In my experience, although there are a few elders that were really morons, most of them are of average intelligence and some are very smart. It has to be that way for things to function "properly" in the BOE.
According to intelligence, the elder in question assumes a "role" in the congo. The dumbasses become puppets, and they develop this need to always prove how "mature" and how much they know about the "Bible", which of course, means the WT, in the meantime, doing whatever Honcho wants (see below).
The very smart ones tend to go in one of two directions: 1) many become "the big honcho" - they assume control and become the ultimate authority in the congo- submitting the other elders to his will and authority and manipulating the ones belonging to the group above into doing whatever the hell he wants. They are authoritarian, arrogant, very inflexible and, usually, extremely hypocritical (sp?). Or they may go in the other direction and become the "cool" elder that everyone loves and goes to, and who tries, however misguided, to lovingly guide everyone into submitting to the WT. He usually stands up to "Big Honcho" and becomes a thorn in Honcho's ass, so eventually Honcho will manipulate things and other elders into removing him from the position of elder in the congo. Once this happens, he losses all credibility and is no longer able to help people under Honcho's iron fist.
Most of the average ones are just that. They submit to Honcho. Sometimes they disagree with Honcho, but will never stand up to him because "he is so much more mature and Jehovah put him there for a reason".
divejunkie
JoinedPosts by divejunkie
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55
Were Most Of The Elders Dumb--- That You Knew???
by minimus ini'd say out of 10 elders, the average "sharp" ones are 2 or 3.
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divejunkie
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29
Shaving??????
by whyamihere ini hate doing it every god damn day!
legs, under arms...other places..lol.
i don't know what's wrong with me...lately i have cut myself a couple times, and that always feels great!.
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divejunkie
Hate it with a passion!!
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multi language kids
by Mulan ini am taking care of two of my grandchildren this week, while their parents are at a business seminar.. today when i took them to school, a large group of kids got off of a school bus and were chatting away in spanish.
then some other kids walked past talking in an eastern european language, i think.
some others were talking another language i didn't recognize.
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divejunkie
My children are being raised bilingual - English and Spanish. I think it's a great gift that we are giving them (almost as big as not raising them JW :) The first language they learned was Spanish - that is what we use about 90% of the time at home.
They love the fact that they can talk with a lot of people from different countries.
Research shows that children that learned a second or third language early in life perform better academically in other areas as well.
When they started school we enrolled them in a school with a Dual Language Program - Spanish inmersion.
The school was in a predominantly anglo neighborhood, but because of the special program had a lot of american kids from all backgrounds-black, asian, greek, italian, latino, etc. All the kids that were in the program took half of their day's instruction completely in English and the other half completely in Spanish. They all learned to read and write in Spanish first. The school's standarized test scores were always in the 90% and above for grades 3-5. All the students took the state tests in Spanish in 3rd and 4th and then switched to English for the tests in 5th. The enviroment in the school was awesome. They celebrated all cultures and all holidays in some form. By the time they got to 5th grade the students were truly bilingual and biliterate in at least two languages - many of them were trilingual because of their parents as well.
Don't knock it because Spanish is the language of the "illegal inmigrants" - bottom line: the 3 most widely spoken languages in the world are mandarin, english and spanish. Why not take advantage of the accesibility to learn 2 out of the 3? -
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Hate CO Visit
by thepackage inour cong.
recently had its co visit, and i realized how fake people can be when the co is around.
elders take time off of work to go out on service during the week, ms's that want to be elders kiss butt to the co. taking the co and his wife out to lunch become a competition.
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divejunkie
The CO's, the DO's, and any Bethelite, special pioneer, or missionary (sp?)...always the same ass-kissing-fest...
They are the "celebrities" of the JW's.
Makes me want to barf... -
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Gospel of Judas -anybody watching?
by divejunkie inthe national geographic channel is presenting a brand new documentary tonight about the findings of the "gospel of judas" .
now a few years back - my brother (ex-elder, df'd, and self-proclaimed apostate)presented me with the possibility that maybe the portrayal of judas was wrong.
maybe the role he played was not of a traitor but of someone who made the sacrifice of doing the dirty work that jesus needed in order to get "the ball rolling" -sort of speak- for certain events to happen.
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divejunkie
The National Geographic Channel is presenting a brand new documentary tonight about the findings of the "Gospel of Judas"
Now a few years back - my brother (ex-elder, df'd, and self-proclaimed apostate)presented me with the possibility that maybe the portrayal of Judas was wrong. Maybe the role he played was not of a traitor but of someone who made the sacrifice of doing the dirty work that Jesus needed in order to get "the ball rolling" -sort of speak- for certain events to happen.
After 15 years of the Nat Geo authenticating this finding they finally unveiled their findings of this "gospel of Judas" and they are presenting their findings.
At the very least it should be amazingly interesting. I'm definitely watching. -
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I found this VERY offensive. What about you?
by Gill inwatchtower, may 15th 2006.
(back page).
the value of 'a weaker vessel'.
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divejunkie
Whenever they gave the "husband/wife" talk in the KH and came with that same explanation, it made me squirm.
My favorite was when they said that the decision making process in the family should be shared, but the men always have the final word. BUT they can allow the wife to feel in charge of "certain" decision such as the kind of curtains in the house, or the grocery shopping....AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!! -
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Have you watched this video? "Jehovah's Witness Exposed"
by divejunkie ini kind of stumble into it, it's about 50 minutes long, very interesting.
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6861723185926041712&q=watchtower .
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divejunkie
When I saw the animated portion I also thought of the "Super Friends" cartoons.
I noticed the age of the video too and the fact that is sponsored by a church of some kind, but that doesn't invalidate the truth of the information.
I had only heard here of the "BethSarim" mansion, but to actually see a visual of it...W@OW!
Anyway, I'm glad you guys liked it. -
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Have you watched this video? "Jehovah's Witness Exposed"
by divejunkie ini kind of stumble into it, it's about 50 minutes long, very interesting.
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6861723185926041712&q=watchtower .
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divejunkie
I kind of stumble into it, it's about 50 minutes long, very interesting.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6861723185926041712&q=watchtower -
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Hindsight is 20/20: What were your signs?
by divejunkie inwhat i mean is now that you are out of the wt; do you ever think back at something you innocently said or did when you still believed or you were little that now feels like a sign that you would someday get out of the bullsh*t?
for me, growing up in the jw's, i feel there were signs of my "goat hairs" even way back then.
** even as a child, every saturday morning i would spend at least 10 or 15 minutes trying to figure out what to say to get out of going to field service .
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divejunkie
What I mean is now that you are out of the WT; do you ever think back at something you innocently said or did when you still believed or you were little that now feels like a sign that you would someday get out of the bullsh*t?
For me, growing up in the JW's, I feel there were signs of my "goat hairs" even way back then. For example:
** Even as a child, every Saturday morning I would spend at least 10 or 15 minutes trying to figure out what to say to get out of going to field service
**My dad the elder had a family part during a convention when I was around 5. It was about how to conduct a family study. We rehearsed that thing ad-naseum. All I had to say was "Jeremiah" when the proper question came. The big day comes and when asked I said: "I don't know". My dad asked the same question with different prompts a few more times, always with same answer: "I don't know". At the end I said: "I told you I don't know, can I go home now?"
How about you? -
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How many of you joined to placate family members ?
by bocephus ini was just wondering how many of you might have joined the organization to placate family members .
i can say as a teen i was baptized for the sole purpose of quieting my father .
how about you did you do it for the fear of losing family members
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divejunkie
I got baptized at 14, just because it was expected and there was some serious pressure to do it early. And of course after that it was also expected to spend my summer vacation doing some auxiliary pioneering. BLAH!!!!!!