Posts by LongHairGal

34

History repeated: pre-1975 trend of selling homes to ‘downsize’

by LongHairGal in

jw
friends

i saw this thread on reddit.

i think the reason for this is that the 1975 fiasco is never mentioned in the jw religion.

nobody mentioned it to me when i came in the years after.. the problem with this is that all the sad stories were never told (or hushed up) of people who sold off homes, etc.

LongHairGal

FOOLEDNOMORE:

I’m glad your parents never fell for the pre-1975 stupidity!.. But, sadly, some JWs did fall for it.. I came in the later ‘70s with my full-time job and was oblivious to all this.

I had private conversations with a few wise JWs and we were all in agreement that you can’t give up everything. You need something to live on. For the most part, the older JWs back in my congregation were sound in mind and would have never acted foolishly. These people are all passed away now and the demographics of the religion are now made up of mostly less-affluent people including some ‘needy’ types who made unwise self-sacrifices..There are far too many people in the religion now looking for charity!

This is the ‘fruitage’ of decades of policies of ‘no college’, ‘no career’, ‘don’t own anything’ and ‘don’t plan for the future because Armageddon will be here’..along with other dangerously stupid trends.

The sickest irony is that the types of people who criticized me for my full-time job then would hate me Now because I wouldn’t give them any handouts.

34

History repeated: pre-1975 trend of selling homes to ‘downsize’

by LongHairGal in

jw
friends

i saw this thread on reddit.

i think the reason for this is that the 1975 fiasco is never mentioned in the jw religion.

nobody mentioned it to me when i came in the years after.. the problem with this is that all the sad stories were never told (or hushed up) of people who sold off homes, etc.

LongHairGal

Yes, it’s pretty bad, Simon.

But, I think it’s far worse when an older person makes this mistake because they can almost never earn the money back. I guess there’s no Fool like an old fool.

34

History repeated: pre-1975 trend of selling homes to ‘downsize’

by LongHairGal in

jw
friends

i saw this thread on reddit.

i think the reason for this is that the 1975 fiasco is never mentioned in the jw religion.

nobody mentioned it to me when i came in the years after.. the problem with this is that all the sad stories were never told (or hushed up) of people who sold off homes, etc.

LongHairGal

I saw this thread on Reddit. I think the reason for this is that the 1975 fiasco is never mentioned in the JW religion. Nobody mentioned it to me when I came in the years after.

The problem with this is that all the sad stories were never told (or hushed up) of people who sold off homes, etc. to live off the money and pioneer..only to have to start all over again when that year ended in a whisper!!

This scenario apparently has happened yet again in the last decade or so with some people doing the exact same thing.. I even heard of some who dropped out of the workforce before their actual retirement age..to go live in exotic locales. The last I heard their money ran out because Armageddon hadn’t come yet. These people are well over sixty! Now, there are yet more needy types in congregations with their hands out.

Maybe this mistake would be less likely to happen if the 1975 fiasco wasn’t kept such a deep dark secret from the ‘flock’.

35

Jehovah Witnesses lost in Court. Disfellowshipped Sister Reinstated by Court Order?

by pistolpete in

imagine the "faithful" jws who are now having to talk to this person by court order or face the consequences----legally.. exjws are spreading the news and now some exjws who have been disfellowshipped for years are starting to research to see if this is an option in their country.

here are the articles, you need to translate in google.

https://www.nrk.no/norge/gry-nygard-ble-ekskludert-fra-jehovas-vitner-_-vant-i-lagmannsretten-1.15570621.

LongHairGal

VANDERHOVEN7:

Answer: it won’t make any difference, in my opinion. She will probably be shunned anyway. Is she going to run after shunning people waving the news yelling that they have to talk to her?? Can she force them?

There was a poster a year or so ago that was suggesting that people make up some document saying they quit the JW religion on a certain date and do not consider themselves one anymore, etc... Unfortunately, nobody has any control over how JWs will act.. They believe once you are in it’s for life and there’s no honorable way out.

10

Mind control

by joao in

wt has really been doing a great job at mind-controlling their members.

how can people who say they are your friends not even want to know why you're leaving when you want them to know?!

eh!

LongHairGal

JOAO:

Yes, their followers are trained to be afraid to know why somebody left the JW religion. The religion doesn’t want members talking to somebody who is Out for fear they will learn too much!

LONGLIVETHERENEGADES:

So, you’re getting calls from people looking for financial help even though you are Out? It just kills me that JWs suffering because they unwisely followed the religion’s advice, now think they are going to target other people whether in or out of the religion.

It’s not just that these people were gullible for listening to stupid advice and waiting for ‘Armageddon’ so they didn’t have to deal:.it’s that they shunned responsible people in the congregation who DID work and plan!!..There is NO forgiveness for this. This is why I spread the word among the JWs I know so that none of these fools come looking in My direction for anything!..Let them track down their ‘spiritual’ friends in$tead.

48

What is the harm or downside of being PIMO?

by PimoElder in

what is the harm or downside of being pimo?.

i get all the good things about being in the cong, good social life lots of invites to bbqs and meals out.

lots of interesting gossip 🤣🤣🤣🤣.

LongHairGal

DESIROUS OF CHANGE:

Sounds like you had a great social life in the Witness religion.

As a single working woman on the fringes of the congregation who didn’t do favors for Users, I was the outcast!…Maybe once in a blue moon I got together with somebody for a movie, etc. But, that’s okay because it made it easier to ‘Fade’ when the time was right.

When I think of the OP and being PIMO and faking it, I wonder just HOW many Witnesses in any given congregation are genuine??..It doesn’t matter if they are faking it because they are afraid they will lose their family OR because they like being invited to dinners and socializing! 🙄

I’m glad I didn’t need anybody’s food or association that badly that I had to fake an interest.

This just underscores how phony and absurd the whole damn thing is that an unknown number of members are resorting to faking the fakery. Who wonders if it will all collapse under this BS?

32

Can you list the positive points of being a JW as against the negative points of being a JW in your experience ?

by smiddy3 in

i was a twenty y/old when i converted to the jw religion and was a problem drinker and i was a chain smoker .when i was baptized at a circuit assembly a year later , my conversion and change in lifestyle was given as an example of the effectiveness of incidental witnessing to the audience.. so i can point to the 2 positives becoming a jw .. 1.i gave up smoking.

2.i gave up drinking for a while ,but because i still had association with my wife`s and my family who were not jw`s ,i learnt to control my social drinking when i started again.. and i have been a responsible drinker ever since ,even though i left the religion 29 years ago.. the negative points of being a jw in my 32 years of being one ?

are far too great to list here .. love to hear your thoughts..

LongHairGal

SMIDDY3:

I also quit smoking to become a Witness. That’s a plus I suppose. Other good things? Let me think…I dressed more ‘modestly’ and got rid of some bad habits. But I would have accomplished that in any other Christian fundamentalist religion. My laments were how I was viewed because I worked. But, So what? I never listened to these people anyway and worked until retirement.

Just to keep a proper perspective I remember what a wise acquaintance told me when I began my ‘Fade’:.. I was told to ‘view my time in the JW religion like I was in a bad marriage’. I also read a post once where somebody said:..’you can never know what your life would have been if you followed another path! ..You can’t know what could have happened to you’..Maybe I should thank God, I wasn’t the ambitious type.

A WATCHER:

You can call the religion his earthly organization if you want. But, the religion gave themselves that designation!

23

What are Jehovah's Witnesses' stance on home ownership?

by timothytha in

what do people usually think of when they buy a house?

"i will probably live here for a long time" (you're invested with your time), "i will save money by building equity over time".

(you've invested in yourself financially for the long run) of course, i wouldn't be able to list the numerous reasons why people want to buy a house.

LongHairGal

TIMOTHY:

Don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but you are laboring under a wrong assumption! Just because Witnesses attempt to insinuate themselves into other people’s business doesn’t mean they are entitled to be told anything..Home ownership and any such decisions are private..Period.

What about all those stupid videos of people hiding out in somebody’s basement? You need to OWN a home to have a basement to hide in!

As for this Witness telling you about other JWs who have ‘sold their property to live a humbler life’, this is one of the stupidest things anybody can do..This is what people did before 1975!!! Remember that failure? Nobody seemed to learn from this…Did this JW also mention how many are NOW penniless at an old age because they lived off the proceeds of the sale and the money ran out?..These people are now older and broke in an economy where it’s next to impossible to find work.

As for this guy talking about ‘committing to full time at bethel’..where have you been? 🤣 Are you unaware of the many hundreds of people kicked out of bethels over the last decade or so?? These older people were sent packing with No money, no retirement package. No nothing. I heard of some who even got a bill for the last lunch they had in the cafeteria or commissary!! 😮 Imagine getting a bill for the sandwich and the little container of milk you had..after you got kicked out on your rear end?? They are sent back to congregations where it is expected that people there are going to help $upport them. And I don’t think we’ve seen the last of this ‘downsizing’!

This is why I’m glad I’m not in the JW religion anymore. If I were in any congregation where fired bethelites are and somebody had the nerve to come up to ME (who got criticized for a full-time job) asking for money, my answer would be No..Brothers with businesses are going to have to help them.

Nobody should give a second thought to what some strangers think about this or any other important decisions they need to make for their own lives.

27

Pimo's walking out

by Foolednomore in

jw
friends

is it possible that jw's would get so worn out by watchtower 's bullshit that they would stand up gather their stuff and walk out of a meeting or a convention.

i can see a small number doing it..

LongHairGal

FOOLEDNOMORE:

The answer is Yes, but it is something different for everybody.

Speaking of 9/11: I heard conflicting stories. The religion says they opened their doors. Other people (insiders) say No. I also heard they were told to stop looking out the window. There was also an awful rumor going around that a person/persons made cruel remarks about JWs who died in the collapse saying “that’s what they get for not being out in the ministry” or words to that effect..(Guess whoever didn’t know where money came from.)

With regard to PIMOs walking out suddenly: when I heard that 1995 teaching on Generation, I almost physically walked out. But, I got hold of myself as the reality was sinking in. There were a lot of things I felt were wrong with the religion. But this did it. I decided then and there my time in the Witness religion was Over and I planned my ‘Fade’..I felt they were insulting people’s intelligence and leading everybody on!

26

Rutherford and dinosaurs

by jhine in

sorry if this has been discussed before but on quora someone asked if rutherford had said that dinosaurs had been taken to venus .

i assume that the questioner had heard it somewhere and wanted to check it out.

i've never come across this before is it true ?

LongHairGal

VANDERHOVEN7:

Wow, I don’t remember hearing that one about the dinosaurs and Venus.. What an embarrassment the teachings of this religion are. No wonder they don’t want JWs reading their old books and publications.

NATHAN NATAS:

I like your last paragraph..It wouldn’t surprise me if ‘Listen, obey and die’ is probably somebody’s hidden feelings about the rank & file. I also think people in the religion have wasted the only life they were given. I’ll bet some suspect this but they are hanging on because of the sunk cost fallacy.