Posts by neverendingjourney

40

Older JW: not happy

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

this week i visited my sick father in law.. then an old elder from my far away congregation came in for coffee.

did not see him in 15 years.. nice chat.

had a lot to say, is alone, his sick wife disabled and away from home.. he told me: "living alone is so hard.

neverendingjourney

I wrote this on another forum a while back:

My mother became a caregiver for an elderly sister in a neighboring congregation. She had gotten baptized at one of the giant conventions in NYC in the '50s that were always prominently featured in JW literature. She and her husband both got baptized there and they had a special-needs son. They put off having any other children until after Armageddon.

She was at various times a pioneer and was very well liked in the circuit. Even in her old age, her faith was palpable and she was a genuinely good person. She even had a picture on her mantle of one of her favorite young people, even though she had later "left the truth."

She had been a polio survivor and my mother got paid to spend something like 15 hours a week taking care of her, some kind of government program. By the time I met her, both her son and her husband were dead. She didn't have any close contacts with family because back then you had to cut ties with them if you wanted to be a Witness. She didn't need them. She had "the friends" at the kingdom hall. That's all she needed.

This sister's health started failing pretty quickly and she got to the point where she had to get around in a wheelchair. She required special assistance to get to the kingdom hall. The elders made a list and schedule of people whose responsibility it was to pick her up from her assisted care facility. Before long, the no-shows started happening. It would take her about 2 hours to get ready and she'd sit in front of the assisted living facility waiting for her ride that never came.

The elders finally gave up. It was too much of a burden on "the friends" to have to pick her up. So they started making her attend the meetings over the phone. This began to quite literally kill her slowly. All of the joy and light in her eyes went away. She was a shell of her former self.

About six months later she was moved to a full-on nursing home and she never attended another meeting after that. The elders were tired. The woman needed a lot of attention. She had no one other than the JWs, but the elders were already bogged down with all of the responsibilities and time constraints that come with it.

She died and there weren't very many people at her funeral. She was buried next to her husband. She gave her life to the organization and at the very end of her life, there was nobody there to repay her for her sacrifices.

To this day I still shed a tear when I think about her.

28

Why did the Governing Body come behind the curtain?

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

in the movie the wizard of oz, while the whole yellow brick road gang was being addressed by the great and powerful wizard of oz, the dog toto ran off to the side, pulled back on a curtain, and showed that a normal-looking humbug of a person was operating cranks and levers.

for a short while, the normal-looking man kept yanking levers and cranking cranks, and said into the microphone (which made the great and powerful wizard speak the same words) "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

i am the great and powerful wiz .

neverendingjourney

The latest Governing Body was stacked with "Ted Jaracz Yes-Men." He and the gang put a bunch of organizational ass-kissers in, so they could retain power with a voting block. WELL, THEY ARE FREE OF TED NOW, able to think for themselves, only they don't think for themselves.

In any normal organization, this leadership vacuum would leave it vulnerable to a coup by a younger charismatic up-and-comer.

Whether it happens with JWs remains to be seen. Decades of GB worship will make it hard for a wannabe, modern-day JF Rutherford to successfully pull it off.

86

Do You Know Any “Gay” Jehovah’s Witnesses?

by minimus in

jw
friends

of course the religion condemns homosexuality but did you know any gay witnesses?

i knew some bethelites that were very effeminate and i remember 4 women who were suspected of being lesbians by many in the congregation.

they eventually moved away and were very vocal against males, especially elders..

neverendingjourney

When I was a teenager I looked up to this young elder in a neighboring congregation. He was appointed at 26 and embodied every quality that I wanted to develop. At the time, I was 100% commited to the religion and wanted to follow a model "theocratic" path.

To my shock, he was suddenly disfellowshiped. Turns out this young man was gay. My brother found out through a two faced elder who was on the judicial committee (long story). Eventually rumors started to circulate and it became common knowledge.

I saw him about a year later at an assembly sitting with his parents looking ashamed. His reinstatement was taking a very long time. Word was the elder body thought he should be made to wait an extra long time to get reinstated because he was an elder and committed the worst sin possible outside of apostasy. I actually don't know if he was ever reinstated.

It's quite sad in hindsight. Views of gay people back then were deplorable. I hope they've improved at least somewhat, but that doesn't seem to be the case based on the comments I read.

28

Why did the Governing Body come behind the curtain?

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

in the movie the wizard of oz, while the whole yellow brick road gang was being addressed by the great and powerful wizard of oz, the dog toto ran off to the side, pulled back on a curtain, and showed that a normal-looking humbug of a person was operating cranks and levers.

for a short while, the normal-looking man kept yanking levers and cranking cranks, and said into the microphone (which made the great and powerful wizard speak the same words) "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

i am the great and powerful wiz .

neverendingjourney

I suspect the money people behind the organization convinced them the days of publishing literature would quickly come to an end and they had to come up with an alternative outreach model.

And if circumstances force them into broadcasting, they surely aren't going to let others be the public face of the religion.

It could be that they've started to enjoy the "movie star" aspect a little too much, but to be honest, I've never watched a JW.org broadcast. I no longer have the stomach or the interest in it.

33

Did You Know “Weird JWs” When You Were In The Organization?

by minimus in

jw
friends

it could be argued that all jws are weird.

.

i’m referring to really weird odd witnesses.. most of the oddballs that i remember were elders..

neverendingjourney

Did you know that the JW religion has more disturbed people today as a result of them being recruited within the last fifteen years or so? Yeah, studies were started with homeless types etc. to fill empty seats in the halls.

That's difficult to imagine. I feel bad for my family that's still in.

I stopped going to meetings in 2005. There are a handful of good friends who I legitimately miss, but they were few and far between. I didn't have much in common (other than the religion) with most JWs and I never had much patience for those who willfully abused the congregation's trust, the perverts, the power seekers, the gossips, etc.

12

Why the 2 witnesses rule is not worth attacking........barking up the wrong tree!

by krismalone in

some former jw protesters are wasting their time and energy "exposing" or criticizing the watchtowers 2 witness rule here's why:.

lets suppose the governing body changes this and expells anyone accused of child molestation even if accused by one person.

would that solve the problem?

neverendingjourney

The 2 witness rule is worth attacking. So are all the other factors you raise.

The fact that pedophilia is a multi-faceted problem doesn't mean one of the factors is "not worth attacking."

33

Did You Know “Weird JWs” When You Were In The Organization?

by minimus in

jw
friends

it could be argued that all jws are weird.

.

i’m referring to really weird odd witnesses.. most of the oddballs that i remember were elders..

neverendingjourney

I knew at least 3 sisters that seemed to see god's hand in literally every aspect of their lives and weren't shy about sharing the details of these interventions in casual conversation as well as in 4-5 minute comments on an unrelated paragraph of the watchtower study. Experiences included deciding to go out in service instead of going to the store to buy toilet paper when, wouldn't you know it - she found a roll of toilet paper in the street.

Just to make the point that this kind of lunacy isn't restricted to those with low IQ's, I'll share the following story.

I made friends with a guy a few years back who is devoutly religious. Although we don't share much in common, our senses of humor overlapped and we were able to strike up a friendship.

He is incredibly smart. He has an engineering degree and a law degree, both from top-20, super prestigious universities in the US. He graduated in the top ten percent from both schools. He'd gone on to become the head of the legal department for a very large company and was obviously well-off and successful.

He just couldn't wrap his head around the fact that I don't believe in God. I was honest with him about my JW past and he told me he has cousins who are JWs but that they stopped talking to him once they converted and became JWs.

In any event, he kept trying different ways of "helping me understand" that God exists. On one occasion he shared the following story to show me that God exists.

Once when he was in law school he went on a date with a girl. They stopped to have a meal before heading over to the movie theater. The food didn't sit well with him and he had instant diarrhea. He had already gone to the restroom once and found himself sitting down at the movies trying to fight the urge to run to the restroom again. So he prayed to God to help him find a way out of the situation and not too long afterwards someone pulled the fire alarm and they evacuated the movie theater. In the chaos, he was able to sneak in the restroom unperceived and heed nature's call a second time. He later caught up with his date in the parking lot and they decided to end the date and go their own way. Crisis averted. He didn't have to face the humiliation of having his date realize he had diarrhea.

The sad thing is that he was saving that story. He had to work up the courage to share it with me and he only did so because that was his best "proof" of God's existence. This is a guy who could take a legal brief, think through it logically, and tear it apart a hundred different ways. But when it came to the religious, a simple anecdote like that was sufficient to "prove" God's existence.

Nice guy, nonetheless. I was a groomsman in his wedding. He didn't have many friends. He married some woman from a town of a few hundred residents who looked like she was plucked right out of the cast of one of those fundamentalist Mormon shows, long hair, dresses to her ankles, no makeup. She had like 10 siblings and all the girls dressed the same. Some traveling preacher put them in contact with one another. She's actually a lovely lady and cut her hair and started wearing jeans once she was married and out of the house.

33

Did You Know “Weird JWs” When You Were In The Organization?

by minimus in

jw
friends

it could be argued that all jws are weird.

.

i’m referring to really weird odd witnesses.. most of the oddballs that i remember were elders..

neverendingjourney

One of the biggest benefits of leaving the JWs is that I was able to rid myself of association with toxic people.

I can more or less filter unstable people out of my life now. Don't get me wrong, from time to time I'm forced to deal with difficult people, for instance at work, but unlike when I was a JW, I don't have any obligation to "love" them and view them as my brothers.

The religion is a haven for the unstable. There's a chicken-or-the-egg question there in that I'm not sure whether the religion makes people unstable or whether it attracts the unstable. Probably a bit of both.

26

January 2018 Message of Judgment - What Is This?

by dubstepped in

jw
friends

i've now seen a couple of references to this and did a little digging before leaving for work.

i saw someone on reddit in july saying that someone on the inside said a change was coming in 2018 with the jw message, and i've now seen two references to this in the past week.

help a former brother out.

neverendingjourney

remember they had the truth book and you had to study for only 6 months and then if they dont want to take steps to baptism, dump them. because you know, the end is nigh

I was a regular pioneer in 1997 and we received the same instruction in connection with the Knowledge book. If the bible student doesn't take steps towards baptism in six months, dump them and move on. Time is running out. Focus on those who are rightly disposed to "the truth."

It's a reoccurring theme.

26

January 2018 Message of Judgment - What Is This?

by dubstepped in

jw
friends

i've now seen a couple of references to this and did a little digging before leaving for work.

i saw someone on reddit in july saying that someone on the inside said a change was coming in 2018 with the jw message, and i've now seen two references to this in the past week.

help a former brother out.

neverendingjourney

I firmly believe that most JWs can't reason and defend their religion anymore. Heck, the whole org can't defend itself anymore. More and more it's becoming such that JWs less and less know their own history and their own beliefs.

They're really in a catch-22. It doesn't take a brilliant mind to realize that the JW prophetic framework failed. Everything JWs were promised didn't come true and has been replaced by overlapping generations nonsense and "wait on Jehovah" platitudes.

So the religion needs to rethink and make wholesale changes to its doctrine and prophetic structure.

Yet to admit this and move forward on that plan is to admit that they don't really have the truth and aren't God's special people.

They can't make the changes that are desperately needed without conceding defeat, so instead we've had this 20-year long period of stagnation hoping that somehow the things they believe in come true even though there's no signs of that occurring anytime soon. Meanwhile, I've seen my parents generation who came into this religion with young families grow old and die. Wasted lives, no retirement plans in place.

It's sad.