A lot of here are actually out, I have been for fifteen years. People stay in for various reasons, usually family obligations. It's easy to say just walk away, but you aren't walking in their shoes, so why judge? They will leave when they leave.
LisaRose
JoinedPosts by LisaRose
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46
A question .....
by Landy inhi guys - new poster here.
i was brought up a jw in the uk and stopped going not long after i was married.
that was 20 years ago so i'm not really up to date with the current doctrinal flip flops or the new youtube obsessed gb.. came across this site while googling the name of a local elder who's just been convicted of possesion of a pc full of unpleasant pics of kids.. so, my question.
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44
What's More Important...Taking care of immigrants or the needy in your country?
by minimus ini say take care of the needy ones first like our veterans and homeless and mentally ill, and then....take care of those not from this country.
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LisaRose
I don't understand why it has to be an either or proposition. Yes, help the needy here, but the situation with the Syrians is much more urgent. I get that it's more appealing to offer aid to those who live near us or who look like us, I am no different in that respect, but the people in Syria have lost everything; homes and jobs and often some family members. They risked death to get out and now no one wants them. These are people that worked or who owned businesses, many of them have savings, they have a lot to offer to any country that takes them in. The possibility of some of them being radical Muslims is there, but the risk is not as great as people fear, and good vetting and good Intel can reduce that risk. I just think sometimes you have to do the right thing, even if it poses some small risk.
I can't help but draw correlations to the plight of the Jews in WWII. There was some knowledge on the part of the U.S. that Jews were being killed, some did manage to make it out of the country, but they had no place to go. The U.S. could have taken in more people, but they didn't. I imagine the reasons were varied, but they were probably not that different than the reasons we won't take Syrian Immigrants now. There was a lot of anti semitism, they were different, they looked different, they were Germans and we were at war with Germany, we had our own poor to take care of, etc. The New York Times had a policy to minimize reporting about the camps, the state department actively worked to discourage immigration.
The middle east is in turmoil to a certain degree because the U.S. went to war against Iraq and destabilized the region, I think we have a moral obligation to help those who have been affected by what we did.
Wikipedia:
The United States also refused to grant temporary refuge to Jews fleeing Europe. In the wake of the Great Depression, the United States had a highly restrictive immigration quota system, but even the limited quota spots were not filled.[16] The Department of State refused to fill 90% of the quota spots that might have been available for European Jews.[17][18]
It was Treasury official Josiah DuBois who, risking his career, authored his celebrated "Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews" that documented State Department efforts to thwart Jewish immigration from Europe.[2
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32
Finally heard a Dub defend overlapping generations
by Socrateswannabe insince the overlapping generations doctrine was introduced, i have found the jws i know to be uncharacteristically silent on the subject.
i can't remember hearing a single dub try to defend this idiocy.
but that all ended recently.
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LisaRose
It's a cult, she was ready to believe any explanation they may have made, because to admit the truth, that it was obviously just something they made up, would be too uncomfortable to contemplate. That's how cults get people to accept and believe the preposterous.
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my 2 cents
by SloppyMcFloppy inall religion is flawed because its led by man.
jw is not bad religon if it changed some of its doctrines and thoughts.
if it didnt "shun" members and "worldly people.
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LisaRose
And Hitler would have been a great leader if he had just been nicer to the Jews.
Seriously, it's a cult, changing a few things would not make it a good religion. It's not any one doctrine, it's the culture of the governing body claiming to be the only authority on everything, , it's them lying about their past, it's covering up child sexual abuse, it's failed date predictions and doctrine flip flops, it's discouraging higher education, it's them tearing families apart by Disfellowshiping, it's the depression and suicides that aren't talked about.
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the Remnant
by Esse quam videri inwhen was the last time anyone recalls hearing the word 'remnant', in meetings or conversation?
is it something still discussed?
[i haven't attended in 20 years, so no idea].
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LisaRose
It think it was used describe those anointed who were around before they introduced the idea of the earthly hope. It was probably assumed they would all be gone by now, the word remnant implies the end of something, so it's sort of an embarrassment that they keep getting new anointed ones, they aren't really a remnant anymore are they?
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"Most women would prefer to be stay at home housewives. Women's lib did alot of damage to women!"
by purrpurr inthe above is a quote from a jw female relative.
this was in response to a discussion about the suffragette movement ( and the movie about it that's currently in cinemas).
she seemed to think that it would be so much better if women were just daughters/ wives/ mothers and didn't go out to work and have career's?
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LisaRose
I will suggest a book, if you are interested. It's a fiction, by essayist and philosopher Marilyn French, called The Women's Room. It's one woman's experience of life as a new divorcee who returns to college. She is traditional in her thinking, and very down with life. She is the wife who supported hubbie through college, and got ditched for the new model. But that is just an intro to the character Her journey is a good read for the story, and also has deeper undertones. It changed my life. *shrugs* It does show how powerless a 30-something divorcee was in the mid-20th century.
I will have to read that. One of the things that helped me break free from the religion was the abysmal way women were treated. I was a typical subservient JW wife, and since my first husband was disfellowshipped I had zero status in the congregation. I was fine with that at first, I totally believed only men could be leaders, I never even wanted to work in the first place, I was forced into because my first husband couldn't keep a job.
Then I started working for a company that had a lot of women, as women seem to gravitate towards auditing and finance. As I began to work my way up in the company and got more responsible positions, I saw competent women managers, senior managers and directors and it started to make me aware of how stupid it was to treat women as if they were incapable.
I was promoted from admin to auditing then to a systems analyst and within two or three months was promoted two levels to a Senior Systems Analyst, even though I had not one college credit to my name. It was explained by my manager, a woman of course, that as my work was as good as anyone else's she could not justify paying me any less. I made the same as any man in an equivalent position, it was a good feeling and such a change. Then I would go to the meetings and become either stupid or invisible. I would go to the meeting for service and watch the young brother struggle with assigning car groups and it was hard not to think I could have done that job better, But I didn't have a penis, so it could never happen, no matter my skills or intelligence.
I never looked down on women who chose not to work outside the home, but that doesn't mean it's the right choice for everyone. People are generally happiest if their knowledge and skills are utilized to the fullest, for some women that may be child care and running a home, but others are better as different things. I believe the Watchtower devalues women whether they work or not, but they seem more distrustful of working women, strong independent women are a threat. Women could do a lot of the jobs at the Kingdom Hall, there is nothing that makes men inherently better at any of an elders duties, so they are basically wasting the talents of half their members.
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34
The lord of the rings
by BlackWolf innow that i've found out ttatt i've been indulging in a lot of so called "spiritistic" entertainment lol.
i recently watched all of the lotr/hobitt movies and man were they awesome!!!
who knew spiritism could be so much fun lol.
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LisaRose
I read the LOTR trilogy and the Hobbit back in high school, which was probably before a lot of you were born. For some reason I never saw the last LOTR, I'll have to remedy that.
The exorcism was very scary to me, but it's been a long time since I've seen it and I was a JW at the time so that was probably part of it. I only saw Rosemary's baby a few years ago and it was actually quite good and far better than a lot of the current movies of this type. The shinning is also very good. I've been to the Stanly Hotel in Estes Park Colorado, which inspired the hotel in the book, Steven King stayed there while writing it.
It's kind of fun to do things that were once forbidden, isn't it? I've even had my fortune done, because it was such a major taboo, sort of exorcising those demons, so to say. The fortune teller managed to get a lot of things right, but she was obviously just good at picking up clues by my body language. She actually gave me some good advice, it was fifteen bucks well spent. Absolutely nothing happened of course, because there is no such things as demons. Interested to try a Ouija board, just for fun.
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Why do people just give their money to the Watchtower?
by WireRider inwhat do they contribute to humanity?
what do they contribute to any part of society?.
why are people paying for a scam?.
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LisaRose
Fear, guilt and obligation. -
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I need some friends!!
by BlackWolf ini literally have 0 friends, actually i've never had any close friends.
its really started to get to me.
i homeschool and my parents keep me super isolated and all the other kids at my hall are complete a**holes!!
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LisaRose
Sorry you are so lonely right now. My daughter went through much the same experience in high school. Many times people who are different in any way struggle in the religion, it's just hard to fit into the borg when you are intelligent and the type that questions things. You will have the last laugh though, when the kids at the hall are jumping into an early marriage and getting their window washing jobs, you will be out there living a better life, maybe going to college and then on to a great job. You will also meet other intelligent people who like to question things, and they will be friends who won't dump you because you decide to not be a JW. My daughter has a fantastic job in IT and is happily married, so very revenge of the nerds.
Hang in there, it will get better, high school doesn't last forever.
