Wow! That means you'll be in my hometown! Go Brewers Go! Da Cubs Still Suck (just like da Bears...) Have you been to Miller Park before? I was there for the first time on June 9th for an after-work tailgate and game - it was an awesome experience seeing the park for the first time. The tailgate was good, too! Yummy food!!! Hope you enjoy(ed) yourself tonight.
Alpheta
JoinedPosts by Alpheta
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11
Going to the CUBS game tonight......
by whyamihere inmy brother and i are going to the game tonight, sitting in the outfield to catch all the home runs cub score!!.
game is @7:05pm.
my brother said, he is going to catch a brewer home run ball, and then throw it at one of the sausages as they race...lol.
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Hello!
by chuckie77 in.
hey all, just thought i would post a hello to you all, im a very new newbie here, thanks to a couple of people, miss peaches and jwfacts.
anyway, looking forward to getting involved a bit, posting and sharing over the coming days, weeks, months.... cheers.
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Alpheta
Welcome, Chuckie.
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45
How do the elders deal with a very poor brother or sister?
by JH inlets say a brother or sister loses their job, falls on welfare, doesn't have enough to eat.
what do the elders do?
a) tell them that the organization is not a place to beg but to preach, to give and not to receive.
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Alpheta
Perhaps this is a common thread - people who were in the "in crowd" got help, everyone else got the finger of fate. In my congregation, I do not recall a single instance in the 10 years I was there where a call was made from the platform for help for a family or individual. It was all done by word of mouth through the sisters. For instance, sister so and so was laid up and needed help with cleaning and food for x number of weeks. Voila, meals were provided and cleaning was done. Another sister, a pioneer for many years who raised 2 daughters in "the truth" lost her middle aged non-believing husband to a heart attack. The whole congregation came to her rescue - although I don't recall a single instance where this was voted upon and I sure never heard it discussed. It was just something, suddenly, we all had to do. I assisted in such things via word of mouth many times.
Personally, I was "friends" with two older sisters. I helped them out not by giving $$$ directly but by arranging outings to theaters and dinners and lunches and footing the bills. I did offer $$$ at times and it was always turned down. My congregation was one of the well-off ones, and I assumed at the time that the brothers were taking care of things for these elderly sisters. But after reading about some of your experiences here, I'm not so sure. So why would these sisters turn down $$$ from me - at the time I was in good standing and (as far as I know), not marked as bad association. Perhaps they were receiving help from the wealthier members of the congregation (wealthier than me, for sure). Several brothers owned their own businesses and drove around in flashy cars and had tailored suits (not Walmart off the rack), etc. etc.
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Demographics Poll - Age of JWD members - Anonymous Voting
by Mysterious inthis started in another thread actually and i decided to put one up.
hopefully you don't bury the thread before those that were interested get to see the trends.
voting is totally anonymous and it is hosted totally anonymously.
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Alpheta
I'm in.
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40
I'd like to introduce myself
by Alpheta ini'm "alpheta".
i've been reading here for the past few weeks, but have visited from time to time over several years.. short history, i started studying in 1993, was baptised in 1996, and succinctly and with much planning disassociated myself in october, 2003.. i don't believe i have any lasting psychological damage or issues, but i was curious about the state of the wtbts (or whatever they go by these days), and i found your site and a lot of information that, i have to say, i found shocking at first like - oh my goddess, they really did that?
- kind of thing.. anyway, nice to have read your posts and i really enjoy the sense of community here.
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Alpheta
Twitch, am I a good witch or a bad witch? Well, some people call me a b*tch, and I'm all right with that. As to the witch part, I'm with Dorothy.
Carmel, definitely coffee.
Serenditipty, thanks for the link.
Drew Sagan, based on what I've read here, I agree with you. Money is definitely a problem. I've read here that the Rank and File make their thoughts known by contributing - or not - to the World Wide Work, etc. It will be interesting to see what the future holds.
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Alpheta
How interesting that Hislop should show up as a topic here! I don't recall exactly how long it was I'd been studying, but sometime during that 3-year journey I got into a conversation with the husband of one of my bible teachers and he and I, sharing a love of history, were discussing ancient history. I believe the topic of Mary worship came up in the context of the Roman Catholic Church (I was born into that religion). Hislop came up in the conversation - as supporting the view that modern-day Mary worship is just worship of the goddess covered over in new clothes. I'd never heard of Hislop or his book, and it ended up my teacher's husband gave me an extra copy of Hislop's book he had in his library. I read it from cover to cover and was fascinated.
I'm no classical scholar, and I do not read ancient (or modern) Latin and/or Greek, so I cannot pass any judgment on the veracity of Hislop's citations to classical scholars. I thought his basic premise, though, made a lot of sense, since, as a member of the RCC when I was a youngster and teenager, I was familiar with the old (and newer, post Vatican II) rituals and practices of the church. I've done a lot of reading of history and about ancient civilizations, and with my now adult reasoning faculties it made sense to me that Hislop was right about the Roman Catholic Church borrowing many (if not all) of the trappings of ancient "paganism" into their rights and rituals; I believe this was about the time that Emperor Constantine decided to be politically expedient and adopted "christianity" as the official religion of his kingdom. Hislop is not the only author who has explored the hypothesis that the RCC wholesale-adopted "pagan" practices into its rites and rituals.
I don't know that Hislop has been discredited, per se, but with the advent of the internet and, as Blondie gave a link to, the full text of Hislop including the interesting footnotes and appendices now being online, I think that most readers might possibly judge him to be particularly virulent in his hatred of the RCC and, therefore, tend to discount his scholarship on account of this. For myself, I have found him to be an accurate source of information for my own studies in ancient history. Perhaps the WTBTS decided that Hislop's text was too outdated to be relied upon as an authority and they now use more "updated" sources.
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40
I'd like to introduce myself
by Alpheta ini'm "alpheta".
i've been reading here for the past few weeks, but have visited from time to time over several years.. short history, i started studying in 1993, was baptised in 1996, and succinctly and with much planning disassociated myself in october, 2003.. i don't believe i have any lasting psychological damage or issues, but i was curious about the state of the wtbts (or whatever they go by these days), and i found your site and a lot of information that, i have to say, i found shocking at first like - oh my goddess, they really did that?
- kind of thing.. anyway, nice to have read your posts and i really enjoy the sense of community here.
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Alpheta
Good morning to All!
Just a quick note before lunch hour starts, and I dive back into reading at "23". Got a ways to go. I'm NOT reading each and every post, my goodness, that would take forever, but I am stopping at topics along the way that sound interesting and/or intriguing; I have seen already that topics that get a lot of posts are generally very interesting. I appreciate reading all of your original insights, showing me sides of things I'd never thought of, and sometimes confirming my own thoughts but, sometimes not.
plm, thanks for the link to the top 1,000 (LOL!) I actually started reading posts here periodically because of the link provided at freeminds.org, and now he's got this really cool "scroll" feature that showcases recent topics that he finds of interest. That's where I read about so many people being dismissed from Bethel, the CO (or was he a DO?) who was "retired" from his position, the new building project in New Jersey and the sale of one of the buildings there for evidently mondo dollars, the new non-annointed appointees to the GB, and the speculations about the possibility of "new light", all topics that are of interest to me. Information about the various law suits is of interest, too. In particular, though, I wanted to see if there were any changes in the GB's stance regarding the pedophile issues.
Thanks to all, keep up the great work you do here, keeping people like moi who are interested but now on the outside apprised of the most current information, and giving people who are still inside a place where they can read alternative views about what's going on with WTBTS.
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40
I'd like to introduce myself
by Alpheta ini'm "alpheta".
i've been reading here for the past few weeks, but have visited from time to time over several years.. short history, i started studying in 1993, was baptised in 1996, and succinctly and with much planning disassociated myself in october, 2003.. i don't believe i have any lasting psychological damage or issues, but i was curious about the state of the wtbts (or whatever they go by these days), and i found your site and a lot of information that, i have to say, i found shocking at first like - oh my goddess, they really did that?
- kind of thing.. anyway, nice to have read your posts and i really enjoy the sense of community here.
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Alpheta
Okay, I lied. I have to reply to Apostate Kate before I crash for the night.
Wasn't particularly young, I was highly educated (so I thought) and, at the time, I didn't think I was being suckered.
I had many positive experiences in the congregation during my "studying" and despite some doubts I was able to leave them behind enough to get baptized in 1996. Yes, you are right, with the advantage of hindsight, that was during a particular "window" when things in the organization seemed to be going in a positive and more (dare I use the word?) liberal - direction. I felt I had found a group that had the truth.
I would have left sooner than I did, only I knew (thanks to internet studying) that it would entail a total and complete cut-off from people that I loved and admired in the congregation, including the elderly woman who was one of my very first teachers, and several other sisters who where very kind to me and also supportive of me when I was going through my - okay, guys, if you don't want to read this, cover your eyes - female changes. This particular lady, one of my bible study teachers, was a true grit sort of person, I always think of her as the equivalent of John Wayne in the movie. She had lost a much beloved husband to a particularly long and hard death due to a genetic-inherited neuro-muscular disease. They had been "on the road" as a DO and wife for ages, 20 or more years, but his illness progressed to the point where he could no longer do it.
Since I sent in my letter of disassociation in October, 2003, I have not had a word from her. I had hoped that - since she was well connected in the Society, she might try to contact me and say Ahab be damned, but she did not. And she was like a second mother. That hurt, and it still does, but I don't think about THAT too often. And I don't think it has permanently warped me (or whatever current terminology is). I think, instead, about how resolute I was in disentangling myself from the tentacles of what I've seen here referred to as the "B'org". Wow! When I left, I didn't think of it in those terms, I only knew I was leaving behind a Monolith - the equivalent of the Behemoth and Leviathian mentioned in Job. I'd never seen "B'org" used in connection with the WTBTS until I read posts here and, being a fan of Janeway, et al, immediately recognized the reference/pun. Tres clever! And that's exactly what it was - the Borg! Oh my. Okay, I have to get to bed. Night all.
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40
I'd like to introduce myself
by Alpheta ini'm "alpheta".
i've been reading here for the past few weeks, but have visited from time to time over several years.. short history, i started studying in 1993, was baptised in 1996, and succinctly and with much planning disassociated myself in october, 2003.. i don't believe i have any lasting psychological damage or issues, but i was curious about the state of the wtbts (or whatever they go by these days), and i found your site and a lot of information that, i have to say, i found shocking at first like - oh my goddess, they really did that?
- kind of thing.. anyway, nice to have read your posts and i really enjoy the sense of community here.
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Alpheta
Hi, and thanks for the kind welcome. It's late here, and I'm past my bedtime, will be dragging my butt at work tomorrow for sure! But I want to respond before I collaspse in exhaustion.
Thanks, jgnat (sp?); in particular, yes, it's rather daunting going all the way back to the beginning, but it's been educational and entertaining as well. And it has helped me a bit getting to know who was here, and who is here still.
NOT that I have a handle on any of y'all yet. And that doesn't mean I'm from the south, either, just a good short-hand way of expression and a good sort of "down home" expression, and this is a "down home" feeling type of place.
I misspoke in my first post, guess I stopped my latest reading somewhere around "22" or "23" (not "14"), and just tonight I stopped at a post by Amicus on January 19, 2002, "Post 80 of 274". What he/she said so struck me as having so much common sense. Something sorely lacking these days, I'm afraid, at WTBTS. If "It" would have adopted those common sense recommendations as made by Amicus, I'd never have left, as that post was done prior to my "D Day", which was a year + process that began the night of a service meeting/ministry school when the elders, with very serious faces, reviewed the Society's procedures with respect to suspected pedophile child abuse in the congregation. That was (I'm very bad at dates), sometime in the spring, I believe, of 2002. I don't remember the exact date of that meeting, but THAT policy (which had never come up in numerous discussions during my 3 year plus of studying and association with the congregation prior to my decision to get baptized) that, in effect, allows pedophiles to continue to prey upon innocent children in the congregations and in the door-to-door ministry was, in hind-sight, the equivalent of Samson having his hair cut off by Delihla. It sucked all of the fervor right out of me.
I'll continue scrolling through and reading those earlier posts as time permits. Guess I learned, the hard way!, ha ha ha!, about THOROUGHLY studying whatever I want to get involved in; so - hence - my resolution to give you all a thorough review. Still may be suckered, but hey, darlings, c'est la vie!
Before I check out for the night, I want to give kudos to RedhorseWoman, waiting, Frenchy, momma, Thinker's Wife, and Blondie, who made posts that struck resonant chords with yours truly; some of them are back from day "1', and may no longer be here; I know, at least, that Blondie is still here, and I always look forward to reading her posts. Where DOES she get her information from???
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40
I'd like to introduce myself
by Alpheta ini'm "alpheta".
i've been reading here for the past few weeks, but have visited from time to time over several years.. short history, i started studying in 1993, was baptised in 1996, and succinctly and with much planning disassociated myself in october, 2003.. i don't believe i have any lasting psychological damage or issues, but i was curious about the state of the wtbts (or whatever they go by these days), and i found your site and a lot of information that, i have to say, i found shocking at first like - oh my goddess, they really did that?
- kind of thing.. anyway, nice to have read your posts and i really enjoy the sense of community here.
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Alpheta
Hi All,
I'm "Alpheta". I've been reading here for the past few weeks, but have visited from time to time over several years.
Short history, I started studying in 1993, was baptised in 1996, and succinctly and with much planning disassociated myself in October, 2003.
I don't believe I have any lasting psychological damage or issues, but I was curious about the state of the WTBTS (or whatever they go by these days), and I found your site and a lot of information that, I have to say, I found shocking at first like - oh my goddess, they really did that? - kind of thing.
Anyway, nice to have read your posts and I really enjoy the sense of community here. I went back to "1" and have scrolled through topics, stopping to read wherever my attention is caught. I think I got up to around 14, but have also been reading more current posts since about mid-July this year.
Keep the faith, but not the dreck. Love to all.
Alpheta