SnakesInTheTower

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Posts by SnakesInTheTower

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  49

  SOME ENCOURAGEMENT FOR THE NEWBIES AND LURKERS

  by palmtree67 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  a quote from "crisis of conscience".

  don't be afraid to read it.. .

  whatever the initial distress - a distress that sometimes follows the demenaing experience of being interogated by men who, in effect strip one of dignity, make the weight of their authority felt, and presume to judge adversely one's standing with god - however torn one may feel inside, afterward there is a distinct feeling of relief, of peace.

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  SnakesInTheTower

  bump and bookmark
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  68

  Do You Think Prostitution Should Be Illegal?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  recently, in my area, a number of people have gotten caught looking to pay for sex from a call girl.

  a catholic priest was one of the "johns" that got arrested.. i know there are some that argue that it is debasing.

  still, for a million years, it's been going on and there are willing parties who want to engage in this activity.. if two consenting adults want to have sex with one another and are willing to pay and accept the services, is it a horrible thing, in your opinion?.

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  SnakesInTheTower

  dacheech:

  cyber, it should be part of the us health care bill

  wonder how many forms you would have to fill out, how many insurance committees would have to approve it, and if you have to meet your deductible before it would be paid for... are there copays? how many "Sessions" or "treatments" would be allowed in a calendar year....

  how would that be coded on the CPT billing?

  Snakes (Rich )
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  16

  After Reinstatement

  by truthlover in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  can any current elders, ms, etc.

  tell me if restrictions are given when a person is re instated since 2005??

  i ask this as i am reading the requirements for re instatement -- it says a person has to prove they want to be reinstated and have to attend meetings for a year or more before the elders would even accept the letter request for re instatement..... .

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  SnakesInTheTower

  when I left as an elder Dec 2006...the announcement of reinstatement was made at the Service Meeting "So and So is once again one of Jehovah's Witnesses". Though the restrictions are not announced, they are made known to the elders (and MS on need to know basis). The only thing that a person who is reinstated gets back at first is field ministry (as they are now known as a JW again) and field service reports are once again accepted. Of course, the Service Overseer would be overseeing their reintroduction to the ministry, especially if a length of time has passes since a person was active.

  Elders would of course know what restrictions were in place (and such restrictions, and dates they are lifted, would be written on the outside of the JC envelope in the file...this allows all elders to keep aware of all DF/DA/restrictions, etc. without knowing the details of the case itself.)

  MS in the congo may need to know about restrictions. ie., a brother reinstated might be asked to offer prayer at a meeting for service or read or comment. If an elder is conducting, they automatically would know if the reinstated brother had these "privleges" back. If a MS were conducting, then he too would need to know. So generally any elder, and any MS acting in capacities of teaching or leading the flock would need to know.

  Depending on the congo, this would be hard to keep up with. Honesty on the reinstated persons part would keep them from accepting any such thing while under restriction. Wind of breaking restriction gets back to the JC.... it would slow the lifting of restrictions.

  As for Bible studies with a reinstated person. If it has been only a year or two, then likely the study would be a targeted "as needed" study to make sure the reinstated person is on board with the GB. If it has been longer, or a new publication has been studied in the field, or the person seems to not know the basics, then probably the 6-12 month study would be held.

  I just thought of something though...I really dont care any more, but the fact that I still remember this crap from 3.5 years go is scary...LOL...any more recent info?

  Snakes (Rich )
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  51

  JW membership turnover - a real-life study

  by besty in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  much has been commented here on how jw's rely on an ever-changing membership for keeping their 'the sky is falling, the world is ending' doctrine fresh.. recently it was posted that fully 2/3 of born-in jw's leave at some point, and i thought you might like to see how this works in practice.. so lets take sam and i and our extended families - we were both born and brought up jw's.

  start with me.

  mum and dad were converted in the 1950's.

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  SnakesInTheTower

  ooohhh pretty.....a resurrected thread...lol

  my family was studied with by a special pioneer couple... they were childless... but I am sure they brought lots in the cold north of AK.

  ...my family was mom, dad,,...and us 3 kids...

  dad died "faithful" ....

  mom still a dub...

  middle brother never dunked.... married a non dub...their child not a dub...

  little brother never dunked...married, divorced....never to dubs...kids not dubs

  I left...

  net gain...1 the JW lineage dies with mom....

  Snakes (Rich)

  ps... besty:

  Best thing sice I came to Manhattan Beach was getting a cell phone with 666 in my number :-) LOL

  my cell number ends in 666... i love it.... was a clean number...no one ever wanted it...so I dont get calls for other people who used to have it..
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  17

  JWs will be in West Palm Beach! read & COMMENT, please!

  by Nathan Natas in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  see: http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/westpalmbeat/2010/05/jehovahs-witnesses-kicking-off-summer-convention-season/comment-page-1/#comment-3346.

  jehovahs witnesses kicking off summer convention seasonby andrew abramson.

  after last years fiery theme keep on the watch!

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  SnakesInTheTower

  It seats 5,000 assholes, according to Wikipedia.

  I dont know why it is required to lump all of Jehovah's Witnesses into the "asshole" category. My mom is still a JW, and I do not consider her an asshole. Until a couple of years ago when she moved, she attended that particular convention location. I attended one year with her when I was still an active JW.

  Rather than resort to name calling, no matter where the anger stems from, and I know I suffered from it for a time, why not attach blame to where it belongs: to the leadership of the Watchtower Society, and to individuals (elders or otherwise) that, because of their abusive personalities, would be assholes in real life whether or not they are JWs or not. Being a JW just amplifies their being that.

  Some may have considered me an asshole when I was an elder, and maybe by the very nature of being an elder, I was. I hope that I have reformed my personality and become the person I should have been all along: a loving, kind person that genuinely cares about people and only wanted to help. I just needed a different outlet. As one friend, who was never a JW and had no connection to Witnesses, said to me shortly after I left the Witnesses, she said: "Rich, I knew you before when you were a JW, and after you left... and you have always been like a brother to me. I like you much better now that you are not a JW. Your true personality was allowed to come out."

  I consider that statement the ultimate compliment and sign of progress exiting the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses.

  Snakes (Rich....of the "formerly an asshole" Sheep Class)
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  27

  Personal Story: Trying to Help the Flock

  by OnTheWayOut in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  and told him that we needed to handle both cases.

  and his buddy.

  's buddy on the case.

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  SnakesInTheTower

  OTWO..

  Sounds like we had similar ways of trying to keep people out of the JC room. There were times that I was forced to stand by while petty "rules" were enforced and for that I will always be sorry. I think I may have written previously about a situation in which a sister who was still under restriction from a previous JC could not have her wedding at the KH..and a MS friend and his wife did not attend because of the elders stand on it.... then not long after the PO's sister gets a free pass ...not to have a wedding at our KH, but at her fiancee's KH. It was arranged by her JC (from our KH) to expedite the lifting of restrictions so that she could have a wedding at the KH. Such sickening hypocrisy.

  It sickens me now thinking about it.

  I had individuals approach me on various occasions...smoking, fornication, doubts about the Org. I, too, squashed or otherwise intervened if at all possible. One case was a brother who was being eyeballed for apostasy. The PO and his daddy (the former PO) must have had a grudge against this brother...I swear it was like a witchhunt with all of the "Investigative Committees" they had on him and the reams of paper the PO printed out from this brother's blog proving his apostasy (no such proof...it was a stretch). I had the brother and his family switched to my Tuesday night Book Study group out of the one the PO conducted...I told the PO it was so I could "keep an eye on him" but in reality it was so the PO couldn't. I warned this brother what was going on behind the scenes. I tried to keep him out of the line of fire for as long as possible.

  Eventually he was DF for apostasy, but I think between the original JC (which the CO made all of us elders serve on, I am sure as a loyalty test on our part) and the appeals committee, the brother was able to speak his mind and go out the way he wanted. I am sure he is happier now... (you can PM me or post if I am wrong). I was impressed with his calm demeanor in the meeting...at least that was how I recall it.

  The whole JC system is so unChristian....... sigh....glad I am out of it...

  Snakes (Rich )
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  35

  I will come back to the Kingdom Hall when......

  by Cagefighter in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i can sport my beard and they have a smoking section!

  .

  let's have fun with this thread..

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  SnakesInTheTower

  If the gladiator games are brought back.....

  ... and feed the Governing Body and the Legal Department to the lions....

  ....for their pedophile and blood policies....

  ...then they might see me enter a K'Hell.

  Snakes (Rich )
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  84

  The Witnesses are freaking out

  by Sour Grapes in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i still go to a few meetings a month just to keep members of my family happy.. the witnesses seemed to be getting all worked up about how close the end.

  it sorta feels like the 1975 era only 35 years later.

  the brother who gave.

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  SnakesInTheTower

  WTWizard...

  what scares me is that I actually understood that algebraic explanation....

  ...did you go and get a college education behind the backs of the elders?

  LOL

  SnakesInTheTower (of the "graduating college May 19, 2010" Sheep Class...aka Rich)
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  43

  2010 - NO District Convention For Me - WoooHoooo! Anybody Else?

  by mentallyfree31 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have attended district conventions since i was a little kid every year.

  now that i have woken up from the wt nightmare, this will be my first year to miss a district convention!

  and it feels so liberating!

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  SnakesInTheTower

  I did not go in 2007 2008 2009 and I am not going in 2010... or ever.

  What is sad is the all of the audio tapes I made...and then never listened to.... or all of the notebooks that I filled with endless jotted notes to be used at a future review on a Service Meeting....and then I wondered why I often got hit with that dreaded assignment as an MS and an elder.... and then never looked at again until time to throw them into the recycle bin or trash.

  All of the 4 am wake up calls to go make hoagies at 5am at my assigned assembly.... and then go to the assembly to actually listen fall asleep the weekend after. I often wondered why brothers didnt just volunteer for another assembly and attend their own? (Actually, I think they did this in St. Louis and/or St. Charles, MO in the parking department so that brothers could attend with their families at their assigned one and vice versa.)

  All of the hard physical labor carting around food or literature or trash, although there was a thin line defining those three things.

  All of the walking around in dress shoes out in parking lots, hallways, up and down steep seating sections counting and lurking, or holding stupid signs that said "If it's on the floor please pick it up" or "Please Keep Moving"

  All of the nasty labor of cleaning restrooms.

  Staying around after late ... long after your own family and friends had hit the hotel pool, being stuck in the counting room until the last penny had been squeezed out of the sheeples.

  All of the lost Thursdays doing "preconvention" work ...aka, cleaning stadiums that hadn't been thoroughly cleaned since its construction...and all of the stadium managers and maintenance staff "praising" our hard work while snickering in their offices at the suckas that were cleaning their building annually. Anyone remember cleaning up the day after a truck show, complete with a layer of dirt on every freaking seat in the stadium? Or hurrying to break down everything in two hours because the WT, in its eagerness to save money off the rent, agreed to clear out between conventions so that some rock concert could occur that night? How about landscaping outside the arena in KC? What kind of deal was that? Good for the stadium managers...good for the WTS saving money on their rent....bad for the free laborers doing the actual work,

  Listening to the ancient of days, aka Governing Body members, droning on and on and on Sunday afternoon like no one else would ever be allowed...but it was allowed because they were the GB! Who on the local convention committee is going to tell Barr/Sydlick/Herd/Swingle et. al. to get off the stage? No...squirming children being restrained by equally squirming parents who are secretly sneaking glances at their watches (and later their cell phones) wondering why it is now 5pm when things were supposed to be over by 4? And why is the brother praying instead reviewing the convention and asking for Jehober to bless everyone like it was an Oscar acceptance speech, equally long and boring?

  Sweat glistening off our brows and down our necks while we sweated in Busch Stadium, or froze to death in the upper levels of the old Checkerdome or smelled the horses and fought off the flies from the horses at the nearby stables at the racetrack at the State Fairgrounds in Springfield....or tried not to break our necks on the upper levels of arenas in Springfield and St. Charles.

  Heartburn from the warmed over burritos, soggy hoagies, and dry danishes...dont forget the flat and warm Shasta (or Vess, or whatever generic soda was cheap and local).... and the eagerness of some brothers to buy the surplus up at the end? Why the hell would you want to eat that another day?

  Sisters... you werent left out...did you enjoy cleaning the restrooms...and wondering why the brothers were overseeing but not scrubbing, despite the fact that the majority of those same "Cleaning Overseers" made livings as janitors and window washers? Or sitting in front of contribution boxes because you werent qualified to do anything else...Even if you had an accounting degree and made a living as a CPA, you couldnt count money -- because you didnt have a p*n*s. Or if you were an MD or an RN...you couldnt oversee First Aid...for the same reason.

  I have no idea when or where the conventions in the area are.

  Yeah, as a brother, I was worked like a dog. Do you think I miss District Conventions?

  Snakes (Rich )
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  16

  JW in Wal-Mart Parking Lot - I couldn't believe it

  by RubaDub in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm on my way home from work and had to detour due to an accident on the highway.

  i passed a wal-mart and instead of just sitting in the traffic, i pulled in to get some stuff i needed for the garden.. on my way out, i spot someone who appears to be selling something (rather common in parking lots here in south florida).

  anyway, as i got closer, here was a brother sitting in a lawn chair under a tree on one of the little grassy areas where they plant the trees in the parking lot.. at his side, he had pulled a wal-mart shopping cart up on the grass.

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  SnakesInTheTower

  blondie:

  Based on the new policy, he could have taken them back to the KH, no questions asked

  Is this a policy after dec 2006? I dont remember a specific policy saying bring them back to the KH...but I do remember we had announcements made at the local kh...local policy...bring them back.... we ended up with a couple of thousand back issues stretching back a decade or more. I ended up carting several boxes to a recycling bin in town..... and going through and sorting the rest...after awhile, the remaining few hundred "back issues" followed their fibrous brethren to that great recycling bin in the sky (or at the local store).

  tm:

  But having the mags all stacked in a shopping cart seems a bit tacky to me ,but maybe that's how they do it in Florida ?

  dunno about the shopping cart thing, but I know my mom and her friends used to have litterally (misspelling on purpose) hundreds of mags in their car trunks....they would go out early morning witnessing (aka, easy field service time), and hit the immigrants...apparently the immigrants used the free reading material to brush up on their English.... the sisters would place 15-25 English language mags at each bus stop with spanish speakers...I guess some of them must have become dubs because the Spanish congos grow like crazy in S. FL while the English are consolidating.

  Snakes (Rich )