"The day that changed the world"
The world's the same, it's just that events that were once easier to ignore, are now in our 'face'.
Flip
Posts by Flip
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5"The day that changed the world"?
by philo ini saw a brilliant c4 programme on uk tv tonight "the day that changed the world?".
it gave opinions on developments since september 11th(alas there is no page to link to).
whether you have seen it or not: any views on this?
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9
Elders are infallible!
by oscartheduck ini remember talking to an elder about judicial commitees whilst we were on a security shift (which lasted for twenty minutes each during the meetindgs, with other brothers coming out after your twenty minutes was up to take your place).
he was feeling open because he had just been on one that disfellowshipped a young woman whom he had watchde grow up in "the truth".. so we were chatting and i asked him "what if you make a mistake?
" and he said "oh, we don't make mistakes, god's holy spirit is directing us.".
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Flip
Elders are infallible!
Osc, I’m surprised, I’m sure, as much as you that no one spotted this error but the correct spelling is 'inflatable'. Stick a WTBTS sanctioned 'air hose' in the appropriate Elders orifice and…'let Gods will be done', what the Society puts in print, is something altogether different.
Flip
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23
hello all--new to board; my story
by razorMind inhello everyone...hope all are having a great holiday season.. ***warning--kind of long***.
i am 31 and have been "out" for an undetermined # of years...probably starting as soon as i moved out of the house at age 23. i just "drifted away".. i was born into the jw faith.
my parents remain devout and "zealous" to this day.
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Flip
I'll probably never realize my dream of going to art school
Raz, I realize the necessity of exposing how the WTBTS negatively affects the lives of many innocent people, including your self, but you're in 'school' everyday because there's evidence of art in your writings.
Perhaps replacing a defeatist attitude with a more positive outlook wouldn't hurt your cause of one day showcasing your talent even more effectively than here at JW.com.
Flip
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49
To: Ex-JW Women - Your Side
by Amazing inex-jw women: i, and i assume other ex-jw men, would enjoy hearing your views, opinions, feelings, analysis, and conclusions about your jw experience.
how did you feel about your husband, fathers, brothers, elders, ms's, and other women in the organizations?
did you generally feel oppression, and why?
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Flip
I wonder do ExJw men have problems overcoming the mentality of being better than women?
I know how you felt as a subordinate person xena.
Although the option was open to me, unlike your self, I never aspired to a position in the organization where others in the congregation allowed me to 'lord it’ over them.
Invariably I also became a de facto 'lord-ee'.
It’s during conversations like this I wished I knew what I know now, and played more head games with the congregational big shots. But, as they say, ‘an informed Jehovah’s Witness is either a disingenuous, dependent or former Jehovah’s Witness.’
Flip
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6
It Doesn't Have To Be This Way
by metatron init might surprize some of you 'loyal' defenders to.
consider this but i think many of us dissidents.
would appreciate a strong, specific response from the.
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Flip
They could improve things but you can't squeeze much
creativity out of half senile old farts, I guess.Metatron, your post reminded me of a similar question I had with our cost of our local telephone service.
I live in a ‘backwoods’ part of North America where our local telephone company is a subsidiary of one of the most technologically advanced companies in the world.
Instead of a digital telephone system, our community that extends over millions of square miles still uses antiquated analog switching but we pay premium prices for a current service with limited functional expandability.
As you say, ‘…It just doesn’t have to be this way’, so why the delay updating an antiquated system?
Technically they’re a monopoly because although other communication companies are welcome to compete, they have all the ‘cards’ and any other carrier knows there’s no point in even trying. Our telephone company has been making a ton of money on the current system because of this captive audience of consumers and will continue to for sometime to come.
If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it, I suspect is the WTBTS Corporations guiding philosophy also.Flip
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47
Why are witnessess persecuted?
by YoYoMama inwhy are witnessess persecuted?
most religions out there have this thing against witnesses.
many will do anything to get them banned or to shut their mouths.
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Flip
And tell me how can you can come to a conclusion why the Witnesses were persecuted in Germany and Ukraine?
European culture frowns upon the appearance of Western business domination. When a religious corporation such as the WTBTS with controlling interests centered in the United States of America tries to muscle in on the turf of countries with sensitive political and religious histories and announces their organization as God’s only earthly Theocracy, it’s shouldn’t be surprising to expect some knuckle dusting instigated by centuries of deep seated social views.
Have no fear Fred, when ‘persecution’ or as they say in the business of religion, ‘preservation of Gods market share’ is exercised; the WTBTS will put these open expressions of altercated perspective to good use and milk the results for all it’s worth in their publications.
Flip
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63
A Salute to the Kids of Dubdom
by Room 215 inas the unfortunate school-age children of jws worldwide, or at least in christendom, face up to two of what must certainly be the most dreaded days of the school year -- today and monday, i don't think it would be remiss to do pay them tribute -- the honor of a brief recognition of some sort, say by the raising of a glass, a prayer, a couple moments' reflection, whatever.. i refer to all those of the trembling knees, quivering lips, moistened eyes and hollow feelings in the pits of their little tummies as they loyally face up to the humiliation of standing aside from the masses of christmas celebrants among their school friends.
how they must agonize over dealing with the incessant questions of their mates about ``what are you going to do this christmas," ``what did santa bring you?
'' -- not to mention listening to the spirited banter of their school friends recounting how much fun they had and what they found under tree christmas morning, etc.
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Flip
I can remember like it was yesterday, Christmas, Grade 5, 1961 one of the worst episodes of my young life.
Just as any child of fervent Jehovah’s Witnesses I was taught that the exchanging of colorfully wrapped department store items on a particular day was the epitome of despotic pagan degeneration propagated by the soon to be destroyed instrument of the Devil, Christendom and to have any part in a Christmas gift exchange meant forfeiting my very life…so far, so good.
However, as a child if I had received in-depth instruction on how to respond and deal with the psychological stigmatism resulting from complex social altercations while interacting with other children regarding ‘my’ stand on Christmas, I must have missed it.
I took great pride being the best student I could to please my favorite teacher Mr. Fairweather, he was the best. A talented teacher, a wonderful sense of humor, wore great suits, and drove an immaculate Ford 2 door with bucket seats and a hardtop. I had great respect for him as a teacher and looking back he was a mentor, my own father unfortunately couldn’t hold a candle to him as I understood him to be at that time of my youth.
This year’s class, Christmas took a profound turn over previous years because students in Mr. Fairweather’s class were required to take responsibility for their actions by pulling names out of a hat and spending a limit of one dollar on a gift and wrapping it ourselves. I had never personally participated in this type of activity and was bewildered and terrified as to how to deal with it because this may be the year someone would 'blow the Whistle' on me.
I was torn between having Jehovah destroy my life by compromising ‘my’ beliefs (what would my parents think!) or draw attention to my self and have my classmates refer to me as ‘one of those wacky ‘Jehobo’s’’. But more importantly what if I caused difficulty for Mr. Fairweather and disappointed him.
In addition, my parents did not appear to have a lot of loose change to spare during my childhood and during that Christmas I didn’t have a penny to my name.
Neither was it customary for me to ask my parents for spending money not only for a gift but I would have to devise a method of subterfuge to acquire transportation as well as buying wrapping paper. Besides, if I wanted to solve my current dilemma I would have to lie to my parents if I did ask for money because I couldn’t tell them I needed money to buy a Christmas present for a classmate. So I took the child’s easy way out.
I would try to ignore the problem until the fateful day was to arrive on the last day before Christmas break when the gift exchange would take place. I agonized every day and night until I cried myself to sleep worrying about having to face that fateful day and what I could do to get out of it including everything from feigning sickness to fantasying about what method to use to break a limb.
When the day of gift exchange finally arrived I was in a state of internal panic and internalized every dreaded feeling of foreboding making it impossible to concentrate on lessons taught by Mr. Fairweather because I still didn’t have a gift and as yet had not divulged my little secret that I was a nine-year-old Jehovah’s Witness on the brink of destruction.
That afternoon, students were asked to walk up and deposit their Christmas gift onto Mr. Fairweather's desk for distribution. Most of the class was too excited and talking with their neighbors to notice I didn’t have a gift in hand. As I walked up to Mr. Fairweather and exuding abject embarrassment, I told him I didn’t have a gift for the name I drew because I was a Jehovah’s Witness (I don’t believe I went into any great specifics other than ‘we’ don’t believe in Christmas).
His mouth dropped and his face turned red and grimaced with an anger and disappointment I had never experienced. He quickly told the class to break out pencil and paper barking out commands to perform some menial task in an effort to keep busy. He quickly asked another teacher across the hall to monitor us then he disappeared without saying a word to me. His silence hurt the worst because sub-consciously I was hoping he would say something like, “ Gosh, I didn’t now that! Doesn’t your family and Church know it’s not fair to force a child into a 'damned if you do, damned if you don’t' position?”
My worst nightmare had come true. I sat in complete misery not knowing my fate but having hurt and disappointed one of the most important people in my young life, death would have been merciful because I could see him through our classroom window off in the distance running down the street in just his suit, tie flapping over his shoulder during a gray, cold winter day heading to the nearest grocery store to return a while later with something in his hand.
Mr. Fairweather finally returned to class and placed a small plastic box of chocolate covered coconut fingers on his desk and proceeded to pass out the presents according to name and like the hypocrite I was, too stunned to turn down the gift a classmate had brought for me.
To this day I can’t remember the comment Mr. Fairweather made to me about my behavior for waiting so long to tell him because at the time, I was still in shock but I doubt even he realized the predicament circumstance, if not out of my control, beyond my understanding put me in.
Mr. Fairweather never commented to any of my classmates about my religious persuasion and they never knew what occurred that day. As a side note, I learned that regardless of how terrible you think others might view yourself or your activities, it quickly passes because invariably, others have their own problems to worry about.
Even though I agonized day and night before the incident, it faded into oblivion as far as Mr. Fairweather has concerned and he continued to treat me fairly and without prejudice while helping me distinguish myself in other school activities during two more years until I moved on to Junior High.
Perhaps Mr. Fairweather and his treatment of me after I felt I had let him down, was a most important example of how full of crap the WTBTS is and how much many of our lives are wasted helping that ridiculous ‘religious’ publishing company profit.
Flip
PS As we remember the almost three thousand souls lost at the WTC lets also give equal thought to the innocent civilian lives lost in Afghanistan. All, gone, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time or for doing what they were trained to do.
Happy holidays everyone and lets all work towards a better New Year than the last. -
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What if there was not DFing of apostates?
by YoYoMama ini was wondering today.
what if the witnesses did not have a policy of disfellowshipping those that are apostates.
what would the congregations be like?
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Flip
what if the Witnesses did not have a policy of disfellowshipping those that are apostates. What would the congregations be like? Would there be unity?
YoYo, yours is a loaded question that misses the point.
It’s the approved methods used by the WTBTS during recruitment of children and the unassuming adult that I find most odorous.
During the initial recruitment period new persons especially children are not given the opportunity and/or the time to make a properly informed decision of exactly what it is they’re expected to ‘publicly’ commit themselves to.
The ‘budding’ Jehovah’s Witness’ entire learning experience is not subjective and is derived from peer pressure brought to bear from instruction specifically designed to control the thinking of the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses by the WTBTS.
The severe consequences to the prospects immediate social fabric if they should one day learn the true history of the WTBTS and publicly come to a different conclusion than their ‘family’ of Jehovah’s Witness is disingenuously downplayed by the organization and the least understood of consequences, until it’s to late.
Of course this is a powerful weapon used by the WTBTS to maintain an assured complement of adherents in its ever-present effort to retain a tax-free, religious status. And since virtually all WTBTS information dispensed is so full of crap, these ‘teaching’ methods used by the organization to maintain ‘unity’ and if need be, subsequent disfellowshiping, are completely understandable and entirely necessary for the WTBTS’ corporate survival.
Flip
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10
Get a life
by ballistic ini was just in chat saying how a few good friends of mine tell me i need to leave this all behind in order to leave the jws behind.. well, my answer is no!.
i celebrate this board and all it has done for me, and to those of you who complain about fluff and anti-fluff and what this board should be and what it shouldn't be; i don't give a toss.. the result is in what it does for individuals, not what it looks like, or whether would make a good story.. i will continue to check this site daily, and although my "worldly" friends have my best interests at heart, i can see in the cold light of day what this site does, even if it is evolving and contains "fluff", or does anything else.
let the tens of thousands of sites who speak the truth ring out, and let this site do what it does best!!
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Flip
I agree to a degree.
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39
What made you a JW?
by radar inwhy did you become a dub?.
a hope for something better?.
an acceptance that your parents religion was the truth?.
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Flip
…All and all, for better and for worse, the organization is right where Jehovah said it would be at this point
Wow! "...right where Jehovah said it (WTBTS) would be...". God, Jehovah's so amazing, like some celestial CEO after screwing up something not that difficult and says, "Hey, I meant to do that!"
There’s a very good reason why Jehovah exploits You Know as His mouthpiece while the WTBTS laughs all the way to bank.
Flip