back in the early 80s when i was around 9 or 10, my slightly-older best jw friend relished telling me all the latest scare stories she heard about the satanic smurfs popping off of wallpaper, cutting babies with sharp objects, and running through kingdom hall corridors swearing.
wide-eyed with no critical thinking skills at.
i listened and believed every single word.
I remember the smurf hysteria of the 80s as well. One of my favorites was that if you tried to burn a picture of a smurf, it wouldn't burn.
I was a small child then, but I remember my "worldly" cousin mocking me about it. He burned one right in front of me to make a point.
It's been so long ago and I was so litle that I don't remember much of anything else about that story, but I was easily suckered in by all the supposed demonism stories back then.
please spare a moment to consider the difiiculties faced by gay jehovahs witnesses.
i was raised and baptised as a very serious jw.
every waking moment of my day was lived for jehovahs and his organization and for nothing else.
Who could look forward to the "New System" if it meant they were going to have their sexuality changed?
That's an excellent point. I hadn't thought about it that way before.
As a straight man, it'd be like having the following exchange: "Hey, can't you just wait for the new system when you will finally be attracted to men and be able to have sex with them?" "Uhh..no thanks. Doesn't sound like any new system I would want to be a part of."
Why should the reaction be any different for gay men? Why would they look forward to having their own natual desires changed?
please spare a moment to consider the difiiculties faced by gay jehovahs witnesses.
i was raised and baptised as a very serious jw.
every waking moment of my day was lived for jehovahs and his organization and for nothing else.
I feel for you. I'd give you a hug if you were in front of me.
In my area, being gay was second to being an apostate. Even rumors of homosexuality would result in a person being ostracized. An elder once prayed and asked for Armageddon to get here so homosexuals could finally be destroyed. Even then I remember wondering what a gay Witness would have thought since being gay was not technically a sin (only acting out on it was).
It's a horrible place to be. Hopefully you've moved on with your life. Being gay and a Witness can only lead to debilitating emotional issues.
Best of luck to you.
in all my years of being a jw, one of the more annoying aspects to me was each year sitting through the service meeting review part about what was expected (see: demanded) behavior and policies that the rest of us rank and file were ordered to comply with to attend a district convention.
the minutia in this part and the over-reaching set of rules were enough to drive me into a lather of rage at the audacity of these people thinking they could and should control every single aspect of my attendance to this "free" and voluntary convention.
from what clothing i can wear on my trip to and from the convention city, to what clothing i can wear before and after each day of the convention, to what i should be doing after each day instead of eating dinner and enjoying some good times with good friends, to insisting on wearing a ridiculous name badge, to what i should eat for lunch and where i should eat lunch and what is the appropriate container to keep my lunch in, to .................. the list is endless!!!!!!!!
I can verify, though, that the org rents out some of those rooms to convention attendees who need them (didn't make reservations, etc.). I have personally seen the checks. So the org makes money on the hotel deals.
Thanks for sharing your inside perspective.
That was kind of my point. They could choose to use their leverage to negotiate better rates for their members. Instead, they use it as a way to make money and the process is not a transparent one.
in all my years of being a jw, one of the more annoying aspects to me was each year sitting through the service meeting review part about what was expected (see: demanded) behavior and policies that the rest of us rank and file were ordered to comply with to attend a district convention.
the minutia in this part and the over-reaching set of rules were enough to drive me into a lather of rage at the audacity of these people thinking they could and should control every single aspect of my attendance to this "free" and voluntary convention.
from what clothing i can wear on my trip to and from the convention city, to what clothing i can wear before and after each day of the convention, to what i should be doing after each day instead of eating dinner and enjoying some good times with good friends, to insisting on wearing a ridiculous name badge, to what i should eat for lunch and where i should eat lunch and what is the appropriate container to keep my lunch in, to .................. the list is endless!!!!!!!!
Sir82,
I'm from Texas. There were always hotels that offered better rates just by calling. This was the pre-internet era. All the witnesses knew about it. The more "spiritually-weak" among us would book hotels closer to the convention at a lower rate. It would irk the good-standing folk to no end.
Mind you, I'm not saying the rates were exponentially higher, but they were market at best. A little due diligence could save you 10 to 20 bucks a night at a comparable place. When you make Witness money, that's not an insignificant sum.
As a comparison, I stayed at a hotel in New Mexico not too long ago for a wedding. The wedding rate was about 50 dollars less than the rate you'd get by calling or booking online. It was a small event and the reception was being held in the hotel. Not an apples-to-apples comparison, but my point is that they could likely use their leverage to get better rates generally instead of free rooms.
in all my years of being a jw, one of the more annoying aspects to me was each year sitting through the service meeting review part about what was expected (see: demanded) behavior and policies that the rest of us rank and file were ordered to comply with to attend a district convention.
the minutia in this part and the over-reaching set of rules were enough to drive me into a lather of rage at the audacity of these people thinking they could and should control every single aspect of my attendance to this "free" and voluntary convention.
from what clothing i can wear on my trip to and from the convention city, to what clothing i can wear before and after each day of the convention, to what i should be doing after each day instead of eating dinner and enjoying some good times with good friends, to insisting on wearing a ridiculous name badge, to what i should eat for lunch and where i should eat lunch and what is the appropriate container to keep my lunch in, to .................. the list is endless!!!!!!!!
They could in theory use their leverage to negotiate better rates. You see people do this in weddings all the time. You tell them you're in town for the so-and-so wedding and you get a discounted rate.
The WT doesn't do this. They use their influence over their members to get them to accept rates that are often above market in exchange for free rooms and possibly other perks for the higher ups.
It's disingenuous since they're not transparent about what they do. I had no idea why the WT forced us to use their hotels the entire time I was "in." I just assumed they were shitty negotiators and couldn't get better rates.
It may be a perfectly legitimate business strategy, but the contempt and condescencion with which they treat their members really irks me. It's as if members are not worthy or sophisticated enough to be able to know what their true goal is. Why the secrecy ? Grown people don't like to be treated like children.
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focus.
("armageddon" class).
A child growing up today as a JW will be no more impressed by this line of evidence than I would have been 25 years ago when I was a child by evidence that Russell had said Armageddon would come by 1914.
There's precious little you can do when people have a selective short-term memory.
i am compelled to write a bit about this at this late hour here in the us, because it is keeping me up.. the recent four year old thread on the briggs myers personality type test that was dug up, produced an interesting finding.
many here, (at least tested informally for), the intj personality type.
intjs also do not understand irrational behavior particularly well at all.. why does this matter?
INTJ here. Adding my name to the list.
i just walked back from getting my mail and happen to walk right by an automobile that belongs to the jw's who live in the end of my building.
the sticker in the low left of the windshield caught my attention so i stopped to read it.
it was a sticker that said......advanced medical directive.....no blood!
A medical directive has to be in a form prescribed by law. I'm unaware of any jurisdiction where a decal on a car would be binding. It wouldn't make sense on its face. What about passengers? What if the person driving borrowed the car from someone else?
It might, however, serve the purpose of alerting medical staff that the people in the car might have executed a directive in proper legal form.
In any event, it seems redundant. They would almost certainly search their wallets/purses, where a properly executed directive would be found.
My guess is that the decal idea was started by a field service supplies company. Once someone buys it, other people at the hall don't want to be left out, so it catches on.
the introduction & conclusion to this video is in german, but david splanes' words are loud and clear in english - get your kid baptized asap!.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h33pwdsuvlq&feature=youtu.be.
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the teachings of the WTS are total BS, but I don't agree that learning to sit and be attentive for a couple hours is cruel.
If you don't think dressing a 5-year old in a suit and punshing him if he doesn't sit still for 2 hours is cruel, then we're just going to have to agree to disagree.
