doogie:
They did have a lot of nice secular books in the library. It's cool you never had the homeoverseers drama. I will say that I got a chance to get out an travel a lot, and that was cool...............
at the 'big house' you go either one of two ways, company man or apostate.
i think for many that went, it demystified the whole organization and you saw firsthand that there wasn't holy spirit influencing anything - only the muses of sheltered, out-of-touch old men and political bureaucrats.
i work in the corporate world and i saw just as much if not more politics in bethel.
doogie:
They did have a lot of nice secular books in the library. It's cool you never had the homeoverseers drama. I will say that I got a chance to get out an travel a lot, and that was cool...............
at the 'big house' you go either one of two ways, company man or apostate.
i think for many that went, it demystified the whole organization and you saw firsthand that there wasn't holy spirit influencing anything - only the muses of sheltered, out-of-touch old men and political bureaucrats.
i work in the corporate world and i saw just as much if not more politics in bethel.
FreeWilly:
That's what was really trippy. You'd have these home overseers or their underlings questioning you about music that they had no clue about. One of my friends had an all-instrumental, jazzy album from the Beastie Boys (The In-Sounds From Way Out - yeah, believe it or not, the Beastie Boys played instruments), and because their name had the word 'beast' in it, they tried to reason with him on how unsound it was to possess an album where the artists are called 'beasts.' In another instance, another of my friends had some "Boss" jeans. He got pulled aside and counseled on why he would wear jeans that would have the word boss on the back pocket and the crotch area and how that sends the wrong message about God's servants. It was this type of micro-managed, self-righteous, judgemental shit like that that was such a turn-off.
jw's are expert at taking one passing thought in scripture and forming a whole belief system or control mechanism around it.
ex: matt.
24:45-47 faithful and discreet slave......one parable, illustration.....no other mention of it in scripture....but if you do a search of it on the cd-rom, it is one of the most talked about/written about subject in their history.
How about this one:
Prov. 4:18...the light of the truth gets brighter and brighter......
This scripture had nothing to do with divine truth being progressively revealed as an excuse to dump old out-of-date teachings. Instead of admitting, "hey, we had it wrong," they spin the hell outta this scripture. And of course when you look it up on the CD-Rom, there are exhaustive articles expounding on this one scriptural text. Do you know how many corporations wish they could put their mistakes off in this manner?
at the 'big house' you go either one of two ways, company man or apostate.
i think for many that went, it demystified the whole organization and you saw firsthand that there wasn't holy spirit influencing anything - only the muses of sheltered, out-of-touch old men and political bureaucrats.
i work in the corporate world and i saw just as much if not more politics in bethel.
greendawn:
oh, yeah they were VERY anti-hip-hop. I've known several that were kick out (ASKED TO LEAVE) for having hip-hop or hip-hop influenced music in their rooms. As always, they would attribute it to holy spirit uncovering the disgusting thing in the midst, when in reality it was a nosy-ass housekeeper looking to bust some balls...............
at the 'big house' you go either one of two ways, company man or apostate.
i think for many that went, it demystified the whole organization and you saw firsthand that there wasn't holy spirit influencing anything - only the muses of sheltered, out-of-touch old men and political bureaucrats.
i work in the corporate world and i saw just as much if not more politics in bethel.
zugzwang:
Yeah, I hit the library myself and delved into a lot of the older publications. When you read them, it seems like it was a completely different organization, like night and day. And yes, a lot of it was mad-disturbing, because the JW's of yesterday are the apostates of today and vice-versa. The alarm really started going off in my head when I did comparative reading with the publications. What I liked is that the library also had different bible versions which let you further compare a lot of the text.
And yeah, the whole shoulder-to-shoulder thing is a joke. It is nothing more than a cut-throat competition. I found that I really didn't have problems with the GB or older members of the family (even though they were sheltered and out-of-touch), but I had problems with the ones trying to climb the ladder and make a name for themselves at your expense. Those ones were a major pain-in-the-ass. It's sad that for a lot of them, there biggest goal in life was to be a table head or foot. I once got counseled because I made a "negative" remark about there "being more to life than striving to be a table head." The whole experience is VERY status-quo.............
at the 'big house' you go either one of two ways, company man or apostate.
i think for many that went, it demystified the whole organization and you saw firsthand that there wasn't holy spirit influencing anything - only the muses of sheltered, out-of-touch old men and political bureaucrats.
i work in the corporate world and i saw just as much if not more politics in bethel.
Tijkmo:
The whole g-jobbing thing was a trip, because at the time that I was there, Bethelites only got $90-95 a month. If you had to catch the subway out to your congo, that money was gone with a quickness. Bethel was good financially if you had a sponsor (rich family, relatives who would send money, if your congo was financially supportive, etc.), but for the most part you are dead-broke. A lot of Bethelites did g-jobbing, but it was only the ones who didn't have the good connections who would get caught and/or asked to leave. I remember some of the brothers in electrical or photography who would g-job, but since some of them had been there for awhile and knew the loopholes, were able to escape being punished.
at the 'big house' you go either one of two ways, company man or apostate.
i think for many that went, it demystified the whole organization and you saw firsthand that there wasn't holy spirit influencing anything - only the muses of sheltered, out-of-touch old men and political bureaucrats.
i work in the corporate world and i saw just as much if not more politics in bethel.
LHG you'd be surprised.
I'd say well over half of the Bethelites that come home usually don't do so of their own volition. Many have been "ASKED TO LEAVE" especially if it's before their year is up. I know before I left, Bethel was down-sizing (just like any corporation during tough economic times). So, instructions were giving to building, home, work overseers to keep a closer eye on any infractions that Bethelites may be violating (things ranging from being late for morning worship, to not being sociable with co-workers), and they were asking many Bethelites to leave - not so much for the infractions, but in reality because they were downsizing. So, little Johnny who gave up going to college and had that grand going away party and was the great hope of his local congregation is now being asked to leave under the veil of a minor infraction when in reality it's just a budget cut and downsize for the company.
keeping in mind that his followers malign the reputation of departing witnesses regardless of their reasons for leaving, do you think that god made up lies about satan's motivations for rebelling in order to justify his own harsh course of action?.
just a rambling thought this morning.
jeannie
I kind of think that the jewish writers of the bible created the scenario of universal sovreignty and satan's role in it. I mean, how do you get the whole sovreignty issue, human conflict, allowance for thousands of years of evil and injustice from the Genesis and Job account? While those accounts seem to highlight a certain degree of conflict, it doesn't tie ALL OF HUMANITY in it - just Adam, Eve, Satan and Job. The WTBS are masters of spin-doctoring as are many other religions who have adopted the same story.
at the 'big house' you go either one of two ways, company man or apostate.
i think for many that went, it demystified the whole organization and you saw firsthand that there wasn't holy spirit influencing anything - only the muses of sheltered, out-of-touch old men and political bureaucrats.
i work in the corporate world and i saw just as much if not more politics in bethel.
Actually in addition to going through your things they can also bug your phones. I had a buddy there that the powers-that-be were trying to get rid of and he was doing some g-jobbing on the side. Anyway, to trip him they bugged his phone and when his g-job employment called, they busted him and they gave him the boot.
at the 'big house' you go either one of two ways, company man or apostate.
i think for many that went, it demystified the whole organization and you saw firsthand that there wasn't holy spirit influencing anything - only the muses of sheltered, out-of-touch old men and political bureaucrats.
i work in the corporate world and i saw just as much if not more politics in bethel.
Oh, yeah....those housekeepers. Generally, I had some decent ones, but there were some horror stories with others. I know they went through my record collection to try and find anything objectionable during what we dubbed the "hip-hop witch hunt." Fortunately, I had a stash of hip hop records/CDs at some friends house in my congo, so I came up clean.