freely.
  
  There were no Elders.
  That very idea of Elders hearkened back to an old-fashioned Adventist sensibility.
  No, what we had were an Overseer and assistant and various Servants.
  
  It was a friendly shepherding spirit.
  Then, slowly, things got weird and weirder.
  It was the Freddy Franz hiccups of senility that did it.
  The Babylon the Great has Fallen book and the chart of significant Dates came out and I memorized all those dates. It appeared to be a work of enormous intellect and scholarship - until - years later - I started reading the works of Martin Luther and discovered it had been plagiarized and corkscrewed by Franz.
  
  Jesus didn't have a beard back then. Nope. He was clean shaven.
  Those were almost (I said almost) fun times.
  Just well-intentioned good old boys with wives under submission lookin' out fer you.
  
  
  
• 
  4

  TRUE Fortune Cookie story

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  true fortune cookie story____it was a new chinese buffet restaurant and it didn't last very long.the proprietors were young, hip, and way too modern.

  *for one thing, they got their fortune cookies from a different source than all other restaurants --the fun kind of fortune cookie which is specific and definite.my fortune, for example:"a tall, hot blonde will enter your life today.

  "zowie!that put a bit of pep in my step!

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  Terry

  I miss those eclairs.
• 
  4

  TRUE Fortune Cookie story

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  true fortune cookie story____it was a new chinese buffet restaurant and it didn't last very long.the proprietors were young, hip, and way too modern.

  *for one thing, they got their fortune cookies from a different source than all other restaurants --the fun kind of fortune cookie which is specific and definite.my fortune, for example:"a tall, hot blonde will enter your life today.

  "zowie!that put a bit of pep in my step!

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  Terry

  True Fortune Cookie story
  ____
  It was a new Chinese buffet restaurant and it didn't last very long.
  The proprietors were young, hip, and way too modern.
  *
  For one thing, they got their fortune cookies from a different source than all other restaurants --the fun kind of fortune cookie which is specific and definite.
  
  My fortune, for example:
  
  "A tall, hot blonde will enter your life today."
  
  Zowie!
  That put a bit of pep in my step!
  *
  It was a torrid Texas summer and my bike ride included a rather daunting hill to be crested in 100+ heat.
  I could barely see at the top, the Starbucks looked like a trip to Pluto by slow rocket ship.

  
  Grunt, peddle, grunt ...
  ____
  
  I forced myself to stop off at the drive-in Quik-Trip for air-conditioning and--naughty boy that I am--a chocolate eclair!
  
  Strictly for energy purposes, mind you...
  *
  There is a new cashier standing at the register. She is obviously a tall blonde!
  Something stirs in the back of my mind.
  *
  When I placed my eclair on the counter, I said to her:
  
  "Yes, yes--I know what you're thinking to yourself, 'Here's a man who lives with danger.' You have no idea how right you are."
  *
  She couldn't have been older than 29.
  She beamed a smile as bright as those spot lights used at Hollywood premieres.
  Her face was glamorous, with large blue eyes, arched eyebrows and pouty lips gleaming with Technicolor lipstick.
  *
  Her voice was as honey on the vine:
  
  "Where are you from?"
  *
  Ever the Nerd, I couldn't help myself:
  
  "Depends on what you mean by 'from'--I was born in Detroit, I grew up in Texas, but lived in Redondo Beach ten years in California."
  *
  Now, whatever I had expected she might say, none of it was what she actually said:
  
  "I can hear all those places in your weird accent."
  
  ??? That stumbled my self image.
  *
  I paid the sixty cents and declined my receipt with the words:
  
  "No thanks, I have no desire to be reminded of this crime against health I've perpetrated here."
  *
  She gave me the kind of peculiar look women always give me when I turn out to be
  who I am rather than
  who they thought I was going to be.
  *
  Disappointed in the damn fortune cookie and it's nasty sense of irony, I chugged up the hill to Starbucks.
  *
  My T-shirt is soggy with sweat now as I enter and approach the barista at the counter.
  *
  "Coffee of the Day." I blurted groggy from heat.
  *
  "Which blend and what size?" He asked.
  *
  "You know what? Surprise me! I'm living dangerously today." I croaked wearily.
  *
  The barista is an extremely extroverted young man who fancies himself a comedian.
  We all know the type.
  He dispenses the coffee (and wit) and hands me the cup saying:
  *
  " Just what you've always wanted, a hot, tall blonde ...roast. "
  ____

  Ya know--I'm glad that Chinese restaurant went belly up!
  
  
  
• 
  1

  Locate Your Brain Parasite (before you go Cuckoo)

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  can you locate your brain parasite?_____________________________________is something troubling you?does your life often seem to make no sense at all?is your logic ...well...illogical?you just might have a brain parasite.scary, huh?but this planet is filled with opportunist species using you, exploiting you to aid its own purposes.sure, sure - we all know about one-cell organisms, worms, bloodsucking insects - but do you realize there are other kinds of parasites to worry about?meet the cuckoo!would this bird fit inside your clock?

  ?no, you silly!terry is about to use the cuckoo bird as an analogy of a brain parasite.stay tuned and follow along ...the cuckoo doesn't build a nest.

  it lays its eggs in another bird's nest.

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• 

  Terry

  An artist friend of mine sent me an article written by an evangelical and I read it
  only because this friend wanted to discuss the topic.
  As I read along I became agitated. That OLD FEELING of being lectured by a
  religious know-it-all came back.
  It was as strong as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome!
  I immediately sat down and wrote out one of my long boring screeds - a critique -
  and emailed my friend back with it.
  
  It took him 24 hrs. Quietly he simply thanked me for the quick response.
  AND NOT ANOTHER WORD.
  
  What happened to me?
  
  I am so aware of the dangers of hidden influence in religious language - and so
  twigged and familiar to the persuasions inside (viral infections) - I simply jerked.
  
  Wow, I thought - even after all these many years away from mainstream religious dialogue - I'm like a rape victim.
  Sad.
• 
  10

  1973: MYSTERIOUS LADY (in the back bungalow)

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  1973mysterious lady (in the back bungalow).

  me: driving a squad car for a private security service.

  me: "warren's night off.

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  Terry

  eyeuse2badub : How do you think that night would have turned out if only you'd know ttatt?
  ______
  
  You have no idea how shy a person I was until after I moved from Texas to California and had real friends who weren't JW's.
  I loosened up and gradually became a flesh and blood human being.
  
  Before that, I was a replicant - and artificial human.
  
  A "certain" kind of person is comfortable in a religious cult. It is a an incubator
  for neurotics. A Petri dish.
  
  I think things would have turned out the same no matter what.
  I prefer sex to be my idea. Randy and aggressive women give me the impression
  that it doesn't matter to them who or what I am - and that takes the shine off the apple for me.
  That's how folks get urinary tract infections :)
• 
  24

  Ask current Jehovah's Witnesses if they KNOW what happened in 1954 (SHOCKING)

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  (referred to below: watchtower bible and tract society presidents: russell, rutherford, knorr, franz )did you know that from 1879 until 1954 ... ... the writings of c.t.russell, j.f.rutherford, nathan knorr, and the watchtower's own charter... ... agreed ... that jesus christ was to be worshiped?this fact has been cleverly and dramatically hidden by manipulation of older quotations.

  ______________________________________________________________________pastor charles taze russell answers the question for us.

  see below zion’s watch tower 1898 jul 15 p.216“question: the fact that our lord received worship is claimed by some to be an evidence that while on earth he was god the father disguised in a body of flesh and not really a man.

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  Terry

  Odd thing about "Jehovah God".
  Weird and alien phrase.
  But after a few sips and you find the bottle empty - easy peasy.
  Jesus just floats away.
  "In the name of your son, Jesus" is about as close as JW's get at the end of
  those stiff prayers.
  Christians one and all, they say. My grandmother called them, "Jehovahs."
  I think she had it right.
• 
  16

  I met an Exorcist

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i like to ride my bicycle to starbucks.

  when weather permits i sit on the patio and write in the sunshine.a pesky crow i call edgar usually arrives to beg (or steal).that's all you need to know before we begin._____________________.

  location exterior : the patio of starbuckstime: 11 amcast:lou : media / news analyst, religious fundamentalistterry: crow magnet and know-it-alledgar: spawn of satan________________.

  1. 
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• 

  Terry

  I have yet to meet an Elder who felt to me like they were being "real."
  It is that slight artificial flavor we see in most politicians where everything
  is a layer of icing.
  
  No feeling of being a human being under all that camouflage.
  JW's are forced to live a double life; one public and one private.
  Otherwise they'd go bonkers.
  
  
• 
  17

  Can we really talk about BEAUTY?

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  can we really talk about beauty?

  (first, a necessary preamble.

  bear with me, please.

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  Terry

  Cofty, the book that spun me around sideways was Mortimer J. Adler's
  10 PHILOSOPHICAL MISTAKES.
  In fact, it was the very first book of Philosophy I ever read.
  I was just killing time at the public library until it was time to pick up my
  son at school.
  The name Mortimer J. Adler struck me because I adored my set of
  GREAT BOOKS of the WESTERN WORLD he had assembled.
  
  So, I began reading and it grabbed me. I read the whole book in one sitting
  and - after collecting my son - went straight to the bookstore and bought a copy
  for myself.
  Adler is a Humanist who has a deep-seated "spiritual" side.
  But he is intellectually honest.
  That is damned rare.
  http://www.churchhistory101.com/docs/Adler-Ten-Mistakes.pdf
• 
  17

  Can we really talk about BEAUTY?

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  can we really talk about beauty?

  (first, a necessary preamble.

  bear with me, please.

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  Terry

  COFTY: There was also an anti-Enlightenment movement that can be traced from Emmanuel Kant via all the way to postmodern philosophers like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida.
  _____________________________
  
  In my opinion, Communism failed its predictions about the rising up of workers and overthrowing Capitalists (in the West) ... and so...
  there emerged the Frankfurt School which converted Communism and repackaged it
  into Social Justice criticisms substituting as they went POWER Hierarchy instead of Capitalism. Instead of workers throwing off chains, we have women standing up to male dominance; blacks standing up to White Privilege, and Philosophers / Writers
  deconstructing "meaning" in Art, Literature, etc.
  The means of transmission of this Frankfurt School ideology is Universities and faculty.
  Primacy of Consciousness runs rampant through Social Justice movements and the deconstruction by post modernists. That's Plato in a nutshell.
• 
  16

  I met an Exorcist

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i like to ride my bicycle to starbucks.

  when weather permits i sit on the patio and write in the sunshine.a pesky crow i call edgar usually arrives to beg (or steal).that's all you need to know before we begin._____________________.

  location exterior : the patio of starbuckstime: 11 amcast:lou : media / news analyst, religious fundamentalistterry: crow magnet and know-it-alledgar: spawn of satan________________.

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• 

  Terry

  smiddy311 hours ago

  That was a good read Terry not only funny but surprisingly informative .

  I`m now looking forward to you meeting a Jehovah`s Witness ?
  
  
  
  
  
  ___________________

  Everybody who goes to Starbucks knows me and that I'm a writer.
  So, today a fellow in a suit overhears two other people talking to me about my writing and I say out loud that I'm writing about religion and how people have different ideas about truth.

  The man in the suit strolls over to me and we end up chatting about some awfully familiar territory! Suddenly, I noticed he's carrying the SILVER SWORD under his arm!
  
  He's a J-Dub! Ha!! He's wanting to count time out in service using me!
  ____________
  I went into stealth mode.
  Funny thing how your heart starts beating fast. I hate it.
  ___________

  I asked the man about his religious ideas and he gave me the usual response. Then, I suggested he sit down for a brief interview! I said it might be included in my book.
  
  It finally came out that he is an Elder in the local congregation!

  
  He asked that I not put his name in the book and I said I wouldn't.
  (I suppose he was covering his ass in case he said anything which could be construed as damaging.)

  After pretending he didn't have time--I could see he was flattered and really DID want to be interviewed by a writer for a book! (Vanity?)

  What follows is my attempt to be neutral, scholarly and professional.
  I began with as safe and uncontroversial a topic as I could think of.
  But it was clearly meant to strike weak spots i knew would be problematic.
  _______
  
  _________________________________

  Question: "How do Jehovah's Witnesses manage diversity within their congregations?"

  Elder: "I'm not sure I know what you mean by 'diversity.'

  Question: "Individual opinions, tastes, dispositions are part of all societies are they not? How does your clergy or leadership manage basic human diversity?"

  Elder: "There really isn't any diversity of opinion. All Jehovah's Witnesses agree with all other Jehovah's Witnesses. There is a harmony of belief and practice."

  Question: "Is that because diversity is not allowed?"

  Elder: "Well, it's not quite like that. We're not a totalitarian regime; it's just that Jehovah's Spirit brings about harmony which might ordinarily spring up because of human imperfection. All of which is because of the correct application of God's word, the Bible."

  Question: "How is this any different from any other religious group--most of which are plagued by sectarian squabbles? There are over 40,000 Christian denominations disagreeing fundamentally enough to call their church by different names?"

  Elder: "We don't have churches. We have small congregations and they are all in agreement on all policies. All Kingdom Halls around the world are in 100% agreement with all the other ones."

  Question: "But how would you know that without internal opportunity for airing disagreement? Wouldn't Elders, such as yourself, step in and isolate any diverse opinion under the auspice of 'protecting the congregation' from heresy, apostasy, or divisions?"

  Elder: "I see where you are headed. But--no, it's not like that at all."

  Question: "I'm asking simply: 'How is it possible to know what your members are thinking, inasmuch as speaking dissidently or dissonantly is condemned outright as unspiritual and devilish?'"

  Elder: "Any Witness who has worries, doubts, questions is free to approach any of the older men in the congregation. That's what elders are there for."

  Question: "How likely is it that a member would place themselves under suspicion of disloyalty--in effect making themselves a marked target of suspicion?"

  Elder: "Well--if you say it like that--it . . . First let me say . . ."

  Question: "Isn't loyalty to the Governing Body an absolute requirement in order to be considered a member in good standing?"

  Elder: "I was going to say . . .well--no, I mean we don't have loyalty to weak, sinful, imperfect human beings. It is loyalty to God's perfect earthly arrangement."

  Question: "Can you unpack that in plain English?"

  Elder: "JW's are part of a government guided by heavenly appointed representatives. As an Elder, I have a responsibility to Jehovah. I must oversee, shepherd, and counsel. In some cases, I must preside judicially.
  We can't let predatory wolves creep in under the banner of 'diversity.'"

  Question: "My way or the highway? So to speak."

  Elder: "(Laughing) That would be Jehovah's statement; not mine."

  Question: "You're comfortable with speaking for Almighty God?"

  Elder: "It's a commission Jesus made clear. We are compelled to do that very thing. It's the core of evangelizing."

  Question: "Jesus hung out with a highly diverse group, totally at odds with the leaders of Judaism such as the Pharisees. If I recall correctly that would be prostitutes, thieves, tax collectors, fishermen---"

  Elder: "Oh no! Not thieves! Jesus didn't--"

  Question: "He chose Judas, didn't he? Judas was stealing from the collection box!."

  Elder: "Huh. . . oh, um. . .. well--okay. That's a technicality, But okay."

  Question: "My point being, diversity was not a problem for the founder of Christianity. Jesus didn't excommunicate anybody--did he?"

  Elder: "That wasn't his mission. He was a teacher and a healer and the anointed King-to-be of his heavenly Father's kingdom."

  Question: "What about the diversity question?"

  Elder: "What about it?"

  Question: "Do you try to be like Jesus in accepting prostitutes, thieves, and other social outcasts? Homosexuals, transgenders, etc?"

  Elder: "That's kind of. . . well--it's almost a trick question. The important thing isn't human diversity--it is putting off the flesh and putting on the spirit. It is the aspect of getting people to be a New kind of person--not staying the way they are."

  Question: "Well, correct me if I'm wrong on this. Aren't you really mixing up spirit-anointed Christians with the so-called 'other sheep'? You don't teach the Bible is FOR regular people--diverse people. You teach the Bible is for anointed persons chosen to become the Bride of Christ--right?"

  Elder: "Um. . . what, now? Oh! Okay. Okay. I'm with you now. I see what you mean. Yes. Um. . . let me clarify my meaning . . ."

  Question: "Please do. Take your time."

  Elder: "Jesus' ministry was for Jews. The Apostle Paul's ministry was for people of all nations. There is your diversity."

  Question: "What about Jehovah's Witnesses? Do you accept and celebrate human diversity for 'other sheep', Gentiles, homosexuals, transgenders, thieves, prostitutes, etc?"

  Elder: "Yes. IF THEY CHANGE and learn the Truth, become baptized and lead a clean life Witnessing about Jehovah's kingdom"

  Question: "So, you personally know non-practicing homosexuals in your congregation?"

  Elder: "What? Well. . . I didn't say I personally did, but--generally speaking we get all kinds of people who repent, reform, live by the rules so-to-speak."

  Question: "Pedophiles?"

  Elder: "I'm not sure I know what you mean?"(Growing uncomfortable)

  Question: "Do you know personally of any pedophiles in your congregation?"

  Elder: "That's. . . I. . . it's not for me to say--I mean to speak publicly about private matters of confession. I'm sure you know, priests can never divulge what comes out in confession."

  Question: "Okay. So--Jehovah's Witnesses and Catholic priests are like-minded in their silence on pedophiles, then?"

  Elder: "I really don't think it's profitable to continue this line of questioning. I have to go now. If you have any other questions. . . you can go online to our website. It's (says name of website) and it has Frequently Asked Questions." (Gets up and departs.)
  _______
  
  I'd have to say I felt just a bit sadistic while I was doing that.
  I'll have to work on moderating such non-virtuous feelings.