Posts by LongHairGal

15

This week's Watchtower Study - don't complain if ...

by eyeslice in

jw
friends

don't complain if you get kicked out of bethel after 23 years (it's really a blessing to be assigned back to the field) and don't complain if they sell your kingdom hall even if you have just invested your time and energy renovating it.. so encouraging?.

LongHairGal

EYESLICE & RULES AND REGULATIONS:

If this article was released in November 2022, I wonder if it was to mentally prepare everybody for yet more bethelites to be sent home?

From what I have read, many have been sent packing over the last decade or so!.. If there was no danger of anybody else being let go, would they bother printing an article like this??

I imagine it’s a shock for somebody over 50 to be sent home if they expected to stay and be taken care of for life.😮 (And correct me if I am mistaken - with no severance package like a ‘worldly or secular employer’ would give.) ..Even this wouldn’t be the answer to anybody’s problems because they would STILL need to make a living once they got out.

I hope most (especially the younger ones) who have already been let go in recent years have found a way to support themselves. I imagine older ones would definitely have a problem even with help since almost nobody wants to hire an older person - especially with No college or useful skills!

As an observer, since this seems to be the ‘handwriting on the wall’: anyone still at any of the bethels had better be prepared with a plan and a list of contact phone numbers!!

34

Everyone else burns new UK sitcom

by Mickey mouse in

jw
friends

i'm looking forward to this, having watched a trailer i think ex-jws will enjoy it https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/comedy/everyone-else-burns-simon-bird-first-look-exclusive-newsupdate/.

LongHairGal

JAMES ANDREW:

Sorry to hear your experience! The stories never seem to stop about JWs who were prevented in their youth from either getting college OR having a well paying job! I hope you found a way to at least find something decent.

I saw a thread on Reddit the other day about ‘How do JWs get/earn money’. One very good post that I could relate to told about how somebody (as a younger person) worked for the USPS full time and somebody urged him to quit and take up a menial type job. He wisely refused.. He also noted the elders there were working railroad jobs and were either collecting pensions or on their way to. But yet none of them even suggested he apply to the railroad for the decent jobs they had!!

He surmised (correctly) that not only do JWs discourage higher education BUT also gainful employment!! This was my experience EXACTLY as all the older people in the congregation were collecting their pensions!.. Yet they had the audacity to tell ME to quit my job and take up housecleaning! The poverty they were pushing on younger people certainly was not for them!.. Thankfully, I never listened to any of them!

43

Research paper on Effects of Shunning

by peacefulpete in

after being around this site for 21 years now, i've heard many recount their stories and feelings.

many times i can immediately relate but other times they seem to have had a very different experience with the church.

i'm sure that is because not only are all of us different in personality, but congregations and family dynamics vary as well.

LongHairGal

JHINE:

I totally agree.. I remember when I read the book “Crisis of Conscience” that I was immediately struck by what I felt was a similarity to a dictatorship. I remembered the part about people being accused by secret informants.

I also agree that the JW religion provides No real physical charity to anybody! (And free ‘bible’ studies don’t count, as far as I’m concerned). Other religions in Christendom provide the NECESSARY material help such as food pantries, soup kitchens, programs to help youth in the community, etc.

What’s worse is when the JWs study with people they tell them they will be ‘taken care of’. I had this said to me. This is not true. What REALLY happens is that responsible looking people there are cornered to give money since the religion itself has NO programs!.. Meanwhile, college is knocked and they make sure people who worked full time (like myself) were considered ‘not spiritual’.. Thankfully I never listened to this foolish talk and held onto my job until retirement.

6

Shameless Watchtower Study...How Strong Will Your Faith Be?

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

the watchtower—study edition | november 2021. .

16 note the example of geydi, a sister from guatemala.

her husband, edi, was murdered as they were returning home from a congregation meeting.

LongHairGal

BETH SARIM:

I would more likely think it’s the second choice although choice no. 1 is supposed to somehow make somebody ‘feel better’.

The real moral of the story is that they should have stayed home!

43

Research paper on Effects of Shunning

by peacefulpete in

after being around this site for 21 years now, i've heard many recount their stories and feelings.

many times i can immediately relate but other times they seem to have had a very different experience with the church.

i'm sure that is because not only are all of us different in personality, but congregations and family dynamics vary as well.

LongHairGal

Regarding them speaking against college: I once had an elder admit to me that ‘college educated brothers are harder to counsel’.

I wasn’t raised in the JW religion so this didn’t affect me. But, I always felt sorry for any JWs who were denied higher education when they were younger by JW parents who were influenced to not send them to college. This, of course, had lifelong detrimental effects to these Witnesses, as we have all heard. The only exceptions were those JWs who got out of the religion at a young enough age to get that education and accomplish something for themselves!

Those who stayed and bucked the trend and DID go to college were certainly shunned or excluded to varying degrees!

20

How do JWs know that millions who were martyred as Christians before the 20th century did not have the heavenly hope?

by Vanderhoven7 in

as i understand it, jehovah’s witnesses believe less than 145,000 faithful christians existed prior to the twentieth century.

the other sheep christians did not start forming until after 1914. that means jehovah’s witnesses view millions martyred for their faith in christ prior to the 20th century as merely professed christians.. the question is…how do witnesses know that those millions who perished for their faith in christ were not christians at all?.

LongHairGal

VANDERHOVEN7:

This rejection of theirs of early Christians was one of the teachings I never accepted in the JW religion. I kept this to myself. I let it go in one ear and out the other - just like modern day people’s claims of being ‘anointed’.

Likewise, I never believed any modern day convention was a fulfillment of bible prophecy. I thought the JWs were just flattering themselves. I was raised Catholic and learned all about the Christian martyrs and saints. How could anybody presume to say they were ‘not true Christians’ but just ‘professed to be’?

This claim reminds me of something I witnessed once in class: a boy had asked the nun a question. He asked: “what if somebody thinks they are sorry but they are not?” The sister then said: “If he THINKS he is sorry, then he is.” In the same fashion, I believe those people back then who professed to be Christians probably were - not just because they thought so - but because the society around them obviously thought they were. They were even executed for it.

Anybody who wants to go ahead and try to judge and disregard what happened centuries ago just sounds presumptuous to me.

76

Front row seats watching the collapse of watchtower

by Indoubtbigtime in

i’m a pimo ministerial servant and i won’t fade because i want to keep my front row seats watching what happens next few years.. my predictions are that this current governing body will slowly die off and the current younger helpers will be the next gb.

they will eventually have new light that they were wrong about 1914 and the overlapping generations.. the new light will be something on the lines of the last days are now because of king of north king of south pushing each other etc etc.

they will do their very best to burry old literature and try to change the past trying to make it sound like they were right all along just as they have done for 150 years now.

LongHairGal

RIVERGANG:

I agree with you and think people on the thread are too optimistic! They shouldn’t hold their breath.

I think the JW religion will just become smaller and more obscure like other sects in the US… Regarding what you said about PIMOs: I think a considerable number of JWs are in this category. They are probably hanging on for family members. They can keep it. I wouldn’t want to be there listening to BS, appeals for money and intrusiveness into your business. Nah, I could never fake it and am glad I walked away from this over two decades ago.

43

Sunday January 15 is my 76th birthday. I answer some of your questions.

by Terry in

jw
friends

happy birthday 2 me!!.

sunday is my 76th birthday and i know that you want to know how it "feels" to have outlived my usefulness, to have lost my natural beauty (being reduced to wrinkles and flab), and constantly walking into a room not knowing why i'm there.

you also are curious as to how i can continue to find a reason to live since none of my kids think my opinions have any possible value, most of my facebooks friends i wouldn't recognize if i tripped over them on my way into starbucks, and my monthly expenditure on bird treats exceeds u.s. spending on the military.

LongHairGal

Terry, Happy Birthday!

We’re all getting up there!

5

The Watchtower—Study Edition | November 2022 Let Nothing Separate You From Jehovah

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

study article 47. .

7 maintain your spiritual routine.

consider how doing so helped shirley, a sister in papua new guinea, when she faced hardships.

LongHairGal

RULES & REGULATIONS:

Of course, they don’t answer those questions.

I always hated these types of articles because you could never know if the person was real. Naturally, there are so many needy people in the JW religion because they didn’t get a decent job/career but spent their time in the ministry.

Maybe it’s like CARLA said: the hypothetical person went down to ANOTHER local Christian church and got provisions with no questions asked and no strings attached.

41

Pioneer Hours Update

by Bartolomeo in

regular pioneers: 600 per year, 50 on average per month.auxiliary pioneers: 30 hours per monthauxiliary pioneers in march and april: fee reduced to 15 hours.

LongHairGal

THOMAS MORE:

Interesting that you say the last person to join your congregation was somebody you would classify as someone ‘with serious issues’.

In maybe the previous decade+ or so that is pretty much who was brought into the congregations. I assume it was to fill the empty seats in the halls.

The problem I have with this is because I suspect some people were enticed by the talk of a ‘brotherhood’. They might have also been told ‘they would be taken care of’. This is crap. Incidentally, I remember a sister telling this to me when I was new - but since I worked and supported myself it didn’t apply. I think JWs who study with people and tell them ‘they will be taken care of’ - are telling a big fat lie.

The religion has absolutely No social programs to take care of anybody. What ends up happening is that they carefully target responsible people in the hall for money to give to these useless people. So, somebody like me who got criticized for working could count on some idiot coming up to me with an envelope asking for money. If I were stupid enough to still be there I guarantee this would happen!.. This is one of the main reasons why I am Glad I left ages ago.