http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/local/7213943.htm
a news byte from the beacon journal (local & state news).
<...> about 4/5 down the page.
BTW, I should add that I think that snitching to WTS headquarters, as was done last time, is a bad idea. If this is a Witness who is bucking the control in some manner, that should be encouraged, IMHO.
I agree with this statement. Let the person get their arguements destroyed in public so that the public and the person arguing can see the absurdity faster .
(well, actually they probably all are absurd )
ja rule: [laughs] thank you, thank you.
ja rule: so [laughs] we going to get into ... .
yeah, you know, he hit my mom.
Yeah, I saw the interview on TV a couple of nights ago as well.
Unless he attended the most drachonian congregation around, his mother most likely did more than just have "a drink or two" with co-workers to get dissfellowshipped. Obviously, that does not excuse the shunning policy (or his JW family's blatant hyprocrisy), but I find the likelihood of that story about the dissfellowshipping being the complete truth to be suspect.
I actually had heard about Ja Rule growing up a witness before, possibly on this forum a while back.
a jw relative brought out something i actually had to agree with.
we were discussing positive vs. negative aspects of the "truth".
she brought out that the witnesses do not participate in war, and i thought 'gee, that's probably a good thing'.
I think reading all the magazines and literature can contribute to a person being an above average reader, and will help them get good grades in english classes. Of course, the downside to all that reading could be that you'll believe the stuff .
i know i know this as been done before , i fink!
http://beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html
if you haven't taken the test before, give it a go see how far down the list if at all jw is.
| 1. | Unitarian Universalism (100%) |
When I still was vey much into the JW religion, my No.1 choice was Liberal Quaker (JW's were like no.4 then). Unitarian Universalist has been No.1 for several years now (though I can't understand how I got No.3 with the answers I gave to the "god questions").
when i was a jw it was pretty much a weekly thing in the cold weather months for different congregations(actually someone within the congregation) to rent a gym for th bros to play ball.
i really like playing ball.
when i left, that as something i actually missed.
Yeah, the basketball games could get pretty competitive indeed. I definitely saw a lot of hard playing, not to mention unchristain words leaving the lips of some .
But if you thought the basketball was competitive, the bowling was worse. Most people (like myself) took it for fun and games, but the folks who showed up with special bowling gloves and their own bowling shoes (not a bad idea, actually ) tended to take the thing a little too seriously. One guy who bowled a bad game early on barely talked to anyone the whole time. But he was perfectly normal the next day in meeting .
.
flowerpetals post and thread reminded me of some of the scams we would use to try to show the maximum numbers of hours spent in "service" for the smallest amount of effort.
here's some of the ones i remember...just wondered if any of you had any other memories.. .
Geez, I thought I was bad for rounding up after 45 minutes (for me, 45 minutes always equaled an hour. So 3 hours in service was counted as 4. One of my sisters told me this "rule" when I had just became a publisher at around 8 years old. At first I thought it was a legit rule I hadn't heard about, but I kept doing it even after I learned it was bogus).
That suggestion about leaving the magazine in the car is very creative. I wonder which slacker came up with that?
I used to do the fake bell ringing tactic during the few times I'd go out in service after I'd found out the truth about the JW's. Amazingly, somebody actually opened the door despite this tactic once (most likely because they saw me and the person I was working with coming). I just offered them the magazines, and they took it. That was probably the last time I placed something out in service, but I'm not 100% sure I didn't go out at least once or twice after that.
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i consider all who post here as my family.we have all been hurt in some way.my brother died today.. blueblades,who has six sisters left.mom,dad,one sister and two brothers died.i'm the only man in the family now.
((((Blueblades))))
i just visited a unitarian universalist church today for the first time.
i enjoyed it!
the reverend was a female and she gave a sermon about mystics.
Once on "A Prairie Home Companion," Garrison Keillor told a joke about a JW who became a Unitarian. The punch line was that this person began "going door to door for no particular reason."
LOL, Mum.
I've been to a couple of UU services myself (I scored 100% UU on the religious test and hence was curious). The experience was pretty good there. The people I spoke to were friendly, and the minister was a very nice person as well (he came up to me to welcome me after the service). I was also impressed with the community activism aspect of the group. If I felt a real need for some sort of "spirituality" in my life, I'd probably attend a place like that, but I much rather sleep late on Sundays and wake up just in time to see the start of the early football game than to be up early to go to church . It's certainly a 100% improvement over the JW's; the importance of making your own decisions on matters of spirituality is quite important there.
as a former jehovahs witness, one who was raised in the faith, and eventually became a pioneer and ms; i left 20 years ago and at this juncture in my do not feel the need to join any other religion.
it is not that i still believe any of the jw teachings, i just do not believe any organized religion, not christianity, judaism or muslim.
i feel that i am a deeply spiritual person; agnostic, but because of my "jw adventure" , i not longer feel the need to worship.. i am curious to know how the rest of you feel after leaving that faith...is there still a need to worship, or has that feeling also passed with you?.
Funny thing is, I highly doubt any being worthy of being called "God" would need, want or desire our worship.
So very true.
I was also one of those people who really didn't have a real "need" to worship, but did it because I felt it was the right thing to do (since I assumed that the bible was true). Now that I've realized that my assumptions about the bible (or any holy book for that matter) were wrong, I see no reason for worship, and I simply live my life to the best of my ability. I'm sure if a god exist, that's all he would ask of me.
what is the current thinking of the watchtower society concernng higher education these days?
in 1977 i entered college from a full pioneer status and was duly criticized from the local elders.
back at that time, higher education was actively discouraged.
Right now higher education is viewed as a "conscience matter". It's not something that is readily encouraged, of course, but if you do decide to attend you are not automatically criticized like in the old days.
Generally, JW's don't mind if you go to a technical school over an academic one, so going to DeVry to learn how to fix computers is considered better than going to the state university to study buissness. If you do decide to go the academic route, however, majoring in something like accounting is more acceptable than majoring in, say, psychology (ok, so you'd be viewed with outright suspicion for that one ). I know a ministerial servant who is a CPA, and the elders never gave him any grief for his going to school to study that vocation. Also, if possible, going to a community college is viewed more favourably than a four year one.
So basically, the ideal is still to leave high school and start poineering ("spiritual" parents are expected to encourage their kids down this path, and convention experiences seem to always include one young person who turned down college for the "full time ministry", giving a not so subtle hint as to what the Society really thinks), but going to college is OK depending on your motives. Going to "learn a skill", or majoring in a non theologically threatening field like accounting seems to be OK, but going to college just for the sake of learning, or persuing subjects that might challenge the JW belief system, or just trying to persue a career that might possibly make you rich, disinterested in, or too busy for the JW's is strongly opposed though not expressely forbidden. My eventual career goal is to become a lawyer (I'm still an undergraduate), but when I talk to JW's about what I'm studying, I say that I want to become a paralegal (which is partly true, since I want to do that before law school ). Hell, even my parents from time to time may tell me that perhaps I shouldn't want to persue a career in law during "the time of the end", but they are actually quite hands off an supportive of me for the most part (obvoiusly, they don't know my true feelings on the religion).
