I'm just replying again because I like your wonderwoman avatar..lol
she's actually the only comic superhero character that I like...and yes I have the dvds of the show..
Raylo
Posts by raylo
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40Have You Been Divorced, Or Getting A Divorce?
by Outaservice indivorce is much more common in the jehovah's witness community than they would like to admit.
probably more so than the population in general in my opinion.. if you have been divorced, do you think that the watchtower society contributed to the divorce, or caused it, or is it just possible you married some jerk or abuser and divorce would have occured no matter what religion you were, or even if you had no religion?.
possibly you got married way too young as the end was coming and there is no marriage in the resurrection if you died.
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51
Hello. Welcome me! Welcome me!
by raylo inhiya folks.
just joined on board and figured i'd say a quick hello to all.
i'd get into more, but i'm soooo watching this ingrid bergman marathon on right now on turner classic movies...
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raylo
i could not log on for the past 2 days, but here it is: well thanks everyone for the welcome!!
jgnat.. I truly was quite amused seeing if I could "test out" the human v/s the spirit aspects of the leaders in the organization. From where I sat, I saw more human and spirit. I myself never ever had any inclination to have that religion in my heart.. I was just...there to be there. I simply told my mother, I was there "because you wanted me to be"..but enough was enough. I had no problem not coming back, though no one there personally never did anything to me. I've always thought the JW religion was BS since I was 5 years old..lol. I'll have to admit that I'm fortunate that mother still recognizes that her fleshly family holds stronger ties. She speaks to my sister and myself 98% more than she talks to the ppl in the KH.
anywho....again....THANKS FOR THE WELCOME!
I'm sure I'll be heard from again..lol
Raylo
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18
As one of Jehovah's Witnesses...what did you lose?
by The wanderer inan informal discussion
there was a brother who, quite honestly, was very well educated and received.
exceptional grades while in school.
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raylo
*sigh* i still to this day wish I could have attended the Universities who recruited me for my academics. If I could go back in time.......call me crazy, but some JWs are the main ppl who NEED to be in college so they can learn a thing or two, the ppl in my last cong were not too bright...
but honestly, too many things lost to list ... Maybe I'll write a book, volumes 1 - 5 and sell it at Walmart..
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51
Hello. Welcome me! Welcome me!
by raylo inhiya folks.
just joined on board and figured i'd say a quick hello to all.
i'd get into more, but i'm soooo watching this ingrid bergman marathon on right now on turner classic movies...
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raylo
Well thank you, thank you
raylo humbly bows at all of the welcomes
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32
Can the women wear pants YET?
by annalice ini have not been an active witness active for several years now.
so are the women still being forced to wear skirts and dresses still?
i really think that the whole dress thing has been for some time now very outdated.
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raylo
yes, but you see....as a woman I would be terribly stumbled and have problems believing things about God because a woman wore PANTS! Can't you see how disturbing this would be to my worship?!
It's okay for her to have on a short skirt and pull a Sharon Stone Basic Instinct leg crossing move, but pants would distract me from my worship because they cover up a woman in a tasteful way, and if I see a woman wearing pants to a meeting or in service....I'll be forced to TELL ON HER!
WTF? I'd be embarrassed to tell an elder or whomever they'd rat to, that a woman wearing anything that resembled pants to a meeting or in service stumbled me.
or wait.....maybe the Little House On The Prairie look is still in for sisters? Am I that out of the loop?
Now I personally like to wear skits,etc and professional pants suits...nice current,tasteful,fashionable ones for every day wear because I'm pretty metro in my tastes......but some of the witness women go to extremes to look as bland as possible....even Jesus would think they were bag ladies.
raylo
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43
Drop Dead Gorgeous!
by Outaservice inback when i was attending kingdom halls, our circuit had a lot of 'drop dead gorgeous' women, many whom were married to the geekiest looking guys.
i always asked myself, "how did these 'dorks' do it"!.
was this because selection was limited, or was this just a peculiarity in our area?
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raylo
Okay, maybe I'm the odd women here, but I refused to even comtemplate being serious with the fug men in my halls because to me, a man's looks are an important aspect. Of course aestetics are not the be all/end all..... but I'd not be intimate with 'spirtuality'..I'd be intimate with the man, so I want him to be hot. What can I say? I'll honestly say that it's a must for me.
I simply don't like one-sidedness. Many of the guys also look for the 'spiritual' sisters...the pioneers, bethelites, etc....but they ALSO want them to be gorgeous....so spiritual AND gorgeous... why wouldn't I ask for the same combination in the man? I know of some sisters who would marry Frankenstien whether spiritual or not just because he showed interest and offered marriage...just so they won't be alone. I think the limited selections stifles the choices. One sister told me " I guess i should stop looking for the young gorgeous brothers and get what I can get"......and she got it alright....went out with and married the next THING that showed interest within a few months..Hell she could have him, because I wouldn't fathom being with him just to be married. I'm fine just as I am...single without the pity hubby. From experience, any time any single brother was around or visited, sisters would jump all over him, no matter the status in the cong and no matter how UGH he was..and they were very UGH. But since it's not like they had a line up to choose from....the sisters leaped. No thanks...I guess my motto was.....If He's not Hot, I want him Not...lol. But I had no interest in marriage, so I had no problem passing up the dorks.
Raylo
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51
Hello. Welcome me! Welcome me!
by raylo inhiya folks.
just joined on board and figured i'd say a quick hello to all.
i'd get into more, but i'm soooo watching this ingrid bergman marathon on right now on turner classic movies...
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raylo
Yes. my mother and I are very close..even though after last year's hurricane I had to move to another state. We talk weekly. Actually even when I was DF'ed she never cut off communication in the least bit.
Where as just a few years ago, I would hold back letting her in one some things from my life...now I say whatever and she accepts that I have my own mind. Of course she asks if I go to the hall here, or asks if I will come back..or if we're in conversation she brings up the 'friends'. I actually now promptly say.. "I'm not thinking about those people" and she leaves it be..
Just a couple of years ago she'd damn near have a heart attack of anyone of the male persuasion called..Now she says nothing if I mention several males in a conversation. And she actually used to be cutting because I date outside of my race. But now when I just told her yesterday that my younger, white bf (whom I had to move away from after that same storm) wants me to move back to MS and move in with him...she simply leaves it at " Well you know I'd rather hear you and your sister mention marriage.....but Okay, well how's Brandon doing? Tell him Hello" ..and she leaves it alone. My sister and I seem closer now..She was never baptized but I'm not sure how she stands with the JWs though. I mean she now celebrates all holidays, lives with her bf, has 2 children with him, used to smoke,etc...but I don't think she harbors ill will. I myself hold no resentment, I just don't give a damn about the organization or the people actively in it. It seems that any time they open their mouths, I can catagorically pick out the hypocrisy, but I never do because it's just not that important to me. Let them think whatever they want to...or more accurately, whatever they are told to.
raylo
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raylo
Although I had my eyes open, I'm sure I was asleep for any major announcements.
But since it was this tiny hick hall in the country, maybe the news would be "Betty the cow had calves out of wedlock and got DF'ed"
raylo
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51
Hello. Welcome me! Welcome me!
by raylo inhiya folks.
just joined on board and figured i'd say a quick hello to all.
i'd get into more, but i'm soooo watching this ingrid bergman marathon on right now on turner classic movies...
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raylo
Hey thanks a lot of the welcome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ah amazingly more people said hello here than the people did at my last hall..lol
Yeah the Ingrid marathon was wonderful..though I'd seen most of the movies several times before. (btw..MsMcDucket, I'm 29, but I prefer classic movies..they had so much style and sophistication!!...and thanks WasanelderOnce for the Ingrid photo...LOVE IT!)
Ok here is a brief rundown.... Techincally I am still baptized, but I refuse to set foot in a hall or call myself a JW..or acknowledge the fanatics as sane people. I was raised in the religion since I was 5 (By mother as my step-father was not one..and used to oppose until he didn't care any more) My older sister stepped away when she went through her teenage rebellion, but I was always the good child and simply went along though I had no interest nor inclination in my heart for anything of the organization. I simply naturally read a lot and excelled in school, so when I bothered to answer things, people took the detailed answers as interest. (actually I seemed to read better than some of the dim-wits there to the point that if an unfamiliar word came up..from the platform a brother would ask for the mic to be brought to me so I could explain the word) Wow! how sad..perhaps if they allowed people to go to senior colleges...anyways back to my story...LOL.
After my sis basically said F*** this! I continued to go because my mother is sensitive and would dote over me going. I would get tired of her crying and going on and on about her praying that my sister would come back....and since I sooo hate nagging and/or whining I went...and sat ...with no interest. I read the literature because again, I love to read..but I found in comprehension that the materials conflicted quite a bit or simply made no sense, or were simply the OPINIONS of simple human beings whom we were told could laud their opinions over the people in the organization since I couldn't have my own. I like debate, so of course I didn't find that settling..that I could not have an opposing opinion. At 16 when I moved to a hall in MS the people were cold and unfriendly. My mother was told by an 'annointed' elder that it was because most of the people were related to each other and they tended to stick together. It was a piss poor EXCUSE...not a REASON. Well since that congregation only had one other black family until we moved there... they must have felt out of place... lol. The hall was reeming with older people, with only one person close to my age, he being something like 13 ( I was 16). After that I didn't attend for 2 years. The elders came to council, but I told them to save it and council themselves and the rest of the congregation. After I graduated high school I decided to give it another try, so at age 18 I went back. (for those who read the thread about if anyone is divorced..this is when sisters pushed every Tom, Dick, and Harry in front of my face in hopes I would marry them). I literally wanted to see if people really had to be moved by holy spirit in order to be baptized, and if the elders are supposed to be guided by this spirit if they could tell if someone got baptized for the hell of it...so one day before the assembly I announced that I wanted to be baptized and those elders scrambled together to interview me into the late hours of the night just to have me baptized. Damn if I really wanted it or not. I'm not a nit-wit so the questions were a cinch and the following day I was baptized..for no reason. Ah well, my mom was happy. I hardly ever sent out in service, never conducted a bible study, refused to give those demonstrations on the theocratic school (though I have no fear of public speaking), and didn't do my own personal study..but alas I was baptized.......Okay fast forward a couple of years. I start dating someone for quite some while and I guess someone saw us out..and some how or other it got to the elders that we were carrying a "full coupledom relationship", so they actually put us both on private reproof and tell us to stop seeing each other. (Uh huh..of course we said Okay, but do you reaaaally think we let some men tell us grown folks what to do with our private lives?). Okay fast forward again... that relationship is over (that ex moved away because he could not tolerate the elders) and it's a couple of years later and I'm in another relationship. This brother gets excited and tells someone about it and of course the elders come knocking...and this time they DF me and get mad because I show no expression. Apparently it was a mad shock to the cong because my mother's friend said that when it was announced, a collective gasp filled the hall. I must have been the model witness to them. I actually couldn't care either way. I lived my life very conservatively and I still do to this very day. I'm not wild, I don't party, I've never been drunk, I've never had a rebellion, my personal life was spotless, I still do things by the book.....my crime was having a private life. Nevermind that I was like 23 or 24, I guess I wasn't suppose to have one unless I was married. [Evident since both times I had to go before them one of the first things they asked is if I had intentions of marriage with the brother(s)...in which the answer was "Are you kidding me? No! I don't even really like him"] So the people who once paraded me around no longer we allowed to utter a word...ah..okay. Again to prove a point that you don't have to genuinely be repentent to get reinstated...I went to all of the meetings, NOTHING ELSE. No personal study, no anything.....all I did was sit in the library with the guy and girl who got booted the week after I did. After the meetings I would talk to another sis who had been DF'ed for YEARS right in front of the elders. After maybe 1 1/2 or 2 yrs I was reinstated..after again not doing anything to warrant it but say to the JC "I'm not doing anything bad and I want to come back"..though I think I really was seeing someone and excersing my right to a private life. So after reinstatement a line of people formed to come welcome me back and give me a hug....... I simply stated " If you ignored me, diverted your eye contact, and couldn't talk to me for 2 years...don't talk to me now"......... and I left. I always felt that shunning people publically for reasons that the cong as a whole wasn't SUPPOSED to know about (though you know about the gossip) since the council was in private was a bit..well, you know? So what if so and so slept with blah blah? How the hell did that affect me? It didn't bother me...they could have slept with the pope..So what? Why couldn't I say a simple 'hello' ???? Whatever I did in MY relationships had nothing to do with the cong, so that means they can't say hello to me but can to the 'worldy' people they avoid at every other time? I also wondered just what the hell kind of people would say...you're DF so you can't talk to us nor can you talk/associate with worldly ppl... are DF ppl suddenly hermits? Fine, I guess it affect some people who feel shut out and miss the association, but I spoke to whom I chose to whether a witness or not and still do..so I was not at want for their 'exclusive' association......Besides, the scabble and electric slide marathons that seemed to be the only thing ppl in that cong did were not my thing. LOL.
I never bothered to DA myself because I felt it amusing that I can literally still be a JW but know that it is an organization fueled my HUMAN opinion filled with flaws... The GB warns against ex-JWs who have sites such as this one..but I'm techincally still one..so I can pose the greater danger since I can go out in service..or do other things as a JW and say what I have observed if I so chose to..People expect ex- JWs to not agree with the organization, but it would throw householders for a loop since techincally as a JW I can call it preaching, field service, or study and count the time..but I'm simply not interested enough to do so... I don't give enough of a damn...and I don't really refer to myself as JW now. Usually i simply say I'm spirtual, but not religious.
So here I am......and since the movies on the classic movie station didn't catch my eye today, I figured I'd write ..and amazingly it's the condensed version..LOL.
Raylo
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40
Have You Been Divorced, Or Getting A Divorce?
by Outaservice indivorce is much more common in the jehovah's witness community than they would like to admit.
probably more so than the population in general in my opinion.. if you have been divorced, do you think that the watchtower society contributed to the divorce, or caused it, or is it just possible you married some jerk or abuser and divorce would have occured no matter what religion you were, or even if you had no religion?.
possibly you got married way too young as the end was coming and there is no marriage in the resurrection if you died.
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raylo
Perhaps I'll be the lone person on this thread to say this..but no I haven't been married or divorced. I'm perfectly happy with long term relationships without marriage. Why? Because after I moved to my last cong in a small town in MS (where apparently hardly any new people came into the hall) at the age of 18, I was inundated with a couple of sisters forcing their sons in my face say that they wanted me to marry them. (One sister's son was 27, the other sister's son was like 15 or something). After those sisters...it seems they all started rolling in on me. One sister walked around introducing me at assemblies by saying "This is my futre daughter-in-law if my son plays his cards right.". One sister called me over to her home (using a lie) then proceeded to lock me in and have her son perform dance and song numbers for me. (WTF?!) Another sister, at a gathering, pulled some other young lad by the arm to introduce him to me and his mother..prompting another sister to get jealous and say " I saw you talking to so and so..that's not doing anything for MY son!" Another sister quizzed me 20 questions at an assembly, then once her son and I happened to be walking near each other going to the parking lot, shouted out an introduction of her son and offered for us to get together for dinner. Still another sister yelled at me because I would not come over when some guy was visiting and she wanted to introduce us. One sister just flatly said after a meeting, " I want you to marry my son" (I had never even spoken to her son and never really did until AFTER he did finally get married years later..which btw he HAD to since he got his gf, an unbaptized publisher, pregnant in some public park.) I could go on for days about the sisters trying to force someone upon me. If I even spoke to a man who was single for more than 3 mintues, people would ask "So when are you getting married?" When I'd say "I'm not", they'd respond with "So why are you dating him then?" *sigh* So i guess I simply can't have a conversation with any single men, eh? I NEVER liked anyone in ANY hall I've ever been in....The guys were kinda UGH..and I'm a woman who will not lie and say looks aren't important because to me they are..lol. I simply tend to have male platonic friends, so I can carry on lengthy conversation with them......but at a hall...I can hear whispers of people setting aside dates so that they can attend 'our wedding'. Too bad I never wanted to even THINK of getting married in my 20s (I'm 29 now), and I'm capable of meeting my own partners without having them paraded in front of my face. Ah and well they would have also been disappointed because I do not like large weddings, I prefer private settings...so no one would have been invited anyways..lol. But all in all my mother saw nothing wrong with the sisters throwing people in my face for marriage.... the problem I told my mother was " No one ASKED if I WANTED to be married".
I feel too many get married too young. They've not spent most of their lives knowing THEMSELVES, yet they are expected to spend the majority of their lives knowing someone else??? It's a bit cruel to tell young men who are at, or are nearing sexual peaks that they must miss their peak...ignore a natural peak of sexuality... unless they rush into marriage to relieve themselves. An ex-bf (wonderful guy perhaps because he didn't get baptised until his 30s) after his brother gave some sort of marriage talk said to me " Why are there only provisions for married people and NONE for singles?" We had no idea since we apparently lived as a 'biblical' couple anyways..lol. Ironically by the time the sisters tried to force this brother on me, they had no idea that we had been already dating for months. We never let on that we were dating and to this day those ppl don't know. It was none of their damn business especially since neither of us wanted to get married and were never in the mood to hear someone's forced opinion.... So no, thankfully I've not had to go through a divorce....but now if I ever do, it won't be because some organization tried to guilt me into a union that should never be... I do know of plenty of witnesses who WISH they were divorced though...
raylo