Posts by Annanias

25

SHAKESPEARE: if Will was alive today and wrote for the Watchtower....

by Terry in

what sort of things wouldst he write?

Annanias

Sorry Terry, but my mind is more toward the modern droll. I preferto imagine the WT as an episode of MXC.

- Don't get eliminated! -

18

Loathing Reflex

by czarofmischief in

it has struck me lately that i probably have a lot of unresolved issues.

shocker, i know.. but what i am going to toss out to you is a possible scenario, a concept i haven't read about before.

one of frannie's comments got me thinking about it.. my anger and irritation is a constant.

CZAR - interesting timing, your question. I wonder, were you "raised in the truth"? I know that a lot of people on this site were. But I wasn't. I walked out of "the world" and into the KH. I've done it for nearly 30 years now, fighting myself over myself because of myself. Existing as only half a person because the other half was in a constant war with itself. Hating it all because it must be wrong, but knowing it is right. Sure the d*ckheads and d*ldoes I met along the way were just that, and they contained enough of their own issues to keep them busy for a lifetime. But, oh, how I envied them sometimes, their assuredness, their seeming security with everything they read and heard from the borg. "Christ!", I used to scream at myself, "How do you stop your mind? Where's the 'off' switch? Please, dear Jehovah, make me stop the thoughts." But he never would. And now, after everything's gone, after every last shred of anything that was me is 'poof' disappeared, I sit here in my poverties, like Job, wondering "What in the f*ck happened?" What did I do? Who did I hurt? Was I not smart enough? Humble enough? Pious enough? Charitable enough? Maybe it's because I didn't sing loud enough, or I didn't go to enough get togethers, or I used the wrong grade of gas, or... Why is it so damned easy for them and so bloody hard for me? What did I do?

I remember getting one of those famous "shepharding calls" by the "elders", it was one of the last times I had much to do with the borg. My ex had already started planning her escape, and I was existing fat, dumb, and happy within my illusions. And they showed up with stern looks and no humor. Like NKVD agents, they assured me that the visit was "just routine", that they were required to visit all the publishers, and blah, blah. But it angered me. They were whining and moaning about FS time and study time and Bible reading, of course. But I had had enough, and I told them that every time in the past, when I or my family had needed them, they were either too busy, or just flat didn't seem to care, but now, when they have a complaint, here they are in force. So I asked them straight out, "Where were you when I needed you?" And the a**holes gave standard answer #1A for any questioning JW: Maybe God was testing you. I sat very stunned for a very long moment. I think that the number of thoughts and impulses that ricocheted around in my skull actually caused some sort of temporary paralyzing palsy, and all I could do is sit slack jawed and mute. Marveling at how wonderfully warm and fuzzy it must be to have such all encompassing stupidity. My mind screamed: "Oh yeah! Well maybe the test was on you, a**hole! And that means you flunked! I'm still here, you weren't there, now add it up, Einstein!"

Ignorance is bliss and they are the most blissful of people, and I've cried and despised myself because I never seemed to be able to carry the same tune. I had questions, always questions. And doubts. But then, having "doubts" is a problem of "faith", in which case, I'm lacking, ergo, I'm dirty. Again. By it's very nature, the basic human factor within all religion is manipulation.

I so enjoy the various comments and opinions of the people on this board because they really don't have a lot to cover up, and they tend to be infinitely more open than the bros & siss who's first order of business always seemed to be to put whoever they are with, ill at ease. Taken over all, the various comments are almost identical to the daily bitches of any group of frontline soldiers in any war in history. Hmmmm.

CZAR, I think you suffer from the same malady that a lot of the folks on this site suffer from: your brain is just too quick, too analytical, too innocent for it's own damn good. And the result is that you get to sit with this giant knot in your mind that is made up of all the paradoxes, and illogic, and broken algorithmns that built up from years of studying and actually thinking about Jehovah God. But now, maybe due to lack of faith, because you don't go to the KH, and you don't go wave WTs in people's faces, and you don't sing Kingdom songs, you believe that Jehovah is going to kill you until you're dead, dead, dead! While Jeffery Dahlmer is already in the New System. Maybe that's what it's like to be tossed about like waves upon the sea?

But all we do here, is yell at the messengers.

49

EMOTIONS; DO WE UNDERSTAND THEM?

by Terry in

cause and effect 101. .

obi wan kenobe tells luke skywalker: "trust your feelings, luke".

listen to people say they will: "go with my gut feeling".

Annanias

Terry, your discussion of emotions and realities is well taken. However, we seem to be dealing in the abstract here as there is an apparent unstated assumption that all things remain equal, which is not true. One of the concepts that physics is just beginning to explore both philosophically as well as experimentally is that of parallel universes. (There seems to be a growing belief that, at least on the sub atomic level, particles drift across universes and can be afeected by particles in neighboring universes. This is one direction being explored to explain the paradox of gravity being instantaenous while light has speed.) While as JWs, we dealt with parallel universes all the time, namely, the spiritual world and the physical world. The problem that this causes in any algorithmic discussion as to reality in this universe is that there is the potential of some totally separate individual just messing with us. That no matter how altruistic, hedonistic, selfish, selfless, cruel, happy, depressed, kind we might be, the results may not be linear in relation to our actions because some body is rigging the game. Now, this tends to brush up against what the Romans believed about religion in that, to them, what we did, who we were, made no difference. Not because it was predestined, but because we were just helpless weiners with whom the Gods did as they pleased.

23

Snipits from Sept 2004 KM's

by qwerty in

i don't think i am breaking any copyright law here by retyping (quoting) a small section from the km.. just look what tactics the organisation are using by appealing to the consience of those trapped!respecting jehovah's authority.

with what do you associate the ancient names korah, dathan, and abiram?

rebellion!

Annanias

Cyber-sista, I appreciated your post. I would like to see a page on this site called "What Happened" where everyone could post their stories. I realize that most of the people here post parts of what happened to them at various times, but nothing ever seems all that coherent. Like you, I was damaged by the mistreatment of my family, but I hung in there, even knowing that my turn was comming. It did. You needn't apologize for your embitterment, as it seems quite normal on this site. Someone made the statement about David running and hiding because he didn't want to "sin against the annointed of Jehovah" by killing Saul. We all find the moment so lauditory, except nobody seems to stop and think: damn, that means all of those guys who are helping David, and fighting and dying with/for him ARE sinning against God's annointed. Hmmmm. If we put it into today's terms, David would be an apostate, and all the soldiers with him would be DF'd for their association, which, of course, were spoiling their useful habits. The problem here is as one guy once told me about most "elders", "They couldn't follow a logic trail if it were lit with neon signs!"

If you will allow me a short story here, it's one that I use to illustrate how quickly dogmatic interpretations turn into a quagmire. I asked thisquestion of various "elders" from time to time just to mess with them, it was great.

"Brother so-and-so, I need to ask you a question. As I father, I'd like to know how you answer a 16 year old when they ask you why they have to dress up to go to a meeting?"

Answer 337A. "Well, you see, that's because we are showing respect for Jehovah!"

Setting the hook. "I see. But doesn't the Bible say that Jehovah doesn't care about the outer appearnace of a man?"

Shuffle, shuffle. "Ahem, well, you see, we need to show respect for our brother's and sisters."

Got him! "But if Jehovah isn't concerned with our outer appearance, why should our brothers and sisters be?"

"Oh, well, uh." More shuffling, and backpedaling, ducking, bobbing, weaving that inevitably ended up with this unconnected protoplasmic blob of ridiculous words, phrases, and scriptures.

After a couple of paragraphs of watching the guy sweat I would usually declare mercy and stop him.

"No, brother, the way you answer a 16 year old is to tell him: 'You dress up or I'll kill you'."

Very, very rarely would one of them catch the drift.

49

EMOTIONS; DO WE UNDERSTAND THEM?

by Terry in

cause and effect 101. .

obi wan kenobe tells luke skywalker: "trust your feelings, luke".

listen to people say they will: "go with my gut feeling".

Annanias

But you didn't answer the question. Why has every society, religion, civilization valued self-sacrifice above everything else and seen it as the road to Nirvana or Valhalla or where ever? Even the Etruscans (about as close to pure Hedonist as they get, except for maybe Hollywood) understood and promoted the sacrifice of one for another. I asked one guy why he thought that they had Congressional Medals of Honor and he replied that it "was a morale thing". That if they gave medals for running off and hiding in the woods (the "natural" thing to do?), "then that's what everybody would do!" Hmmmm

60

MORALITY: what is it really?

by Terry in

what is morality?

how is it different from ethics?

do we just make it all up to suit our fancy?

Annanias

Morality, my views? Okay, I'll bite. Morality is not man made. It is immutable, discoverable, natural. Like gravity or orbital mechanics, it is the same everywhere in the universe. As with orbital mechanics, (we can chose to believe that the planets and stars are held in place by being part of giant crystal spheres, or we can understand this thing called gravity and how that works on free bodies in space) reality often seems to run counter to "emperical" data. Our "western" civilization has set up a belief structure based upon the premise that a higher power has chosen to give us all of the moral truths in the universe, while other civilizations tend to lean toward the experimentation or empirical, thus conjuring up the idea of "attaining" various levels of "consciousness" or "existence" thru strictly mental processes or of constant rebirthing. Personally, I lean towards the former, but then, I'm a product of western culture.

49

EMOTIONS; DO WE UNDERSTAND THEM?

by Terry in

cause and effect 101. .

obi wan kenobe tells luke skywalker: "trust your feelings, luke".

listen to people say they will: "go with my gut feeling".

Annanias

Stinky, you are quite correct, as I have physical issues that I have to deal with as well. As far as the chems go, the brain guys also point to dopamine and the physical brain being able to maintain a certain level of it as the diff between depression and "normalcy". The concept that your brain is another organ in your body like your pancreas, your liver, your spleen seems to escape a lot of people.

Terry, your threads are always cool. There has been a raging debate in science for about 200 years now as to whether the human brain is smart enough to understand itself. You sound like a participant in that debate. I don't know if you've heard of Cognitive Therapy or not, but it is fast becomming accepted in psych circles as the real thing. The numbers are showing that CT is as effective as traditional therapy and drugs alone, with almost half the rate of remission. The basic premise of traditional psych is that people have dark, gloomy thoughts because they are depressed, while CT feels that we are depressed because we have dark and gloomy thoughts. To realize and control our dark and gloomy thoughts and we control our depression. An interesting case that was the basis of the book "The Terminal Man" dealt with an individual who would have sudden and uncontrolable outbursts of anger. As kind of a last ditch effort, the docs placed electrodes in the guys brain so that when he felt an episode comming on, he could push a button which would send an electrical shock to an area of the brain and he would reduce, if not avoid, the oncomming outburst. Funny thing happened along the way. The docs, as an experiment, took the batteries out of the shocker device but didn't tell the guy, with the results being the same.

Your discussion of emotions is excellent, but I have a question. If emotions are the result of prewired "survival" instincts, why has the highest form of human endeavor always been the denial of self?

17

Trotting out the JW credentials...

by Odrade in

the people who care don't matter, and the people who matter don't care.. i'm asking because i notice that even though i've pretty much rejected everything connected with the religion, i still find myself setting out who i knew, who knew me, how involved i was, how many meeting/assembly/convention parts i had... on and on ad nauseum.

(it's nauseating.. remember when there were records and record players?

you'd get a skip in the record, then everytime you played it, the needle would fall in the skip.

Annanias

Terry - As the Brits say, "Here, here!" You are the first person that I've run across on this site who has postulated self-accountability, but then, I haven't been here very long. I was beginning to worry, though. One thing that I finally figured out along my trek thru the land of WTs was that the "elders", the "society", the "brothers and sisters" had as much hold on me as I gave them. One of my favorite people on this planet was a brother named James (no last names please). James is now dead, having succumbed to cancer many years ago, but this guy had always impressed me because he had spent a true lifetime of service to Jehovah, but never, ever, once used it against anyone else. We were discussing filed service once and I asked him how he dealt with the "One More Door" syndrome. The syndrome being that at the end of any FS day, I could always do "one more door" until I'm doing it 24x7. His answer was so cool for as much what he didn't say as to what he did. He didn't say, "Oh, well, there's a national average in the KM", nor did he say, "Well, when you got baptised, you dedicated your body to Jehovah", nor, "Well, brother blah-blah has 16 children, 5 jobs, pancreatic cancer, and one eye tied behind his back and he still gets in ...." He just said, "You know how much you should do. That's all Jehovah expects." It took a couple of months before the full impact of what he had told me sunk in. Yeah, by golly, it is up to me! Just me and nobody else. From that time on, most of the "admonishments" that came from the platform just became a lot of noise.

There was a study done at UC Berkeley (see how the credentials thing is pervasive) where the prisoner/prison guard psychology was studied. They took a group of students (50-60) and divided them up at random and made one group (2/3 of the students) prisoners, and the remainder were made guards. In the basement of one of the campus buildings they had built a jail and on a particular friday night the prisoners were loaded into their cells and the guards began guarding them. Now, the experiment was to run from friday night to sunday night and everybody knew this. Plus, the rules of the prison were explained to everybody: no abuse, prisoners had to obey the guards, the guards were there just to keep order and see the prisoners didn't escape, etc, etc. The entire group were given all of this info together in an auditorium before the start of the exercise. In less than 24 hours, the guard students were screaming at the prisoner students for the slightest of perceived infractions, while the prisoner students were screaming back. Some student guards were actually beating on some prisoner students. I'm not positive about this, but I think that the exercise had to be called off prematurely because things were starting to get out of hand. My point is that this is what happens to people. No matter how amiable bro. Goodguy is when he becomes an elder, unless he is a most unusual man, he is naturally going to gravitate in the direction of the student prison guards. A lot of the stress within the congs is caused not by religious intolerance or malice or ill will, but simply by humaness. The more that we tend to give of oursrselves to the other person, be it our loyalty, our love, our admiration, the greater will be the hurt when they abuse it. I call it an "emotional investment". What James had told me (and you confirmed, Terry) is that we bear some responsibility to ourselves when we give ourselves away.

12

Absolutely terrible WT article Re: Repressed Memories.... WARNING: Triggers

by Nosferatu in

i was absolutely furious when i came upon this watchtower article.

it makes me absolutely sick to read such horseshit.. comments and emphasis: mine.

watchtower, nov 1, 1995 p 25-29repressed memories".

Annanias

This thread is interesting in the date of the article. wheres caleb's recital of the embittered pioneer sister sounds very close to me. I was abused by my father, but the memories were not repressed by any means, and it left me terminally angry. When this particular article came out, it seemed to be in response to a trend going on in the psycho world dealing with repressed memories, in that many less than scrupulous psychologists of dubious abilities were bringing criminal charges against a lot of innocent people (and fame to themselves). There was a case in the cong I was in at the time where a sister (who had had a terrible life, no doubt about that) was suddenly "remembering" all sorts of things. What these memories served to do was to give her attention and a certain amount of power. Neither of which she had ever had before in her life. As time went on, her "memories" became more and more bizarre as she tried to maintain this newly found level of attention and power. The problem is that whatever truth might have been in her original claims got lost. She ended up spending some time at the state mental hospital, and I'm not sure if she ever recovered. My heart hurt for her, because she had obviously suffered from some sort of abuse that had left her scarred, like me. But it was also very painful to see the damage she had caused to others who had been as innocent as she when her own wounds had been induced. She wasn't doing it out of malice, she was just very, very sick. I think that the WT article was trying to do too much at one time and, as usual, ended up making a hose job out of the whole thing. You have to remember, there is a whole lot of people out there who cannot, translate: refuse to, think for themselves and will do absolutely, positively, only what they think they read in the WT. Like talking to a 12 year old heading out the door, you have to say as much as you can before their brain shuts off. This includes the "elders" as well, or maybe, especially. I was engaged to a somewhat reknown psychologist after I had left and we used to have the most volatile arguments over this subject because she believed that I was suffering from horrendous repressed memories. I never seemed to make her understand that it was not the memories I couldn't recall that was barfing my mind, it was the ones that I COULD recall. If a trend like "repressed memories" were to get loose in the hollow world of the KH, where most people have already lived lives of quiet sorrow with little understanding as to why, the people would turn into Lemmings. (Oh, Jim Jones, wherefore art thou?)

It seems that a lot of the bitterness towards the borg comes from the fact that for years now they have claimed, both in writing, from the platform, and at the door, that they have the all answers to all the worlds problems. And then, when you or I go up to them, as innocent believers, and say, "I've got a problem, please fix it." , their answer, of course, is, "Oh, we can't fix that. Here, take two hours of field service and call me in the morning."

25

Bush Announces "Peace and Security" (non-political thread only please)

by Confucious in

ok, in bush's speech last night, his theme was "peace and security" or "peace and saftey" which i believe was his actual words.

well, we know the jw retoric about "peace and security.

does anyone here have insite on what the the bible is talking about with "...when they are announceing peace and security that sudden destruction will be instantly upon them..." .

Annanias

"Mangled Baby Ducks. Mangled Baby Ducks. With a name like 'Mangled Baby Ducks' it has to be good!"

-Dan Akroyd-