reading tmj4477's thread about religion after jw's and reading perry trying to counter ak-jeff on a thread about god and suffering, both of these made me want to post some eastern thought that doesn't fall into the category of "religious" but might help nonetheless.. .
excerpt from the wisdom of no escape (with subtitle: and the path of loving-kindness).
chapter 8: no such thing as a true storyin taoism there's a famous saying that goes, "the tao that can be spoken is not the ultimate tao.
An INCREDIBLE post!!! I wonder if there is anyway to get it to appear in the Watchtower.
AWF, I started reading Dr. Dyer about 3 years ago and a close friend of mine told me to stop reading it because it was going to take me out of the "the truth". Guess he was right.
i've noticed an interesting dichotomy in these discussions.
as a starting point, i understand that we are all different --- there is no "we" here except that we have all been, or been involved with, jw's.
but this is interesting..... some people complain about being "hounded" by elders and shepherding calls and previous "friends" and so on.
What Blondie and OWTO said.
Now, I prefer not to see them.
already had doubts from the time i got pubes... but i was about 15 and we were studying the revelation "book" for the upteenth time.
i realized for every actual bible verse they qouted there was 2-3 paragraphs of conjecture, assumption, faulty logic and just plain stupidity.
that's when i began to plan my escape.
I though it was crap when I first went to high school and wondered why God would kill all these cool people. I knew it was crap during the 1995 generation change. I was convinced it was crap while "serving where the need is greater" overseas.
Mom is a JW and dad is normal. My dad always said the JWs were full of BS but never gave my mom any flack about it. All the JWs would say that my dad would make a good JW. Little did they know he thought they were a little "touched".
probably been seen before but i thought i'd share!.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hugbxonxp5s.
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Butterfly,
I never knew this video existed until I joined this board a couple of years ago. Never even heard of Beth-sarim and I was a raised-in, more than a decade regular pioneer. It really opened by eyes.
Looking at this again now...its SOOOOOOOOO clear that its a cult its almost ridiculous. I fell so bad for the children of witnesses...
the talk outlines for the summers conventions are only being printed over the next 2 weeks or so.. the finished outlines were ready in the middle of december 2009, however sources that i trust tell me that at least 5 of the talks were returned for last minute rewriting which is highly unusual.
this has held up the printing until now, a delay of over a month.
this is a fact!!.
I'm thinking they will come down hard on social networking sites and unnecessary association with non-JWs. Also, folks will get beat over the head for having doubts and there will be some schpill about leaving when "we are soooooo close". Whatever
http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/messages/pacific/2010/pacific.2010.02.27.104329.txt.
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Warning just issued for Oregon as well.
i visited friends recently - they accept me even though i have not been in months.. the wife remarked "if armageddon comes, we wont be worrying about the house.".
another time, the (now ex elduh) said "when i retire, or armageddon comes, i want to < >".
remember the scripture about the slave?.
Noticed it several years ago...most are now "just in case" JWs and simply going with the flow.
as i understand it, being gay is not a sin in the organization, only homosexual acts are sins.
i've never read anywhere that gay jw people are encouraged to "fix" their gayness and marry.. i've certainly known a fair number of confirmed bachelor types who live exemplary lives in the witness sense - one life-long bethelite i knew springs to mind - but are clearly (to me anyway) gay.
they've all been in the closet though.. i wonder if any jw has ever been out of the closet, but not disfellowshipped since they don't have sex?
I think there are more NPGs in the org than one would think. Some marry to fit in with their congregation but the ones I knew left to live their true lifestyle.
When I was younger there was an openly gay JW in our congregation but he eventually left to live a gay lifestyle. He was never disfellowshipped as the elders figured he was 'touched' in the head and would be corrected in the new system. All of the young kids loved him...he was always very happy and very over the top.
Friends of the family, there daughter married a gay JW. However, she didn't know he was gay but the elders in his congregation knew it. Well about 5 years and 2 kids later, he had an affair with another JW male and confessed to her that he was always gay. Her entire family was devastated that no one told her that the JW was gay. The funny part about was a lot folks from his congregation thought it was obvious and simply thought she was desperate. He's DF'd and they are still together and from what I hear, he's still gay.
There was a lesbian(s) in our congregation but I never figured out who it was. There was a local needs talk about women dressing modestly because of sisters with lesbian tendencies
Finally, one day a group of us were out to dinner and a male JW friend said he had something to tell us. He told us that he was gay and could no longer remain celibate. He told us that he was going to talk with the elders the next day. He was df'd the next week. He and his lover of several years regularly attend the sunday meeting.
Hmmm...guess I don't know any NPGs.
i was leaving for lunch break from an acting workshop i took today.
about three blocks down i saw a jw sister standing by her van.
at first at thought maybe she's not a jw.
I now realize how weird they look to non-jws. And to think that used to be me.
yep...I know that feeling.
