neverendingjourney

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Posts by neverendingjourney

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  20

  My mom is into "The Secret"

  by BlackWolf in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  lately my mom's gotten into all kinds of weird "power of positive thinking" kind of stuff.

  she watches "the secret" and bob proctor videos all the time, and now she's trying to get me into it.

  to me her being into this sort of thing seems kind of hypocritical.

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  neverendingjourney

  The JWs attract people who don't have fully developed reasoning skills. Or they prevent people who grow up in it from developing them.

  That's why nonsense of this kind is also prevalent among the membership. Various multi level marketing scams made their way through my congregation. Herbs and "holistic medicine" is also big.

  Many years ago I went with my mother to consult with a Witness who was married to an elder in a neighboring KH. She sold herbs of various kinds. She had my mother hold a bottle of herbs straight out, locking her elbow. She would then literally say out loud "Does she need 1 pill an hour?" and would push down on my mother's arm. She kept repeating that and adding one to the number of pills until she felt resistance. Supposedly this was the body telling her how high the dosage should be. It wasn't much different than going to see a witch doctor.

  And all of this seemed normal to my mother. Hell, it seemed normal to me until I became a teenager and started being able to think for myself a bit.
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  36

  “Well…it was a test”, says a laid-off Bethelite

  by My Name is of No Consequence in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i got this account second hand.

  a former bethelite was reassigned to a local congregation.

  he had been at bethel for years and is now in his fifties.

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  neverendingjourney

  There's no way to put the numbers together, but it'd be fascinating to know the level of activity these former Bethelites show after being "sent to the field." Like how many of them are regular pioneers 1, 3, and 5 years out. How many of them remain elders and ministerial servants. Conversely, how many of them have become just regular rank-and-file publishers or inactive.
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  11

  Dad Turns 70 Today

  by neverendingjourney in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  and i can't wish him a happy birthday.

  they converted when i was an infant, so birthdays were never a thing for us.

  still, i'd love to be able to throw him a party, surround him with friends and family, and show him how much he's appreciated.

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  neverendingjourney

  I like your style, eyeuse2badub.
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  11

  Dad Turns 70 Today

  by neverendingjourney in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  and i can't wish him a happy birthday.

  they converted when i was an infant, so birthdays were never a thing for us.

  still, i'd love to be able to throw him a party, surround him with friends and family, and show him how much he's appreciated.

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  neverendingjourney

  If you came in as an adult, you have memories of happy birthdays up until then.

  I remember seeing pictures of my older siblings in Halloween costumes. My parents destroyed all pictures that showed them celebrating holidays/birthday or where they were inside a church, so it was a rare find. It must have slipped through the cracks. I wonder if it still exists.
  
  
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  11

  Dad Turns 70 Today

  by neverendingjourney in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  and i can't wish him a happy birthday.

  they converted when i was an infant, so birthdays were never a thing for us.

  still, i'd love to be able to throw him a party, surround him with friends and family, and show him how much he's appreciated.

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  neverendingjourney

  It's funny. A few minutes after I posted this thread I got a call from my dad. He was rambling on about a bunch of different subjects.. Then he started telling a story about how he coincidentally found something he'd lost and had been looking for a long time. He said he thought it was a coincidence that he found it on the day he turned 70.

  So in his own way he wanted to call and acknowledge the milestone. I'll try to do something nice for him during an upcoming weekend when it can't be so directly be tied to his birthday.
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  11

  Dad Turns 70 Today

  by neverendingjourney in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  and i can't wish him a happy birthday.

  they converted when i was an infant, so birthdays were never a thing for us.

  still, i'd love to be able to throw him a party, surround him with friends and family, and show him how much he's appreciated.

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  neverendingjourney

  And I can't wish him a happy birthday.

  They converted when I was an infant, so birthdays were never a thing for us. Still, I'd love to be able to throw him a party, surround him with friends and family, and show him how much he's appreciated.

  They've been good about my fading. I stopped going to meetings 12 years ago and they've never asked tough questions. Don't ask don't tell. It works for us.
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  37

  "Isn't it disgusting?", a sister said to me in service today

  by Isambard Crater in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  "sorry, what's disgusting?

  ", i replied.

  "that thing we've just called on", the sister said in response.

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  neverendingjourney

  There was a Jamaican elder in a neighboring hall who was known to include statements in his prayers to the effect of waiting on day Jehovah to finally bring judgment on homosexuals and rid the Earth of their perversion.
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  41

  Observations From an Ex-Elder Part 3 - Searching for the Lost Sheep

  by doubtfull1799 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  "what man among you with 100 sheep, on losing one of them, will not leave the 99 behind in the wilderness and go after the lost one until he finds it?

  " - luke 15:4. disclaimer: by posting the following observations i am not complaining.

  i am happy to be left alone.

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  neverendingjourney

  I stopped going to meetings around the year 2005. About three years later my parents pressured me into attending a day at an assembly with them. I was greeted by folks there as if I were a some kind of child molester. The disgust in their face was palpable. These are people who used to be like family to me, who I had gone on vacation with.

  More recently, I've been in contact with a young woman who was raised a JW, got baptized early, but has spent her entire JW life being on reproof for this or that thing. She has an abortion, a failed marriage (she cheated), and a mental illness diagnosis on her track record. Nevertheless, she continues to call me and I continue taking her calls from time to time. She's not DF'd but she's been absent from meetings for five years during which she's been living with her "worldly" boyfriend (and hating herself for her "sin"). This guy has been physically abusive to her in the past.

  In any event, she recently broke up with him. She does this every two to three months and then promptly gets back together with him. She called me a week ago and said that this time it was super for real and she was moving into the same apartment complex as her JW brother so he can help her "go back to Jehovah." The punchline is that she tells me she had a long conversation with her JW brother and she told him she thought she might be able to marry me. To which the JW brother got outraged because "I wasn't a brother" and she would be better of going back to her "worldly" boyfriend. I have a good job, a stable life, and none of the baggage she has, but in his eyes I'm beneath her because "I'm not a brother."

  I don't concern myself with what they think about me. I knew my reputation would be shredded with them once I made the decision to walk away. It is what it is.
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  16

  " We don't need no university education"

  by The Rebel in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i left school at 16, because i was studying and getting the best " university education" in the world.

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  how did the theocratic ministry school benefit you?.

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  neverendingjourney

  I have this vivid memory of being a child in the 1980s when we had a CO visit. He stood up there, held up an Awake bound volume, and said that reading a year's worth of Awake magazines was equivalent to one year of a college education.

  That "fact" was still being repeated 15 years later when I was a young adult. It wasn't until I started waking up that even the concept of challenging such an "established truth" became possible. It seems absurd to me now in hindsight that the 150 or so people in attendance would just nod along approvingly to such a ridiculous proposition.

  As far the the TMS goes, it was of marginal utility. I was in a Spanish congregation and I suppose it forced me to learn some of the finer points of the language that I might not otherwise have had the occasion to drill down on.
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  14

  Something that doesn't get discussed all that much...

  by Vidiot in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  ...but i believe is relevant:.

  just how much is the watchtower organization's "business model" dependent on its tax-exempt status?.

  is it truly sustainable without it?.

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  neverendingjourney

  The Witnesses make a farce out of their tax exempt status. The law presupposes that religions are akin to charities. Therefore, society should have an interest in having religions flourish so they can look after the poor and perform other good works.

  The Witnesses don't do any of this. Their literature states that charitable works in general are a waste of time because their time is better spent on preaching. To the extent that they supposedly perform charitable works for their own members, such as repairing homes after natural disasters, it comes with the implied promise that the homeowner will donate their insurance check in full. I can't think of any officially-sanctioned charitable activities that are carried out without any strings attached.

  Their entire outlook and approach runs counter to the purpose of having a tax-exempt status for religion in the first place.